A Boris Johnson loyalist who was caught on a trip to Indonesia when the prime minister was deposed, Liz Truss had to scramble to pull together her leadership campaign team at breakneck speed.
Though the writing had been on the wall for some weeks – evidenced by the fact that the “Liz For Leader” website was registered just two days after Johnson survived a confidence vote – the foreign secretary began from a slower start than her rival, Rishi Sunak.
“Rishi’s machine is a lot more advanced than Liz’s,” said one Truss ally. “We’re up against a group who’ve been planning this for quite a long time – probably too long.”
Having to balance her bid for the top job alongside a full-time cabinet post, the foreign secretary is being supported by close allies in parliament and a group of professional campaigners working at the nearby headquarters.
For the first part of the contest, which saw MPs vote to select the final two contenders, responsibility for drumming up support and crunching the numbers fell to former whips Graham Stuart and Wendy Morton, bolstered by Truss’s special adviser, Sophie Jarvis, formerly of the rightwing Adam Smith Institute.
Now attention has turned to the fight to win party members’ votes, Ruth Porter, an adviser to Truss during her time as justice secretary, is said to be looking after day-to-day management of the campaign.
Porter has extensive experience of running a sharp operation, having come from public affairs firm FGS Global and previously been head of international affairs and government relations at the London Stock Exchange. She also has connections among policy wonks as a former head of communications for the Institute of Economic Affairs thinktank.
“She’s as dry as a pancake but got a great policy head,” said one Tory source.
Knowing the high value Truss places on carefully crafted photos posted to her Instagram, her team are also aiming to rival Sunak’s slickness on social media.
Strategic communications are being directed by Adam Jones, one of her Foreign Office political aides, and Jason Stein, a former media adviser to Prince Andrew and senior government ministers such as Amber Rudd. Meanwhile, minute-by-minute media handling is being led by Sarah Ludlow, another special adviser, who has sought to keep up Truss’s momentum with a stream of lines fed to journalists about new supporters, favourable opinion polls and reaction quotes.
Away from the prying eyes of fellow MPs working for the rival campaign – and journalists – Truss’s campaign is being run a few hundred metres from parliament in a £3m Westminster townhouse. The property is owned by Conservative peer Greville Howard, Enoch Powell’s former private secretary and a landowner in Norfolk. It is familiar to Truss herself, given it was one of the places where Johnson’s own 2019 campaign was based, when she held a key role working on policy.
Despite being the bookies’ favourite thanks to her favourable polling among Tory members, Truss’s inner circle is still trying to win over more MPs – including the more than 100 who had voted for Penny Mordaunt to be on the final ballot.
Given Sunak edged her on the number of endorsements from colleagues, Team Truss wants to ensure it keeps some momentum by getting new supporters. “She didn’t do all those ‘fizz with Liz’ receptions for nothing,” one MP quipped.
The team was buoyed up by receiving the most significant endorsements from those who continued to serve in the cabinet, despite the wave of resignations that eventually forced Johnson out.
Simon Clarke, chief secretary to the Treasury, snubbed his former boss Sunak by backing Truss and was one of those who worked hardest to discredit Mordaunt and shore up the divided right of the party.
He could be tipped for a major promotion to the cabinet, though would be in for a tussle with the business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, for the role of chancellor.
Others supporting Truss who will hope to hold on to a space in her cabinet include Nadine Dorries, Thérèse Coffey and James Cleverly.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former chair of the Eurosceptic lobbying caucus known as the European Research Group, has also been instrumental in helping persuade Brexiters that Truss is a true believer, given she is a convert to the cause.
Another important backroom figure helping tout her Brexiter credentials is Hugh Bennett, who was a former aide to Brexit negotiator David Frost.
As the end of the Tory leadership contest approaches and the stakes get even higher, the battle between the final two candidates is likely to get nastier. With gloomier economic conditions just beyond the horizon, Truss’s outriders are preparing to step up their “stop Sunak” campaign.
