She’s back. Sort of. Liz Truss, a former British prime minister whose tenure lasted only 50 days, sought to revive her political career and economic agenda on Wednesday with a major speech – more than 3,500 miles from home.
Truss’s unlikely comeback attempt was perhaps guaranteed a warmer welcome at the Heritage Foundation (a somewhat stuffy conservative thinktank in Washington that has its own Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom) than at many places in her native Britain.
Knowing her audience, the ex-PM used her 2023 Margaret Thatcher Freedom Lecture to assail “wokeism”, praise Ronald Reagan, take swipes at France’s Emmanuel Macron and even borrow from Donald Trump’s playbook by portraying herself as the victim of a vast political conspiracy.
The 47-year-old’s reward after a speech and question-and-answer session lasting an hour was a standing ovation, albeit a short one, and a few autograph requests in an auditorium that was mostly but not entirely full.
Among the spectators was Nicole Robinson, a Heritage Foundation employee focused on the Middle East. “I appreciate Margaret Thatcher and I like her legacy and I think that Liz Truss embodies certain qualities of Margaret Thatcher,” she explained. “She’s a strong leader. She was foreign minister for a long time and during critical times in the world.”
This was certainly a safe space for Truss. Introducing her, Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, made no reference to how her vanishingly short spell in Downing Street ended in political chaos and near economic disaster.
Instead he said: “Prime Minister Truss spoke for free people all over the world. For those of us who are Americans, we have a special affection for her because she delivered finally on Brexit. She confronted the big tax, big government establishment in her country and, dare I say, even her own party.”
Truss took office last September after winning a Conservative party leadership contest to replace Boris Johnson. Her pledge to spur economic growth with a mini-budget containing £45bn ($54bn) in unfunded tax cuts – including an income tax reduction for the highest earners – rattled the financial markets and led to her downfall.
Truss gave no indication that, since her banishment to the political wilderness, she has gone through a period of introspection.
She argued that the west has lost its way since the cold war, big government has gotten out of control and accused the legal, education, environmental and agricultural establishments of resisting change to the status quo. “There are people who work in businesses that invoice the government and they’re doing quite fine, thank you very much,” Truss said.
“All of those people are part of the resistance to change we need to see.
“And as prime minister, I simply underestimated the scale and depth of this resistance and the scale and depth to which it reached into the media and into the broader establishment.”
Truss complained further: “We didn’t just face coordinated resistance from inside the Conservative party or even inside the British corporate establishment. We faced it from the IMF and even from President Biden.
In reality, Truss’s abandoned economic plan sent financial markets into a tailspin and caused a sharp drop in the value of the pound. Biden described it as a “mistake”, a view echoed by many economic commentators.
Truss echoed many rightwing American politicians who have stood on the same stage at the Heritage Foundation and warned of an existential threat from creeping socialism and political correctness.
“The sad truth is what I think we’ve seen over the past few years is a new kind of economic model taking hold in our countries, one that’s focused on redistributionism, on stagnation and on the imbuing of woke culture into our businesses. I call these people the anti-growth movement.”
She spoke of a leftwing challenge to “core Anglo-American values” and the danger of “self-flagellation” via identity politics, critical race theory and “the whole debate about ‘what is a woman?’ These are all core beliefs that we have seen being undermined and I’m afraid there hasn’t been sufficient fight back … We need to be intolerant of intolerance.”
The former foreign secretary also devoted a chunk of her remarks to global affairs, calling for Ukraine to be given membership of Nato and for the west to take a tougher stand against China. She condemned Macron’s recent trip to Beijing to ask for support in ending the war in Ukraine as a sign of weakness.
Truss concluded her speech with a hint that she intends to remain in the political arena. “Last autumn I had a major setback but I care too much to give up on this agenda. I think it’s too important … Over the coming months I’ll be setting out ideas about how we together can take this battle forward …
“We need to fight this battle of ideas once again. Mrs Thatcher would have expected nothing less.”
Thatcher was one of Britain’s longest-serving prime ministers; Truss was the shortest. But none of that seemed to matter to an audience that saw Truss as a political martyr fighting the good fight.
Truss’s grip on power was infamously outlasted by a 60p (70¢) head of iceberg lettuce in a bizarre competition set up by a British newspaper with a webcam.
After Wednesday’s event in Washington, guests were treated to mini beef wellingtons, miniature brioche roast beef sliders, nut-free pesto chicken brioche sliders, caprese skewers and spanakopita – but lettuce was not on the menu.
