From the stage of the Liberal Democrat conference to the Tory leadership - via viral fame over cheese imports - Liz Truss has been on quite a political journey in her quest for the keys to Downing St. Here we cover the key moments of success, strife and good fortune that have made her favourite to replace Boris Johnson.
September 1994
Truss makes a forthright political debut – just not for the Conservative party. Truss, now an Oxford Liberal Democrat, makes an impassioned speech at the 1994 conference backing a motion calling for the abolition of the monarchy. Leader Paddy Ashdown is said to have believed the party would be “finished” if the motion had passed.
6 May 2010
After completing her political journey to the Conservatives – and failed bids to win council seats and hopelessly safe Labour constituencies – Truss enters parliament as Tory MP for rural South West Norfolk. However, she is forced to negotiate local outrage by a “Turnip Taliban” who protested about her candidacy after her affair with the Tory MP Mark Field.
29 September 2014
After a slow but steady rise from the backbenches to the ministerial ranks, Truss gives one of the most unforgettable conference speeches in her first cabinet post as environment secretary, stunning the audience and the wider public with a speech full of pregnant pauses, bizarre stares and the claim that Britain importing two-thirds of its cheese was “a disgrace”.
20 February 2016
Truss announces she is backing remain, stating it was “in Britain’s economic interest and means we can focus on vital economic and social reform at home”. However, since Theresa May’s government went south over the issue, Truss has emitted pro-Brexit vibes that have seen her adopted as the leave candidate – despite Rishi Sunak backing leave at some risk to his career.
12 June 2017
After criticism from lawyers and suspicions in May’s team that she is a serial leaker of cabinet Brexit talks, Truss is sacked after failing, as lord chancellor, to defend judges accused of being “enemies of the people” when they ruled the PM needed parliamentary approval to trigger the Brexit process. She is demoted to chief secretary to the Treasury, where she is treated with suspicion by chancellor Philip Hammond.
15 September 2021
With her conversion to a Boris Johnson ultra complete – and having boosted her support among the party grassroots by heralding trade deals of varying value secured during her regular jaunts overseas – Truss is rewarded by being appointed foreign secretary, to replace Dominic Raab. Amazingly, Raab went on to back Sunak’s leadership bid.
30 November 2021
From the moment she enters the Foreign Office, Truss embarks on a diplomatic and photographic odyssey that sees her snapped (by an official photographer) in increasingly presidential poses. The portraits peak when she is pictured in military garb, aboard a tank in Estonia. It was a not-so-subtle recreation of a notable picture of Margaret Thatcher.
8 July 2022
Luck has played a large part in Truss’s rise. Sunak’s status as the clear alternative to Johnson is dented by revelations he is a recent US green-card holder and husband to an uber-wealthy non-dom wife. His launch video is attacked as “slick” – meaning out of touch – while his message rejecting economic “fairytales” turns out to be a message many Tories didn’t want to hear.
15 July 2022
Having been wrong-footed in Bali as Johnson’s premiership collapsed and trailing behind Penny Mordaunt, Truss announces a package of tax cuts amounting to about £30bn a year in one of the most expensive online video calls in history. However, she struggles during the first televised hustings on Channel 4, with a stilted and low-key performance.
20 July 2022
After a clear improvement on the opening TV hustings, growing support for her tax-cutting spree and the conclusion among Johnson loyalists that she was their candidate, Truss beats Mordaunt to secure a place in the runoff. From there, polls suggest she maintains a clear lead over Sunak – though with the cost of living crisis imminent, he may conclude it was a good one to lose.
