The rise and fall of Liz Truss – from pork markets to a car crash
Just over a month since pledging to “deliver, deliver, deliver!” on the steps of Downing Street, today Liz Truss’s political career came to a screeching end.
She did deliver: a premiership characterised by chaotic U-turns and infighting, and what is likely the shortest tenure as PM in British history.
Critics believe she was never cut out for the job, even as they praised the steely determination and political skill that led her to Number 10. But her meteoric rise through the party ended almost as quickly as it started.
She entered parliament in 2010, as the Conservatives returned to government for the first time in 13 years, and quickly rose through the Tory ranks.
Ahead of the Tory party conference. Pic: ©Licensed to Parsons Media.
She was education minister, environment secretary, then justice secretary, before being demoted under Theresa May to chief secretary to the Treasury.
Sonia Khan, who was the adviser to former chancellor Sajid Javid, said Ms Truss’s role in the Treasury “was the making of her”.
She said: “She began to wear bright colours and use social media in a way her colleagues weren’t at the time, it gave her a platform to project herself and she used that to her advantage.”
However, Ms Truss was also becoming known for her awkward public appearances and was haunted by the now notorious “pork markets speech” at the Conservative Party conference in 2014.
As one MP who backed Ms Truss for the leadership put it: “Her biggest failure has been her inability to communicate her vision coherently.”
But where Ms Truss struggled to communicate with the public, she was slowly building a support base among the party membership. Despite campaigning against Brexit, she became a darling of the Conservative right wing. Her blend of free-market, tax-cutting conservatism and perceived willingness to challenge the status quo made her an unlikely grassroots favourite.
During her campaign to become leader, Ms Truss drew on her “left-wing” childhood growing up near Glasgow and Leeds. At Oxford University she was president of the Liberal Democrats society, and argued for the abolition of the monarchy – and marched against Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s; it was only after graduating that she joined the Conservatives and fought the safe Tory seat of South West Norfolk.
Liz Truss looks on as she speaks to the media at the Empire State Building in New York
In cabinet, she became known as a grafter and at times a troublemaker, someone who “knows what she wants and gets it”, according to one ally.
Another Truss supporter said she had the “skin of a rhinoceros”. Many were surprised by her promotion to foreign secretary under Boris Johnson; when she became prime minister, she was one of the longest-serving cabinet ministers.
Ms Truss was seen as Mr Johnson’s preferred candidate during the leadership race, backed by some of his closest allies, including Nadine Dorries and Jacob Rees-Mogg. She beat Penny Mordaunt by just eight votes in the final ballot among Tory MPs, securing her place against Rishi Sunak. The Conservative Party membership would decide their fate.
Queen Elizabeth II welcomes Liz Truss during an audience at Balmoral, Scotland
Liz Truss makes a speech outside 10 Downing Street after meeting Queen Elizabeth II and accepting her invitation to become prime minister
Ms Truss’s path through the membership was rarely in doubt, however. It was only once she got the top job that things began to unravel.
Just two days into her role as prime minister, the death of Queen Elizabeth II shocked the nation. Ten days of mourning followed, and when politics did return, Ms Truss pushed ahead with her sweeping tax-cutting plans during a cost of living crisis.
Some allies still believe her bold vision for growth would have worked – easier to find though are MPs who blame Ms Truss for trashing the Tory record with the economy. What is clear is that her authority never recovered from an extraordinary mini-budget just over two weeks into the job.
King Charles III during his first audience with Prime Minister Liz Truss at Buckingham Palace, London, following the death of Queen Elizabeth II
Liz Truss speaking during the Queen’s funeral
First impressions matter and very few I have spoken to are convinced she could have recovered in the eyes of the electorate.
Many see Ms Truss’s sacking of the former chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng as the moment her fate was sealed. The pair were long-time allies, bound together by a shared vision for the economy; but sacking him, before delivering a lacklustre speech, did nothing to appease her now mutinous Tory MPs.
After Mr Kwarteng’s sacking, one MP told me “that was ruthless” adding “she’s toast”. Another said: “Her sacking him shows just how weak she is”. Former chancellor Kenneth Clarke said Mr Kwarteng was a “scapegoat” blamed for carrying out Liz Truss’s instructions.
Prime Minister Liz Truss (second left) and then-chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng (centre) during a visit to a construction site
Liz Truss in the House of Commons after her mini-budget was overhauled
There was an expectation replacing Mr Kwarteng with Jeremy Hunt would steady the ship, but on his first working day as chancellor he U-turned on the majority of Ms Truss’ economic pledges – made just three weeks before.
Many Tory MPs then saw Mr Hunt as the de facto prime minister as any support she did have slipped away.
As MPs rapidly started to lose faith in their leader, Suella Braverman quit as home secretary for sending a sensitive message to a colleague from her personal email, although many questioned if that was the real reason.
Then parliament descended into chaos on the evening of 19 October, with confusion over whether Labour’s opposition day vote on fracking was actually a vote of confidence in the government and accusations of Tory MPs “manhandling” their colleagues into voting with the government.
Labour MP Chris Bryant Twitter picture of the chaos during voting
Credit:Chris Bryant
The number of Tory MPs calling for Ms Truss then went from a stream to a river.
Asked to describe Liz Truss, an MP who previously served alongside her in cabinet says she is “the sort of person you want to go for a drink with, but not drive you home at the end of the night”.
Today, Liz Truss’s tenure has come to a crashing end at spectacular speed, as Tory MPs assigned another leader to the scrapheap. The party is now searching for its fifth prime minister in just over six years.
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