Is Liz Truss a Tory Jeremy Corbyn?

Many years ago, when the earth was young and leaving the European Union was a position espoused only by those trying to stay on the right side of Bill Cash at a drinks party, Ken Clarke stood for the Tory leadership against Iain Duncan Smith. He said one memorable thing while making his doomed bid for the captaincy – which was that the Tories needed to decide whether they were going to be a political party or a debating society.

What I understand him to have meant by that was that ideological purity buttered no parsnips in politics. For most of its history, its friends and its enemies alike would agree that the Conservative party has been a magnificent machine for winning and retaining power. While the Left frittered its energy denouncing ideological deviationists, reciting parrot-like dogmas about collective ownership, and purging its own ranks, Tories were pragmatists. They believed something firmly until it became a vote-loser; and then they found a way of believing something else.