Liz Truss is no Margaret Thatcher

The late Senator Lloyd Bentsen was 26 years older than the young Senator Dan Quayle when in 1988 they crossed swords in a debate in Omaha, Nebraska. Their exchange became famous. Quayle had been comparing himself with the late John F. Kennedy. Old Bentsen hit back: ‘Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.’

As it happens, I’m 26 years older than Liz Truss. So it’s a temptation to which I yield to quote that exchange, now that Ms Truss, explicitly, both in her wardrobe and the photo opportunities she contrives, is inviting comparison with the late Baroness Thatcher.

I can’t quite mimic Bentsen’s claim. Only in the technical sense did I serve with the then Mrs Thatcher when she was prime minister, and I cannot boast a personal friendship. But I worked for her in her Commons office for two years when she was opposition leader and, immersed in that often frenetic place, you do become familiar with the stamp the boss places on her team, even lowly correspondence clerks like me.

So, Foreign Secretary, I knew Margaret Thatcher and I worked for Margaret Thatcher. And, Foreign Secretary, you’re no Margaret Thatcher.

Thatcher’s name is being bandied about during this Tory leadership contest. Would she or would she not have approved of the idea – central to the pitch of some of the candidates, including Ms Truss – that by cutting taxes we can spend our way out of looming recession and power towards economic growth? Rishi Sunak says Thatcher would not have approved. Truss thinks she would. I doubt it. Fresh in Thatcher’s memory would have been the former Tory chancellor Anthony Barber’s ‘dash for growth’, which ended in the inflationary ditch.

The idea of borrowing and spending your way out of a slump is not as mad as it sounds, but it can only work in certain, very restricted, circumstances.