The Channel migrant crisis will make or break Liz Truss

Liz Truss has been clear about her key selling point throughout her leadership campaign. At its launch she boasted: ‘I can lead, I can make tough decisions and get things done.’

And her whole campaign has amounted to variations upon that theme – ‘I do what I say I will do’, ‘I’m somebody who gets things done’ – in TV debates, hustings with members and personal appearances.

So Liz Truss – not the slickest communicator but gets things done: that’s the offer which Conservative members are buying into in droves. Of course, Boris Johnson was once the ‘getting things done’ go-to guy. Or at least the ‘Get Brexit Done’ candidate.

And that was the problem. Once Brexit got done and the obsessively focused Dominic Cummings left his side, Johnson proved fairly useless at the implementation side of things. He never lost his columnist’s facility for story-telling, but the dog-ate-my-homework excuses saw a chill descend towards him from many of his natural supporters.