Who’s afraid of ideology?

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is widely considered less dangerous than Liz Truss because he is less ideological. For many journalists, Liz Truss was the personification of ideology – and therefore vile. 

The Guardian’sRafael Behr summed up the mood when he said: ‘Liz Truss’s Tories are higher than ever on ideology – and they’re refusing to sober up.’ He claimed that ‘ideology is a drug for Tory leaders’. Critics of the Conservative party regard the word ideology as a term of abuse to be hurled against the toxic Tories. Sunak is less despised because he is seen as ‘pragmatic’ rather than ideological. 

Yet the coupling of Truss with ideological zealotry actually serves as testimony to the political illiteracy of our commentariat. She performed one U-Turn after another. The casual manner with which she ditched her off-the-shelf, free-market script exposed both a lack of conviction and the sensibility of hyper-pragmatism.

In reality, the modern Conservative party and Rishi Sunak are addicted not to the drug of ideology but to its opposite – the politics of ‘what works’.