Many Labour supporters are quietly allowing themselves to celebrate: if Liz Truss does win the Tory leadership, a Labour government, they think, is much more likely. It may well be so. Among the general public, Truss is on many measures the least popular of the last three Conservative contenders who fought it out last week. YouGov found that even Tory members preferred Kemi Badenoch and Penny Mordaunt to the Foreign Secretary.
The reason is obvious, and personal. Truss comes across as by turns slightly eccentric, a bit vacant and – well, there’s no easy way to say this – just a tad weird.
Truss has failed to win over even a third of Conservative MPs to her cause, seems to have failed to impress most colleagues as Foreign Secretary, and is no-one’s idea of a sharp debater or impressive public speaker. Only the arcane strangeness of our blended constitution, suspended somewhere between Parliamentary democracy and a direct democracy led by members, could put her in No.
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