Will Liz Truss’s Tory party practice what it preaches?

The Tory party is very good at pointing out — and profiting from — how the Labour party often values ideology over power, making the choice to eschew government for comfort zone politics. Liz Truss herself, who, bar some catastrophe, will be announced as the new Tory leader tomorrow, once made this point rather bluntly at a party conference fringe event. Back in 2018, Truss described then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, possibly the very definition of an ideological leftwinger, as a ‘nut job’ and ‘socialist crazed individual’. Her point was similar to that of Tony Blair, who identified the rogue pattern in his own party and challenged it: ‘Power without principle is barren, but principle without power is futile,’ he warned. Conservatives today would do well to pay attention to the first half of that quote.

It’s all very well laughing at how Corbyn’s ideological Labour party was smashed to pieces in 2019, granting an 80 seat majority’s worth of power to their opponents.