Liz truss

Thursday

Kate Andrews

Trussonomics doesn’t add up

I’ve been lucky enough in my working life so far to hold a string of jobs that have allowed me – if not actively encouraged me – to be critical of government. Coming up through Westminster thinktanks in my twenties, I had great fun putting out press releases that tore apart bad public policy. When I had the opportunity to speak to MPs, they’d remind me of the ‘political realities’ that tied their hands and prevented change. In other words, check your policy privilege. Thinktank wonks, commentators and journalists can make all the punchy points they want; they don’t face re-election. But there was one politician who over the years

Wednesday

Steerpike

Truss gambit outflanks Sunak on China

Talk about a tale of two campaigns. China has been one of the dominant themes this week in the Tory leadership race. Both candidates knocked lumps out of each other in BBC’s Monday debate, with the Foreign Secretary suggesting she could even ban TikTok. But tonight, the issue has reared its head again twice within a few hours. First, Rishi Sunak was left embarrassed by a leaked Treasury paper which suggested he was close to signing a deal with Beijing to ‘deepen trade links’ earlier this year. It boasted 47 pages of ‘policy outcomes’ for closer ties in 20 areas. They included inviting a huge Chinese sovereign wealth fund to

Steerpike Steerpike

Liz Truss’s failed Lib Dem bid revealed

She is the current favourite to be our next Prime Minister but Liz Truss hasn’t always been such a staunch Tory. Throughout the current Conservative leadership race, the Foreign Secretary has faced numerous reminders of her student past, back when was a card-carrying Liberal Democrat. There was the footage of a fresh-faced Truss calling for the abolition of the monarchy at the 1994 party conference in front of a watching David Steel. There was the Newsnight package which showed her canvassing Brighton locals that same year. And there have been images of the-then Oxford University Lib Dem president protesting Michael Howard’s Criminal Justice Bill to clamp down on raves that

Monday

Steerpike

Will Liz Truss dare to face Andrew Neil?

It’s six weeks to go until voting closes for the Tory leadership and polls suggest that Liz Truss is the firm favourite of the party grassroots – on a two-to-one ratio. Rishi Sunak has to do all he can to make up lost ground, something that has likely motivated the former Chancellor to accept a challenge from one of Britain’s most formidable interviewers. For it has today been announced that Andrew Neil, the longtime bête noire of politicians across the land, will grill Sunak this Friday night on prime-time Channel 4. The move is of course a gamble by Sunak: Neil gave him one of his tougher interviews last year

Saturday

Robert Peston

What Liz Truss learned from the Brexit referendum

Liz Truss may have been a Remainer but she has learned the political lesson of the EU referendum in the way that her genuine Brexiter opponent has seemingly failed to do.  The point is that in today’s milieu, and especially with an electorate of 160,000 largely Brexit-supporting Tory members, power is with the insurgent. In pinning her colours to at least £30 billion of immediate tax cuts, against Sunak’s steady-as-we-go no-tax-cuts-till-prudent mantra, she has defined herself as the crusader against alleged stultifying Treasury orthodoxy. Every time a credible economist accuses her of risking financial ruin – by pushing up national debt and inflation – all she has to do is

Friday

Steerpike

Priti and Truss back MPs over Beijing’s threats

Most Tories are focusing on the leadership race but for some there are other concerns. Take the five MPs who last year were sanctioned by the Chinese state. Tom Tugendhat, Neil O’Brien, Sir Iain Duncan Smith, Nusrat Ghani and Tim Loughton were among a group of nine UK citizens to face sanctions in March for raising awareness of China’s human rights abuses against Ughur Muslim. Having banned this group from entering China, there are fears that Beijing will now try to seek revenge on them through other means too. One possible mechanism is by the exploitation of Interpol, the global police agency now feared to be acting in Chinese state

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

Last ones standing: the leadership finalists on taxes, net zero and freedom of speech

After the last televised leadership debate was cancelled when Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak pulled out, we asked the remaining three candidates if they would come on SpectatorTV to face questions before Tory MPs’  final vote. (Since going to press the contenders will have been whittled down to two.) This is an edited transcript of their answers. Do you propose tax cuts? If so, how would you pay for them? PENNY MORDAUNT: On the current trajectory Rishi’s set us on, we are going to be one of the most uncompetitive nations in the OECD and that cannot be allowed to happen. We have to be able to compete. So there

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

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

Wednesday

James Forsyth

The Tories abandon fiscal conservatism at their peril

And then there were two. Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss now go to the membership. There’s much talk today about how brutal this contest will be. Penny Mordaunt’s supporters were arguing this morning that people should vote for her to avoid pitting these two against each other. But that would be false comfort. The argument between Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak is one that the Tory party needs to have. Fiscal responsibility has been the Tories’ anchor for years On one side stands Sunak, who I have known for many years. He cleaves to the old Thatcherite position that the first thing to do is to get inflation under control. He believes

Coffee House

Sunak and Truss make final two – as it happened

Britain’s next Prime Minister will be either Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss. Refresh this page for the latest developments. 4.45 p.m. – Truss vs Sunak will be a philosophical war Kate Andrews writes… The Tory grassroots have got themselves a real economic debate this summer: Rishi Sunak’s ‘Thatcherite’ economic philosophy vs Liz Truss’s ‘Reaganite’ plans to boost growth. Both will have questions to answer. While Sunak’s line that ‘nothing comes for free’ is bound to resonate with Tory members, the tax burden has risen to a 72-year-high under his watch, as well as the introduction of a windfall tax on oil and gas companies that is very hard to explain

Douglas Murray

The ruthless inefficiency of the Tory party

It is hard to love the Conservative party. But one reason it has at least always commanded a certain amount of respect is thanks to its reputation for ruthless efficiency. Personally I have found that reputation to be only half true. It is true that the party can be ruthless, but only in being ruthlessly inefficient. Look at the mechanism by which it removed the Prime Minister who brought it its largest majority since Margaret Thatcher. True, Boris Johnson had his faults. But did the party not know these in advance? Why was it not able to add the stabilisers so obviously needed to keep a rickety, not to mention rackety,

Steerpike Steerpike

Mordaunt: Truss or Sunak will ‘murder’ us

Throughout the leadership race, Penny Mordaunt has sought to portray herself as the cleanest candidate of them all. She has bemoaned the ‘toxic politics’ and ‘smears’ of others and bewailed how ‘this contest is in danger of slipping into something else’. She, by contrast, has pledged to run a ‘truly clean campaign’ and ‘committed to a clean start for our party’ – away from all from the attacks, lies and backstabbing of the past. Mordaunt even told Steerpike’s colleague Isabel Hardman on The Spectator podcast just yesterday that: I have conducted my campaign in a way that I think is needed and has been the right thing to do. Now

Steerpike Steerpike

Penny attacks Truss over China

Dividing lines and clear blue water –  in any election it’s crucial for candidates to find and exploits the distinctions between themselves and their rivals. Could China perhaps be one? It was the subject which Liz Truss chose to quiz Rishi Sunak about on Sunday and is seen by allies of the former as a weakness for the latter. The Foreign Secretary is keen to appear more hawkish than her rival; under Sunak’s Chancellorship the Treasury tried to restart multiple high-level financial dialogues with Beijing. And it’s not just Truss pushing this line, for Penny Mordaunt has now decided to jump on board the China train. She declared last night

Tuesday

James Kirkup

The Conservative party has ceased to be serious

I’m not sure that the Conservative party wants to win elections. Tom Tugendhat was knocked out of the leadership contest on Monday, and Liz Truss is now the bookies’ favourite to be the next Prime Minister. Any party that thinks the latter beats the former cannot say it is serious. There are several reasons for Conservatives to ignore me on this topic. First, I’m not a Conservative. Second, Tugendhat and I are friends. Third, I take a view of party politics that seems to be utterly out of fashion these days. That view is that politics works better when parties try to win the other side’s votes. When Conservatives pursue

Monday

Steerpike

Truss and Sunak’s debate stitch-up

Fights! Drama! Blue-on-blue attacks and not-so-subtle jibes! Last night’s Conservative leadership debate had it all. But perhaps it was the sheer level of exposure on Channel 4 and ITV which has convinced two of the Tory candidates not to repeat the experience. For this morning, both Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss have pulled out of the final leadership debate on Sky which was scheduled for tomorrow evening. The broadcaster has now cancelled the debate as a result. Both rivals were thought to have concerns about the prospect of knocking yet more lumps out of each other on national television. One source on Team Truss told the Huffington Post that: It

Sam Leith Sam Leith

The latest Tory leadership debate was a grim spectacle

The eyes had it, in last night’s leadership debate. Penny Mordaunt and Rishi Sunak took turns directing to the camera a puppy-eyed gaze. Tom Tugendhat blinked manfully, as if overcome from time to time with a sense of his humble desire to serve. Kemi Badenoch blinked, too – but more in the way of someone regretting the decision to switch her specs out for contact lenses. And if Liz Truss – an apprentice of Mrs Thatcher’s gimlet-eyed stare – blinked at all, I confess I didn’t notice it. I was distracted by the fact that she seemed to have four eyebrows rather than the usual human ration of two. I

Sunday

Fraser Nelson

The verdict: the second Tory leadership debate

‘If you’re still watching this debate, well done,’ said Mordaunt, bizarrely, in her closing statement. ‘I wish tonight had been less about us and more about you.’ She obviously scripted that comment before she had any idea how the evening was going to pan out and her own contributions were certainly forgettable. But the others made for an interesting night. Tom Tugendhat quite rightly said the whole evening’s discussion – tax, defence etc. – was about the country. ‘We need to restore confidence in our government and in ourselves,’ he said. I’m not sure Britain needs its self-confidence restored: it’s the Tories who are having a collective breakdown. Rishi Sunak

Steerpike Steerpike

Truss struggles with surging Kemi

It’s been a mixed performance thus far for the ‘Liz for leader’ brigade. A flawless campaign launch, strong cabinet support and enthusiastic media backing have all been positives but the failure to lock up the votes of the Tory right have left the Foreign Secretary in a less confident situation than she might otherwise have liked. Truss’s efforts have not been helped in this respected by Kemi Badenoch, the surprise package of the leadership campaign. On the second round of voting, Truss came third with 64 MPs, ahead of Badenoch on 49. While the latter is still regarded as a long-shot candidate, there are whispers about whether the junior minister

Friday

Steerpike

Suella’s plea to the ERG: back Truss

Having urged her supporters to back Liz Truss yesterday, Suella Braverman has now been forced to, er, do the same again today. Team Truss are doing their damnedest to try to lock up the right-wing vote by sending out leading figures like Lord Frost and Simon Clarke to urge rival candidates to stand aside. Unfortunately for the Foreign Secretary, thus far the Badenoch camp seem noticeably reluctant to do just that. While not all of her supporters still think she could make the final two, others have their doubts about Truss and her electoral prowess. Braverman’s latest appeal therefore is an attempt to remind right-wingers that, unless they unite sharpish,

Thursday

Katy Balls

Truss pitches herself as continuity Boris

Can Liz Truss gather momentum behind her leadership bid? That’s the challenge facing the Foreign Secretary today ahead of the second round of voting in the contest. Truss is vying for votes among the right of the party along with Suella Braverman and Kemi Badenoch. Of the three, she came out on top in the ballot on Wednesday with 50 MP nominations to Badenoch’s 40 and Braverman’s 33. There is now a push to get these MPs to rally around one candidate. As a supporter of Truss remarked last night: ‘Lots of people need to do some soul-searching.’ When asked why she hadn’t resigned from Johnson’s cabinet, she responded that