The Sunday Times - UK (2021-12-19)

The Sunday Times December 19, 2021 2GN 21

A year after negotiation of the Brexit

withdrawal agreement, Johnson’s key

aide, Lord Frost, quits

WEDNESDAY

DEC 15

Golders Green, Wimbledon
and Woking), where the
opposite applies.
There are only a dozen or
so seats, mostly in London,
where it appears that the
combined progressive parties
would exceed the Tory vote
share by 10 points, but there
are reasons for advocates of
tactical voting to be cheerful
after the North Shropshire
result.
Paula Surridge, an
elections expert at Bristol
University, said:
“Conservative voters are no
longer so held in place as they
were during the Corbyn years
because they’re not scared of
Labour in the same way that
they were.”
Jon Mellon, of the British
Election Study, found that
fewer than a third of people
knew who came second in
their constituency, suggesting
that, if the electorate wised
up, they might change their
behaviour.
Those who talk up

woman to be appointed

foreign secretary).

Gone are the youthful,

blurry, double-chinned

selfies with colleagues or the

breezy, happy snaps on the

beach. Instead Truss is sharp-

suited and purposeful. She is

among those who have drawn

fire for using taxpayer-funded

photographers to boost her

image in a carefully curated

brand refresh every bit as

slick as the images posted of

her likely rival for the

leadership, Rishi Sunak, the

chancellor.

A recent picture of Truss in

a tank drew unflattering

“Thatcher-lite” comparisons,

and her Christmas Instagram

post was so grand that

Westminster wags suggested

she had given up on her

ambitions to be the prime

minister and was making a

pitch to be Queen.

Critics whisper that she

lacks gravitas but while her

unstuffy nature makes her

popular with the press and

MPs, it allows rivals to portray

her as a “continuity Boris”

candidate. Team Truss

privately worries it is actually

his image that may prove the

greatest hurdle to her

succession.

“A leadership contest in

the foreseeable future does

not work in Liz’s favour,” one

ally said. “If he goes out on a

low then MPs will want to

replace him with the polar

opposite, someone who is

seen as managerial, steady

and competent.”

Truss still holds the

equalities and women’s brief

and rails against identity

politics. While she had a

solidly middle-class

upbringing, her parents were

both politically active and

left-wing. Born in Oxford in

1975, Truss attended a

comprehensive school in

Leeds. Her father, John, a

maths professor, and her

mother, Priscilla, a teacher

and anti-nuclear activist, took

their daughter on marches to

demand: “Maggie, Maggie,

Maggie, out, out, out.”

Truss’s schooling

crystallised her distrust of

what she later called the “soft

bigotry of low expectations”

in state education. Then

Merton College, Oxford,

widened her horizons and

laid the foundations for her

passionate belief in free-

market economics and

democratic freedoms.

She joined the

Conservatives in 1996, when

the party was hugely

unpopular, and took more

than a decade to land the safe

seat of South West Norfolk.

Although one of David

Cameron’s “A-list”

candidates, she had to win

over local activists, known as

the Turnip Taliban in the

media because of their

disapproval of Truss’s known

extramarital affair.

Her marriage to the

accountant Hugh O’Leary

survived and her family life

remains a closely guarded

constant against the

stop-start fortunes of her

political career.

Truss’s daughters Frances

and Liberty, like their

mother, have strong

personalities and a gift for

mathematics. Close friends

know her to be a passionately

proud parent but Truss

would no more play the

“gushing mother” card to

advance her career than put

her career setbacks down to

sexism. She wants to be

judged on her own terms.

For her, Britain remains a

nation of “Airbnb-ing,

Deliveroo-eating, Uber-riding

freedom fighters” and as

foreign secretary she revels in

the chance to champion the

country that she loves on the

world stage.

She enjoys a glass of white

wine, is more than happy to

murder a 1980s pop song on

the karaoke machine and

loves a good dance. Following

The Spectator magazine’s

summer party, she

enthusiastically joined in the

after-party at the exclusive

London private members’

club 5 Hertford Street, where

she threw some shapes to

Abba’s greatest hits until 1am.

Hertford Street is now said

to be the unofficial

headquarters for Team Truss,

where the foreign secretary

courts MPs in “fizz with Liz”

sessions.

For now she continues to

defy her critics and is content

to cultivate her image,

expand her power base and

bide her time.

A former aide recalls a

train journey where Truss

signed off a succession of

policy papers from other

departments, known as

“write rounds”, while

repeatedly muttering: “Don’t

agree with that, don’t agree,

don’t agree.”

“If you don’t agree with

them, why are you signing

them off ?” he asked.

“Because,” she replied,

“there are bigger battles

ahead.”

Kirsty Buchanan was a special

adviser to Liz Truss at the

Ministry of Justice from

2016-17 and head of political

press at No 10 from 2017-19.

pointless speculating about what needs

to happen when because we don’t yet

have the data,” the source added.

Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, returned

from California on Friday to work on a

support package for the hospitality

industry after pubs and restaurants said

their Christmas bookings had collapsed.

He is resisting the reintroduction of the

furlough scheme and is looking at short-

term targeted intervention or medium-

term tax breaks to support businesses.

Ministers are considering proposals

that would ban people from meeting

indoors for two weeks after Christmas.

One option is for the new measures to be

time-limited and pegged to vaccination

booster rates hitting 70 per cent. It is

more likely that any further restrictions

will be announced between Christmas

and the new year.

Johnson remains reluctant to toughen

curbs. A cabinet minister said: “If we

brought forward measures that would

shut down the economy, the rebellion

would be off the charts.”

Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader,

will attend scientific briefings between

Christmas and the new year. Unusually,

he has attended three briefings with

Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance, the gov-

ernment’s chief scientific adviser, in the

past two weeks. Starmer has not ruled

out demanding fresh curbs himself, as he

has done twice before, in October and

Christmas last year. He is expected to

review the latest data this weekend.

Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker, has

requested a meeting with the clerk of the

House of Commons and Jacob Rees-

Mogg, the leader of the House, to discuss

whether MPs can return to parliament

before the new year.

Many are now questioning the team

Johnson has around him. Sir Iain Duncan

Smith, the former Tory leader, said: “Peo-

ple in Downing Street should be prepared

to take a bullet for the PM but at the

moment it appears to be him taking a bul-

let for them.”

Another Tory insider said that “no one

is loyal to Boris” in Downing Street as so

many of his former allies have departed.

“Eddie [Lord Udny-Lister], Lee [Cain],

Dom [Cummings] have all gone. There

are few Johnsonites left,” said the source.

Frost’s decision to leave means John-

son has even fewer friends to call on.

Meanwhile Jeremy Hunt, the former

foreign secretary who ran against John-

son for the leadership in 2019, is position-

ing himself as the “I-told-you-so candi-

date” and sees himself as being a “John

Major” who could come through the mid-

dle. Hunt is seen as a soothing antidote to

Liz Truss, the foreign secretary who, like

Johnson, is regarded as too maverick.

One option being floated is a ministe-

rial reshuffle in the new year to reset rela-

tions with the back benches. Mark Spen-

cer, the chief whip, and Rees-Mogg are

thought to be vulnerable.

The prime minister is also understood

to be considering changes to his closest

advisers. Declan Lyons, his 27-year-old

political secretary, is considered out of

his depth and Rosenfield has been

accused of having “no political antenna”.

As ever, much of the ire is reserved for

Johnson’s wife Carrie, a former Tory

press officer who has been repeatedly

accused of using Machiavellian tactics to

assert control over No 10. One source

said: “The problem is, he can’t reshuffle

his partner out. She is Carrie Antoinette

and we all know what happened to her. It

all ended with the guillotine.”

Johnson is dogged by rebels without a

clue, Dominic Lawson, page 30

It’s hard to sink a prime minister,

Steve Richards, page 31

A thick skin and unashamed ambition put

my rottweiler ex-boss on the trail to No 10

Like most people in

Westminster I have laughed at

Liz Truss’s notorious “cheese

speech”. Unlike most people

in Westminster I have done so

to her face.

In her spoof-defying

address to the Conservative

Party conference as

environment secretary in

2014, Truss reached for her

inner Winston Churchill to

condemn the level of cheese

imports to Britain. “We

import two thirds of our

cheese,” she told bored

delegates. “That. Is. A.

Disgrace.”

Such toe-curling internet

fodder would crush a more

fragile political ego but the

foreign secretary is made of

sterner stuff. She is so thick-

skinned that, as her former

aide in our crisis-ridden days

at the Ministry of Justice, I

would delight in designating

whatever disaster had

befallen us that day as “A.

Disgrace.”

She would take this in her

stride but everyone has their

limits. Pushing it once too

often I was warned, with a

glacial smile, that if I

mentioned it again I would be

cleaning the grimy windows

at the top of the brutalist

Ministry of Justice tower from

the outside. I never did.

Over the years many have

written off Truss as a political

force but she may yet have

the last laugh. After being

demoted under Theresa May

she now holds one of the

great offices of state and is an

unashamed frontrunner to

succeed Boris Johnson.

Her bespoke brand of

“boosterism” and her

proudly free-market, small

state, libertarian post- Brexit

world view has wowed the

party grassroots. She has held

the top spot in Conservative

Home’s membership poll of

favourite cabinet ministers

for almost a year. “Make no

mistake about it,” one MP

said, “if she makes the final

two in a leadership ballot and

goes to the membership, she

will win.”

Intriguingly, allies insist,

she remains fiercely loyal to

the prime minister, to whom

she owes her political

renaissance. Truss was the

first cabinet minister to

declare for Johnson in the

2019 leadership contest and

he revived her political

career, which was still

suffering from a chastening

falling-out with the senior

judiciary in 2016 during her

time as lord chancellor.

Paradoxically, this spat was

caused by a rare attempt at

compromise. Three senior

judges who had ruled against

the government over the

article 50 process for leaving

the European Union had

been branded “enemies of

the people” in sections of the

media. Issuing a rapid and

robust defence of the judges

would have incurred the

wrath of Downing Street and

the popular press but failure

to defend their independence

at all would have been a

breach of her constitutional

duty as lord chancellor.

“You have two options and

they are both bad,” I bluntly

assessed as we crafted a

response that fairly reflected

her genuine belief in not only

an independent judiciary but

also a robust free press as the

twin pillars of our

democracy.

She got no thanks from the

media for fighting their

corner and was savaged by

the most senior judge in

England and Wales, Lord

Thomas of Cwmgiedd, for not

taking a tougher line.

It was one of the few times

that I saw her characteristic

optimism falter. Throughout

Kirsty Buchanan

Labour’s ability to form a

majority on its own will

continue to balk at an

alliance. Luke Akehurst, a

pro-Starmer member of

Labour’s national executive

committee, said its showing

in Shropshire betrayed a lack

of confidence and it “didn’t

make an effort” to show it

was a natural home for those

frustrated with Johnson.

Ultimately, a progressive

alliance is not enough on its

own. Starmer cannot rely on

merely consolidating existing

left or liberal-leaning voters:

he will have to persuade Tory

voters to switch to Labour.

That is especially the case

in the red wall. As Wager,

Cheung and Bale argue, in

many of these seats the

progressive vote is not big

enough to cause Tories

sleepless nights. Start peeling

off Conservative voters,

though, and Starmer will be

in business.

Rod Liddle, page 22

Liz Truss in a carefully

composed Christmas

picture. Below, reviving

memories of Margaret

Thatcher, and jogging

across Brooklyn Bridge,

New York

For now she

continues to

defy critics,

expand her

power base

and bide

her time

a seemingly endless litany of

disasters during our time at

the Ministry of Justice —

including a full-scale prison

riot and an illegal national

prison officer strike — I never

saw Truss panic.

A self-styled verbal

processor with the

methodical mindset of a

mathematician, she would

quiz officials and pore over

data sets to come up with

logical solutions to problems

rather than emotive

responses.

Fuelled by vast quantities

of espresso and carb-heavy

lunches that belied her slight

frame, she set aside the daily

dramas to map out the case

for prison reform against a

surge in drug-fuelled violence

and negotiate an impressive

£500 million to boost a

Cinderella service.

“The only difference

between Liz when she gets an

issue between her teeth and a

rottweiler is that the

rottweiler will eventually let

go,” a friend joked. “Apart

from Boris, I cannot think of a

single politician who has a

more visceral and raw

instinct for politics than Liz.

She is driven and passionate

but she can also be ruthlessly

pragmatic.”

Although Truss

campaigned for Remain in

the EU referendum in 2016,

the prime minister plucked

her from the relative cabinet

obscurity of chief secretary to

the Treasury to deliver his

vision of a buccaneering

post-Brexit free-trading

nation.

Critics say her record as

international trade secretary

is not quite as the spin would

suggest, that the 63 trade

deals she “secured” were

little more than rollover EU

deals and the Department for

International Trade (DIT) was

dubbed the “Department for

Cut and Paste”.

Last week, however, the

UK signed a £10 billion trade

deal with Australia for which

Truss is rightly credited with

having laid the groundwork.

The role also served to

keep Truss far away from the

toxic politics of the pandemic

and raised her profile with

the party membership and

media.

While other MPs dubbed

DIT the Department for

Instagramming Truss, her

social media account charts a

growing political confidence

from the youngest woman

ever to be appointed to

cabinet, to becoming the first

female lord chancellor and

justice secretary in history

and now Britain’s first female

Conservative foreign

secretary (although Labour’s

Margaret Beckett was the first

Labour didn’t

make an

effort to woo

those fed up

with Johnson

The Lib Dems “burst Boris’s bubble”

after the Tories lose North Shropshire

for the first time in nearly 200 years

Johnson and wife Carrie announce

that their new daughter is to be

named Romy Iris Charlotte

THURSDAY

DEC 16

FRIDAY

DEC 17

SATURDAY

DEC 18

Workers desert city centres — leaving

bar and restaurant owners furious amid

conflicting guidance on going out

KIRSTY O’CONNOR/PA; BEN CAWTHRA/LNP; JAMES MANNING/PA; JACOB KING/PA; LEON NEAL/GETTY IMAGES

eral Democrats as part of a successful
campaign to overturn the Tories’ 23,000
majority in Thursday’s North Shropshire
by-election in a 34 per cent swing. Com-
ing six months after the party’s by-elec-
tion defeat in the home counties strong-
hold of Chesham & Amersham, the result
proves Johnson’s vulnerability in the
shires. At 6.13am on Friday, the whips’
office emailed all Conservative MPs, ask-
ing them not to speak out against the
prime minister. According to one MP,
they promised Johnson would be making
a statement on Friday that would “make
us all much happier”.
In the event, Johnson ended up having
a testy conversation with Sky News over
the media’s reporting priorities. But for
many Tory MPs, there is nothing John-
son can say to arrest his startling
decline. “The only statement that
would make me happier is if he
came out of the blocks and
announced he was resigning,”
said one senior Conservative
MP. “People used to like him
because he sprinkled the
electoral stardust but he
appears to have run out
as first evidenced in
leafy Buckinghamshire
and now rural Shrop-
shire. He is the cap-
tain of bullshit.”
The Lib Dems
will now try to capi-
talise on their
gains by targeting
rural Tory seats.
Ed Davey, the
party leader, is
set to write to
one million dis-
affected Con-
servative voters
identified as
critical to win-
ning seats at the
next general
election. One
senior Tory MP
said: “Do I think I
can hold my seat
against the Lib
Dems? No, I do
not — unless some-
one does me a
favour and submits
the required num-
ber of letters to trig-
ger a vote of no confi-
dence in the PM.”
Brady must receive at
least 54 letters to trigger
a leadership vote. On Fri-
day Sir Roger Gale, a long-
term Johnson critic, became
the first MP to publicly con-
firm that he has submitted a let-
ter of no confidence — although it
is speculated that up to 16 may
already have gone in.
One senior party insider said: “The
PM’s power has gone. Now it will either
be a slow death or a quick one, but he has
already suffered the fatal wound.”
The crises facing Johnson have been
compounded by the emergence of Omi-
cron, which has heaped pressure on the
prime minister to introduce onerous
social restrictions — a policy deeply
unpopular with libertarian Tory MPs.
Professor Chris Whitty, England’s
chief medical officer, is understood to
have wanted further restrictions before
Christmas. “He is furious because the PM
hasn’t been serious enough about it,” said
a Cabinet Office source.
A Downing Street source said that
Whitty had never “opined” about cancel-
ling Christmas. “We have very little idea
about when the peak will come so it is

eral Democrats as part of a s
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