Public Spending Cuts: Truss ‘U-Turn’ reflects her Oxford University DNA. No Direction Home?
Whether Liz Truss remains PM long enough for her statement at Prime Ministers Questions today that there would be no public spending cuts we shall see. However while it was labelled a U-Turn in reality Truss flip-flopping from one position to another refers back to her days at Oxford University (when she was a LibDem)
Marc Stears(now at UCL) wrote about the time he was Liz Truss’s tutor during her period as an undergraduate at Oxford in the Murdoch Sunday Times (31st July 2022)
According to Stears Truss’s time at Oxford was marked by an ability to come up with unusual angles on issues and stick to them even when informed that facts showed she was wrong. Secondly an ability to fiercely argue a position only to drop it and equally fiercely promote something different
Truss may be styled as and style herself as Thatcher Mk 11 and she is clearly informed by the hard right dogmas of the Institute of Economic Affairs. However her ideological commitment or otherwise to specific measures may be a distinct break from Thatcherism.
No Direction Home as Dylan sang
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