Liz Truss has flashback of left-wing past
In her speech on 18th September Truss had a brief flashback to her left wing past.
There are some who claim that this is a crisis of capitalism, that we’ve had too much of free markets…’ Liz Truss (18th Sept) recalling the politics of her youth
She is sometimes described as eccentric, which may be sexism, but may also be a recognition that those who are competent in one area- Truss is an accountant- may not be in other areas.
I prefer a Sunday Times view that Truss is a pragmatic chameleon, rather like in that sense Johnson who backed both sides on Brexit before deciding Leave was the best career opportunity.
As a youth in Leeds in the 1980s Truss was involved with CND, going on demos and so on. Partly this was family influenced but no amount of cajoling can get someone on a demo they are not interested on being on.
At Oxford the historian and barrister David Renton reports (see @livesrunning) that she was recruited to the Socialist Worker Student Society after a long chat with himself. However she stayed only a couple of weeks before de-camping and becoming a leading LibDem, campaigning for the legalisation of cannabis (it must be presumed that she did inhale), but also a way of standing out from Tory ex-public schoolboys. Johnson did something similar although more with the SDP.
Renton notes that like himself Truss was elected to the student council but over two years did not distinguish herself in debate. Given that she is a lacklustre public speaker this seems like a missed opportunity to learn the skill of oratory (I did the same myself- I only mumble in private- though obviously not at Oxford)
Truss entered the world of work at the moment New Labour won a landslide in 1997. At that point she joined the Tories. Why? The pragmatic chameleon had worked out that the time had passed for her to make her way in Labour or the LibDems(whose MP numbers only went one way after 1997/2001) but the Tories at a low ebb presented the ideal opportunity for someone to make their way when few others were keen.
The fact however that she remembers left views from her student days perhaps suggests that self-doubt is creeping and the chameleon may appear in another guise
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