Despite being the UKâs shortest-serving prime minister, Liz Truss nonetheless feels like she has a lot to say about her 49-day premiership, the left, the establishment and plenty of other topics in her new book Ten Years to Save the West â reportedly clocking in with a word count of around 100,000 words.
We first got an idea of what to expect all the way back in September, when Truss said in a statement: âI want to share the lessons from my experience in government and those international meetings where I was often the only conservative in the room and demonstrate that we have stark choices to make if we wish to avoid a managed decline of the Western architecture that has presided over generations of relative peace and prosperity.â
She also wrote on Twitter/X that it would address âdisastrous ideasâ from the left, in news which suggests sheâs failed to read the room and acknowledge her own disastrous idea â the mini-Budget â which tanked the economy and brought an end to her time in No 10.
Now, after the book was finally published on Tuesday, weâve rounded up all the key points contained in the 300-odd pages, so you donât have to fork out 15 or 20 quid to buy a copy (although, why would you?)
âWhy me? Why now?â
This was apparently what Truss thought to herself when she was told the late Queen had died just two days into her job as prime minister. She also concedes that âmaybe I should have listenedâ to the royalâs advice for her to âpace yourselfâ.
We wonder what makes her think thatâ¦
Truss also writes that the Queenâs last words to her, two days before her passing, were that she would âsee you again next weekâ.
Even her husband knew Trussâs time as PM âwould all end in tearsâ
Explaining that she was working in Bali as foreign secretary at the time of her predecessor, Boris Johnson, announcing his resignation, Truss writes that as she âwalked along the beach in Indonesia I started cryingâ.
âEven Hugh, who predicted it would all end in tears, accepted that this was the moment I was expected to run and that if I didnât, people would say I had bottled it,â she says.
Trying to scrap the Cop26 climate conference (and wanting other institutions and laws to be abolished)
Truss thought the environmental summit, held in Glasgow back in 2021, was âenvironmental virtue signallingâ and âstrongly questionedâ whether the âjamboreeâ should be a government priority given the price tag for the event coming in at around £200 million.
Chris Mason, the BBCâs political editor, reports the ex-PM writes about wanting to get rid of Andrew Bailey as the governor of the Bank of England; scrap the independent Office for Budget Responsibility; and pull out of the European Convention on Human Rights.
He also notes Trussâ frustration with not overturning the Human Rights Act.
Meanwhile, in an interview with LBCâs Iain Dale prior to the bookâs publication, Truss said she discussed âabolishing the Equality Actâ with No 10 while serving as the Minister for Women and Equalities, because it is a âterrible piece of legislation that embeds identity politicsâ.
She also claimed it âsays whether youâre a woman or whether youâre Black or whether youâre gay, is more important than what your talents are, what your capabilities areâ, which isnât true â it actually prohibits discrimination based on a number of protected characteristics.
âWatermelonâ Tories
Like some weird parody of the hit Harry Styles song, Truss writes the debate around environmental policy is âthe single greatest example of Conservatives over the last few decades losing arguments to the Leftâ as a result of environmentalists who are actually just âwatermelonsâ â basically, green on the outside and red (that is, socialist or left) on the inside.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, she fumes that some Conservatives are accepting extremist environmentalist dogma and wokeismâ.
She also takes a leaf out of the book of American politics by branding some of her colleagues âConservatives In Name Onlyâ or CINOs â similar to politicians across the pond who say there are RINOs or âRepublicans In Name Onlyâ.
Fleas in No 10
âThe place was infested with fleas. Some claimed that it was down to Boris and Carrieâs dog Dilyn, but there was no conclusive evidence. In any case, the entire place had to be sprayed with flea killer. I spent several weeks itching,â she writes.
Truss also complains about being âeffectively a prisonerâ during her time in No 10, writing about the place being âinfested with fleasâ, the difficulty of getting Ocado deliveries sent to Downing Street, and having to âorganise my own hair and makeup appointmentsâ.
âOn one occasion when I had a cough, my diary secretary had to go out in the middle of the night to buy me some medicine. This clearly wasnât her job, but there was no one else to ask,â she bemoans.
Itâs a hard life being the most powerful person in the country, it seemsâ¦
Taking aim at Biden, âactivistâ civil servants and the âsnobberyâ of the judiciary
Truss accuses the US president of âutter hypocrisy and ignoranceâ over his criticism of her chaotic mini-Budget and for joining the âpile-onâ of scepticism of her economic policies.
âThe top rate of income tax in the U.S. was 37 per cent and only charged to people earning the equivalent of £483,094 and above. By contrast, the top rate in the UK was 45 per cent and paid by those on more than £150,000,â she vents.
On civil servants, she writes: âIf you're an environmentalist, you go and work at the Environment Department and if you're an equality campaigner, you go and work at the Government Equalities Office," she said.
"Thus, we end up with activists as civil servants, which I don't think happened in the past and which can present real problems."
Truss also says she was shocked by the âsheer level of snobberyâ in the judiciary, which she describes as a âself-perpetuating oligarchyâ.
Almost puking on Sue Gray
In addition to former senior civil servant Sue Gray making headlines for her damning report on the Partygate scandal, the official â now working for Keir Starmer and the Labour Party â could possibly have made the news as well for being puked on by Liz Truss.
Truss writes that she had just thrown up when Gray tried to offer âa hug of commiserationâ (as POLITICO puts it) back in 2017 when she had been hit with a ministerial demotion.
Awkward.
Being âtoo busyâ to back Brexit
While Boris Johnson had to confirm the embarrassing fact that he had penned Telegraph columns for both leave and remain during the 2016 EU referendum campaign, Truss writes she was âtoo busyâ to support leaving the trade bloc at the time and may have switched to supporting Vote Leave if she had the time âfor more existential thinkingâ.
âHad I spent more of my time thinking about it during those years, I might have come to share that view⦠but I had been busy as a minister, knee-deep in floods and other distractions,â she writes.
Why she resigned
The South West Norfolk MP says her resignation as PM came about following Suella Bravermanâs breach of the Ministerial Code (over which she left her role as home secretary) and a Labour vote on fracking which ended up being framed as a âconfidence motionâ.
She writes: âIt soon emerged thereâd been angry scenes during the vote, with our whips openly arguing with MPs and tempers running high.
âI then heard that the Chief Whip Wendy Morton and her deputy had both resigned, saying they were unable to put up with the abuse they were getting. This wasnât a huge surprise. Right from the outset, theyâd faced quite appalling behaviour from some of our own MPs, who made their life hell.â
While she managed to persuade them to stay in their posts, she later found the Whipsâ office âin utter chaosâ.
âAll around the Commons, I also saw looks of despair on the faces of colleagues. Thatâs when I thought: this is done. This is terminal,â admits Truss.
An actual concession
Readers will also spot a concession from the Tory politician â about handling her brief as justice secretary âin a clumsy fashionâ due to being âfull frontalâ.
âI am gregarious and I like people, but even my best friends wouldn't describe me as a great people manager,â she concedes.
We invested in collating this nonsense so you donât have to. Youâre welcome.
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