Harry Cole - Out of the Blue: The inside story of the unexpected rise and rapid fall of Liz Truss

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First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2022

FIRST EDITION

Harry Cole and James Heale 2022

Cover design by Clare Ward HarperCollinsPublishers 2022

Cover photograph Rob Welham/Camera Press, London

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Source ISBN: 9780008605780

Ebook Edition November 2022 ISBN: 9780008605797

Version: 2022-10-27

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For our mums and dads thank you!

It was always hard to see the aim of it all, or where it might lead, except that she would be at the centre of it.

Julian Glover on his fellow student Liz Truss

Politics is just like show business. You have a hell of an opening, coast for a while, and then have a hell of a close.

Ronald Reagan

Im someone who has always acted with integrity, I have always been clear about what I will do and followed through on my promises and been honest about the situation, and that is what I would do as PM.

Liz Truss, 24 August 2022

1. 
   Authors Notes
2. 
   INTRODUCTION: The Geeks Will Inherit the Earth
3. 
   1975: Smart Alec
4. 
   EPILOGUE: The Party Wasnt Ready for This
5. 
   Endnotes
6. 
   About the Publisher

This is not an authorised biography. While we were pleased that Liz Truss agreed to be interviewed by us, we had no access to her papers, letters or any other communications beyond those acquired through journalistic endeavour. Conversations or communications reported were told to us first hand, by witnesses, or in some cases by somebody with direct knowledge of discussions. Some of Liz Trusss family, colleagues and friends declined to talk to us, but many of them agreed and for that we are extremely grateful.

Plenty of those we spoke to are named in these pages, but many more insisted on anonymity. It was a delicate time for any upwardly mobile MP, adviser, official or friend to be speaking candidly about the Prime Minister. We are particularly indebted to those civil servants who have risked their jobs to do just that. Some sources have been known to the authors for years, others literally came out of the blue. As ever in politics, there are bad-faith actors whose attempts to rewrite history make them unreliable witnesses. In those cases their public utterances may have been included, but private comments were either not sought or were disregarded.

We decided to write this book quickly, so those of you expecting Robert Caro will be disappointed. Politics is as much about personality and plotting as it is about policy. We hope to provide the reader, and voter, with some clarity on the least-known incumbent of the highest office in recent times. It was written during the turbulent tenure of Trusss premiership, when the judgement of history was yet to be passed. But the clues were always there, as this book will make clear.

We could not have even attempted this without the brilliant team at HarperCollins with particular thanks to Imogen Gordon Clark, Oliver Malcolm and Simon Gerratt. And thank you to our day-job editors Victoria Newton and Fraser Nelson for being so understanding during a rather brutal writing schedule. A massive thanks also to our Sun and Spectator colleagues who picked up the slack.

Harry would like to thank Ian McEwan who even in retirement from a brilliant teaching career will not let slip how he votes; Paul Staines, Tom Newton Dunn, Glen Owen, James Slack, Christian May, Kate McCann, and his sisters Olivia and Georgina for their wise counsel over many years. And thank you to beautiful Margaux, who, despite a front-row seat, will never tell him what actually went on in the room where it happened.

James thanks David Sorley for inspiring a love of politics; Robert Vilain, Ben Lazarus, Katy Balls and James Forsyth for their mentorship. Thank you too to Brittany Davis for her endless patience. Shahryar Iravani, Helena Kelly, Hannah Dawson, Emily Webber and Hannah Tomes for their support. And Clare, Martin, Ellie and Georgie: I owe it all to you.

Harry Cole and James Heale

Blackheath and Richmond

October 2022

The Geeks Will Inherit the Earth

Not many politicians get to play Wembley, but Liz Truss was standing in the wings of the vast concert venue in West London on 31 August 2022. After a brutal seven weeks of Conservative Party civil war she would take to the stage resoundingly the bookies and pollsters favourite to be Britains next Prime Minister. While the crowd was not exactly roaring, over the noise of 5,000 London Tories and some cheesy dance music, an aide said: How surreal is this? Youre about to be PM. My whole life has felt surreal, she replied.

While a relentless focus lasting over 20 years got Truss to the cusp of power, even that day her rise was still baffling to many. A gawky Liberal Democrat, who joined the Conservatives. A nerdy policy wonk, who plunged the Tory Party into a sex scandal. A passionate Remainer, who was put in the highest office of the land by the most devout Brexiteers in Parliament. The party loyalist who became the disruptor in chief. A free marketeer, overlooked and dismissed for decades, while openly flouting a radical alternative. A one-woman think tank so sure of her views that she did not hesitate before pulling the levers of power. Dismissive of emotion, and possibly too logical for the delicate art of politics, she told a Cabinet rival: The geeks will inherit the earth.

Within a week of the last leadership hustings at Wembley, the one-time teenage republican was kissing the hand of Queen Elizabeth II. Two days later, the beloved Monarch was dead; Britain had a new Prime Minister and a new King. Nothing could have prepared the 47-year-old career politician for her first few weeks in office. Part fate, part self-inflicted, not since Winston Churchill and the fall of France in 1940 had a new leader experienced such a baptism of fire. A different war on the European continent left Britain teetering on the brink of recession, with families facing a winter of misery as the soaring price of energy left millions risking destitution. The champion of the small state would oversee the largest peacetime market invention on record. But it was Trusss own tax cutting that sparked a run on the pound and the biggest self-enforced City meltdown in British political history.