It is tempting to think that the modern Conservative Party in the UK has reached its apotheosis of crassness in the shape of Liz Truss. A party that has long seemed to have abandoned any form of even the most superficial attempt at actual ideology in favour of a win-at-all-costs/say-anything-to-please-the-frothing-tabloid-press has surely outdone even our worst expectations by allowing 81,000 (less than the capacity of Wembley Stadium) of its members, the lowest majority of any Tory leader ever, to elect as Prime Minister someone who has already promised a bonfire of workers’ rights.
There was much fun to be had at Truss’ expense during a drawn-out and frankly flabby Tory leadership contest that seemed to go on infinitely with more encores than Elvis in Vegas. An arrogant rather than confident performer, Truss’ wooden stridency was never more at its worst than in the live TV debate where she proudly announced that she had become a Tory after she looked around at other children at her school and felt they “weren’t getting a chance …”.
Candidates Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss take part in the BBC Conservative party leadership debate at Victoria Hall in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, on July 25. | Photo Credit: Jacob King/REUTERS
It did not take a Pythagoras to check the numbers against Truss’ birthday to ascertain that this sink socialist education system that was supposedly failing her classmates was doing so under a Margaret Thatcher era Tory government that is looked back on now as something of a golden era in the history of what Truss claims is “the greatest political party ever”. Twitter was also soon awash with Truss’ fellow Roundhay School alumni claiming that in actuality it was “the best school in Leeds” at the time and everyone wanted to send their children there.
It is also a matter of curiosity as to how this evidently long-lingering “Labour Party” failure of the children of Leeds prompted Truss’ Damascene conversion from being the child of committed left-wing activists to see the true blue light of Britain’s salvation via first joining the Liberal Democrats.
Lib Dem society president
And let us just be clear about this: Truss was not just a Lib Dem voter or even just a member. She was the Lib Dem society president at Oxford University. She even marched against Thatcher, although seeing as she apparently had difficulty deciding who was actually responsible for the parlous state of the school she attended, perhaps this last point is not that surprising. Truss now of course appears to revere Thatcher, which is very much in keeping with the spirit of revisionism and tired tribute act that appears to be another feature of supposedly modern conservatism: whereas Boris Johnson wanted to re-enact himself as an Internet age Winston Churchill, his successor now actively cosplays as The Iron Lady.
“In fact, there is a whole list of Truss about-turns: chiefly her sudden switch from campaigning to remain in the EU to the status of born-again Brexiter.”
Ironically, one of Thatcher’s defining speeches was her classic “you turn if you want to, the lady’s not for turning” in a riff on the title of the 1948 Christopher Fry play, The Lady’s Not For Burning, written for her by another playwright, Sir Ronald Millar, though Thatcher herself was apparently unaware of the dramatic reference. The Truss version might well be The Lady’s Very Much For Turning. In fact, there is a whole list of Truss about-turns: chiefly her sudden switch from campaigning to remain in the EU to the status of born-again Brexiter. But then this is probably in keeping with her predecessor Boris Johnson (who retains her loyalty), who seemed to wait for the most contentious referendum in UK history to get under way before picking a side he believed would serve his political aspirations best.
It bears repeating: this is a Conservative Party that seems to place winning above all other political concerns. What do the Tories actually believe in?
Priti Patel, when she was Home Secretary. She was the previous BAME Tory trailblazer and architect of the seismically cruel and actually impossible ‘Rwanda Solution’. | Photo Credit: Jon Super/AP
Beyond a basic aspiration narrative, their entire strategy over the last 12 years they have been in power is to keep their seemingly unbudgeable 40 per cent vote share intact by manufacturing chaos, which they can then create hate figures to blame for: work-shy shirkers; benefit-scroungers and cheats; “illegal” immigrants that have to be callously and expensively off-shored to Rwanda via a process that arguably is not even “legal” (oh the irony!); do-gooder “lefty” lawyers who argue about the callousness and legality of said off-shoring of migrants to Rwanda; snowflake cancel culture; comedians who make fun of them that need to be cancelled; trade union leaders described luridly as “barons” for having the temerity to try and defend their members against the ravages of the greatest cost-of-living crisis in living memory; and, last but most definitely not least, the endless battle to subjugate the dreaded “woke brigade”, the catch-all descriptor of anyone or anything that even sniffs of progressive societal concern.
“Woke” is an African-American social justice expression (being woke to discrimination and oppression) that right-wing politicians everywhere in the English-speaking world have co-opted to dismiss, deprecate, and demonise troublesome entities that question their prevailing world view of flags, tub-thumping nationalism, and the denial of racism. The denial of history in fact.
Tory BAME Game
International Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch arriving at Downing Street on September 9 for a Cabinet meeting. | Photo Credit: ISABEL INFANTES/AFP
In that last note, one striking factor of the successful Truss leadership campaign was that she saw off some fairly desperate participants of what can only be described as the Race To The Bottom Tory BAME Game (BAME stands for Black, Asian, and minority ethnic), which featured the unedifying spectacle of Asian Tory leadership candidates (Rishi Sunak, Suella Braverman, and Nadhim Zahawi) and one black Tory MP (self-styled culture warrior Kemi Badenoch) literally falling over themselves to outdo each other in the peak integration performativity of wanting to outlaw critical race theory, do away with postcolonial historical analysis, defend statues of dead murdering racists, deport migrants, and remove Britain from the European Conventions of Human Rights (an absolute Far Right wet dream). All the while of course citing the personal florid migrant narrative that they would aggressively deny people fleeing war and deprivation now.
Aspirational career goal
As the previous BAME Tory trailblazer and architect of the seismically cruel and actually impossible Rwanda Solution, Priti Patel, departs stage left, it is surely sobering for the Labour opposition to ponder that young black and Asian people are eyeing a choice between a Conservative Party where their personal ambitions appear far more likely to be fulfilled (the Tory establishment can always find a use for reactionary people of ethnic minority heritage who are prepared to be tough with their fellow migrant heritage folk) and a Labour Party that, of course, would serve the greater society much better in terms of equality but where no such niche opening appears to exist.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman arriving at Downing Street on September 7 for the first Cabinet meeting since Liz Truss was installed as Prime Minister. | Photo Credit: Frank Augstein/AP
With the equally hardened but more insouciant Braverman — who actively encourages teachers to deadname and misgender trans pupils — set to succeed Patel as Home Secretary, it is striking that this particular Cabinet post is fast becoming a genuine aspirational model career goal for Asian women prepared to talk tough on immigration and crime.
But back to Truss. The woman who is scandalised that the UK imports two-thirds of its cheese and who wants to tackle the soaring energy bills that will actually kill vulnerable people this winter with tax cuts that will only benefit the rich. She of the most eccentric photo shoots in British political history but who still somehow manages to be not even remotely entertaining. It is fair to say that she faces an absolutely impossible job. Faced by an in tray that one political commentator described as “Armageddon”, a crumbling National Health Service, striking workers, and with a divided party of backbiters behind her who do not appear even remotely enthused by her presence at the summit of UK politics.
I give Liz Truss six months at the very most.
Daniel York Loh, London-based writer, actor, and film-maker, is one of 21 “writers of colour” featured in the best-selling essay collection The Good Immigrant. He is associate artistic director of Chinese Arts Now and the current chair of trade union Equity’s Race Equality Committee.
The Crux
- Liz Truss beats Rishi Sunak to win the Conservative Party leadership contest by the lowest majority of any Tory leader ever.
- When she was at Oxford University, she was president of the Lib Dem Society but now declares that the Conservative Party is “the greatest political party ever”.
- She made a sudden switch from campaigning to remain in the EU to becoming a staunch supporter of Brexit.
- The Conservative Party over the last 12 years it has been in power appears not to have a clear ideology beyond striving to keep its seemingly unbudgeable 40 per cent vote share intact by manufacturing chaos and division in the country.
- As Prime Minister, Truss has to deal with an impossible intray of issues, including the fact that some members of her own party are not enthused by her presence in the country’s top job.
