It's Truss for me - but there's still a long way to go ...

 

Regular readers of this column will not be surprised that I have pretty strong views about the current Conservative Party leadership contest.  

 

Before tackling this topic, I’d like to put on record my overall admiration for Boris Johnson’s tenure as Prime Minister. During the most turbulent times imaginable, he made the right Conservative calls on most of the key issues: getting Brexit done, the Covid vaccines and early and practical support for Ukraine in the face of Putin’s killing machine.  

 

He was at his best when he was led by his libertarian instincts and at his worst when browbeaten by the bullying, restrictive and anti-democratic establishment, both in Whitehall and within his own cabinet, resulting in largely unnecessary lockdowns, excessive enforcement and many unintended consequences. 

 

Let me state the obvious: any one of the initial Conservative leadership contenders would make a better Prime Minister than those lefty knights – Keir Starmer and Ed Davey – or any of their less-than-stellar frontbenchers.   

 

For all its faults and occasional wobbles (think David Cameron’s ‘hug a hoodie’ nonsense), it is the Conservative Party that stands for real economic, personal and social freedoms. It understands that a good and prosperous society is most securely built on individuals, families and businesses taking responsibility for their own actions and retaining as much financial autonomy as possible to do so successfully.  

 

The role of the state needs to be kept to basics: helping those genuinely unable to help themselves, investing in the infrastructure needed for continued growth, and a strong protective presence at home and abroad.  

 

At its best, as under Margaret Thatcher’s administrations, the Conservative Party in power seeks to trust people with their own money, actively reduces the size and reach of the state, protects its citizens properly and promotes free markets around the world.   

 

So, I’ve been judging the various candidates against these self-same criteria: low taxes, rolling back the public sector, and protecting British citizens and interests, in the UK and abroad.  

 

Of the initial expanded field, I was most impressed by Kemi Badenoch. Coming from a modest background – and with an engineering degree to boot -  she was the most persuasive in terms of advocating for both individual liberty and freedom of expression from hard left wokery and state bullying.   

 

As a black woman, she has risen through the political ranks due to her own efforts and skills and not because of any quota system. For that reason alone, she’d have had the Labour Party on the ropes.  

 

I met her at a private dinner some four years ago and was mightily impressed by her libertarian credentials then and have appreciated how she has refused to dilute her beliefs once in Government. Definitely one to watch.   

 

But with Ms Badenoch out and the field reduced to Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, I think we now have a pretty clear choice – although neither candidate is yet the real deal libertarian.  

 

In fact, my initial reaction was to hope that there might be a third option on the final ballot paper: none of the above.  

 

That said, it’s clear that one candidate is offering an increasingly coherent programme for government, whilst the other has made no advances whatsoever in this regard.  

 

Whoever is running Sunak’s campaign need to reflect as to whether politics is really the right career for them. It’s been riddled with basic errors and mistakes, not least their candidate’s failure to grasp the seriousness of the economic situation and look at unorthodox approaches to boosting growth and productivity.  

 

Sunak, the biggest-spending Chancellor of the Exchequer in recent times, seems to have run out of ideas, and money, on to what to do next – his U-turn on VAT reductions on energy bills notwithstanding. 

  

His cocky and condescending approach has been a real turn-off – coming across as a typical public-school boy. Worse, he has been captured by the Treasury machine and thinking, and has been unable to place his own ‘Conservative’ stamp on policies.  

  

In his desperation, he’s started advocating the most awful authoritarian drivel, such as widening the scope of the Prevent programme to target those who ‘vilify’ Britain.   

By this weekend, I began to think that in all but name he'd rather thrown in the towel. Perhaps, after appropriate reflection, that is just what his team might advise him? The needs of the hour are so extreme that unity in Government is more needed than ever before.

  

Liz Truss, by contrast, has grown in maturity, even during the weeks of the leadership campaign. I like her straight talking. I appreciate her personal political journey from being a Liberal Democrat and a Remainer. We all make mistakes: what matters is that we are honest about them and learn from them.  

 

After a hesitant and rather wooden start, she has gradually articulated a clear low taxation vision for households and businesses to encourage growth and risk-taking.  

 

She knows cutting back on public sector waste will enliven our nation’s productive capacity. And she’s keen to use the freedoms accorded to us by leaving the European Union to make it easier for overseas workers to work in specific sectors experiencing labour shortages, including agriculture and horticulture, without swamping communities with uncontrolled immigration.  

 

But I still have my concerns. In 2019 she stated that she became a Conservative because “I hate being told what to do.” Yet in the face of howls from the usual vested interests, her campaign soft-peddled quickly on proposals to reduce the public sector pay bill. She’ll have to be much stronger than that to reform this country’s inefficient and bloated archipelago of local councils, health bodies and quangos.    

 

And I worry how effectively radical a Truss administration would be, given that the vast majority of Tory MPs backed Sunak and, therefore, are likely to be resentful and disloyal from the off.  

 

So, it is Liz Truss for me – but she’s going to need a massive majority from the Conservative membership to stiffen her resolve and face down the establishment within and outside the party. 

 

Mind you, there’s still a little over three weeks to go until the poll closes – a VERY long time in politics! 

First published www.suffolkfreepress.co.uk & www.dissexpress.co.uk on Thursday, August 11, 2022