liz truss biography harry cole

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Out of the Blue: The inside story of the unexpected rise and rapid fall of Liz Truss Kindle Edition

Liz Truss’s journey from schoolgirl revolutionary to Britain’s shortest-serving Prime Minister

The Sunday Times Politics Book of the Year

A guardian politics book of the year 2023.

‘An insightful and at times riotously entertaining account of the lengthy rise and abrupt fall of Britain’s 56th Prime Minister. What was intended as a prologue to her premiership is now a riveting political obituary in which every page drips with the seeds of both triumph and disaster. Cole and Heale have produced a meticulously reported account of Truss’s drive, impulsiveness, eccentricity and ideological certainty which reads like a warning from history. It has elements of tragedy but is frequently very, very funny.’ Tim Shipman

'Make sure you put your seat belt on. Heale and Cole put you in the passenger seat of the fastest car crash in recent political history. It's an unmissable romp through Liz Truss's long journey to the top, fuelled by ambition and espresso. The clues that foretold the extraordinary catastrophe are all there, as the authors reveal in gory detail how Liz Truss nearly had the last laugh, before finally, as her government imploded, the joke was on her.' Laura Kuenssberg

Despite being written off and mocked by even her closest colleagues, Liz Truss slowly but determinedly achieved her goal of taking over 10 Downing Street – only to instantly plunge her administration into chaos and announce her resignation after a record-breaking 44 days. How did she do it? And what exactly went so wrong?

With unrivalled access and insight, award-winning political journalists Harry Cole and James Heale provide the answers, drawing on interviews with Truss’s friends and supporters, as well as her worst critics and rivals, from Kwasi Kwarteng to Michael Gove.

Tracking Truss’s transformation from geeky teenage Lib Dem to Tory PM, with the inside scoop on her first – and only – month in office, Out of the Blue is the unmissable behind-the-scenes account of Britain’s shortest-serving Prime Minister.

• Print length 327 pages
• Language English
• Sticky notes On Kindle Scribe
• Publisher HarperCollins
• Publication date November 1, 2022
• File size 1805 KB
• Page Flip Enabled
• Word Wise Enabled
• Enhanced typesetting Enabled
• See all details

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Product details

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0BDCSP4FG
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ HarperCollins (November 1, 2022)
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 1, 2022
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• File size ‏ : ‎ 1805 KB
• Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
• Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 327 pages
• #67 in Biographies of British Prime Ministers
• #753 in Women in Politics (Books)
• #3,313 in Biographies of Political Leaders

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Upcoming Liz Truss biography gets a name change to reflect her woes

The title of a new biography on Prime Minister Liz Truss referred to by Keir Starmer in the House of Commons today has been changed to refer to her difficult first few weeks in office, we can reveal.

‘Out of the Blue: The inside story of Liz Truss and her astonishing rise to power’ by journalists Harry Cole and James Heale has now changed its subtitle, replacing the word ‘astonishing’ with the word ‘explosive’. The Amazon page has been changed, but not the preview front cover. A final chapter heading called ‘Into the Red’ has also been added.

The PM has had a turbulent first few weeks in office, when the book was announced, with a series of U-turns on economic policy following a disastrous mini-budget, and the sacking of her Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng . Many are predicting she may have to resign in the coming weeks.

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HarperCollins has brought forward the publication of a Liz Truss biography by Harry Cole and James Heale to include the dramatic events that led to her downfall last week.  

The book by the Sun ’s political editor Cole and Spectator writer Heale, originally called Out of the Blue: The Inside Story of Liz Truss and Her Astonishing Rise to Power , had been scheduled for December.  

Retitled Out of the Blue: The Inside Story of the Unexpected Rise and Rapid Fall of Liz Truss, it will now be available as an e-book on 1st November, with a hardback and audio release following on 24th November.  

The publisher said: “Despite being the longest serving member of the then current cabinet and now the shortest-serving prime minster in the history of British politics, the origins, interior life and inner workings of Truss remain virtually unknown to millions of voters, even as her combustible policy decisions threaten to reverberate for generations. 

“With unrivalled access and insight from Truss’ closest friends and supporters, as well as her worst critics and rivals from Kwasi Kwarteng to Michael Gove, Cole and Heale chart the rise of the studious teenage Lib Dem who transformed into the queen of the Brexiteers. They track her journey through some of the most powerful jobs in cabinet and an unexpected rebranding from stiff Tory loyalist to free-wheeling social media star before chronicling from the inside of the most earthshattering implosion of a party, a government and a leader in modern political history.” 

Cole and Heale said: “The irony is not lost on us that our biography of a politician whose rise and fall was built on her ability to shapeshift with startling speed, has itself now needed a lightning retool to keep up with her. 

“When we begun writing Out of the Blue , our aim was to demystify at that time one of the most unknown prime ministers in UK history. It was intended to offer an honest and nuanced portrait of Truss’ life and character as a lens to which the rest of her premiership could be viewed through. 

“However, events have now conspired to make Out of the Blue something we could never have envisioned at the start of writing; a complete chronicle and now post-mortem of Truss’ rise and fall from power. 

“During our writing of the new epilogue, what became clear to us was that throughout the book as it was originally written – there were many captured moments and insider observations throughout Truss’ life and career that foreshadowed with sometimes alarming transparency exactly how this was always going to end. 

“Therefore, we’re excited to get Out of the Blue out to readers as soon as possible as a now complete and historic account of one of the most mystifying and explosive prime ministers of all time, whose decisions and mistakes will shape British politics hereafter.” 

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Upcoming Liz Truss biography has already had its title changed

An upcoming biography about Liz Truss is already undergoing some changes as the UK continues to face political chaos.

The biography, written by journalists Harry Cole and James Heale was initially slated to be called Out of the Blue: The Inside Story of Liz Truss and Her Astonishing Rise to Power.

However, following a turbulent few weeks in Truss' government, it seems Cole and Heale have decided to change the name of the book ahead of its December release.

During PMQs this week, Labour Party leader Keir Starmer joked that "a book is being written about the Prime Minister’s time in office. Apparently, it’s going to be out by Christmas"

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“Is that the release date or the title?” He added.

On US Amazon , Cole and Heale's book was "no longer available", indicating the biography was undergoing some review. Meanwhile, on UK Amazon the title had changed the word "astonishing" to "explosive."

According to the Evening Standard , the authors changed the subtitle to reflect Truss' political reputation since becoming Prime Minister back in September.

\u201cYour copy is in the post, thanks @Keir_Starmer\u201d — James Heale (@James Heale) 1666177947

The title Out of the Blue references Truss' switch from the Liberal Democrats to the Conservatives in 1996. Per the Evening Standard , the book also will contain a final chapter called "Into the Red".

Truss' political chaos has been nothing short of "explosive" as she's faced criticisms for the mini-budget , firing Kwasi Kwarteng as Chancellor of the Exchequer , and showing up late for PMQs earlier this week.

Things continued to spiral on Wednesday after Home Secretary Suella Braverman resigned.

The biography will be released on 8 December.

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

It is a simple and fundamental principle that the government derives its democratic legitimacy from the people. The future of the country must not be decided by plotting and U-turns at Westminster; it must be decided by the people in a general election. And for this reason The Independent is calling for an election to be held. Have your say and sign our election petition by clicking here .

Trump was forced to look at memes of himself in court and hated them

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10 Minutes To Save Liz Truss Politics Without The Boring Bits

Liz Truss is back with her new book '10 Years To Save The West', where she recounts her brief time in Number 10. Matt brings you the best bits courtesy of impressionist Nerine Skinner and discusses the Truss legacy with former adviser Kirsty Buchanan, biographers Harry Cole and James Heale, and Truss backer Mark Littlewood. Plus: What risk does the CRINK alliance - that's China, Russia, Iran and North Korea - pose to the world order? How To Win An Election (03:44) 10 Minutes To Save Liz Truss (20:22) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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'I've read enough Liz Truss books': Minister snubs ex-PM's new memoir

Laura Trott told Sky News she will not be reading Liz Truss's new book, having read one book already about the former prime minister.

Political reporter @fayebrownSky

Wednesday 17 April 2024 10:29, UK

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A government minister has said she won't be reading Liz Truss's memoir of her brief time in Downing Street as "that's a period I'm not interested in re-visiting".

Laura Trott also said she'd "read enough" books about the UK's shortest serving prime minister, having read an inside account by journalists Harry Cole and James Heale of her chaotic time in office.

Politics Live: Rwanda plan back in Commons

Ms Truss has been speaking to the media ahead of the publication of her book: Ten Years to Save the West.

Some Tory voices are concerned she is becoming electorally toxic and a "gift" to Labour.

Asked by Sky News if she was going to read the new book, Ms Trott said: "I'm not. I've read a very good book about Liz Truss, which Harry Cole and James did, but I think that's probably enough Liz Truss books for me.

"I think that that is a period that I'm not really that interested in revisiting."

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Asked if Ms Truss is becoming a "thorn in the government's side", Ms Trott said she always supported Rishi Sunak's leadership bid over Ms Truss and her views on the ex-PM were "aired at the time".

But asked if she should "shut up", Ms Trott said: "No, I wouldn't say that to anyone."

Ms Trott is the latest minister to snub Ms Truss's book.

On Tuesday, Laura Farris told Sky News that she "wasn't planning to" read it, adding: "I know that she wants to vindicate her time in office, and I'm not disrespecting that. But I perhaps don't agree with everything that she has to say."

Ms Truss's tenure in Downing Street lasted just 49 days after her £45bn package of unfunded tax cuts triggered mass market turmoil, sending mortgage rates soaring and the value of the pound plummeting, while the Bank of England had to intervene to stop pension funds collapsing.

Read more: PM told to remove whip from Liz Truss Liz Truss was 'ecstatic' with mini-budget plan

The former prime minister has since doubled down on what she was trying to achieve , saying her attempts to rule the UK were foiled by "the left", backed by Iran, Russia and China.

Opposition parties have seized on her recent media appearances, in which she has refused to rule out running to be Tory leader again, called for the Bank of England governor to resign and said she was "sabotaged" by the "administrative state and the deep state" .

The Lib Dems have called her a "national embarrassment" and said she should have the whip removed for "propagating conspiracy theories" while Labour has sought to paint her and Mr Sunak as one of the same, accusing him of being "too weak" to stand up to her.

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Liz Truss is getting what she wants

For the former prime minister, being laughed at is better than being ignored.

By Rachel Cunliffe

Here’s a thought experiment: if you really believed the world as you knew it was in peril, and that it was your purpose in life to avert catastrophe before it was too late, what would you do? How would you go about convincing everyone else – normal, sensible people who aren’t too worried about the end of the world, thank you very much – to listen to you? How would you grab their attention?

If you are Liz Truss, the answer is to write a book. Not just any book: a memoir-cum-manifesto, published a mere 18 months after she was forced from office in disgrace, with the grandiose title Ten Years to Save the West .

Much-hyped despite the embarrassingly low advance fee (Truss is reported to have received just £1,512.88, compared with the £510,000 Boris Johnson has received for his own personal reflections), the Truss guide to being prime minister for 49 days comes with the subtitle, “Lessons from the only conservative in the room”. It was destined to be comprehensively mocked long before any journalists saw the advanced pages. And it has not disappointed.

Tales including Truss ’s struggle to book an Ocado delivery, a flea-infested Downing Street, Dominic Raab’s Chevening protein shakes and the prime minister’s one-woman mission to get a hair appointment have been gleefully shared and torn apart since they started appearing. “Why is she doing this?” a friend who doesn’t usually follow politics asked me incredulously after reading of the former PM’s despair over John Lewis furniture. “Does she really have no self-awareness at all?”

It’s a valid question. If one of Truss’s main bugbears is that no one took her seriously during her brief time at the top, it’s hard to see how her case will be helped by the revelation that her response to the death of Queen Elizabeth II on her second day in the job was (to quote Pulp’s “F.E.E.L.I.N.G. C.A.L.L.E.D. L.O.V.E.” ) “why me, why now”?

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Truss’s lack of self-awareness is a running joke in Westminster. She has been compared not just to a lettuce (a stunt which, by the way, she finds “puerile” and unfunny), but to an AI, or a sea lion that can’t recognise itself in a mirror. Every time she gets onstage to defend her record and her ideology, she exacerbates the perception that she is not quite tethered to reality – whether it’s telling gun-toting Republicans in America that those on the right “ need a bigger bazooka ” to counter the “hostile environment” of woke politics, or standing up in a church to launch a new movement by the name of “Popular Conservatism” when she is pretty much the least popular politician in the country today.

Hasn’t anyone told her how utterly ridiculous she looks as she continues to disregard the market chaos caused by her “move fast and break things” approach to economics, blaming the “deep state” and the shadowy “establishment” for her own failings? Doesn’t she realise how damaging her interventions are – to her own (already mostly trashed) reputation and to her party which is still paying the price for her legacy in the polls?

Those questions are usually asked rhetorically. But for once, let’s answer them. Truss has not spent the past year and a half in a sensory deprivation tank or a wi-fi-less bunker. She must be aware of the backlash she gets every time she opens her mouth to opine on threats to the West. And yet she does it anyway. Frequently. And now with funny stories about getting US First Lady Jill Biden mixed up with the wife of the French president.

There’s an old adage in behavioural economics that if someone who is otherwise rational appears to be acting in a way that makes no sense, you’re measuring the wrong thing. The conventional answer is that Truss is far from rational (usually put in less kind terms). But sometimes Truss can be very rational – and, in fact, self-aware – indeed. One of the most revealing lines about her comes not from her own book, but from the biography Out of the Blue by journalists Harry Cole and James Heale, published shortly after her resignation in November 2022. Preparing her leadership bid in summer 2022, Truss bluntly tells her allies: “I think I would be a very good Prime Minister, there are just two problems: I am weird and I don’t have any friends.”

Speaking to people who worked closely with Truss before she entered No 10, it is evident she made a conscious choice to “lean into” her weirdness as a means of raising her profile. Look at the pro-market memes she posted on social media, a widely publicised friendship with a “sextrepreneur” who runs swingers parties, a photo where she poses like a Bond villain with Larry the Downing Street cat on her lap. (She is aware, I was told, of the rumours that swirl around her favourite necklace, but chooses to keep wearing it.) Truss spent years under David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson being mocked, but also being noticed. And then she became prime minister.

So let’s go back to her book, where among all the Alan Partridge-esque anecdotes, Truss writes of her belief that “the Conservative movement across the West has been faltering for almost a generation”. And let’s go back to the Conservative Party , which is in the midst of a vicious civil war about what exactly it is and what it stands for. 

Truss might not be popular, but there is a sizeable faction of her party that has decided the reason it has all gone so wrong is that the deck was stacked against them from the start. A faction that wants to figure out how to change that. A faction that doesn’t necessarily think Truss got things right, but agrees with her premise that forces outside of Westminster curtail what governments are able to do. A faction that is both desperate and open to ideas, especially if they come from “the only conservative in the room”.

Truss, I was assured, really does want to “save the West”. But she believes the first step to that is saving the Conservative Party from itself. She knows the government that succeeded her would prefer to pretend she doesn’t exist and that the mainstream of her party considers her an irrelevance. So she needs to make herself relevant again, to keep popping up with a book full of tell-all revelations about her “close relationship” with Kwasi Kwarteng (only to later deny anything romantic) and bombastic end-of-the-world rhetoric, keep grabbing attention, keep banging the drum for her ideas however deranged it might make her look.

Because if you really believed the world as you knew it was in peril, and that it was your purpose in life to avert catastrophe before it was too late, this would all make total sense. Being laughed at is better than being ignored. And this book is making it very difficult to ignore Liz Truss.

[See also: Priti situations vacant: Tories plot to install Patel as PM ]

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What does Liz Truss’s book tell us about her American ambitions?

The former prime minister spent just 49 days in office but wants to stay on the world stage. Her attacks on Biden and praise for Trump are aimed at the populist right

In her new book , the former British prime minister Liz Truss directs scathing attacks and mockery at Joe Biden, president of her country’s closest ally. Biden was guilty of “utter hypocrisy and ignorance”, Truss writes, when the US leader said he “disagree[d] with the policy” of “cutting taxes on the super wealthy” in the mini-budget Truss introduced in September 2022, shortly after taking power.

“I was shocked and astounded that Biden would breach protocol by commenting on UK domestic policy,” Truss adds. “We had been the United States’ staunchest allies through thick and thin.”

Such harsh words between British and American leaders, in or out of office, would normally seem unusual. But Truss has scores to settle. By the time Biden spoke, in an ice-cream parlor in Portland, Oregon , Truss’s mini-budget had already caused panic over British pension funds, threatened to crash the UK economy and been withdrawn – a humiliating reversal for any prime minister, let alone one little more than a month into the job. Six days later, Truss was forced to resign.

A year and a half later, offering the public her version of what went so terribly wrong, Truss still manages to thunder: “What the Biden administration, and the [European Union], and their international allies didn’t want was a country demonstrating that things can be done differently, undercutting them in the process.”

Perhaps. Either way, Biden is still president while Truss is now a mere backbench MP for a constituency in rural Norfolk. But the release of her book, Ten Years to Save the West, alongside her founding of Popular Conservatism , a new pressure group, says a lot about where she sees her future.

Far from taking her allowance and pursuing traditional, relatively sedate pursuits – lobbying , say, or trying to achieve peace in the Middle East – Truss wants to remain relevant on the global populist right, particularly in the US.

Truss’s book is published in the US and UK on Tuesday. The American jacket carries praise from two hard-right senators, Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah, both vocal enemies of Biden. It also carries a different subtitle from the British edition. In the UK, Truss is said to offer “Lessons from the Only Conservative in the Room”. In the US, she is “Leading the Revolution Against Globalism, Socialism, and the Liberal Establishment”.

It’s a lot to pack in between the school run – Truss has two daughters – and her duties as a Norfolk MP. But it all points to a clear ambition to carve out a presence in rightwing US media, long on plain display.

In February, Truss attended the CPAC conference in Maryland, giving an address to an audience of what Politico called “bewildered conservatives” before appearing with Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s former campaign chair and White House adviser, a leading far-right voice who pitched Truss into controversy with remarks about the jailed far-right figure Tommy Robinson.

Truss will soon be back, visiting Washington to promote her book at the Heritage Foundation, the thinktank behind Project 2025, a vast and controversial plan for a second Trump administration.

Truss’s relationship with Heritage is well established. She spoke there in 2015, as trade secretary and over the objections of the British ambassador, and accepted an award named after Margaret Thatcher there last year. Kevin Roberts, president of Heritage, also blurbs the US edition of Truss’s book.

The foundation is a couple of miles from the White House, but Truss is hardly likely to seek contact with Biden or his administration. That may be just as well. Elsewhere in her book, she describes meeting the president at the White House in September 2021 , when she was foreign secretary under Boris Johnson.

“Our Oval Office meeting lasted around an hour and a half,” Truss writes, adding that this was not a sign of favor.

“The truth was it owed more to Biden’s penchant for telling extended anecdotes in response to any issue that came up. ‘Ah, that reminds me …’ he would say, as his officials looked at each other with knowing smiles. Ten minutes later, the story would end and he would move on to something else.”

Biden’s age, 81, and mental capacity to be president are the source of constant media speculation and political attack – and strong White House pushback. But Truss has more to say. At the Cop 26 climate conference in Glasgow, later in 2021, she “bumped into Joe Biden again. He remembered our meeting at the White House, telling me he’d never forget ‘those blue eyes’, even though we’d both been wearing Covid masks.”

It is not clear if the reader should think Biden or Truss was under the impression mouth coverings also obscure the eyes.

Truss is still not done. She includes the president with the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi among US politicians deemed “unhelpful” over Northern Ireland issues, their interventions “generally on one side of the argument, doubtless egged on by the Irish embassy in Washington”.

She also describes how in September 2022, as prime minister, she attended the UN general assembly in New York. There, she says, “Biden regaled me with tales of the Democrat campaign trail, including an incident in which he had fallen over. He said, ‘I can see them thinking, ‘You can’t get up, grandpa’, but I got up.’

“I formed the view that he was running again in 2024,” Truss writes, before risking a self-own by writing about a faux pas at the same event, when she called out “Hi, Dr Biden!” to “a blonde lady” who turned out to be Brigitte Macron, the wife of the president of France.

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“I hope she didn’t hear!” Truss writes.

The vignette about Biden at the UN is not the only one in Ten Years to Save the West in which Truss uses “Democrat” to refer to the Democratic party. It is a telling choice. Republicans have long used the incorrect term as a term of political abuse. Nor is it the only instance in which Truss – or her US editors – must adapt or explain her language.

When writing about UK politics, as in most of the book, Truss must often offer translations or explanations for US readers. For one small but telling example, in referring to her distaste for National Insurance – a payroll tax that supports state pensions and unemployment and incapacity benefits – she calls it “a social security entitlement”. On the US right, “entitlement” is almost as dirty a word as “Democrat”.

At least until the eve of publication day, Truss had shied from saying Donald Trump’s name but said she wanted a Republican in the White House in 2025. She says so in her book but abandons any pretense of subtlety when it comes to praising Trump, now the presumptive GOP nominee despite facing 88 criminal charges and multimillion-dollar penalties for tax fraud and defamation, the latter arising from a rape allegation a judge called “ substantially true ”.

Calling herself “an early fan of the TV show The Apprentice” who “enjoyed the Donald’s catchphrases and sassy business advice”, Truss says that when Trump entered politics in 2015, colleagues in parliament and “elderly ladies” in Swaffham, a town in her constituency, were united in “seem[ing] genuinely animated by the disruptive Republican candidate”. She makes a common link between support for Trump and support for Brexit – which she campaigned against before becoming its hardline champion on her way to leading her country.

When Trump was president, Truss writes, she “chased” Boris Johnson “down a fire escape” in New York, to demand inclusion in a meeting between the British and American leaders. According to Truss, who was then trade secretary, that meeting saw Trump urge her and his own trade representative, Bob Lighthizer, to get on with talks for a UK-US trade deal – only for Johnson to try to make Trump focus on restoring the Iran nuclear agreement, a tactic that did not work.

Truss never got her trade deal. In part, she blames “many in Number 10” Downing Street who “seemed to want to hold Trump at arm’s length for political reasons”.

“The UK media provided universally negative coverage of Trump, and leftists in the Conservative party were keen to insult him at every opportunity,” Truss writes. “My view was that he was the leader of the free world and an important ally.”

That view stands in stark comparison to her abuse of Biden, who beat Trump conclusively in an election Trump still refuses to concede. Furthermore, when it comes to the deadly fruits of that refusal – the attack on Congress Trump incited – Truss keeps her observations to a single paragraph.

On 6 January 2021, Truss writes, she was “on a phone call with Bob Lighthizer”, “working on” removing a US tariff on Scottish whisky. From the Executive Office building, next to the White House, Lighthizer “remarked … in passing that the street was full of people with huge American flags walking towards Congress. Little did I realise how seismic that event would turn out to be.”

Truss eventually saw the whisky tariff removed – in summer 2021, after “talks with the new Democrat administration”.

“But with Joe Biden as president,” Truss writes, “it was made quite clear that a trade deal with the United Kingdom was no longer a priority. We had missed the boat.”

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Liz Truss has kindly offered to ‘save the west’. But who will save her from her delusions?

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The greatest mystery of modern politics? Liz Truss’s self belief

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We’ve got 10 years to save the West from dark forces, wokery & authoritarian regimes, says Liz Truss

• Noa Hoffman , Political Reporter
• Published : 13:38, 15 Apr 2024
• Updated : 14:32, 15 Apr 2024
• Published : Invalid Date,

THE West has just 10 years to be saved from dark forces, wokery and authoritarian regimes like China and Russia, Liz Truss warned today.

On Never Mind the Ballots, the ex-PM argued Britain is being slowly taken over by left-wing un-elected bureaucrats pushing extreme environmentalism, political correctness and socialism.

And she even said she wants Nigel Farage to join the Tories.

The UK's shortest-serving leader of all time said: "I fear if we don't get our act together as the West, we will see the likes of China, Russia and Iran dominating the world.

"This is about Conservatives actually fighting back against left wing ideology, because we've allowed the left to win in many areas.

"One is gender ideology, but it's also true on things like the net zero agenda and human rights ."

Read more on politics

Liz Truss reveals her 'shock' after Queen’s parting words in their final meeting

Liz Truss reveals she ignored advice to slow down given by Queen before death

Ms Truss added: "I think we're losing touch with what we should be about and what our way of life should be about. 

In a no holds barred interview, Liz Truss also...

•  Revealed the Queen’s parting words to her in their final meeting
• Argued Britain must leave the ECHR, abolish the Supreme Court and tear up the Human Rights Act
• Called for the Bank of England boss to be sacked
• Called for Nigel Farage to join the Tories

" Power that used to be in the hands of democratically elected politicians now lies in the hands of unelected bureaucrats."

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The ex-PM blasted the Bank of England , the Office for Budget Responsibility, Natural England and the Environment Agency for pushing agendas allegedly against the will of the people.

She argued that mandarins and leftie civil servants covertly operate to stop Tory ideas being made into law and instead try and push forward woke policies.

This in turn could weaken national security and further open Britain to threats from authoritarian tyrants abroad.

The MP for South West Norfolk also told Never Mind the Ballots host Harry Cole: "Unless we are prepared to take this stuff on, we will find it very, very hard to implement conservative policies.

"I think one part of it is conservatives not being prepared to fight the left enough and essentially meeting them half way.

"Part of it is that the bureaucracy is much more powerful than it used to be.

"And there's no doubt that if governments in the 70s and 80s had faced the same type of bureaucratic constraint and legal constraint as we do now, they would not be able to have got the things done they did."

Ms Truss added: "I'm trying to say is it's not enough just to have the right policies on tax or the right policies on immigration or the right policies on taking on wokery. 

Watch Never Mind the Ballots

ROBERT Jenrick will be facing questions from Sun readers during a no holds barred guest spot on our new politics show.

The weekly show also features opinions and insight from our very own panel boasting real-life experience, discussing what readers want from the next Government.

You can watch it on  thesun.co.uk  and The Sun’s YouTube channel at 7pm on Wednesday.

And you can help set the agenda - by submitting your questions via email at  [email protected] .

The full interview with Liz Truss is available to watch now on thesun.co.uk and The Sun’s YouTube channel.

"We're going to have to actually change the way British government works if we're going to deliver conservative policies, because there has been a takeover of our institutions by the left, that is the reality of the situation.

"And that is what I'm trying to say to everybody who's involved in politics .

"By the way, I would like Nigel Farage to join the Conservative Party ."

Ms Truss dramatically resigned as PM in October 2022, after just six weeks in office.

But her downfall began just days into her doomed premiership, when the disastrous  mini budget  was announced.

The tax-cutting bonanza reversed the  National Insurance  rise, scrapped the rise in Corporation Tax,  cut stamp duty  and abolished the  45p top rate of income tax.  

I'm trying to say is it's not enough just to have the right policies on tax or the right policies on immigration or the right policies on taking on wokery.  Liz Truss ex-PM

When then-Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng declared that was “just the start”, the markets spooked and went into meltdown.

A massive surge in the cost of government borrowing nearly put the wilfully overleveraged pensions industry on the edge of collapse.

After being warned of a huge rebellion that could oust her, Ms Truss executed her first humiliating U-turn by abandoning her pledge to abolish the 45p rate of tax .

The climbdown immediately weakened her authority as the mutineers smelled blood and began agitating for more of the mini-Budget to be jettisoned.

And with the new PM showing weakness, a total lack of Cabinet discipline followed - with the party gathering erupting in a huge row over benefits .

This month Ms Truss published Ten Years to Save the West, a book chronicling her 49 days in Downing St and the lessons she took from it.

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The ex-PM claimed "deep state" forces were always out to get her.

She said she regrets not pushing ahead with her mini-budget and accused Bank of England boss Mark Bailey of not taking her side as fallout grew.

Liz Truss shortest serving Prime Minister in British history

By ED SOUTHGATE

LIZ Truss  became the shortest-serving Prime Minister  in British history by 74 days.

The fallen Tory leader's 49 days in office is more than two months short of George Canning's 118 days.

The fellow Tory's time in office was cut short when he died from tuberculosis in 1827. Ms Truss would have overtaken him on January 3, 2023.

Her time in office also included a 10-day national mourning period for the Queen's death, when politics was paused.

She  resigned on October 20, 2022 after losing the confidence  of her own MPs and the markets during a period of economic turmoil and U-turns.

It meant King Charles was already set for his second Prime Minister just six weeks after ascending to the throne.

And the country saw its third Prime Minister in four months.

The week before she resigned, Truss  sacked humiliated Kwasi Kwarteng  over their chaotic mini-budget. It made him our second-ever shortest-serving Chancellor.

Ms Truss said as she stood outside No10 Downing Street that she was elected on a mandate to change "a time of great economic and international instability".

But she admitted: "I recognise, given the situation, I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party."

Ms Truss had promised a "bold plan" to cut taxes and grow the economy and "deliver on the energy crisis".

But the mini-budget, unveiled four days after the Queen's funeral, with its plans to abolish the top rate of income tax for the highest earners sent the markets into turmoil.

Ms Truss insisted she stood by the package but in the end sacked her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, whose successor, Jeremy Hunt, ripped up the controversial budget by reversing most of the measures.

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The whiff of decay coming off the tired Tory party after 14 years will cloud Rishi Sunak’s premiership

• Harry Cole , Political Editor
• Published : 16:59 ET, Apr 18 2024
• Updated : 19:42 ET, Apr 18 2024
• Published : Invalid Date,

WILL the Tory party have any MPs left by the end of the year?

With the number of by-elections of late triggered by bad behaviour, it feels like a General Election is happening in slow motion, one seat at a time.

With Labour looking set to take back Blackpool South on May 2, as they have with a slew of other seats so far, the results are more than matching the polls.

With the latest astonishing allegations levelled at Mark Menzies — last heard from in 2014 cavorting with a Brazilian rent boy and attempting to buy drugs — the Lancashire MP becomes the latest to lose the Conservative whip and face calls to stand down.

The mind boggles at why he allegedly needed to give the “bad people” he had fallen in with £6,500 from party funds.

But whoever thought it was a good idea to appoint him the PM’s personal trade envoy to Colombia was clearly an idiot, or having a laugh.

The story seems less from the 1990s-era of Tory sleaze and more from the Little Britain send-up of disgraced MP Sir Norman Fry standing at the bottom of his country house drive with his family, attempting to explain away his latest far-fetched misdemeanour.

But that stench of wrongdoing is starting to engulf the Government in a similar fashion to the end of the Major era — and history would suggest it is only going to get worse.

Desperate to talk about anything other than Angela Rayner , Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer was quick off the mark to ask why it took Conservative HQ “so long to act and whether they’ve reported this to the police, who it seems to me should be involved”.

Which is some astonishing brass neck given how the party handled the disturbing allegations of criminality made about their former Chief Whip Nick Brown two years ago.

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Legal reasons prevent me from sharing the details yet, but they are of the most serious nature and there would be genuine public outcry were they to ever see the light of day.

At no point did anyone in Labour HQ pick up the phone to the rozzers, so spare me the faux outrage.

Instead, Labour hid behind an opaque internal process that resulted in Brown announcing he would stand down at the next election and allowing the whole sorry saga to be brushed under the carpet . . . for now.

Out of its misery

But when did hypocrisy ever stop a politician? Some 18 MPs remain suspended, with eight from the Tories and seven from Labour.

The sleaze was always there, but we should welcome the fact it is now called out

Plenty on both sides have already been booted out or jumped before they were pushed.

Yet is this a particularly rotten bunch of MPs, more so than another generation?

You could be forgiven for thinking so when looking at the number of suspended or ejected since 2019 for pinching, ogling, taking pictures of their own honourable members, snorting coke, lying or far darker allegations.

But I’m not convinced. The bad behaviour was always there, but standards are so much higher now.

Clearing out the dung from the Westminster stables is never going to be pretty, but thankfully MPs are not able to get away with the bullying and seediness that I am convinced they did for hundreds of years.

The sleaze was always there, but we should welcome the fact it is now called out.

However, none of this helps Rishi Sunak ’s premiership, as the music has stopped on the Tories’ watch.

Having lost the benefit of the doubt, the trust of millions of voters and any semblance of balance from broadcasters and commentators, expect every Tory wrong’un to get their name up in lights.

The whiff of decay coming off the tired party, 14 years in, will cloud everything.

That is the way power works, when you are on the way down, they queue up to give you a shove to speed things up.

Which is why I hear there is a growing drumbeat inside 10 Downing Street to put this government out of its misery.

Be in no doubt that the majority view in Team Sunak remains to go long, see what happens, let the economy turn and the benefit of tax cuts be felt in voters’ pockets.

October, or even late November, remain the PM’s preferred options.

But those contemplating June or July are growing in number — and stature.

I am told Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden has vocalised this school of thought, telling pals the party could be heading to an extinction level event if things continue to go this badly for much longer.

Be in no doubt that the majority view in Team Sunak remains to go long, see what happens, let the economy turn and the benefit of tax cuts be felt in voters’ pockets

Fewer comparisons are being made to the Conservatives’ tonking in 1997, where they were reduced to a rump of just 165 seats.

Instead, more and more ministers mutter about 1993, where the Canadian Conservatives lost power and were whittled down to just two MPs.

Asked by some Tory MPs this week whether there really is time to turn things around, Sunak’s deputy chief of staff Will Tanner replied: “Only time will tell.”

If that’s the best even Sunak’s closest advisers can muster, then perhaps Dowden is right.

Suella and Truss, besties again

PEACE in our time? On the dying day of Liz Truss’s doomed premiership she fired Home Secretary Suella Braverman for leaking.

That prompted one of the cattiest resignation letters in modern history , with leaky Sue all but calling for Truss to walk as well – which she did some 24 hours later.

Braverman publicly accused the short-lived PM of “hoping that things will magically come right”, not being a serious politician and “pretending we haven’t made mistakes”.

So imagine my surprise to see the pair all smiles and hugs at the launch party for Truss’s score-settling – and surprisingly best-selling – tome Ten Years To Save The West.

“We’ve always been besties really”, Braverman told me through a fixed grin.

ANGELA Rayner has been hiding from pesky hacks asking lots of awkward questions as the old bill probe her housing saga.

But I hear she is going struggle to avoid the spotlight on Wednesday.

For reasons that will become clear, Starmer ’s number two, will be box office – next week’s PMQs is due to be a battle of the deputies.

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