Will Liz Truss’s Tory party practise what it preaches?

The new PM has little time to show her party doesn't value power over principle

This article was originally published what feels like a lifetime ago – on the 4th September 2022.

It didn’t feel right to post the link to it during the official mourning period following the death of the Queen, but now this period is over, I am linking to it today.

I think it still holds an important message, even after the recent mini-budget proved Liz Truss is willing to sacrifice a few sacred cows.

In the meantime, stay tuned, I have have more time in the coming weeks to dedicate to some additional posts I’ve long been planning!

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The Tory party is very good at pointing out — and profiting from — how the Labour party often values ideology over power, making the choice to eschew government for comfort zone politics. Liz Truss herself, who, bar some catastrophe, will be announced as the new Tory leader tomorrow, once made this point rather bluntly at a party conference fringe event.

Back in 2018, Truss described then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, possibly the very definition of an ideological leftwinger, as a 'nut job' and 'socialist crazed individual'. Her point was similar to that of Tony Blair, who identified the rogue pattern in his own party and challenged it: 'Power without principle is barren, but principle without power is futile,' he warned. Conservatives today would do well to pay attention to the first half of that quote.

It’s all very well laughing at how Corbyn’s ideological Labour party was smashed to pieces in 2019, granting an 80 seat majority’s worth of power to their opponents. But twelve years in and after three, soon to be four, consecutive Conservative prime ministers later, even MPs and party activists are struggling to find much to praise from their time in office.

Rocketing inflation will soon send living standards that have been flatlining for over a decade into reverse. Young families…

To continue reading this article on how the Conservative Party needs to practice what it preaches, please visit the Spectator, here: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/will-liz-truss-s-tory-party-practice-what-it-preaches-