She gave a true blue message, but her joints could do with a squirt of oil
The dress was deepest red but the speech was as blue as a billionaire’s swimming pool. Substancewise, Liz Truss’s leadership launch yesterday was a corker. A perfectly pitched flash-of-leg at her party’s base, embellished with the sort of pledges designed to get the conference hall rocking.
Lower taxes! More defence spending! As for Priti Patel’s Rwanda refugee scheme, you betcha! Our Liz was right behind it.
You could practically hear blue-blooded activists around the Shires yahooing in delight.
her presentation, however, remains something of a work in progress. At points, she got flubbery-lipped and stumbled over words. The Truss joints also could do with a good squirt of oil. Too stiff, too rigid. No matter. She will improve.
Our setting for the morning was a drab office in Westminster’s Smith Square, all glass doors and sterile white walls. Unlike most venues we’ve crammed into this week, however, it did at least boast air conditioning. Praise the Lord! That’s one way to get the lobby hacks on your side.
In charge of the introductions was cannon-voiced Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, who presumably has his eyes set on being Truss’s Chancellor. That’d be lively, if nothing else. And might set the Bank of england crockery rattling.
Miss Truss walked in all smiles, her tread as cautious as if she were tottering on champagne flutes.
In front of her sat a throng of cheering supporters – The Trussites as we shall call them. Actually, The Trussettes probably sounds better – more of a funky Motown vibe. Among these hip groovesters were former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith and Treasury secretary Simon Clarke.
Oh,and Truss’s de facto campaign manager Therese Coffey. Loyal Therese spent most of the time gazing at the stage like a starstruck fan at a Madonna concert. Truss spoke straight into a TV camera at the back of the room. her delivery could possibly have done with being dialled up a couple of notches.
There was a lot of chat early on about the all the high-level jobs she’d held. A little reminder of how inexperienced her leadership rivals were.
Lowering her lip and narrowing one eye slightly, she announced: ‘I’m ready to be Prime Minister from day one.’ Sunak? Mordaunt? Pah! Mere pipsqueaks!
We heard a bit about her childhood in Leeds and an engaging hinterland begins to emerge. While at comprehensive school, she saw children being consistently failed through poor standards and a lack of opportunities. ‘They will never be let down again on my watch,’ she said.
As for her fiscal plans, she announced that ‘business-as-usual- economics had failed’. Rishinomics had failed in other words. Something bold, new and exciting was required. Trussanomics!
Beth from Sky News asked why she hadn’t resigned from Boris Johnson’s cabinet last week when all her colleagues were abandoning ship.
‘I’m a loyal person,’ Truss intoned gravely. That earned her a chorus of ‘Yer, yers’ from The Trussettes.
Several questions concerned the unexpected rise of Penny Mordaunt. Iain Duncan Smith turned his head and frowned incredulously. ‘Penny Morrr- daunt?’ he spat. he said this with the mild disgust of someone who’d just been urged by a Moroccan waiter to try sampling the sheep’s head.
Someone raised former Brexit minister Lord Frost, who’d given an interview that morning in which he’d pretty much described Mordaunt as useless. Truss insisted we’d be hearing no disparaging remarks about colleagues from her.
That was what The Trussettes were there for presumably. One had reportedly told a newspaper that Miss Mordaunt would require ‘stabilisers’ should she become Prime Minister. harsh!
A MINOR cock-up occurred at the end when Truss began slowly walking into the audience. For a moment I thought she was coming to give one of us journalists a handbagging. Turned out she’d forgotten where the exit was.
Oopsy. her team will hope that’s the last wrong turn she makes in this contest. It’s the first of the television debates tonight and, God knows, she needs to summon up a decent performance.