While Liz Truss has improved as a campaigner since the leadership race began, not even her die-hard fans would put her on the same level as Johnson, whose unlikely amalgamation of bewildered charm, diversion through humor and the populism of the big states helped bring victory in 2019. Truss’s appeal to Tory members is based on a very different mix of low-tax orthodoxy and the promise of a “straight Yorkshire woman” who knows exactly what she wants. Her approach to the job would no doubt be very different, with former colleagues of the foreign secretary agreeing that she is hardworking and disciplined. But the longer the contest has gone on, the more observers have noticed tendencies within Team Truss to replicate key elements of Johnson’s No 10, particularly a rush for new policies, often borrowed from others or made on the hoof, which then have to be tweaked. or lost amid strong denials of a reversal. Truss plays pool during a visit to a youth facility in Chelmsford this week. Photo: Getty Images In part, this is a factor in a leadership race in which candidates need to appeal to a small number of Tory members, particularly on the right, while not boxing too much, policy-wise, once they get into Downing Street. Hence the confused scenes this week as Truss insisted that help with skyrocketing energy bills would be based on tax cuts, while her allies quietly hinted that there could be other help and her campaign team tried to flatly deny any contradiction between the two competing narratives. A more striking example came last week, when Truss hastily dropped a much-touted plan to save £11bn a year with a “war on Whitehall waste”, copied from a proposal by the right-wing TaxPayers’ Alliance, in which the biggest some of the savings would come from capping or reducing public sector pay outside London and the South East. Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. This was particularly reminiscent of the last, struggling period of Johnson’s premiership, where seemingly half-baked policies such as a return to imperial measurements were paraded in the press, largely derided and then forgotten. In a more alarming facsimile of Johnson’s business, the Truss campaign tried to cover up the maneuver by falsely accusing the media of “deliberate misrepresentation” of a plan he had openly stated his intention in a press release. While Johnson is a former newspaper columnist who likes to claim camaraderie with journalists, his No 10 business has misled journalists several times, with his allies regularly blaming a supposedly biased media. At a breakout event this week, Truss mimicked that part of Johnson’s book, saying reporters were trying to “blame our country.” Truss has also shown a tendency like Johnson to be vague or even inaccurate with the facts to suit her political purposes, notably her regularly told and highly debunked history of how the content she attended in Leeds was a failed school. In another breakout event this week, in Cheltenham on Thursday, Truss reiterated his concerns about a disproportionate number of women being jailed for failing to pay the TV license fee, which fact-checking groups said did not appear to be supported by the evidence. Another similarity arose in Truss’s avoidance of excessive control during the competition. Johnson avoided a BBC grilling from Andrew Neil, which was endured by his rivals, while Truss refused the company’s offer to interview Nick Robinson, unlike Rishi Sunak, her rival. Of course, as all Labor members who voted for Keir Starmer on promises to follow a general Corbynite political platform know, leadership contests and leading a party, let alone the country, are different things. But Truss’ opponents, at least, argue that there is a sense of continuity. “She really is BoJo’s heir,” said a source who supports Sunak. “Her team cut and pasted the policy, came up with something black and white, claimed it was misconstrued and got Brandon [Lewis, a key ally of Johnson and now Truss] out to put the poo the next day.’
