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Out of the Blue: The Inside Story of Liz Truss and Her Astonishing Rise to Power
Liz Truss’s journey from schoolgirl revolutionary to Britain’s new prime minister.
She is the longest-serving member of the Cabinet, but Britain’s new prime minister is virtually unknown to millions of voters. Written off, mocked and undermined by even her closest colleagues, Liz Truss has slowly but determinedly taken over 10 Downing Street.
With unrivalled access and insight, award-winning political journalists Harry Cole and James Heale chart the rise of the geeky 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 wonkish Tory loyalist to free-wheeling Instagram star.
For the first time, Liz’s closest friends and supporters, as well as her worst critics and rivals, paint the true picture of Britain’s third female prime minister.
She is the longest-serving member of the Cabinet, but Britain’s new prime minister is virtually unknown to millions of voters. Written off, mocked and undermined by even her closest colleagues, Liz Truss has slowly but determinedly taken over 10 Downing Street.
With unrivalled access and insight, award-winning political journalists Harry Cole and James Heale chart the rise of the geeky 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 wonkish Tory loyalist to free-wheeling Instagram star.
For the first time, Liz’s closest friends and supporters, as well as her worst critics and rivals, paint the true picture of Britain’s third female prime minister.
369 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 8, 2022
82 people are currently reading
179 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
November 3, 2022
Rounded up from 1.5
TLDR: perhaps we all get the biography we deserve.
What a wasted opportunity. Full of secondary sources, rather than primary ones, this is not much more than a cut and paste job.
Rushed out because of events, this desperately needs a copy edit. There are scores of sentences that make no sense, and scores of others that need to be read several times to understand. I also spotted several factual errors: as it’s a subject I know little about, I dread to think how many others there are.
The only thing you get out or this book is that Liz Truss is not a likeable person, nor a good one, nor a brilliantly competent one. I suspect many of us had already guessed that.
There is little about her non-work life, except I learned a bit about her slightly mysterious husband, and that her daughter is named Liberty because of her libertarianism.
What really motivates her except her extreme confidence in her opinions is not revealed, nor is the reason for that extreme confidence.
TLDR: perhaps we all get the biography we deserve.
What a wasted opportunity. Full of secondary sources, rather than primary ones, this is not much more than a cut and paste job.
Rushed out because of events, this desperately needs a copy edit. There are scores of sentences that make no sense, and scores of others that need to be read several times to understand. I also spotted several factual errors: as it’s a subject I know little about, I dread to think how many others there are.
The only thing you get out or this book is that Liz Truss is not a likeable person, nor a good one, nor a brilliantly competent one. I suspect many of us had already guessed that.
There is little about her non-work life, except I learned a bit about her slightly mysterious husband, and that her daughter is named Liberty because of her libertarianism.
What really motivates her except her extreme confidence in her opinions is not revealed, nor is the reason for that extreme confidence.
December 31, 2022
A tin-eared ideologue, without empathy and fuelled by copious espressos and bottles of Sauvignon Blanc as she talks over anyone who challenges her, it’s amazing to think so many were hoodwinked into believing in Liz Truss as prime ministerial material. Instead we got a PM who trashed the economy and the Conservative Party’s reputation for a generation.
This was many newspapers pick for political book of the year, but I was left wondering whether she merits the time taken to read this fast-turnaround. The right-wing ideologues will blame poor communications rather than the policies themselves while the rest of us will remain baffled that such mediocrities can rise to the top.
This was many newspapers pick for political book of the year, but I was left wondering whether she merits the time taken to read this fast-turnaround. The right-wing ideologues will blame poor communications rather than the policies themselves while the rest of us will remain baffled that such mediocrities can rise to the top.
February 17, 2023
This biography of Britain's shortest-serving Prime Minister, Liz Truss, is a basic and surface-level look at her life and career instead of the "inside story" that it claims to be. It uses already reported information as most of its sources, offering only a few small nuggets of original research. In any case, it fails to capture the drama and extraordinary nature of the events that unfolded during her time in office, perhaps due to being written in a rush and failing to predict just how short her stint as PM would be. I suspect that the book was intended to introduce the politician to members of the public outside of the Conservative Party and be a stocking-filler for Christmas last year, but after her departure it had to take on a different mission entirely, despite having been (mostly) finished. That mission, to analyse what exactly went wrong in the 44 days in which she was in charge, as well as foreshadow them during earlier chapters charting the course of her rise to the top, was not completed.
The book covers her upbringing and her career in Parliament. It details the work she did in various departments including Education, the Environment, Trade, and the Foreign Office. It maps her path to becoming Prime Minister. And while there are some original comments in the book, from people who worked with her like sometimes-friend and sometimes-enemy Michael Gove, to aides and other staff of hers, they tend to comment more on the qualities that led her to become Prime Minister than the flaws that contributed to her failure. For instance, she always seemed to bounce back, unfazed by scandals and moments of poor judgment, such as the negative publicity following her extramarital affair with Mark Field MP, or her decision to go out swinging for the remain campaign during the EU Referendum of 2016 and then dramatically flip-flop days after the result, eventually becoming a born-again Brexiteer. That's not to say that those two examples of poor judgment are in anyway equivalent as moral issues - but that both could have harmed her political career much more than she actually let them. We read, too, that she had a consistent belief in the "free market" economic philosophy and wanted less of a nanny-state. The portrait is of a politician who just keeps going, determined to deliver what she set out to when she entered politics, and took each bump and scrape in her stride, refusing to quit or back down. The problem with this portrayal, is that her time as Prime Minister was one of unending crises, chaotic management, and eventual resignation of both her ideals and the top job itself. The tone of 90% of the book doesn't match with the last part, which just so happens to be the part we are now most interested in.
I feel for the writers of this book. I think, if Truss were still Prime Minister, and the events that brought her down never happened, they would have a more successful biography here. However, we have to talk about the most notable time of her life, which is when she was PM. The book covers the events ever so briefly, in the form of a couple of chapters and an unnecessary "epilogue", but doesn't enlighten us as to how or why exactly they happened, and fails to offer anything that I didn't already know from following the news. We can all sympathise with the timing of her start as PM coming just before the late Queen's death. That was the saddest of moments for the country and the worst time to become PM. But putting that aside, as a non-political event, Truss afterwards came across as tone-death, out-of-touch, and unable to communicate her ideas to the public or the markets. Why was that? We are told that there were problems with more realistic voices among civil servants and aides being drowned out in her team and let down by a chaotic structure. We learn that she had at least three different mobile phones during various points of her leadership campaign and time in Number 10 - and sometimes people she was working with didn't have her phone number and couldn't reach her. We also discover that, maybe, her and her other record-breaking colleague, the shortest-serving Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwazi Kwarteng, had been planning their mortgage-busting, market-torpedoing, pound-shrinking fiscal event at the beginning of her Conservative leadership campaign, and failed to be completely forthcoming about it during that time. This last snippet, however, seemed more of a guess than concrete reporting, unfortunately.
I can't say, having read this book, that I'm more in-the-know about any of this than I was before. What I would want to learn is, if some of her leadership flaws were evident earlier in her career, why didn't they stop her from rising to the top? The book says she was sometimes accused of leaking, was occasionally rude to staff, and could have achieved more in certain ministerial roles - but that is mainly it, and the writers say she always worked her way through it and didn't let it deter her. We have to ask, is politics really so full of second-raters that someone who ultimately wasn't fit for the job was over-promoted, by her peers, to Prime Minister? Having worked in Westminster, I know there are some capable and good people there, despite it being an incredibly volatile and at times toxic environment. And if anyone did have serious doubts, who were they, and what would they say? Their voices are not really in this book - which suggests to me that the writers were somewhat inclined towards Truss, trying to deliver an, on-balance, favourable book, without the insight of her foes. Because this isn't an over-exaggeration: Liz Truss was the worst Prime Minister in our history, and her mini-budget did real damage to the finances of many hardworking British people, especially regarding mortgages. Many in her own party would agree, having thrown her out so venomously just a few months ago.
Perhaps a book will come along that answers some of those questions, and builds on the foundations created by this one. I suspect that there is much more of a story to tell, taking in accounts from those who were at the heart of her short-lived Downing Street operation, who want to tell their own story as to why it went wrong. That being the case, overall, 'Out of the Blue' is harmed by events outside of its control and fails to convince in its analysis of its subject. It could have done with more time in the oven; time to get more sources, to rework earlier chapters, and present a more complete review of what the Spectator magazine dismissively called the vanishing lady - Britain's 44 day Prime Minister.
The book covers her upbringing and her career in Parliament. It details the work she did in various departments including Education, the Environment, Trade, and the Foreign Office. It maps her path to becoming Prime Minister. And while there are some original comments in the book, from people who worked with her like sometimes-friend and sometimes-enemy Michael Gove, to aides and other staff of hers, they tend to comment more on the qualities that led her to become Prime Minister than the flaws that contributed to her failure. For instance, she always seemed to bounce back, unfazed by scandals and moments of poor judgment, such as the negative publicity following her extramarital affair with Mark Field MP, or her decision to go out swinging for the remain campaign during the EU Referendum of 2016 and then dramatically flip-flop days after the result, eventually becoming a born-again Brexiteer. That's not to say that those two examples of poor judgment are in anyway equivalent as moral issues - but that both could have harmed her political career much more than she actually let them. We read, too, that she had a consistent belief in the "free market" economic philosophy and wanted less of a nanny-state. The portrait is of a politician who just keeps going, determined to deliver what she set out to when she entered politics, and took each bump and scrape in her stride, refusing to quit or back down. The problem with this portrayal, is that her time as Prime Minister was one of unending crises, chaotic management, and eventual resignation of both her ideals and the top job itself. The tone of 90% of the book doesn't match with the last part, which just so happens to be the part we are now most interested in.
I feel for the writers of this book. I think, if Truss were still Prime Minister, and the events that brought her down never happened, they would have a more successful biography here. However, we have to talk about the most notable time of her life, which is when she was PM. The book covers the events ever so briefly, in the form of a couple of chapters and an unnecessary "epilogue", but doesn't enlighten us as to how or why exactly they happened, and fails to offer anything that I didn't already know from following the news. We can all sympathise with the timing of her start as PM coming just before the late Queen's death. That was the saddest of moments for the country and the worst time to become PM. But putting that aside, as a non-political event, Truss afterwards came across as tone-death, out-of-touch, and unable to communicate her ideas to the public or the markets. Why was that? We are told that there were problems with more realistic voices among civil servants and aides being drowned out in her team and let down by a chaotic structure. We learn that she had at least three different mobile phones during various points of her leadership campaign and time in Number 10 - and sometimes people she was working with didn't have her phone number and couldn't reach her. We also discover that, maybe, her and her other record-breaking colleague, the shortest-serving Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwazi Kwarteng, had been planning their mortgage-busting, market-torpedoing, pound-shrinking fiscal event at the beginning of her Conservative leadership campaign, and failed to be completely forthcoming about it during that time. This last snippet, however, seemed more of a guess than concrete reporting, unfortunately.
I can't say, having read this book, that I'm more in-the-know about any of this than I was before. What I would want to learn is, if some of her leadership flaws were evident earlier in her career, why didn't they stop her from rising to the top? The book says she was sometimes accused of leaking, was occasionally rude to staff, and could have achieved more in certain ministerial roles - but that is mainly it, and the writers say she always worked her way through it and didn't let it deter her. We have to ask, is politics really so full of second-raters that someone who ultimately wasn't fit for the job was over-promoted, by her peers, to Prime Minister? Having worked in Westminster, I know there are some capable and good people there, despite it being an incredibly volatile and at times toxic environment. And if anyone did have serious doubts, who were they, and what would they say? Their voices are not really in this book - which suggests to me that the writers were somewhat inclined towards Truss, trying to deliver an, on-balance, favourable book, without the insight of her foes. Because this isn't an over-exaggeration: Liz Truss was the worst Prime Minister in our history, and her mini-budget did real damage to the finances of many hardworking British people, especially regarding mortgages. Many in her own party would agree, having thrown her out so venomously just a few months ago.
Perhaps a book will come along that answers some of those questions, and builds on the foundations created by this one. I suspect that there is much more of a story to tell, taking in accounts from those who were at the heart of her short-lived Downing Street operation, who want to tell their own story as to why it went wrong. That being the case, overall, 'Out of the Blue' is harmed by events outside of its control and fails to convince in its analysis of its subject. It could have done with more time in the oven; time to get more sources, to rework earlier chapters, and present a more complete review of what the Spectator magazine dismissively called the vanishing lady - Britain's 44 day Prime Minister.
January 28, 2023
A good review of Liz Truss’ premiership, if not strongly benefitting from being one of the first out of the press. You could tell throughout that this wasn’t supposed to be a story of failure, hence the last chapter feels a bit bolted on, with a few pages of reflection trying to elucidate themes which should have been more present throughout the whole book.
Unlike most post-premiership books, I’m not sure this one will play a role in history looking more kindly on Truss, after her disastrous 50 days in office.
Unlike most post-premiership books, I’m not sure this one will play a role in history looking more kindly on Truss, after her disastrous 50 days in office.
December 8, 2022
I suppose it's a decent picture of hubris, 'not listening' and bad judgement. And of a party (like every other party) obsessed with totems and heritage (in her case, dressing like Maggie and seeming 'swotty' and headmistress-like like Maggie). But despite it ending ignominiously, it still wasn't quite the Actual Impostor Syndrome or motorway-pile-up I was expecting - for, you realise, troublingly, that she was probably very hardworking, interested in 'ideas' and applied. She 'merely' made a shockingly bad gamble, driven by ideological orthodoxy.
It reminded me of just how much I struggle with political lobby journalism - even if the subject matter is sensational by their standards: I find it incredibly boring. Endless job titles and departments and fields and minor office personalities that mean little to me (I still have no idea what the Cabinet Office does mind, though looking it up has probably been in my New Year's resolutions lists for thirty years).
It's all about as interesting to me as golf or Formula 1 - despite following politics in a casual way for most of my adulthood. I had this feeling with Tim Shipman's book on the Brexit campaign: ought to be fascinating; full of people you want to run a mile from and be done with as quickly as possible. The only humour: a few stray jokes about Norfolk. A short book that you're glad is over in 24 hours.
It reminded me of just how much I struggle with political lobby journalism - even if the subject matter is sensational by their standards: I find it incredibly boring. Endless job titles and departments and fields and minor office personalities that mean little to me (I still have no idea what the Cabinet Office does mind, though looking it up has probably been in my New Year's resolutions lists for thirty years).
It's all about as interesting to me as golf or Formula 1 - despite following politics in a casual way for most of my adulthood. I had this feeling with Tim Shipman's book on the Brexit campaign: ought to be fascinating; full of people you want to run a mile from and be done with as quickly as possible. The only humour: a few stray jokes about Norfolk. A short book that you're glad is over in 24 hours.
June 22, 2024
The story of Liz Truss's single-minded rise to power will long be remembered and this is a good account. The period 2020-2022 was like Game of Thrones in government with prime ministers being toppled regularly. Liz Truss came from minister to prime minister in quite a short time, but she spent a lot of years even getting to be an MP, and the story of her early years is well covered.
One of the most fascinating things about LT is that she started as a Lib Dem and then had an epiphany and became a Conservative. Although she was a Remainer at first, it seems to have largely been down to her role in government at the time and the fact she represented a rural constituency.
There is then a pattern of her regularly changing her mind and where a volte-face was needed to rise a rung, she had no hesitation in doing so.
Having reached the top though her single-mindedness failed her and the fact that she wasn't a team player and cobbled up her disastrous mini-budget with minimal consultation, led to her downfall. Her greatest ally Kwasi Kwarteng was sacrificed in her final days, but even that couldn't save her as almost everyone else deserted her.
It was good to revisit the events of her 50 days in office, and see how the rest of her life had helped get and there and then simultaneously led to her downfall. Being PM is a tough job and few have done it well in the last 100 years. She was the most spectacular failure though and it will take some beating for anyone to do even worse.
I haven't read Truss's own account and don't intend to. I think this will be a more insightful read.
One of the most fascinating things about LT is that she started as a Lib Dem and then had an epiphany and became a Conservative. Although she was a Remainer at first, it seems to have largely been down to her role in government at the time and the fact she represented a rural constituency.
There is then a pattern of her regularly changing her mind and where a volte-face was needed to rise a rung, she had no hesitation in doing so.
Having reached the top though her single-mindedness failed her and the fact that she wasn't a team player and cobbled up her disastrous mini-budget with minimal consultation, led to her downfall. Her greatest ally Kwasi Kwarteng was sacrificed in her final days, but even that couldn't save her as almost everyone else deserted her.
It was good to revisit the events of her 50 days in office, and see how the rest of her life had helped get and there and then simultaneously led to her downfall. Being PM is a tough job and few have done it well in the last 100 years. She was the most spectacular failure though and it will take some beating for anyone to do even worse.
I haven't read Truss's own account and don't intend to. I think this will be a more insightful read.
December 28, 2022
This book provides an insight into Liz Truss, her style as a political operator, and the evolution of her espoused beliefs. It describes in detail the circumstances that engendered her rise to becoming the most popular cabinet minister among Conservative members, securing sufficient support among the parliamentary party, and finally winning the members’ ballot. I think the book elucidates how success at each stage was disparate and distinctly gained and how contingent her victory perhaps was.
However, one comes away from the book with a greater appreciation of Liz Truss as a politician than prior. Her ministerial career shows an unassailable quality that manifests itself in her proclivity to make comebacks.
Harry Cole and James Heale are both politically right-wing and the former (as the book itself implies at one point) enjoyed an active journalist-politician relationship with Truss when she was a minister. Therefore, the book is written in a slightly sympathetic way but still captures the calamity of her premiership and does not absolve the main characters (Truss, Kwarteng etc) of blame.
However, one comes away from the book with a greater appreciation of Liz Truss as a politician than prior. Her ministerial career shows an unassailable quality that manifests itself in her proclivity to make comebacks.
Harry Cole and James Heale are both politically right-wing and the former (as the book itself implies at one point) enjoyed an active journalist-politician relationship with Truss when she was a minister. Therefore, the book is written in a slightly sympathetic way but still captures the calamity of her premiership and does not absolve the main characters (Truss, Kwarteng etc) of blame.
January 2, 2023
Another mayonnaise-hating zealot (Jr) bought me this surprisingly engaging read for Christmas. If only the shitshow it describes were a comedy instead of real life.
The clues are there within the first 30 pages where Ms “no mayonnaise” Truss is variously described as
“Attention seeking”
“ a Political activist with total disconnection from detail”
Someone who “desires to be different for the sake of it” and is “more concerned with grabbing the limelight than believing anything”
and “an utter egomaniac pain in the backside incapable of working in a team”
It was never going to end well was it?!
The clues are there within the first 30 pages where Ms “no mayonnaise” Truss is variously described as
“Attention seeking”
“ a Political activist with total disconnection from detail”
Someone who “desires to be different for the sake of it” and is “more concerned with grabbing the limelight than believing anything”
and “an utter egomaniac pain in the backside incapable of working in a team”
It was never going to end well was it?!
March 8, 2023
Easy to digest, fairly objective and very interesting. I liked the background information on Truss' childhood and rise to the front bench, however I would have liked more detail about her short time in office, especially the period of mourning and the consequences this had on her losing some political capital. It would have also been good to have a prediction about what lies ahead for Truss. A great read nevertheless and would recommend for anyone interested in contemporary politics.
January 8, 2023
As one of the many people who lost a lot of money due to Liz Truss and her economic policies, I hoped to learn more about her logic for it all. I’m not sure I did though.
The only really new fact I learnt was that she knew the Queen was very ill but nothing was imminent, as the book puts it, when she left Balmoral after being invited to form a government.
The only really new fact I learnt was that she knew the Queen was very ill but nothing was imminent, as the book puts it, when she left Balmoral after being invited to form a government.
November 18, 2023
I found it an enjoyable read for what it is - a brief snapshot into Liz Truss the politician, and the role/contribution of advisors in campaigns and shaping a leader. My understanding is that it was due to be a look at her rise to power and then given the rapid sequence of events then pivoted to cover what went wrong. No doubt more information and sources will be available to future historians if they want to dig deeper but this is a book by journalists recounting events almost as they happened. If you want an in-depth biography of Truss this isn't it, but to its credit, I don't think it tries to be.
June 8, 2023
Very low on insight, and it's clear how hastily this was written, and then rewritten. Traces of the redemption narrative the authors hoped to tell - of Truss vindicated - are visible throughout. The most interesting elements are about...
1. Truss' drinking (and the drinking culture around her), which for me is more damning and unprofessional than anything witnessed under Boris during partygate.
There's something deeply pathetic and unbecoming about her 'rider'; demands (while FS) for a bottle of white wine in the fridge at every overnight stay, and her aides hastily trying to rearrange her diplomatic engagements the next day to cover up her hangovers.
2. Her narcissism, and vapid obsession with social media. Neglecting diplomats and meetings to craft the perfect caption, and driving all over towns looking for the perfect photo op - while leaving guests waiting. Social media is a valid tool for politicians to promote their agenda; but much like the drinking, her social media use appears more like that of a dependant teenager.
It's a sad indictment that such a shallow superficial politician ever came to be seen as a policy thinker; much less our prime minister.
1. Truss' drinking (and the drinking culture around her), which for me is more damning and unprofessional than anything witnessed under Boris during partygate.
There's something deeply pathetic and unbecoming about her 'rider'; demands (while FS) for a bottle of white wine in the fridge at every overnight stay, and her aides hastily trying to rearrange her diplomatic engagements the next day to cover up her hangovers.
2. Her narcissism, and vapid obsession with social media. Neglecting diplomats and meetings to craft the perfect caption, and driving all over towns looking for the perfect photo op - while leaving guests waiting. Social media is a valid tool for politicians to promote their agenda; but much like the drinking, her social media use appears more like that of a dependant teenager.
It's a sad indictment that such a shallow superficial politician ever came to be seen as a policy thinker; much less our prime minister.
June 25, 2023
Bad biography about Britain's worst Prime Minister written by a client journalist that still makes her out to be an utterly incompetent narcissist.
Relied on a handful of sources, many of whom were predisposed towards her, and yet she still comes across terribly. Doesn't interrogate enough Truss' obsession with social media or the drinking culture around herself and her team, or her very shallow and half-baked ideas and her transformation from Remainer to ERG Brexiteer. It also fails to question how someone consistently poor in all of her positions kept on getting promoted, she had a remarkable trait of failing upwards (an area we could have perhaps done with some more mentions of the rumours about her private life, or that Johnson supposedly expected her to fail as a route back to the top). The suggestion that the mini-budget fiasco was partly because of civil servants not questioning her enough was laughable considering her complete disdain for them.
Rushed book which was made to coincide with her becoming PM, but she was so bad at the job she was out of it by the time the book was ready.
Relied on a handful of sources, many of whom were predisposed towards her, and yet she still comes across terribly. Doesn't interrogate enough Truss' obsession with social media or the drinking culture around herself and her team, or her very shallow and half-baked ideas and her transformation from Remainer to ERG Brexiteer. It also fails to question how someone consistently poor in all of her positions kept on getting promoted, she had a remarkable trait of failing upwards (an area we could have perhaps done with some more mentions of the rumours about her private life, or that Johnson supposedly expected her to fail as a route back to the top). The suggestion that the mini-budget fiasco was partly because of civil servants not questioning her enough was laughable considering her complete disdain for them.
Rushed book which was made to coincide with her becoming PM, but she was so bad at the job she was out of it by the time the book was ready.
February 4, 2024
pure camp
March 11, 2024
Having come down with a heavy cold for a couple of days, I ended up reading this in a single sitting. I felt there was a little urgency to read it because the book is very of-the-moment, like an extended piece of journalism documenting an event. Truss's short whirlwind premiership is definitely interesting reading, and she is an interesting character, but I doubt the book will be read, or the person remembered, in a few years from now. So there felt like a need to read it whilst there was still some relevance to it.
It's written in a pretty engaging and straightforward way and is basically a biography, starting with the marriage of Truss's parents and finishing with her dramatic fall from power and including a lot of her personal as well as professional life. It goes through in time order, with chapters separating periods of time covering everything you might want want to know. Truss is actually a more interesting character than you might think. It's easy to characterise her by everything you saw most visibly about her - ploughed ahead from an ideologically right-wing position, anyone who disagreed was 'talking Britain down', removed anyone with a different point-of-view and ended up causing an absolute calamity which she was warned about repeatedly but refused to listen, then ended up blaming everyone else for it. That she has quite a technocratic approach to things, favours maths, has a fairly problem-solving approach to problems and was actually a bit of a geek herself was rather new to me.
It does manage to capture the weirdness of Truss's character, and she even describes herself as weird. There are some contradictions - awkward yet very ambitious in politics. Very libertarian yet refused to countenance public spending cuts. The uber-remainer who became the Brexiteer darling. The former Lib Dem who became the right-wing ideologue. But there are a couple of things that come through clearly, and constantly, and are both her strengths and downfalls:
1. She's laser-focused on what she's interested in and for a good portion of the book, this is Instagram (which her allies describe rather generously as 'selling Britain'). But she's not interested in a trade briefing or meeting the exporters that were laid on for her, making excuses to leave after half an hour. If she's not interested, absolutely nothing will bring her round.
2. She has no shame, and no imposter-syndrome. There is no self-doubt; she wasn't wrong, it was everyone else's fault. She crashed the fortunes of the Tory Party, probably for about ten years, yet still believes she could lead it again.
For those with some interest in politics, Truss is actually still around, having migrated to the fairlyland of US-conspiracy politics. The same traits are still there, she is still utterly shameless and her gameplan seems to be to bring that US-style into the UK, which would make discourse immeasurably worse. The book doesn't pass a huge amount of judgement on her, or her time, but personally, I really do hope she loses her seat at the next election and her baleful influence disappears. On the plus-side, I don't think she has any real cut-through with the public anymore and this book is the same, I imagine read by politics nerds but unlikely the wider public. A future edition might have an extra chapter with her extra-curricular activities after leaving office.
I'd recommend it, but read it soon. It'll fade into irrelevance as time goes on.
It's written in a pretty engaging and straightforward way and is basically a biography, starting with the marriage of Truss's parents and finishing with her dramatic fall from power and including a lot of her personal as well as professional life. It goes through in time order, with chapters separating periods of time covering everything you might want want to know. Truss is actually a more interesting character than you might think. It's easy to characterise her by everything you saw most visibly about her - ploughed ahead from an ideologically right-wing position, anyone who disagreed was 'talking Britain down', removed anyone with a different point-of-view and ended up causing an absolute calamity which she was warned about repeatedly but refused to listen, then ended up blaming everyone else for it. That she has quite a technocratic approach to things, favours maths, has a fairly problem-solving approach to problems and was actually a bit of a geek herself was rather new to me.
It does manage to capture the weirdness of Truss's character, and she even describes herself as weird. There are some contradictions - awkward yet very ambitious in politics. Very libertarian yet refused to countenance public spending cuts. The uber-remainer who became the Brexiteer darling. The former Lib Dem who became the right-wing ideologue. But there are a couple of things that come through clearly, and constantly, and are both her strengths and downfalls:
1. She's laser-focused on what she's interested in and for a good portion of the book, this is Instagram (which her allies describe rather generously as 'selling Britain'). But she's not interested in a trade briefing or meeting the exporters that were laid on for her, making excuses to leave after half an hour. If she's not interested, absolutely nothing will bring her round.
2. She has no shame, and no imposter-syndrome. There is no self-doubt; she wasn't wrong, it was everyone else's fault. She crashed the fortunes of the Tory Party, probably for about ten years, yet still believes she could lead it again.
For those with some interest in politics, Truss is actually still around, having migrated to the fairlyland of US-conspiracy politics. The same traits are still there, she is still utterly shameless and her gameplan seems to be to bring that US-style into the UK, which would make discourse immeasurably worse. The book doesn't pass a huge amount of judgement on her, or her time, but personally, I really do hope she loses her seat at the next election and her baleful influence disappears. On the plus-side, I don't think she has any real cut-through with the public anymore and this book is the same, I imagine read by politics nerds but unlikely the wider public. A future edition might have an extra chapter with her extra-curricular activities after leaving office.
I'd recommend it, but read it soon. It'll fade into irrelevance as time goes on.
September 11, 2023
With her manic eagerness, cheap publicity stunts, fixed stare looking somewhere over the horizon, and GCSE level political fixed ideas, she could be a parody of Reese Witherspoon’s character from the movie Election. Unfortunately, she is a real politician, who, in her short premiership, succeeded in damaging the economy and the status of the country.
The authors rushed the publication soon after her sudden fall from grace, to attract people like me, who looked to find an answer to a baffling question – how her premiership became possible?
As the authors didn’t have the time, the research is minimal, and, apart from the fact that she had an 18-month affair with a senior Tory MP in her early career (which might show that she is either human or devoid of any ethics as long as her career can be helped), I did not learn anything new.
They quote some of the people who know her, including her followers and adversaries, but on the whole, the book is just a short summary of her career.
As she is still politically active, and she still has some Tory MPs and grassroots extreme conservative fanatics support who still see her as the second Thatcher coming or Brexit Boris without jokes, some more comprehensive books about this populist politician are to be written.
The authors rushed the publication soon after her sudden fall from grace, to attract people like me, who looked to find an answer to a baffling question – how her premiership became possible?
As the authors didn’t have the time, the research is minimal, and, apart from the fact that she had an 18-month affair with a senior Tory MP in her early career (which might show that she is either human or devoid of any ethics as long as her career can be helped), I did not learn anything new.
They quote some of the people who know her, including her followers and adversaries, but on the whole, the book is just a short summary of her career.
As she is still politically active, and she still has some Tory MPs and grassroots extreme conservative fanatics support who still see her as the second Thatcher coming or Brexit Boris without jokes, some more comprehensive books about this populist politician are to be written.
February 18, 2023
The authors note at the start of the book that it was rushed out, and you can tell - I counted a number of grammatical errors throughout the read.
With all that said, it provides a high level overview of how Liz Truss managed to come to the grips of power, albeit for only 44 days. I found the first half of the book talking about her rise to the cabinet the most interesting, possibly because the latter chapters surrounding her premiership seem all to recent - a period in British politics I think most would rather forget. Ultimately, it’s clear she wasn’t up to the job - style over substance is played out time and time again. From her fashion, to her Instagram posts.
Knowing the the authors had to change the title shortly before it went to print to include ‘and rapid fall’ tells all you need to know, in fact even Goodreads hasn’t updated their title or front cover to reflect the updated copy! This was not meant to be a book of failure, but the rise of an unlikely Prime Minister. Let’s just hope she fades into the history books and doesn’t come back to the front line anytime soon…
With all that said, it provides a high level overview of how Liz Truss managed to come to the grips of power, albeit for only 44 days. I found the first half of the book talking about her rise to the cabinet the most interesting, possibly because the latter chapters surrounding her premiership seem all to recent - a period in British politics I think most would rather forget. Ultimately, it’s clear she wasn’t up to the job - style over substance is played out time and time again. From her fashion, to her Instagram posts.
Knowing the the authors had to change the title shortly before it went to print to include ‘and rapid fall’ tells all you need to know, in fact even Goodreads hasn’t updated their title or front cover to reflect the updated copy! This was not meant to be a book of failure, but the rise of an unlikely Prime Minister. Let’s just hope she fades into the history books and doesn’t come back to the front line anytime soon…
April 2, 2023
When I recently reviewed Sebastian Payne’s book about the fall of Boris Johnson, I said that him becoming prime minister was not only an indictment of the party that put him there but also the political system that enabled it. Harry Cole and James Heale’s book about Liz Truss only confirms my above thoughts - and then some. Frankly, both Johnson and Truss were completely unsuitable people to be prime minister. I’d go as far as to say that neither should be MPs. Both are incompetent, clueless individuals who have surrounded themselves with sycophantic acolytes, who were never going to question their hair-brained plans at any stage. The result was chaos and the near meltdown of the UK economy. That either of these inadequates could have risen to the top of British politics is a total indictment of a system that is broken and needs replacing as soon as possible. Sure, the book is a hoot in parts, given the crazy goings on in the court of Truss, but frankly the joke is on us for being ‘governed’ by such a person in the first place.
November 27, 2022
Thirty years ago I went to the last Party conference with John Major, must have been in 1996 as he lost the election in 1997 to Tony Blair? This was reported at the time:
“A fresh round of conflict began within his own party over Europe. He secured a number of opt-outs from the Maastricht Treaty regarding social policy and membership of the single currency – but this was not enough for a number of his colleagues. Throughout the rest of his time as Prime Minister, he suffered from continued attacks from his own party and Cabinet on Europe, which played a role in destabilising the government.”
In October 2022, went back to the CPC in Birmingham and despite winning support of party members, there were questions about her low tax and high growth plans, even at the Conference.
This is an account of her fall from power, and highly recommended reading.
“A fresh round of conflict began within his own party over Europe. He secured a number of opt-outs from the Maastricht Treaty regarding social policy and membership of the single currency – but this was not enough for a number of his colleagues. Throughout the rest of his time as Prime Minister, he suffered from continued attacks from his own party and Cabinet on Europe, which played a role in destabilising the government.”
In October 2022, went back to the CPC in Birmingham and despite winning support of party members, there were questions about her low tax and high growth plans, even at the Conference.
This is an account of her fall from power, and highly recommended reading.
November 23, 2023
A mixed bag probably because of the decision to publish so soon after the events and before the full aftermath is clear. There are some interesting background notes on the character and method of working of probably the UKs least known Prime Minister, for example the image of her leading her aides in a drunken karaoke session, if true, is not one that is easy to imagine. The book really suffers from only speaking to those directly involved, who clearly are still trying to defend their own interests, and would benefit from the context brought by former Cabinet ministers, economists, and others who could shed a more neutral light on why Truss’ Premiership was such a spectacular failure, what could or should have been done differently, and how. Undoubtedly there will be many books written on the shortest administration in UK political history, but this is a not bad scene setter.
March 2, 2024
Why, in why,oh why
Sometimes history is against you but sometimes in politics it is your own supporters. As with Corbyn, the institutional madness of party members saddled the nation with an utterly unsuitable leader. Liz Truss seems addicted to vanity and self delusion but her party encouraged her ascent to high office when she personified all the vices of backfiring and contempt for voters that has made the country poor. Ask not which politician is most awful not ponder why we permit such morons to govern.
Briskly written, read this and discover the full horror of a career that stuns you by a lack of achievement and any sense of care for the country she claims to love
Sometimes history is against you but sometimes in politics it is your own supporters. As with Corbyn, the institutional madness of party members saddled the nation with an utterly unsuitable leader. Liz Truss seems addicted to vanity and self delusion but her party encouraged her ascent to high office when she personified all the vices of backfiring and contempt for voters that has made the country poor. Ask not which politician is most awful not ponder why we permit such morons to govern.
Briskly written, read this and discover the full horror of a career that stuns you by a lack of achievement and any sense of care for the country she claims to love
April 2, 2024
I read this book to have a clearer understanding of the rise of Liz Truss ,the reasons for her fall being more obvious.Her opportunism and greed for power came across.The book did feel slightly as if it was a project that had a longer timescale but was rushed to cashin on the dramatic end and it does slightly fall because of that in not providing a fuller picture .Her family history seems a set of contradictions as do her frequent changes of policy especially towards Europe.Her current attempt to establish herself as a UK version of Steve Bannon is bizarre and I look forward to a more studied personal history
January 17, 2023
It certainly exceeded my expectations in terms of writing quality; a well structured study on Liz Truss — and her rapid ascent to power (see title🙃) — there’s certainly more to her than I would’ve expected, certainly a character. It also serves as painstaking reminder of how fast things can turn utterly catastrophic with a lack of situational awareness and outlook, as well as underpinning the Westminster system’s success in hastily discarding incompetent leaders.
August 1, 2023
Good account of Liz Truss' early career in particular, and of time in cabinet. Account of her period as PM seemed very brief and felt like more depth needed. One assumes this may appear in later analyses.
At times authors seemed to be relying on a very small number of sources. However book did a good job of conveying central conclusion which seemed to be that most of the things that went wrong were no surprise at all given previous behaviour and incidents, and should have been foreseen.
At times authors seemed to be relying on a very small number of sources. However book did a good job of conveying central conclusion which seemed to be that most of the things that went wrong were no surprise at all given previous behaviour and incidents, and should have been foreseen.
November 21, 2023
Whilst it does not appear to be the original intention of this book to paint Truss as an incompetent opportunist, more interested in her own career/presentation than in anything else, it is the ultimate result. This now serves as a portrait of perhaps the worst PM the UK has seen and of an individual with such arrogance that she rarely took the advice of others, even when those others were so obviously more knowledgeable than she.
January 16, 2024
The Thick of it in the real world
It's a little too close to be objective about such an absolute clusterfuck of an attempt at government by someone who should have known to tread softly at least in terms of radical policy. I thought the Thick of It was satire but it was much closer to reality than is comfortable for us ordinary folk. A good read with insight into what government does and how it works.
It's a little too close to be objective about such an absolute clusterfuck of an attempt at government by someone who should have known to tread softly at least in terms of radical policy. I thought the Thick of It was satire but it was much closer to reality than is comfortable for us ordinary folk. A good read with insight into what government does and how it works.
March 15, 2023
Really enjoyed the insight in this book and shows the mess this country is in right now, and the rise of self interest over public interest. This book demonstrates that the Truss Premiership was doomed from the start and shows why it is important that the whole electorate should get a say. Damning review of Truss and can’t say im surprised.
December 27, 2022
Interesting read bringing all the areas about LT into one book but as another reviewer noted this was all really 3rd hand cut and paste stuff. Notwithstanding that it gives a rather depressing view of our current political "elite".
December 11, 2022
Only read the last third or so, the coverage of the bits where she utterly f*cked many in the UK. Nothing really new, interesting or insightful.
April 11, 2023
An interesting insight into the rise of an intensely confusing character
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