Who is popular today?

She has personal traits and political characteristics that are strikingly similar to those of Boris JohnsonEven the slowest-witted member of the Conservative party must have twigged by now. The pussy-bow blouse she wore to one of the televised debates. All those shriekingly unsubtle snaps of her riding a tank, sitting in a fighter jet and wearing a faux fur hat in Moscow’s Red Square. Added to which are the thudding claims that she is a steely woman of conviction who will bulldoze through establishment obstruction in a heroic mission to save Britain. Liz Truss is not quite so crass as to explicitly call herself the second Margaret Thatcher, but she is very happy to encourage that illusion among Tory members.She certainly reminds me of a blond prime minister with intense ambitions and an outsize personality, but not that one. The Tory leader she most resembles is not Mrs Thatcher. It is Boris Johnson. Should Tory activists choose Ms Truss, they will be replacing Mr Johnson with someone who shares a lot of his personal and political characteristics. She would be elevated to Number 10, as he was, with a thin record when it comes to governing. “She was never very good at anything she did,” says one Tory who sat in cabinet with her. David Cameron promoted her to the top table in 2014 where she has sat ever since. That makes her the longest continuously serving member of the cabinet and yet colleagues struggle to identify a single standout achievement she can genuinely claim as all her own work. Continue reading...