February 6, 2024 - 2:30pm
Westminster
Today’s Times cartoon had Liz Truss, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Lee Anderson, plus three PopCon acolytes, crowded into a broom cupboard with the overhead caption, “Standing room only!” The implication wasn’t especially ambiguous: who cares? Who’s this for? Will anyone actually show up to the Popular Conservatism launch, especially after polling this week found that Truss might just be the least popular politician in the country?
As it happened, the caption proved apt, as SpAds, hacks, Tory traitors and assorted nerds kettled into a small conference hall in Westminster this morning. The room was packed out, spectators there to see another “family” added to the burgeoning Tory mafiosi, and talk of revolution was in the air.
Truss, the star attraction, spoke last in the hour-long slot. Warming up for her were former Institute of Economic Affairs bossman and now PopCon leader Mark Littlewood, Trump-supporting Tory “rising star” Mhairi Fraser, and the oddly endearing double act of Jacob Rees-Mogg and Lee Anderson. “Me and Jacob have one thing in common [sic],” intoned the Ashfield MP. “We were both born on estates.” Anderson’s every argument — Net Zero “never coming up on the doorstep”, politicians not caring about voters — was a grasp at authenticity. He referred to Parliament as “that place over there” three times, and MPs as “that lot”. But “that lot” should really have been “us lot”, including the many Tories in the front seats.
And so PopCon, positioned as a radical alternative to the establishment, featured as its top names a former prime minister and the “honourable member for the 18th century”. Indeed, when Rees-Mogg made a point of referring to “Sir Anthony Blair, Knight of the Garter”, his own Knight Bachelor status went unmentioned. Much of the policy focus presented this morning — opposition to Net Zero, the need to tackle “wokeness” in schools, and the importance of stricter immigration controls — was practically indistinguishable from Rishi Sunak’s.
Yet there is a substantial difference between the Truss troupe and the Sunakites: these are libertarians, not busybodies who don’t want your toddler to light a cig. “It’s time to put Nanny [statism] to bed,” was how Fraser chose to end her speech. The enemies common to all the speeches were “globalists”, “internationalists”, “Eurocrats”, “bureaucrats” — anyone who stifled the individual in favour of collectivism. Rees-Mogg declared that the “age of Davos Man is over” and heralded a coming victory over a nebulous “cabal”. Never in a one-hour space has the word “quango” been used so often.
The official line was that PopCon isn’t trying to sink the Tory Party, just convince it that Sunak’s way is the wrong one. But insisting “we’re not regicides” is harder to pull off while sharpening your knives out in the open. The PopCon influences are diverse: just as Suella Braverman did her best Jeremy Corbyn impression at Conservative Party Conference in the autumn, Littlewood found time to quote Tony Benn and, in the vein of Boris Johnson, the mayor from Jaws.
Truss’s brief, chaotic premiership was, all along, the elephant in the room. This was heightened by the announcement this morning from her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, that he would not be standing at the next election. She and her allies are now on a crusade against a system, consisting of the Civil Service and assorted bureaucratic agencies, which is “actively working to stop policies happening”. The ex-PM regretted that “you have responsibility but not power as a minister”, as if to say that the mini-budget of 2022 and its outcome were really the doing of those omnipotent quangos.
Claiming that “the Left is on the march globally”, despite the projected victories of Right-wing parties in multiple European elections this year, Truss rallied her troops. It may be the same old tune, but that’s no reason to dismiss the PopCons. Sunak’s government isn’t providing much hope for Tories at present. With her modestly-titled book Ten Years to Save the West published in April, might this be Truss’s year — again?
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SubscribeThere’s certainly a strong urge to dismiss it, especially with Truss at the helm, but politics needs this kind of injection of passion even if you don’t agree with the message.
Mogg and Anderson reminds me of that probably apocryphal Khrushchev thing. On meeting, the Chinese premier who was the son of the upper class was criticised by Khruschev (son of peasants) for being posh, he responded “we are both traitors to our class”. So in fact they have at least two things in common. Political opportunism is probably a third.
After at least a decade of fluffing in the Daily Telegraph Liz Truss is still a darling of the actual Tory members who have the say on picking leader even if the “will of the people” (remember that one?) would really really rather they didn’t.
Add in caricature Mogg as chancellor and you’ve got a 1-2 combo for vindictive tory boomers seeking revenge for a Labour landslide.
I think of Liz Truss as the Conservatives’ version of Jeremy Corbyn. Very attractive to some in the Party, but nowhere near all.
+ their election risks sending gilt market into meltdown.
Corbyn would also have spooked bond markets in a similar way, & then would’ve been harder to get rid off
Kneeler will blow up the Bond markets-he won’t be able to resist increasing spending and irrespective of how its “financed” (“sic”) it will go down like a cup of cold sick against a background of zero growth and escalating net zero costs and de industrialisation (or what’s left of it)
I don’t think he’ll be much different from Sunak, apart from slight change of rhetoric and further entrenchment of US style DEI ideology
How can she come back if she was never there to begin with?
If Truss is the answer, you’re asking the wrong question.
People will vote as they please but can we stop with the “rising star” references to politicos of any party. These are not celebrities or entertainers, and it cheapens the process to treat them as such.
Highly amusing coming from a guy who thinks a D list celebrity like Trump should be in the White House!
Talk about cheapening the process…
Truss in office was apparently planning to further increase immigration to artificially boost GDP numbers. I have no time for Sunak but probably even less for Truss and her think tank liberalism.
Interesting…do you have a source for that?
https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/liz-truss-backlash-from-cabinet-plans-immigration-rules/
Thanks, very helpful.
From the current legal immigration figures it rather seems Sunak also adopted that policy..
Only thing missing was the clown car and red noses!
Watching the Tories tear themselves apart after their general election disaster is going to be SO much FUN!
True. First upvote
Surely Truss couldn’t make a comeback as Leader? She tanked the economy last time around!
Which economic indicators are you relying on for that judgement? Far from tanking the economy, one month after her exit the relevant statistics showed no trace she’d ever been in office.
It tanked while she was in office. Fortunately she was removed quickly.
Go and explain that to all the milions paying massively increased mortgages due to her fiscal incontinence!
The PopCons, at this point, just look like a contradiction in terms waiting to happen.
A merger between this group and Reform before the 2029 election perhaps …
After the deluge of the next General Election, the PopCons’ evident intention is to reconstruct the Tory Party. The words ‘woke’ and ‘Davos’ cast out like fishing lures onto the disturbed surface of the lake of public opinion.
It’s impossible to dislike Ms Truss. Nine parts indefatigable and one part disarming entertainment. Just like it was impossible to dislike Ken Dodd. Dodd did defeat the taxman. A working class hero from Liverpool.
As she’s right about the existence of the millions of ‘secret conservatives’. They can be found memorialised in books of remembrance at crematoria. Their votes will have to be canvassed by séance and the use of Ouija boards.
Her exhortation at last year’s Tory Party conference to ‘unleash your inner conservative’ is like unleashing a Dodo from a glass case in a museum and expecting it to fly. Charming in its bright, childlike naivety. Again, impossible to dislike. And mocking such would verge on the cruel.
Mr Farage saved the Tory Party in 2019. Much more importantly, he, in effect, saved the Labour Party. One term of a Corbyn Labour government might have collapsed them permanently. The severe pruning Labour suffered in the 2019 General Election did them a world of good. The PopCons must see an opportunity for themselves in this.
As demonstrated by the EU referendum and the concern over the Gazan war, among other things, there are new constituencies forming in the UK, These new constituencies need new political parties to represent them in Parliament. Not the warmed-over leftovers whose constituencies passed away with the end of rationing, the introduction of the contraceptive pill, and the demise of the 19th century industries.
Meanwhile, hand out the buckets of popcorn.
Liz Truss / ‘LIZ TRUS’ / n. Someone who appoints their own judge and jury and is still found guilty.
Liz Truss. A Future Prime Minister. I do hope so.
The Popcons are the British expression of a neoliberal turn in populism. These Milleiists no longer want the votes of the left behind, but instead are turning back to the barrow boys and Essex men of the 1980s.
Rishi opposed to Net Zero? Don’t make me laugh!
Liz Truss, right ideas wrong person / lousy execution.