Part 2. Liz Truss
By Baldmichael Theresoluteprotector’sson
4th September, 2022
If you haven’t seen it you may wish to examine part 1: Rishi Sunak. Anyway with Boris Johnson gone, the Tory party are looking for a new leader.
I wasn’t sure about the two remaining, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, until I looked at Rishi Sunak who you will see I discard very definitely. But I thought I must also take a closer look At Liz Truss. I have used Wikipedia entries as a starting point. Text in italics extracted from these entries.
Liz Truss
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liz_Truss
She was born in Oxford, UK, in July 1975 so she is now 47. Her parents may be UK nationals and there is no evidence to suggest they are not.
Her father is an emeritus professor of pure mathematics at the University of Leeds, while her mother was a nurse, teacher and member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
Truss has described her parents as being “to the left of Labour”.
She has moved around a bit and appears to have had a state school education so probably more in tune with the general population than Rishi Sunak, although a public school education does not necessarily make somebody ignorant of the populace as a whole.
She has been Liberal Democrat but joined the Conservative Party in 1996, which would have been at around age 21, so something must have changed her mind.
Professional career
She has worked in large businesses having qualified as a Chartered Management Accountant. I don’t have anything against accountants per se but running a country is not just about the numbers.
Political career
Parliamentary candidatures
Shortly after her selection, some members of the constituency association objected to Truss’s selection, due to her failing to declare a prior affair with the married Conservative MP Mark Field.
I am not sure why she should have declared her affair, as I don’t know how she presented her case for selection. But is does seem the central party intervened, possibly David Cameron himself. I have no affiliation to any party but I am none too keen on seeing centralised control over such matters. The local association should have the ultimate say.
The prospective member of parliament will represent to constituency first and foremost, that is what parliamentary democracy is supposed to be about.
Parliamentary career
She has been the co-author of a book which said “Once they enter the workplace, the British are among the worst idlers in the world. We work among the lowest hours, we retire early and our productivity is poor.”
I am not sure how true this is, although in certain sectors no doubt it is true. But productivity has nothing to do with how long people work. Much time at work is technically ‘wasted’. What the end result is what matters, is it of good quality and useful is the question that should be asked.
Lots of stuff gets made which is essentially crap and doesn’t last. As to the various documents and reports that get churned out by civil servants etc. the bulk of it is filler and pointless garbage.
Truss has campaigned for improved teaching of more rigorous school subjects, especially mathematics. She noted in 2012 that only 20% of British students studied maths to 18, and called for maths classes to be compulsory for all those in full-time education. Truss herself studied maths and further maths at A level. She argued in 2011 that comprehensive school pupils were being “mis-sold” easy, low-value subjects to boost school results: comprehensive school pupils were six times as likely to take media studies at A-level as privately educated pupils. Truss also criticised the over-reliance on calculators to the detriment of mental arithmetic.
I have to say I thoroughly agree with her on this. Whilst I don’t think anybody needs any more than a good ‘O’ level grounding in maths to be competent in life and indeed, a decent primary school level will suffice most of the time, I did take Maths and Further maths at ‘A’ level myself although I dropped the latter after my first year in sixth form due to struggling with the pure side (statistics I quite enjoyed).
Over reliance on calculators is a very good point, we need to stimulate our brains and expecting a machine to do things for us is not good.
As to media studies, these are a farce by and large.
Ministerial career
Junior ministerial career (2012–2014)
She sought to improve British standards in maths for fear that children are falling behind those in Asian countries,
Understandable as an accountant she should wish for this. And in my books very reasonable.
Environment Secretary (2014–2016)
In November 2014, Truss launched a new 10-year bee and pollinator strategy to try to reverse the trend of falling bee populations, including a strategy to revive traditional meadows which provide the most fertile habitat for pollinators. In July 2015, she approved the limited temporary lifting of an EU ban on the use of two neonicotinoid pesticides, enabling their use for 120 days on about 5% of England’s oil seed rape crop to ward off the cabbage stem flea beetle; campaigners in 2012 warned that pesticides were shown to harm bees by damaging their renowned ability to navigate home.
The problem with falling bee populations is that they have been poisoned by the many toxins in the environment introduced by the chemical industries/big pharma to big farmers!!
These chemicals are neuro-toxins as they are designed to suppress the nervous systems of insects, but all that ultimately happens is that the toxins accumulate in bees and the hive is poisoned.
This is not rocket science and is yet one more instance of big pharma harming the life on this planet.
I am surprised Liz Truss has not grasped this.
Truss cut taxpayer subsidies for solar panels on agricultural land, as her view was that the land could be better used to grow crops, food and vegetables.
I agree with her on this. I despair when I see the solar panels littering the landscape. We need to grow as much food as we can, but we don’t need to use agro-chemicals and pesticides to do it. We need quality not quantity and we certainly do not need to poison ourselves as we currently do, courtesy of big pharma.
Justice Secretary (2016–2017)
She has been criticized for “…failing to support more robustly the judiciary and the principle of judicial independence.”
Apparently this was regarding the R (Miller) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union case which ruled “…that the British Government (the executive) may not initiate withdrawal from the European Union by formal notification to the Council of the European Union as prescribed by Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union without an Act of Parliament giving the government Parliament’s permission to do so.”
Technically this may have been correct but given that Gina Miller, who was one of the main claimants in the case, was and presumably still is, an ardent remainer, one can sympathise with those who thought the judges were being unreasonable.
It is reasonably argued that we were misled into joining the EEC as it was when we joined and we had no proper legality anyway as a consequence.
Vernon Coleman is very good.
https://vernoncoleman.com/euillegally.html
Chief Secretary to the Treasury (2017–2019)
Some of her civil servants were reported as finding her tenure as Chief Secretary “exhausting”, because of her demanding work schedule and her habit of asking officials multiplication questions at random intervals.
It amuses me that some officials should apparently struggle with multiplication questions. One wonders quite what level of multiplication they were. Officials in the treasury should have a firm grasp of numbers.
My father tells me his grandfather could add up three columns of figures in the old pounds schillings and pence in his job as a stockjobber in the stock exchange. In today’s age I wonder how many could add up two columns in their heads.
This link from the Wikipedia article expands on Liz Truss.
It says
Few dispute that she would have been able to do the job (of chancellor of the exchequer) effectively. But Johnson discarded her as his chancellor-designate in part because of the row the tax plans caused, and in part because Javid was more willing to spend freely.
That’s a pity. We needed sensible spending, not the free for all that we see and the enormous waste of taxpayer’s money that goes on.
In June 2018, Truss gave a speech outlining her declared commitment to freedom and individual liberty. She criticised regulations that get in the way of people’s lives and warned that raising taxes could see the Tories being “crushed” at the polls; in particular, she criticised ministerial colleagues who should, in her view, realise “that it’s not macho just to demand more money. It’s much tougher to demand better value and challenge the blob of vested interests within your department”.
Good for her. About time the vested interests got a great big boot up their backsides. Bleeding Britain dry is what they have done at the expense of those who work hard for peanuts.
International Trade Secretary (2019–2021)
She seems to have done some useful work on trade deals post Brexit, including Japan.
This was followed by newly negotiated trade deals with Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.
I am not quite sure how significant a trade deal with Liechtenstein will be. It is rather small!! Still, every little helps as they say.
In December 2020, Truss made a speech on equality policy in which she stated that the UK focused too heavily on “fashionable” race, sexuality, and gender issues at the expense of poverty and geographical disparity. In the speech, she announced that the government and civil service would no longer be receiving unconscious bias training.
“no longer be receiving unconscious bias training.” Hooray, about bloody time. Mind you, what is unconscious bias anyway? Possibly Antifa or LGBTQ+ activists knocking you unconscious for disagreeing with their lunacy!
Everybody is biased. One can be biased towards truth or biased towards lies. But let’s have plain robust speaking, no cover up of the truth. And cut the crap of the civil service which in my books has become the uncivil service as it does not serve the people as it should.
You may have heard the phrase “the bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.” attributed to Oscar Wilde.
The civil service should be heavily streamlined along with many other administration jobs. Liz Truss might well take up the cudgel as P.M.
Foreign Secretary (2021–present)
Russia and Ukraine
I am not impressed with her as Foreign Secretary in this context.
She made a cock-up regarding Russia’s sovereignty over the Voronezh and Rostov regions, two Russian provinces where Russian troops are deployed.
I suppose one can’t expect her to have studied the WW2 Eastern Front but a bit of geography would have helped. Is this the mentality of an accountant?
She has supported people wanting to help the ‘struggle’ which shows great naivety and ignorance of what is actually going on let alone the fact this is apparently illegal anyway.
She wants to push Russia out of the Ukraine and the Crimea, yet seems blissfully unaware of history and the proxy war that has been going on and the Nazi Azov battalion.
2022 Conservative Party leadership election
She pledged to cut taxes on day one if elected, and said she would “fight the election as a Conservative and govern as a Conservative”, adding that she would also take “immediate action to help people deal with the cost of living.” She said she would cancel a planned rise in corporation tax and reverse the recent increase in National Insurance rates, funded by delaying the date by which the national debt is planned to fall, as part of a “long-term plan to bring down the size of the state and the tax burden”.
Well, I am all for what she proposes. Bringing down the size of the state is a mammoth task but essential. I am not adverse to reasonable taxes as such but governments just waste the money horrendously. People get given a budget and have no incentive to give value for money or save it to be put aside for something better at the year end.
If we don’t have people who actually care and will be honest (let alone have the mathematical skills) then waste and corruption will continue.
Political positions
Economics and foreign policy
She supports free trade. I am generally for this provided what we get is good quality. All too often free trade can mean the lowest common denominator and we end up with rubbish goods – or should that be bads?!
Brexit
She voted to remain but changed her mind in 2017. I was unsure myself about which way to vote, but voted leave in the end.
As remainers then went ballistic and I now understand that the EU is the German Fourth Reich planned all along if WW2 didn’t go according to plan for Nazi Germany, I now realise I was right to vote the way I did.
We were warned decades ago about Germany before we joined but siren voices persuaded people we must join. Germany has been stuffing us ever since.
Anyway, at least she now sees sense. She is quoted as saying “I was wrong and I am prepared to admit I was wrong”. That is something in a politician to be humble enough to admit ones mistakes and seems rare to me.
But then who does like admitting their mistakes?
Social and cultural issues
On culture, Truss has said that the Conservative Party should “reject the zero-sum game of identity politics, we reject the illiberalism of cancel culture, and we reject the soft bigotry of low expectations that holds so many people back”. She has also suggested that Britain should not ignore the history of the British Empire, but should embrace the country’s history “warts and all” if it is to compete with hostile states.
I agree with this. It has destroyed much of what is good. It has been a concerted campaign by the Nazis and Marxists to destroy this country.
On LGBTQ+ rights, Truss, according to Reuters, voted for gay marriage and has never voted against LGBTQ+ rights, but has also moved to limit trans rights. She spoke against gender self-identification, stating that “medical checks are important”. She said that she agreed that “only women have a cervix”. She also stated that the government departments should withdraw from Stonewall’s diversity champions scheme. Despite initially supporting single-sex services being restricted on the basis of biological sex, she later said in February 2022 that the Government was not interested in enacting such a measure.
I am sorry she voted for homosexual marriage (gay was a word stolen by homosexuals to make their actions more acceptable to people at large, so I avoid using in this context).
It has always been obvious that marriage is between a man and a woman. Living together is one thing, marriage is quite another.
But at least she sees sense on the gender self-identification issue. The whole thing is a mental health issue due to psychological pressures exacerbated by the various toxins in the environment. Including probably female hormones in the water.
Environmental policies
On 25 July 2022, during the first head-to-head debate on the BBC, Truss said: “I was an environmentalist before it was fashionable. I was a teenage eco-warrior campaigning against damage to the ozone layer.” She also said that we should save our resources by using and wasting less which would help the environment and singled out food waste as being a massive problem in the UK.
Again I agree with her. We should return to mend and repair which helps create jobs locally and increases social cohesion as we interact on such things, rather than buying yet another dubious quality product via the internet.
But we do need to make products that are good quality in the first place and can be reasonably repaired.
We cannot afford to go on dumping rubbish in landfill or littered about on land or sea.
In 2022, Truss suggested that she would end the UK government’s moratorium on fracking,[169] which has been in place since 2019,[170][171] to permit it “in parts of the country where there is local support for it”.[172] Truss views fracking as a way of reducing the UK’s dependence on Russian energy sources.[173] While Environment Secretary in 2015, Truss was urged by Green Party MP Caroline Lucas to apologise to communities facing fracking for “holding back” evidence of the risks for rural areas.
I am not convinced about fracking being sensible. The issue of water quality is serious, we already have problems with nitrate run off, let alone the poisons we add to water when ozone treatment would be much better and not toxic.
Of course we have to accept higher costs, but if we don’t we pay more for health problems. You have to look at the global costs, not just the immediate issue.
While not against the use of solar panels, in 2022 Truss said: “I think one of the most depressing sights when you’re driving through England is seeing fields that should be full of crops or livestock, full of solar panels.” She has proposed that solar panel use should be restricted to commercial roofs.
Agreed, I hate seeing these panels myself. There are large areas of commercial roofs unused in this way. Not that I like the big shed developments mind, they are as bad as solar panels as an eyesore and take agricultural land.
At a hustings in Exeter in August, Truss has said that she would give her support to the construction of small modular reactors and large nuclear power facilities.[176] While Foreign Secretary, Truss has cautioned against Chinese involvement in British infrastructure, including nuclear power stations.
Again I consider this reasonable. I am not convinced that nuclear power is as dangerous as we are told. I am suspicious that vested interests have tried to make out it is dangerous so they can make more money, or perhaps keep people buying oil.
As reported in The Daily Telegraph, Truss plans to axe an environmental rule called the “nutrient neutrality” requirement.[178] This rule “requires developers to detail the impact in terms of pollution of their proposals on rivers and wetlands” and is implemented by the non-departmental public body Natural England.[178] UK Government support for nutrient neutrality is outlined in a policy paper from March 2022 “Nutrient pollution: reducing the impact on protected sites”.
As I consider we have too many houses I would rather see restrictions on housing. Nobody seems to take a real look at the issues. Much of the problem has been the splitting up of the family unit due to divorce etc. This means more housing units and increased travel when kids have to be shuttled between their parents.
This also means more pollution from vehicles and increased demand on the road network. It has been blindingly obvious to me for decades that this is what happens. The costs to society are enormous and unsustainable.
Personal life
She has married another accountant, Hugh O’Leary. I find this rather depressing. We need accountants, but running a country is not just balancing the books (although heaven knows we need to do that even if Rishi Sunak doesn’t).
If he husband had done something else perhaps her views would be better balanced.
She has had an extra-marital affair with another M.P. but her marriage survived.
In 2022, Truss said: “I share the values of the Christian faith and the Church of England, but I’m not a regular practising religious person”.
I am not sure what she means by ‘values of the Church of England’. The C of E doesn’t stand for very much nowadays which is why my wife and I abandoned it in 2013 (I always thought the pomp and show mere foolishness; I have always been more concerned about the people and their hearts, not the outward appearance).
World Economic Forum (WEF) links
Tory leadership candidate Liz Truss has told fellow Conservative Party members that she will not allow the implementation of a fully cashless society, emphasising that she will back people being able to pay for goods and services using physical tender for now.
From
I am relieved. The move to a cashless society is about control and while people are evil this just means it is open to abuse by a few technocrats. This is part of what has been going on through Covid 19.
Pretend that cash can spread diseases (it can’t) and ramp up the fear. ‘I’ve touched some cash which someone else has touched, we’re all going to die’. No we’re not, get a grip.
Here is another link saying Boris could crush the two candidates in vote for Tory leadership.
But Boris is WEF also so where do we stand? More thought required.
Other matters
Tory leadership hustings: Smart motorways ‘experiment’ has failed and should stop, says Liz Truss
From
I agree with that heading. Complete waste of money from the start. Like HS2 in my books, which ruins perfectly good countryside and takes agricultural land merely for a slightly quicker journey to Birmingham or London.
I see in the article Rishis Sunak says he has been an appalling husband and father over the last two years.
He forgot to add ‘Chancellor of the Exchequer.’ Easy mistake to make. As easy as buggering up the UK economy by gross borrowing and filtering off taxpayers’ money to somewhere indeterminable.
Meaning of her name
Mary – my smile or my laughter
http://www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/0/Mary
Elizabeth – el is a beth – God is a house (like bed)
http://www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/0/Elizabeth
Truss – a support, but also a constraint.
Anagrams
Always a fruitful source of truth, if not amusement. See what you make of these.
Mary Elizabeth Truss = 18 letters total
Mary Elizbth us = 13 individual letters
Full name anagrams
My selection:
Beastliest mazy Ruhr
May brutalises hertz
brutalises ezra myth
Breathalyzers I must
amateur blitzes Rhys
baresthesia Luz my RT – Barognosis, or baresthesia, is the ability to evaluate the weight of objects
from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barognosis
This might suggest she has the ability to weigh up situations correctly and in many instances I think she has.
Tzar yum establisher
bruise hazy maltster
bra hurl systematize
ahems blitz treasury
bestial mhz treasury – she has fought with the treasury ‘beast’
blitz shame treasury
blitzes ham treasury
Amby Austerlitz hers
Austerlitz barmy she
blusterers mazy Thai
Alzheimer bats rusty
Alzheimer batty USSR
Alzheimer busty tsar
Alzheimer busy start
ahem brazes trustily
ahems trustily zebra
amaze herbs trustily
Baez mislayer truths
Bayer hazel mistrust
austere blitz marshy
Blair seem hazy trust
brassiere mhz tautly
Summary and conclusions
Well, I certainly think she is better than Rishi Sunak by a long chalk. He is a real globalist and not interested in the welfare of the people of the UK as a whole, only his own self-interest and wealth.
I consider her to be more interested in the UK generally and better balanced, even if she is wrong in certain respects.
But overall, I think Liz Truss would be better as Chancellor of the Exchequer. We need someone to balance the books and get us out of the financial mess which Rishi Sunak has exacerbated enormously.
Given that anagrams of her name include the word ‘treasury’ and as she worked there and clearly gave the civil service some stick, this seems reasonable to me. ‘Blitz shame treasury’ is a great anagram of her name and certainly ‘blitzing’ the treasury is a good thing, along with the civil service as a whole.
Whilst I do not like Boris Johnson and he has a lot to answer for, he seems preferable as leader in the interim and others have said they want him. We are still having to deal with the stupidity of the EU and Emmanuel ‘God, is he still with us?’ Macron the Moron.
However, I have yet to do any detailed analysis of Boris in a post. In my books his judgment in shacking up with Carrie was clearly flawed. If we could get rid of Carrie it would be a lot simpler.
We shall see. Perhaps we will have Bring Back Boris even if this seems on the surface to be a bad idea.
You see, I have been saying that we follow a timeline similar to WW2. Now I know the idea that Boris might be equated with Winston Churchill seems ridiculous and I agree it does.
But then the whole Covid 19 farce is ridiculous. People going stark, raving bonkers over the ‘flu. So why not one more bizarre thing. After all, Shakespeare did say ‘All the world’s a stage and all the people merely players in it.”
Only it is a pantomime not a straight play, so anything goes. If you think about it carefully you will understand why I say this.
As regards Boris’s situation and Winston Churchill, consider this article. I hope you will ponder it carefully and at least wonder a bit that I, Baldmichael Theresoluteprotector’sson, may have a point.
So maybe we will see Boris back.

P.S. If you didn’t read about Rishi Sunak and wish too now, here’s the link.
If you don’t, well I don’t blame you. There must be something better to do…
Which could be the timeline I mentioned.