‘If only there were more ministers like Liz Truss in government’

Towards the end of July I asked, ‘Can we trust in Truss? Why I’m leaning towards Liz’.

Part of me [I wrote] would love to have a British Asian family in Downing Street because the message it would send would be hugely positive, but that alone is not enough.

Prospective prime ministers must be defined even more by their policies and that’s why, if I was a member of the Conservative party, I would probably vote for [Liz] Truss even though Rishi Sunak has a great back story and seems a perfectly competent candidate for PM (which is arguably what we need right now).

Today, on the eve of what appears to be Truss’s certain coronation as leader of the Conservative party and prime minister (following a surprisingly lacklustre campaign by the former Chancellor), I am reminded of a post I wrote in May 2015.

It was the day before the General Election (won by David Cameron’s Conservatives) and it followed an election campaign during which I had amused myself by naming, with a brief explanation, 20 candidates I wanted to see returned to Parliament and 20 who wouldn’t be missed.

To make it a bit more interesting I focussed on candidates in marginal and target seats. Finally I listed all 40 nominees and wrote:

As you can see a significant number of friends and foes are Conservatives. That's not because I have a pro or anti-Tory bias. It reflects, I think, the fact that the Conservative party is the one that is most divided when it comes to paternalistic nanny state style policies.

With very few exceptions we know that when it comes to tobacco, food and drink Labour, Lib Dem and SNP politicians support further regulations. Some are well-meaning if misguided; others harbour a simple hatred of big business, Big Tobacco in particular.

Within the Conservative party paternalists rub shoulders with free marketeers and the odd libertarian so it's more complex. I guess my list reflects my disappointment that so many Tories have bought in to lifestyle socialism after decades fighting economic socialism.

Bizarrely, politicians who supported privatisation and deregulation that were designed specifically to give people more choice now back comprehensive smoking bans, display bans and the theft of intellectual property (plain packaging) that infantilise the consumer and will ultimately reduce choice.

Public health is the new socialism and a remarkable number of Conservatives have signed up. That's why I still can't decide whether to vote. Speaking as a lifelong Conservative voter, there is not a single party whose manifesto broadly represents my laissez faire views.

Living in a safe Conservative seat in Cambridgeshire my vote won't change anything and Cameron's support for plain packaging was the straw that broke this camel's back.

Don't get me wrong. I'll be as relieved as anyone if Ed Miliband is kept out of Downing Street and the SNP are denied any form of power sharing, but if Cameron is returned to Number Ten there will be little to celebrate.

In terms of tobacco control and other product regulations the only difference between the Conservatives and Labour is the speed with which the parties regulate. The Tories take a little longer but the direction of travel is the same.

What has this got to do with Liz Truss, you might ask. Well, I then added a postscript:

If you're wondering why I didn't include 'friends' such as Philip Davies, Jacob Rees Mogg, Sir Greg Knight, Nigel Evans and several more, it's because they're not defending marginal seats.

Ditto the likes of Elizabeth Truss (South West Norfolk). I thought about including her but she's a dead cert for re-election. I did draft an entry for her, though. It read:

Appointed Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in 2014, Truss was one of only three ministers to vote against plain packaging of tobacco. Nor was this the first time she has 'rebelled' against her own government since her election to parliament in 2010.

In October 2010 Truss supported an amendment to the smoking ban. She also voted against a ban on smoking in private vehicles carrying children, saying, "I will not be supporting the proposal to ban smoking in cars. It would be extremely difficult to enforce and I think that ensuring your child is not exposed to smoke is the responsibility of parents."

If only there were more ministers like Liz Truss in government.

Today Liz Truss is not just in government, she has one foot in Number Ten.

Unfortunately, and unlike several of her predecessors (notably Tony Blair in 1997), she’s in the unenviable position of inheriting an economic situation that will almost certainly get worse before it gets better.

(Cameron, it could be argued, also inherited an economic crisis but he didn’t have to contend with the aftermath of a pandemic and a war in Europe as well.)

Furthermore Truss has very little time to turn things around before the next election and given that global events, notably the war in Ukraine, are conspiring to drive inflation and the energy crisis, some things may be out of her control.

Nevertheless I wish her well, as should anyone who has the country’s best interests at heart. I just hope she sticks to her convictions and if she does we could be in for an exciting, Thatcher-style ride.

Fingers crossed!

PS. It’s being reported that Thérèse Coffey, a close friend of Truss, could be appointed Secretary of State for Health.

Two weeks ago The Times reported that she was being tipped for chief whip so I would treat all speculation with caution.

Nevertheless the prospect of a ‘cigar-smoking, karaoke-singing’ health secretary is amusing, if not intriguing.

It’s worth noting too that in July 2010 Coffey signed an Early Day Motion calling for a review of the smoking ban and a few months later voted for the ban to be amended to allow for designated smoking rooms in pubs and clubs.

Like Truss she also opposed plain packaging of tobacco.

A decade on I wouldn’t expect her to review either of those policies but it offers hope, should Coffey be sent to the Department of Health, that we might have someone in office who is prepared to tackle the big issues - the state of the National Health Service, for example - rather than devoting time and energy to persecuting adults who choose to smoke a legal product.

Comments

[Pat Nurse]

Fingers crossed that we get a more tolerant and inclusive Government that does not see tackling inequality or disparities as
just ensuring targeted groups like smokers are made less equal in their society with less access to the same facilities as others - like the right to be on hospital grounds outside.

Thanks to decades of tackling the equality of smokers in society to ensure that they are treated less equally than others, and shoved out of everywhere and excluded from everything that others are able to do, has been going on for decades so it would be nice to think they could find a way of including us in society and the decision making process rather than continually shutting us out.

I know Coffey has a record of voting against smoking bans but I also recall her glee and spite when she once posted on Twitter how a smoker had thrown his cigarette end out of his car window" in front of the wrong person," with the veiled threat that she had his number and would report him. I think she later deleted it after getting criticism for being a snitch.

Even so, that suggests a bully to me so I'll reserve judgement based on her performance if she ever becomes health secretary. Whatever opinions and views these politicians once had, they are also prone to changing their minds like the great British weather and turn whichever way the ideological wind pushes them.

I have no hope of equality with any minister who seems to do as the smokerphobic activists and lobbyists infiltrated into the civil service tell them to do. Real change would be wonderful but then the orchestrated campaigns from the left ensure we never make progress unless the party of their choice is installed in Government to make all of their ideological dreams come true.

So many people want the Tories to fail and lose the next election - including some Tories themselves based on their recent behaviour.