Will Liz Truss be a pragmatist in Downing Street, or will she govern as a lady not for turning
Over the past few days, BBC Newsnight has been speaking to people who know Truss to assess whether her past can tell us about her future. The consensus seems to be that we will see Liz Truss turning to both sides of her political past to guide her thinking.
"I think that there'll be a combination of approaches," Baroness Morgan tells Newsnight. "I think people are going to find it's quite hard to pigeonhole Liz in many ways." "She is the champion now of the Tory right, having once been a Liberal Democrat. And she's presented herself in this election as the new kid on the block when she's actually been in cabinet for the best part of 10 years. So she has extraordinary powers of reinvention and recovery."Liz Truss campaigned for Remain during the EU referendum, but quickly backed Brexit after the vote
An unlikely political mentor sees a more ideological figure. Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, the former Labour defence secretary, encouraged Truss to pursue a political career when she was head of government relations at Cable & Wireless, where he served as a board member. The careers of many Tory Remainers were destroyed by that referendum. But it was the making of Truss.In the aftermath of the referendum she intuited what would happen at the time when it was a genuinely open question about what sort of Brexit we'd end up with. "The Leavers will win because they care more," she told friends.
He added: "So I don't feel it was just about pleasing the powers that be. But what happened then shows her powers of adaptability."
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