Truss has a giant whinge in this self-serving memoir

In Ten Years to Save the West’, the deluded ex-PM relays her 49 days in office. Whether it’s the Queen’s death or crashing the economy, she reserves the greatest sympathy for herself

- SEAN O'GRADY

It was Winston Churchill who remarked, according to legend, that: “History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.” And so he did, at some length, and with his customary eloquence (six substantial volumes to be exact). His monumental achievements in power helped the process along, it’s fair to say. In the case of Liz Truss, there is little she can do to change the verdict of history on her nasty, brutish and freakishly short time in office. Her ludicrous memoir merely confirms that fact.

She was, is, and will forever be a national embarrassment, her only exceptional talent being an astonishing lack of selfawareness. It’s not a useful trait in a politician, and it’s a highly unattractive one in an author. She is just as much hard work on the printed page as she is off it.

This might have been an opportunity for her to explain her political journey from anti-monarchist Liberal Democrat to moderate liberal “Cameroon” Tory to hard-right ideologue. She might have explained how she went from fervent pro-European and Remainer to Brexit Ultra. She could have usefully, if awkwardly, drawn the logical conclusion that follows from her admittance that she went too far too fast in her tax-cutting agenda – which is that Jeremy Hunt and Rishi Sunak got the right timing. Had Truss concentrated on working with the Bank of England in getting inflation down first, and then turned her attention to modest but headline-grabbing tax cuts, she might well still be PM now; she and her party in a far better position, too. Instead, her memoir comprises one giant whinge, punctuated by nonsensical sub-Thatcher stuff such as “you either believe in low taxes stimulating economic growth or you don’t”.