Can Liz Truss Exceed Low Expectations? Thatcher Did
The odds favor an early bounce and a steady decline. But don’t write her off yet.
Liz Truss.
Photographer: Bloomberg/BloombergLiz Truss is so widely tipped to be named Britain’s next prime minister on Sept. 5 that most people have stopped paying attention to the Conservative leadership race. So let’s consider the odds she’d make an effective leader — or even a great one.
They are, to be sure, quite long. Her own record in a string of government jobs from education to the environment to trade and now foreign secretary has been unremarkable. Last week, it emerged that in her zeal for efficiency as environment secretary she cut funding for authorities to ensure water companies weren’t dumping too much sewage into rivers and seas. Guess what they’ve been doing an awful lot of?