Former prime minister Liz Truss has predicted that Andy Burnham will be as unpopular as Sir Keir Starmer within just six months. She cited two key reasons for her confidence that Mr Burnham's bounce in the polls will evaporate: “people are getting poorer” and “the country's getting worse”.
Britain's decline “very, very serious”
Speaking in a Mayfair office on a sunny day in London, Ms Truss, who was in power from September 6 to October 25, 2022, argued that Britain's decline is “very, very serious”. She said it will take more than the arrival of a charismatic former mayor in Downing Street to fix the cultural, economic and political crises facing the nation.
“We need to be honest as a country that the state is just completely dysfunctional,” she said. Ms Truss laid much of the blame for this at the feet of Sir Tony Blair for staging a “quiet revolution”. Fixing Britain, she said, will involve repealing the Human Rights Act and “all of the things Blair did to hand over power to unelected bureaucrats and unelected judges”.
Burnham facing system failures
Speaking as someone with first-hand experience of being forced out of office, she said: “It's much easier to get rid of an elected politician than it is to get rid of the Governor of the Bank of England, and that gives him immense power in our system.”
Commenting on Mr Burnham's first weeks as PM, she said: “I think you can see from the small boats crisis and this prisoner release crisis that's taking place, that he's already coming up against the fact that the system doesn't work.”
Economic concerns and the mini-Budget
As the fourth anniversaries of Ms Truss taking and losing power approach, the national debt was just shy of £3trillion at the end of June (94.9% of GDP); the Government spent around £109billion on debt interest in 2025-26; and the economy grew by 0.4% in the second quarter of this year.
Ms Truss was pushed out of Number 10 after her government was forced to u-turn on key elements of her mini-Budget. It contained £45billion of tax cuts but was blamed for spooking markets. “I've got absolutely no doubt that if the policies had been allowed to continue, the country would be in a better position,” she said. “I've got no doubt.”
Looking back on this time, she said: “It wasn't just that there were MPs who were weak-willed… There were also people within the Conservative Party [who] were actively trying to thwart the plans. They were the people who'd got rid of Boris, who wanted to install Rishi Sunak. When you've got a cabal of people in the party who are actively trying to undermine you, that makes it a lot more difficult.”
Warnings on the Right and China
Ms Truss remains convinced that “Britain needs to get an economic model that works, which actually generates money rather than piles up debt”. She doubts whether Britain is ready to accept “tough medicine”, saying: “I do slightly despair of whether people are prepared to take the tough medicine and acknowledge the hole we're in. I fear [we] might end up in a crisis like we were in in the 1970s… How much worse does it have to get? Interest payments are astronomical. I do fear that people don't understand how bad it is.”
Since her premiership and the loss of her South West Norfolk constituency by just 630 votes, she has recast herself as an international author and speaker, championing free speech and free enterprise, and presenting The Liz Truss Show. She said she wants to see a “successful Right-wing government” take power at the next election, but expressed concern that the Right seems “to like fighting itself, rather than fighting the communists who are trying to take over our country”.
On the international stage, she is alarmed by the rise of China and argues Britain must “pick a side”. “We need to trade with our allies and cut China out of benefiting from our advanced technology,” she said. “There's a technology race now between the US and China, particularly in areas like AI. We need the US to win it… [We] need to get tougher on useful idiots on our side who are essentially collaborating with China.”
A fierce critic of net zero, she claimed: “All we've done is outsource manufacturing to China. That's been of no benefit to the British people.”
Future plans and Christian identity
Asked if she would like to return to full-time politics, she said: “I don't want to be in frontline politics if it just means taking all the flak for things that I can't change.” The key problem facing Britain, she argues, is a “bureaucracy that has been taken over by the progressive left”. She wants a “bigger army of people to take on the progressives”.
“What I learned from my time in government,” she explained, “is that it's not going to be enough just to win in politics alone. This is a bigger battle because the Left have infiltrated our universities, they've infiltrated the bureaucracy, they've infiltrated business as well.” On her show, she has also explored Christianity's enduring relationship with Britons. “I think our Christian identity is very important… The things that have made it great are based on Christianity,” she said. Asked if Christianity is important because it provides values and binds society together, or because it is true, she answered: “It is true – and it provides a set of values.”
Ms Truss, who has been Environment Secretary, Lord Chancellor, Chief Secretary to the Treasury and Foreign Secretary, was the last prime minister to greet the late Queen and the first to shake hands with King Charles. Today, she comes across as a happy warrior in the battle of ideas, with no intention of leaving the fight.
