Liz Truss Quotes

The pandemic, explained the Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, was the definitive ‘end of the neoliberal era inaugurated by Thatcher and Reagan’. We don’t just hear that from Social Democrats these days. Now right-wing populists, journalists and economists also claim that ‘the Reagan/Thatcher era is over’. These two leaders are often used as symbols of the era of economic liberalization in the early 1980s, and I agree that it feels an awful lot like that era has come to an end. Donald Trump’s advisor Stephen Moore declared that the Republicans are no longer Reagan’s party but Trump’s, and that’s exactly how the party comes across in their recent agitation against free trade, immigration and tech companies, not to mention lies about election fraud. (Reagan once called the peaceful transfer of power the ‘magic’ of the free world.) Thatcher’s Tories have abandoned the European single market she was once instrumental in developing, and have simultaneously abandoned many other economic orthodoxies, toying with more active industrial policies and ‘Buy British’ slogans – a new attitude that Boris Johnson in an unguarded moment happened to summarize as ‘fuck business’. His short-lived successor, Liz Truss, who famously declared that large-scale imports of cheese were ‘a disgrace’, tried to invoke the Iron Lady, albeit through her boldness rather than her policies. Instead, Truss railed against the ‘consensus of the Treasury, of economists, with the Financial Times’ that budgets should be balanced and went on to doom her premiership with a massive, unfunded package of energy subsidies and tax cuts, which markets refused to finance.

President Trump ... has been proven right about pretty much everything and now he is trying to do something about it, the elite is howling with indiscriminate outrage.

I once wrote a book about this which got mischaracterised – British workers produce less per hour than … and that’s a combination of kind of skill and application. [...] If you look at productivity, it’s very, very different in London from the rest of the country. But basically … this has been a historical fact for decades. Essentially it’s partly a mindset and attitude thing, I think. It’s working culture, basically. If you go to China it’s quite different, I can assure you
[...] There’s a fundamental issue of British working culture. Essentially, if we’re going to be a richer country and a more prosperous country, that needs to change. But I don’t think people are that keen to change that.
There’s a slight thing in Britain about wanting the easy answers. That’s my reflection on the election and what’s gone before it, and the referendum – we say it’s all Europe that’s causing these huge problems … it’s all these migrants causing these problems. But actually what needs to happen is more … more graft. It’s not a popular message.

I agree with Paddy Ashdown when he said everybody in Britain should have the chance to be a somebody. But only one family can provide the head of state. We Liberal Democrats believe in opportunity for all. We believe in fairness, common sense. We believe in referenda on major constitutional issues. We do not believe that people should be born to rule, or that they should put up and shut up about decisions that affect their everyday lives.

I am a fighter, not a quitter.

If it came down to a straight choice of revoking Brexit and a no-deal, I would choose no-deal.

I would rather be at the table making decisions with other countries than walking away and not having a say.

We should all raise a toast to our biggest export success. Europe has a taste for Scotch and the industry will do better if we remain in the EU because whisky producers have hassle-free, easy access to the single market of 500 million people. The Scotch whisky industry has strong global trade links beyond Europe in America and Asia, and their business leaders are clear that the EU single market provides the best conditions to reach even greater heights. Leaving the EU would be a leap in the dark for our great British food and drink industry and could lead to years of negotiations on new trade deals - with no guarantees at the end.

[The UK and South Korea trade agreement will let businesses] keep trading as they do today, and they will be able to take advantage of the opportunities that Brexit offers

[Observing her speech at the PopCon conference in February 2024] It turns out the country is in the grip of a debilitating form of groupthink, all the more pernicious for being a combination of ideology and lifestyle choice. The ideology is what she calls communism – by which she seems to mean state interference in the free market coupled with weaponised identity politics.

I voted against a delay to Brexit.

We need to look like we're enjoying ourselves because no one wants to go to a party where everyone is looking miserable.

[In response to Truss's essay for The Telegraph published on 4 February 2023.] Truss’s wider point is that on economic matters, everyone else – the IMF, the OBR and the bond markets – was out of step with her. She had a mandate and that should have been respected. It is an odd argument for someone who professes to believe in markets.
If your fiscal policies require you to borrow an additional £72bn, it is an unavoidable reality that you have to pay a lot of attention to what the people lending the money to you think. If they do not trust you, they will demand a higher price for lending to you.

Q: President Macron, friend or foe?
A: The jury’s out (applause). But if I become prime minister, I would judge him on deeds, not words.

I do think sometimes politics is sort of treated as a branch of the entertainment industry, who's up, who's down, who says what about who.