They think it's all over, it is now. Barring an outrageous scandal, Liz Truss, has one hand on the trophy. She is now within her rights, to pop to John Lewis, and measure up for curtains at Number 10. Although she MAY want to go for the budget option, and pop to IKEA instead. Because financial caution, is going to be the theme of her premiership. She's been compared, to the iron Lady Margaret Thatcher.
And there ARE parallels, between the two women.
Fair haired, attractive, assiduous, no-nonsense public servants, from normal, unglamorous, middle-class backgrounds.
And both educated in state schools. And as with Margaret Thatcher in 1979, Liz Truss, will inherit an economic crisis as PM. Whilst we have, mercifully low unemployment, AS in 79, economic growth, is through the floor, inflation is rampant, and the unions are once again, holding the country to ransom.
The free market-loving, low tax aficionado Margaret Thatcher, began her first few years in power, very cautiously, and with a LASER focus on inflation, the stealth tax, that hurts everyone.
So for Liz Truss, it's the economy stupid, and tackling inflation, is the only show in town. Thatcher did this, by controlling public spending and raising interest rates. People and businesses suffered, but that painful, bad-tasting medicine, paved the way, for our astonishing economic recovery.
By 1987, Britain was a global economic, military and diplomatic powerhouse. This was achieved, through courage, conviction and tough choices. No pain, no gain.
Liz Truss has said a lot of things, that people WANT to hear. Tax cuts, tough border controls, a rethink of the northern Ireland protocol and she won't grant, that pint-sized bully Nicola Sturgeon, a second referendum on independence.
McBrexit will not happen on Liz Truss’s watch. She will move heaven and hell to exploit the colossal trade, tax and strategic opportunities that Brexit offers, work she already began, as trade secretary, with all those trade deals. She'll have no trouble, defining what a woman is. She is one after all, and will hopefully take some inspiration, from my new political hero Kemi Badenoch.
Kemi Badenoch would deserve an important role in Liz Truss' cabinet were she to win the Tory leadership race, says Mark Dolan.
Victoria Jones
Who by the way deserves a massive job, in Truss’s cabinet.
Liz Truss can make herself the first anti-woke prime minister, tackling the toxic political correctness and bonkers ideas like critical race theory and trans-ideology, which have so disgracefully infiltrated our institutions, corporations and the media.
It may seem like a fringe issue at the moment, but things like cancel culture, the policing of free speech and biological men invading female only spaces, is beginning to affect everyone's lives.
Parents are dealing with tearful daughters coming home from school, who haven’t used the loo all day, because it’s unisex, and there are boys in there.
And women don’t take kindly to being called cis women or birthing humans. Calling out this woke bull**** will, I guarantee you, sustain Truss in power, for many years to come. Helped by this man.
Keir Starmer is the man who campaigned for Britain-hating Jeremy Corbyn, to become prime minister, who tried to reverse Brexit and who, with his inability to say what a woman is, is a vagina denier. Don’t take my word for it. He can’t bring himself to say “only women have a cervix”, demonstrating HE’S got no backbone.
And a group supporting womens’ sex based rights – called Labour Womens’ declaration - has been refused a stand, at this year’s labour party conference.
Labour want to erase women, whilst the Tory party, are about to make yet another one, Prime Minister. Which is why I disagree with many commentators. If Truss builds a platform, based on common sense and traditional Conservative values, not only will she win support, from disgruntled Tory voters, I think she can hoover up, millions of votes from Labour supporters too.
Don't forget, it was Margaret Thatcher, who stormed to three landslide victories, on the back, not of middle England Tory voters, whose support was a given, but millions of working-class, previously, Labour-supporting Brits, who loved the iron Lady's vision, of aspiration and opportunity for all. Buy the council house or council flat you live in, start a business and make a better life for you and your family.
My advice to Liz Truss, when she gets the keys to number 10, can be summed up in three words.
Liz Truss is the favourite in the polls for the Tory leadership.
Aaron Chown
Be more Thatcher. Flawed though Thatcher was, she made mistakes, she could be heartless and she certainly lost the plot towards the end, as she isolated herself in an ideological bunker, over the poll-tax and Europe.
But aside from Winston Churchill, she was the most important and effective British politician of the 20th Century.
Why? Because for most of her tenure, she was willing to deliver tough, painful policies, to get the economy in shape and to reinvent and rehabilitate British society, its culture and its institutions.
She was straight with the British people, about what needed to be done, and never indulged in spin.
She was authentic, she had a vision and she was a fiscal and social conservative. Low tax, small state, family values. And a stunning victory over the Falkland Islands, which was in the balance for quite a while, demonstrated two of the qualities we need to see in Prime Minister Truss.
Patriotism, and balls of steel. But notwithstanding the positive policy ideas, that have come from the Truss camp, she mustn't indulge, in the snake oil of soundbites.
Mark Dolan calls on Liz Truss to harness the spirit of Margaret Thatcher.
Image: GB News
Truss’s campaign has been, an unapologetically populist one. But there's no point having great slogans, without great delivery.
Less is more. In the spirit of Margaret Thatcher, say what you're going to do, and then get on and do it.
Whether it was Blair, Cameron or dare I say it, at times, Boris, a sexy headline, has all too often failed to be backed up, by well executed policies, that actually improve peoples’ lives.
So forget about the opinion polls and the newspaper front pages. Thatcher never cared about that. She took pride in being, at times, wildly unpopular. Her skin was thicker than a Love Island contestant.
Her commitment to her political vision, earned her three stunning, back to back, election victories, and a country transformed from the bankrupt lazy man of Europe, permanently on strike, to the fifth biggest economy, on god’s earth.
You didn't have to like her, you had to respect her, and you had to believe her.
So Prime Minister Liz Truss, will have many problems in her inbox, from day one. A war in the East, an energy crisis and, arguably, the biggest economic emergency, since the Second World War.
But it's a colossal opportunity, as well. She's got two years and just shy of an 80 seat majority, courtesy of Boris. Prime Minister Truss, can’t fix EVERYTHING in two years, but as with Thatcher in the early 80s, she can set Britain, on a path to recovery.
She can unite the nation, she can shrink the state, she can BEGIN, to balance the books, she can get the economy growing again, she can start urgent NHS reforms, she can get serious about crime, she can restore, British values, to our public institutions, and she can defeat the toxic, divisive scourge, of hard left wokeism.
Barring a disaster for her campaign, she’s now got a two year job interview, with British people. If she it she gets it right, her preferred design of curtains, will be hanging at the windows of Number 10, for a long time to come.