Lettuce talk

Ivory Tower: Exclusive extracts from Liz Truss’s memoir, 10 Years to Sell the West

Growing up

When it comes to growing up in Paisley in the 1980s, I always thought: why me? Why now? Dad was a university lecturer, or at least that’s what he said. Back then he worked at Paisley Poly, which mum used to joke sounded a bit like a printed fabric. I guess that’s where I must get my excellent sense of humour. All my friends agree that I really am a funny person.

But Paisley Poly was where I first encountered the woke monoculture of British higher education. Every Saturday, my mum and dad would take me on marches with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and we’d give out leaflets in Paisley town centre. I remember one woman asking me if CND sold school uniforms. I looked at her blankly before mum explained that she must be thinking of C&A.

That’s when I knew that ordinary people like me did not care for the obsessions of the woke North London elite like my mum and dad in Paisley. I remember my mum standing next to the CND stall shouting, “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, Out, Out, Out!” and I would wonder whether Margaret lived across the road and if she was ever going to come out and help run the stall.

On one occasion, as my parents marched up Paisley High Street carrying a CND banner, a man—who may have had one too many double espressos—shouted at my mother, “gaun yersel hen”, which has since been translated for me as meaning he was asking whether my mother was going to market to trade in poultry. This, I thought, is what real people worry about; not nuclear annihilation and the end of the world.

I was so pleased when dad was made a professor at the University of Leeds. It meant I could actually tell people what he did for a living instead of having to say that he was an ambassador for the English tourist board. I soon lost any Scottish air I had in my childhood accent and quickly picked up a Yorkshire twang, which some people say has never left me. I’m proud when people call me a barmpot and a wazzock. It reminds me of who I really am.

Economical truth

Of course, dad was a maths professor, and he did his best to teach me all about sums. I guess I just don’t have one of those brains. That’s why I would go on to study philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford. They said I might struggle with the economics bit, but not being good with numbers didn’t seem to hold back all those other PPE graduates like Philip Hammond and Jeremy Hunt. I’m told Rishi Sunak also did PPE, but he denies any connection to Baroness Mone or any of those VIP contracts.

It might be because my dad was a maths brain box that sums just weren’t for me. That’s why I relied totally and utterly on Kwasi Kwarteng to do the adding up in the mini budget and it definitely was not my fault. In my view, and millions like me, maths did all it could to foil our tax cutting agenda. It was deep sums and the number-crunching wokerati that tried to stop us.

At Oxford, I shed my Yorkshire accent and joined the Lib Dems. My parents were horrified. They had wanted me to go to Cambridge. People say that at this time I was for the abolition of the monarchy and a supporter of the use of recreational drugs. Let me tell you that I have the greatest respect for Michael Gove; just not enough to put him in my cabinet. As to the monarchy, I was the actual prime minister when the queen died, so I guess that came true in the end.

Having studied PPE at Oxford and then gone to work for think tanks followed by a career in Conservative Party politics, I am perfectly qualified to take a view on the whole of the university system in the UK. Universities are indoctrinating students with woke ideology and radical far left ideas. I believe some vice-chancellors even have a bust of Lenin and a portrait of Chairman Mao in their offices. Universities are filling students’ heads with extreme economic theories that if put into practice would ruin this country.

Days in Downing Street

When it comes to finance, I prefer good old-fashioned common-sense. That’s why I appointed Kwasi as chancellor and then Jeremy Hunt. My economic plan was working until the pesky bond markets got in the way. Some people say I went too far, too fast, but they obviously never experienced Kit Malthouse as my pick for education secretary.

I gave Kit very clear instructions: go in there and try not to make too many mistakes. And to be fair to Kit, in the 49 days that he was education secretary he didn’t do much wrong, or much at all really. At least he lasted longer in the role than Michelle Donelan.

I like to think that I can spot the stars of the future. Those who will go on to make big headlines. That’s why I appointed Michelle as my culture secretary. I could see that she would be a great culture warrior and was not afraid to tell people what she thought, regardless of the cost. Luckily, as science secretary she would not have to pay the cost herself. But that’s fair because in calling an innocent academic a terrorist sympathiser she was doing the work of this Conservative government.

I remember telling the old CND crowd that in opposing our independent nuclear deterrent they were unwitting allies of Russia. Recently, I told this story to my new friend Steve Bannon, who asked me if I would like to help with the re-election of Donald Trump by delivering an unmarked parcel for him to the Russian embassy in London. He said we could do a podcast together once I got back, which made me a bit suspicious since we all know podcasts are part of the anti-growth coalition.

I am all in favour of the Conservative ambition to make Britain a science superpower by 2030. My deputy prime minister was Thérèse Coffey and she has a PhD in Chemistry. So she really knows about effluent in rivers. What a woman! Three cigars a day! You would never see Thérèse Coffey dead voting for a smoking ban.

There is no one better at talking effluent than Thérèse, except perhaps Jacob Rees-Mogg. Jacob was, of course, my business secretary and so in charge of my government’s efforts to propel the UK beyond the frontiers of 21^st-century science. As a keepsake of our time in government, I still have the science and technology roadmap his department produced with quills on velum.

Life advice

I saw recently that those woke vice-chancellors at Universities UK had launched a campaign about imposter syndrome. Apparently, it is when someone thinks they are not good enough for a job for which they are well qualified. That’s never been a problem for me. My friends would say that I have the opposite, in fact.

That just shows that I’m no snowflake. One thing you learn from spending Saturday afternoons being ignored by shoppers at a CND stall in the Paisley Piazza is not to worry about what other people think. Listening to the views of other people was not a problem for me in government, and since leaving Downing Street I have not paid attention to what the critics and haters and the Bank of England have to say.

Sometimes I feel like the only Conservative in the room. But that’s just like visiting mum and dad for Christmas.

Terms of use: this is a free email for fun on a Friday. It should be shared freely with colleagues like a free vote on smoking for under sixteens. Want to order a signed copy of 10 Years to Sell the West? Want to say hello? Email ivorytower@researchresearch.com