Liz Truss is walking into the same trap that snared Theresa May

Truss’s approach is naive in the 24/7 media age. If politicians don’t respond in real time, they are eaten alive by the beast

As a political junkie, I’ve watched all 10 Tory leadership hustings so far (only two to go). I’ve now reached the point where I can not only finish the sentences of Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak but also know what they’re going to say next.

OK, I admit that during the last few debates, I’ve had a much more explosive event – The Hundred cricket – on the telly without sound, while the Tory match plays on my laptop. So “watching” is a bit of a stretch; “listening” would be more accurate.

I’m not alone in thinking this stage of the Tory contest has dragged on for too long; it should have been limited to four weeks, rather than six. Boris Johnson’s zombie government, paralysed in an economic crisis, is a very bad look to voters. When the Tories review their election system after this contest, they should allow three or four candidates on the ballot paper for members in future. Kemi Badenoch or Penny Mordaunt might just have won it this time. They might have made Truss look less good than she does.

The party will probably learn the wrong lesson and insist on fewer head-to-head TV debates in future to limit the “blue on blue” attacks which have been surprisingly strong in this election. The party’s stage-managed hustings are not debates because the two candidates are questioned separately.

I even know how well the Truss and Sunak clap lines will play as they say them. Truss is guaranteed one of her biggest cheers for saying she knows “that a woman is a woman”. (Good luck with that one in the Dog and Duck in Hartlepool). She knows her Tory audience better than Sunak does and tells them what they want to hear.

Sunak makes a virtue of doing the opposite; to his credit, he tries to tell hard economic truths. Tory members always warm to his warning that the government must not saddle future generations with debt. But they still vote for Truss’ tax cuts. Sunak looks like a man who in his own mind is still chancellor; he sometimes says “we are” doing this or that. This makes him vulnerable to Truss’ attacks on the status quo and “Treasury orthodoxy”.

He has been forced onto her anti-woke agenda but it’s not really him. He attacks the “leftie woke culture” that “wants to cancel our history, our values, our women”. (How do you cancel a woman? Call off a date, perhaps.) Sunak’s attacks on Truss have got stronger, in line with her as her position as the clear favourite: in Birmingham last night, he warned that under her strategy, “millions of people are going to face the risk of destitution this winter”. Truss still won more applause. She is better than Sunak at tailoring her message to local and regional issues.

Yet Truss relies heavily on platitudes. They play well with Tory members, a sympathetic audience that is easily satisfied. But as prime minister, she would have to do much better than this; empty slogans won’t satisfy the wider electorate. Saying “our best days are ahead of us” won’t take care of the £3,500 energy bill.

She talks of higher economic growth as if it is an elixir waiting to be plucked off the supermarket shelf. (Great! Cost of living crisis sorted.) The Tory grassroots loves her optimism and boosterism. But she can’t necessarily stop a recession by saying it’s “not inevitable” and that "we mustn’t talk ourselves" into one. A hostage to fortune there.

Truss also plays to the Tory gallery by attacking the media. Last night, incredibly, she even blamed it for the comparisons between her and Margaret Thatcher. The tribute act is her own work; we journalists don’t decide what clothes she wears or whether she should sit on top of a tank.

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Truss has blamed parts of the media for trying to “talk our country down”. She has complained that some of the questions put to her by the journalist chairing the hustings are “left wing”. She has even blamed the media for Boris Johnson’s downfall.

We might soon be in for more of the same. As prime minister, Truss allies suggest she wouldn’t be obsessed with feeding the media beast like her predecessors and would dispense with Downing Street’s “grid” of daily announcements across government that has existed since the Blair era. True, governments can be too addicted to spin. In hindsight, New Labour’s leading lights admitted they were, that headlines about a new policy are not delivery.

Yet Truss’ approach is naive in the 24/7 media age. If politicians don’t respond in real time, they are eaten alive by the beast. Not dancing to the media tune might work in a single government department. It doesn’t in Downing Street, which is held responsible for everything. I remember Theresa May saying exactly the same as Truss does now when she became PM in 2016.

Ignoring the media’s agenda doesn’t work; it is often the people’s agenda. May’s enemies on Brexit filled the vacuum and we all know what happened next. If Truss follows suit, she will suffer the same fate over the cost of living crisis.