What exactly does Prime Minister Liz Truss stand for? - Andrew Vine

That’s because Liz Truss’s campaign for the office has been a masterpiece of vagueness and obfuscation in which she has avoided scrutiny, sidestepped answering direct questions and substituted soundbites for firm policy proposals.

An enigma enters 10 Downing Street this afternoon after getting off the plane from Scotland, to govern millions who know next to nothing about her apart from a very basic biography.

And even that is open to question, after her less-than-truthful characterisation of Roundhay School, in one of the most affluent suburbs of Leeds – and a safe Labour seat – as an inner-city hellhole in a gritty red-wall constituency.

She beat Rishi Sunak to the Conservative leadership yesterday by saying what 160,000 party activists wanted to hear in the most general terms, and playing on the emotions of the older amongst them by raising the spectre of Margaret Thatcher.

Ms Truss has offered nothing of any real substance during the interminable contest that dragged on whilst Britain drifted into economic crisis.

Ducking a set-piece half-hour interview with the BBC’s Nick Robinson last week was a clear indication that she did not want to be subjected to forensic questioning ahead of the ballot of Conservative members closing on Friday.

And even though she consented to a short interview by the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday, Ms Truss was at pains to avoid giving straight answers, saying she would make an announcement on energy prices within a week, amid speculation of a freeze on bills.

Effectively telling the nation, “Trust me, I’ll think of something,” when millions are about to be plunged into poverty by gas and electricity bills they simply cannot afford does not inspire confidence.

Trawling through what Ms Truss has said on the campaign trail gives no clues to the country’s direction of travel either.

How about this: “I will support businesses to get our economy firing on all cylinders – delivering growth and opportunity.” Or she will “turbocharge” regional economies “by unleashing the private sector with tax cuts and better regulation”.

And this zinger from one of her aides in a briefing to journalists: “She will focus on doing fewer things and doing them better.”

This stuff is utterly meaningless. It’s the worst sort of politics-speak that bears no relation to reality, empty generalities aimed at a tame audience willing to be convinced that personality, and not policy, can somehow overcome the most difficult of economic problems.

And worryingly, it all sounds depressingly familiar to me. It’s the same sort of hollow boosterism practised by Boris Johnson as he talked of a bright new dawn for Britain post-Brexit, or how the economy was a coiled spring waiting to unleash new prosperity if only it was allowed to.

That didn’t happen under Mr Johnson, nor will it under Ms Truss unless she has a detailed, economically-sound plan to tackle not only the fuel crisis, but spiralling inflation, the mess the NHS and social care are in and a spreading wave of industrial unrest.

With Mr Johnson’s formal departure from office today, we are rid of a Prime Minister who put personal ambition ahead of a coherent plan to run the country. The last thing we need is a successor out of the same mould.

Evoking the spirit of Margaret Thatcher is not enough in itself. Like her or loathe her, she took office with a clear set of policies and a cabinet of heavyweights ready to implement them. Voters who gave her three resounding election victories knew what they were getting.

That is not the case with Ms Truss. We don’t yet know who she will surround herself with. If they are chosen for their loyalty to her instead of talent – after the pattern of Mr Johnson’s cabinet – her Government will be no more effective than his.

Ms Truss will speak to the nation this afternoon, and what she says will go a long way towards determining the public’s opinion of her, and whether she can command its confidence that she is the right person for the challenges ahead.

The vagueness that got her to Downing Street won’t wash with a country about to be confronted with painfully specific problems of millions choosing between heating and eating when winter comes, or wondering if the coldest months will bring blackouts.

This is an audience infinitely less easily persuadable than the Conservative membership, one which expects and demands action on the bleakest economic outlook since Ms Truss’s political idol took office 43 years ago.

Ms Truss has offered no real answers so far. This afternoon, she has to start coming up with them, and fast, if her premiership is not to be doomed from its very beginning.