Published on ConservativeHome.com on 05 September 2022.
Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC is a businessman, philanthropist, author and pollster. For information on Lord Ashcroft’s work, visit www.lordashcroft.com.
I have watched the Conservative Party leadership campaign with great interest over the last eight weeks. Now that the results are in, I am pleased to announce formally that I will be writing a biography of the new party leader, and Britain’s new Prime Minister, Liz Truss.
I know that Harry Cole, the Political Editor of The Sun, and James Heale, the Diary editor of The Spectator, are currently working together on a book about Ms Truss. According to my contacts in the publishing industry, their effort – which is apparently being produced with the co-operation of Ms Truss and her wider family – will be published this autumn.
My project will be different. As with all of my previous political biographies, my book on Ms Truss will be accurate, objective, open-minded, fair, factual, and even-handed. It will also be independent.
The research on Ms Truss’s life, career and character which I’ve done already has proved fascinating, It was always my intention, however, to incorporate into the book a rigorous analysis of Liz Truss’s first year or so in office. One of my hopes is that this biography might serve as a valuable guide to the electorate in the months leading up to the next general election, which must be held by January 2025.
The book will include comprehensive polling data assembled by me plus the reflections of focus groups concerning voters’ appetite for a fifth successive Conservative term in government under Ms Truss.
As well as my forthcoming book on Ms Truss, I have published biographies of David Cameron, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Rishi Sunak, and Sir Keir Starmer in recent years. I believe that Liz Truss will prove just as rewarding a subject. The multiple challenges that she faces in every department would test even the most experienced leader. Is Ms Truss up to the job? I hope to be able to answer that question when my book on her is published in the latter half of 2023.
