7 bombshells in new tell-all Liz Truss e-book – from ‘lodge hoax’ to ‘dangerous blood’

A fresh dissection of Liz Truss’s disastrous 49-day tenure lays bare the arrogance, shambles and in-fighting at the heart of Downing Street.

Veteran biographer Sir Anthony Seldon’s book Truss at 10: How Not to Be Prime Minister, which was published on Thursday, rejects the former PM’s claims that a “deep state” scuppered her economic plans. Instead it accuses her of storming No10 with unrealistic plans in a stinging book that says any blame lies with her.

It documents tensions and in-fighting within Downing Street, as well as brutal sackings, phone calls and meetings as her economic plans sent the markets and the country into meltdown. Almost two years on from her disastrous mini-budget, which caused mortgage rates to spiral out of control, Ms Truss has still failed to apologise to families caught up in the mess.

Sir Anthony unveils the details on some key behind-the-scenes moments during the Truss-era. Here are 7 bombshells from the book.

‘No one to blame but Truss’

Sir Anthony’s book ultimately accuses Ms Truss of storming No10 with incomplete and unrealistic plans in a stinging book that says any blame lies with her. In a scathing conclusion, the political biographer wrote: “Truss came to power with a bold plan, a benefit many recent Prime Ministers did not have. But it was not realistic to launch it in the way she did, or at the time she did, or with some of the content she did.

“She could have involved the OBR (Office for Budget Responsibility), who might have provided some much-needed scepticism. As it was, the atmosphere led to a cycle of self-reinforcing groupthink as confidence and daring led to arrogance and, ultimately, hubris. The written evidence from the time is clear. She was explicitly warned of the risks of what she was doing. She has no one else to blame but herself.”

‘God save the king’

Sir Anthony details the immediate period before Queen Elizabeth II died when Ms Truss was PM. A decision – after much back and forth – had been taken for her to take part in a scheduled call with allied leaders including President Biden, President Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholtz, to discuss Ukraine. And while it was in full flow, she received a message that the Queen was deteriorating rapidly, the chapter says. “I will have to leave,” she told her fellow leaders. President Biden made a point of sending his best wishes, the book adds.

Her most trusted team were seated around her in the empty flat at the top of Downing Street when a phone call came in from Sir Edward Young, the Queen’s Private Secretary, which was taken by Cabinet Secretary Simon Case. The book documents: “Case tried to find a quiet space by the window a little distance away from everyone but they could hear his every word. ‘Good afternoon, Sir Edward,’ he began. The group could only hear one side of the call but it rapidly became clear that Young was telling him that the Queen had died, at 3.10p.m.

“When Case said, ‘Please pass on my condolences to His Majesty the King’, there was an audible gasp in the room. Conversation between the two then focused on the timing of the official announcement once the family had been told. ‘There was an electric response when we all heard for the first time the words “the King”,’ said one. Everyone sat in total silence till Case concluded his conversation with ‘God save the King’.”

Kwarteng tells Truss: ‘They will come for you’

In the fallout to the mini-budget, which was delivered on 23 September 2022, the heat was rising on not just Ms Truss but on Kwasi Kwarteng – and Sir Anthony documents his swift downfall. The PM and her Chancellor had remained a strong team defending their actions together but Mr Kwarteng was “picking up some concerning messages” during the International Monetary Fund conference on October 13 in Washington. But when he was warned by aides that he might be sacked, he responded: “She won’t be so stupid as to sack me because she knows that if I go, she will have to go too.”

When he arrived back in the UK at 10:30am the following day, switching on his phone after the flight, his messages were discouraging. According to Sir Anthony, it led to Mr Kwarteng grabbing the phone of one of his advisers, who was on a call with Truss’s aide, and demanding: “She’s going to sack me, isn’t she? I want to know the truth. What the hell’s happening?” Within half an hour of landing at Heathrow, a journalist from The Times had tweeted that Mr Kwarteng was to be sacked.

Recalling Mr Kwarteng’s arrival to Downing Street, Sir Anthony wrote: “The Chancellor’s car drove into Downing Street at 11.35 a.m. He dropped his bags inside the door of No. 11 and walked straight into No. 10, down the long corridor and into the Cabinet Room at the end. The PM was on her own, visibly emotional, tears in her eyes.

“‘You’ve got to go,’ she blurted out, choking. ‘I know, I saw it on Steve Swinford’s Twitter,’ Kwarteng replied. ‘I’m very sorry you saw it like that. You can come back in a year.’ Kwarteng was lost for words, thinking the whole predicament was insane, not least her even imagining she would still be Prime Minister in a year. He stood in front of her in total bewilderment. He considered arguing against her, but he could see that there was no point: her mind was made up.”

The chapter adds that he told her: “The first question you will get asked by journalists is why you are getting rid of someone who you campaigned with on these policies… They will come for you.”

Jeremy Hunt’s ‘hotel hoax’

In an enticing section, Sir Anthony documents how Jeremy Hunt found out he was the next pick for Chancellor on October 14. According to the book, the former Health Secretary was on holiday in Brussels and was still in his bedroom getting ready with his wife Lucia when he was told a message was waiting for him at reception: “Liz Truss here. Please call.” He thought it was “a hoax, and wondered how he had been tracked down”.

No Caller ID then flashed up on his mobile phone, which he assumed was a journalist and rejected, before a former aide then called him to say: “No. 10 are trying to get hold of you.” Mr Hunt contacted No10, telling the switchboard: “It may be a hoax, but I’ve had a message that in five minutes the Prime Minister wants to speak to me.” The call handler responded: “She does indeed, Mr Hunt, but she’s on the other line.”

The book then details: “He waited, speculating why she wanted to get hold of him. Whatever it might be, he thought, it didn’t merit disturbing him on holiday. ‘Hello, Jeremy, it’s Liz here.’ ‘Thank you for calling,’ he replied politely.‘ Things are not going as well as I hoped.’ ‘And how can I help, Prime Minister? ’She replied in just one word: ‘Chancellor.’

“Hunt was stunned. As an aide said, ‘Jeremy had a perfectly cordial relationship with Liz, but he was no admirer.’ He had no idea how to respond. ‘Can I have half an hour to think it through and talk to the family?’ She responded again with just one word: ‘Fine.’ The line went dead.” Mr Hunt would go on to accept the offer and, as her Chancellor, undo the majority of the mini-budget. He would continue in the role under Rishi Sunak.

‘I will make your life hell’

The book has documented evidence of tensions between the ex-PM and those far and wide in her party, with claims that Sajid Javid warned her “I will make your life hell” as one row erupted in her final weeks as PM.

Towards the end of October 2022, Tory bigwig Mr Javid was furious to read “disparaging words” about himself in a newspaper – which had been briefed out by No10 aide Jason Stein, Sir Anthony writes. Mr Javid allegedly warned Ms Truss: “I’m not certain you will last the week and certainly not if you don’t fire him because I will make your life hell.”

Chaos ensued, the book says, as Mr Javid warned Downing Street that if Mr Stein was not fired he would ask a question in PMQs along the lines of: “Does the Prime Minister value her advisers as colleagues more than her Conservative MPs as colleagues?” Mr Stein was eventually suspended – and it turned out Mr Javid woke up with Covid on the day of PMQs.

‘Cruel’ sacking due to ‘bad blood’

An early mistake Sir Anthony documents is the sacking of Sir Tom Scholar, the permanent secretary at the Treasury, whom Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng ditched on their first day in power.

The book says Ms Truss was “not comfortable” with Sir Tom, who had been the official with principal responsibility for public spending and balancing the nation’s books since 2016, because of “bad blood” dating back to when Ms Truss served as Chief Secretary to the Treasury from 2017-2019. She also believed Sir Tom embodied a culture at the Treasury that was to be too cautious and say “no” too much, it adds.

Sir Anthony notes that with Sir Tom gone, there was no other figure that had the depth of his experience and knowledge across the financial sector, including the bank of England. “It all added to the uncertainty over how the economy might respond to the Mini-Budget,” he wrote. Meanwhile Treasury civil servants were said to be “shell shocked” by the “cruel” sacking – creating a “toxic” culture at the department.

In one extraordinary claim, Sir Anthony wrote that Ms Truss continued to blame Sir Tom for her mini-budget fallout. The book says Sir Tom “remained a figure of dark suspicion”, with Ms Truss continuing to “hate the OBR and the ‘blob’ with a vengeance”. Sir Tom meanwhile was completely unaware, having been busying himself with coastal walks and not in contact with anyone from the financial community after his sudden sacking.

One Trussite minister even admits in the book: “We thought the system would work better because Scholar had gone. We were wrong. It didn’t.”

Not the fault of the ‘deep state’

Ms Truss has repeatedly refused to apologise for a spike in mortgage rates after her 2022 mini-Budget sent markets into meltdown. Thousands are still reeling from the impact of the fallout, with many forced to sell their homes after their mortgage payments spiralled out of control. The shameless ex-PM has insisted a “deep state” of left wingers infiltrating schools, university campuses and corporate boardrooms sabotaged her premiership.

But Sir Anthony rejects Ms Truss’s claims that a “deep state” scuppered her economic plans, concluding simply: “There was no coordinated ‘deep state’ attempt to unseat her and defeat her project. A state apparatus weakened by the Tories certainly did not perform at its peak, and it was down to officials, in No. 10,the Cabinet Office and the Treasury, to pull the country out of a nosedive that would have put the national finances in the greatest peril since the 1976 IMF Crisis.”