Oxfordshire Conservatives share their thoughts on Liz Truss

The comments come after Ms Truss, an Oxford graduate and the shortest-serving prime minister in UK history, blamed the Bank of England governor for her demise.

She has been promoting her new book which endorses Donald Trump and reflects on her 49 days in Downing Street. 

Liz Truss. (Image: Denise Bradley)

Liam Walker, Conservative county councillor for the Hanborough and Minster Lovell division, said: "I’m sure her book will make a handy doorstop somewhere inside No 10.”

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Other councillors in the county also had mostly negative views of the Oxford University alumna.

Liam Walker. (Image: West Oxfordshire District Council.)

Nick Leverton, Carterton South and West division county councillor said: "I do not value her.

"I don't send her a Christmas card and she doesn't send me one.

"Liz Truss, I didn't take to from day one.

Nick Leverton. (Image: Contribution.)

"I'm just a little old boy that likes to do the right thing for the people in the town - I'm not a mad Conservative that listens to everything that comes out of the central press office."

Michael Waine, Conservative county councillor for the Bicester town division, added: "I wholeheartedly support Rishi Sunak, the prime minister, and I always have done.

"I am very pleased to say I never have supported Liz Truss.

"I feel that what the prime minister is proposing and putting into action is far more realistic and honest."

Michael Waine. (Image: North Oxfordshire Conservatives.)

Mr Waine said he also sat "on a different side of the party" and that he is "very much a one-nation Conservative".

Ms Truss received criticism during and after her tenure as prime minister in 2022 when she stepped down amid a government crisis after her mini budget appeared to crash the economy.

The Oxford-born PPE graduate, who was once a Liberal Democrat, released her new book 'Ten Years to Save the West' this week.

She has been MP for South West Norfolk since 2010 and previously held various cabinet positions under three prime ministers—David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson.

Felix Bloomfield, chairman of Oxfordshire County Council and representative for the Benson & Cholsey division, had a more sympathetic view towards the politician who was infamously outlasted by a lettuce in her prime ministerial term as part of a stunt by The Daily Star. 

Felix Bloomfield. (Image: Other.)

Mr Bloomfield said: "I think Liz has good traditional Conservative values and it was very unfortunate that her premiership was so short.

"And I think the advice she was given from civil servants was poor.

"She was poorly advised and tried to rush things through and that was the problem.

"I think she had good intentions and the support wasn’t there."

Whilst at Oxford Ms Truss was president of the Oxford Liberal Democrats society.

She started her PPE undergraduate degree in 1993.

Ms Truss has called for fundamental reforms to the UK’s economic architecture, scrapping the Office for Budget Responsibility and replacing the Bank of England’s governor Andrew Bailey.

On ITV’s Peston, Ms Truss said she was “blindsided” by the vulnerabilities in the pensions system that were exposed as the market got spooked by her first chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget.

She said: “Certainly, if we had known about the extent of the tinderbox, of course, we would have gone about things differently. We simply didn’t know about that.

“And all of the plans that we put together were worked up with Treasury officials. We did the costings, that was put in the book that accompanied the mini-budget. So there was no sense in which what we were doing was a high-risk strategy.”