Liz Truss, to nobody's great surprise, emerged comfortably victorious in the Conservative leadership contest. This was predicted by pollsters from early August, with Yougov getting the result more or less right, as they have done in most recent Labour and Conservative leadership contests.
The Conservative contest rumbled on throughout most of the summer. Interestingly, most of the campaign events are likely to have had almost no impact on the vote at all, as polling showed Truss significantly ahead of Sunak early on, and most members returned their ballots early, so the majority of events actually took place at a point where they couldn't actually change anything. That said, they were quite revealing about the ideological position that Truss is likely to attempt to run the government from.
It might be useful to first address the ideological position of the Boris Johnson government. Due to the focus on Brexit, and some policies regarding immigration, it is easy to simply view Johnson as having pulled the party to the right. However, it is also true that Johnson was seen by some as being more liberal, due to his previous stint as Mayor of London, and it ignores that the major focus of his election campaign in 2019 was regarding 'levelling up'. This refers to an attempt to improve services, infrastructure and quality of life in under-served areas of the country, that traditionally have voted Labour, and was part of the reason, along with Johnson's unique media appeal, that the Conservatives were able to achieve such success in parts of the north that they had been unable to win in for decades. It was also a departure from Cameron-era fiscal conservatism, or 'austerity', with huge restrictions on spending.
In some senses it looks like Truss will seek to be a more traditional conservative that Johnson, whilst trying to maintain Boris's popularity and Brexit-loving core. Many of the statements she has made refer to taxation, especially with regards to the energy crisis and the National Insurance rise brought in earlier this year, which are very much in line with traditional Conservative Party thought. Sunak, who claimed to dislike higher taxes, was unable to shake off being responsible for the NI rise, with his pleas about fiscal responsibility falling on deaf ears. Additionally, in early exchanges with Keir Starmer, Truss has held firm about not introducing a 'windfall tax' on energy producers and suppliers to pay for her actions on energy prices. The net result of this will be that it will increase debt hugely - though of course Conservatives normally argue that a freer, more libertarian, low tax economy will result in growth to the economy, which will ultimately decrease debt.
This theme is further seen in the actions of the new Chancellor, Kwasi Karteng, who is due to repeal restrictions on banker's bonuses in the City of London. All of this paints a picture of a government which will be unashamedly pro-business. Her appointment of Jacob Rees-Mogg as Business Secretary, a man who once said that there shouldn't be an automatic right to paid holiday, further demonstrates a government which will be highly ideological in its pro-business conservatism. On social issues, Truss has also said that she doesn't view trans women as women, and drew back from including trans conversion therapy in the general ban on conversion therapy. Additionally, her appointments of Therese Coffey as Health Secretary, an individual who is anti-abortion, and Suella Braverman as Home Secretary, who took a staunchly ideological approach in her role as Attorney General, suggests that Truss will look to run a strongly conservative government.
One issue that we have with party leadership contests is that relatively small and unrepresentative groups of people can elect party leaders whose job it is to run the whole country. During the leadership race Truss won the support of the majority of the 170,000 Conservative Party members with her neo-Thatcherite, post-Johnson leanings. Only time will tell if this line will work with the country as a whole.
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