She also agreed with an ally that the mini-budget introduced by her chancellor, Kwasi Kwartang, would prompt "brutal turbulence", then resigned after just 49 days in power, considering herself "the Brian Clough of prime ministers". The Guardian has obtained a copy of the book.
Truss became prime minister on 6 September 2022, after Boris Johnson was forced to resign. In the book, she describes learning of Johnson's exit while in Bali as foreign secretary.
"As I walked along the beach in Indonesia I started crying." Truss writes, in one of a number of frank admissions of human frailties under pressure, including descriptions of her struggle to cope after the death of Queen Elizabeth II just two days after their meeting had confirmed Truss as prime minister.
The possibility of tears was first raised, she writes, when she asked her husband, Hugh O'Leary, if he thought she should run for Tory leader. "Even Hugh, who predicted it would all end in tears, accepted that this was the moment I was expected to run and that if I didn't, people would say I had bottled it," Truss writes.
Her political agent in her Norfolk constituency, she claims, said "I should run, but he thought it would be best if I came second".
In the event, Truss did finish second in voting by Conservative MPS, behind Rishi Sunak, then the chancellor of the exchequer. But Truss's popularity with Tory party members was enough to win a run-off with Sunak and make her prime minister.
In partnership with Kwarteng, a long-term ally, Truss sought to implement a series of drastic economic measures she thought - and still thinks, according to her bookwere needed to save the UK economy.
Although she divined "an environment deeply hostile to the economic policies we were advancing: tax cuts, supply side reform, and public spending restraint", and thought her government was not "ready for this level of [media] onslaught", Truss ploughed on with plans for the mini-budget.
Describing a "walk through the woods at Chevening", the foreign secretary's country residence, she says Simon Clarke, then the chief secretary to the Treasury and another close ally, "with typical understatement, suggested we were in for a 'bracing time"".
"I... said it would be a brutal six months of turbulence and we would have to batten down the hatches," Truss writes. In the event, the mini-budget produced a full-blown hurricane: a pensions crisis Truss insists she did not see coming, amid predictions of economic disaster.
Kwarteng was replaced by Jeremy Hunt but Truss had lost control. On 20 October she resigned.
Analysing her failed premiership, Truss admits faults but also apportions blame, particularly to what she calls the "administrative", "leftist" or "deep" state: bureaucrats and officials, particularly at the Treasury and the Bank of England.
She also delivers a remarkable allusion to another polarising figure: the former Leeds United and Nottingham Forest manager Clough.
Noting that the first leadership hu...
Truss became prime minister on 6 September 2022, after Boris Johnson was forced to resign. In the book, she describes learning of Johnson's exit while in Bali as foreign secretary.
"As I walked along the beach in Indonesia I started crying." Truss writes, in one of a number of frank admissions of human frailties under pressure, including descriptions of her struggle to cope after the death of Queen Elizabeth II just two days after their meeting had confirmed Truss as prime minister.
The possibility of tears was first raised, she writes, when she asked her husband, Hugh O'Leary, if he thought she should run for Tory leader. "Even Hugh, who predicted it would all end in tears, accepted that this was the moment I was expected to run and that if I didn't, people would say I had bottled it," Truss writes.
Her political agent in her Norfolk constituency, she claims, said "I should run, but he thought it would be best if I came second".
In the event, Truss did finish second in voting by Conservative MPS, behind Rishi Sunak, then the chancellor of the exchequer. But Truss's popularity with Tory party members was enough to win a run-off with Sunak and make her prime minister.
In partnership with Kwarteng, a long-term ally, Truss sought to implement a series of drastic economic measures she thought - and still thinks, according to her bookwere needed to save the UK economy.
Although she divined "an environment deeply hostile to the economic policies we were advancing: tax cuts, supply side reform, and public spending restraint", and thought her government was not "ready for this level of [media] onslaught", Truss ploughed on with plans for the mini-budget.
Describing a "walk through the woods at Chevening", the foreign secretary's country residence, she says Simon Clarke, then the chief secretary to the Treasury and another close ally, "with typical understatement, suggested we were in for a 'bracing time"".
"I... said it would be a brutal six months of turbulence and we would have to batten down the hatches," Truss writes. In the event, the mini-budget produced a full-blown hurricane: a pensions crisis Truss insists she did not see coming, amid predictions of economic disaster.
Kwarteng was replaced by Jeremy Hunt but Truss had lost control. On 20 October she resigned.
Analysing her failed premiership, Truss admits faults but also apportions blame, particularly to what she calls the "administrative", "leftist" or "deep" state: bureaucrats and officials, particularly at the Treasury and the Bank of England.
She also delivers a remarkable allusion to another polarising figure: the former Leeds United and Nottingham Forest manager Clough.
Noting that the first leadership hu...
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The Guardian (Digital) - 1 Issue, April 13, 2024