Earlier this month the usual suspects were out in force for Liz Truss after it was revealed the International Trade Secretary would not be attending Boris Johnson’s summit on violence against women. As the Minister for Women and Equalities, Truss has won plaudits from the right of the party for taking on what she calls the ‘woke brigade’.
She now ranks top of the Conservative Home rankings of the Tory faithful – a position she has held since December. This has been helped in no small part by her speech to the Centre for Policy Studies in which she skewered ‘the equality debate’ as being ‘dominated by a small number of unrepresentative voices and by those who believe people are defined by their protected characteristic.’
And now Mr S can reveal such views are well formed, according to a June 1994 article from the Cherwell student newspaper archives. Headlined ‘Union Officer Under Fire’ it reports how Liz Truss – then a PPE undergraduate at Merton – was known even then as willing to buck the equalities consensus, having publicly criticised the post of a Student Union Women’s Officer earlier that year.
At the time Truss was a Liberal Democrat, serving as her university society’s president and speaking in favour of a republic at that year’s party conference where she declared: ‘We do not believe people are born to rule.’ However the future Cabinet minister could hardly be described as woke as her student newspaper makes clear, describing an incident in which Truss was reprimanded by her student council involving the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Officer:
Internal squabbles threatened to undermine O.U.S.U’s university image this week. Executive officer Liz Truss was admonished by O.U.S.U council last Friday for the way she dealt with a distressed caller who rang the union’s office in Little Clarendon Street asking to speak an L.G.B officer. The incident, which occurred several weeks ago, was brought to council by the L.G.B committee because Truss had called across the room in a loud voice ‘Is there anyone here from the L.G.B?’ This was deemed as insensitive as the caller, already in a distressed state, had heard. She was also mandated by council to explain herself to the committee, which meets on Thursday. Truss is well known for holding dissenting opinions on various O.U.S.U issues. Most controversially she publicly disagreed with the position of Women’s Officer earlier this year. She said of Friday’s events, ‘It is a shame that people have to use such a petty device because they disagree with me on other issues. Unfortunately, many people at council were afraid to speak out as is often the case.’
Mr S is glad to see that ‘the Trussette’ has been able to do her bit for the cause of plain speaking throughout her ministerial career.
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