What do the “Turnip Taliban” think of their MP now?
The hot betting favourite for the next PM, Liz Truss, first had a PB thread about her in 2009 before she even became an MP.
She was one of a number of prospective Tory candidates who had been brought on by a big initiative by David Cameron to broaden the base of the party’s MPs. This is from that 2009 PB header:
There’s now a betting market on the situation in the safe Tory seat of South West Norfolk where the move to de-select the PPC, 34 year old Elizabeth Truss, is opening up all sorts of issues over the powers of local parties and charges of sexism. Last week the local executive decided by 19 votes to 14 to put Ms Truss’s candidature back to a special general meeting in a fortnight’s time because it was alleged that she had not been open with them about an affair that had been widely reported in the national press three years ago..One local councillor is quoted as saying they they want a local candidate who can get round the constituency “without a satnav” – which opens up another line of attack against Ms Truss and seems to suggest that some are looking for any reason to over-turn the original selection. In doing so they are undermining their core case about being misled…PaddyPower, has announced a market called “Naughty Norfolk” and is offering 4/5 on Ms Truss being de-selected and 4/5 on her not being de-selected.
This caught the attention of what were then referred to as the “Tabloids” and for a few days Swaffam was swarming with reporters who dubbed senior figures in the local party the “The Turnip Taliban”
Truss survived the effort to deselect her and the rest is history.