The author of a new book about Liz Truss has politely spurned attempts by the ex-PM’s team to cast doubt on his work.
Sir Anthony Seldon has said he stands by his research for Truss At 10, a chronicle of Truss’s time in Downing Street co-written with Jonathan Meakin.
In the book, out tomorrow, Seldon and Meakin claim among other things that Truss considered altering the system of NHS cancer treatment in order to solve funding problems.
Truss’s spokesperson hit back swiftly, telling Politico: “It is completely untrue that she ever considered it.” The claim is apparently based on an interview with a former Truss aide.
“I have nothing more to add,” said Sir Anthony when we asked about the bruhaha. Currently enjoying a holiday, Sir Anthony said “I’m very happy with the book. I have nothing to add, whatsoever.” This is the eighth in a series of contemporary history books by Sir Anthony about British prime ministers.
In the preface to the book, Sir Anthony tells of his uneasy relationship with Truss, who sought him out a party when she discovered he was writing a book about her 49-day premiership. He recalls their first meeting at the Spectator summer party of 2023:
“And so it was, just ten months after becoming Prime Minister, and nine after leaving it, Liz Truss was standing in front of me and asking, ‘Why are you writing a book on me?’ I was taken back by the forcefulness of the question. I didn’t know exactly how to respond. But she gave me no opportunity. ‘I’m writing my own book, you know.’ She looked at me fiercely. ‘I’m glad,’ I blurted out. And off she strutted.”
He also grapples with the possibility that his father Arthur Seldon, a co-founder of the free market Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA) think tank, may have helped to create Truss; she has been intimately acquainted with the organisation’s ideas and personnel.
Truss has written her own account of her time in No 10 titled Ten Years To Save The West. For her labour she received an initial advance of £1,512.88 from her UK publisher Biteback and a larger sum from her American publisher Regnery.
The former PM lost her seat at the general election but she still hopes to play a role in the future of the Conservative party.
