We should wish PM Truss the best of luck – she will need it

Liz Truss has won the Conservative leadership campaign. She will soon become the 15th individual (and only the third woman) whom the Queen has asked to form a government. That, pretty much, is where the good news ends for Ms Truss – though everyone should wish her the best of luck for the sake of the country.

Her “mandate” amounts to the roughly 57 per cent of the Conservative membership that voted in the party’s internal election, or some 81,326 spectacularly unrepresentative activists, some resident abroad. It is a rather lower majority than her predecessors achieved, or the campaign surveys suggested. The party is split, and many openly bemoan the loss of Boris Johnson. There are jokes in poor taste about a leadership challenge to Ms Truss.

Most Tories talk about unity, but the leadership campaign showed just how bitterly, nastily far away they are from that ideal. The modern Conservative Party is addicted to intrigue and factionalism, and Ms Truss lacks any instinct (or taste) for inclusivity. She remains a wooden, uninspiring speaker, and seems out of touch. She will never live down the quote about the British worker being reluctant to graft. Her cabinet will be packed with cronies, and not particularly able ones.