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Out of the Blue
- The Inside Story of the Unexpected Rise and Rapid Fall of Liz Truss
- Narrated by: Emily Pennant-Rea
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
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Publisher's Summary
Liz Truss’s journey from schoolgirl revolutionary to Britain’s shortest-serving Prime Minister
The Sunday Times Politics Book of the Year
Despite being written off and mocked by even her closest colleagues, Liz Truss slowly but determinedly achieved her goal of taking over 10 Downing Street – only to instantly plunge her administration into chaos and announce her resignation after a record-breaking 44 days. How did she do it? And what exactly went so wrong?
With unrivalled access and insight, award-winning political journalists Harry Cole and James Heale provide the answers, drawing on interviews with Truss’s friends and supporters, as well as her worst critics and rivals, from Kwasi Kwarteng to Michael Gove.
Tracking Truss’s transformation from geeky teenage Lib Dem to Tory PM, with the inside scoop on her first – and only – month in office, Out of the Blue is the unmissable behind-the-scenes account of Britain’s shortest-serving Prime Minister.
Critic Reviews
"An insightful and at times riotously entertaining account of the lengthy rise and abrupt fall of Britain’s 56th Prime Minister. What was intended as a prologue to her premiership is now a riveting political obituary in which every page drips with the seeds of both triumph and disaster. Cole and Heale have produced a meticulously reported account of Truss’s drive, impulsiveness, eccentricity and ideological certainty which reads like a warning from history. It has elements of tragedy but is frequently very, very funny." (Tim Shipman)
"Make sure you put your seat belt on. Heale and Cole put you in the passenger seat of the fastest car crash in recent political history. It's an unmissable romp through Liz Truss's long journey to the top, fuelled by ambition and espresso. The clues that foretold the extraordinary catastrophe are all there, as the authors reveal in gory detail how Liz Truss nearly had the last laugh, before finally, as her government imploded, the joke was on her." (Laura Kuenssberg)
"Completely absorbing and, in places, astonishing. It is the story of a gigantic error, well told. And important lessons can be learnt." (Daniel Finkelstein)
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What listeners say about Out of the Blue
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Sam J
- 25-03-2023
It’s what happens when ideology is pursued ahead of the national interest
Wow what a rollercoaster ride Liz Truss has given the people of Britain!
A well researched and well written book. Congratulations to the authors.
It felt like I was reading a horror movie rather than a biography. It was all a bit grubby and I felt I had to wash my hands after each chapter. In some ways I had to admire Truss’s meteoric rise to power, her intelligence and capacity for hard work. For a Yorkshire woman to get to PM at such a young age required grit and ambition.
On the other hand, it’s clear that she has a Trumpian level of emotional intelligence, and she must have been a nightmare to work for. Everything was about ‘her’ and she was described as a ‘human hand grenade waiting to go off’. You didn’t want to be near her when she did!
The most sickening aspect of her political career was her unwillingness to take advice, her single-minded pursuit of her political ideology and her willingness to experiment with an entire nation’s future prosperity on an ideological whim (massive, unsustainable, uncosted tax cuts). It was like a teenage driver careering down the wrong side of the M1 at the wheel of a high powered Aston Martin. And the results were inevitable! I just hope she hasn’t done permanent damage to the engine of the British economy.
Overall a very good book that gave great insight into the workings of British politics and what can happen when inexperienced leaders are driven by ideology rather than pragmatism and are unwilling to ever admit they can be fallible.
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