Talk:Liz Truss

Sources

Upcoming or recent sources that can be used to improve the article Riley-Smith, Ben (2023). The Right to Rule: Thirteen Years, Five Prime Ministers and the Implosion of the Tories. Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 978-1-39-981029-6. Truss, Liz (2024). Ten Years to Save the West. Biteback Publishing. ISBN 978-1-78-590857-6. Shipman, Tim (2024). Out: How Brexit Got Done and Four Prime Ministers Were Undone. William Collins. ISBN 978-0-00-830894-0. Seldon, Anthony; Meakin, Jonathan (2024). Truss at 10: 49 Days That Changed Britain. Atlantic Books. ISBN 978-1-80-546213-2. Seldon, Anthony; Meakin, Jonathan; Thoms, Illias; Egerton, Tom (2024). The Impossible Office?: The History of the British Prime Minister—Revised and Updated. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-009-42977-1.

Proposal to include historical ranking context in lead or legacy section

I propose adding a brief mention of Truss's reception by historians and political analysts, either in the lead or in the legacy/premiership section. Specifically:

In a 2023 survey of MPs conducted by Royal Holloway, University of London, Truss was ranked the worst post-war prime minister, placing last among the 16 evaluated.

Alternatively, a more concise version could be considered for the lead at a later stage if scholarly consensus solidifies:

She has been described by political analysts and MPs as one of the worst prime ministers in British history.

This is supported by the peer-reviewed academic article published in The Political Quarterly, titled "The Good, the Not so Good, and Liz Truss: MPs' Evaluations of Postwar Prime Ministers" (2024), which documents a survey of 65 MPs. Truss ranked last, and the framing of the paper itself strongly implies a historic outlier in failure.

While it's early for a fully established scholarly consensus, this source meets WP:RS and WP:WEIGHT for inclusion in the article body. A lead mention could follow once academic rankings such as the University of Leeds/Woodnewton surveys incorporate her into post-war PM league tables (likely in the next cycle). ‑‑Neveselbert (talk · contribs · email) 22:47, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

No article for a living person stands still and a FA needs kept up to date. However, isn't it too early still to pass final judgement on her as PM until at least one full government term has passed? Moreover, a survey of MPs cannot be taken as a reliable yardstick for measuring how awful (or good 🤔) Truss was Billsmith60 (talk) 11:26, 25 June 2025 (UTC)

@Tim O'Doherty: any thoughts, Tim? ‑‑Neveselbert (talk · contribs · email) 21:33, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

Undecided at the moment. I wouldn't say an MPs' survey holds enough weight to be in the lead as an individual point, although (as you mention) academic studies are probably not far off: Seldon has already written a pretty scathing (some might say ridiculously, needlessly spiteful) account of her, which does hold some weight. I might use that instead, and write up a fuller "Reputation" section to go with it. Tim O'Doherty (talk) 22:30, 4 July 2025 (UTC)

Just to clarify, has any reviewer described Seldon's book as "spiteful"? I've seen reviews calling it scathing or brutal, but I haven't come across anything suggesting it's needlessly personal or vindictive.

I'm only asking because if we're weighing that book against something like the Royal Holloway survey in terms of reliability, it helps to know how it's been received in reliable sources. ‑‑Neveselbert (talk · contribs · email) 01:16, 5 July 2025 (UTC)

Bumping thread. ‑‑Neveselbert (talk · contribs · email) 23:53, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

March 2026

I happened to be going through this article and saw this line which was added on 28 January and sticks out like a sore thumb in a FA for being a single paragraph, bad grammar, and unformatted citations:

Truss government planned to increase immigration.

I don't want to edit war, so I'm just pointing it out to the 351 editors watching this page. Cheers. Yeshivish613 (talk) 16:27, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

References

I suspect the reversion (by Billsmith60) was done under the misconception that the line was included in the text that passed FA review -- it wasn't. It was added on 28 January this year, by Muaza Husni. I would concur that in style, depth and citation manner, it's not suitable to include in its current form, and that removal was the right call. We don't currently have any discussion in the article of policies Truss's government planned to enact but never did, and I suspect in most cases WP:SUMMARYSTYLE would say that's the right call. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 17:20, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

You are correct – and thank you. I am wondering how it was allowed to stay in for so long! Billsmith60 (talk) 10:43, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Merton College in the infobox

I wanted to flag this page as a concrete example of a recurring issue affecting Oxbridge alumni articles. The revision history shows repeated back-and-forth over the past few weeks between editors adding Merton College, Oxford to the infobox and others reverting on the grounds that the current Template:Infobox person guidance specifies the degree-awarding institution, i.e. the University of Oxford rather than the college. This dispute reflects a genuine gap in the guidance rather than either side being clearly wrong.

In practice, college-level attribution is the established convention for Oxbridge alumni across a wide range of well-sourced Wikipedia articles — it reflects the fact that it is the college, not the university, that admits the student and constitutes their primary institutional affiliation. Reliable sources (biographies, obituaries, Who's Who entries) routinely give the college, not the university.

I have raised a proposal on Template talk:Infobox person to formalise a narrow exception for Oxford and Cambridge alumni, so that the guidance explicitly permits, and indeed recommends, college-level attribution in these cases. Until that discussion is resolved, I would suggest leaving the college in place here, on the basis that it better reflects sourcing convention on the vast majority of other Oxbridge alumni (for fellow PM examples, see Truss's successors Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer, or predecessors Boris Johnson, Theresa May, David Cameron, Tony Blair, Margaret Thatcher, Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, Alec Douglas-Home, Harold Macmillan, etc) and is more informative to readers.

Profavi1 (talk) 11:05, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

Personally, I think this is a case where guidance (the documentation for {{infobox person}}) written for the majority of cases doesn't cover an exception. As Profavi1 notes, it's common practice in British sources (and often more widely) to treat Oxbridge colleges as separate institutions, and to give an Oxford/Cambridge graduate's college when saying where they were educated. This is also common in relevant Featured Articles (taking a few relevant ones at random: Rupert Bruce-Mitford, Charles Darwin, C. R. M. F. Cruttwell -- in fact, I struggle to find any at all that don't). I think we should give the alma mater as Merton College, Oxford. This is also the text agreed at FAC and signed off on by several editors (which, for full disclosure, include me). UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 12:45, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

I am with you on preserving the integrity of the FA version of this article, as long as due vigilance is maintained at all times. However, I do not agree on the primacy of the college. As per my tuppence worth at the infobox person page, I've proposed 'University of Oxford (Merton College)'. Regards Billsmith60 (talk) 10:52, 30 April 2026 (UTC)

I'd be happy with that as a second preference, personally. It's an unusual way of doing things, and the "rule 0" of the MoS is to follow what good sources do, but it might be a compromise if others feel that the letter of the template guidance should be law. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 11:08, 30 April 2026 (UTC)

As I have said on the infobox talk page, I think there should be an exception based on what good sources do, as you say. Template guidance is not law, whatever some of us might feel. SamWilson989 (talk) 13:00, 30 April 2026 (UTC)

Requested change

Pray change Newsweek to Newsweek in the Liz Truss#Post-premiership (since 2022) section. ~2026-35586-18 (talk) 08:42, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

 Done Your prayer has been answered. Martinevans123 (talk) 08:49, 19 June 2026 (UTC)