“

This is a naked conservatism that believes in itself with such fervour it thinks facts should make way for its fantasies. Borrowing for tax cuts in a period of surging inflation was always going to spook the markets, but Truss’s faith told her otherwise. She was determined to jump off the cliff, insistent that all the talk of gravity was so much stuffy scientific "orthodoxy". The refusal to bow to empirical evidence, to reality, is Truss conservatism’s defining feature. Its origins are not mysterious. We might call it Brexitism: the creed that holds that the real world, even the facts of geography, can be bent to your will, just by closing your eyes and wishing it were so.

— Jonathan Freedland

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "This is a naked conservatism that believes in itself with such fervour it thinks facts should make way for its fantasies. Borrowing for tax cuts in a period of surging inflation was always going to spook the markets, but Truss’s faith told her otherwise. She was determined to jump off the cliff, insistent that all the talk of gravity was so much stuffy scientific "orthodoxy". The refusal to bow to empirical evidence, to reality, is Truss conservatism’s defining feature. Its origins are not mysterious. We might call it Brexitism: the creed that holds that the real world, even the facts of geography, can be bent to your will, just by closing your eyes and wishing it were so." in the context of "Jonathan Freedland "Fair play to Truss: stripped of competence or compassion, her extremism is refreshingly clear" The Guardian (7 October 2022)." to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "Liz Truss" (About Liz Truss: In alphabetical order according to author or source.) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Liz Truss

About Liz Truss

Mary Elizabeth Truss (born 26 July 1975), known as Liz Truss, is a former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party. She resigned from these posts on 20 October 2022, after only six weeks. Before her appointment as the British PM on 6 September 2022, in succession to Boris Johnson, she served as Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs from September 2021. Earlier in her career, she held posts as Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade from July 2019 in Boris Johnson's cabinet. Following the resignation of Amber Rudd, she gained the additional position as the Minister for Women and Equalities in September 2019.