Trailing Liz Truss on the Maga speaking circuit

Also this week: reflecting on Wilde, and American political lingo

Since the start of this year, I have been one half of the Politics at Sam and Anne’s podcast duo, co-hatched by Politico and Sky News. It means a dawn start for Sam Coates and me, recording from home on our coffee drips. Sam’s fluffy white cat purrs approval of our scoops or the latest gossip on Morgan McSweeney. We’ve dealt with builders blasting Ukrainian house music early doors and the alarming vicissitudes of hotel upload speeds. A crucial takeaway for podcasters everywhere is that microphones, as Sam noted when I complained about mine last week, “work better if you don’t drop them”.

Praise be the finance dudes

The cause of this minor incident was racing around Lynchburg, Virginia with Liz Truss for an interview to figure out what exactly, besides the obvious appeal of the fees, attracts Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Truss to the Maga speaking circuit. The former Tory PM was speaking at a Christian conservative gathering at Liberty University, a glitzy campus founded by the late TV evangelist, Jerry Falwell.

Over giant mugs of tea (students and staff must take a no-booze vow), we heard millenarian views of Trump’s ascendancy and the Lord’s general approval of his mission. The eye-opener for me was the deep bench of senior business folk who could switch from talking about finance in the agriculture sector and dealings with UK bank titans to rousing religious acclamations.

Truss thinks the UK would benefit from a private conservative Liberty University of its own. She also told me she quite rates Zack Polanski and thinks the Greens might be the next opposition party. Curiously, Zack hasn’t been in touch to say thanks for this endorsement.

Labour’s Wilde moment

I am glad that Labour’s quarrelsome deputy leadership contest is over. Differences of opinion and style are fine, but the tone was overly abrasive. Accusing your competitor of courting “more distractions, infighting and noise” as Bridget Phillipson did, rather sounded like the cabinet candidate didn’t expect a rival at all. Meanwhile, Lucy Powell’s nettled tone about “ill-advised” social media posts by Phillipson sounded a bit aggrieved. As one of Oscar Wilde’s golden exchanges goes in The Importance of Being Earnest:

Jack: “I’ll bet you anything you like that half an hour after they have met, they will be calling each other sister.”

Algernon: “Women only do that when they have called each a lot of other things first.”

Phillipson and Powell are far more agreeable in person, but it might be a good idea to show that to the rest of us.

A word in your shell-like

On Fridays, we head down to East Kent for respite from Westminster and a change of social scene. Luckily for us, the Countess Sondes was hosting an autumn dinner at her place in a secluded valley. Phyllis Sondes is a dynamic Long Island native who married the last Earl Sondes and inherited an impressive swathe of countryside and waters, including her own oyster beds, after his death. There is also a barn full of giant tortoises, led by the polyamorous Sydney, who, along with two females, has produced 150 offspring.

At the human table, I sat next to a veteran Republican who was there for the shooting. A former senior official in the George HW Bush administration and still active on the DC “Hill”, he was not convinced that a Trump-style Maga candidate could win a third term. Thin margins in a handful of swing states last time around, and the propensity of Americans to tire of incumbents, left him reckoning that the Democrats are more likely to return if they could “get the barnacles off the boat” by not annoying working-class voters quite so assiduously as they did during the Kamala Harris adventure.

Political horseflesh

The exchange reminded me that American political lingo is the best: my new friend described California’s up-and-at-’em governor, Gavin Newsom, as “100 pounds of premium political horseflesh”, citing his readiness to pivot on any issue, from oil refineries to trans rights, if it meant being in contention for the next presidential race. The phrase isn’t about whether you like a politician, but rather describes how good they are at being one. It also got me thinking about who would fit the top-notch horseflesh bill in Britain. Tony Blair, still at it. George Osborne, a relentlessly devious chancellor. Nigel Farage is the stand-out example today. Among the colts, Wes Streeting is a decent portion, as is Robert Jenrick. Let me know who I have missed, as Ofcom would say, with due impartiality.

Anne McElvoy is executive editor of “Politico” and co-host of the “Politics at Sam and Anne’s” podcast

[Further reading: Abolish the monarchy]