Anne-Marie Trevelyan has refused five times to say for sure that Liz Truss will lead the Conservative Party at the next general election.
The whole exchange, which just took place during an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, is worth reading:
Interviewer: Do you think that she will definitely be the one to take you to this election?
Ms Trevelyan said: “We are all firmly with her to get on with the government’s business.”
Interviewer: It’s not the same, is it?
Ms Trevelyan said: “As I say, we want to stand with her to deliver the government’s business and we want to allow Jeremy Hunt 10 days to put together the budget, which will be balanced and ensure we can continue to deliver front-line services while we face the challenges and the costs that we know we have to sustain with the inflationary global prices that we’re seeing. So there are difficult, difficult decisions to come and there are difficult delivery programs to move forward and that’s what we all want to do.” .
Interviewer: People will have heard that you can’t answer that question with a yes. Do you think it will definitely carry you to the next general election?
Ms Trevelyan said: “That’s what we’re going to work on and we hope we can do it while doing it so that the British people understand exactly why it’s important to support the Tory agenda.”
Interviewer: You hope but you don’t believe?
Ms Trevelyan said: “I’m a politician. I’m all about delivery.”
Interviewer: But you can’t say whether the Prime Minister will definitely take you to the next election?
Mrs Trevelyan said: “As I say, we care about delivery and Liz’s plan is very clear. The Prime Minister has set out that delivering growth policies is absolutely critical to ensure our economy can thrive, can overcome this difficult winter and that’s what we need to focus on because if we don’t we won’t be able to support both our public services and indeed those like Ukraine who we want to continue to support as they struggle to maintain their democratic right to be an independent nation. This is the sort of thing a Prime Minister has to contend with alongside the support of everyday life. Sometimes there is turbulence. We will stand with her to deal with it and deliver these incredibly important policies that mark the difference”.