Liz Truss is not the leader the world needs right now | Josie Pagani

JOSIE PAGANI

STRAIGHT AND TRUE

Liz Truss is not the leader the world needs right now

Liz Truss will be the latest leader not up to the job of defending fundamental ideas of liberal democracy – equality before the law, and the rules that bind us.

If leaders don’t defend democratic institutions, we end up with leaders who are more weather vane than signpost. Politicians who change their views to suit public opinion end up as insipid alternatives to the ‘’strong man’’ autocrats who promise to blow the whole system up.

You and I might have just lived through the end of a brief interlude of liberal democracy. If the rise of democracy and the rejection of colonialism defined the second half of the 20th century, its collapse could be the defining trend of the 21st. Unless we fight back.

Liz Truss will not be one of those leaders who can make a passionate defence of liberal values or understand the seriousness of this moment.

Josie's column in Stuff.

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