Liz Truss: strong media personality with big ideas on schooling

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jul/15/liz-truss-media-personality-schooling-tory-conservative

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Liz Truss is among the first of the Tory female A-listers who entered parliament in 2010 to make it into the cabinet.

Often referred to as a rising star and sometimes tipped as a future leader, she hit the ground running as an MP by founding the Free Enterprise Group and co-writing a policy filled book called Britannia Unchained, which advocated radical deregulation and Thatcherite free-market economics.

One line in the book caused particular controversy: "The British are among the worst idlers in the world. We work among the lowest hours, we retire early and our productivity is poor. Whereas Indian children aspire to be doctors or businessmen, the British are more interested in football and pop music."

Her appointment also means Labour can no longer taunt David Cameron about the absence of mothers in his top team.

Truss was quickly promoted to minister focusing on childcare in the last reshuffle, where she tried to increase the number of infants that could be looked after by childcare workers, before this was blocked by Nick Clegg.

Another pet subject is the need to improve British standards in maths for fear that children are falling behind those in Asian countries. During her time in the Department for Education, she was involved in a programme that will bring over Chinese teachers to help them apply "good practice" in the UK.

Truss, 38, also strongly promotes getting more young women into maths and science subjects. The party bosses see her as a strong media performer who has not got in any major scrapes – or not since her constituency association tried unsuccessfully to deselect her in 2009, over allegations of an affair with another MP.

The daughter of leftwingers, she was state educated and studied politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford University before joining the Liberal Democrat party.

She switched to the Conservatives in her last year of university and first tried to become an MP at the age of 26. Before entering the House, she worked as an economist and became deputy director of the Reform thinktank.