Liz Truss has no extra devoted good friend in politics than Thérèse Coffey. When the Prime Minister addressed the social gathering convention in Birmingham, there within the entrance row sat the Deputy Prime Minister, nodding, clapping and carrying a beam of approval.
Their friendship started within the autumn of 2009 when Truss was chosen for South-West Norfolk and Coffey was one of many runners-up, quickly afterwards gaining choice for Suffolk Coastal.
At first sight, it might appear odd that Truss the libertarian individualist, and Coffey, the conservative-minded Roman Catholic, fashioned such a detailed bond.
However each have been outsiders in East Anglia, Truss from Leeds and Coffey from Liverpool, and each have a powerful inclination to again their very own judgment relatively than do as they’re instructed.
Each admired Margaret Thatcher, seen by them as a lady who had triumphed in what was nonetheless a person’s world by having the braveness of her convictions.
Truss and Coffey made their means in a celebration which nonetheless didn’t have very many ladies MPs, knew it wanted extra, and wished these it chosen to get there on advantage relatively than as mere recipients of orders handed down by the management.
Coffey’s defiance of acquired knowledge prolonged to her private look, which owed nothing to Thatcher. In a a lot reproduced {photograph}, she is seen smoking a cigar and holding a glass of wine, with drink apparently spilt down her entrance.
When interviewed by Katy Balls on the Girls With Balls podcast, Coffey mentioned of this image: “I can’t change the photograph so I don’t fear about it. It’s there. It’s going to all the time be used.”
Her voice tightened a bit, however how one admires her braveness and realism. Neither is the cigar irrelevant to her politics now she is working the Division of Well being and Social Care. As Henry Hill questioned yesterday:
“When was the final time we had a smoker appointed Well being Secretary who didn’t instantly render cringing obeisance to the puritan foyer? Neither is that the restrict of Coffey’s dedication to her convictions. She has additionally refused to recant her earlier votes towards such measures as plain packaging, and yesterday The Guardian reported that she might attempt to halt, at the least for a time, the lengthy march in direction of banning tobacco.”
Coffey is just not, nonetheless, the sort of provocative politician who revels in making enemies. She will get on astonishingly effectively along with her fellow MPs. Her ascent included a spell within the Whips’ Workplace, and one among her colleagues there, who on no account admires the current PM, gave this description of Coffey to ConHome:
“A stunning individual. A honest, believing Catholic. Nearly plumb within the centre of the Conservative Celebration. Appreciated by all.
“As a junior whip, she was assiduous, excellent at pastoral care, shrewd at figuring out the motivations of colleagues.”
Coffey herself remarked, throughout her dialog with Balls, that so as to turn into an MP, “you need to trust, you need to have tenacity”, after which she added, in a matter-of-fact relatively than boastful tone:
“I’m lucky alongside the way in which all the time to have been good to folks, and I discover that helps, as a result of they need you to succeed.”
Jacob Rees-Mogg, who has recognized her “without end”, or at the least since they have been each at Oxford, mentioned yesterday:
“She’s an ideal mixture – each very critical and businesslike, but in addition nice enjoyable.
“As a minister she speaks reality to energy. I’ve seen her do that with bishops as effectively. If she thinks a bishop is speaking nonsense she is going to inform him so.
“She’s godmother to Alfred [one of his children] and is a superb godmother. Whilst a Secretary of State she turns as much as ship a gift for him on his birthday.”
Some observers want she had been made Chief Whip relatively than Well being Secretary, talking reality to her good friend the PM in regards to the jittery state of opinion throughout the parliamentary social gathering.
However Truss is aware of that together with the financial system, well being is a vital space, with the potential to destroy the Authorities.
As one former Cupboard minister mentioned, when requested why Coffey has been put accountable for the Division of Well being:
“The Prime Minister desires somebody who’s completely trusted. It’s like sending Beaverbrook to do plane manufacturing in 1940, or Ted Heath sending Willie Whitelaw to Northern Eire. You ship an totally reliable and reliable ally.”
Coffey had impressed by her file in her earlier job, as Work and Pensions Secretary, held from eighth September 2019 to sixth September this yr, so proper by means of the pandemic. She herself recalled, when interviewed by Paul Goodman and myself for ConHome, the difficulties posed by the sudden enlargement of Common Credit score throughout Covid:
“And I’m acutely aware that maybe colleagues and dare I say it the commentariat might need been stunned that UC didn’t fall over.
“It took a variety of effort. I’m actually happy with what our civil servants did. I’ve to say there was a selected day when over 100,000 claims have been made and we had some actually intensive work undertaken to extend the capability of our IT, our servers.
“I all the time consider that prepare scene in Wallace and Gromit, the one with the penguin, and Gromit’s on the entrance of the prepare laying down the observe in entrance of it, and that’s the way it felt like for a short while.”
Andrew Mitchell, former Cupboard minister, instructed ConHome: “I like her. Anybody who can hold the lid on DWP in addition to she did is clearly a category participant.”
Coffey, born in 1971 in Lancashire, was introduced up in Liverpool. Her dad and mom have been academics, and he or she has mentioned it was after they have been despatched redundancy notices by the Militant-run Labour Council that she realised the significance of politics.
She went to 2 fee-paying Catholic faculties, the primary of which, St Mary’s School Crosby, additionally educated Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, and the commentator John O’Sullivan, who labored for Thatcher when she was PM.
Coffey learn Chemistry at Somerville School, Oxford, left after failing an examination (a reasonably uncommon feat, one would have thought), however transferred to College School, London, the place she at size gained a doctorate in Chemistry – she is named Dr Coffey – earlier than becoming a member of Mars, the place she rose to turn into Finance Director of Mars Drinks UK, then taking up the same position on the BBC.
Whereas a scholar, she was concerned in Conservative politics, however questioned whether or not she was ok to turn into an MP. However on seeing a Conservative candidate in Liverpool who was “not excellent”, she determined “I may do higher than that”.
Within the normal election of 2005 she stood in Wrexham, a Labour seat since 1935, and got here third. In 2019, Sarah Atherton took Wrexham for the Conservatives.
Coffey additionally ran for the European Parliament, however was not excessive sufficient on the listing to be elected.
In her maiden speech after her election in 2010 for Suffolk Coastal she mentioned:
“My various constituency additionally incorporates our beloved nuclear energy station at Sizewell. I hope that we will have many extra reactors there—definitely at the least two— earlier than the tip of the last decade. A number of offshore wind farms are additionally being constructed, with extra deliberate. Suffolk Coastal is able to take the lead within the low-carbon financial system, and I hope that our coast will be capable to tackle the brand new alias of the ‘Inexperienced Coast’.”
This pro-nuclear line has not endeared her to opponents of the brand new energy station which is to be constructed at Sizewell. Nor has she devoted something like as a lot time to the constituency as her predecessor, John Gummer.
However from Coffey’s viewpoint, it might be smart to not spend giant quantities of time in Suffolk, and at the least her constituents haven’t acquired used to seeing an excessive amount of her, which now that she is Deputy Prime Minister wouldn’t be possible.
And one Suffolk Conservative, after remarking that Coffey “is just not very extremely considered right here”, did add: “I’ve solely met her twice – I’ve discovered her very agreeable to speak to.”
Coffey grew to become PPS to Michael Fallon, had a spell as a Whip, served from 2015 as Deputy Chief of the Commons, from 2016 was a junior minister within the Division for Atmosphere, Meals and Rural Affairs, and in July 2019 was promoted throughout the similar division to Minister of State.
However she is just not the sort of politician for whom climbing the greasy pole trumps each different objective. In her interview with Balls, she mentioned:
“No doubt the proudest day of my life as an MP was eleventh September 2015 once we labored collectively as a staff and defeated the Second Studying of the Assisted Dying Invoice comprehensively.”
Here’s a totally different scale of values. She additionally talked about that in her complete life to that time, she had missed going to Mass on Sunday on solely six events.
She is single, however very near her sister and mom. Folks comment on her means to work extraordinarily exhausting.
Coffey’s votes on abortion, and on same-sex marriage, have been in accordance with Catholic educating, however she is at pains to level out that she doesn’t put on her religion on her sleeve, or anticipate others to agree along with her views.
As she mentioned in her ConHome interview:
“Folks do discuss having a kinder politics. A component of a kinder politics is just not calling different folks with totally different views bigots since you don’t agree with them.”
Whereas serving at DEFRA she had an ear an infection “that went bizarrely very badly flawed”, she ended up “getting one thing referred to as mastoiditis, meningitis and a mind abscess”, got here near dying, and needed to rebuild her reminiscence: “I couldn’t bear in mind what slippers have been.”
Her non secular seriousness is accompanied by an incredible enthusiasm for acting at karaoke events, which she started to throw on her fortieth birthday in 2011, and has continued ever since, together with a “reconciliation” social gathering after the EU Referendum, during which she herself, “drawing on my earlier expertise in enterprise”, had voted Stay.
Coffey has now reached, as Deputy Prime Minister, a extra uncovered place than she has ever held. She doesn’t sound rattled in interviews, and has the sense to not faux to know the reply to each query.
“Will Truss survive as PM?” Coffey presumably no extra is aware of the reply to that than the remainder of us do. However it’s uncertain whether or not Truss may have a extra trustworthy good friend, or in some ways a extra in a position one, striving to assist her recuperate from the grievous setbacks of the early weeks.
