As Leeds prepared to host the first of the Conservative leadership regional hustings on Thursday evening, people who grew up alongside candidate Liz Truss have found much to disagree with her on. Truss went to Roundhay school, an Ofsted “outstanding” comprehensive in the leafy suburb in the north of the city. She caused outrage and indignation among local leaders with her comments about her former school, which she said “let down” children. The foreign secretary was also mocked for describing the affluent Labour-majority constituency of Leeds North East as a red wall seat. It seems locally even those who back Truss cannot agree with her comments. Roundhay Park was filled on Wednesday with people making the most of the sunny weather during the school holidays.
One of those was Jane Lusardi, a retired secretary who went to Roundhay school back when it was a girls’ grammar. “I’ve been reading [Truss’s] comments in the local media about pupils being let down and people thought she was being very unfair. It’s not true that it’s a deprived area,” she said. “She got a good enough education at Roundhay to go to Oxford. I don’t agree with her comments at all.” As a lifelong Tory voter, Lusardi has been following the contest very closely and still backs Truss. “I find Liz Truss more believable. I’m not biased towards women but I think women are more honest,” she said. Zafar Zaman also went to Roundhay school. He was chatting on a bench with his friend Mohammed Khan. As city-centre taxi drivers based at Leeds railway station, they had very few passengers on Wednesday owing to the rail strike and took a break in the park. He said Truss’s claims were misleading and her insistence that the school failed children was incorrect. “It’s not true. She made it look like a deprived area but it’s not. It was a good school,” he said. But again, despite disagreeing with Truss’s recollection of her youth in Leeds, he thought she was the best candidate. “I do think she’ll bring some fresh blood to the Conservatives.”
He said the former chancellor Rishi Sunak’s affluent background meant he did not know how normal people live, adding: “Liz Truss will have more understanding about that.” But many voters in Roundhay Park had nothing good to say about either candidate. Lindsay and Ciaran Reid, specialist nurses at the nearby St James’s hospital, who were taking a walk during a day off, intensely disliked both Truss and Sunak. “They’re both just different brands of crap,” said Ciaran, a Green voter. “When it comes to Liz Truss, there’s a space where her brain should be.” Lindsay, a Labour voter, added: “She’s delusional.” They thought both leadership contenders were unfit to be prime minister and would fail to tackle the cost of living crisis. Lindsay said: “The poor are going to get poorer, the rich are going to get richer. People with second homes are telling people who don’t even have one how to live.” She added: “At this point, I like to wave at my wage as it goes past.” Labour supporters Steve and Janis Scott had similar thoughts. They disagreed with Truss’s characterisation of the area and were concerned about the direction in which the country was heading. Janis said: “She’s not telling the truth. Roundhay was so posh and elite back then and it still is. She’s being totally economical with the truth. It’s a joke. She didn’t have a poor start in life. “She’s just a chancer, the same as Boris Johnson, and she comes from a long line of chancers. “It’s true of both her and Sunak. What they say is not what they truly believe, it’s what suits their ambition. They’re opportunists and there are so many of them in the Tory party right now.”
They were annoyed the next prime minister would be chosen by a ballot of Conservative members, which is taking place between 5 August and 2 September, with the new prime minister being announced on 5 September. Steve said: “This leadership contest is not democratic. The leader is chosen by a small group of Tory members, mostly in the south.” He added: “The problem with Liz Truss is she’d have Nadine Dorries and Jacob Rees-Mogg in her cabinet. People like that should never be in power.” Janis said: “They’ve never had any credibility. The likes of Ken Clarke seem so reasonable now.”