Snap verdict: Truss’s first PMQs was no triumph – but she avoided catastrophe
The tilt back to ideas was refreshing but her opponent sounded closer to where public opinion is on the energy crisis
Every former prime minister says taking PMQs is the most scary ordeal of the week, and even after 10 years in post, people such as Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair regarded it as one of the ultimate challenges of the job - an encounter when a few wrong words could spell disaster.
For any new prime minister, the first question is: are they up to it? And Liz Truss clearly is. She looked like a prime minister, she performed reasonably well, and she even managed a decent joke (on Labour leaders and north London) It was not a triumph, but it was not a catastrophe either, and on day one that is a bonus.
The prime minister claims to be breaking orthodoxy but the reality is she's reheating George Osborne's failed corporation tax plans - protecting oil and gas profits and forcing working people to pay the bill.
She's the fourth Tory prime minister in six years. The face at the top may change but the story remains the same.
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