New PM Liz Truss, right, campaigning in West Hampstead in 2017 alongside the then Hampstead and Kilburn parliamentary candidate Claire-Louise Leyland

THE leader of Camden’s Conservatives has congratulated Liz Truss on winning the race to become the next Prime Minister – but warned she must now unite the party.

Gio Spinella has previously been unflinching in his criticism of the outgoing Boris Johnson, whose performance and party-going behaviour has been blamed by local Tories on their meltdown election results in the borough this year.

He admitted he did not have Ms Truss as his pick to replace him, either.

But after she was declared the winner of the Tory leadeship contest and secured the keys to Number 10, he said today (Monday): “All I can say is that when Boris Johnson’s name came up on the doorstep, it was nearly always under negative terms – even from some people who have traditionally supported the Conservatives. We have not heard any comments about Liz Truss, so we will have to wait and see how she deals with the serious issues ahead.”

He added: “I’m already on public record about my views on Boris Johnson, and I’ve made no secret that neither Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss were my first choice of all the candidates that put themselves forward, and then from those two I favoured Rishi Sunak. We will see how Liz Truss deals with the energy crisis and the war in Ukraine and if she can make a success of  them, then it will be all our success. If not, then it will be for the voters to decide.”

Leader of the Camden Conservatives Gio Spinella

In relation to that description of “success”, he said the process had reminded him George Bush Snr’s gracious handover note to Bill Clinton at the White House in 1993, which said that ‘”his success would be our success” – and that if Ms Truss did well then as the prime minister then”we will all be winners”.

But Cllr Spinella, who returned to the post of leader of the local Tories at the Town Hall following the party’s crushing local electionr results in May which left the group with just three councillors, said there needed to be some patching up of UK politics after years of conflict.

“We’ve had an ongoing drama: the Tories having the Brexiteers against the centrists and Labour having the hard left against the centrists. I call these years of British politics ‘the Italian years’. We have had four prime ministers since 2016 – each one of them then getting an average of one and half years. That’s more of an Italian rhythm of government – and people used to laugh at Italian politics,” he said.

“I think we need more stability and more long-term planning. The world now tends to priortise short term wins all of the time or zingers on social media and in tweets..”

He said that the desperation for short term wins had led former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, a Liberal Democrat, to turn his back on new nuclear power stations – which some people see as an alternative to reliance on Russian fuel.

“He didn’t want to do it then (2010) becaause they would only come online in 2022 – well, it’s 2022 and where are we now because of a lack of planning on energy.”

Cllr Spinella said he was waiting to see what approach Ms Truss took to London – he has warned that previous Tory leaderships have wrongly overlooked voters in places like Camden and dismissed them as a lofty elite – and also who she decided to recruit as her closest lieutenants in government

“There were things she brought up during the leadership campaign – or how she explained them – that I didn’t agree with. I wasn’t sure about her priorities, so one of the key things I will be looking for is if Liz Truss can unite the party,” he said.

“With 57 per cent of the vote, she has won with less than Iain Duncan Smith and David Cameron – and Boris Johnson – and it isn’t a large margin. It will be interesting to see how this reflects in who she appoints to the cabinet positions and if there is an attempt to bring the party together.