No, minister
The former business minister Anna Soubry (pictured top), who practiced as a criminal barrister in Nottingham for 15 years, has turned down the chance to be Miss Truss’s number two describing the job offer as an “insult”.
She was particularly irked to be asked to work under someone both less qualified than her and nearly twenty years her junior.
No stranger to doling out the insults herself, on the Andrew Marr Show she, rather magnificently, described Nigel Farage as looking “like somebody has put their finger up his bottom and he really rather likes it.” An image which once registered is hard to dislodge.
Soubry studied law at Birmingham University and was the only Conservative on the Executive of the National Union of Students. Working first as a presenter in regional television and then as a barrister she entered the Commons in her early fifties and quickly made a name for herself. A fan of Ken Clarke she is described by Jacob Rees-Mogg as the leader of the left of the Tory Party.
Her refusal was regretted in the Twittersphere:
While I maintain my earlier call to give Truss a chance, I have every sympathy with the more qualified @Anna_Soubry https://t.co/SKpdXlsxcD
— The Secret Barrister (@BarristerSecret) July 20, 2016
Soubry is the second lawyer to refuse to work with Truss after Lord Faulks resigned as justice minister saying
I have nothing against Ms Truss personally. But is she going to have the clout to be able to stand up to the Prime Minister when necessary, on behalf of the judges?
Truss is the third Lord Chancellor in a row to have no legal qualification.