Elizabeth was interviewed by Kirsty Wark on BBC2's "Newsnight", 12th May 2010

Kirsty Wark:  A new world that we're living in.  Elizabeth Truss, do you think this is a significant and lasting moment of change for the Conservatives, or is it all for necessity?

Elizabeth Truss:  Well, I think it's a bit of both, actually.  It is a lasting moment of change.  It's the first time we've seen a coalition for seventy years and also there has been a remarkable shift, I think, in the style of engagement with voters.  I think the internet has had a huge effect in terms of making Parliament more important, so I think we're seeing a lot of change at the moment in our political system.

Kirsty Wark:  But in the end, the red lines will still exist presumably, philosphically and in terms of policy, between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives, and Fraser Nelson's analysis is that those red lines will become so deep they'll be running in blood and the coalition will split within two years?

Elizabeth Truss:  Well, I think it's absolutely right that there will always be red lines.  We are two different parties.  But I think what's unique is the situation Britain is in at the moment, both the financial situation and the political situation.  We've never been faced with this level of debt.  We also haven't had the lack of trust, I think, and the disengagement from politics.

Kirsty Wark:  The elitist charge is really quite striking when you look at that Cabinet.  Just to look back at the actual statistics: a Blair Cabinet - 17% went to Oxbridge; this Cabinet of the new politics - 65% went to Oxbridge, 61% went to private schools, 2 were President of the Oxford Union, 2 were Presidents of the Cambridge Union.  That's before we begin to talk about women.  So, basically, this is a middle-aged, white, male, Oxbridge Cabinet.  Are you really comfortable with that?

Elizabeth Truss:  Well, I'm somebody who went to a comprehensive school and went on to Oxford, so I don't see any problems with aspiring to move forward and social mobility.  But what we saw is social mobility actually fell under a Labour Government.  We've seen a lack of social mobility across the professions, across politics, across Government, and that I think is not something necessarily the Conservative Party has engendered.  If you look at the make-up of the previous Cabinet and where people like Ed Balls went to school, you don't find anything better there.  And I think what we're showing and what we're trying to do is have a new style of politics that really engages people and brings new people through the door.  And actually our school reforms, on which we do agree with the Liberal Democrats in terms of the Pupil Premium, is going to bring people through from less well-off backgrounds and help a new generation of people get involved in politics.  But we need to start doing that now and start fixing it rather than just attacking the other side for exactly the same problems, I'm afraid, that the Labour Party has, because, let's face it, the last Cabinet had a husband and wife and two brothers in it.

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