Whenever a politician becomes prime minister there is always a brief period where the British press project qualities onto them that they do not possess.
We saw it with Theresa May, who was portrayed as a “new iron lady”, we saw it again with Boris Johnson, who we were told would bring in a “golden age” for Britain and we are now seeing it again with Liz Truss.
Commentators who have spent years privately dismissing her as a lightweight, or even a bit of joke, are now penning pieces about how she has been “underestimated” and is set to transform the Conservative party’s fortunes.
Yet this view of politics, which essentially sees it as a game in which the only thing that matters is whether the horse you are backing is ‘winning’ at that precise moment, misses the bigger picture.
This can be seen clearly in the current treatment of Truss, who has already been endorsed by most British newspapers and is also rapidly picking up endorsements from many of those Conservative MPs who had previously backed her opponents.
These endorsements are largely not genuine. Nobody seriously believes that Sajid Javid thinks Truss is the best possible choice for Prime Minister, or that all of those editors publicly backing her, really believe she will be good at the job.
So why are they backing her anyway? Here’s what is really going on.