TORY cabinet newbie Liz Truss only opposed Thatcher in her youth because it was fashionable, she has admitted.

In a newspaper interview, the new Environment Secretary, who attended CND demos as a child,  said that as a teenager “it just was not part of the culture to approve of what the government was doing.”

It was after meeting privileged Tories at Oxford University that she found her feet as a Thatcherite, she revealed. 

“I had never met anyone of my own age that was a Tory, so going to university and seeing people who were Tories and who believed in what I believed in was an eye-opener,” she said.

Ms Truss, who is reportedly dubbed by Tory colleagues as “Thatcher 2.0,” heaped praise on Boris Johnson. She said the London mayor — who is threatening to close all Tube ticket offices after pledging to keep them open — offered an “honest exposition of views.”

And she refused to rule out a leadership bid of her own in years to come.