Liz Truss - The Power Of SPLAT

And so the hopefuls in the Tory party leadership contest were whittled down to the final two: as desired by our free and fearless press, the Mail having been especially shameless in its campaigning, Penny Mordaunt did not quite make the cut, being overhauled by Liz Truss, who is now favourite to become our next Prime Minister come September. Why this is can be put simply.

The choice between her and Rishi Sunak, who was most popular with Tory MPs, will be made by the Tory membership. This is a group with an average age of 72. It is believed to be deeply racist, and as a result, Sunak, who has committed the heinous crime of being Not White With Malice Aforethought, will not enjoy their favour. But a Nice Gel like Ms Truss will.

So it is that Ms Truss’ every pronouncement will, from now until the Tories announce the winner, garner even more scrutiny than previously. And, within a short time of the final two being revealed to the world, the omens were not good. She Tweeted to her adoring public that, should she be duly elected, she would “Hit the ground from Day One”. Spot the missing word.

Having considered The Power Of Splat, Ms Truss then deleted the Tweet. But, as with so much that she does, the deletion was executed too slowly, something that could not be said for the speed at which her infamous Tory conference speech talking about Britain’s cheese deficit was wheeled out. Was she in hock to Big Wensleydale? How mature was her Cheddar?

Or would observers fixate on other aspects of the speech, like her assertion that she was off to Beijing to open New Pork Markets? By this morning, that had been forgotten, which might have been thought A Good Thing, except that what displaced the memory was her appearance on the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme, where she had set out her stall on economics.

Could she cite one leading economist who endorsed her plans to borrow in order to fund tax cuts? She could. And the name she pitched was Patrick Minford. That’s the same Patrick Minford who was getting it wrong in the early 1980s, when he was at the University of Liverpool, and is still getting it wrong forty years later. At least he is consistent, but not necessarily in a good way.

The Vagina Monologue makes his choice

Naming Minford brought severely adverse comment, not least from John Spiers, who responded “Liz Truss just told Radio 4 that she wants to follow the advice of Patrick Minford, a fringe economist who said that for Brexit to succeed economically we would have to get rid of farming and manufacturing and live with much bigger wage inequality”. A crank, in other words.

Or even tone deaf economics, which may have been behind Chris Dillow’s musing that “Saying that Patrick Minford is your favourite economist is like saying your favourite singer is Florence Foster Jenkins”. Former chief Downing Street polecat Dominic Cummings added that Ms Truss was known as “the human hand grenade” because she blew up everything she touched.

He was also of the opinion that now former alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson was backing Ms Truss because she would foul things up so badly, it would enable him to make a comeback. All of that should make the client journalist class stop and think, but they will not: the Mail is already gearing up to shill for her, while slagging off Sunak.

The right-leaning part of our free and fearless press is so obsessed with turning politics into a game where they back winners (whether or not their choices do any good for those hardworking citizens they claim to champion) that they have lost sight of the grim reality of life in the UK right now. More strikes, spiralling prices, increasing poverty and homelessness, the NHS under increasing strain, and the rule of law beginning to fray - badly.

Liz Truss could throw out all the culture war rubbish and actually try to address the public’s concerns - in other words, show some real leadership. She could sack the less useful Bozo appointees, like Priti Patel, Dominic Raab, Nadine Dorries and Suella Braverman, bringing in the less wacko Jeremy Hunt (the former Culture Secretary) and Tom Tugendhat.

She could assemble a team of advisors to guide her away from yet more displays of stupid, and towards sensible and focused leadership. Or she could pretend she knows it all and make an even bigger Horlicks of governing the country than Bozo did, believing like so many in the Westminster bubble that it really is all a game. That is a truly grim prospect.

What will happen when she hits the ground on Day One? Splat or bust, folks.

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