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Thursday 29 September 2022

Liz Truss - Locally Clueless

And so it came to pass that Liz Truss, for some reason made Prime Minister, decided in her infinite wisdom to do a round of interviews for local radio stations: perhaps she and her advisors believed this to be a softer option than the glare of national TV shows. But it soon became clear that this was a campaign that was developing not necessarily to her advantage.


The problem she faced can be put directly: her inquisitors were all experienced journalists, well used to grilling politicians and detecting bullshit, they did not depend, like their Westminster contemporaries, on “access” being denied them, she had been poorly briefed (or perhaps it hadn’t sunk in), her delivery was wooden, and to cap it off, she talked well, but lied badly.

Her Radio Stoke experience, with John Acres, was typical. “It’s how we grow the size of the pie, so that everyone can benefit” she claimed. “By borrowing more, and putting our mortgages up?” asked Acres. Long pause. “We need to borrow more this winter for the energy crisis that we’re facing”. Acres was not persuaded. “We’re going to spend more in mortgage fees under what you’ve done, based on the predictions, than we would have saved on energy”.

Come on Liz! Let’s have a bit of the old wit! Another long pause. “I don’t think anybody is arguing that we shouldn’t have acted on energy”. Anyone convinced? No, me neither. Nor was Matt Chorley - a Murdoch journalist now at Times Radio - who noted that Radio Kent’s interviewer was not messing around: “Are you ashamed of what you’ve done? Are you?

That one got worse. After Ms Truss claimed “We are working very closely with the Bank of England” came the retort “They are putting out your fire to be fair” followed by “How much suffering is enough? Haven’t you been reading the news? This is a crisis”. Take that one off the grill, it’s done.

Radio Norfolk was no kinder, and the interviewer was no Partridge. Chorley was gobsmacked. “Utterly bizarre response to her own local BBC station asking why the roof of the local hospital is held up by dozens of props. Truss tells BBC Norfolk that she will lobby the health secretary as a local MP. But won’t make promises on her behalf. What?!?” Then came Radio Bristol.

Toby Earle notedJames Hanson, BBC Bristol, calls out Liz Truss’s scripted answers, refuses to accept this is all down to Putin, & asks if the Bank of England had to intervene because of him”. There was a little more ridicule: “it’s hard to know what has fallen more since you entered Downing Street, the value of the pound of the Tory poll rating”. OUCH! Then came the lying.

Pippa Crerar of the Guardian observedLiz Truss said several times in her radio round that no family would pay more than £2,500 this year for energy bills.This is just *not* the case”. Oh aye? Martin Lewis had the numbers. “THERE IS NO £2,500 CAP ON ENERGY BILLS. Instead the new 1 Oct guarantee, like the old caps, limits - Daily charge (28p gas, 46p elec) - & Unit rates (10p/kWh gas, 34p/kWh elec). So use more, pay more. £2,500 is just what someone with [average] use [would] pay”. Oh dear!


The reaction was less than totally favourable, even from her own side, as Rachel Wearmouth of the Staggers revealed. “Truss began laughing at one point during her Radio Bristol interview. This is a disaster … A Tory MP who backed Truss texts: ‘It's an utter shitshow’”. Adam Bienkov of Byline Times concludedThat has to be the most brutal round of local radio interviews I've ever heard a Prime Minister face”. And that wasn’t the worst part.

He added “Not a single note of contrition from Liz Truss, or even the slightest indication she plans to change course in any way.” Paul Waugh of the i Paper musedThe most telling thing in each interview is the dismissive laughter in her voice as she answers some of the questions. Quite revealing”. And Kitty Donaldson of Bloomberg had bad news from those markets.

This is a chart of the UK government bond market while Liz Truss has been on air - investors are worried by her comments, are selling gilts and the yields rise - short version: they’re not reassured by her doubling down”. Markets that are all about the C-Word, as in Confidence. If they don’t have any in Ms Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng, that will be, as the saying goes, “priced in”.

Former Tory MP Matthew Parris said before Ms Truss was elected leader of the Tory Party “She’s crackers. It isn’t going to work”. Dead right it isn’t.


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21 comments:

Anonymous said...

You would almost feel sorry for her if she wasn't such a shithouse.

Her and all the other blue and red tories.

Burlington Bertie from Bow said...

Truss and Kwarteng may be the natural and inevitable culmination of the sequence begun with Cameron's referendum wheeze, Brexit, Robot May, lying moral-vacuum Johnson, tens of thousands of unnecessary Covid deaths, PPE contract corruption, the vote of 150000 twats in the 'Leadership'(!) contest and finally the ultimate triumph of the IEA and its associated fruit loops in the 'bastards'/'nutters' faction of the Tory party, but things would be worse, much worse, nay, much, much worse if the treacherous, bequiffed Quisling Starmer and his metropolitan M25 dwelling baby-stranglers ever got their hands on the levers of power which rightfully belong to Arthur Henderson (1863-1935) and Jessie Stephen (1893-1979).

And if you think in any other way then you deserve all you're going to get.And not before time.

Esmond said...

Radio Lancashire had her on a butty too about what local approval for fracking meant. She didn't have a clue and it was obvious. I would have said it was painful but it's us that are suffering

Anonymous said...

12:50.

See, even a red tory knobhead apologist like you can learn.

Well done.

Anonymous said...

My teenage daughter has a great way of dealing with us as parents if we are talking to her and she really isn’t interested or is bored of what is being said

She simply says in a terse manner ‘Stop talking’.

I’d appreciate it if just once an interviewer would do the same every time a politician is mid flow giving an answer to a question which wasn’t asked.

Gulliver said...

@ Bertie,

Of course, getting the Tories out was a priority in 2017 and 2019...well, a priority for some, not as it turns out, for others.

Mr Larrington said...

As my e-chum ian put it:

LizbotInstructionSet: exception encountered, please reboot
LizbotInstructionSet: reboot
LizbotInstructionSet: reboot failed, please wind and try again
LizbotInstructionSet: install KwaziKwarteng
LizbotInstructionSet: module KwaziKwarteng cannot be found

Anonymous said...

I'm on your side Bertie.

For those who haven't seen it, here's the proof of everything you say:
https://www.ajiunit.com/investigation/the-labour-files/

Well in Bertie mate.

Burlington Bertie from Bow said...

Bit late for that, me old cockney sparra. And I think we all prefer your Albert Steptoe impersonations,* Anonymous....

(Labour in 30odd% percentage point poll lead. We feel your pain).

*NB vocative comma

Mark Hayhurst said...

I want to commend Bertie's comment today.

In South America, the taxi drivers are the most politically astute. And it is like that here. Bertie is not an educated person, in all honesty he is very simple, but he understands emotions and the tide of time. Good on him.

Anonymous said...

She is doing it to make us feel nostalgic for the gormless Bozo, so that he is not remembered as Britain's worst prime minister...

Burlington Bertie from Bow said...


Thank you, Mark, both for taking the time to vouchsafe your eloquent insights into comparative cabbie nous and for your Olympian assessment of my own shabby talents.

I sense that there's a writer in you somewhere struggling to get out.

Anonymous said...

21:06.

Wrong, me old red tory Quisling.

It's a red tory "30odd% percentage point poll lead". An inevitable "lead" from default by yet another Del Boy government. Predicted long ago.

Nothing whatever to do with Labour Party founding principles, but everything to do with East End barrow boy spiv "economics". As demonstrated by Blair/Brown and their war criminal mass murders and "abolition of boom and bust". Now due for repetition by Starmer/Reeves, which is why they'll be allowed into Downing Street - assuming they do as they're told.

All a mere repeat of the dog days of the Major sleaze (read: thievery and corruption) government. A muesli-quaffing surrender monkey could have ousted that lot in 1997....and did. So it's back to the future for all red tory Quislings and their paymasters.

Must try HARDER, produce MORE. Still 1 out of 10.

Tsk tsk.

Anonymous said...

Replying to my own post!

However for an example. Victoria Derbyshire hosted Newsnight last night and daughter would have reached for the “Stop talking” at iplayer time of 12 min 45 secs.

Anonymous said...

That "poll swing".

On a uniform swing translates to Labour 565 seats, LibDems 7seats, tories 3 seats. Majority 468.

If it became fact, which it won't, it would wipe the blue tories from the electoral map. It would leave red tories free to effect the kind of social changes legislated for by a TRUE Labour government in 1945....but that won't happen either.

Bliarite red tories don't do fairness and decency. "Good", though, at kowtowing to the Yank Empire, genocidal wars, destruction of sovereign nations, intensification of domestic poverty, thievery of national assets, and obeying fascist oligarchs and their media.

Such a majority would leave red tories with no excuse to avoid a radical rejection of the last four decades of inflicted horror and thievery. But watch the Starmer/Reeves Quislings and their apologists grovel for appeasement. Their type of poltroon never changes and the result is always the same.

Mark Hayhurst said...

I'm actually already a writer Bert:

https://m.imdb.com/name/nm1597802/

Burlington Bertie from Bow said...


God, you must have a bleak and miserable existence, Anonymous.

Anyway, and leaving all that aside, who do you fancy to win Strictly this season?

Anonymous said...

10:32.

You don't have "talents". But you are a shabby red tory. And, according to "Mark", you are also an uneducated simpleton.

Oh my aching sides.

Burlington Bertie from Bow said...


Oh dear.
Yes, you've told us all before, Mark.

Sorry, I shouldn't have teased you.

Anonymous said...

15:43.

Yeah, yeah.

U OK hun?

Mark Hayhurst said...

10:32

I don't know why you think I'm not who I say I am.

I mean, I'm proud of my work in the world but, let's be honest, being me is not exactly Beatlemania. I wouldn't expect that I would have an imposter anywhere.