Dear God will someone please explain to me what Liz Truss is actually for? Like salad cream, radishes Lettuce and Andrea Leadsom’s intellect, I have always regarded her as one of those cosmic practical jokes put on earth to make us smile in a cringeworthy sort of way. But for someone who makes Diane Abbott look marginally more intelligent than a tub of pot noodle, it is quite remarkable the amount of newsprint she is devouring of late. I suppose it could be because she is blonde. The press have a thing about that sort of thing. The Daily Telegraph (trigger warning alert you may have to head for a safe place after reading what comes next) used to refer to me as the ‘golden golly’. But it was in the eighties at a time when flares and vaginal deodorants were the sole preserve of liberal intellectuals and the Telegraph was in the hands of the benign Max Hastings.
Now back to our Liz. It may not have escaped your attention that she is very keen to become Prime Minister, which is a bit like wanting to go on holiday. But to Blackpool. It goes without saying that her ambition is charmingly deluded, but gives me hours of harmless entertainment. Not a day goes by without an instagram (Jacob it’s like an electric Daguerreotype) of her doing something human. My favourite is of her sitting in that funny old chair in the hallway of Number 10 stroking the Downing Street cat. Weird and slightly unnerving. Then she gave us her ‘vision’ of the future in a lengthy interview in the TIMES. We learn that she likes chaos because she is a thrill seeker and wants ‘shake things up’.Jolly good. Politics has been so dull of late. Perhaps putting Chris Grayling in charge of the health service might be an interesting start. Chaos, thrill seeking and shaking up all in one man. A miracle. And why not put Priti Patel in charge of the Home Office? After all she is a great fan of the death penalty. And while she is at it why not make Raab, provided he doesn’t give us one of his heartwarming death-head grins, Foreign Secretary. After all, he now knows where Calais is, even if not what it’s for.
But there is a serious point to this stream of nonsense. In the not too distant future the Tories will be indulging in a bloody thirsty act of political cannibalism and emerge with a new leader. They will all be ‘healing…..willing to listen…..be tough with the EU…..start with a clean sheet of paper’. And will preside over a government of ‘all the talents’. Yawn.
It may not of escaped your attention that all but four of the candidates are quite mad. Rudd, Hunt, Sajid, and Gove easily pass the sanity and competence test. Poor Amber hasn’t a prayer as she is a sinner. She doesn’t BELIEVE. The swivel eyes would regard her election as akin to Dr Shipman chairing the BMA or King Herod running Mumsnet. So two of the others will be put before the party faithful. Therein lies another problem. The party has been infiltrated by Kippers, who are also quite mad. So as a matter of common sense it would be wise to not to allow mad people to have the choice of selecting other mad people. Representative, yes but quite bonkers.
It appears that from the detailed leakings (actually it’s more of a transcript) of the whips confrontation with Madame that it’s all over. If the price of getting the deal over the line is a timetable for her own personal withdrawal deal then she really ought to bite the bullet. It would be in the interests of her country and her party. And there would be no shame. It would be rightly seen as an heroic act of self sacrifice. David Lidington would be the interim leader until the blood starts flowing in the summer. By then we would have Brexited, there would be a new Commission and European Parliament. Perhaps even a fresh start. And by the end of the two years we will have moved no further.
