Liz Truss couldn’t unite the Tories… but the fear of losing their jobs will
THEY say a week is a long time in politics. These days, you’re unlikely to last 24 hours.
It got to the point this past week where events were moving so quickly, if I took my eyes off the news for even an hour I was out of touch.
I went into a meeting and Liz Truss was PM. By the time I came out, she had resigned.
The day before, she had said she was “a fighter, not a quitter”.
The next day, she quit. And so ended the shortest ever UK prime ministership — 44 days and history-making for all the wrong reasons.
The final nail in the coffin had come after angry Tory MPs reportedly manhandled each other in the Commons lobby ahead of a key vote.
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It was a disgraceful day in Parliament — bullying is a nasty business anywhere, let alone in the corridors of power.
It also highlighted a stark fact, that Liz Truss was a PM with no authority.
She was elected on policies that were dismantled, one by one, as each day went by.
She thought she could run the Government as she wanted and dictate terms — but it became clear, early on, she could not.
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OBJECT OF RIDICULE
So, in the end, there was little or no choice about her going. It became when, not if.
Unfortunately for the Conservative Party, things had deteriorated to a point where getting rid of Ms Truss would result in turmoil, and not getting rid of her would have resulted in turmoil, too. So she knew she had to go
When she finally made her announcement, she had the look of a person who was attending their own funeral.
She had been undermined, demoralised and challenged at every turn and had become an object of ridicule in Parliament and across the country.
By the time she quit, the pressure of it all was etched on her face.
And now the Tories’ 1922 Committee chairman Sir Graham Brady — the Lord Sugar of the Conservative Party because of his record of sending PMs packing — must try to find Truss’s replacement in an orderly way.
One wonders how the hell that replacement can be found and put into office by Friday at the latest, as is planned.
In sport, it would be the runner-up who fills the top spot once the winner has been disqualified.
But this is politics, not sport, so there will be no shoo-in for Rishi Sunak.
When you think Boris Johnson won the last election with an 80-seat majority only a few years ago, you wonder how it has gone so badly wrong.
Yet we are wondering if he will make a comeback. Is it really possible?
I guess only the next week in politics will tell.
The most important thing Sir Graham needs to do is urge MPs to put aside differences.
I hope MPs can now coalesce around one candidate, as this is the last chance for a strong and stable Conservative Party.
I had hoped for a coronation, not another election, but of course if there is a ring . . . hats will be thrown into it.
While the candidates fight it out, yet again, the Chancellor is contemplating spending cuts.
Usually, the PM would arbitrate in this between departments, who lay out reasons for them not to be subject to cuts.
So Truss will do this until she is replaced, then the new PM for a few days after that. Not easy. Not ideal.
The one thing that will unite the party, though, is the prospect of a general election. That, and hanging on to their jobs.
This is now the final chance.
They all need to put their egos to one side, unite and try to convince us they can run the country.
A sucker punch
JOBSWORTH of the Week is the worker at the University Museum of Zoology in Cambridge who told a mum she couldn’t breastfeed there “because no food and drink are allowed”.
Really? Where has common sense gone?
Why should the mum have to sit in a smelly toilet to feed her baby?
This is the 21st century.
Worse still, the staff member was a woman.
As they say, there’s a small place in hell for women who don’t help other women.
Meg's look is crass
OH dear! Another distinct miss in Meghan Markle’s campaign to cast herself as a woman of the people.
Yes, she looks amazing in pictures for her latest interview, this time with Variety magazine.
For someone wanting to keep a low profile,she sure keeps on popping up in a lot of exclusive cover interviews.
But the £2,652 Carolina Herrera frock, the Jason Wu cocktail dress priced at over £4,434 and the £1,383 Galvan gown just aren’t quite chiming with where most people are at on the whole cost-of-living issue.
Sure, she looks great, but wearing such ultra-expensive designer clothes at this time just feels a bit, well, crass, doesn’t it?
Shame of tag
IT’S sickening to read that avoidable mistakes in upgrading the electronic tagging of criminals have wasted £98million of public money.
NINETY-EIGHT MILLION POUNDS.
The failure of the new IT system means tagging, still relies on outdated and costly software, according to the Commons Public Accounts Committee.
Things like this make my blood boil.
The new Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, talks about saving money and making urgent cuts.
He said: “All departments will need to redouble their efforts to find savings and some areas of spending will need to be cut.”
So, why not just cut out the waste?
In the private sector, if you wasted £98million, you would be sacked in a heartbeat.
When you think about all the extra nurses that money could pay for, it quickly puts all that the waste right into perspective.
Mob's such a waste
IT is impossible to feel any sympathy at all for the eco-demonstrators who glued themselves to the floor of a Volkswagen factory – then complained that their glued hands hurt and they couldn’t go to the toilet.
The nine activists from the group Scientist Rebellion broke into Autostadt, a museum and car showroom opposite Volkswagen’s main factory in Wolfsburg, late on Wednesday and stuck themselves to the floor of the Porsche pavilion.
They said they would protest until Volkswagen agreed to lobby government ministers to decarbonise the transport industry.
But within just a few hours they were asking staff to bring them bowls to – yuck – defecate in.
What did the VW staff do? They turned off the lights and the heating and left them there.
All I can say is a hearty bravo to the VW staff.
It just beggars belief, doesn’t it, that these protesters trespass in a building, cause disruption then expect to be looked after by the very people they are disrupting.
They aren’t entitled to anything, including cups of tea – take note, Met Police.
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In mood for Ash's jim jams
ASHLEY ROBERTS channelled the mood of the nation last week when she headed home from work at Heart FM wearing what looked like her pyjamas.
Never mind that she teamed them with a pair of heels, we all know a pair of jim-jams when we see them and, frankly, I can’t think of an outfit I envy more.
Mixed signs
DID you know – because I really did not – that an emoji is no longer what it claims to be.
I always believed a thumbs-up meant you agreed with a suggestion or situation. Yet according to new research, Gen Z believe it can be negative and convey a passive- aggressive tone.
And if you send someone an emoji of a blue cap, it means you think they are lying?
Crikey, why not just pick up the phone and talk? Or, by asking that question, am I just showing my age?