04/10/2022
I see you, Liz Truss.
There you are! How nice of you to emerge from your burrow, just in time to turn round and see the shadows of a hundred plotting backbenchers behind you. That means we get six more weeks of winter, doesn’t it? That and the same bleak, miserable performance repeated day in, day out, until you somehow teach yourself some empathy and break the loop.
There’s plenty of time to learn how to play the piano in the meantime, Prime Minister! Although you probably shouldn’t start by smashing your forehead into the keys just to see what happens, like you have with the economy. Maybe start with a completely foolproof instrument, like a bell or something. Surely even you can’t f**k that up. Oh… wait.
What happened to that ‘fresh start’ bounce in popularity we heard so much about in the leadership race? I know you promised us that you’d hit the ground, but that was the one sentiment uttered on your baffling ascension to the top job that we didn’t actually expect you to honour quite so literally.
Your lot are always prattling on about the ‘green shoots of growth’ but any that do eventually emerge from this catastrof**k are now going to have to force their way out of the back of your head, that’s how firmly you’ve faceplanted directly into the s**t.
There have been forced marriages with more optimistic honeymoon periods than this, and the country can practically hear Boris Johnson’s pen scribbling away as he frantically draws up the annulment papers. Although let’s be honest, it’s probably not the first time he’s had a set ready to go.
You actually believed your own hype for a moment there, didn’t you? You genuinely equated the rapturous applause of the Tory faithful, that throbbing mass of turgid purple-headed members, with the mood of the wider electorate. You genuinely thought that the whole country would be ecstatic at the symbolism of cutting the highest tax rate and lifting the cap on banker’s bonuses.
The whole appeal of Johnson was that he lied through his teeth with the right amount of gusto for enough everyday people to fall for the con that he was at least on their side. You’ve crashed a f**king superyacht through that veneer and then invited a host of coked-up hedge fund managers onto the top deck to gleefully p**s into the open wounds of the mangled plebs below. I hate to be the one to break it to you and Kwarteng, but that’s just not the sort of ‘trickling down’ most of us are too fond of.
Every time I think the wretched s**tshow that is the revolving cast of Apprentice rejects in the Tory cabinet can’t get any worse, you somehow tunnel through the mantle and find yet another nadir. You’ve gurned and grinned and slapped Kwasi Kwarteng on the back before sending him in for his meeting with Claude, convinced he’s got more than enough pep to win the big man around.
The problem is that Kwasi’s turned up for his interview like Solomon in Series 10, with a mini-budget that’s just pictures of sailboats and absolutely no sums or evidence to back up his baseless claim that he has the slightest clue what the f**k he’s doing.
We now have a Treasury at war with the Bank of England, who were literally forced to act to nullify government policy in an attempt to stop a domino effect cascade of pension funds tanking. The pound may now have recovered somewhat, to its glorious post-Brexit pinnacle of sweet diddly s**t against the dollar, but you and Kwarteng have absolutely shattered the confidence of the markets and single-handedly annihilated the final thin thread of public trust the reputation of the Tory party was somehow still dangling by.
You’ve sent import costs soaring, in a country that imports just about everything, at the height of a financial crisis. You've drawn the ire of the IMF, deliberately attempted to sideline the OBR, and kicked the mortgage market into absolute spasm. If this is the path to growth, you’re following a f**king TwatNav.
For anyone else the climbdown would be immediate, Liz Truss, but for a moment there you genuinely appeared to be convinced that the only way out of the hole you'd trapped yourself in was to tunnel ever downwards. The nauseating gall of it, for a former Liberal Democrat and Remainer to suddenly decide she’s not for turning.
Of course it didn't last, and this morning we hear the cut to the highest rate is to be scrapped. This is the strength of your new position - your flagship policy now finds itself reversed thanks to the intervention of the political heavyweight that is... Grant Shapps. Turns out that it's not just trains that he can bring screeching awkwardly to a halt.
Not that there’s much of a way out for you anyway; your cabinet is stuffed with no-talent loyalists and ideologues, with all those Tories you now desperately need to find common ground with on the outside and furiously looking in.
They’re right to be mad; I would be too, if my P45 was suddenly hovering over my head. In just two weeks you’ve tanked the economy, handed Labour their biggest poll lead in decades, and have aptly demonstrated that you’re a total liability in front of any genuine journalistic scrutiny.
Hats off to the round of local correspondents who hauled your ragged carcass over the coals last week - turns out the media’s actually quite effective, when they’re not so close to the government that they have to tickle their balls constantly just to avoid having their access revoked. Sunday morning with Kuennsberg must have felt like a hot stone massage by comparison.
To pull any of that around, the Tory conference this week is going to have to be a powerhouse of charisma, talent, and sensible, fully-costed, market-reassuring clarity on fiscal policy.
What they’ve got, Liz Truss, is you.
I think I’ll get some popcorn in.
I see you, Liz Truss. I f**king see you.
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