Liz Truss is my guilty pleasure. A very expensive one at that. She added thousands to most people’s mortgages in the blink of an eye. But a pleasure nonetheless. Politicians like Liz don’t come round that often. Once in a generation. If that. So we ought to savour her when we can.
What Radon Liz – she’s a gas, but she’s inert – lacks in ability she more than compensates for in self-belief. Where she gets this confidence from, no one knows. It’s not even clear if she’s technically alive. Attach an EEG to either side of her head and you will only intermittently pick up a signal.
The woman who is suspicious of the deep state is in one herself. Only hers is unconsciousness. So much so that she’s become a museum piece. Rightwing thinktanks in the US pay thousands to watch her say nothing.
Ordinarily these qualities might prove a hindrance to a career in frontline politics, but the modern day Conservative party is woke enough to embrace difference. So Liz has effortlessly gone from the environment secretary who rambled about cheese at the Tory party conference to becoming prime minister for five minutes or so.
Some might have thought that was enough. She’d had a good run for her money. Time to call it quits. But that’s not Radon Liz’s style. Not for her a life on the sidelines. The world has not yet had enough Liz. Just give her a chance and there’s so much more damage she’d like to do. She had barely started. Just remember to switch her on and point her in the direction of a TV camera.
No matter that in a recent poll Truss came out as by far the least popular Tory politician, with a favourability rating of -54%. To put that in perspective, Rishi Sunak only scores at -27% and people really don’t like him.
But Liz just sees this as a challenge. In her mind, all that’s wrong is that people haven’t had enough time to really get to know her. The idea that people might have already seen too much hasn’t registered. Self-awareness is not her strong point.
So when it was announced that Truss would be the star attraction of the latest Tory splinter group, Popular Conservatism, it was as if all my dreams had come true. Liz was back and the world was a more joyous place. More unstable, for certain, but we can live with that. And the sheer brilliance of calling yourself Popular. You can’t buy that kind of branding. Just wait till we see who is in the Unpopular Conservatism.
But there was trouble even before the start. Simon Clarke was kicked out for actively trying to remove Rishi. The rules of association state you have to pretend to want Sunak while campaigning to get rid of him.
Then the totally unremarkable Ranil Jayawardena, who Truss had briefly elevated to her cabinet, decided he would rather remain anonymous. And Kwasi Kwarteng chose the morning of the PopCon launch to announce he was standing down as an MP at the next election. So he’s no longer a believer. Looks like the PopCons are splintering already. Take your pick which are the Officials and which are the Provisionals.
Still, it was standing room only at the Emmanuel Centre in Westminster long before the launch event began. Plenty of Tory MPs were there. Priti Patel, Brendan Clarke-Smith, Jake Berry and Wendy Morton among them. Stick with the winners. This is the future of the Conservative party.
Then there was Lord Frost. Yet to be right about anything. His presence must have planted some self-doubt in all the others. And loitering at the back, the ever more reptilian Nigel Farage. Trying to work out how best to play the odds for his own advantage.
There was a brief silence and then the big names trooped down the aisle to the front. Like an arranged wedding party. The former Institute of Economic Affairs boss and director of the PopCons, Mark Littlewood, kicked things off. “We are Popular Conservatavism,” he said. He repeated it, in case people hadn’t been paying attention. “We are Popular Conservatavism.” You can’t buy that comic timing. Pure slapstick. The man who doesn’t even know what his own organisation is called.
Then we were into the world of a Dan Brown thriller. The country had been taken over by a shadowy group of Commie Illuminati. Literally. Every part of life, from the government, the markets to the judiciary had been seized by leftwing extremists. Like the head of the IMF.
He couldn’t explain how it was that a Tory government had spent 14 years watching all this take place with no one noticing. Nor could he say how it was that many of those Tory MPs in this very room had trousered £85k in payouts from the shadowy elite. Perhaps they were all duped. Still he said he was in favour of free speech, so he will love this.
Next up was Jacob Rees-Mogg. Now just reduced to a tired end of the pier show. He has become the bore’s bore. A third-rate pastiche of himself. Nothing he has ever predicted has come true. So he moaned about the judges and the EU. Hopefully Nanny will one day tell him to take responsibility for the mess he has created.
Then Mhairi Fraser, an unknown Tory candidate who faces oblivion at the general election, had a whinge about being told to stop smoking and eating sweets. Bizarrely, she thought she was connecting with the country.
Then Lee Anderson. Full-time GB News presenter and part-time MP. He didn’t mention how he had campaigned for Jeremy Corbyn in 2017. Rather he complained about every environmental initiative while saying he quite liked the idea of clean air. Hypocrite or halfwit? You decide. He kept insisting that the British people weren’t stupid but then proceeded to talk as if they were.
Finally the person we had all come to see. The Trusster. “I don’t get invited to dinner parties much any more,” she said coyly. Well, you can come to our house in Tooting any time. We’ll have such a laugh.
Her actual speech was more a semi-coherent ramble. More shadowy lefties everywhere you looked. The only people you could trust were in this room. Perhaps not even all of them, though.
We were at a time of maximum peril. There were unelected wrecking-balls everywhere you looked. Including in the mirror. No one remembers voting for Liz. Hysterically, she ended by asking for democratic accountability.
And that was it. Time to go. No one could quite work out what it had all meant. Some vague ideas to help Rishi lose the election? A marker for a leadership bid after the election by which time most of the MPs in the room will be looking for new jobs? Or just a last hurrah for Liz?
Because she and we can’t bear to part from one another. Not yet. The last hurrah of Westminster’s Norma Desmond. “I’m ready for my close-up, Mr De Mille.” Unleash the smile. Feel the love. We need to treasure her while we can.
