Liz Truss’ Jenga tower of a government continues to sway, nearing the collapse that will cement its one true legacy: as the answer to future pub trivia questions about shortest stints as UK prime minister. That the latest blocks were plucked from the structure after a chaotic and rancorous vote on fracking — an injection of high pressure forcing existing fissures ever wider, anyone? — is so perfect it’s almost unimaginative. Home secretary Suella Braverman resigned via a scathing letter, and several other MPs have called for Truss to resign.
After all this, a Tory backbencher called Charles Walker, his eyes bearing the fixed intensity of someone working very hard not to raise their voice, spoke to the BBC:
“To be perfectly honest this whole affair is inexcusable. It is just a pitiful reflection on the Conservative parliamentary party at every level and it reflects very badly, obviously, on the government of the day,” he said.
Until now, Walker is best known for a widely lauded speech detailing his experiences with obsessive-compulsive disorder and, with more mixed responses, his eccentric protests against what he saw as his own government’s overreach during the COVID-19 lockdowns. That dissent is put entirely in the shade by this interview.
“This is an absolute disgrace. As a Tory MP of 17 years, who’s never been a minister, who’s got on with it loyally most of the time, I think it’s a shambles and a disgrace. I think it’s utterly appalling,” he continues, beginning to quake with anger.
It’s worth consulting the full text. His account of people delivered to and from the highest seats of power, as part of opaque deal-making serving the interests of no one but those involved … well, it may sound familiar:
I’m livid, and you know, I really shouldn’t say this, but I hope all those people who put Liz Truss in Number 10, I hope it was worth it. I hope it was worth it for the ministerial red box. I hope it was worth it to sit around the cabinet table. Because the damage they have done to our party is extraordinary.
I’ve had enough of talentless people putting their tick in the right box not because it’s in the national interest but because it’s in their personal interest to achieve ministerial position. And I know I speak for hundreds of backbenchers who right now are worried about their constituents, all the time, but also worried about their personal circumstances, because there is nothing as ex as an ex MP.
And a lot of my colleagues are wondering, as a lot of their constituents are wondering, how they are going to pay their mortgages if this all comes to an end soon. I’m leaving Parliament at the next general election and I’m leaving voluntarily. But I’m afraid if we don’t get our act together and start acting like grown-ups, many hundreds of my colleagues, maybe 200, will be leaving at the behest of their electorate.
Of course, this is all a bit wordy, particularly when you compare it to the more terse feedback veteran Channel 4 journo Krishnan Guru-Murthy gave Northern Ireland minister Steve Baker. After a “robust” interview, Guru-Murthy was heard on a hot mic amiably saying “What a cunt” of the departing Tory hardman.
