Hasn’t she suffered enough? “No” was the resounding answer last night when shortest-serving prime minister Liz Truss turned up early to the Spectator’s party sporting a bright red dress. She milled slightly with a glass of champagne, seeking a conversational opening, and latching onto the kindly Speaker of the House Lindsay Hoyle. Some members of the Institute of Economic Affairs, a Right-wing think-tank that backed her disaster mini-budget, kept her company.
And she spoke to her one-time biographer James Heale, despite once telling him she hadn’t read his book about her premiership because she doesn’t read fiction. But throughout she was surrounded by a gallery of smirks. What a contrast when Rishi Sunak arrived later to a crowd of beaming smiles. The Londoner looked back, trying to find Liz, trying perhaps to engineer some sort of reunion between the former rivals. Alas, she had disappeared into the night.
The Prime Minister slipped in through the back gate of the Spectator’s garden to join the party. Other Cabinet ministers there included the Home Secretary Suella Braverman. We asked about her summer plans. “You can text me,” she said, fumbling to get away and pausing only to announce in a Thatcher-esque tone: “The Home Secretary never goes on holiday”. The Londoner suggested she might try Rwanda.
The Spectator itself is up for sale, along with sister newspaper the Telegraph, after the owner’s financial troubles came to light. Prevailing wisdom is that the siblings will be separated. “The Spectator is the cute baby everybody wants to snatch, the Telegraph is the difficult teenager,” as one insider put it. Reform party leader Richard Tice’s name has been kicked about. We asked if he might buy it. “Yes, definitely, maybe then they would let me write for them,” he said. But is he rich enough? His partner Isabel Oakeshott, the journalist and sworn enemy of Matt Hancock, jumped in: “Of course he’s got enough money!”
Sir Keir Starmer was absent but some of his team turned out. We spoke to Jon Ashworth, shadow welfare secretary. This week former Blair adviser John McTernan wrote an article for Unherd titled “Who Should Starmer Sack?” and named Ashworth as a target in the next reshuffle. Naturally, The Londoner asked Ashworth for his response. “I think John McTernan’s article in Unherd probably went unseen,” he zinged.
Artist Grayson Perry made a colourful arrival last night, turning up to The Spectator office on a pedal bike. He was seen mingling with former health secretary and bug-eater Matt Hancock, who brought his partner Gina Coladangelo along. Emily Maitlis, Newsnight presenter turned News Agents podcaster, was there. And she wasn’t the only former BBC name present. Former chair Richard Sharp, who resigned in a haze of scandal after helping to facilitate a loan for Boris Johnson, was chinwagging with Robbie Gibb, current member of the BBC board. We also ran into actor Nigel Havers. He told us that the PM’s intervention in the cricket, in which he accused Australia of going against the spirit of the game at Lord’s, has convinced him to vote Conservative at the next election. “Starmer is so boring,” he explained.
