Most people would have been embarrassed, might have looked a bit sheepish. Many wouldn’t have even accepted the invitation, knowing it wasn’t right.
Liz Truss, however, walked into Westminster Abbey bold as brass on Saturday for the King’s Coronation.
The only nod to her crimes was presumably subconscious; she dressed as one of the tomatoes she should have been pelted with while in Town Square stocks. Other than that, she gave every sign of feeling perfectly comfortable and at ease having a front-row seat to history.
Admittedly, she was surrounded by other super villains with plenty to be ashamed of – Cameron, Johnson – but still. The inhabitant of the planet who should feel the most amount of imposter syndrome is apparently utterly immune to it.
Truss has become a punchline, her 49 days as prime minister and unfavourable comparisons to salad ingredients now infamous, but the joke – as always when it comes to Tory governments – is firmly on us.
The little people paying the price – LITERALLY – for her incompetence. And I don’t know about you, but I’m not laughing any more.
Like millions of homeowners in this country, my current mortgage deal is galloping towards its end. Over the weekend we went online to look at our options for a new one, like we do every couple of years when this happens.
Obviously we were aware it was going to cost more – what we weren’t prepared for was the cheapest option being well over double what we’re paying now.
At the moment our interest rate is1.6%, and if we didn’t do anything, we’d automatically go to 7.5%, and rising, or our bank could offer us another fixed-rate deal, but now at 4.49%.
My husband and I stared at the screen in disbelief. I’ve had a cold, sick feeling in the pit of my stomach ever since.
Stupidly – or as a head in the sand survival tactic – despite everything that’s been reported about this, I thought it couldn’t really be quite as bad as everyone was saying. In reality, it’s much, much worse.
Effectively having to find the money to pay two and half mortgages every month would be frightening enough on its own, but you don’t need me to tell you that instead it’s going hand in hand with massive increases in every single other living expense.
The only surprise about this paper’s front page report that two million households couldn’t pay at least one bill last month is that it isn’t many, many more than that.
We’re now in a situation where the best-case scenario is that families will no longer have any disposable income – that part of your hard-earned salary able to be used on treats, fun, holidays and special occasions is simply gone.
Your kids looking up at you with disappointment, yet again, regularly, for the foreseeable.
And spare a thought for those people already struggling to make ends meet before this, up to their ears in debt long before the cost-of-living crisis hit. Their situation will be awful.
Still, glad you enjoyed your day out at the Coronation, Liz. Well done you.
