To Liz Truss’s many failings must now be added an apparent prejudice against Rutland. Not unlike the island of Taiwan, England’s smallest historic county has fought hard over the years to maintain its independence from a larger, overbearing neighbour. For China, read Leicestershire. Now its Conservative MP, Alicia Kearns, has become the target of a nasty geopolitical sneer. If you hail from landlocked rural Rutland, Truss’s spokesperson superciliously implied last week, you probably don’t understand international affairs.
This insulting inference was made after Kearns had the temerity to question the wisdom, utility and motivation of Truss’s unofficial visit to Taiwan last week. The disgraced former prime minister says she plans to speak out in “solidarity” with Taiwan’s people in defiance of Chinese intimidation. But Kearns dismissed the trip as a vanity project to help Truss “keep herself relevant” and as “the worst kind of Instagram diplomacy”. Truss’s confrontational antics could make things worse for Taiwan, she warned.
