It was a very British coup. So polite that you could almost have missed it. So restrained that Liz Truss actually had to mastermind her own dismissal. If Librium Liz can be said to mastermind anything. It was like asking a death row inmate to administer their own lethal injection.
But it was a coup nonetheless. There may have been no military berets, but we might as well have had a TV announcer saying: “We interrupt this programme to inform you that the United Kingdom has a new junta.
“There is no need to panic, but we advise you, for your own safety, to remain indoors. What the country now needs is stable government. Liz Truss is not, I stress not, being held under house arrest. She is just being kept hidden for her own good. She hasn’t been gagged. She has just become an elective mute. And now a quick word from your new prime minister.”
Cut to Jeremy Hunt, draped in his own flags. The same Jeremy Hunt who had been a disaster as culture secretary. The same Jeremy Hunt who had taken the NHS to the brink while health secretary. The same Jeremy Hunt who had twice campaigned to be Tory party leader and had twice been rejected, most recently in the summer, when he had finished eighth out of eight with only 18 Conservative MPs thinking he was worth voting for.
Yet this new improved version of Jeremy Hunt was being paraded as a safe pair of hands. Despite the fact he had no experience of working in the Treasury. Then, he wasn’t just the new chancellor of the exchequer; he was the de facto prime minister. The new leader of our Brave New World. Truss was sidelined. Silenced. Only nominally in place. Just for as long as it took for her party to work out how best to dethrone her. You’d have thought they had regicide off pat by now.
Hunt looked straight at the camera. You have to hand it to him. He has the style. The blag. He sounds plausible. Then, right now it’s hard not to. A child of 10 could make a decent fist of being chancellor at the moment. All you have to do is the opposite of everything Kamikwasi and Librium Liz did in their mini-budget three weeks ago.
It was an open goal and Hunt happily took it. Along with the measures he’d announced last Friday, he reversed the 1p cut in the basic rate of tax and cut short the energy price guarantee by 18 months. The most brutal U-turn of government policy in living memory. And he made it sound so matter-of-fact. As if it was an every day event. Which, in fairness, it is rapidly becoming.
Normally, when a government can’t get its budget through parliament, it calls a general election. Hunt had other ideas. It was a measured act of stability. He didn’t care to say why the economy had crashed in the first place. What everyone needed to do was take a deep breath and wait for the cuts in public services. They’d seem like light relief compared with the chaos of the past few weeks. At least, that was the hope. Up was down. Night was day.
Meanwhile, Labour were still worried about the state of the ex-prime minister. The prime minister formerly known as Liz. Was she OK? Was she being looked after? Did she need a human rights lawyer? By lunchtime, Keir Starmer was so concerned, he tabled an urgent question inviting Truss to come to the Commons to explain why she had felt the need to sack Kamikwasi rather than herself. And to give her life some meaning. Now her government’s whole ideology and purpose had been trashed, she was in a death spiral of existential despair.
Only it turned out Librium Liz was in no fit state for anything. She didn’t want to speak. She didn’t want to do anything. She was in a deeper layer of catatonia than ever before. Her captors had seen to that. And Penny Mordaunt was more than happy to answer the UQ on her behalf. In fact, she was desperate to. The coup might be well under way, but there is still jostling for position. Mordaunt is also keen to be seen as the next possible leader. And what better way of doing so than appearing to be loyal to Truss while gently ridiculing her?
It had been a hugely courageous thing Truss had done to sack one of her best friends, Mordaunt insisted, just about keeping a straight face. It had been a far, far better thing Librium Liz had done that she had laid down a friend’s life for her own.
So brave that she couldn’t even bother to turn up to the Commons to explain in person why she had done it. Or to say sorry. Mordaunt, though, was happy to apologise. Sort of. On the whole she would rather the country hadn’t been made a great deal less well off as a result of the government’s actions. But what could she do when the Tories had chosen a halfwit?
The opposition still wanted to know what conditions Librium Liz was being kept in. Mordaunt became even more gnomic. First she said that Truss had been desperate to take the UQ but had been prevented from doing so. Volodymyr Zelenskiy had left her on hold, presumably. Then she was desperate to be able to say why Liz was incapacitated but would have to kill herself and everyone else if she broke the omertà. Then she declared: “The prime minister is not hiding under a desk.” So she was under the bed, then. Or in Boris Johnson’s fridge.
At which point, Librium Liz meandered into the chamber. Her eyes vacant, unblinking. A rigid smile. As if her minders had rather overmedicated her. As if she had no idea she was now starring in her own hostage video. She went to sit next to Hunt. Her captor. And just sat there mindlessly, devoid of emotion, as first Rachel Reeves and then her hostage taker rubbished her reputation. The markets may have been reassured, but the Tories would still be punished by the voters. They wouldn’t forget.
As silently as she had arrived, Truss pootled off after less than 20 minutes. It had been a Scandi noir cameo, with the killers in plain sight. A few Labour MPs shouted after her. Was she really OK? Just give us a sign. Any sign. Just a word. Nothing. The Tories ignored her. She was an aberration. A past tense. The last few weeks had just been a bad dream. Onwards with the new regime. To oblivion.
