Liz Truss was Britain’s prime minister from September 6, 2022 through October 20, 2022. A 44 day prime ministership. Not even eight full weeks. She could not outlast a head of lettuce. People likely only had one menstrual cycle during her reign as prime minister. She came in, killed the queen, went to the funeral and then dipped. Granted, Truss had a political career before she was PM for 44 days, and she’s still “a backbencher” in the House of Commons. Well, Truss decided to write a book, something which is half memoir and half right-wing political screed, by the sound of it. Every excerpt I’ve read so far has had me in stitches. Truss is so tone-deaf – this isn’t someone with no more f–ks to give and she’s just decided to knife people in the back. She’s honestly revealing that she’s an idiot and the effort to push her out was completely justified. The way she describes her own self-made shambles is epic. Truss’s first thought when Queen Elizabeth died was “WHY ME?”
How she felt when QEII died: “On Thursday, we received the solemn news that the Queen had died peacefully at Balmoral. To be told this on only my second full day as prime minister felt utterly unreal. In a state of shock, I found myself thinking: ‘Why me? Why now?’”
Her last meeting with QEII in Balmoral: “We spent around 20 minutes discussing politics. She was completely attuned to everything that was happening, as well as being typically sharp and witty. There simply wasn’t any sense that the end would come as quickly as it did… Some Prime Ministers might have been better suited to mark this historic moment with soaring rhetoric and statesmanship, but that wasn’t my comfort zone. I just had a profound sense of sadness.
Meeting King Charles: “The following day, I had my first audience with King Charles at Buckingham Palace. I felt a slightly bizarre camaraderie between us, with both starting out in our new roles and navigating unfamiliar territory. My first weekend as Prime Minister was spent with my family, watching on television as the Queen’s coffin left Balmoral to process to Edinburgh. Suddenly overwhelmed by the emotion of it all, I broke down into floods of tears on the sofa.
QEII’s advice to Truss just before QEII died: “I knew I’d never forget my last meeting with Her Majesty — and especially what she said towards the end of our talk in her drawing room. Being Prime Minister, she warned me, is incredibly ageing. She also gave me two words of advice: ‘Pace yourself.’ Maybe I should have listened.”
Her brief time living at Downing Street: “Like every Prime Minister since Tony Blair, we actually occupied the apartment above No. 11. Arranged on several floors, it was surprisingly spacious though it felt a bit soulless. The Johnsons had taken their furniture with them, so the civil service had equipped our new quarters with various bits of John Lewis furniture seized from around the Government estate. We ordered some of our own, but were evicted before it could be delivered. Although there were some fancy curtains, disappointingly there was no gold wallpaper — contrary to Press reports about the Johnsons’ expensive redecoration of the flat.
Good ol’ flea-infested Downing Street: “Even less welcome, the place was infested with fleas. Some claimed that this was down to Boris and Carrie’s dog Dilyn, but there was no conclusive evidence. In any case, the entire place had to be sprayed with flea killer. I spent several weeks itching. It was also really noisy. There was an almost constant backdrop of chanting and shouting through megaphones from protesters camped out on Whitehall. Then there was the clock on nearby Horse Guards, which chimed every quarter of an hour. If you were lying awake at night, you could time exactly how long your insomnia lasted. And I did. The saving grace at No. 10 was Larry the cat. He’s a lovely character and seems to take a liking and disliking to all the right people.
There’s much more from the Daily Mail’s excerpt of Truss’s book. She has a sort of straight-forward obliviousness which makes her seem like a hilarious supporting character from an eccentric British novel. “Oh yes, that’s the batty prime minister, she’s always scratching flea bites and muttering ‘why me’ when visiting the king.” While I understand that she wasn’t in office long enough to really figure out “the system,” the book seems to reveal that she was clueless about how to be a manager for a household AND a nation. Like, the answer to so many questions and problems was staring her in the face: hire the people you need to do the job. Hire someone to run the “household” of Downing Street and do the grocery shopping. Hire political professionals to help you run the government. I don’t think that occurred to her. “WHY ME” when the queen died… my god.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.