It was excruciating. Of course it was. It was never going to be otherwise. Liz Truss is finished. Her MPs know it. The country knows it. We’re all just filling in time waiting for a definite sell-by date. Waiting for the Tory party to do the humane thing. So much for compassionate conservatism. Right now the kindest thing anyone could do is switch off Librium Liz’s life support. Instead they let her stagger on, humiliating herself more by the day. And all because no one can yet work out how to replace her. Or with whom. And yet, weirdly, it could have been so much worse. Truss didn’t die. Or knock over her glass of water and electrocute herself. The bar really is that low. The Speaker didn’t call a premature end to prime minister’s questions to prevent further embarrassment. Her artificial stupidity didn’t buffer at inconvenient times. So her jerky arm movements almost synchronised with her robotic delivery. Almost.
Her own MPs didn’t publicly abuse her. Sajid Javid, who had been granted a question on the order paper, didn’t bother to show up. Rumour had it that he had been bought off with No 10 suspending the aide who had allegedly told the media that Truss had always thought Saj was shit. As if. The idea that Truss has the insight to tell if someone else is crap is patently absurd. Like getting an 80s piece of Amstrad junk to review the latest iPhone. Best of all, Jeremy Hunt didn’t intervene. Almost at any time he could have said enough was enough. That the new regime had tried to be an understanding, benevolent regime. Which is why it had allowed Truss out from under the desk where she had been held hostage to play at being team leader for half an hour. But, having seen just a few minutes of her in action, had decided to cut short the indulgence. It was time for the regime’s real new leaders to take over and reassure the country. Or try to, at least. Five minutes before PMQs was due to begin, Thérèse Coffey took her place on the frontbench. She reached into her doctor’s bag and started handing out large quantities of mind-bending psychotropic prescription drugs to other members of the cabinet. Though not to Hunt, who appeared to be already tripping. Watching his face melt in the reflection of his glistening patent leather thigh-length boots. The others wolfed the pills down eagerly. By the fistful. Anything to ease the pain of their shared existential futility. To momentarily forget they had allowed their ambition to be attached to someone so obviously flawed. Intellectually and emotionally. To obliterate the inevitability of them also becoming a past tense. Then Librium Liz appeared. Smiling inanely. As if she was unaware of the temporary nature of her condition. That this could well be the last time she was given a starring role at PMQs. It was as if she too had been at the narcotics goody bag. Though not for her the usual heavy tranquillisers and barbiturates. Instead, she went for the quaaludes. Somehow contriving to reduce herself to a zombie state while taking her to dizzying heights of disinhibition. A disturbing proposition. There had been no cheers to speak of to greet the Leader In Name Only’s arrival. Rather, her own backbenchers had gathered like gawpers at a road traffic accident. Appalled by their own ghoulishness, but not wanting to miss the action. Within minutes we got the first laughs. All it took was for Truss to say she had spent the morning meeting with ministerial colleagues. Something that gets said at every PMQs. Only this time everyone knew she didn’t have any colleagues. Just captors and minders. From there on it was just a painful, slow decline. Labour’s Justin Madders wanted to know why she had sacked her chancellor rather than herself. After all, Kwasi Kwarteng had only been doing exactly what she had promised the Tory party. “I’ve been clear,” said Quaalude Liz. She really hadn’t. She never is. The syncopated pauses mid-sentence provided a vacuum that was only filled with yet more laughter. Truss grinned blankly again. She has no emotional antennae, so she can’t read the room. Unable to tell if people are laughing with her or at her. Someone should help her out. Then Keir Starmer stood up to administer further wounds. None fatal. It suits Labour to have an ersatz prime minister who everyone knows is on life support. This was the Labour leader at his most surgical. His most forensic. Good gags, better soundbites. Short and not so sweet. Truss had nothing to say. Other than “sorry”, “I take the tough decisions” – she really doesn’t, the tough decisions are all made on her behalf – and “what has Labour done about the economic crisis?”. Er … a word to the dim. Labour hasn’t been in government for more than 12 years. It didn’t cause the chaos nor is it in a position to do anything about it. Not yet, anyway. On it went. Quaalude Liz did go on to tell the SNP’s Ian Blackford that the pensions triple lock would be retained. Only no one knew if she had cleared that with her captors or if she was just freelancing. Only the day before, Reichsmarschall Hunt had rather suggested he was keen on pensioners dying. And even if it were true now, there are an infinite number of parallel universes in the Truss space-time continuum in which things could be equally true and untrue at the same time. Today’s promise is just a lie waiting to happen.
There were no cheers as Quaalude Liz left the chamber. Just an empty silence as she was led back to Downing Street to be put back in her cage. “We can’t let this happen again,” said Hunt. “Cancel her engagements this afternoon and keep her indoors. The new regime has been too kind. Too benevolent. It’s time to do another Kwasi. Someone get rid of Suella Braverman. Somehow. Just for the hell of it. To show we can. It’s about time we had a home secretary who wasn’t half-witted and vicious. We need someone with at least one brain cell.” “What took you so long?” said Grant Shapps, flicking through his spreadsheet. “It’s a stitch-up,” sobbed the useless Suella. No one expects the Guardian Anti-Growth Coalition. Viva the Wokerati!