Memories must be short for MPs to want Boris Johnson back before Liz Truss has even got her feet under the Prime Minister’s table.
Either that or they know she will be so awful even a lying, bumbling lump of dishonesty would be preferable to having her in charge.
Had it been left to Tory MPs, Rishi Sunak would be PM on Monday. Had it been left to us, the voters, the whole Tory shower would be out.
Instead, we are almost certain to have Ms Truss foisted on us by 160,000 pale, male and stale Conservative members – 96% white, 66% men, 70% over 50 – representing less than 0.4% of the electorate.
Liz Truss had plenty to say about crowd-pleasing tax cuts to which her Tory audiences are instinctively wedded.
Scrapping the National Insurance rise will save the 10% wealthiest £93 a month, but the poorest just 76p. That will raise inflation but do nothing about the price of winter fuel.
She had nothing to say to the owner of a tiny restaurant who took to Twitter in despair today as his annual electricity bill soars from £2,928 to £22,516 – more than his rent.
Nothing to say to 6.7 million people who cannot get routine surgery or to heart attack patients waiting an hour for ambulances.
But best she says nothing more about Nicola Sturgeon and Emmanuel Macron who the Foreign Secretary so undiplomatically insulted during the campaign.
This newspaper’s first impression of Boris Johnson was proved right. For the sake of the country, we hope we are wrong about Ms Truss.
She could prove that by embracing Keir Starmer’s plan to freeze energy prices before they skyrocket in October.
It would be a sign she is willing to listen to others and show she is capable of true leadership.
We will know soon enough whether Ms Truss has those qualities.
Shameful plan
No matter who becomes PM on Monday, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak are both committed to packing refugees off to Rwanda.
And as we report today, the first flights could leave by Christmas.
This is wrong on every level – morally, practically and financially.
No civilised nation should be doing this. People traffickers will not be deterred, and it will cost £600,000 for every refugee we send there.
That, say supporters of this mad, bad scheme, will save the UK £4.7million a day in accommodation.
It will not. For the money being spent on Rwanda, it would be cheaper for the Home Office to put an asylum seeker up in a hotel for the next 12 years.
Changing the requirement for asylum applications to be made in the UK would not stop migrants wanting to come here.
But it would end the need to cross the Channel in dangerous inflatables to do so.
