Liz Truss - what's going on there?

@Sahara123 - not RTFT in its entirety but have a listen to a podcast by Alistair McLean and Rory Campbell. It’s called Leaders ( on the back of their Rest is Politics podcast) and they have a 2 part interview with Kwarteng. It’s quite enlightening.

‘That's very simple - Tory racists didn't want Rishi until they had no choice’ Boris was ousted. He was much better than her.

DS1 is a final year politics/history student. We send each other the cheese clip when one of us is feeling down. Comedy gold.

Ds1 wants someone to stand against called "The Lettuce"

Has anyone read "The Lotus Eaters" by Somerset Maugham ? Or know of the story it refers to ?

Looks like Truss has ventured even further into the far right conspiraloon cesspit;

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/rishi-sunak-urged-deselect-liz-103801383.html

I really hope he beats her.

From The Evening Standard's review of That Book:

Liz on the aftermath of the Brexit vote:
“My special adviser says he had never seen me so depressed. I just looked at him and said what we were both thinking: ‘What the actual f*?’

Was she depressed because she really believed that Remain was the best option - as she had campaigned for - and was upset that the result had gone the other way, and because she knew that Brexit would be the disaster that she herself warned against?

Or was she merely depressed because she'd backed the wrong horse and would now have to perform yet another volte-face and return to her previous Brexitannia Unchained, pro-Brexit position in order to further her career?

My cousin intends to vote for him. He is by all accounts a proper old school Tory of the kind I am quite nostalgic for these days.

It’s been blue since 1964 but a true blue, former Lord
Lieutenant of the county is standing against her as an independent and his chances are highly rated apparently.

@Merrymouse
I wasn't. I was just remarking at the decisions made or likely to be made by voters. I agree with a pp, she backed remain as she thought they were going to win and she wanted to be on the winning side. I don't believe she holds a single genuine belief in her head. As has been alluded to, there is something very wrong with her and the fact that she likely to win her seat at the next GE is just insane.

As @Jovacknockowitch said, it seems voters in her constituency will vote for anyone with a blue rosette. I am just wondering what the fuck it would take for them not to.

Presumably it's the kind of place a nematode worm with a blue rosette would get elected so it's nothing to do with her personally?

She voted for the side she thought was going to win, for the benefit of her career. I don’t believe she actually gives a shit or believes in anything. She’s horrendously self absorbed.

Can you blame Brexiters for Truss if she was a Remainer?

This is a bit of a conundrum. Truss was co-author of the Brexiter's bible, Britannia Unchained, which advocated throwing off what the authors imagined were the chains of EU membership. At the same time though, she took a rare moment to consider what this might actually mean for people, in particular her daughters;

“I don’t want my daughters to grow up in a world where they need a visa or permit to work in Europe; or where they are hampered from growing a business because of extortionate call costs and barriers to trade.”
“Every parent wants their children to grow up in a healthy environment with clean water, fresh air and thriving natural wonders. Being part of the EU helps protect these precious resources and spaces.”

So was she really a Remainer or a Brexiter? Her various statements in 2016, delivered with her usual 100% sense of certainty, were contradictory.

Did she initially support Remain because of the concerns she expressed regarding her daughters' futures, or did she back Remain because she thought that this would be the winning side?

Did she very suddenly and very decisively change sides because she actually believed that Brexit was the best course (having stated the complete opposite just weeks earlier) or was she only thinking of furthering her own career?

Is she having a very public meltdown because even she can see that everyone has cottoned on to her arrogance, incompetence and ignorance? Or is she uncomfortable because having taken the money she now has to dance to whatever tune her paymasters tell her to?

It's all relative. Without putting down names of individuals I think it is quite hard for people to see politicians are they really are. They work very hard to avoid showing those elements which are unattractive in any way.

Truss is unusual is as much as she is appearing not to bother at all. But she is being rewarded for that by someone, and that is why. I am unconvinced that it is new. People do not change that much

I agree that it takes a particular kind of person to want to do all the council meetings and campaigning - and then you have to develop a really thick skin to survive, which probably reduces your ability to listen to opposing views and leads to cognitive bias.

But she does seem to be unusually unhinged. Leaving aside policy, she doesn’t seem to realise that she only had the support of a small group of Conservative Party members, who themselves are rather detached from reality. She blames ‘North Londoners’ instead of facing the fact that she never had the democratic or parliamentary party support she needed to be PM.

Can you blame Brexiters for Truss if she was a Remainer?

I thought nothing would shock me about the British public seeing as they decided Brexit was a good idea but I was wrong: a while to go yet but Truss is widely predicted to keep her seat at the next GE.
Perhaps they are right and we do get the politicians we deserve.

I have met a lot of politicians in my lifetime and it always amuses me the gloss that people give them (actually regarding them as better than they are) due to their status. In reality they are usually exactly as they were all those years ago at university when they were the spotty lot in the junior conservatives/politics society/young Labour nerds association.

A genuine few I have met are really extraordinary dedicated people. Most are not.

Almost all the Tories have always been like this underneath, I don't know why people are so surprised. As to how she got there, well, just look at the people who voted her in. Not to mention there are masses of dirty old men out there (our next door neighbour being one of them) who have been fantasising about Thatcher their entire lives and thought all their birthdays had arrived at once when the pound shop Maggie turned up. Their mortgages were all nicely paid up thanks, they didn't care that she wrecked the economy with her stupid pie in the sky obedient carrying through of whoever it was that actually came up with those stupid ideas.

I did have to laugh at the Penny Mordaunt anecdote though - isn't that the type of thing most people would use for their voting criteria these days? Never mind the policies, let alone their effects, what about that sword??

She’s just confirming what we already knew, which is that she’s someone unburdened by ethics or competence, who shouldn’t be trusted with any position of responsibility at all, let alone one in government.

I am a person of colour and I would rather have a decent person of colour to be first PM of a white majority country than Rishi Sunak or likes of Priti Patel or Suella. But yeah maybe with him, we would have avoided damage to the economy caused by Liz Truss.

Agreed

I don’t think she seemed this unhinged 5 -10 years ago. She was slurring her words and it’s quite a jump from Remainer to Trump/Farage supporter.

I think she has retreated to an alternative reality.

She appears really drunk in that video. She looks as though she's just a few minutes away from saying something really bad.