Lettuce lives on while Liz wilts under pressure after economic, political chaos – Times of India

LONDON: The unravelling of Liz Truss‘ premiership, in the end, was accelerated by a rapid turn of events. Truss lost two occupants of the four Great Offices of State in the space of six days. On Wednesday, Goan-origin home secretary Suella Braverman quit or was sacked, ostensibly over a ministerial code breach, but in fact it was over a row over immigration strategy. Kwarteng, the UK’s first black finance minister, was sacked for his mini-budget fiasco after cutting short a trip to the US last Friday. The loss of both cabinet ministers and their replacements made her once historically diverse cabinet much less so. But now, among those seen as frontrunners for PM, is former chancellor Rishi Sunak.
“My son has lived through four chancellors, three home secretaries, two prime ministers and two monarchs. He’s four months old,” tweeted journalist Alan McGuinness.

Losing such senior ministers after less than two months in the job added to the political instability engulfing Britain. Things came to a head for Truss on Wednesday night when MPs were voting on a Labour motion on fracking and it was unclear whether it was a motion of confidence in Truss or not. The chaos led to rumours that the chief whip and deputy whip had quit and allegations of some MPs being manhandled as they were ushered into the voting lobby.
Truss did do a good job of handling the choreography of public grief that followed the Queen’s demise. And as international trade secretary, she had played a pivotal role in negotiating the UK-India trade deal.

At Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, she looked like a single rabbit forcibly taken into a field of foxes. Truss kept to her mantra: that she wanted to “get on with the job and deliver for the British people”. “I am a fighter not a quitter,” she said. By this point she was under the complete control of Jeremy Hunt, the new finance minister –the second in less than two months – who represented the exact “orthodox Treasury” she had said she despised.
A live feed was duly positioned on a green lettuce called Lizzy Lettuce, to see if it could outlast Truss. The lettuce remained strong and put up a fight as Truss’s power rapidly wilted.

On Thursday morning Truss had already handed her notice to the King before appearing before the podium outside No. 10 alongside her husband. She had earlier met the “men in grey suits” – one of whom was Sir Graham Brady, chair of the 1922 Committee which represents Tory backbenchers and organises the leadership contest. Truss said: “We have agreed there will be a leadership election to be completed in the next week. This will ensure we remain on a path to deliver our fiscal plans and maintain our country’s economic stability and national security.” The pound and bond prices inched up as she spoke. Truss drove her net favourability score to minus 70%, making it the lowest recorded by YouGov in its two decades of polling. Labour is now leading the Conservatives by 36 points, the biggest margin for any party since 1997.