Liz Truss arrived in time for her first PMQs and took her place between Penny Mordaunt and Thérèse Coffey. Other new cabinet appointees, including big guns Kwasi Kwarteng, James Cleverly and Suella Braverman, huddled as close as possible. See and be seen. The Tory backbenches – minus Rishi Sunak, Dominic Raab, Grant Shapps, Boris Johnson and other potential Liz naysayers – were packed, if relatively quiet for a new leader. Not surprising, perhaps. Most of them believed that the other candidates would be much better. Haven’t we all had it? With the Tories already committed to Labour’s plan to cap the price of energy, Keir Starmer focused his questions on exactly who was going to pay for the bailout. Could the Truce say definitively whether it planned to impose a windfall tax? Surprisingly, he could. She was more than happy to rule one out entirely. Starmer looked rather surprised. He was used to messing with Boris Johnson, who had never knowingly given a straight answer. Or is involved in politics. PMQs was just pure theater for the Convict. A forum for points and cheap laughs. Truss was completely different. He really seemed to believe all the crazy things he was spouting at the Tory leaders. It wasn’t just a pose to feed the wet dreams of some dying Conservative members. In fact she was further to the right than Margaret Thatcher. Even Maggie had taken an unexpected toll. Just to make sure he had heard correctly, the Labor leader repeated. So what Librium Liz was saying was that she was more than happy to commit the UK to borrowing billions of pounds more than is absolutely necessary and for the public to pick up the tab, rather than asking the energy companies for a penny more . Even though the energy companies had openly admitted they had more money than they knew what to do with and were pretty relaxed about a second tax windfall. Truss kept going and going. Imposing higher taxes was a mortal sin. What people wanted was more of their money in their pockets. Here her logic – never her strongest suit – failed her. He didn’t seem to realize that a windfall tax on energy companies would allow people to keep more of their own money in the long run. Details, details. Again and again. It had been conclusively shown that the economic slowdown of the lower corporate tax boosted investment. Well, he hadn’t. George Osborne’s failed mathematics had long since been discredited and France, with a much higher corporate tax rate, had attracted more foreign investment than any other European country for three years running. “There is nothing new about Labour’s taxation,” said Librium Liz. The Tory backbenches, hitherto half-hearted in response to her wooden delivery, now erupted. Like he’d just said the funniest, smartest thing imaginable. As if they had now been given proof that their new leader was capable of thinking on her feet. This was something they had never dared to dream of. He could only speak in complete sentences when he applied! It also had advanced AI! Changing sense of humor. Or something like this. Mind you, they said the same thing about Theresa May in her first PMQs when she did a Maggie impersonation. And that didn’t end so well. This was almost the best. No Tory asked the traditional tame questions of why the new prime minister was so brilliant. Their voters are too afraid of the cost of living crisis. a price ceiling is the least one expects and even that may not be enough for millions of people to eat and keep warm. But since May there has been confusion. How come the Tories have had three female leaders while Labor has had none? Be careful what you ask. The reason there was a third was because the Tories had blithely rejected the second a few years ago. And on current form they could arrive for a fourth in 12 months when the novelty of Librium Liz’s impotence has worn off. Truss tried to explain how she could be trusted with the delivery. After all, he has been in the cabinet for the past eight years. During which you’d think it might have occurred to her that she was supposed to be providing something. He also singled out a Labor MP for the country’s outcry saying the NHS had been brought to its knees. Unnecessary. Most of us could have sworn that Liz had spent the leadership saying that the NHS wasn’t working. The President closes the meeting. The Tories breathed a sigh of relief. Truss wasn’t as awful as they feared. But then everyone gets a free honeymoon pass for their first PMQs. Starmer even went to Librium Liz to exchange a few words. I congratulate her for surviving the ordeal. Something he would never dream of doing for the Convict. But next week might not be so friendly.
