Liz Truss press conference: sticks to the script then heads for exit

The British PM took just four questions before heading for the exit, scissored blonde bob ‘swaying to her tread like the curtains of a speeding Cairo taxi’.

Liz Truss defied calls to resign at her press conference. Picture: Getty Images

Nine meagre minutes: that was the extent of Liz Truss’s press conference after she sacked Kwasi Kwarteng as chancellor and jettisoned another of her low-tax proposals.

She entered the Downing Street briefing room at 2.32pm and skedaddled at 2.41pm. She had taken four questions.

“Aren’t you gonna say sorry?” bawled that little chap from Channel 4 News. Truss blanked him. With other scribes shouting “prime minister! Prime minister!”, she left the room with her tiptoed gait. The scissored blonde bob swayed to her tread like the curtains of a speeding Cairo taxi.

One press colleague wondered if she legged it because she was about to start crying. That felt chauvinist. What was remarkable was how zoned-out she remained during this excruciating, probably ruinous sequence.

There was a brief admission that events had been, er, suboptimal – “I want to be honest, this

is difficult” – but her voice was level. Her visage was uncrumpled. The eyes looked clear and her brow quickly ironed out the central pinch of frowns it wore on arrival.

“Good afternoon,” she began breezily. Only the arch of her slender left eyebrow betrayed any tension.

Prime minister for barely a month, opinion polls smoking, one chancellor already pranged, parliamentary troops jumping about like nudists on hot sand, mortgage rates lifting, various other horrors (including possibly World War III) on the horizon, and she wasn’t a total nervous wreck?

As the old broad at the neighbouring table says in When Harry Met Sally, “I’ll have what she’s having.”

Truss’s scripted remarks contained one of the more collectable euphemisms of recent politics. “The way we are delivering our mission right now has to change.”

European rocket scientists ought to try that one next time one of their space probes shoots off the launch-pad, does a loop the loop and sploshes into the Indian Ocean.

The mission was going to continue, averred Truss.

And yet it was going to alter.

“It is clear that parts of our mini-budget went further and faster than markets were expecting. I have therefore decided to keep the increase in corporation tax.”

In pre-computer days, football reporters – when dictating their dispatches before the end of a match – would shout “insert NOT” to the copytakers if the result suddenly altered. This was the Westminster equivalent.

Truss observed that putting down poor Kwasi was regrettable. Kindly spaniel that he was, he had wagged his tail, looked her trustingly in the eye and willingly gulped down the cyanide-laced snorker she handed him.

“I met the former chancellor earlier today. I was incredibly sorry to lose him. He is a great friend.”

Is/was/never again will be? Actually, Kwarteng’s public letter to Truss was amazingly forgiving. The man may not have been a terribly good chancellor but he is plainly a credit to his church.

Truss proceeded to deliver rhubarb about the virtues of the new chancellor, Jeremy Hunt. He was “experienced, widely respected, shares my convictions and ambitions”.

On that last point, about ambitions, we may be entitled to a measure of scepticism. Ambition among senior politicians is seldom shared. These people are savagely, cannibalistically solipsistic.

The Telegraph asked why she should remain PM. The Sun asked “how come you get to stay?”. The BBC’s Chris Mason said “excuse the bluntness, what credibility do you have to continue governing?”. ITV invited her to apologise.

Of these, it was the Mason that seemed to penetrate her defences. As the question was put, Truss did one of her small, caprine chews of the cud. The eyes shuttered momentarily. For a nanosecond we gained an idea of her inner-souffle’s collapse. Then she shook herself together and returned to talk of “delivering the mission in a different way”.

And that was that. She departed. It was the walk of a woman who had just demolished a priceless antique chair and was rather hoping no one would notice.

The Times