
Another triumphant weekend for Liz Truss
With her new 'free speech' social network seemingly some way off launch – Truss's office employs only five staff and reports assets of just £112,657 in capital and reserves – she headed to Budapest for a meet-up of the US Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), alongside Donald Trump-aligned headbangers from across Europe. Truss rubbed shoulders with the likes of the Netherlands' Geert Wilders and the AfD's Alice Weidel while host Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán described Trump as 'a truth serum' and peddled conspiracy theories about a great population replacement.
The comeback of Lettuce Liz Truss continues to surprise and delight, with the short-lived former PM spending last weekend palling around with Hungary's far-right leader and plugging a whiskey being launched by a convicted thug.
'People used to flee Eastern Europe to Britain for freedom,' a thrilled Truss wrote on social media. 'Now in 2025 I went to CPAC Hungary to talk about the free speech crisis in Britain.'
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Rats in a Sack
What better place to defend free speech than Orbán's Hungary, which has, er, issued criminal charges to media which has published things it deems to be untrue, purchased and shut down unfriendly media outlets and targeted investigative journalists with privacy laws? The vast bulk of political news in the country now comes from outlets whose financing is controlled by Orban's ruling Fidesz party.
Following that triumph, a video emerged of Truss promoting a new whisky launched by Dougie Joyce, a bare-knuckle fighter. 'Liz Truss loves you,' she third-personed while raising a glass to her new friend. Alas for the hapless Truss, Joyce was jailed for 19 months by Manchester crown court in November 2023 for a violent assault on a 78-year-old man, later using a smuggled phone to film himself laughing in his prison cell.
A spokesperson for Truss said: 'I thought the government believed in the rehabilitation of offenders' – although it was unclear if they were talking about Joyce or the cursed former PM herself.

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New Statesman
an hour ago
- New Statesman
The Tories must do more than apologise for Liz Truss
Photograph by Henry Nicholls - Pool/Getty Images. Better late than never, and better something than nothing. The Conservative Party should have distanced itself from Liz Truss at the first opportunity – emphatically, unequivocally and ruthlessly. On the steps of Downing Street on 25 October 2022, as his first act as Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak should have condemned the mini-Budget, apologised to the nation and made it clear that Truss would never be a Conservative parliamentary candidate again. It would have been a justified response to the chaos of the preceding few weeks and a signal that the party had changed. It did not happen. Sunak acknowledged that 'mistakes were made' but left it at that. He was too cautious about splitting his party. The membership had voted for Truss (he should have announced his intention to remove their rights to elect the leader, too) and a large minority of the parliamentary party had backed her. It would have been a bold gamble, and the case for such a move becomes more persuasive when one knows for certain of the electoral obliteration that lies ahead. Maybe we should not be too harsh on the last Conservative prime minister but we do now know how the infamous mini-Budget was brought up at every opportunity in last year's general election, and is continually referenced by Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves. This is not just out of habit but will be a consequence of extensive polling research. The public remain furious at the chaos and uncertainty that was unleashed. Mortgage-holders, in particular, will not be quick to forgive. The Tories can survive many accusations, and still win elections. But they cannot win while being perceived as economically reckless. Not only is it a political vulnerability, but the Truss experience prevents them from delivering effective criticism of their opponents. At a time when Nigel Farage is advocating turning on the spending taps while also implementing massive tax cuts, the Conservatives are right to say he is being fiscally irresponsible. But when they say he is 'Liz Truss on steroids', it sounds amiss coming from Truss's party (especially when the line is delivered by those who served her loyally). And if the fears that the bond market vigilantes will turn against the UK come to pass, the Tory attack on Labour will also lack real punch. These factors resulted in the most substantial criticism of the mini-Budget from the Conservative frontbench. Shadow chancellor Mel Stride acknowledged that it had damaged the Tories' economic credibility, and that the party should show contrition. Stride – a reassuring figure who was critical of the mini-Budget at the time – was right to do so, but even then there was too much equivocation. Despite the advance briefing, there was no explicit apology. The language was characteristically measured and thoughtful, but what was needed was something a little more eye-catching and memorable. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Better still, the sentiments should have been expressed by the party leader, not the shadow chancellor. But when Kemi Badenoch was asked subsequently about the mini-Budget, she equivocated. She started to make the argument that the problem was the higher spending on energy support announced on 8 September, not the unfunded tax cuts set out on 23 September (she should check the dates of the market turmoil) and stated that she 'did not want to be commenting on previous prime ministers'. The strategy of distancing the Tory Party from Truss had been watered down after just a day. It is not good enough. Having left any serious criticisms for too long (31 months too long), this is no time for half measures. 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While they are at it, there are other aspects of the party's recent history that should be addressed. The Conservatives were deeply damaged by the partygate scandal and the impression that the rules that applied to everyone else did not apply to them. According to a parliamentary committee on which there was a Tory majority, Boris Johnson misled the House of Commons about this matter and a 90-day suspension from the Commons would have been recommended had he not resigned as an MP. If the Tories want a reputation for economic competence and integrity (and that should not be too much to ask), they should make it clear that both Johnson's and Truss's days as Conservative parliamentary candidates are over. When distancing themselves from those aspects of their past that alienate the voters they need, what is required from the Tories are confident strides, not small, tentative steps. They have at least made a start, but it would be a grave mistake to think that the job is done. Related


Telegraph
11 hours ago
- Telegraph
Mark my words, we're headed for a monster debt crisis
All things fall apart. Orders, whether domestic or geopolitical, eventually collapse. So too do monetary cycles, typically rising and falling every 80 years or so. The big cycle that began in 1945 is coming to a close as the bond markets begin to crack. Bookmark this piece: a debt crisis is coming. Let me explain what's happening. The yield on government debt is the measure of how much interest people expect to receive to lend the government money. This goes up when the market loses confidence in the government's economic plans or think the Chancellor is going to borrow plenty more. We saw yields shoot up under Liz Truss. But after Rachel Reeves's budget, yields on the UK's 30 year bonds peaked at 5.58 per cent, up from the previous 4.99 per cent peak on the worst day of the mini-budget fallout. More worryingly, the term premium, which is the part of the yield which prices the additional risk that borrowers are taking by holding the Government's long-term debt, has risen far more sharply in the UK than in America, Germany and many other developed countries. If Reeves thought Liz Truss crashed the economy, how would she describe her own failure? The markets have concluded that Reeves's plans to stimulate growth are thin – indeed, fatally contradicted by her jobs and investment destroying tax rises – meaning she will inevitably turn to yet more borrowing to fund huge spending splurges. Borrowing for the year 2024-25 was forecast to be £87 billion in Jeremy Hunt's budget of March 2024, but over this financial year Reeves's Treasury has spent £152 billion more than it received in revenue. To put this in context, in 1976 when the UK was bailed out by the IMF the national debt to GDP ratio was running at 50 per cent. 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