LIZ Truss’s allies are abandoning her almost as fast as she is careering around No10 wrecking the UK’s economy.
First she lost support in her party, after her Chancellor’s disastrous “mini-budget” had effects so large that the Bank of England has been forced to take emergency action not once, but twice.
Then she lost support in her Cabinet, after signing off on briefs attacking Michael Gove as a “sadistic” person with “darkness inside him” that “corrupts his soul”.
And now she’s lost the support of even her closest journalistic ally – at least if Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser Dominic Cummings is to be believed (which admittedly is a pretty big if).
The Sun’s political editor Harry Cole – who Cummings claimed Truss would call “after any meeting” to leak every juicy detail – has lashed out at the Prime Minister after she blocked her own official spokesperson from attending Cabinet.
The move to bar civil servant Max Blain from Cabinet has been widely read as an attack on transparency and accountability, with questions being raised around how an official spokesperson can speak with authority if they are only given second-hand accounts of affairs.
The Sun’s Cole lashed out at Truss’s decision, likening her government to the dictatorship in North Korea.
Here is the Pyongyang style press release issued by the Dear Leader's apparatchiks on her harmonious meeting with her adoring Cabinet. We have no idea if this is true or not yet because those who issued it were not in the room and were only told about it 2nd hand by an official pic.twitter.com/MAOGEcHAnL
— Harry Cole (@MrHarryCole) October 11, 2022
“Here is the Pyongyang-style press release issued by the Dear Leader's apparatchiks on her harmonious meeting with her adoring Cabinet,” he wrote on Twitter, sharing the briefing on Cabinet released by the Tory government.
“We have no idea if this is true or not yet because those who issued it were not in the room and were only told about it 2nd hand by an official,” Cole added.
The i’s chief political commentator Paul Waugh also criticised the move. He wrote on Twitter: “Why on earth would @trussliz not allow her 'official spokesman' into Cabinet meetings?
“We learned today that he attended all of Boris Johnson's but so far has not been in either of her two Cabinets. Real problem for transparency/accountability.”
Waugh added: “Special advisers are also banned from Cabinet now. Feels like an attempt to restrict leaks, but surely the 'official spokesman' clue is in the job title?
“He's a civil servant whose job it is to speak for the PM. A job made impossible if he's *not in the room*.”
Truss’s move comes as she reportedly plots a charm offensive to make sure she stays in office long enough to avoid being the UK’s shortest serving Prime Minister in history.
Henry Hill, the deputy editor of ConservativeHome, wrote in the Guardian that “one of the remarkable things about last week’s disaster of a Conservative party conference was the extent to which MPs, advisers and other observers seemed to be coming round to the idea that Liz Truss wouldn’t lead the party into the next election”.
He further noted that she had taken the axe to her own team of advisers and civil servants, writing: “Experienced advisers have been let go, and outfits such as the policy unit and the legislation team have been dramatically slimmed down (the latter now consists of just one person).”
With catastrophic cuts to public services predicted as Truss looks to stabilise the very economy she ruined, it seems the new Prime Minister’s days are truly numbered.
