Liz Truss becomes latest victim in Tory horror film massacre. Will Boris Johnson now return from the dead? – Susan Morrison

Apt that it’s near Hallowe’en. This government has turned into an old Hammer Horror.
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You know, the car breaks down on the moors, outside an old decrepit house. The marooned trippers take shelter, each going to a separate bedroom. You barely learn their names before they are torn apart, one by one, by the beast lurking in the dark.

Liz’s Cabinet ministers seemed to be facing the same terrible fate. There was a time when it was the Chancellor of the Exchequer who was the scary beast. Well, Gordon Brown certainly was, even when he smiled. Come to think of it, especially when he smiled.

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He was, as Tony Blair once described him, a great clunking fist. The front benches quailed before him, and that was his own party. Tories used to shrink back like vampires facing sunlight.

Imagine calling Gordon in and asking him to rethink his budget. The blast zone from the Iron Chancellor's Godzilla-like fury would probably have taken out most of Downing Street, with survivors staggering away from the dust clouds for days. Poor Kwasi. He lasted about as long as a buxom wench in a Transylvanian village with a bit of a werewolf problem. He popped up and told us what he was going to do. Everyone started screaming like they were trapped in an out-of-control lift heading straight to Hell.

Liz suddenly snapped to, realised that Kwasi had done exactly what they had planned, and savagely knifed him in the back, like the last girl standing taking out the villain at the end of the slasher movie. Then Mr Hunt has arrived. He has the sinister smoothness of Christopher Lee’s Dracula. He appeared to be in charge. Liz sat in the Commons’ chamber beside him, weirdly lacking life and energy, like poor blood-drained Lucy. All she was missing were the teeth marks in her neck.

She listened, listlessly, whilst Jeremy didn’t just U-turn everything, he took the economy on hand-brake turns like a boy racer in a souped-up Fiesta round an empty supermarket carpark.

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Then there was a Home Secretary. Not entirely sure where she went. One minute there, and the next, picked off like a red-shirted security officer in an old Star Trek episode. Half expecting a call asking me to be Home Secretary in a minute. For a minute.

UK Cabinet ministers yesterday (either that or horror film fans dressed as zombies in Helsinki) (Picture: Mikko Stig/AFP/Getty Images)UK Cabinet ministers yesterday (either that or horror film fans dressed as zombies in Helsinki) (Picture: Mikko Stig/AFP/Getty Images)
UK Cabinet ministers yesterday (either that or horror film fans dressed as zombies in Helsinki) (Picture: Mikko Stig/AFP/Getty Images)

And then suddenly, Liz herself was gone, evaporating like a ghost in sunlight. She never even got a chance to do anything about that expensive wallpaper. Must have been like living in a very tacky Airbnb.

So the way is clear for the next zombie Prime Minister. They may want to consider a revolving door for Downing Street at this rate. Who will we get?

Johnson? Oh, he’s still rumbling about in the background. Anyone who heard that “Hasta la vista” threat in his farewell speech suspected the Terminator PM plans a sequel.

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They’ve even started talking about Theresa May with some affection. They yearn for a more nannyish figure. I imagine many are dreaming feverishly of Mrs Thatcher.

Frankly I’m half-expecting them to go full-on horror film, get in an Ouija board and dodgy medium a la Derek Acorah and see if they can raise Maggie’s vengeful spirit. Something tells me this horror franchise isn’t finished yet.

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