What’s the point of a pantomime if you don’t have a villain? - Vladimir McTavish

Just when we all thought Liz Truss was history, it seems we can’t keep her out of the news these days. One week she’s hanging out with proto-fascists in America, the next she’s being chased through Westminster by a BBC reporter.

Liz Truss was ‘PM for less time than the shelf life of an iceberg lettuce’, says Vladimir McTavish

All to publicise her upcoming book “Ten Years To Save The West”. Having managed to totally destroy the UK in a mere six weeks, one dreads to think what destruction she could carry out over the course of an entire decade. In the book she credits herself as the “former prime minister of Great Britain”, with no mention of her being PM for less time than the shelf life of an iceberg lettuce.

There were some seriously shady far-right figures at the conference in the States she attended, including apologists for British right winger Tommy Robinson who described the former English Defence League leader as a “hero”. On her return home, Madame Lettuce was quizzed on the street by a BBC journalist and refused to answer questions about her opinions on Robinson. Is this because she’s afraid it might harm book sales? Come on, Liz, get real. Even you should be bright enough to realise that Tommy Robinson supporters don’t buy books. Most of them would struggle to read the Daily Star.

Truss was brought up by left-wing academics. Her father has a very distant relationship with her now, which is hardly surprising, given that he is a socialist and a retired professor of mathematics. If I was him, I’d be demanding a DNA test. How could he possibly have sired a daughter with far right opinions whose economic policies barely show a grasp of basic arithmetic? Although perhaps he’s now sneakily proud of the way she has managed to destroy the Tory Party.

However, looking at the two main party leaders in an election year, part of me wishes she was still around. Purely for entertainment’s sake as 2024 promises to the the dullest election of all time. Were it a world title boxing match, Keir Starmer v Rishi Sunak would struggle to fill a small community centre in Milton Keynes let alone Madison Square Garden. Who would tune in to Livingston v St Johnstone in the Scottish Cup Final with both teams playing ten men behind the ball?

Both Starmer and Sunak seem intent on boring us into submission to the extent that I wouldn’t want to second-guess their tactics. Are they reckoning being the dullest is the best way to win votes?

Boris Johnson may be a thoroughly loathsome human being, but he did provide a good deal of colour to the 2019 campaign, dressing up as a milkman, hiding in a fridge, telling all kinds of outrageous lies. What’s the point of a pantomime if you don’t have a villain?

How much better would it have been to see Liz Truss going head-to-head against Jeremy Corbyn? That would have been akin to watching Manchester City against Barcelona in the Champions League, real end-to-end stuff with both teams going for broke.

I’d much rather see a showdown between two deranged ideologues than a battle between two faceless suits who have as much brio as middle managers giving a powerpoint presentation. Scary may be bad but boring is worse.