Liz Truss tried to play the (‘anyone but me’) blame game – but (guess what!) she blew that, too

I don’t know which would be worse: if it turned out that Liz Truss didn’t actually believe a word she says and was just trying to kowtow to the lowest common denominator – or if she really is just... like that.

At a fringe event held by the Telegraph on day two of the Tory conference, the former prime minister faced questions from journalist and historian Tim Stanley, in a format he jokingly compared to the infamous Frost/Nixon interviews.

While the event itself didn’t make any clearer the true depths of her political convictions, what it did make clear is that Truss is on a one-woman mission to “save the Western world” – although, based on the content of her answers, it seems like “the Western world” is just a fun nickname for “her own reputation”. Actually, maybe it wasn’t so clear after all.

Sure, you might be under the impression that our 50-day fiancée was responsible, during her time in office, for a total economic meltdown as a result of her poorly conceived – and somehow even more poorly executed – mini-Budget. But you would be mistaken.

You see, our economic woes in 2022 were the result of conspiring forces that came together to punish Truss for the crime of being too right about everything. It was the Bank of England’s fault for failing to regulate the pensions market – and to suggest that it could somehow fall on Liz’s innocent shoulders is, quite frankly, “pathetic”. To suggest that Labour is making tough decisions now due to Truss’ failures is total “economic illiteracy”, and we should all just stop talking about the mini-Budget, ok?!

And losing her seat? Well, that was down to those dastardly fiends over at Reform UK. How was she expected to win a political contest when there were other people competing?

“How on Earth are we supposed to move on as a country,” she seemed to be saying throughout the Q&A, “if we keep blaming me?”

Indeed, if only we’d had the foresight and conviction as a nation to see how Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng’s excellent adventure had played out. According to Liz, it would have been the second-best hope for her party to win the recent election – and avoid the Labour landslide that we got instead.

The first best hope? Why, sticking with the only Tory PM of the past 10 years whose record was even more spotless than her own – that’s right, according to Truss, we never should have abandoned Boris. Say what you will about Truss, but she is a geyser of hot takes.

Truss projects so much that we could probably fix this country’s economic woes by renting her out to Imax theatres. She talked at one point about the vagueness of criticisms made towards her by despicable left-wing comedians – you know, the real “elites” in this country. It’s as if she doesn’t seem to grasp that 90 per cent of what comes out of her mouth is just a regurgitated stew of Trumpian buzzwords and talking points, like some kind of Libertarian Speak & Spell.

Speaking of Trump, the first reaction she managed to drag out of the audience came a solid 28 minutes into proceedings, when she expressed her belief that Diamond Don would win the upcoming election. His victory would be great for the cause, she said, because it would indicate that the West is finally breaking free from the siren call of “socialism,” “wokery”, “the climate lobby” and “human rights culture”. It was like a Mad Lib for mad anti-libs.

One of the saddest parts of the interview came towards the end, when the subject arose of Truss one day returning to parliament. Stanley suggested that she wouldn’t struggle to get nominated, before turning to a completely dead audience. Realising he wasn’t going to get the response he hoped for, he asked them directly, arms spread out in a silent plea: “Do people want Liz back in parliament? Come on”. The audience finally picked up on the cue and offered a smattering of awkward claps.

Truss, to her credit, acknowledged that they had to be led to their half-hearted applause, to which Tim muttered a kind of half-joke about how they were “staggered by the intellectual… sparks.”

“They’re rigored”, he concluded. Rigor mortis, maybe. It was a real Jeb Bush-style “please clap” moment, and one which will probably prompt absolutely zero reflection on the part of our ill-fated former PM, who will probably find a way to blame their lack of enthusiasm at the prospect of her grand political return on the Bank of England and Stewart Lee.

The interview was illuminating, in the way that your house burning down is illuminating. Stanley joked at the start that it was a modern “Frost/Nixon” – but unfortunately for Truss, the biggest difference between the two is that 50 years later, people still remember who Richard Nixon is.