Bashing Rishi is a nasty habit that could get Liz hooked

These days, no platform is too extreme for Liz Truss to climb up on in order to make a stand against “the forces of leftie, deep-state wokery” – or, as she used to call him, Rishi.

Sunak had bravely decided to be elsewhere as an assembly of libertarian Tory MPs gathered to diss the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, whose key measure – that people born in or after 2009 will never be able to legally buy cigarettes – was the flagship of his first (and perhaps last) party conference speech as PM.

Truss was determined to lead the countercharge, so arrived early in a bright scarlet dress that deputy speaker Nigel Evans could not miss, then jumped up and down to catch his eye. There is a convention that former prime ministers are called early in important debates, but does 49 days count? Liz was not taking chances.

Health secretary Victoria Atkins opened the debate with a warning about “the human cost of smoking” being seen in hospital admissions – one victim of a smoking-related deadly disease per minute in the UK.

A gang of Tory knights intervened. Sir Edward Leigh said bans lead to “increased criminality”. Labour tittered loudly when Atkins replied that the government has the “intellectual self-confidence” to counter it.

Sir John Hayes said a rolling age increase was “at best a curiosity, at worst an absurdity”. Sir Jake Berry claimed that twice as many schoolchildren smoke cannabis as tobacco nowadays.

Labour’s Wes Streeting did a fine job of trolling the Tories, crowing: “This is absolutely an un-Conservative bill. It’s a Labour bill.”

Finally, Truss got her chance. “I am disappointed that a Conservative government has brought forward this bill,” she said, adding that it is a measure designed for the “finger-wagging, nannying control freaks” on the opposition benches.

It would “infantilise” adults, criminalise shopkeepers, and encourage the “health police” to ban sugar and meat. Moreover, such “fundamentally unconservative” ideas might lead to curbs on drinking next. Perish the thought, Liz!

She also took a pop at the health lobby and its supporters in Whitehall, including Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, who annoyed the Tory right during Covid by recommending lockdowns and WFH.

Somebody at No 10 with a sense of humour chose to tease libertarians by fielding Whitty in a round of media interviews before the debate. The gentle medic pointed out that the “pro-choice” arguments beloved of Truss don’t work against a highly addictive substance. He recalled patients “weeping” as they lit up after having their legs amputated, still gripped by a smoking habit they could not break.

Ironically, the plan to raise the smoking age incrementally may be the one bit of Sunak’s thin legislative programme to survive the next election, since Labour are backing it in enough numbers to fill up the Tory cracks. So, when the phantom Rwanda flights are forgotten, and the shameful attack on “smelly” homeless people is atoned for, this bill may form the prime minister’s legacy.

But what of Liz’s legacy? After the smoking-age debate, she was off to host a party for 100 chums to launch her book, Ten Years to Save the West. In South West Norfolk, an opponent was standing under the banner “Six Months to Save Norfolk”, which seems more credible.

Much of her tome is a long whinge that the Deep State completely failed to warn her that making £49bn of unfunded tax cuts in one Budget might crash the pound. Of course, what Truss really needed was more Deep State, not less, to save her from herself. And a nanny to relieve her of having to, as her book complains, “organise my own hair and make-up appointments”.

To be fair, she has worked hard in a round of interviews to repay a book advance from Biteback reported to have been as low as £1,500 to £6,000. The people who paid £600,000 for David Blunkett’s dreary tome must be jealous. Among her implausible claims, she added the Post Office and Natural England to the list of powerful enemies that had purportedly undermined her premiership.

William Hague, dry as dust, mused on Times Radio that it must take a “very strong mental effort” for Liz to blame so many other people for her catastrophic period in charge. But Truss’s main preoccupation nowadays seems to be getting attention. Her time in the media spotlight is coming to an end: rage, rage against the dying of the light.