Liz Truss In A Battle For Survival With A Head Of Lettuce

UK Prime Minister Liz Truss, who finds herself in a mess completely of her own making, took desperate action on Friday to mollify her many critics, calm financial markets angry over her economic plan, and quell talk of a revolt against her leadership. Mind you, she’s just five weeks into the job. 

If you've not been keeping tabs on her, here's the back story. 

On September 23, Liz Truss’s government unveiled their "fiscal event", heralding “a new approach for a new era” that left the Daily Mail cooing: “At last! A true Tory budget”. The biggest package of tax cuts in 50 years. [Refer my blog post “The Liz Truss Tax Plan” published September 30]. 

On October 03, she made a U-turn, reversing plans to cut the country’s highest rate of income tax. [Refer to my post “Ukraine Still Deludes Itself It Can Defeat Russia” published October 04]. 

Yesterday, Truss fired her Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng (left), for the apparent sin of loudly supporting her own policies. The latter had become a public face of Truss’s proposed unfunded tax cuts, which inspired fierce criticism across the UK and badly hammered the British pound. 

And then she confirmed that corporation tax rises will remain, marking (again) a U-turn in the government's proposed tax cut plan – they had wanted to axe the planned rise in corporation tax from 19% to 25% next April – which was announced in the mini-budget. 

Things have gotten so bad that Truss’s shelf life as PM is being compared to produce. 

The Economist noted in a column that it had taken Truss only seven days to wreak financial havoc, “the shelf-life of a head of lettuce”. 

Piggybacking on that idea, the Daily Star began tracking Truss’s survival as compared to a 60p Tesco lettuce with the captivating results livestreamed on YouTube. 

Already, bookies have given odds of 6-1 for Liz Truss to be replaced faster than it takes for a lettuce to rot. 

And even the First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon has spoken out on Liz Truss's latest chaos, and calls for her resignation – plus a General Election: