Truss has gone. Boris has ruled himself out. Can we just go with the lettuce?

A week ago, Liz Truss, quite rightly, resigned. She has gone down in history as arguably the worst prime minister ever, and certainly the one with the shortest tenure in office. She was a disaster from the start, and she really shouldn’t have been anywhere near the cabinet, let alone the occupier of Number 10.

So now, Truss has gone and the whole nation can breathe a sigh of relief. That is, until you realise the Tories are still in and there’s the actual possibility that a general election could be legally fought off until early 2025. In the meantime, we’ve electricity shortages to look forward to and further plundering of taxpayers’ money by these self-serving incompetents. I don’t know if changing the person at the top will actually solve the country’s problems—I think we need a miracle.

In my opinion, we don’t need a new prime minister—we need an entirely new government. Even Conservative back benchers know it. Look at some of the most recent (and honest) interviews given—they’re calling the situation a disgrace and a shambles. One even said the Tories had no mandate to govern any more.

So, what’s the solution? It’s difficult to say. I wrote about the main players when Boris resigned. This time around, it looks like Rishi Sunak will be the stand-out winner. As I write this, Penny Mordaunt is trying to attract Boris Johnson’s backers, given that he’s pulled out of the leadership race. I can’t believe he actually considered coming back. I can’t begin to contemplate the return of one of the most disgraced PMs this country has ever had the misfortune to entertain. Boris Johnson: the man who gave government contracts to his mates during the pandemic. The man who broke the law when he suspended parliament early. The man who broke his own Covid lockdowns and rules. Boris was ousted by his own party, yet some of them wanted him back? It just doesn’t make sense.

Rishi couldn’t even beat Liz Truss last time, so how come he’s been able to gather such support? If he does get in to Number 10, he brings zero credibility—will he even last long enough to greet Larry the cat and move his stuff in? In fairness, he did warn us what Liz Truss’s policies would do for the economy, and he was proved right. This still doesn’t make up for the fact he lost to her in the first place. Should he get in, his first job should be to bow to the will of the British people and call a general election.

Penny Mordaunt is unlikely to get in, let’s be honest, though I think she’s the best of a bad bunch. Credit to her, she performed well against Kier Starmer at the dispatch box, when Liz Truss was cowering under a desk somewhere. She’s also not aligned to the previous Boris regime, which could help her win the public’s vote; however, the public doesn’t have a say in this. Democracy at its finest, eh? Should she pull it off and be given the keys to Number 10, I’d give her a week to try and prove herself. Then she should call a general election, as that’s what the public want.

It paints a very grim picture of the Conservative Party. They appear completely unelectable, and for many years to come. Given that inflation is through the roof, you would typically want the Tories in power—and yet it’s their poor decisions, arrogance and chaos that’s brought us here. Boris Johnson’s sister was on BBC’s Question Time recently and even she described Kier Starmer as the ‘Prime Minister in waiting’.

Sadly, it feels like the only way we’ll get an early general election is if King Charles does something similar to his previous namesakes and dissolves Parliament. This surely won’t happen in the modern world we live in, but it’s probably the only way the public will get what they want. 

The instability that this constantly moving government is serving up—whose members are more preoccupied with their egos than actually doing what they’re employed to do—is what’s making the economy tank. The country can’t afford to watch each member of the cabinet get their chance to shine as Prime Minister…this isn’t the X-Factor.

When Liz Truss came into power, the Daily Star represented her in its paper as a lettuce in a blonde wig. It was a stab at humour; they had no idea that the lettuce would last longer than she did in the top job. Maybe that’s what we need to do…rather than having a leadership contest every month, we should simply nominate a salad or root vegetable to be our Prime Minister until it decays, and at that point, we simply swap it for another from the corner shop. Less hassle, fewer political pundits needed to spout their opinions left, right and centre, and far more consistency than the Tories have offered over recent months.

Don’t vote Sunak…vote lettuce!