Kelly’s Eye

NEVER has the trademark catchphrase of the late, great Terry Thomas been so richly merited as it is by today’s parliamentary Conservative party: what an absolute shower.

That is not to detract from the utter botch made by Liz Truss. Her kamikaze approach of not informing the Cabinet before that seismic mini-budget, let alone the markets, condemned her credibility from the start.

That loss was aggravated further by the shameful ditching of Kwasi Kwarteng – for the crime of doing exactly as the two had planned. And as for that excruciating eight-minute press conference

– the now sadly familiar monotone delivery this time accompanied by an expression of dazed bewilderment – as someone observed, the Prime Minister looked as if she needed to be led away afterwards with a blanket over her shoulders.

Yet, even allowing for all that, the behaviour of Tory MPs, abandoning her at the first whiff of gunfire, has been grotesque. Having denied us voters the opportunity to decide on the fate of her predecessor who handed them an 80-seat majority, they’ve now embarked on another headless stampede, which will ultimately deliver them the leader their equivocation deserves: Keir Starmer.

While the Treasury and Bank of England panjandrums reassert control, remember who it was confidently predicting as recently as last year that inflation would peak at around two or three per cent, and who didn’t foresee the small matter of the 2008 Crash until Lehman Brothers’ staff began clearing their desks.

There might be no tears shed for the bungle of Trussonomics. But the day of reckoning has merely been delayed for the catastrophic money printing and other market distortions resulting from that Crash, since compounded by the ruinous lockdown experiment of paying everyone to stay at home.

Despite the madness in their methods, history may yet be kinder to Truss and Kwarteng.