We will be watching television by candlelight

ONE of Siena’s palaces houses a unique series of huge murals painted by Ambrogio Lorenzetti depicting the Republic’s view of good and bad government.

They came to mind when it was announced that Liz Truss had been appointed prime minister by 0.3% of the UK’S population and made up of predominantly white south of England residents.

Lorenzetti depicted good government in the allegorical figures of Justice, Temperance, Prudence, Strength and Peace and bad government as Cruelty, Discord, War, Fraud, Anger and Tyranny.

Trussifarianists are facing more of the latter than the former, and despite the diversity of the cabinet 68% of them were educated privately, where any levelling up (not to be heard in the Trussifarian declaration) needs to start in the government.

Lorenzetti’s good government resulted in everyone enjoying prosperity, well-being and joy, whereas the Truss/neo-thatcher government, at present without the theatrics, duplicity and shabbiness of the Bozza regime, will probably unashamedly look after the rich with low taxation and a small state.

Ironically, the first action of the Trussifarians was to adopt a strategy first called for by Labour and the Liberal Democrats, namely the energy price freeze but there is no spark in the dark since they are asking you and me to finance it and not the fat cats of the energy companies.

As long as there are no plans for more taxes on profits and high incomes we’ll be the ones watching television by candle light.

Regarding Wales, which did not vote for a Conservative government, the new PM has previously insulted its First Minister, referring to Mark Drakeford as a “low energy Jeremy Corbyn”.

Yet the first bounce of a new PM does not reverberate for long and many think that the new regime will be, in the words of Thomas Hobbes, ‘nasty, brutish and short’.

He wrote that in the context of his view of people as basically selfish and largely driven by personal gain and human life without a proper, legitimate government.

And any ministers who do not see levelling up as a priority will soon find themselves dancing with the Trussifarian fairies.