Cabinet infighting is no joke, Miss Truss

UNTIL this week, Liz Truss was best remembered (if at all) for an eccentric speech in which she said that Britain imports two-thirds of its cheese. To the bewilderment of her audience, she shouted: ‘THIS. IS. A. DISGRACE!!!’

But now the Chief Secretary to the Treasury has a new claim to fame – as one of a growing band of ministers with a hugely damaging penchant for taking public potshots at Cabinet colleagues.

First she took a took a swipe at ministers demanding extra money for their departments, telling them their conduct was ‘not macho’ and adding: ‘I aim to be the disrupter-in-chief’ (whatever that means).

Then she launched a personal attack on Environment Secretary Michael Gove, mocking his crackdown on pollutant plastic straws and eco-unfriendly wood-burning stoves – or ‘wood-burning Goves’, as she called them (it’s the way she tells them!).

Yes, many will agree with at least some of her points, while others will say an obscure minister’s digs at her colleagues hardly matter. But the profoundly worrying fact is that half the Cabinet seems to be at it. Take Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom, who this week publicly savaged Theresa May’s (admittedly barmy) plans for a customs partnership with the EU.

Or Chancellor Philip Hammond and Greg Clark, the Business Secretary, who have urged firms to say they’ll leave the UK if no agreement is reached – thereby seriously undermining the Prime Minister’s mantra: ‘No deal is better than a bad deal.’

Then there’s Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson, vaingloriously telling service chiefs he’ll blackmail Mrs May into giving them more cash. ‘I made her, I can break her,’ he said.

Or Boris Johnson, who has publicly condemned Mr Hammond’s Treasury as ‘the heart of Remain’. Absolutely true, of course. But all this public bickering merely reinforces the impression of a rudderless Cabinet, at war with itself.

This paper hopes we are witnessing nothing more serious than the seasonal madness that grips politicians every year in the run-up to the long summer recess.

But what is certain is that the infighting plays into the hands of Jeremy Corbyn and the EU negotiators. Indeed, at this crucial juncture, it has never been more vital for the Cabinet to show a united front.

Unless ministers have a death-wish for their party and country, they should resolve their differences face-to-face, and behind closed doors.