I feared a mud pie would splat on her white jacket at any moment
BRAvE move from Liz Truss. Usually candidates in a Tory leadership race like to pull on a hi-vis jacket and chose a location with a bit of pizzazz to launch their campaign. A science laboratory where miracle cures are made, perhaps, or a bakery with a nice line in Conservative blue sticky buns.
Boris Johnson, for instance, loved to go zooming around a factory floor in a fork lift truck, smashing things up as he went.
One time I witnessed the PM crunching though the gears of some heavyweight piece of machinery so recklessly I thought the engine might erupt. You should have seen the foreman’s face. Poor man was practically having kittens.
The Foreign Secretary, though, chose somewhere altogether more low-key yesterday to kick off her battle with Rishi Sunak.
She paid a visit to Little Miracles, a charity in Peterborough which helps families that have children with disabilities or special needs.
At the risk of sounding indelicate, this was one of those trips which had the makings of a disaster. The Trussette is not exactly blessed in the gentle art of spontaneous conversation. She can be awkward, clunky. A tad on the robotic side. And we all know children. They can be as unpredictable as a firework with a badlylit wick. You never quite know what they will say next.
Turned out Liz was a total natural. Why wouldn’t she be? She’s a mother of two, of course, though it’s something she rarely mentions. And in the everyday cut and thrust of the Commons, we rarely witness her tender side. voters need to see it more.
She arrived shortly before 3.30pm wearing flashy gold heels and a blazer which was whiter than a swan’s breast.
Such an outfit was another bold choice as, outside, the children were jumping in and out of bushes. At any moment I half expected to see a giant mud pie fly through the air and go splat on one of her lapels.
The jacket was certainly making the charity’s chief executive, Michelle, nervous. Especially whenever Truss hovered next to what appeared to be a large bowl of green goo.
‘I think we better move away from the painting area,’ she said, ushering her guest gingerly towards a table.
WAITInGfor her there were half a dozen or so children. Truss was introduced to two particularly chatty boys, Harry and Larry. Harry felt Larry should be Prime Minister. Larry, who sported the most luxuriant bouffant, did not demur.
One girl didn’t care for all the camera flashes going off around her. ‘They’re very annoying,’ she sighed. Liz agreed.
‘They’re these rather scary journalists, I