The Daily Telegraph - Saturday
No10 was a flea-infested prison, says Truss
DOWNING Street was a prison infested with fleas caused by Boris Johnson’s dog Dilyn, Liz Truss has claimed in her new book.
The former prime minister said that she spent her first weeks in the job “itching” because of a flea infestation at No 10, which she said some believed was a result of Mr Johnson’s dog.
She also compared herself to a “prisoner” in Downing Street, saying that “just being stuck there” was one of the most difficult things to get used to.
In an extract of her book, Ten Years to
Save the West, serialised by the Daily Mail, Ms Truss wrote: “The place was infested with fleas.
“Some claimed this was down to Boris and Carrie’s dog Dilyn, but there was no conclusive evidence. In any case, the entire place had to be sprayed with flea killer. I spent several weeks itching.”
She said that “the most difficult thing to get used to was just being stuck there”. “Spontaneous excursions were all but impossible: I was effectively a prisoner,” she added. “If I insisted on going for a run or a walk, arrangements were made for me to be driven to a quiet bit of Hyde Park – but even this felt like being allowed out into the prison exercise yard.”
Ms Truss said the book would serve as a warning that “too many of her fellow Conservatives have allowed themselves to be captured by the Left-wing influences that set the agenda and frame the debate”.
She also complained that there was a “lack of personal support” while prime minister, and that she had to organise her own hair and make-up appointments. She said it was shocking that as “one of the most photographed people in the country” she had to arrange such bookings herself. “All these things took precious bandwidth away from me,” she wrote.
She added she had “no medical support” and had to send her diary secretary out “in the middle of the night to buy me some medicine”.
Ms Truss took office on Sept 6 2022, and was the shortest-serving prime minister with 44 days in No 10.
Her premiership was marked by her and her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s ill-fated mini-budget and the death of Queen Elizabeth II. The former prime minister told how she felt in the immediate aftermath of the monarch’s death. She wrote: “On Thursday, we received the solemn news that the Queen had died peacefully at Balmoral. To be told this on only my second full day as prime minister felt utterly unreal. In a state of shock, I found myself thinking: ‘Why me? Why now?’”
She admitted that she felt some of her predecessors may have been “better suited to mark this historic moment with soaring rhetoric and statesmanship” adding: “But that wasn’t my comfort zone.”