I’ll be honest, I didn’t believe that Liz Truss would be able to last as prime minister until the end of the week, but I thought she would make it until the end of business TODAY. She did not. The lettuce won. Liz Truss resigned just after 1 pm in London. She turned in her resignation to King Charles (LMAO) and made a brief statement on the steps outside of 10 Downing Street. I’ve queued it up to her speech:
I’ll admit that I have literally no idea what happens next. There will be some kind of leadership conference and Tory MPs will vote on who should take this thankless job. Again, Truss did not even make it eight full weeks as prime minister. She was not prime minister for two full menstrual cycles. She was prime minister for FOUR Scaramuccis.
Labour leader Keir Starmer wants a general election, especially after the debacle of the Boris Johnson reign of terror and The 44 Days of Truss. I don’t understand why… British people can’t simply have a real election? Shouldn’t that be priority #1?
Britain can’t afford the Tories’ chaos.
My Labour government will provide the stability and leadership needed.
For our economy. For growth. For working people.
General Election, now.
— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) October 20, 2022
liz truss presiding over the deaths of the queen, the pound and the conservative party…. the sort of record thousands of would-be revolutionaries spent their entire lives hoping to achieve and got nowhere near, and she pulled it off in a mere 6 weeks. unsurpassable legacy
— Stan's Account (@tristandross) October 20, 2022
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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- King Charles III receives Prime Minister Liz Truss in the 1844 Room at Buckingham Palace in London.,Image: 723825305, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Kirsty O’Connor / Avalon
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- King Charles III receives Prime Minister Liz Truss in the 1844 Room at Buckingham Palace in London.,Image: 723825323, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Kirsty O’Connor / Avalon
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- King Charles III receives Prime Minister Liz Truss in the 1844 Room at Buckingham Palace in London.,Image: 723825323, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Kirsty O’Connor / Avalon
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- British Prime Minister Liz Truss departs for PMQs – Downing Street, London, England, UK on Wednesday 12 October, 2022.,Image: 729986199, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Please credit photographer and agency when publishing as Justin Ng/UPPA/Avalon., Model Release: no, Credit line: Justin Ng / Avalon
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- King Charles III meets Prime Minister Liz Truss during their weekly audience at Buckingham Palace in London. Picture date: Wednesday October 12, 2022.,Image: 730196656, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: NO UK USE FOR 48 HOURS- Fee Payable Upon reproduction – For queries contact Avalon sales@Avalon.red London +44 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles +1 310 822 0419 Berlin +49 30 76 212 251 Madrid +34 91 533 42 89, Model Release: no, Credit line: Avalon.red / Avalon
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- 14/10/2022. London, United Kingdom. Prime Minister Liz Truss Press Conference. Prime Minister Liz Truss holds a press conference at No9 Downing Street announcing Jeremy Hunt as her new Chancellor of the Exchequer.,Image: 730772080, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: This image is for Editorial use purposes only. The Image can not be used for advertising or commercial use. The Image can not be altered in any form., Model Release: no, Credit line: Andrew Parsons / Avalon
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- 14/10/2022. London, United Kingdom. Prime Minister Liz Truss Press Conference. Prime Minister Liz Truss holds a press conference at No9 Downing Street announcing Jeremy Hunt as her new Chancellor of the Exchequer.,Image: 730772094, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: This image is for Editorial use purposes only. The Image can not be used for advertising or commercial use. The Image can not be altered in any form., Model Release: no, Credit line: Andrew Parsons / Avalon
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- Downing Street, London, UK. 19th October 2022. British Prime Minister, Liz Truss, departs from Number 10 Downing Street to attend the weekly Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQ) session in the House of Commons.,Image: 731762904, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Supplied by AVALON – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Avalon – sales@avalon.red London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles: +1 (310) 822 0419 Madrid: +34 91 533 4289, Model Release: no, Credit line: Photo by Amanda Rose / Avalon
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- 19/10/2022. London, United Kingdom. Prime Minister Liz Truss leaves No10 Downing Street to make her way to the House of Commons for PMQ’s. 10 Downing Street.,Image: 731785215, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: This image is for Editorial use purposes only. The Image can not be used for advertising or commercial use. The Image can not be altered in any form., Model Release: no, Credit line: Rory Arnold / Avalon
4 Scarramuchis ☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️
liz truss presiding over the deaths of the queen, the pound and the conservative party…
Oh, ouch.
@MK
4 Scarramuchis…
I.AM.DECEASED.😆😆😆😆
All hail Kaiser who is on 🔥🔥🔥 today
I vote to make Scaramuccis an official unit of time.
@BW
Seconded 🙋
@MerlinsMom: I don’t know whether you meant it to be or not, but “second”-ed was rather slyly clever too, in a time-unit context.
He actually tweeted that himself and created a new measure of time: the Truss.
https://twitter.com/Scaramucci/status/1583077679439695872
https://twitter.com/Scaramucci/status/1583081188973244417
Awesome! I guess getting a general election is unlikely in the extreme, but the fact the Tory leadership plans to name a new PM within a week, indicates (to little me, a mere American) they’re not planning to give calls for a GE enough oxygen to gain traction.
They will resist calling for one as they will LOSE and they will lose big time – but from what I can the call for one is growing and they maybe forced into it.
In UK, only the Prime Minister and the majority party can call an early general election.
The current Tory party won’t call an election because they know they will lose 2/3 of the seats. We British people are forced to survive for another 2 years when the next general election comes.
Not quite true – Chuck 3.0 can use his royal prerogative to call one if he has no faith in the gov’s ability to run the country. So far am no aware of any Monarch using that power but theoretically they can.
That wouldn’t go down well with the Tories. And some people who are arguing for a GE now might not want the monarch getting involved like this. Especially since a monarch *has* never gotten involved.
@PumpkinSofia, the Queen did exactly that to an Australian government in 1975 and it very well may still count as our greatest political controversy.
You said it yourself: counts as one of your greatest political controversies to this day. So Charles doing the same thing would not go down well.
@Digital Unicorn: “Not quite true – Chuck 3.0 can use his royal prerogative to call one if he has no faith in the gov’s ability to run the country.”
So, in other words, you’re saying No General Election, right?
Can someone explain to an American exactly what happened in those 6 weeks? What specific actions caused this? Just trying to understand this political system.
Cannot a member of an opposing party call for a vote of confidence to try and trigger an early election?
@Isabella: She released the new budget which gave rich people all of the benefits.
That created a financial slope which was hours away from 2008 style recession. Our pensions were minutes away from being wiped out so Bank of England had to step in to buy bonds and stabilise the market.
Banks are no longer offering us mortgages, housing markets destroyed and pounds at the same level as US (a big fall in currency).
The fact that the Bank of England stepped in tells you how horrible close we were to become a third world nation.
some other fun highlights unrelated to why she’s getting sh*t-canned:
– a vote on some sort of fracking bill went absolutely haywire with no one knowing if it was a confidence vote and the party whip (the person who ensures everyone votes the right way) losing control and everyone voting randomly (including truss, to my understanding?) and people getting manhandled
– she randomly lied to the BBC about a family member dying to avoid questioning at one point
– charles greeting her at their second interview with “dear oh dear”
– people speculating on whether a cabbage would outlast her (it did)
wildly shambolic
So, basically (and I’m am American too), Truss looked at the job Donald Trump did in four years and said, “hold my beer” ?
🎶Sixty-three thousand, three-hundred sixty minutes! How do you measure 8 weeks in a life!🎶
In firings, and protests and one queeeeeen who kicked the bucket…. 🎶🎶🎶 In riots, and bullies and tantrums oh my🎶🎶
Lolol! Perfect, Liz!
🎶Seasons of Truuuuuuuuuusss! Seasons of Truuuuuussssss!🎶
I sang both of these and they are *chef’s kiss* perfection.
LOL, you all are super talented, bc those lyrics completely fit!
I also sang both!
OMG you guys!!!! I did NOT intend to start my morning off snorting coffee out of my nose, and singing!!
Kaiser and Commenters are on FIRE this morning!!! BRAVA!
Magnificent!! I sang, too!
You guys are funny!
Folks here are too smart. Stop it! LMAO.
Please do your magic with Oh baby baby it’s a wild Britain. Thanks!
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
Congrats to the lettuce!
Yes congrats!
Now that it’s done it’s part, interestingly enough, this week I came across a recipe that would be perfect for that lettuce.
😂😂😂
I guess Charles is going to COP 27 after all.
Wouldn’t it be a trip if Charles led the way in getting her sacked.
That was my exact thought. Speak in the climate now, Chuckold!
Good Lord. That island can’t keep a PM or Chancellor and we couldn’t impeach that unqualified, stupid game show host for FOUR years.
Politics is a mess and all the most vulnerable suffer because of it.
It is wild how UK politics continues to be an absolute clown show.
I bet Larry’s glad to see her go too.
Awful person. Hopefully they don’t bring BoJo the clown back.
Larry for PM!
there’s already a meme of him out front of #10 behind a tiny podium! but I doubt Larry is a tory.
“The lettuce won”! That was my reaction when i saw your post! Kaiser, you’re in rare form today 💀😂😂😂
Now, will they get someone halfway competent or continue the race to the bottom?
Someone on our street WhatsApp posted about the lettuce and another neighbour commented ‘bloody Romainers’. Outstanding.
I’m glad there’s humour to be had here as the situation is so dire I could cry. She’s completely stuffed the economy and there’s no way a Tory will call an election now, they will cling on to their last gasp. We may have lost our second Liz in as many months but we’re stuck with the Tories.
Only the majority party can call an election. And they’d probably lose *badly* if they did. Their best hope is finding someone who can hang oon even for 6 months or something and then call a GE if they can’t agree on someone for the next 2 years.
I saw a tweet where a man said his son had lived through four chancellors, three home secretaries, two prime ministers and two monarchs, and he’s only 4 months old. Good luck to the UK, it seems kind of insane that the party in power gets to call the shots of when to have an election. The idea of even possibly giving Republicans that power makes me shake.
I saw that too!
It’s quite wild over there right now. I’m not judging. I’m American. We had TRUMP and he still refuses to go away (or go to jail). But here’s hoping things stabilize after a new PM Is found. I’m concerned for the folks across the pond.
There is a backstop on the election, i.e. every 5 years. The Tories are just refusing to call an *early* election (which they have the power to do but would lose comprehensively).
They can’t stay in power forever. It does benefit them – they can call an election when they are doing well then hold on for 5 years after that but it’s not quite as bad as not having to call an election at all unless they feel like it.
I keep hearing that the point of a monarch in a modern world is to keep society steady, Trump would have never happened if the US had a monarch!
Just checking in to see how that is working out for Brits right now?
Before he retired, my dad worked for a European company & traveled a lot internationally. His European colleagues told him up & down that parliamentary systems were inherently more stable than our American system of governance. That seems…naive if not delusional.
@Lizzie Bathory
The Westminster system is a specific subset of parliamentary democracy, used only in the UK and Commonwealth (or post-Commonwealth) countries. First Past the Post elections and the conventions around parliamentary confidence *used* to produce consistently stable governments, while the proportional representation systems used in many European countries often generated fractious coalition governments that fell apart and had to be renegotiated.
This so no longer the case – and in fact it has flipped entirely in the last few decades. Even in Canada we have struggled to obtain a majority government in federal elections, and when we have it has been based on less than 50% of the popular vote.
In the UK, add the divisions around Brexit, tensions between Westminster and the 3 devolved assemblies (NO, Scotland and Wales), the unwritten constitution, and economic policy driven entirely by political agendas … There is no hope of stability.
Hence why NI, Scotland, and Wales have deviated from the Westminster system altogether – they each use parliamentary systems based on PR, and with codified powers.
Colby, of course Trump would have happened. The Monarchy would be conservative and Trump would have looked really good. I doubt stability would have happened from that.
What a damn mess! That’s all I can manage.
Re: Lucys comment, that is just shocking to me!
I live in USA and our politics and government have been terrible in so many, many ways and seems to me continues to be downhill.
I know a bit about UK but, I had no idea their gov’t was equally as messy as ours.
It’s because of the parliamentary system, where the party that wins the most seats takes over the entire government, unlike the American system of divided government.
We may very well be in this place after the November election here, because the Republicans have openly declared that next time they win power, they won’t be giving it up.
It does seem the Tories going completely off the rail was hastened by this new system of scheduled elections. They knew they had time before facing the electorate. They didn’t use it well.
“We may very well be in this place after the November election here, because the Republicans have openly declared that next time they win power, they won’t be giving it up.“
+1
I’m sure she’s grateful that she doesn’t have to curtesy to the King anymore. Pity nobody advised her that she could bow to him instead if she couldn’t curtesy. The tories say that they will be a new leader by next week. They’re going to have a one week leadership contest.
‘She was not prime minister for two menstrual cycles’, has me rotfl 🤣
Committing this to memory for when “the PM of the UK when Queen Elizabeth died” Is the Final Jeopardy question in 25 years. Tournament of Champions here I come!
“Damn was it Johnson or…wait, it was WHO?”
@Mia$s, it will be manifested.
This is a disaster! I feel for the British people. I can only hope my fellow Americans are paying attention to the mess the conservative party caused in the UK. Hopefully, we won’t make the same mistake in November.
Bwahahahaha! I’d quit too if even Larry the Cat dissed me daily… https://twitter.com/Number10cat?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
Oh dear oh dear 😂😂😂
Genuine question: did people start comparing her to lettuce because she’s known for talking in word salad?
Also, I saw a tweet saying something like “Breaking news: Ireland sells out of popcorn.”
Does this entitle her to life long police protection and a pension as a Prime Minister?
44 days is being generous to Truss. The Queen, in her final act of regal duty, gifted the country and “the Truss” her body. It was wrapped in a hiatus of 10 days of official mourning. She gave the country a reprieve from the Truss and gave Truss time to think. Basically Liz said to Liz “Haul & Pull Up Selector”.
I hope they don’t get Boris back because he was “not as bad.”
Four Scarramuchis! 😂🤣😂🤣