'I have suffered': Ex-British PM laments tabloid comparing her brief tenure to aging lettuce

19 June 2023

The United Kingdom's shortest-serving former Prime Minister Liz Truss revealed that she disapproves of having her tenure compared to a head of lettuce, Politico reported on Monday.

"I don't think it was particularly funny, I think it's puerile," Truss said of The Daily Star's now-infamous livestream in an interview with Irish broadcaster RTÉ at the European Broadcasting Union’s NewsXchange conference in Dublin.

Truss, Politico recalled, "crashed out of office after 44 days while the lettuce was still going strong."

According to The Guardian, Truss complained that "UK media were focused overly on trivialities, and did not properly understand economics – especially the sort of small-state, low-tax economics she espoused in her disastrous, sub-50-day period" in Number 10 Downing Street.

"If I've got a criticism of the media, there's too much focus on the people and seeing it as a sort of entertaining story to follow … rather than discussions of the ideas. And I particularly find that true on economics," Truss said. "Did I and my colleagues get everything perfect about communication? No, we didn't. But I think we’re operating in an environment where the economic ideas that I believe in are not widely understood."

But Truss also praised the renowned tenacity of British news organizations.

“Certainly, when I went to international summits I would get a lot of sympathy from politicians from other countries who were saying: ‘My God, your press – what are those people like!'" Truss said. "I think the irreverence of the media in Britain is a good thing on the whole. Although I have suffered, personally, from it, I'd rather live in a country where there is a robust debate than what the alternatives look like."

Politico's report continues at this link. The Guardian's is here.

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