Skip to main content

Liz Truss is apparently too mad even for a rightwing US audience | John Crace

Former PM’s speech to the Heritage Foundation declares just about everyone alive be part of a communist conspiracy

It was a sight for sore eyes. At least for any speaker who has turned up to an event to discover the organisers easily outnumber the audience. In an anonymous, windowless room in Washington DC, there were just a handful of people seated around a couple of circular tables for the latest session hosted by the rightwing – and conspiracy theory adjacent – US thinktank, the Heritage Foundation. Let’s hope there were rather more watching online.

This is Liz Truss’s safe space. America, her last refuge. A nation that regards her 49-day tenure as prime minister a badge of honour rather than a sign of failure. In the UK, no one wants to know Liz any more. The Tory party just wish she would crawl under a stone. She’s the source of much of their embarrassment. Nor could her former constituents wait to see the back of her. Her loss was Norfolk’s gain. But in the US, she still has some credibility among the far right. She still matters.

Taking the Lead by John Crace is published by Little, Brown (£18.99). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

Continue reading...

from The Guardian https://ift.tt/xM9At1f

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How Rico Lewis helped harden up Manchester City’s treble challenge | Jamie Jackson

Guardiola believes advent of the teenage talent sowed seeds of change that turned his side into champions again Mid-January, the Etihad Campus. Before Tottenham’s visit a discontented Pep Guardiola is addressing a Manchester City team meeting that includes Erling Haaland, Kevin De Bruyne, John Stones and Ederson. The champions are in second place, eight points behind Arsenal, each having played 18 games. Performances have dipped and so has the attitude of his players. The final match before the World Cup was a 2-1 home defeat by Brentford . Since the tournament, City have beaten Leeds and Chelsea, drawn with Everton and lost their previous outing , 2-1 at Manchester United. Seven points from 15 is not championship-defending form and, when being knocked out of the Carabao Cup by Southampton is factored in, Guardiola can see City’s campaign derailing. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/h8WjbMX

Wandsworth escape accused says it was ‘foolish’ to jail him with his ‘skill set’

Daniel Khalife, 23, says he absconded because he was ‘terrified’ of being locked up with dangerous offenders A former British soldier has told a jury he did not hand himself in after he escaped from prison because he was “finally demonstrating what a foolish idea it was” to imprison someone with his “skill set”. Daniel Khalife, 23, told the court he absconded from Wandsworth prison while on remand because he was “terrified” of being locked up with “serious sex offenders” and “terrorists” who wanted to kill him, and that he did not think his imprisonment would be in the public interest. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/vRZHkaw

Bodies of Men: the love story taking on toxic masculinity in a time of war

Nigel Featherstone’s new novel tackles traditional conservatism and patriarchy through an unconventional romance How can you be a man and be anti-war? This is the question that Sydney-born novelist Nigel Featherstone, who is a pacifist, considered while he took up a three-month writing residency in a military library. He set out to discover what happens to very different expressions of masculinity placed under military pressure. “Australia does have a very defined, toxic brand of masculinity,” says the bespectacled Featherstone, seated by the window at his local pub facing the railway station at Goulburn, north of Canberra, while men on stools at the nearby bar sink beers and televisions on the walls screen horse racing results. Continue reading... from The Guardian http://bit.ly/2N8piOc