Yesterday, Keir Starmer said the words I didn’t want to hear. “Things are shit. In fact, they’re even more shit than I thought they were. I mean, so shit that we are going to have to make DIFFICULT DECISIONS.” Aargh. Difficult decisions. That’s usually code for making poor people poorer. A Labour prime minister can’t do that and of course he won’t. But he has to do something because, after 14 long years of Tory government, the economy is in a mess. Something has to be done.
Keir didn’t actually use those exact words, but my version is near enough. I have faith in him and this new government and I believe he will sort this country out. And one thing he won’t do is what our former prime minister Liz Truss suggested doing when she crashed the economy with her barmy idea to embark on £45 billion of unfunded tax cuts to the very rich. According to Anthony Seldon’s new book Truss at 10: How not to be Prime Minister -“fair and damning” says Tory peer Danny Finkelstein – Truss suggested withdrawing cancer care on the NHS.
If you think Seldon is making this shit up, then read this quote from her chancellor (Kami)Kwasi Kwarteng: “I wasn’t involved in any conversations about restricting healthcare, but that doesn’t mean that the prime minister and her team didn’t discuss this.” Even this comment I found astonishing. I would have expected Kwarteng to have said, unequivocally, that Truss could not possibly have suggested sending thousands of people to their deaths, but he didn’t. This suggests to me that either he thinks she’s barking or evil. Or maybe both.
This is such a big issue that Truss should be challenged by a real journalist about this issue. Is it true, or isn’t it? Did she, seriously, suggest ending NHS cancer care? Because this matters. We do not want the interviewer to come from a ‘client’ journalist from a Tory puppet media outlet like the Mail or the Sun, or even GB News. We need a proper journalist to act without fear or favour and to confirm what Seldon’s sources have told him. And here’s why it matters.
Truss had the support of much of the parliamentary Tory party, as well as with the Tory membership who elected her and much of the press. You are not seriously going to tell me that none of them knew what Truss was suggesting? I won’t believe a word.
Now, the woman who would have sentenced cancer victims to death, if this story holds up, is fêted by the American alt right, the crackpots and conspiracy loons on the fringes of politics, out there are alongside the likes of Alex Jones and Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. This woman was prime minister of our green and pleasant land. How?
Things are indeed shit and they could have been shitter but for the events of 4th July 2024. Our country will take a decade, maybe even longer, to recover from the crazy days of Truss, Johnson and then Sunak but at the very least I do not expect the most vulnerable people in the land to be cast aside and abandoned. Truss literally thought about doing that in order to make the rich richer. Now, journos, hold her to account. Do your jobs. For once.
