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Rod Liddle

Few people wanted Liz Truss as PM but no one wanted Jeremy Hunt so how’s he calling the shots?

HOW the hell did this happen?

You wake up one morning and suddenly a bloke called Jeremy Hunt is running the country.

Why is Jeremy Hunt now the person running the country?
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Why is Jeremy Hunt now the person running the country?Credit: Reuters
Few people wanted Liz Truss as Prime Minister but no one wanted Hunt
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Few people wanted Liz Truss as Prime Minister but no one wanted HuntCredit: The Mega Agency

We thought we had a useless woman in charge of us.

But no, we’ve got a useless man instead.

Hunt is the Chancellor and he’s calling all the shots.

Liz Truss’s plans have been torn up into small sheets and left in the downstairs privy.

READ MORE ON JEREMY HUNT

Truss is still Prime Minister — in name.

Not for long, I would guess.

Here’s the double wham- my. Nobody really wanted Liz Truss to be Prime Minister. The opinion polls didn’t.

The Conservative MPs didn’t.

And — before it was down to just her against slippery Rishi Sunak — nor did the party members.

She was a bodge job. The least bad of two pretty grim options.

The WRONG option, as it transpired.

But here’s the thing.

Even FEWER wanted Jeremy Hunt.

He came right at the bottom of the leadership poll. He was evicted before most people knew it had started.

He was in the race for a shorter period of time than Kaye and Kai in Strictly. And for good reason.

He is a fervent Remainer and on the Left of the party.

That holds no attraction for the millions who switched to voting Conservative in those Red Wall seats last time around.

He is possibly the last person in the entire party who could help the Tories win next time.

So, now all those tax cuts have been binned. And it will be hard for any Conservative to suggest cutting tax in the future.

Instead we’re looking at cuts to public services — never a popular move.

But then there’s what to do about benefits. Hunt will be under pressure from the other lefties in the party.

He will be told that benefits for the unemployed must be pegged to inflation.

We must not hurt the “vulnerable”.

Listen, Jezza. It would be a downright crime to increase benefits in line with inflation.

We have soaring inflation and a low-wage economy.

Millions of WORKING people are struggling to get by on money that reduces in value every month.

'WRONG MESSAGE'

They do not have the luxury of their wages rising in pace with inflation.

If you raise benefits in line with inflation that means a ten per cent rise.

Imagine how those who are working will take that!

They may well come to the conclusion that it’s not really worth going to work after all.

And here we are in a country with a SHORTAGE of labour.

Raising benefits sends out entirely the wrong message.

Plus, Mr Hunt — you can’t afford it.

If you can’t afford to lower the taxes for those who DO work, you certainly shouldn’t be splashing the dosh on those who do not.

The Government has become an utter shambles.

It would not surprise me to wake up tomorrow morning and find another bellend deciding he is now the Prime Minister.

Never has a Government fallen so swiftly and needlessly.

No wonder Sir Keir Starmer — and Boris Johnson, for that matter — are laughing their socks off.

Me, I’m not laughing any more. Every time you think things can’t get worse, they sure as hell do.

And, like me, plenty of Tory voters will be thinking: “Could Sir Keir REALLY do worse than this?”

CIGS IN CAR NO CRIME

DO hope Health Secretary Therese Coffey sticks to her plan of scrapping the proposed legislation to ban smoking in cars.

Chain-smoking while driving is such a useful way of keeping the kids quiet on long journeys.

Lets hope Health Secretary Therese Coffey sticks to her plan of scrapping the proposed legislation to ban smoking in cars
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Lets hope Health Secretary Therese Coffey sticks to her plan of scrapping the proposed legislation to ban smoking in carsCredit: Getty

And even more effective when you explain to them that the window button doesn’t work.

They gasp and cough for a while and then drift off – it’s the carbon monoxide, I suppose.

OK, I’m (largely) joking. But as someone who gave up cigarettes a year or so ago the continued spite directed towards people who still do smoke annoys me no less than before.

I am no libertarian, but if there was ever a personal space that should be sacrosanct, it’s the inside of a car.

I SEE Spain is releasing loads of lynx into the wild.

Other countries seem to have no problem with rewilding.

But not us. A few bison and beavers and that’s yer lot.

When are we going to get with the programme?

FRIGHT FLIGHTS

AIRLINES beware!

A woman has finally been bunged a wodge of compensation for being sat in between two vast, sweating, lard-buckets on a flight.

Sydney Watson has finally been compensated for being sat in between two overweight passengers on a flight
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Sydney Watson has finally been compensated for being sat in between two overweight passengers on a flightCredit: Instagram/sydneywatson__

Sydney Watson complained to American Airlines – but at first they told her to get stuffed.

Now they’ve caved in.

And with any luck more people will complain about being sat next to people the size of Majorca.

If you don’t fit in the seat, you should pay for another one.

Now all we need is for airlines to start fining the dim-witted, selfish Orcs who put their seats back on a one-hour flight.

For some reason, I’m always sat behind them.

And for some reason, they always end up with chewing gum in their hair.

ARCHAEOLOGISTS claim to have found Father Christmas’s grave.

They located the tomb of St Nicholas in TURKEY.

What’s all that about? Was he on one of those all-inclusive holiday deals in Olu Deniz and copped a dodgy lamb kofte?

Don’t trust these so-called experts. The bloke lives at the North Pole, as everybody knows.

With elves and reindeer and stuff.

And of course he’s still alive and will be down your chimney all too soon.

Unless you’re in Turkey.

He should give them a miss this year for bad behaviour.

MEG NOW WOKE JOKE

MEGHAN MARKLE has been telling everybody that she left Deal Or No Deal because she felt she was portrayed as a bimbo.

Yeah, good call, Meghan.

Meghan Markle has been telling everybody that she left Deal Or No Deal because she felt she was portrayed as a bimbo
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Meghan Markle has been telling everybody that she left Deal Or No Deal because she felt she was portrayed as a bimboCredit: NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via

Now you’re portrayed, accurately enough, as a vacuous, grasping witch of wokeness.

Glad you seem to like that better.

We’d have preferred it if you’d have stayed in your old job.

THE problem of fly-tipping is getting worse and worse. Especially in the South East.

We need tougher penalties for those who do it. Such as confiscating their lucky heather, or something.

But this problem has been caused by local councils making it harder – and more expensive – to dump rubbish.

It may be an inconvenient fact for eco-warriors, but people still need to get rid of stuff.

And better they do so legally, rather than blighting the countryside.

T**T'S NOT ON

I AM 62 years old and have come to understand many of life’s mysteries.

I know why stars in the night sky twinkle and how swallows navigate their way thousands of miles from Africa every Spring.

James Corden has been in trouble this week for his rude behaviour at a restaurant
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James Corden has been in trouble this week for his rude behaviour at a restaurantCredit: Getty

But one big mystery remains unsolved and I fear that I will NEVER find the answer.

That is, why would anybody voluntarily watch anything with James Corden in it?

I would rather read my own death certificate.

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The great smirking ball of smugness has been in trouble for acting like a t**t in a restaurant.

I have only one thing to say. How, exactly, did you expect him to act?

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