It has also become the quintessential butt of British jokes, especially when The Economist newspaper (considered one of the world’s leading newspapers) compares it to a head of lettuce. featured news magazines) and The Daily Star, an entertainment-focused tabloid that bills itself as the “home of fun stuff” and regularly features scantily clad photos of celebrities.
The gag began in an article in The Economist that earlier this week nicknamed Truss “The Iceberg Lady”, bluntly predicting that her career has “the shelf life of a lettuce”.
By Friday, the Daily Star was offering its readers a live feed of a store-bought head of lettuce (worth 60 pence, just under a dollar, and with a shelf life of around 10 days). , placed next to a framed photograph of Truss, accompanied by the question: “Day One: Which moist lettuce will last the longest?”
Since then, the live-streamed Decline has drawn more than 350,000 viewers, as people tune in to see if Truss’s political career or salad staple (she briefly donned a wig and googly eyes) will expire faster. .
the daily star accused Truss of being a “lame prime minister” after a “chaotic day” on Friday as she fired his finance ministerKwasi Kwarteng, after just 38 days in office, has pivoted in fiscal policies in a bid to stabilize the faltering economy.
Kwarteng, who will go down in the history books as Britain’s second-shortest-serving Chancellor of the Exchequer, was also the subject of jokes in the British press, which noted that the shortest-serving Chancellor had died. (Iain Macleod in 1970 after 30 days on the job) instead of being fired.
On social media on Saturday, the hashtag “#lettuceliz” was gaining traction, with users not knowing whether to laugh or cry at the state of national affairs.
Some online complained that they had cheese in the fridge that had outlasted Kwarteng’s spell in office, while one transatlantic observer joked: “In the US we measure those things in Scaramuccis”, referring to Anthony Scaramucci, the short portions White House communications director, who lasted less than a week in the Trump administration.
The British Prime Minister he also faced criticism for holding an abnormally brief news conference after announcing Kwarteng’s departure on Friday, which lasted just eight minutes and 21 seconds.
The Daily Mail newspaper called the press conference a “car accident”, the cover of The Guardian denounced “A day of chaos”, while the Mirror tabloid simply He said “Time’s up.”
Meanwhile, Britain’s opposing political parties are calling a general election.
“Changing the chancellor does not undo the damage done in Downing Street. Liz Truss’s reckless approach has collapsed the economy, causing mortgages to skyrocket and undermining Britain’s position on the world stage.” said Labor leader Keir Starmer, whose party is enjoying a boost in opinion polls. “We need a change of government.”
The smallest Liberal Democrat Party repeated a similar sentiment: “Enough is enough. It started with Boris Johnson failing our country, and now Liz Truss has ruined our economy. It’s time for people to voice their opinion of her.”
Truss’s promise to cut taxes and maintain social programs simultaneously without heavy borrowing has left the market and members of his party reeling in recent weeks. sinking the pound and forcing the The Bank of England will make unprecedented interventions to quell the financial revolt.
He quickly replaced Kwarteng – who had been attending an International Monetary Fund meeting in Washington before frantically flying back to the UK – with a former foreign minister, Jeremy Hunt, who pledged on Saturday to restore economic credibility. . Hunt lost the Conservative Party leadership race to Johnson in 2019.
Truss also went back on one of his major campaign promises and will now allow corporate taxes to rise from 19 percent to 25 percent in April 2023, he said.
Like other nations in Europe, Britain is grappling with rising inflation, a cost-of-living crisis and multiple strikes by transport, health and postal workers, with some predicting a possible winter of discontent on the horizon.
the average price of lettuceAt least it hasn’t gone too bad.
Karla Adam and William Booth contributed to this report.