Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss has developed a reputation for utter uselessness that is as well-deserved as any in Westminster – but she appears to have become the Tories’ ‘go to’ spokesperson to defend their towering Universal Credit (UC) SNAFU (‘situation normal – all f***ed up’ – and for this Tory government it really is normal).
Just over a week ago, Ms Truss was a deer in the headlights at the Tory conference in Manchester where, when challenged over the disaster of thousands of people in desperate hardship because of UC delays, she answered that it couldn’t be so bad because her experience when she visited a Jobcentre had been positive.
Today, she appeared on the BBC’s Daily Politics programme. Again the topic was UC – and again she was clueless – completely unable to give a meaningful answer to Andrew Neil’s question about why the government was charging people with low incomes and potentially no income 55p a minute for calls to try to sort out their missing benefits:
The nearest she got to an answer was:
We’re moving to a new model of the way we support people. It’s much more interventionist, it’s much more about helping people get into work.
Which – you’ll have noticed as a sensible reader – has nothing to do with why the Tories are gouging desperate people by 55p a minute to call a helpline that they only need to call because the Tories have left them with no money. Her suggestion of attending the local Jobcentre instead of calling showed an utter ignorance of real life – even if the Tories weren’t closing many of them.
Last week, Ms Truss looked like a deer in the headlights. This week, deer in the headlights would have looked with horror on her performance. Fair play to Andrew Neil, who saw her on a hook and made her squirm.
Truss umm-ed and aah-ed, stammered and stuttered – and at one point lost her train of thought completely and was barely able to finish a sentence.
As Twitter user Sean Kelly pointed out, if Truss had been Diane Abbott, she’d have been the half-hourly headline on the BBC News channel all day and a topic of discussion on all the radio shows in the morning:
https://twitter.com/no1jib/status/918127873004916736
It’s fashionable for the ‘MSM’ (mainstream media) to blame the independent media for the fact that public trust in mainstream news and comment has collapsed.
But the fact that Truss won’t be a figure of mockery and disdain – for her second ‘car-crash’ in a week – in the way that Diane Abbott was for one poor interview tells you all you need to know about the institutional bias – and in Ms Abbott’s case, racism – that underpins the editorial decisions of the ‘MSM’.
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Reblogged this on SidLabour.
It is interesting that the media, the right wing of the Labour Party and the Conservatives constantly accuse the Labour Party of racism, misogyny and homophobia when they are daily practitioners of the very behaviour they accuse others of.
Diane Abbott’s treatment is a case in point. Recent research highlighted that Diane received over half of the racist, women hating abuse on twitter that came from right wing trolls, who were incited and emboldened by the racist and sexist MSM. lt certainly did not come from those on the left who hold Diane in very high regard.
Another example of the hypocricy and racism of the Tories and right wing of the Labour Party was of course the Yemen motion.
After numerous accusations of anti-semitism being levelled at Labour members, without a corresponding level of evidence being provided to support those accusations, the Tories and Labour right wing exposed their true colours by not supporting the motion. By doing so they stood shoulder to shoulder with the headchopping, anti-semitic, homophobic Saudi dictatorship.
Not only do these right wing extremists support the anti-semitic Saudi regime, they also support apartheid states.
There is no place in the Labour Party for these racist right wing Labour MPS.
I think I’ll send Jeremy * Vine an email asking him to repeat the interview over and over again. He and his producers are bound to agree because they are totally unbiased and neutral as we know…er.
* Jezzer didn’t know how books are arranged or categorised in a library.Despite having a second class degree in English I think. This is not a joke, I heard him live on air asking a librarian to explain it to him.
He then has the gall to mock on air, a woman who has Ist division degree in law from Oxford for forgetting a few figures. It seems now that this grumpy old git who left school at 15 is not as ignorant as he thought. Well, at least not when compared to the BBC top talented journalists.
You could tell she was getting desperate when she resorted to bare-faced lying. Of course she DOESN’T have people in her constituency telling her they think UC is wonderful, as she claimed. They know when they’re getting shafted!
Our Dominick House Job Centre in Wallasey closed around the time of my MP Angela Eagle’s bogus allegations of bullying, intimidation and homophobia against her CLP colleagues (who are still suspended – for no reason – because all the charges were dreamt up out of thin air and later collapsed).
The job centre had been there for over 40 years and she did the sum total of nothing to prevent its closure. Just dressed in shocking pink and made a public fool of herself with a set like the perfume counter terror at John Lewis.
The only person who deserves to be unemployed in Wallasey is A. Eagle, but luckily for her, the Corbyn charge has secured her another 5 years on £80k +.
And she didn’t have it in her to even thank him.
Slightly off subject there, sorry, but for a bit of balance, Labour has its own Trusses to deal with.
“The job centre had been there for over 40 years and she did the sum total of nothing to prevent its closure.”
Quite correct. Swore she’d vote against student fees then changed her mind last minute and voted for them (When first introduced). Said she’d do everything in her power to prevent the Mersey tunnels from setting their own tolls (when first brought in, around 2004-5) – did sod all about it.
Now Wallasey JCP’s gone and she didn’t bat an eyelid. Not a peep. Given that the four bridges are out, people travelling to Price St JCP in Birkenhead from Seacombe/Egremont and New Brighton can’t use the more direct route, so have to use Duke St. bridge – and if that’s ‘up’ to let ships pass through the docks…
Strange really, when you think that one of the first labour MP’s she had visiting the CLP after she took her seat was ‘Red’ Ken Livingstone…
Reblogged this on Life, Leeds United, the Universe & Everything and commented:
Awful, awful, awful. Yet another Tory rabbit caught in the headlights. Utterly clueless and equally hopeless.
Reblogged this on sdbast.
Reblogged this on idontbelieveitagain and commented:
Crisis? What crisis!
Does this stupid woman not know that you can`t just walk into a job centre??….the security pounce as soon as you walk in the door…you have to phone to get an appointment :-/
What planet is this creature living on?
sad scapegoat
I SAW BOTH, MAY AND TRUSS TALKING CRAP!
MAY STILL BANGING ON ABOUT ANTISEMITISM AT THE LABOUR CONFERENCE!
“LIES”, THAT’S ALL THE TORIES KNOW!
A couple of weeks ago I got a letter from the DWP informing me that an appointment had been fixed for me to interviewed by my ” Back-to-Work ” advisor, this is after being found to be ” Fit-for-work ” medical examination that would be best described as being ” preemptory ” in both its nature and its execution. They informed me that, because of one of the diagnoses that have submitted stated that I suffer badly with stress. They chose to ignore piddling ailments such as temporal lobe epilepsy. The interview would have been conducted via the phone and would last for upwards of sixty minutes. I was not happy.
She is apparently unaware that if you simply walk into the Jobcentre of the street wanting advice, they will give you a leaflet with the phone numbers and tell you you will only be seen in the office with a prior appointment. Guess where you get any appointments arranged yep on the telephone.No jobcentre i know has an advice desk that actually talk to you about problems they simply hand out the leaflets.
I’m convinced the Tories have a ‘most blatant liar’ competition going on.
Whoever makes the most people choke on tea and disbelief – wins.
She wasn’t clueless though, she knew it was indefensible & just didn’t want to answer. Like the Maybot, just keep repeating the pre-programmed sentence & hope they’ll get tired of asking about it, or run out of time. You could see her eyes darting around in panic though, looking for a way out.
Remember when we laughed at michael felon for his stumbling, bumbling idiocy in interviews, pre-election?
We thought there couldn’t be anyone worse for them to wheel out…Still, the MSM seems to think it’s ok to only go so far. When’s ANY of these ‘journalists’ gonna be ruthless enough to ask them if they’re ill – like diane abbott was when she had her ‘episode’?