Liz Truss and the last straw

Oh dear. Although free-thinking Cabinet members are not hard to come by nowadays, Liz Truss still managed to cause a stir with her speech to the London School of Economics. Only it was notable not just for her defence of free markets and fiscal restraint but for what she didn’t say.

In the pre-released speech on the government website, Truss took a swipe at her Cabinet colleague Michael Gove over his plan to save turtles and ban plastic straws:

Only – despite the speech being pre-published – Truss appears to have decided it was a straw too far and taken the line out at the last minute. Happily, she was still okay criticising Gove’s department as a whole:

‘There’s enough hot air and smoke at the Environment Department already.’

Well, does get boring when it’s only Gavin Williamson and Boris Johnson causing trouble…