The problem with Liz Truss

Was it just me or was Liz Truss actually smirking during her statement outside Downing Street, the one littered with cliches about spades in the ground and wince-making turns of phrase like ‘aspiration nation’? Another two years of this PM talking about being ‘determined to deliver’ (deliver what, Liz?) is going to be really hard going. 

Just listen to her. Look at her. Is this really the best that we can get from a country of 67 million people? Liz Truss? Can even the most blinkered Conservative find any actual eloquence or charm of manner; or sincerity in the fashion of Theresa May, charisma like Tony Blair, or humour in the way of Boris Johnson, or conviction like Gordon Brown’s, rather than the hard delivery, in her flat, unmodulated accent, that is designed to convey conviction? What is there about the woman that made them fall for her, those Tory members and MPs, other than the single redeeming circumstance that she’s not Penny Mordaunt? An effective communicator like Nicola Sturgeon? Nope.