Liz Truss has caused a fuss again, this time during an interview with American commentator Ben Shapiro.

The crucial bit comes a little over three minutes in, when Shapiro begins to criticise the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony. Why did a nation that “built the modern world”, he demands, choose to celebrate the NHS? Of course, here he omits to mention that the spectacle also included England’s green and pleasant land, William Shakespeare, the Industrial Revolution, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Winston Churchill, James Bond and Queen Elizabeth II.

Unfortunately, instead of correcting Shapiro’s limited recollection, Truss declared that “the views expressed in the Olympic ceremony are not the views of the average Briton.” Yet this seems to contradict her own history. After all, at the time she praised the ceremony as “seamless”. And in 2019, she’s quoted in the Sunday Telegraph as saying: “We need to revive what I call the Olympics 2012 spirit [with] a modern, patriotic, enterprising vision of Britain.”

It’s yet another unfortunate Truss performance — and there have been quite enough of those. Previous episodes include her Trumpist turn at a CPAC conference, the loss of her seat in last year’s general election, and the sabotage of her stage show in Beccles last year. While it’s easy to dismiss Truss as a figure of fun, she really ought not to be. Yes, she was only prime minister for 49 days, but that was after 10 years in ministerial jobs including serving as foreign secretary. Far from rising to the top without a trace, she’s one of the most experienced politicians of the 21st century.

Nor did her economic policies come out of nowhere. Indeed, the 2022 Tory leadership contest, which she won, was a feeding frenzy of tax-cutting promises. Even Rishi Sunak, supposedly the cautious candidate, said that he wanted to take 4p off the standard rate of income tax by the end of the current parliament — a position that now looks insanely optimistic. One might also mention that three senior members of the current shadow cabinet — Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly, and Chris Philp — served in the Truss cabinet.

So it really won’t do for the Conservatives to look the other way while a former leader is humbled. At the very least, they should care about the dignity of her former office.

Truss is entitled to work the circuits of the Right-wing entertainment complex if that is what she wants, but where will it end? It’s a distant parallel, but I can’t help but think of Harold Davidson (otherwise known as the Rector of Stiffkey), an Anglican clergyman who was defrocked in 1932. Following his downfall, he resorted to an increasingly bizarre series of sideshow performances until, five years later, he was mauled by a lion in Skegness.

That’s unlikely to happen to Truss, but she does need a role better suited to her talents. Tory donors could do worse than put up the funds for a serious policy project and ask her to head it up. In her first speech as PM, Truss promised “a bold plan to grow the economy through tax cuts and reform”. It was certainly bold, but her fatal error was to charge ahead with the tax cuts before developing the reforms. In particular, a programme for achieving permanent cuts to Government spending was missing. It still is.

Filling that void would be a challenge fit for a former prime minister who wants to change the system. Of course, given the political sensitivity of such work, a long period of radio silence would be required of her. But every cloud…

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Peter Franklin is Associate Editor of UnHerd. He was previously a policy advisor and speechwriter on environmental and social issues.

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