Seems she hasn’t impressed in her first two months as Justice Secretary
The new Justice Secretary, Liz Truss, has come under fire this week from current affairs magazine Private Eye.
Though Truss’s appointment as Justice Secretary has certainly been controversial from the start (many took issue with her lack of legal training and experience), as far as resentment for the Lord Chancellor goes, we’re yet to come across anything quite as scathing as an article featuring in Private Eye this week.
The piece, titled ‘CALLED TO ORDURE’, begins with this rather complimentary line:
Claims that Theresa May has no sense of humour are clearly wrong. Why else would she have made Liz Truss the Lord Chancellor?
Ouch — but it gets worse.
Referring to Truss’s recent performance at the House of Commons justice committee, for which she was mocked on social media, the article continues:
Truss’s first appearance at the Commons select committee on justice was a wondrous affair — wondrously, laughably, absurdly bad, that is. She plainly knows bugger-all about her departmental brief.
The piece goes on to look at 41-year-old Truss’s answers to the committee’s questions more specifically, and — you’ve guessed it — the author wasn’t full of praise. The South West Norfolk MP reportedly “began with waffle”, wittered, had “nothing to say” on basic issues and couldn’t answer “gentle” questions.
Later, the article lambasts Truss for resorting to “long silences” and “sickly” smiles when asked questions by the committee about the prison-reform bill, which — despite being mentioned in the Queen’s Speech — the Justice Sec “hinted” would be abandoned.
The piece ends with a rather disconcerting plea:
Once May has had her little joke, can she not restore Michael Gove to this important government job before our already imperilled prisons system explodes?
Oh dear.