An incomplete list of things which failed British Prime Minister Liz Truss blames, hates or has threatened to abolish
Also this week: on the sociopathy of nations; on my grandfather, Wally; and an interactive map of British place names.
Andew Bailey, the governor of the bank of England.
The “global left”.
The “anti-growth coalition”.
The “blob of vested interests”.
The “economic establishment”.
“Groupthink”.
The “fragility of the markets”.
The “deep state”.
The “London elite”.
The “London dinner party circuit”.
“Woke culture”.
The “health police” (for the proposed smoking ban, not for her own miserable failure).
The "reaction from the political and economic establishment".
Liability Driven Investments (it’s something to do with pension funds).
Her chosen chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng.
The “global market".
National Insurance (though this was, to be fair, in 1997).
The wider public sphere (for failing to understand her).
Resistance from inside the Conservative parliamentary party.
Her own communication strategy (oooh, she almost blamed herself, but don't get excited, this was October 2022)
The people who blame her ("they're either very stupid or very malevolent").
The war in Ukraine.
Dilyn the Dog (well, technically she says that some blamed him for the flea infestation in Downing Street; she doesn’t actually exclude the possibility that she blames Carrie.)
More – quite possibly much more – to come.
This week’s self-indulgent book update
My paternal grandfather Walter Horsey was a big influence on my life. He introduced me to a lot of comedy, from James Thurber to Will Hay to Round the Horne, that I still think about now. He used to cut the work of columnists he thought I’d like out of the Times and save them for me, or record documentaries like Measure for Measure (on the history of measurement) or Tales from the Map Room (guess) for me. All these things were extremely obvious drivers of my interests and my work. The only piece of jewellery I wear is his signet ring which, since his middle name was Arthur, means I am at all times going round with the word “WAH” on the middle finger of my right hand. It feels oddly fitting.
Anyway. Something else Granddad Wally introduced me to was Stanfords in Covent Garden, which claims to be the world’s largest specialist map and travel bookshop. I remember him taking me there aged around 10, quite possibly on the same trip on which he took me to the London Transport Museum. If it was, that single day of my childhood is probably responsible for about 30% of my output in itself.
My grandfather has alas not been with us for quite a while – he died suddenly in December 2003, not quite a year after my grandmother Pat, at the age of 76. But yesterday I received an email telling me that Stanfords had chosen A History of the World in 47 Borders as its book for the month for May. And I felt momentarily emotional that I couldn’t tell my granddad.
Since I obviously can’t do that, instead I thought I’d tell you guys about how much I owe to him. Makes a change from just yelling, “Hey I’ve got a book out!” for the 2,000th time doesn’t it?
The book, you hardly need reminding at this stage, is officially out on 25 April, but unofficially available through Waterstones and associated bookshops right now. I really hope you like it.
On the sociopathy of nations
“Why me?” Liz Truss reports thinking, in a rare passage of her book which was widely circulated this week even though it doesn’t attempt to blame someone else for something. “Why now?”1
The event in question was the death of the Queen, on the third day of her record-breakingly brief premiership in the autumn of 2022 – and one reason for the widespread mockery (others are available) is that the death of one of the most famous people in the world at the age of 96 was not, in fact, about Liz Truss. Writer Paul Kirkley – whose history of Doctor Who, Space Helmet for a Cow, is very good if you’re into that sort of thing – pointed out that this is the exact sentiment expressed, when her husband is diagnosed with cancer, by the lead character of the noughties BBC sitcom Night Nighty. “The joke is,” Paul noted, “she’s a sociopath.”2
I am not in the business of diagnosing former Prime Ministers based on badly written memoirs. But I’ve been thinking about that post a lot, because of the way Truss’s reaction is echoed by the reaction of a far wider group of people to something far more important.
On Saturday night, as you won’t have failed to notice, regional tensions in the Middle East rose yet further and Iran launched a direct attack on Israel. To me, this felt more like a tit-for-tat response to Israel’s earlier attack on the Iranian embassy in Damascus, rather than a genuine declaration of open war – there was, you notice, enough warning given to make sure that Israel’s allies had time to mobilise and make sure very few of the drones or missiles got through. But even that observation feels like I’m edging onto shaky ground: foreign policy, at least while it’s current rather than historic, is quite simply above my pay grade, a matter that got me in trouble on Iain Dale’s LBC show the other night. (“You’ve written a book about borders, and you’re not a foreign policy expert...?”)
Something that’s on exactly my level, though, is the way people behave on the internet, which is where the echoes of Liz Truss come in. Consider another social media post, this one on Bluesky, from an international relations professor at the University of Illinois:
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