Steerpike

It's the age-old dilemma for a media advisor when your politician is in a jam. How do you get out of doing an interview you really don't want to do? Liz Truss's former spad Kirsty Buchanan gave us an answer to that question to this morning when she revealed to the Whitehall Sources podcast just how her minister used to evade appearances on Question Time back when she was running the Ministry of Justice: Liz Truss when I worked for her, she obviously didn't like the media so we used to spend quite a lot of time making up excuses and killing off minor members of her family so that she didn't have to go on Question Time... we ran out of excuses to go on Question Time so eventually we had to do it. I mean minor people like aunts and cousins and things.

It seems it's a day for chatty rats in politics. First, longtime Hunt ally Steve Brine went on Politics Live and inadvertently called the Chancellor a 'fantastic Prime Minister.' And now, Michael Gove has told the JLA Speakers Bureau that the country is 'going through hell' and that 'all of us are going to face a hell of a lot of pain in the next two months.' Gee, tell us what you're really thinking, eh, Michael? In remarks reported by the Guardian, Gove told the event's host Sangita Myska that she was 'absolutely right' that it was 'no longer a question of whether Liz Truss goes but when.

Hear Ye Hear Ye! The news today has broken that Kanye West – who calls himself Ye – has bought Parler, the Trumpist social media platform. The news was announced earlier by Parler CEO George Farmer, the son of Lord Farmer, the Conservative peer. ‘This deal will change the world and change the way the world thinks about free speech,’ said George. Farmer is also the husband of Candace Owens, the American MAGA celebrity, who appears to have been an important influence – is muse the right word? – in Ye’s conversion away from Hollywood La La Land and towards Trump-infused right-nationalist populism. Candace and Kanye both recently appeared together wearing ‘White Lives Matter’ T-shirts.

In office, Liz Truss promised to be the 'disruptor in chief'. Unfortunately, most of that disruption has proved to be in the markets and the polls as her short-lived revolution tanked the standing of both her currency and her party. With Labour and mortgage rates on the rise, Truss's authority has disappeared within days. She's been forced to ditch her ideological soulmate Kwasi Kwarteng for Jeremy Hunt, the embodiment of Tory orthodoxy, and is now very much a prisoner of her party as they try to find someone – anyone – who can dig them out of their self-inflicted mess. Most of these discussions are happening behind closed doors as MPs weigh up their various options: a coronation or a contest? Ben or Boris? A fresh face or old?

In politics, where there’s death, there’s life. And as Liz Truss’s premiership crumbles before our eyes, all attention in SW1 is which lucky legislator gets to replace her. Second time Sunak? The people’s Penny? Back again Boris? Or perhaps the man who many wanted to run this summer but ended up dropping out: Ben Wallace, the popular Defence Secretary.  The former Scots Guards officer has been a long-standing fixture at the top of the ConservativeHome Cabinet rankings but opted to back Liz Truss in July rather than run himself. Instead, he extracted a pledge from the Trussette to raise defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP by 2030 - a pledge that appears to be in danger after Jeremy Hunt’s media round this morning.

Kwasi Kwarteng, we hardly knew ye. After 38 days, the Chancellor was unceremoniously axed from his post today as Liz Truss desperately tries to rescue her crumbling premiership. Memorable highlights of his five-week stint include the mini-Budget, firing Tom Scholar and being mistaken for Bernard Mensah. Indeed, the official mourning period appears in retrospect to have been the honeymoon of his tenure. Kwarteng and Truss were elected to parliament on the same day and have been close friends for more than a decade. They were co-authors, co-founders and successive leaders of the Free Enterprise Group, allies through the long years of May and Johnson. And yet that didn't stop her from sacking him as her no 2 and the next-door neighbour.

There’s not much for the Tories to cheer about at the moment but there was little sign of the blues last night in Leicester Square. Members of Rishi Sunak’s campaign packed out the Londoner Hotel to toast their king over the water with glasses of English sparkling wine. In what his supporters insist was an event long in the diary, MPs, spinners and activists gathered to hear the man himself give a belated thanks to all those who had backed him. Fresh off the back of his Treasury farewell on Wednesday night, Sunak was on his best behaviour, declining the chance to declare vindication at his triumphant rival’s recent woes.