Carlos FresnedaLondon Correspondent
London Correspondent
Updated Monday, February 12, 2024-01:41
Patio Global The candidate against 'Putin's war' who turned out to be too popular
Conservative populists
could not find a more unpopular leader
.
And yet, there was Liz Truss, the
premier
of the 45 days, with a popularity rating of less than 54% in the polls, emulating Donald Trump in her resounding way and dividing her own followers from the starting line. .
The timing could not have been worse, with the country in a state of shock due to Carlos III's cancer. Although the biggest mistake was the name chosen, Popular Conservatism, or rather the abbreviation,
PopCons
, which sounds like popcorn and has lent itself to all kinds of memes, jokes and mockery...
"It's time to grab the popcorn and see how the drama ends now that
Liz Truss
wants to take advantage of the
Tories
' travails ," wrote Tom Peck in
The Times
. " Truss
PopCons
have a hard shell, but it will never expand, it will swell and burst when it gets hot," warned Boris Johnson's sister, Rachel Johnson, in
The Evening Standard
.
"I don't get invited to dinner much lately," admitted Liz Truss herself at the launch of the
PopCons
in
London
at the time of establishing herself as the standard-bearer of the
anti-woke
cause , and attacking "the left-wing extremists" who are gripping British society, against "the environmentalists" and against "those who support the LGBT community or ethnic minority groups."
At his side, the former Minister for Brexit Opportunities, Jacob Rees-Mogg, went even further and proclaimed "the end of Davos man" (in direct reference to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak) and demanded lower taxes, a line even tougher against immigration and the abandonment of the
European Convention on Human Rights
.
Of the four star speakers in the
PopCons chupinazo, two were dropped at the last minute: former minister Simon Clarke (for daring to directly ask for
Sunak
's resignation
) and former Environment Minister Ranil Malcolm Jayawardena, replaced at the last minute by the young promising neopopulist Mhairi Fraser, who said "she does not see
Russia
as a natural enemy."
Trump
's great friend
Nigel Farage also dropped by the event as a journalist for the GB News network, the local version of Fox News, in this British replica of the hardline Republican wing that could not find a better rallying cry: "
The battle begins
."
Liz Truss herself appealed to "the secret conservatives" who do not dare to confess their electoral preferences, as if the
Tories
had not been in government for 14 years, half of them throwing their weight at their heads and offering the world a tragicomedy that it doesn't stop
As in
Game of Thrones
, traditionally there was talk of the
five families
of the
Tories
, almost all of them on the right wing:
New Conservatives
,
European Research Group
,
Commonsense Group
,
Conservative Growth Group
... The moderates of
One Nation
(preaching something like this like Bob Marley's
One Love
) continue to attend, stupefied, at this constant crackling that has entertained the British, suddenly interested in the mysterious process of popcorn...
"When the corn reaches 60 degrees, the starch absorbs moisture. As the temperature increases, that water evaporates and the pressure increases. When it reaches 180 degrees, the pressure is so great that the casing can no longer hold it and... Pop!"