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!"