The greatest mystery of modern politics? Liz Truss’s self belief | Zoe Williams

Liz Truss’s memoir, Ten Years to Save the West, first penetrated the nation’s consciousness with her reflections on the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

Foreign Office officials are “salivating” over the idea of rebuilding a relationship with Europe, as if that’s the kind of thing a greedy hound would want.

President Biden, meanwhile – and I’d forgotten he did this, chapeau to the man – said on a visit to an ice-cream parlour in Oregon: “I wasn’t the only one that thought [the mini budget] was a mistake.” His motive?

Imagine the unstoppable force of popular will if everyone in the US realised at once that, using only the simple measure of taxing rich people less, their public finances, too, could be as wrecked as ours.

Thank goodness rightness can be passed on through the generations, but it was too little (one 13-year-old), and a lot too late (Truss had already decided to resign).

That she is still talking at all is a bit of a riddle, but the fathomlessness of Truss’s self-belief is the greatest mystery of modern politics.