“Er…” The prime minister stared out across the assembled ranks of the press, looking for a friendly face. Or at least a familiar one. She had just announced she was sacking her chancellor and tearing up his plans — their plans.  In the circumstances, it was hardly surprising that Downing Street’s Allegra Stratton Memorial Briefing Suite was packed. Hands were up everywhere. After five long, painful seconds, she saw a possible lifeline. “Harry Cole.”

The Sun’s political editor, who has just finished writing a book about the rise of Liz Truss, arguably has a financial interest in keeping her in post at least until the tome is in the shops. Although if he has a mortgage the cost-benefit calculation of her survival may be a complicated one. In any case, he did his duty by the public. “You and the chancellor — the ex-chancellor — designed this budget together,” he pointed out. “He has to go because of the fallout out from it. How come you get to stay?”

That was, very much, the question. Friday was, for those of us who aren’t Conservative MPs, a highly enjoyable day. We woke to news that Kwasi Kwarteng was flying home early from Washington. By mid-morning, we’d learned he was being sacked. Not long afterwards, he’d found out as well. At lunchtime we had his letter — “You have asked me to stand aside” — and her reply — “I deeply respect your decision today”. As ever with Truss, it was hard to shake the thought that she is writing these things, and indeed speaking to us, from a parallel universe where things are very subtly different. 

Truss may not last much longer herself

If it’s astonishing that Kwarteng served just 38 days in office, it’s even more amazing that Truss may not last much longer herself. Throwing one of her very closest political allies overboard was a first step towards saving her own skin, but it wasn’t going to do the job on its own. She would need to find some kind of narrative that explained why she was now going to be able to turn her entire project on its head. That she had been wrong before, and was right now, but this reversal didn’t disqualify her from her job. 

Is there anyone who could have pulled that off? Truss certainly couldn’t. Instead she trotted out her familiar story about how she became a Conservative because she’d been horrified by the way her neighbourhood was destroyed by Margaret Thatcher — it’s possible that this bit makes sense in Truss’s universe — and then announced that she was “incredibly sorry” to lose “the former Chancellor”. She couldn’t even say his name.

So Cole’s question was the right one: how can she stay when he’s going? She didn’t answer it. “My priority is making sure that we deliver the economic stability that our country needs,” she said. In the Trussverse, is the economy stable? Because it’s not stable in the reality that the rest of us are experiencing. 

It was a sad, flat performance. At times she seemed to be reading her statement against her will. It wouldn’t have been a shock if she had added that the civil service was treating her well and we should agree to their demands. She tried to emphasise points by waving her hands as though she were holding a box of something deeply suspect — a ticking bomb, or some UK government debt.

“Um,” she went on, and there was a six second pause as she looked for someone to call. It was painful. What credibility do you have, she was asked. She had made sure there was economic stability, she replied, bafflingly. “Er,” she said, before settling on “Robert Pest-on,” a name she uttered as though she was seeing it for the first time. In her world someone else got the ITV job. Would she apologise, he asked. She was determined to deliver, she said, weirdly. 

And then she fled. “Thank you very much everybody,” she said, and dived for the exit. A few hacks shouted questions after her and then they sat, stunned. 

She had lasted just eight minutes. If you’d nipped out to make a cup of tea you might have missed the whole thing. It had been, well, awful. 

At this rate Harry Cole will be able to get her fall into his book as well, and still be on the shelves before Christmas.