Liz Truss’s performance during only her second PMQs as prime minister had flopped within moments of her opening speech.
The prime minister mistakenly started her sentence in the Commons by saying – “I’m genuinely unclear” – a move which gave the opposition benches a chance to start cheering.
Despite only being in office for five weeks, Truss has already developed a reputation for changing her mind – as you can see from her five U-turns here.
From dropping the decision to cut the 45p tax rate for the highest earners, to changing who she had planned to run the treasury and imposing windfall taxes on energy companies, Truss’s policy-making has been chaotic to say the least.
It’s especially unfortunate because Truss had actually tried to squash any notion that she would flip-flop between policies during her time in office during her Tory leadership contest.
Critics picked her apart for her days as a republican Liberal Democrat as a student, and her passionate campaigns for staying in the EU just before the referendum in 2016.
Now an ardent Brexiteer, Conservative and apparent monarchist, Truss had twice the workload to convince Tory members she stuck to her guns over the summer.
Her ally, Simon Clarke, even said during the campaign: “U-turn if you want to. The lady’s not for turning.”
This was a throwback to the Thatcherite era – but it seems Truss is a long way off emulating the Iron Lady, having U-turned repeatedly since just September 6.
And the unimpressed response from her parliamentary colleagues did not go unnoticed on Twitter…
Twitter users even speculated her own front bench were unimpressed by her performance.
And, of course, it doesn’t look like her critics will forget her U-turns any time soon either…
