Leadership Contest – “The first I knew about being a part of the leadership contest was when my Chief Adviser pulled off a fake nose and glasses and revealed himself to be Michael McIntyre asking me to be the Unexpected Star of his show.”
Campaign Brutality –“The leadership campaign turned out to be as brutal as my husband had feared. I ran out of original, pre-watershed metaphors for ‘entitled wanker’.”
Energy Bills –“As a matter of urgency, I dealt with the issue of energy bills. How was I to know Invoicium Redigendum wouldn’t work?”
OBR Forecasts –“I come from the Michael Fish era of forecasting, so excuse me if I was reluctant to go to the Delphi budgeteers! Mind you, in hindsight, I should have checked to see whether Kwasi had ever written the words ‘budget’ and ‘responsibility’ in the same sentence before.”
Corporation Tax –“Why on Earth would I raise Corporation Tax. There are people’s wages that are taxable, and there are far more people in the UK than there are businesses – especially after Brexit!”
Mini-Budget Reaction –“There were positive reactions from many quarters. Brenda Smethwick, a dinner lady in my WI said it was “Very nice, dear”; and the bloke down my local doner kebab van said “If you say so, love”.”
Markets Collapse –“At no point during any of the preparations for the mini-budget had any concerns about liability-driven investments (LDIs) and the risk they posed to bond markets been mentioned at all to me, the chancellor or any of our teams by officials at the Treasury. For God’s sake, there are only two occupations you can swan into without any training whatsoever, and they are Estate Agents and MPs. What the hell are we supposed to know!?! I thought an LDI was a type of Lexus.”