The former prime minister is still trying to slay imagined dragons

Battling the 'deep state', Liz Truss is ignoring advice from concerned friends to take a break from politics, writes Philip Collins

- Philip Collins

'Britain is in the dark ages. We have a socialist government, commissars ruling over us who are leading our country in a terrible direction. Everything that made Britain great is being destroyed by an establishment that hates Britain and hates the west. Patriotic Brits have had enough."

These are not the words of a student radical or a political novice. This is a former prime minister speaking. In February, at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington DC, Liz Truss went through her now familiar repertoire of conspiracy theories and blame techniques.

Some former prime ministers - Tony Blair and Boris Johnson, for example - make a lot of visits to the US east coast once they leave Downing Street. Truss has also turned up a lot on the east coast, but most of her trips have been to Beccles and Scunthorpe.

In August last year, a speech by Truss at Beccles public hall, in Suffolk, was sabotaged by Led by Donkeys. In April this year, she spoke at a cryptocurrency conference in Bedford, during which, to the bemusement of the audience, she excoriated "the deep state" that had brought her down. Then, earlier this month, Truss made the front page of the Sun because she had recorded a promotional video at Scunthorpe United's football ground for a brand of whiskey created by Dougie Joyce, a bare-knuckle fighter jailed in 2023 for assaulting a pensioner.

Performances of this kind have become Truss's stock-in-trade since her inglorious period in office was curtailed in October 2022. Her former allies, including her deputy prime minister, Thérèse Coffey - once her best friend in politics - and Kwasi Kwarteng, briefly her chancellor, urged Truss to take time out to reflect on the trauma of being deposed so quickly.