On hitting the ground running

I can't recommend it, and nor can my country

Representing my country, from my sofa

On Wednesday, I hit the ground running. I had barely slept the night before because I was in such turmoil about our country. Every time you think things can’t get worse, another headline bursts on to your phone, or iPad, or computer, and indicates that they can.

In three weeks, our new PM has flushed hundreds of billions of pounds down a giant toilet. She has announced tax cuts for people who earn hundreds of thousands of pounds and essentially told the rest of us that we can live on any scraps they cast our way.

The pound has plummeted and at one point dropped to a record low. The former US Treasury Secretary thinks it could soon be worth less than a euro. The cost of government borrowing has shot through the roof. And this is borrowing for tax cuts which most economists think won’t produce any growth. It will instead produce a mountain of debt that will take generations to pay off. The IMF has given us the kind of rebuke it usually only gives to emerging economies. Oh, and the Bank of England has had to spend £65bn to prop up the markets.

Our pensions are plummeting. Our mortgages are at risk. And that’s just the worry for those of us who are lucky enough to have any kind of pension or own our own home. The government has now made it clear that the first thing they will cut in the fall-out is benefits. Yes, people who live on £70 a week at a time of raging inflation are now expected to live on less.

I have never, ever been so angry. Yes, I was furious about Brexit. It was a catastrophic act of self-harm, born out of lies, and it still breaks my heart. And yes, I was furious about party-gate. That our PM was partying when people couldn’t even say a final farewell to dying relatives is an act of contempt we should never forgive or forget.

But this is something else.

That a woman who was not elected by the British people should, in a few days, wreck their hopes, dreams, businesses and pensions, along with the entire economy, is something I just didn’t think could happen. I didn’t think that a woman who claims to be on the side of those people could hear men and women hold back tears as they talked about losing their homes, and reply, in effect, with a shrug.

Liz Truss is a maniac. I don’t say that lightly. She has the maniacal gleam you see in the eye of a Putin or a Trump. She has the blazing certainty of a Taliban leader. And she has an autocrat’s refusal to listen. In today’s Times, James Forsyth, political editor of The Spectator, married to former Tory comms director Allegra Stratton, says: “One ally [of Truss] describes her as “unbowed” and convinced she has done nothing wrong. Those who have spent time with her recently are telling Tory MPs just how calm she is. Rather than reassure them, it adds to their nervousness.”

Liz Truss has just blown up the British economy, damaged the lives of 67 million people and thinks “she has done nothing wrong”.

She and her equally arrogant chancellor of the exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng, refused to listen to the advice of the civil servants at the Treasury. They refused to have an OBR assessment, even though they were offered one. They refused to listen to the economists. Even their pet economists have told them this “mini budget” was dangerous, but they have stuck their fingers in their ears. They have had enough of the experts. They have had enough of the “orthodoxy”. They will bend the world to their vision and their demands. And when the world doesn’t bend, or not in the way they want, they say: just give it longer.

This is what crazy people do, and we have crazy people in charge.

I am a slow, careful runner. I have never had an accident when running. But on Wednesday, when I left the house, my heart was racing because I just could not believe I was living in a country whose leaders are prepared to do so much harm.

When I hit the ground, it was a few moments before the pain kicked in. A kind couple stopped and offered to call an ambulance, No, no, no, of course I didn’t need an ambulance. I staggered home on my broken knee, collapsed on the floor and howled.

Only one knee is broken, but both knees hurt. My hand hurts. My thumb hurts. My back hurts. My neck hurts. It’s all perfectly manageable, with lots of painkillers if I barely move, but it isn’t great for a freelancer who only gets paid if she works. So, of course, I am trying to work, from the sofa, which is now a kind of nest.

My partner has given me his crutches. He has given me the gadget that helps you pick things up from the floor. He’s still wearing the weirdly sexy stockings from the hip replacement he had three weeks ago. I’m wearing leggings and lots of Velcro straps. Like an Olympic torch, I have passed him the baton of being the carer, and he is rising to the challenge.

We will cope, but it isn’t ideal. I’m not sure we’ll be able to say the same of our country.

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Liz Truss doesn’t listen. Vladimir Putin doesn’t listen. Donald Trump didn’t listen. The Taliban don’t listen. They are, apart from anything else, missing a trick. The art of listening is one of the most powerful and underrated tools we have. Kathryn Mannix, former palliative care consultant and bestselling author of With the End in Mind and Listen is the latest guest on my podcast, The Art of Work. She talks about the life-changing power of listening she has discovered in her work, something I’ve also discovered as a coach. I found her absolutely fascinating. Do listen, here.

Kathryn and I will be in conversation with Alison Jean Lester at the Birmingham Literary Festival on Sunday 9th October at 2.30pm. The organisers have very kindly offered to send a car to pick me up, so I still plan to be there. You can book tickets here.

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The show must go on, even from the sofa. I will be back on Sky News tomorrow night (Saturday 1st October) at 10.30pm and 11.30pm, and then again on Saturday 15th. I imagine there will be plenty to discuss…

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If you would like to cheer me up, the best way of doing that would be to buy a copy of my book, Outside, the Sky is Blue, for yourself or a friend. Or, you could always snap up a copy of my first one, The Art of Not Falling Apart. And yes, thank you, I am aware of the irony. And no, although I am touched by the offers, I do not need any more Kettle Chips.