Liz Truss storms off stage after being upstaged by a lettuce again

Less than two years ago, Liz Truss was still the ambitious, bright-eyed foreign secretary preparing to sail into Downing Street with the support of Conservative Party members.

Lots has happened since then, of course.

She became PM at the beginning of September 2022. The Queen died. On September 23, she announced a mini-budget. On October 25, she resigned. Last month, she lost her seat in the House of Commons.

And after all that, there’s still one image that seems to follow Truss around: a lettuce with googly eyes.

The latest incarnation of the anthropomorphic vegetable – originally the brainchild of tabloid the Daily Star, which compared its shelf life to her short tenure in Number 10 – popped up at a book event in Suffolk.

Truss was promoting her memoir Ten Years to Save the West at Beccles Public Hall and Theatre last night, a few days before the venue hosts a Fleetwood Mac tribute act and a Pokemon card trading event.

She had just admitted to the crowd that she hopes Donald Trump wins the US presidential election in November, prompting some jeers, when disaster struck.

Serial political pranksters Led By Donkeys had planted a banner above the stage, featuring a big picture of that iceberg lettuce with those googly eyes above the words ‘I CRASHED THE ECONOMY’.

With impeccable timing, it descended as Truss – unfortunately wearing a flowy green dress – was talking about the US election and quoted Bill Clinton’s famous words: ‘It’s the economy, stupid.’

Tens of thousands of people tuned in to see if the lettuce would outlast Liz Truss in October 2022 – and it did (Picture: X/Daily Star)

Arguably, the former PM does not help herself by refusing to see the funny side. In April, she described the original stunt as ‘pathetic point-scoring’.

Last night, as some audience members chuckled, Truss muttered ‘that’s not funny’ and promptly left the stage to tepid applause.

The reaction was markedly different to a similar stunt pulled by the same group on Reform UK leader Nigel Farage ahead of the election, involving a banner with a picture of Vladimir Putin above the caption ‘I ♥ NIGEL’.

That time, those in attendance chanted ‘rip it down’ before Farage suggested the stage crew could set fire to it.

For Truss, the angriest response appears to be a man on the Beccles Theatre Facebook page who is demanding a refund for the £16.50 ticket and the sacking of the theatre manager.

Still, the book event was an improvement on the moment earlier this month when an ITV interviewer ignored her at Goodwood Racecourse, apparently failing to recognise the former leader of the country.

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