So Liz Truss is out. After just 44 days her premiership is no more. ‘I’m a fighter, not a quitter’, she said in parliament yesterday, and now she’s quit. Her premiership deserves to live in ignominy. Not necessarily because her blunders were so spectacular – though many of them were – but because of what this strangled-at-birth stint in Downing Street tells us about British politics more broadly. Which is that it’s a wasteland. An ideological void. A dustbowl of ideas. The lack of even the faintest glimmer of leadership material anywhere in the Westminster circus is horrifying to me. Trussism is but a symptom of a wider malady afflicting our political class.

First, her mistakes. Where to start? Probably with the observation, harsh as it may be, that the very fact she became prime minister is an indictment of Westminster. How serious must the want of leaders be for someone like Ms Truss to ascend to the highest office in the land? She had virtually nothing to recommend her. Not in the way of belief, or style, or ability to connect. Ideologically she was a Lib Dem cosplaying as a Tory. It would be an insult to wood to call her delivery wooden. Every time she compared herself to Thatcher it only reminded us that Thatcher had substance and style, while Liz lacked both. ‘The lady’s not for turning’, Thatcher said, while Truss turned, turned, turned on every single thing over the past fortnight. ‘The lady’s not for turning up’, said Keir Starmer when she was a no-show in the Commons, which is the only funny thing he’s ever said.

She handled the mantle of prime minister poorly from the get-go. There was just such a lack of suss, such an absence of strategic nous. Her failure to bring on board her leadership opponent Rishi Sunak’s allies was a catastrophic misjudgement. A more seasoned, thoughtful leader would have bunged a high office or two to his or her adversaries, for the sake of party integrity and for the sake of oneself – it lessens the chance of challenges from old foes. Not Truss, though. This was The Liz Show. ‘Ner ner’, her Cabinet essentially said to other Tory factions, intensifying divisions from Day One. It was so, well, impolitic.

Ace of Spades notes, “Another reason that Liz Truss had to go:”

She broke the promises she made on immigration — deciding that she had to increase immigration for “growth” — and got into a 90 minute shouting match with the pro-Brexit, immigration-skeptic Home Secretary she’d brought on only to appease that side of the party over her betrayals.

That Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, resigned a day before Truss did.

Truss’s potential replacement? “Hasta la vista” to “I’ll be back:” BoJonator 2.0 looking more likely.

Mr Johnson – who has not ruled himself in or out of the race – already has the support of Defence Secretary Mr Wallace. Pointing to Mr Johnson’s record on defence spending and citing the mandate he achieved in 2019, the Cabinet minister said it was important to think about “who could win the next election” for the Conservatives.

Mr Wallace – who has ruled himself out of the Tory leadership race – argued that without national security there is “no economic security”, and said he believes it is “important” that whoever puts themselves forward for the top job indicates that. But he said he also has to “recognise the issue of the mandate”.

“This will be potentially our third Prime Minister since the General Election of 2019, that means we have to think about that legitimacy question that the public will be asking themselves, and also about who could win the next election – that’s obviously important for any political party at the time,” he told broadcasters. “So at the moment, I would lean towards Boris Johnson.

“I think he will still have some questions to answer around, obviously, that investigation (into allegations Mr Johnson misled Parliament), but I know when I was Secretary of State for Defence, he invested in defence, he supported me, he supported the actions this country has taken to keep us safe.”

Truss reportedly ditched a ban on fracking in the UK; would Boris reverse course? This is the man who went from writing car reviews for the British edition of GQ to last year, when he “spelt out the revolt against modernity that lies at the heart of climate-change alarmism when he used his speech at COP to complain about the invention of the steam engine. That contraption, which gave rise to the Industrial Revolution itself, was a ‘doomsday device’ that started the clock ticking on the eco-calamity we currently face, he madly said. And this is a PM who claims to stand up for British history and British greatness.”