Liz Truss's New Book: When a Controversial Former UK PM Becomes a National Laughing Stock
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- Liz Truss merilis buku keduanya, Bank Job, yang langsung menuai kecaman dari berbagai media Inggris.
- Buku tersebut dianggap tidak mengakui kesalahan atas krisis ekonomi 2022 dan justru menyalahkan Bank of England.
- Fenomena ini menunjukkan bagaimana sosok kontroversial dapat menyatukan opini publik dalam cemoohan, bukan dukungan.
Former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss is back in the public spotlight with the launch of her new book, Bank Job: A Short Book on How the Bank of England Broke the Bond Market and Brought Down the Government. The book immediately triggered a wave of criticism from various quarters, including the media and her own former colleagues, for being seen as failing to reflect responsibility for the economic turmoil that occurred during her short-lived government.
Truss, who served for only 49 days in 2022, is known for a failed mini-budget policy that sent the pound plunging. In her new book, she instead blames the Bank of England and the Treasury for the collapse of the bond market, without acknowledging fault for her controversial fiscal decisions. This stance has sparked public anger and reinforced her image as a politician incapable of introspection.
A slew of scathing reviews has emerged. The Independent called the book "dense, paranoid and angry", while The Telegraph gave it zero stars and labeled it "mad". Scottish tabloid The National called it "deranged", and The Daily Star highlighted the book's failure to explain the role of the iceberg lettuce that outlasted Truss's tenure, calling it "lacking in sense". Even Truss's former trade minister, Conor Burns, said via the X platform that it was "internationally embarrassing in its lack of self-awareness" and "financially illiterate".
Interestingly, despite the near-universal criticism the book has drawn, the Truss phenomenon reveals another side of a divided British society. Amid political and social fractures, Truss has become a rare point of convergence: almost everyone agrees on criticizing her. As Guardian columnist Emma Brockes put it in her article, Truss has achieved something ironic—uniting the nation through shared mockery.
"Truss doesn't stand for anything. She is free of all political associations. She stands for chaos unrelieved by charm, deepened by the impression of someone receiving orders on a frequency no one else can hear." — Emma Brockes, Guardian columnist
This phenomenon is not new in global politics. Controversial politicians often become public laughing stocks, but Truss seems to have a unique appeal that turns criticism of her into a kind of social glue. Compare her with Donald Trump, who despite being controversial still has a fanatical support base because he represents a certain ideology. Truss, by contrast, has no strong support base; she struggles even to win sympathy from her own party.
In the Indonesian context, a similar phenomenon often occurs. Politicians seen as failures or controversial frequently become the butt of jokes on social media, but rarely do they truly unite public opinion across groups. Perhaps because Indonesian society is more polarized by ideological issues, so mockery of one figure does not always become a unifying force. Yet the Truss case shows that in a fragmented political landscape, sometimes a figure so controversial is needed to remind us that there are things we can agree on—at least when it comes to laughing at someone's incompetence.
Looking ahead, the question is whether this book will improve Truss's image or make it worse. With fairly good sales on Amazon, the British public seems more interested in reading the book as entertainment than as serious analysis. Will Truss remain a laughing stock, or will she find a way to bounce back? What is clear, for now, is that she has made an unexpected contribution to British social cohesion: a bright spot amid division, even if it comes from the most unexpected direction.
