Will Liz Truss outlast a head of lettuce? U.K. PM the butt of livestream joke

Which will last longer: the head of the government in the United Kingdom or a head of lettuce?

It’s the question that’s gripped the internet for the past four days, after a British tabloid launched a YouTube livestream titled “Can Liz Truss outlast this lettuce?”

For context, however, let’s back up little bit.

Earlier this month, British newspaper The Economist ran an article comparing the country’s newly elected prime minister to a head of lettuce.

The Economist’s article, filed under “The Iceberg Lady,” opined that Truss’s career has the “shelf life of a lettuce.”

Capitalizing on the quintessentially British humour, tabloid publication The Daily Star found a head of iceberg lettuce and a framed photo of Truss, and put them both on livestream to the world.

The Friday edition of The Daily Star went with the headline: “Most urgent political question of the year … Which wet lettuce will last longer?”

“Tip of the Iceberg: How long can wet lettuce Liz romaine?” Saturday’s Daily Star front page was headlined.

And while the gag started out with just two items, it’s grown increasingly complex over the course of the weekend and into Monday. On Saturday, a blonde wig appeared on the leafy orb. Later, googly eyes and Mr. Potato Head arms showed up. As of publication time Monday, the lettuce is comfortably snuggled up with a sleeping mask, soothing lights and a stuffed animal. Sometimes food or bottles of booze appear.

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Truss’s political role model, 1980s prime minister Margaret Thatcher, was widely known as the Iron Lady.

Truss on Friday fired her finance minister, Kwasi Kwarteng, after just 38 days in office.

The duo had been under mounting pressure to reverse a disastrously received economic package that forced the Bank of England to intervene in the bond market and prompted Conservative Party colleagues to openly discuss whether they should be replaced.

New British finance minister Jeremy Hunt on Monday reversed nearly all of the prime minister’s mini-budget items and reined in a vast energy subsidy plan, saying the country needed to rebuild investor confidence.

Hunt, appointed on Friday to fix the public finances after Truss’s economic plan hammered the value of British assets, said the country needed to generate confidence and stability before it could seek to grow the economy.

The near total reversal of the economic plan leaves Truss, Britain’s fourth prime minister in six years, battling to survive in Downing Street less than six weeks after she came to power promising bold tax cuts and deregulation to reignite economic growth.

Truss had announced a two-year subsidy scheme to support households and businesses through the period of surging energy prices, costing 60 billion pounds (CA$90 billion) in six months. Hunt said on Monday that the scheme would now run until April, but would become more targeted and capped after that.

Hunt will deliver a fuller medium-term fiscal plan at the end of this month.

— with files from Reuters