Liz Truss’ Downing Street portrait has been released - and everyone’s making the same joke

Britain’s shortest-serving prime minister, Liz Truss, has had her unbelievably short time in office recognised in Downing Street this week, as her official portrait has been put up on the yellow staircase alongside previous PMs such as Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair.

The BBC’s chief political correspondent, Henry Zeffman, reported on Thursday that the former foreign secretary’s picture was being added to the iconic wall alongside her predecessor, Boris Johnson.

Since the end of her premiership in October last year, Truss has insisted it’s “unfair” to blame her for rising interest rates; blamed the “left-wing economic establishment” for her downfall as PM; given a “dangerous” speech in Taiwan; slammed the Daily Star’s lettuce stunt as “puerile” and announced she’s backing Donald Trump for president next year.

Oh, and she’s publishing a book in April which is set to discuss tackling “disastrous ideas” in politics – this, of course, coming from a former prime minister who crashed the economy with her disastrous ‘mini-budget’.

As for the portrait, the image itself was shared by the Daily Express’ senior political correspondent Christian Calgie, and thus, the memes inevitably followed:

Of course, many of the responses mocking Truss referred to the Daily Star lettuce, which the outlet livestreamed to see if it would outlast the MP’s catastrophic premiership (it did).

Hopefully the portrait on the walls of the yellow staircase – which, according to a Freedom of Information request responded to in December, is painted “with a yellow stipple paint finish laid over a white finish" (just in case you were curious) - should last for a good while longer.

Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.