In the Psycho Chair – a series of interviews with Cabinet Psychos
by Dr. Anton Claire (in fond memory of Dr Anthony Clare)
(Do-do-do-dodo-dodo-doo Mozartian music fades into background)
Dr.AC:In the Psycho Chair today we have the Cabinet Minister-for-Self-Promotion, Elizabeth Mary Trusst, known by her detractors as Little Miss Dotty (you fill in the dots...). Known simply as Miss Trusst by those colleagues who have, after cabinet meetings, found her leaving card skewered between their shoulder blades.
Miss Trusst, welcome.
ET: Yes, you are...
AC: If I may get straight to the point, your father is a Professor of Pure Mathematics at Leeds University. He is a man with strongly held political views, which you characterise as 'Loony Left'. He is a man revered by his peers for his intelligence and humanity, yet you seldom mention him.
ET: He didn't seem to notice I was there...not that I cared at all...I remember coming home from school at the time of the '83 election. I had dressed as Mrs Thatcher for the occasion. He just said blue was not my colour.
AC: And you have dressed in red ever since?...You have been quiet about your own academic career. You went to Oxford, of course, but it is impossible to find out what degree you achieved. Your high-flying father and the accolades heaped upon him must have left you with a burning sense of inadequacy... and then there is your three brothers...you never mention them.
ET: Well, I was told to be ready for your foolish post-Freudian nonsense. You'll be accusing me of 'penis envy' next
AC: Yes indeed. Is that why you embarked on an ill-advised affair with the larger-than-life Member for London and Westminster, Mark Field...
ET: I was just playing the Field. That's all. The Turnip Taliban* nearly sacked me for that. Pathetic.
AC: Better to be in the sack, I suppose, than get the sack. The Cognoscenti tell me that you like to call yourself “The Truss'”. Do you see yourself as a surgical support?
ET: Yes; I do think that's what is needed in Cabinet these days...
AC: Let me turn to some of the things you have said on your way up your greasy poll:
*From the coffee bars of Camden to the gin joints of Norfolk - across Britain, a revolution is brewing.
*Britain is a nation of Uber-riding, Deliveroo-eating, Airb'n'b-ing freedom fighters.
*I hate rodents. I mean, the House of Commons is completely infested
*I don't know if you've tasted crisps in other countries, but I really think British crisps are world leaders.
They're rather silly aren't they? Some are just plain insulting.
ET: I think they stand up.
AC: Oh come on! Economy built on crisps; Gin Palaces in Norwich; exploited workers on zero hours contracts, earning less than the minimum wage. Are you living with Mr. Moggster in the 18th Century?
ET: You think you've caught me bang to rights...
AC: I think I have; and you will no doubt agree with the Guardian's Zoe Williams, who describes you as 'This self-aggrandising, sub-Thatcherite, Ayn Randophile** Tory'.
Let me finish (as any Irishman should) with a limerick just for you:
There was a young Miss called Trusst
Who would throw herself under the bus
She said things so crass She brayed like an ass
When ridiculed she just cursed and she cussed
The Turnip Talaban – a reference to East Anglian Tory Fundamentalists
Ayn Rand's philosophy is that unfettered self-interest is good and altruism is destructive. This, she believed, is the ultimate expression of human nature, the guiding principle by which one ought to live one's life.
