What a week it has been in the UK. On Tuesday I was preparing to write this week’s column about our newly announced prime minister, Liz Truss.
I was going to explore the inevitability of her having to approve a rescue package for “ordinary people” to support them through the economic crisis, despite being against “handouts” in the small-state, low-tax, ultraright wing views she expressed in her leadership campaign.
Indeed, Truss has since announced an unprecedented £150bn rescue package, double what was spent on supporting workers in furlough with income during the pandemic. Where this money will come from is anyone’s guess, as she is refusing to tax the £170bn windfall of profits being enjoyed by the energy sector, whose bosses continue to raise prices to unaffordable heights, blaming the Russia-Ukraine crisis and anything but their own greed.
Moving on to Wednesday, when following the surprise (actually no surprise given their recent form) 1-0 defeat of the legendary Chelsea Football Club on Tuesday night, to the comparatively small Croatian club Dinamo Zagreb. The new Chelsea owners, displaying Abramovich levels of savagery, promptly sacked their head coach, Thomas Tuchel, on Wednesday morning.
If there is one thing the English love more than money, it’s football. And true to form, by Wednesday lunchtime that was all anyone was talking about, new prime minister all but forgotten. Being a Chelsea supporter myself and a huge fan of Tuchel, I admit I was obsessed about the dynamic behind the sacking of my favourite gaffer. There are so many questions given the major silverware Chelsea won under Tuchel, including the Champions League and Club World cups.
It is true that the team’s recent form has been wanting, but the club has been through a lot. Tuchel steadied the ship during the most difficult part of the club’s history, when Chelsea was affected by economic sanctions on Putin associates after the invasion of Ukraine. As such, perhaps the new owners have felt he became too influential. It is said the decision to sack him was made long before this week’s match.
Also, Tuchel is a difficult, intense man, which he himself is the first to admit. It is clear his obsession with winning led to both problems with the club and his recent divorce, and this in turn led to gossip about his personal life and made it difficult for him to hold authority among the players. Apparently Tuchel didn’t want to leave and begged to keep his job. But we needn’t feel too sorry for him — given his status as one of the game’s best elite coaches he shouldn’t be unemployed for long.
As if this all weren’t enough for one week, by Thursday the queen had died, and that has been all that has been on all the news, everywhere, non-stop, for the past 72 hours. The fact that Ukraine is seemingly winning the war against Russia and Putin could be done for has scarcely registered as a blip.
A sort of media mania seems to have taken hold of us here in the UK. It is a sort of hysteria and escapism from the many troubles of our fragile and dangerous world. The outpouring of public grief is therefore all the media is focused on, and this has made talking about anything else verboten.
Of course, I have my own formative thoughts on the end of the second Elizabethan era, but I’m not going to add to the avalanche of analysis for now. I’ll wait for a bit of quiet, when what I have to say won’t get lost in the noise. I’m also not quite sure yet how I feel about it all, and that should be OK.
• Dr Masie, a former senior editor of the Financial Mail, is chief strategist at IC Publications in London.
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