Liz Truss’s Former Aide Claims Team “Pretended Family Members Had Died” To Dodge BBC‘s ’Question Time’

deadline.com:

Liz Truss’ difficult week is going from bad to worse. A former aide has claimed the under fire British Prime Minister’s advisers would lie about deaths in her family so she could miss appearing on British current affairs program Question Time.

Speaking on the Whitehall Sources podcast, Kirsty Buchanan said Truss did not like media appearances, so her team would find excuses to pass on them.

Buchanan worked for the PM when she was Justice Secretary between mid-2016 and 2017. “She didn’t like the media, so we used to spend quite a lot of time making up excuses and killing off minor members of her family so she didn’t have to go on,” said Buchanan. “Only minor people like aunts and cousins and things — I’m not talking about major members of the family.” After her team “ran out of excuses, Buchanan said Truss eventually agreed to appear on Question Time, in which a panel of politicians and public figures face questions from a studio audience, but was greeted with a shock.

The former aide claims Truss told her she did not care who was on the panel “as long as it is not ‘X,’ and I’m not going to tell you who ‘X’ is,” but when they arrived in the Green Room that person had been booked and was present. “I don’t know if they did it on purpose because he’s a long-time baiter of hers.” Truss is under immense pressure after u-turning on the mini-budget delivered soon after she replaced Boris Johnson in No 10.