Liz Truss may have just topped her own record on making public gaffes after she repeatedly promised her government would “grow the pie” of the British economy.
For context, Truss was making the closing speech for her first Conservative conference as the leader of the party and the prime minister just after she fell to new depths in opinion polls, and worries about a Tory MP rebellion grow.
The speech was highly-anticipated, especially as Truss has been heavily criticised for her public speaking style in the past.
She has been mocked repeatedly over a 2014 speech, where the then environment secretary famously said: “We import two thirds of our cheese. That. Is. A. Disgrace.”
During the same speech, she excitedly added: “In December I’ll be in Beijing, opening up new pork markets.”
This has also gone down in the internet hall of fame.
So it’s not surprising that her Twitter critics picked up on one particular gaffe from this speech – her promise to “grow the pie”.
She said: “For far too long the political debate has been dominated by the argument about how we distributed a limited economic pie.
“Instead we grow the pie so that everyone gets a bigger slice.”
Cue Twitter pointing out that, actually, you can’t do that.
Some people extended the metaphor, and asked how you could grow the UK’s economic “pie” without putting more ingredients in.
Others remembered TalkRADIO’s Mike Graham making a vaguely similar mistake after he tried to claim you can grow concrete during an interview with a environmental activist last year.
One account dubbed her “pie minister” rather than “prime minister”....
While there were, of course, some accounts which were just nostalgic for the “pork markets” and cheese import days...