FROM famous cheese gaffes to speeches about pork markets with all the charisma of a hostage video, Liz Truss has given the UK lots to joke about.
Her rise from disjointed and robotic speaker to disjointed and robotic speaker who is likely to become the country’s next prime minister, despite her predecessor, has been a surprise to many.
But with the rise in so-called unserious candidates came an opinion that satire was dead, that politicians post-Brexit were too much of a joke themselves to be joked about.
Former National cartoonist Greg Moodie disagrees though, and explains that while someone like Truss may not be the perfect candidate for leader of the world’s sixth largest economy, she is for satire.
“I cannot wait for Liz Truss to be PM,” he told The National. “Because she’s an imbecile.
“Words fail me and they very rarely fail me but I cannot wait for her to witter on more about cheese and everything she’s done already.
“I think the Tories are going to choose her because she’s the least worse candidate but to me, she’s absolutely the best candidate for a cartoonist.”
Despite Donald Trump being time-stamped with the death of satire by some, Moodie doesn’t believe that for a second – and is looking forward to future PM Truss cartoons.
He said while he enjoyed lampooning Johnson, he’s bored with him now and is keen to draw up some new jokes for a new leader.
He said: “People always say they’re beyond satire and I think that’s just laziness. Nothing is beyond satire.
“You just have to maybe work at it, find what it is about these people. I’ve satirised all these guys.
“Like Trump, I had a lot of fun doing him. Right up until the very end, I had him biting off the head off the Capitol Hill building, vomiting into it and then sitting on it and squatting. To me, that’s symbolic of what Trump did to America.”
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While Truss has given Moodie a lot to work with in her political career already, he expects it will only get better.
“That was just the kick-off point,” he said. “I think once she’s actually PM and tasked with doing a proper job it’s going to get way more fun.”
That doesn’t mean underdog Rishi Sunak is being let off the hook though.
Moodie has already ridiculed the former chancellor in his Making The Rish Risher cartoons.
He said: “I already had a lot of fun with him.
“But he’s not interested in levelling up. What he wants is already wealthy people to become as wealthy as him.”
Talking about the pedigree of politician at Westminster, Moodie sought to explain why people like Sunak would allow himself to be videoed saying he diverted funds away from “deprived urban areas” or why Johnson would allow himself to be pictured breaking his own lockdown rules.
“I think they don’t care much,” he said. “They have a massive contempt for the public. Even back during the Thatcher time, they at least tried to be respectable.
“And then we go to David Cameron and giddy George Osborne, and the facade dropped a little bit. I mean, Cameron at least made an effort. And now we got to Boris and it’s fallen down a very steep slope.”
Asked what his favourite thing about Truss from a cartoonist’s perspective is, Moodie didn’t hesitate: “Her bow. That got me right away. When I caricatured her, I made the bow twice the size of her head.
“She said she wasn’t trying to look like Thatcher. These guys are pretty shameless.”
And for Sunak, Moodie says his favourite part is “the fact that when he sits on a chair, his feet don’t touch the ground”.
Reflecting on his work at The National, Moodie was shown a notable front cover which sees a hooded Osborne, then chancellor, holding his red budget suitcase imprinted with the words, “The cuts go on. Osborne: Addicted to austerity”.
Moodie says while things have changed a lot in the UK since the 2015 cover, it hasn’t been for the better.
He said: “It’s so much worse. People say the Thatcher years were terrible. I lived through the Thatcher years and it was bad but it’s got steadily worse.”
While that’s bad for the country, Moodie will only get more material for his Monday cartoons – for which Moodie said he’s never missed a week since starting them a decade ago.
Those interested in seeing Moodie’s cartoons can see them here.
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