Truss, Sarkozy and the art of political memory. – POLICY

Welcome to Declassified, a weekly humor column.

Everyone loves a good political memoir. At least they would if the overwhelming majority of them weren’t complete bullshit. Dishonest and not wanting to annoy the big donors they now have at a think tank, it’s rare to find a post-politics book that is truly a page-turner.

Journalist Walter Bagehot once asked his readers a question about former British Prime Minister Robert Peel: “Was there ever such a boring man?” Can we, without horror, anticipate reading his memoirs? (Peel actually wrote his memoir, in three parts, with the title clickbait “Memoirs of the Right Honorable Sir Robert Peel. “)

But that could be about to change with the news that Liz Truss will have a book coming out next year. Readers with a particularly good memory will remember that Truss was only British Prime Minister for 44 days (and it might have been shorter if the Queen had not died accidentally right after taking office).

Truss’s book – and you might want to sit down for this part – will be called “Ten Years to Save the West.” This title has, rightly, been the subject of much mockery such as: “she brought a country to its knees in less than seven weeks, imagine the damage she could cause in a decade!” » So far, the lettuce that survived Truss is stuck in negotiations with the big publishing houses. My suggested title for his memoir: “Iceberg, Just Ahead: How I Defeated a Prime Minister and Enjoyed My Salad Days.” »

While we anxiously await Truss’s magnum opus, there is another political book to read. The latest from Nicolas Sarkozy — “The time of fighting» (The Time of Battles) — is a monster of 560 pages (stop making jokes “it’s so he can stand on it when he wants to kiss Carla Bruni”). Sarko is an old pro and he knows that to sell copies you have to have a bit of controversy, which is why he used an interview to promote the book to defend Vladimir Putin and call on Ukraine to accept Russian occupation of Crimea and other disputed territories.

Reinforcing the controversy, Sarkozy took advantage of an interview this week to say that “police violence does not exist”, adding that these are “two incompatible words”. Of course he has to say it, because the police regularly come to his house to make sure he hasn’t removed the electronic badge he must wear after being convicted of corruption.

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“So when I find the wolf that killed my beloved Dolly, I’m going to crush its skull in my hands like this. And that’s it for the State of the Union address.”

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“I know my hand has been shaking lately, but I always wanted to see if I would be a good surgeon. Plus, this will be great news. by Ewelina Załuska.

Paul Dallison is POLICYthe slot machine news publisher.