Head of lettuce outlasts Liz Truss in viral contest as British PM quits after 44 days
In the end, Liz Truss was the one who wilted.
The British tabloid the Daily Star declared Thursday that a head of lettuce had won a cheeky contest to see who or what would last longer — the leafy green or the embattled prime minister.
The newspaper set up a live YouTube feed last Friday showing the unrefrigerated iceberg lettuce, purchased for 68 cents at a Tesco supermarket, next to a photo of Truss and asking readers: “Which wet lettuce will last longer?”
The gag’s masterminds later added a blonde wig, a pair of googly eyes, a cartoon mouth and plastic hands to the vegetable, and decorated the tableau with two British flags, a pasty on a plate and a red mug bearing the phrase: “Keep Calm and Carry On.”
More than 12,000 Twitter users were watching the feed Thursday as Truss announced her resignation outside the prime minister’s residence at 10 Downing Street in London.
After touting her supposed achievements during her 44 days in office — the shortest-ever tenure for a British PM — Truss acknowledged that she “cannot deliver the mandate” on which she was elected by the Conservative Party.
Moments later, Britain’s national anthem, “God Save the King,” blared as a hand reached across the table and set Truss’s photo on its back, and the caption “This lettuce outlasted Liz Truss” appeared.
A remix of “Celebration” by Kool & the Gang was then played to convey the jubilant mood.
The tabloid’s Twitter account exultantly reported the news: “BREAKING NEWS🚨 THE LETTUCE HAS OFFICIALLY OUTLASTED LIZ TRUSS AND WON 🚨 ALL HAIL THE LETTUCE.”
The derogatory nickname for Truss grew out of a highly critical column published by The Economist magazine last week and headlined “The Iceberg Lady,” in which Truss was described as having “the shelf-life of a lettuce.”
Appointed on Sept. 6 in one of the last acts of the late Queen Elizabeth II, Truss crumbled under mounting pressure after being forced to fire her finance minister and closest political ally, Kwasi Kwarteng, following a disastrously received economic package that sent financial markets into a meltdown and caused the pound to tumble to an all-time low against the US dollar.
