Global media laugh at UK as PM quits… with German TV reporter using some VERY colourful language

Britain has become the laughing stock of the world’s media as Liz Truss resigned today after her leadership went ‘from absurd to ridiculous’ amid daily scenes of ‘abject chaos’ in Parliament.

Column inches from Australia to America, Ireland to India, and across mainland  Europe have been filled with mockery for both ‘hopeless and hapless’ Miss Truss and a Tory party they said has been doomed ‘by its own idiocy’.

But the tone was far from cheerful. Many seemed deeply shocked that the British Parliament, a ‘temple of democracy and the oldest traditions’, has been reduced to a ‘circus’ that one said risked turning the venerable UK into a ‘Banana Republic’.

After Miss Truss announced her resignation to the British public today after just 44 days in power, the world’s media observed that ‘political chaos continues in the UK’.

One German TV reporter even swore in her live report, speaking in English when quoting reports that Craig Whittaker, the Deputy Chief Whip, said he was ‘f***ing furious and I don’t give a f*** anymore’ after a chaotic vote on fracking.

In near-daily onslaughts since Miss Truss’s ‘fiscal event’ flung a wrecking ball into the financial markets, commentators have been reduced to head-shaking incredulity at each new twist and turn in the ever-deepening ‘farce.’ 

In a scathing comment piece, Suzanne Breen, of the Irish Independent, wrote: ‘We underestimated Liz Truss, we underestimated how awful she would be as PM’.

Le Monde, one of France’s largest daily papers, said Miss Truss resigned as Prime Minister after the ‘debacle’ around her mini-budget and calls for her resignation. 

The Sydney Morning Herald in Australia said that Miss Truss’s leadership had been ‘engulfed in financial chaos following a disastrous growth-focused mini-budget’. 

Now that she has resigned, the German newspaper Bild reports the ‘chaos’ continues.

Liberation, a French daily newspaper, ran the headline: ‘Liz Truss resigns, political chaos in the UK’.

Meanwhile, the Greek newspaper Proto Theme mocked the UK and Truss with the headline: ‘Bury the Queen first, then her Prime Minister’.

Journalist Annette Dittert used colourful language when reporting on the chaotic scenes in the House of Commons over a vote on fracking. The fracking vote was billed by Downing Street as a confidence vote in Miss Truss. 

But Labour MP Chris Bryant said that some Conservative MPs were ‘physically manhandled into another lobby and being bullied’ and revealed that he had ‘utterly desperate’ Tory MPs ‘crying on my shoulder’.

Reporting on the chaotic scenes, Dittert told German TV station Tagesschau before Truss finally resigned: ‘You really can’t call it anything else anymore. 

‘This is a government that is clearly no longer capable of acting and these chaotic scenes here last night have made it clear to everyone that Liz Truss is simply no longer in control of the situation and her party.

‘There was manhandling in the lobby, where the votes are cast. Government members are said to have physically pulled other Tory MPs into the right box.

‘Then suddenly it was said that it was not a three-line whip, although this had been announced beforehand, whereupon the deputy leader of the parliamentary group left the parliament.’ 

Dittert quickly changed to speaking English as she translated that Craig Whittaker had left the parliament with the words: ‘I’m f***ing furious and I don’t f***ing care anymore.’

Speaking in German again, Dittert said: ‘I won’t translate that now, but this is a party where all discipline has really broken down.’

Before Miss Truss announced her resignation, The Hindu newspaper wrote that Britain is fast becoming a ‘cautionary tale’ about the effects of ‘bad politics’. 

Rob Harris, in the Sydney Morning Herald, summed up last night’s bust-up in the Commons by saying Miss Truss’s reign had gone ‘from absurd to outright ridiculous’.

‘The premiership of Liz Truss has effectively been over for days, perhaps even weeks,’ he wrote. ‘But cruelly she’s yet to be put out of her misery. 

‘It is coming, there’s no doubt. And for everyone’s sake, it should really hurry up.’ 

Liberation detected ‘something rancid in the Tory tea’, saying the ‘circus to which we have now become accustomed’ has descended into ‘absolute, total and abject chaos’.

‘The Parliament of Westminster, temple of democracy and the oldest traditions, but also the most hushed and civilized, found itself the scene of absolutely bewildering scenes,’ as ministers were ‘manhandled’ through the voting lobbies, the paper said.

Reacting to the other political drama of the day – the resignation of Home Secretary Suella Braverman – The Irish Times said it showed ‘that Truss is nowhere near to getting out of the jail into which her tax-cutting obsession has landed her.’

Columnist Martin Kettle added: ‘These posts once used to be called some of the great offices of state. 

‘Now they are just batons that are passed, dropped and exchanged in the endless ministerial relay race and permanent leadership contest to which the party has now been reduced by its own idiocy.’

The Tories, he concluded, ‘are an ungovernable party that is more than ever unable to govern the country.’

Le Monde, one of France’s largest daily papers, agreed – saying that Truss is now a Prime Minister ‘without authority or a political ideology’, having scrapped almost all of her major policies since coming to power.

‘How long can she hold on?’ was the headline in Germany’s usually Conservative-friendly tabloid Bild as it described a ‘haywire’ evening in parliament that ‘stretched Tory nerves to breaking point’.

It added: ‘The government crisis in London, which has been smoldering for weeks, has worsened considerably.’

Italy’s La Repubblica likened Truss’s government to ‘a ship desperately throwing ballast overboard in order not to sink.’

Meanwhile Columbian daily newspaper, El Colombiano, dubbed the Prime Minister ‘Liz Truss the Brief’.

‘What is happening in the UK is an interesting hard landing exercise in reality,’ it said.

‘Liz Truss, British Prime Minister for just six weeks, has managed to drag her party and the country into a debacle like never before. And at such speed.

‘Clinging to her ideology, and removed from the reality of the country, Truss perfectly exemplifies what it means to go against common sense.’

It added: ‘She is not alone, behind her is all the stubbornness of a Conservative Party that believed that by supporting Brexit and disconnecting from the European Union, they would be able to recover the empire they once were. 

‘That is not reality. That train left a long time ago.’

Truss is today engaged in an increasingly desperate struggle for survival as the 1922 committee chief headed into Downing Street for talks.

Sir Graham Brady is in No10 meeting the PM after 24 hours of carnage that saw the Home Secretary quit, confusion over whether the Chief Whip had followed her out of the door, and MPs wrestling in Commons voting lobbies.

No10 sources said the premier invited the party shop steward in for a discussion following a ‘difficult day’ – but denied that she has any intention of resigning.

The showdown comes as a series of previously-loyal MPs joining calls for her to go. Even supportive Cabinet ministers had been conceding the situation is ‘terminal’.