'What happened was not funny' Liz Truss breaks silence after storming off stage following lettuce prank

14 August 2024, 15:19 | Updated: 14 August 2024, 15:59

Liz Truss has broken her silence following a prank which saw a banner featuring a lettuce lowered onto stage while she spoke.

At an event last night, the former Prime Minister was interrupted mid-speech with a banner featuring a lettuce with googly eyes and a quote saying "I crashed the economy".

She then stormed off the stage and did not return.

On Wednesday morning, Truss responded to the stunt saying: "What happened last night was not funny.

"Far-left activists disrupted the event, which then had to be stopped for security reasons.

"This is done to intimidate people and suppress free speech. I won't stand for it.

"Would we see the same reaction if the activists were far-right?"

The ex-PM - who lasted 49 days - has been associated with lettuces ever since the Daily Star livestreamed an iceberg lettuce to see if it would outlast her premiership back in October 2022. It did.

The activist group said: "We just dropped in on Liz Truss’s pro-Trump speaking tour with a remote-controlled lettuce banner.

"She didn’t find it funny."

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On 14 October 2022, the Daily Star started a livestream of the iceberg lettuce next to a framed photograph of Liz Truss, who had recently been appointed prime minister.

This act followed an opinion piece in The Economist that likened the expected brevity of Truss's premiership to the shelf life of a lettuce due to her expected resignation amid deep financial and political crises.

She then announced her resignation six days later, before the lettuce had wilted.

The newspaper subsequently declared the lettuce "victorious" over Truss, and spawned a meme forever.