Prime Minister Liz Truss has become the Gerald Ratner of the 2020s - Bird Lovegod

“When people say to me how can you sell this for such a low price, I say, ‘because it’s total crap’."

If you haven’t heard of Ratners, and wonder why it no longer exists, see above.

This ability to destroy a brand and unleash financial armageddon simply by moving one's lips has become thereafter known as the Ratner Effect.

Fast forward if you will, unpleasant as it is, to the present day, and you will observe we have a ‘Prime Minister’ thus endowed.

Our newly minted PM is able to move her mouth, blow out some air, and cause support for the Tory Party to crumble like the walls of Jericho.

Like a human anti-fiscal matter device, she can make noises from her face and billions of pounds literally disappear.

She can impoverish millions, make mortgages unaffordable, crash entire currencies, simply by saying words.

She doesn’t manage this feat entirely on her own, she has a faithful sidekick who jokingly pretends to know how the markets work, a sort of comedy duo, whereby two heads are actually worse than none.

I suspect she isn’t deliberately malicious. She might even not be a Russian sleeper agent, defrosted and thawed to wander into the most powerful office in the land and unleash incompetence.

And she’s only just warming up. Unlike the householders of the country, who are preparing to enter a stasis-like condition in order to survive the winter.

I have a point to make. What killed Ratners was actually the truth.

Now everyone already knew Ratners sold tat. But what killed it was bringing it into the light.

And I say let's face it, better that it should be shut down, better that Gerald doesn’t spend the next 30 years building an empire of total rubbish and does something meaningful with his life. Better that all the employees have the opportunity to work somewhere more meaningful and real. I think Gerard killed it subconsciously deliberately because he knew it was a lie. He ratted it out.

And I wonder, how many businesses could actually survive a Ratnering? A bringing them into the light?

How are you able to sell clothes for 99p? “Oh, they’re made in sweatshops by bonded slaves.”

How are you able to sell a painting for £100m? “Oh, it’s a form of money laundering and tax avoidance for oligarchs.”

How can you deliver groceries in twenty minutes? “Oh, it’s not a real business, we just raise VC money and use that to subsidise everything. It won’t last.”

I’m a great believer in the truth. Everything else is just fake dust on the corner of a fake book. Only the truth really matters.

How many businesses could honestly say they are not a Ratners, living a lie, selling a lie?

And how many of us could honestly say we are not the equivalent, living, breathing, human Ratners? Do we need to have a good hard look at ourselves, see the truth, and cast off everything that is not it?

Maybe Liz will help us, because unlike Boris, she can’t even lie competently.

‘How are you able to cut taxes for the rich whilst cutting benefits for the disabled?’

Liz? Kami Kwasi? Bueller? Anyone? Anyone?

Bird Lovegod is MD of EthicalMuch