PHIL MAXWELL

Given the self serving vanity of most politicians I usually relish producing satirical images of them. Nevertheless, the process requires a degree of awkward research of videos that can be used to grab images that can be manipulated. Liz Truss was particularly awkward because it meant I had to watch her grandstanding and promising everything to the Tory membership in order to gain votes in the leadership election. It was a nauseating experience that reminded me of a scene in Stanley Kubrick’s superb 1971 dystopian crime film ‘A Clockwork Orange‘. Malcolm McDowell played a sadistic gangleader who agrees to volunteer for a ‘conduct-aversion experiment’; at one point McDowell is seen strapped to a chair with his eyes tortured using a brutal device that clamped his eyes open as he watched a screen. I remember covering my eyes when I first saw the film in the 1970s.

You may conclude that I am not a fan of Liz Truss. I viewed all the footage I’d gathered of Truss with some horror. Lenin said that “fascism is capitalism in decay” and it certainly is the case that capitalism is in a deep crisis around the world. With two ideas in my head – horror and fascism – I arrived at the Liz Truss you see below. A sadistic face holds a bloodied knife; the Prime Minister becomes a ghoul starring in a horror movie presiding over cuts that will inevitably lead to the death of vulnerable UK citizens.

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