Ground control to Major Truss – what planet are you on? Does it have a price cap? | Marina Hyde

Our likely next PM's surreal solutions' to the UK's omnicrisis feel like they've been beamed in from a galaxy far away

Cost of living" is an expression now used so frequently, including by those in positions of power, that it's possible to end up forgetting how incredibly bleak those words are as a concept. (See also: human resources".) Maybe we should revitalise the cliche by calling it the price of existing" crisis. It is, after all, a perfectly matter-of-fact way of suggesting that there is a point at which many may simply find it too expensive to endure. People generally make too much fuss about cliches, but - in one of the very richest countries in the world - this one does feel worth urgently denormalising.

So who's going to do it? Liz Truss?! The light from even the stars we can see without telescopes can take years to reach us - sometimes thousands of years. On Tuesday Truss was in the West Midlands, with the public able to look at an emanation from her that read: I will support businesses to get our economy firing on all cylinders - delivering growth and opportunity in the West Midlands and beyond." How many years ago were these words beamed out? This morning the energy price cap hit 3,549. You sense West Midlands businesses - to whom the price cap doesn't even apply - would like to know how on earth they're supposed to afford to switch on the cylinders at all.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

What Just Happened?! by Marina Hyde (Guardian Faber, 18.99). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at the Guardian Bookshop

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