FORMER UK PRIME Minister Liz Truss was outlasted by a lettuce during her 49-day premiership.
The question now is whether England will be home from Euro 2024 quicker than Rishi Sunak at a D-Day commemoration in Normandy?
The United Kingdom goes to the polls for a General Election on 5 July. It’s widely expected that the Conservatives, led by Sunak, face a wipeout. Humiliation beckons.
Are Gareth Southgate’s men heading in the same direction?
Very few would have envisaged that England, beaten on penalties in the final of the competition in 2021 and World Cup quarter finalists in Qatar, could be on the brink of a similar catastrophe.
Then Southgate named his squad.
A 1-0 defeat to Iceland in the send-off game at Wembley followed, the sound of boos and jeers the backdrop of their departure for Germany.
All of a sudden a wave of Foden-Bellingham-Kane inspired euphoria has been replaced by something far more sombre.
England are now apparently in disarray, the most unprepared and ill-equipped for a major tournament for years according to some who cover that beat.
Harry Maguire has been left at home after failing to prove his fitness with a calf injury.
Jordan Henderson did not even make the preliminary squad despite joining Ajax in mid-season in a bid to make Southgate forget all about his Saudi sojourn. Marcus Rashford was also ignored.
Jack Grealish will be taking his vibes and a helpful ability to retain the ball and draw fouls elsewhere. Possibly the VIP area at Ocean Beach Club in Ibiza. Follow Wayne Lineker’s Instagram for updates.
Even poor old James Maddison was dumped.
In their place came a wave of fresh, raw and in-form faces. Marc Guehi, the Crystal Palace centre back, has just 11 caps while his clubmate Adam Wharton has done enough to earn inclusion in midfield having started the season in the Championship with Blackburn Rovers.
The excellent Kobbie Mainoo has been a shining light for Manchester United and will also feature.
The top two English scorers in the Premier League last season – Cole Palmer (22 goals) and Ollie Watkins (19 goals) – are in the forward line along with West Ham’s Jarrod Bowen (16 goals) and Newcastle’s exciting winger Anthony Gordon.
Is this not what people wanted from Southgate? Being brave and ruthless with his decisions, jettonising underperforming stars for those in-form and more deserving?
Twenty years after Wayne Rooney blitzed Euro 2004 only for injury to curtail him, it might be a fitting way to mark the anniversary.
Yet while England’s forward players are deemed the strength, it’s incredible to think they actually have the joint-lowest number of players with five or more international goals, alongside Albania; Harry Kane and Bukayo Saka are the only members of Southgate’s squad who have scored more than four.
Yet the treatment of the Arsenal forward by some of the country’s media in the wake of that Iceland defeat is another reason why there has been a mood change. Despite only coming on as a late substitute, it was Saka’s picture used on the back of several newspapers lambasting the performance.
That prompted condemnation from Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton before a statement was also released by the Black Footballers Partnership citing how “six years after Raheem Sterling called the press out for fuelling racism, with no obvious lessons learnt among our globally respected and influential press” and calling on “journalists, as well as fans, to be unifiers, not dividers”.
On the pitch, too, that Iceland friendly appears to have brought with it a kind of cloud of realism that normally only descends after a tournament exit.
If a week is a long time in football, then two days must be a lifetime in the England bubble.
Declan Rice, the former Republic of Ireland international, was their most experienced player on the pitch at the final whistle of that Iceland defeat.
The Arsenal midfielder has earned 51 caps since switching allegiance, a decision that understandably angered many here but has been backed up given his own rise as a player.
In the aftermath of a Wembley humbling before the serious business begins against Serbia on Sunday, the 25-year-old admitted “there’s work to be done” and “we have to be a little bit more savvy”.
A week before a major championship is not the ideal time to realise these flaws.
A couple of days later, though, Rice cut a more optimistic, forceful figure. “We want to make history. We say it all the time, but genuinely we have a group, a manager, that really believes.
“We have a confidence that we can go there and do something really special.”
Serbia will be their first test in Group C on Sunday followed by Denmark on Thursday and Slovenia on Tuesday, 25 June.
Whoever tops their group will face one of the third-placed sides from D/E/F on 30 June.
The quarter final on that path will then be on 6 July and could, potentially, see England face Scotland.
Or, like the Tories, they’ll have already been dumped out by then.
