Liz Truss appeared at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival earlier in August. The occasion was a discussion about her recent life and times. The audience weren’t too impressed and some heckled and booed.
Yet at the Scotsman (3rd August) pointed out this is quite normal for a stand-up comic (although Truss was in fact sitting down). When asked to apologise for her 49 day Premiership she described the comment as inane.
She did however venture that her policies of higher mortgage costs for many and tax cuts for the rich would have led to a better Tory Election result on July 4th than Rishi Sunak managed.
Its not perhaps a laugh out loud line but the Scotsman suggests it could be contender in the annual competition to find the best joke of the Edinburgh Fringe. Indeed as Trevor Griffiths argued in his play The Comedians some of the best comedy is precisely not laugh out loud material but that which provokes thought.
Unfortunately Truss’s Election line did not however make the Top 15 Edinburgh Festival jokes list.
Top 15 jokes of the 2024 Fringe (BBC)
1. I was going to sail around the globe in the world’s smallest ship but I bottled it. – Mark Simmons
2. I’ve been taking salsa lessons for months, but I just don’t feel like I’m progressing. It’s just one step forward… two steps back. – Alec Snook
3. Ate horse at a restaurant once – wasn’t great. Starter was all right but the mane was dreadful. – Alex Kitson
4. I sailed through my driving test. That’s why I failed it. – Arthur Smith
5. I love the Olympics. My friend and I invented a new type of relay baton: well, he came up with the idea, I ran with it.- Mark Simmons
6. My dad used to say to me “Pints, gallons, litres” – which, I think, speaks volumes – Olaf Falafel
7. British etiquette is confusing. Why is it highbrow to look at boobs in an art gallery but lowbrow when I get them out in Spoons? – Chelsea Birkby
8. I wanted to know which came first the chicken or the egg so I bought a chicken and then I bought an egg and I think I’ve cracked it. – Masai Graham
9. My partner told me that she’d never seen the film Gaslight. I told her that she definitely had – Zoë Coombs Marr
10. The conspiracy theory about the moon being made of cheese was started by the hallouminati. – Olaf Falafel
11. I’m an extremely emotionally needy non-binary person: my pronouns are ‘there there’. – Sarah Keyworth
12. I’ve got a girlfriend who never stops whining. I wish I’d never bought her that vineyard – Roger Swift
13. Gay people are very bad at maths. We don’t naturally multiply. – Lou Wall
14. Keir Starmer looks like an AI-generated image of a substitute teacher – Sophie Duker
15. Growing up rich is a hereditary condition. It affects 1% of people – Olga Koch
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