YOU'D think that after her disastrous stint as prime minister, which crashed the British economy and saw her outlasted by a lettuce, Liz Truss would have gone away, crawled under a rock in shame, and not come out until lettuces had evolved sentience.

However, one thing that Tories have not evolved is the ability to feel shame, or indeed compassion, humanity, or decency. Truss still affects to believe that her government was brought down by an international cabal of woke lefties in the Bank of England and the international money markets - those well known branches of the Socialist Workers' Party - and not by her own lies and incompetence.

Truss has now launched a new Conservative pressure group in order to force the Conservative party further to the right, because the real problem with the Tories is that they're not fascist enough. Truss's new pressure group is organised and funded by the same shadowy dark money-funded far-right 'think tanks' based in Tufton Street in a posh part of Westminster in London that were responsible for Truss's suicidal approach to the economy.

Funded by right wing multi-millionaires these groups are parasites on politics which disguise themselves as the voice of the people. True to form, Truss's new organisation has called itself Popular Conservatism, with the unfortunate short form PopCon, which the organisers doubtless thought was a shrewd branding tactic to make themselves sound hip and modern.

READ MORE: Rishi Sunak refuses to apologise for transgender jibe

The founding conference of this new group was held in Tufton Street because organisers want to demonstrate that they are in tune with the voices of the common man and woman in the street, as long as that street is Tufton Street.

In fact, PopCon sounds very like one of those online scams which entices people to send off a large amount of money for seats to Taylor Swift's world tour, only to eventually receive a flimsy plastic stool with TAYLOR SWIFT WORLD TOUR stamped on the seat.

Liz Truss's PopCon is a very similar sort of scam, promising solutions to the problems of ordinary people when all that will really happen is that they end up poorer while a wealthy shadowy sociopath rakes in the cash.

The central thesis of PopCon is that despite being in government for 70 of the last 100 years, the Tories have no power, because the legal system, the media, the Environment Agency, Natural England, the Office of Budget Responsibility, the Post Office, the Bank of England, and international currency traders are all woke lefties who conspire to do down the common people that only the far right funded by billionaires can properly represent.

The National: Former prime minister Liz Truss (right) and Lee Anderson (second right) during the launch of the Popular Conservatism movementFormer prime minister Liz Truss (right) and Lee Anderson (second right) during the launch of the Popular Conservatism movement (Image: Victoria Jones)

The conference was addressed by that spokesman for the common people Jacob Rees-Mogg and the intellectual giant of modern conservatism, 30p Lee Anderson. Anderson took to the stage to demand more fracking and for coal mines to be re-opened, claiming that coal is a sustainable energy resource because it used to be trees.

Rampant climate science denial is very much on brand for the Tufton Street groups. Coal took 250 million years to form, which is still quicker than the waiting time for a dental appointment in NHS England. Next up they'll be claiming that it's perfectly fine to pump England's river full of untreated sewage because human excrement is organic.

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It is a sign of how epically unfit for purpose that the Westminster system has become that someone as dense and callous as Lee Anderson got promoted to a position of power and influence instead of being left to rant about immigrants while nursing a pint in a lonely dark corner of a dingy pub.

This is a man who has no idea at all of the difference between renewable and non-renewable resources, but still think he is qualified to give a key speech on sustainability.

But then that's quite appropriate for a conference supposedly about kick starting the British economy whose figurehead is Liz Truss, a woman who almost kicked the British economy to death.

Rishi Sunak's callousness on full display with Piers Morgan 

Still it is quite remarkable that Lee Anderson is still eclipsed this week by Rishi Sunak in the Tory face palm stakes. Sunak has come in for widespread criticism for accepting a bet of £1000 from the equally odious Piers Morgan that asylum seekers would be deported to Rwanda before the next general election.

At Prime Minister's Questions today SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn demanded that Sunak apologise for a demeaning and dehumanising stunt, saying: "The public are used to the Tories gambling on the lives of others." Sunak dodged the question.

Following Sunak's decision to withdraw cost of living support for low income families even as the Tories tout the possibility of tax cuts in next month's budget, the SNP leader asked Sunak: "What does he think makes him look more out of touch - gambling £1000 or claiming the cost of living is getting better?"

READ MORE: Ipsos poll: Support for independence sitting at 53 per cent

£1000 is loose change to Sunak, but a fortune to low income families struggling to make ends meet. This is a man who is so far up his own fundament that he thought it was OK to make a cheap jibe about transgender women while the mother of murdered transgender teenager Brianna Ghey was visiting Parliament and expected in the public gallery.

The Tories are determined to pursue their culture wars even at the expense of the bereaved. It was appalling, even by the crass low standards of the Conservative party.

Sunak was later asked by another Labour MP to apologise for his remark, he ignored the request.

Independence poll shows SNP need to bat off Labour gains

The latest opinion poll has shown that support for independence is at 53% while also showing that the SNP would pick up 40 seats at the next General Election while Labour would secure 13, and the Tories just two.

The Ipsos poll places the SNP on 39% vote share with vote to Labour on 32% and the Conservatives, trailing far behind on 14%.

The poll highlights how important it is for the SNP to motivate pro independence supporters to turn out and vote for it at the next general election.