U.K. PM faces ‘brutal’ radio call-ins amid after pound collapses

With the United Kingdom’s economy in turmoil and questions swirling about her future as its leader, Prime Minister Liz Truss might have been expected to try and reassure an anxious country Thursday.

Instead, she spent the morning fielding angry, mostly written, questions on a list of local radio phone-in shows — a full hour of being berated in different regional English accents.

“Are you ashamed of what you’ve done?” one listener on BBC Radio Kent asked. “What on earth were you thinking?” a second from the coastal town of Birchington-on-Sea asked. “Have you taken the keys to the country and crashed the economy?” another said.

Truss spoke to eight radio stations in all, spending between five and 10 minutes with each. It was part of what was supposed to be a regular round of media appearances before party conferences — it just happened to land in the midst of a national economic crisis.