- Wednesday, March 12, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
SHE has come up as a strong contender to become the next prime minister of the UK and the second woman to lead the state within a gap of three years. However, British foreign secretary Liz Truss will also have to deal with her hawk-eyed critics who would dig up the past and bring out her words and actions that are still available on record.
For instance, in December 2016, when Truss was the secretary of state for justice in the government of Theresa May, she had left the British parliament baffled by suggesting that barking dogs could be helpful to stop drones flying drugs into prisons.
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Speaking in the parliament, the cabinet minister gave the example of how the Pentonville Prison in north London was handling a growing number of incidents where its prisoners were receiving drugs, mobile phones and other banned items with the help of remote-controlled aircraft.
The British government at that time had banned flying over prisons after 33 incidents were registered in 2015, compared to only two in 2014 and none in 2013.
“I was at HMP Pentonville last week. They’ve now got patrol dogs who are barking, which helps deter drones. So we’re using all kinds of solutions to deal with contraband coming into our prisons,” Truss had said then.
If Liz Truss is the next PM then we can expect more of this “dogs deterring drones”nonsense
— nazir afzal (@nazirafzal) July 21, 2022
The opposition Labour slammed her over her remarks with one parliamentarian from their rank heard saying, “It’s the minister who is barking.” One person sitting behind Truss was seen wearing a fade smile.
Veteran British solicitor Nazir Afzal brought out the video of the Truss remark in 2016 as the latter inched closer to becoming the British premier. While sharing the old video, he also said, “If Liz Truss is the next PM then we can expect more of this “dogs deterring drones”nonsense.”
