With four weeks left in the leadership race, how many more times is Liz Truss going to be ‘misinterpreted’? First, there was the U-turn over regional pay boards for public sector workers, which would see them get lower pay in line with local wages outside of London and the South East. A press release from the Truss camp suggested £8.8 billions worth of savings could be made this way ‘if the system were to be adopted for all public sector workers in the long term.’

After an outcry, Truss insisted the policy had been ‘misinterpreted’ as ‘it was never intended to apply to doctors, nurses and teachers’. Which begs the question as to why her press release suggested it could adopted for ‘all’ workers and trumpeted the ‘billions’ being saved…

And now, it seems Truss’s comments have again been ‘misinterpreted.’ The Foreign Secretary told the Financial Times in an interview yesterday that as Prime Minister she would ‘look at what more can be done’ to help families facing spiralling fuel bills. But she added: ‘The way I would do things is in a Conservative way of lowering the tax burden, not giving out handouts.’ A storm of criticism predictably followed.

Yet apparently Truss was not dismissing future cost of living support when she said she would reject such ‘handouts.’ Her supporter Penny Mordaunt (what a fun campaign she’s having) was wheeled out on Sky today to explain that her candidate was ‘making a general point about the merits of enabling people to keep more of what they earn.’ Mordaunt added: ‘It’s not that she’s ruling out all future help. That’s a misinterpretation of what she said. What she is looking at though is enabling people to keep more of the money that they earn.’

For someone who claims to be ‘straight talking’, Truss does seem to get ‘misinterpreted’ an awful lot…