That tendency was on display at the hustings event last week, where Truss was asked whether the French president, Emmanuel Macron, is friend or foe. “The jury’s out,” she said. It was meant in a mischievous spirit, with an eye only for the Tory activists in the room. Foreign secretaries and wannabe prime ministers used to avoid imbecilities of that kind before Boris Johnson contaminated both offices with his marauding insouciance. And even he doesn’t hesitate to call France an ally.

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Melric, the King's magician, uses his magic to help everyone in the kingdom. But one day he wakes up to find his powers have disappeared! Anyone who pays an energy bill and does a weekly shop can feel the claws of a budget squeeze closing around the nation’s windpipe. There’s an ogre in the health service. “Not now, Bernard,” says Rishi Sunak. There’s a fiend in the financial outlook. “Not now, Bernard,” says Liz Truss. There are devils in your policy details. “Not now, Bernard!” Forgotten the title or the author of a book? Our BookSleuth is specially designed for you. Visit BookSleuth Tories now speak increasingly fondly of the outgoing prime minister, not because they remember him as a skilled leader, but because his unique skill is mesmerising them into forgetting what good government is meant to look like. Truss doesn’t have that magic touch. The Brexit booster wand sits awkwardly in her hand. Having learned to despise received Treasury wisdom, Truss has graduated on to scorn for diplomacy as traditionally practised at the Foreign Office. Reports of her encounters with overseas counterparts suggest she stumbles at the subtle boundary between direct and brusque; candid and crass.

Share favourite parts of the story or favourite illustrations. Talk about anything that puzzles your child, for example why Bernard’s parents don’t listen to him. Join in I've read and enjoyed this many times, albeit not recently. The story and illustrations are good, funny, and, at first, relatable, with echoes of The Boy who Cried 'Wolf'. The parents are always too busy to pay much attention to their son. It was written in 1980, long before smartphones and social media.

Not now, Bernard Pages 1-32 - Flip PDF Download | FlipHTML5

A new version with updated illustrations to reflect modern technology was published in 2020 to mark the books 40th anniversary.

Print off the template provided then your child can colour the mask and wear it to act out parts of the story. Write the monster’s diary It can’t be done. Opinion polls suggest a majority of voters think the whole thing was a mistake. Liz Truss, the likely winner of the leadership contest, insists otherwise with the vehemence of a zealous convert. The next resident of 10 Downing Street will find the garden crawling with monstrous economic and political menaces. A chorus of Bernards is raising the alarm. Economists, MPs, former Tory ministers, charities, trade unions, businesses, local councils – all can hear rustling in the bushes where a beastly crisis lurks, ready to savage the new prime minister.