In general, I think people under-estimate how much fun you must have as a very senior politician. We all say ‘oh god who would want the scrutiny, pressure and hassle’ and fair enough, but if you can cope with that - or even thrive on it - then being a senior minister or PM must be a blast
Thatch describes it well in her memoirs. Finding the job consistently absorbing, compelling, surprising - surrounded by brilliant people and remarkable events - plus you get all the status. Big country house. Police everywhere. Lots of groveling
What matches that? Portillo doing trains for the Beeb? Miliband doing refugees in NYC? I just don’t see it. Only if you are finished or need the money would you accept the lesser job. Sunak is neither finished nor impoverished
Terrible toll on family though.
And at the very top you are basically signing up to having police armed protection within yards for the rest of your days.
@RoryStewartUK And again Liz Truss keeps saying Levelling up and recession is personal to her because she experienced the pain or the 1980s and 90s in Paisley and Leeds. But somehow she doesn’t seem to be mentioning that was a period of conservative government.
It's even worse than Rory says as a comment since the 1980s and early 1990s were not just a conservative government - it was a Thatcher/Lawson government which is the one she claims to worship and emulate the most (followed by mini-thatcher economics of Major/Clarke at the tail end).
Rory on R4 PM was in admiration for Starmer and Labour's mumblings on international aid. He was particularly annoyed that the current government's aid budget had been diverted from Africa ( for example) to Ukraine. Although he was not critical of money going to Ukraine, he was surprised from which budget it had been taken.
Now don't shoot me, I'm the messenger reporting Mr Stewart's analysis.
I don't quite understand why another six weeks are required - it can't just be the time taken to send and retrieve ballots?
The Commons isn't back until September.
I don't understand the relevance. The new leader could be in place by mid-August if it's just a postal service concern, then call an election on day one, no Commons required.
You really think a new PM could be appointed and have the first three weeks in office with no parliamentary scrutiny at all? You don't think that would get (and deserve) massive complaints of contempt for democracy, and so on?
And also - for the entirely theoretical notion - of witnessing the Mail's moral dilemma if it should have helped put Betty Whiplash into Downing Street.
Also makes for an interesting dilemma for other newspapers sitting on this theoretical story - do they go early and crash the candidacy? Or wait to see if they can bring down a sitting PM?
Truss doesn’t seem to care. This stuff is not hard to Google
I don't quite understand why another six weeks are required - it can't just be the time taken to send and retrieve ballots?
Because the shit-show of hustings between this pair has to be toured to all corners of the land.....
If it wasn't my country one of them will end up trashing I would find it rather amusing.
I am intrigued as to how both of them have concluded that this Government's version of Brexit can be seen as such a rip-roaring success. Truss in particular as an innocent by stander having just witnessed a car crash has declared "I want to have one of those!"
I don't quite understand why another six weeks are required - it can't just be the time taken to send and retrieve ballots?
The Commons isn't back until September.
I don't understand the relevance. The new leader could be in place by mid-August if it's just a postal service concern, then call an election on day one, no Commons required.
You really think a new PM could be appointed and have the first three weeks in office with no parliamentary scrutiny at all? You don't think that would get (and deserve) massive complaints of contempt for democracy, and so on?
Theresa May was Prime Minister for a week before the summer recess.
And also - for the entirely theoretical notion - of witnessing the Mail's moral dilemma if it should have helped put Betty Whiplash into Downing Street.
Also makes for an interesting dilemma for other newspapers sitting on this theoretical story - do they go early and crash the candidacy? Or wait to see if they can bring down a sitting PM?
Truss doesn’t seem to care. This stuff is not hard to Google
This is why I think pb is underrating her as a politician. She works out what it takes to win and does it. Clearly she's got her membership polling in and found out that she has a 37% lead with subs but trails by 17.5% with doms, so some staffer has been tasked with finding a way to send appropriate subtle-but-not-too-subtle signal to this important demographic segment.
And also - for the entirely theoretical notion - of witnessing the Mail's moral dilemma if it should have helped put Betty Whiplash into Downing Street.
Also makes for an interesting dilemma for other newspapers sitting on this theoretical story - do they go early and crash the candidacy? Or wait to see if they can bring down a sitting PM?
Truss doesn’t seem to care. This stuff is not hard to Google
This is why I think pb is underrating her as a politician. She works out what it takes to win and does it. Clearly she's got her membership polling in and found out that she has a 37% lead with subs but trails by 17.5% with doms, so some staffer has been tasked with finding a way to send appropriate subtle-but-not-too-subtle signal to this important demographic segment.
But that’s a sub’s necklace? Says she is collared and owned
The DRESS is domme. So she’s doing fine with D, S and the switchers (I strongly suspect she is switch)
However she needs to wear kitten heels for the pet players, latex and chaps for the leather lovers, a proper harness for the pony club, a zip-gag for the consensual non-consenters, and a Hello Kitty sporran for the ddlg contingent. To my mind
And also - for the entirely theoretical notion - of witnessing the Mail's moral dilemma if it should have helped put Betty Whiplash into Downing Street.
Also makes for an interesting dilemma for other newspapers sitting on this theoretical story - do they go early and crash the candidacy? Or wait to see if they can bring down a sitting PM?
Truss doesn’t seem to care. This stuff is not hard to Google
This is why I think pb is underrating her as a politician. She works out what it takes to win and does it. Clearly she's got her membership polling in and found out that she has a 37% lead with subs but trails by 17.5% with doms, so some staffer has been tasked with finding a way to send appropriate subtle-but-not-too-subtle signal to this important demographic segment.
Surely the subs vote for whoever their doms tell them to, anyway.
And also - for the entirely theoretical notion - of witnessing the Mail's moral dilemma if it should have helped put Betty Whiplash into Downing Street.
Also makes for an interesting dilemma for other newspapers sitting on this theoretical story - do they go early and crash the candidacy? Or wait to see if they can bring down a sitting PM?
Truss doesn’t seem to care. This stuff is not hard to Google
This is why I think pb is underrating her as a politician. She works out what it takes to win and does it. Clearly she's got her membership polling in and found out that she has a 37% lead with subs but trails by 17.5% with doms, so some staffer has been tasked with finding a way to send appropriate subtle-but-not-too-subtle signal to this important demographic segment.
Surely the subs vote for whoever their doms tell them to, anyway.
I said a couple of days ago that if Sunak hit 4 I would go back in despite being comfortably green on both.
He's at 4
And I am topping up.
Can I ask the reasoning for this ?
Do you feel that there is a short-term betting market over-reaction & more money will gradually flow back to Sunak over the next few days, so that he goes back to 3 ?
Or, is it based on a view that Sunak would improve his position through better debate performances ? Or that undecideds would break for Sunak in future polling ?
Surprised the betting has moved even more towards Truss after tonight.
She was the favourite. She stumbled no more than Rishi stumbled. So, even if the debate was a wash, a source of uncertainty is gone, and she is closer to winning.
I said a couple of days ago that if Sunak hit 4 I would go back in despite being comfortably green on both.
He's at 4
And I am topping up.
Can I ask the reasoning for this ?
Do you feel that there is a short-term betting market over-reaction & more money will gradually flow back to Sunak over the next few days, so that he goes back to 3 ?
Or, is it based on a view that Sunak would improve his position through better debate performances ? Or that undecideds would break for Sunak in future polling ?
He might be right but personally I think backing Sunak at this moment just pretties up Betfair tbh
I am but a lowly voter, clearly no match for the intellectual titans who make up the Parliamentary Conservative Party, but I still genuinely have no idea what the strategy was for supporting Sunak.
We knew from the first YouGov poll that he lost every matchup, whether it was against Mordaunt, Badenoch or Tugendhat. My assumption was that MPs would understand there's a substantial anyone-but-Rishi vote and that it's non-ideological; somewhere between 30/40% was Sunak's ceiling, and the rest of the membership would back anyone to stop him.
So if you're an MP and you're backing Sunak in the first round of voting, you haven't seen the poll, fine, I get that. And I understand backing him when the field is crowded with Zahawi, Hunt, etc. But I cannot understand, after the second YouGov poll confirming that members have made their minds up and there's no viable path for Sunak to win over the membership, why MPs kept voting for him? Surely it is a suicide mission, handing the leadership to whoever is going against him? Unless you think Sunak can win over the membership despite starting at a massive disadvantage and against all logic or conventional wisdom - but as we've just seen, he can't?
I'm honestly not trolling - can anyone explain this to me?
Just seen the "highlights" of the Conservative leadership "debate".
Words fail me. I am not sure that either candidate rose above abysmal. Truly dire. It was a total car crash, nonsense at best and extremely dishonest at worst.
One might have thought a bit of contrition and some realistic plans might by the best antidote to the bullshit era of Johnson. In fact, I now understand why a significant number of Conservative members prefer the disaster they have got to the disaster they are going to get. The "ideas" under debate were banal at best, but mostly unworkable, dangerously economically illiterate and stupid, especially from Liz Truss.
OK PB Tories, explain to the waiting world why this is the best that Britain can do. Personally I now share OGH´s view that the voters will conclude that the best we can do is get rid of the these third rate shysters and push the Tories out of power, bag and baggage for a generation.
I am but a lowly voter, clearly no match for the intellectual titans who make up the Parliamentary Conservative Party, but I still genuinely have no idea what the strategy was for supporting Sunak.
We knew from the first YouGov poll that he lost every matchup, whether it was against Mordaunt, Badenoch or Tugendhat. My assumption was that MPs would understand there's a substantial anyone-but-Rishi vote and that it's non-ideological; somewhere between 30/40% was Sunak's ceiling, and the rest of the membership would back anyone to stop him.
So if you're an MP and you're backing Sunak in the first round of voting, you haven't seen the poll, fine, I get that. And I understand backing him when the field is crowded with Zahawi, Hunt, etc. But I cannot understand, after the second YouGov poll confirming that members have made their minds up and there's no viable path for Sunak to win over the membership, why MPs kept voting for him? Surely it is a suicide mission, handing the leadership to whoever is going against him? Unless you think Sunak can win over the membership despite starting at a massive disadvantage and against all logic or conventional wisdom - but as we've just seen, he can't?
I'm honestly not trolling - can anyone explain this to me?
Post of the thread so far.
Do we have to hand back our winnings on by-elections, general elections and the odd referendum that opinion polls got wrong? If not, why should MPs regard this particular polling from a single pollster as sacrosanct?
Here’s an interesting thought, you could imagine Sunak leading the Lib Dems.
I don't think so because economically he is v dry.
He is the Thatcherite economics guy not Truss. But unbelievably, and thanks partly to Dacre and co, the members seem to think she is the dry one.
She's gonna spend money we don't have like a sailor on shore leave. Now it is a perfectly respectable economic position to spend money we don't have now using money from the future via debts but it aint exactly Thatcher.
It kind of is Thatcher. Back in the day, North Sea oil money and the proceeds of privatisation were used to finance tax cuts at the expense of investing in infrastructure and public services. We don't have the North Sea oil and privatisation windfalls available this time, so Truss is going to borrow a shedload of money to cut taxes instead. I don't have a problem with borrowing, but I think that it should be done for infrastructure and public realm purposes.
Here’s an interesting thought, you could imagine Sunak leading the Lib Dems.
I don't think so because economically he is v dry.
He is the Thatcherite economics guy not Truss. But unbelievably, and thanks partly to Dacre and co, the members seem to think she is the dry one.
She's gonna spend money we don't have like a sailor on shore leave. Now it is a perfectly respectable economic position to spend money we don't have now using money from the future via debts but it aint exactly Thatcher.
It kind of is Thatcher. Back in the day, North Sea oil money and the proceeds of privatisation were used to finance tax cuts at the expense of investing in infrastructure and public services. We don't have the North Sea oil and privatisation windfalls available this time, so Truss is going to borrow a shedload of money to cut taxes instead. I don't have a problem with borrowing, but I think that it should be done for infrastructure and public realm purposes.
"finance tax cuts at the expense of investing in infrastructure and public services...."
Do you have sources for that claim? What was the tax burden in 1990 compared to 1979? And I'm fairly sure a heck of a lot of infrastructure was built in the 1980s...
Here’s an interesting thought, you could imagine Sunak leading the Lib Dems.
I don't think so because economically he is v dry.
He is the Thatcherite economics guy not Truss. But unbelievably, and thanks partly to Dacre and co, the members seem to think she is the dry one.
She's gonna spend money we don't have like a sailor on shore leave. Now it is a perfectly respectable economic position to spend money we don't have now using money from the future via debts but it aint exactly Thatcher.
It kind of is Thatcher. Back in the day, North Sea oil money and the proceeds of privatisation were used to finance tax cuts at the expense of investing in infrastructure and public services. We don't have the North Sea oil and privatisation windfalls available this time, so Truss is going to borrow a shedload of money to cut taxes instead. I don't have a problem with borrowing, but I think that it should be done for infrastructure and public realm purposes.
"finance tax cuts at the expense of investing in infrastructure and public services...."
Do you have sources for that claim? What was the tax burden in 1990 compared to 1979? And I'm fairly sure a heck of a lot of infrastructure was built in the 1980s...
During the 1980s public spending was cut as a percent of GDP from about 45 percent down to 34 percent in 1989. But then, with the ERM sterling crisis and associated recession, it rose back to 40 percent of GDP before declining to 35 percent in 2000. After 2000 public spending increased rapidly, with a peak of 44.9 percent of GDP in 2011 in the afermath of the financial crisis of 2008, followed by a slow decrease to 40.6 percent GDP in 2016 and a projected 38.8 percent GDP by 2020.
I said a couple of days ago that if Sunak hit 4 I would go back in despite being comfortably green on both.
He's at 4
And I am topping up.
Can I ask the reasoning for this ?
Do you feel that there is a short-term betting market over-reaction & more money will gradually flow back to Sunak over the next few days, so that he goes back to 3 ?
Or, is it based on a view that Sunak would improve his position through better debate performances ? Or that undecideds would break for Sunak in future polling ?
He might be right but personally I think backing Sunak at this moment just pretties up Betfair tbh
I can't see any reason for backing Sunak right now except to waste money in pursuit of an all green screen.
Here’s an interesting thought, you could imagine Sunak leading the Lib Dems.
I don't think so because economically he is v dry.
He is the Thatcherite economics guy not Truss. But unbelievably, and thanks partly to Dacre and co, the members seem to think she is the dry one.
She's gonna spend money we don't have like a sailor on shore leave. Now it is a perfectly respectable economic position to spend money we don't have now using money from the future via debts but it aint exactly Thatcher.
It kind of is Thatcher. Back in the day, North Sea oil money and the proceeds of privatisation were used to finance tax cuts at the expense of investing in infrastructure and public services. We don't have the North Sea oil and privatisation windfalls available this time, so Truss is going to borrow a shedload of money to cut taxes instead. I don't have a problem with borrowing, but I think that it should be done for infrastructure and public realm purposes.
"finance tax cuts at the expense of investing in infrastructure and public services...."
Do you have sources for that claim? What was the tax burden in 1990 compared to 1979? And I'm fairly sure a heck of a lot of infrastructure was built in the 1980s...
During the 1980s public spending was cut as a percent of GDP from about 45 percent down to 34 percent in 1989. But then, with the ERM sterling crisis and associated recession, it rose back to 40 percent of GDP before declining to 35 percent in 2000. After 2000 public spending increased rapidly, with a peak of 44.9 percent of GDP in 2011 in the afermath of the financial crisis of 2008, followed by a slow decrease to 40.6 percent GDP in 2016 and a projected 38.8 percent GDP by 2020.
Thanks - that's interesting.
To make it clear: my stated position is that taxes have to go up, and that burden will mainly have to go on the better-off. And the smokers and drinkers.
Oh, and you should get a small tax rebate for every hour's exercise you do...
I watch some of last night's debate, after the cricket had finished. I wasn't particularly impressed by either of the two candidates, but then I'm not the target audience!
This morning I've had a quick look at Pb and as usual a quick look at the headlines in the newspapers as reported on the BBC. I note with interest that the Mail refers to the female candidate as Miss.
Strange debate, PB thread weird with Leon predictably going off an a fifty shades of blue tangent. I can’t believe there is another month of this stuff.
I watch some of last night's debate, after the cricket had finished. I wasn't particularly impressed by either of the two candidates, but then I'm not the target audience!
This morning I've had a quick look at Pb and as usual a quick look at the headlines in the newspapers as reported on the BBC. I note with interest that the Mail refers to the female candidate as Miss.
Good morning OKC, hope you’re feeling better today.
Strange debate, PB thread weird with Leon predictably going off an a fifty shades of blue tangent. I can’t believe there is another month of this stuff.
Well, there are no more debates until six o'clock this evening.
ETA the tangent Leon chose was not the one I was expecting.
TSE writes something nasty about the Conservative Party. What a surprise.
It's the bloody BBC you should be complaining about. A whole hour of two middle class lefties slagging off the last 12 years of Conservative government.
It appears that the sudden rash of hepatitis in young children here and around the world can be put down to lockdowns and the inability to expose children to sufficient bugs at the right stage. I wonder if this is a one off or whether other adverse health effects will be tracked down to lockdowns. And I also wonder how the children in China are doing.
Strange debate, PB thread weird with Leon predictably going off an a fifty shades of blue tangent. I can’t believe there is another month of this stuff.
I'm more interested in whether Starmer's goose is cooked. He's been shedding USPs like a moulting duck. I'm struggling to see a difference between Starmer Sunak and Truss. At the moment the only thing keeping Starmer ahead is that he didn't serve in a Johnson Cabinet and to my knowledge he's not proposing to send refugees to Rwanda.
I'm more interested in whether Starmer's goose is cooked. He's been shedding USPs like a moulting duck. I'm struggling to see a difference between Starmer Sunak and Truss. At the moment the only thing keeping Starmer ahead is that he didn't serve in a Johnson Cabinet and to my knowledge he's not proposing to send refugees to Rwanda.
Closer to the general election Starmer will announce as Prime Minister he will send refugees to Hartlepool and Middlesbrough.
@RoryStewartUK And again Liz Truss keeps saying Levelling up and recession is personal to her because she experienced the pain or the 1980s and 90s in Paisley and Leeds. But somehow she doesn’t seem to be mentioning that was a period of conservative government.
For all their constant references to the Eighties, surely neither could usefully remember them and analyse them. Sunak wasn't even born when Thatcher moved into number 10. He was in nappies when inflation was being squeezed out by her monetarist policy. Truss was 4 when Thatcher was elected, perhaps starting primary school at the height of the battle with inflation.
They may well have read of what went on, but neither are credible primary witnesses of what went on, good or bad.
I don't know, I am the same age as Truss and I have pretty strong memories of the eighties - the Falklands War, miners strike, Wapping, Brighton bombing, Herald of Free Enterprise, Clapham rail crash, King's Cross fire. Plus the music in the charts. Thatcher's horrible voice and hair on the TV. Spitting Image and the Young Ones. Playing out in the back lane on my bike. And the general feeling of poverty and despair in the North East of England at the time.
It appears that the sudden rash of hepatitis in young children here and around the world can be put down to lockdowns and the inability to expose children to sufficient bugs at the right stage. I wonder if this is a one off or whether other adverse health effects will be tracked down to lockdowns. And I also wonder how the children in China are doing.
Interesting. Over the past couple of years I have often wondered whether the measures to supress Covid would also supress our immunity to seasonal coughs, colds, other viruses. At the time the view of experts was generally that they would not, but I was never convinced of this, as it just seems like common sense that you build up immunity to disease by being exposed to everyday bugs.
It’s very good - but also very much a concept car, full of F1 and Formula E tech, with a hand-built carbon chassis and relentless attention to aerodynamic detail.
A production version would be in supercar pricing territory and have a lot less range, but some people will definitely pay top dollar to avoid having to deal with the various charging systems on road trips.
I'm more interested in whether Starmer's goose is cooked. He's been shedding USPs like a moulting duck. I'm struggling to see a difference between Starmer Sunak and Truss. At the moment the only thing keeping Starmer ahead is that he didn't serve in a Johnson Cabinet and to my knowledge he's not proposing to send refugees to Rwanda.
Starmer is so timid and so wooden that he risks losing an election to the worst PM since the last worst PM.
Last night's debate highlighted what a disaster is now being faced by working people. A true leader hounded out of office by his own Maps. A choice of political pygmies as replacement. A threat to the economy.
Socialist Appeal and the rest of the left should call a general strike and not go back to work until Keir Starmer is removed and the true leader reinstated
Mr. Eagles, Sunak is no Hannibal. But then, Truss is no Scipio.
Mr. Roger, Starmer benefits from not being in government at a time of economic woe. It's still his election to lose, I think.
Sunak = Hannibal Truss = Scipio
Currently look fairly matched but Truss's cavalry are just about to attack Sunak's infantry in the rear and administer the coup de grace.
Sunak = Russia, dragging 50-year-old weapons out of what’s euphemistically called “storage”. Truss = Ukraine, equipped and trained with modern HIMARS and M270 MLRS.
About the only positive I can take from Liz Truss winning the leadership contest is that I can wind up my leftie friends and say that the nasty Tory party is on their third female leader/PM whilst the wonderful progressives make women feel like the suffragettes.
Mr. Eagles, Sunak is no Hannibal. But then, Truss is no Scipio.
Mr. Roger, Starmer benefits from not being in government at a time of economic woe. It's still his election to lose, I think.
Sunak = Hannibal Truss = Scipio
Currently look fairly matched but Truss's cavalry are just about to attack Sunak's infantry in the rear and administer the coup de grace.
Sunak = Russia, dragging 50-year-old weapons out of what’s euphemistically called “storage”. Truss = Ukraine, equipped and trained with modern HIMARS and M270 MLRS.
Sunak = Grad Truss = M177 Country = Russian ammo dump.
@RoryStewartUK And again Liz Truss keeps saying Levelling up and recession is personal to her because she experienced the pain or the 1980s and 90s in Paisley and Leeds. But somehow she doesn’t seem to be mentioning that was a period of conservative government.
For all their constant references to the Eighties, surely neither could usefully remember them and analyse them. Sunak wasn't even born when Thatcher moved into number 10. He was in nappies when inflation was being squeezed out by her monetarist policy. Truss was 4 when Thatcher was elected, perhaps starting primary school at the height of the battle with inflation.
They may well have read of what went on, but neither are credible primary witnesses of what went on, good or bad.
I don't know, I am the same age as Truss and I have pretty strong memories of the eighties - the Falklands War, miners strike, Wapping, Brighton bombing, Herald of Free Enterprise, Clapham rail crash, King's Cross fire. Plus the music in the charts. Thatcher's horrible voice and hair on the TV. Spitting Image and the Young Ones. Playing out in the back lane on my bike. And the general feeling of poverty and despair in the North East of England at the time.
Yes, but all of those came after Thatchers monetarist squeeze on inflation.
Pop culture is different to economics. Very few primary school kids are up for a discussion on interest rates policy.
About the only positive I can take from Liz Truss winning the leadership contest is that I can wind up my leftie friends and say that the nasty Tory party is on their third female leader/PM whilst the wonderful progressives make women feel like the suffragettes.
Women have truly achieved equality when one as useless as any male politician becomes PM. We may well be at that point.
About the only positive I can take from Liz Truss winning the leadership contest is that I can wind up my leftie friends and say that the nasty Tory party is on their third female leader/PM whilst the wonderful progressives make women feel like the suffragettes.
Women have truly achieved equality when one as useless as any male politician becomes PM. We may well be at that point.
@RoryStewartUK And again Liz Truss keeps saying Levelling up and recession is personal to her because she experienced the pain or the 1980s and 90s in Paisley and Leeds. But somehow she doesn’t seem to be mentioning that was a period of conservative government.
For all their constant references to the Eighties, surely neither could usefully remember them and analyse them. Sunak wasn't even born when Thatcher moved into number 10. He was in nappies when inflation was being squeezed out by her monetarist policy. Truss was 4 when Thatcher was elected, perhaps starting primary school at the height of the battle with inflation.
They may well have read of what went on, but neither are credible primary witnesses of what went on, good or bad.
I don't know, I am the same age as Truss and I have pretty strong memories of the eighties - the Falklands War, miners strike, Wapping, Brighton bombing, Herald of Free Enterprise, Clapham rail crash, King's Cross fire. Plus the music in the charts. Thatcher's horrible voice and hair on the TV. Spitting Image and the Young Ones. Playing out in the back lane on my bike. And the general feeling of poverty and despair in the North East of England at the time.
Yes, but all of those came after Thatchers monetarist squeeze on inflation.
Pop culture is different to economics. Very few primary school kids are up for a discussion on interest rates policy.
But that is the sort of stuff you can read up on afterwards. As an economist I could talk about Thatcher's economic policy all day long. All I am saying is that if Truss claims to remember the impact of Thatcherite policies on the industrial areas of the North and Scotland then I believe her, as I was there at the time too, and am the sane age, and have very vivid memories of the derelict factories, poverty and despair of the time, as well as the bitterness caused by the miners strike. Children pick up on a lot. And she was brought up in a political, anti Thatcher household. Her parents probably donated food to the striking miners and wrnt on plenty of demos. What I don't understand is how those experiences convinced her to become a Tory!
@RoryStewartUK And again Liz Truss keeps saying Levelling up and recession is personal to her because she experienced the pain or the 1980s and 90s in Paisley and Leeds. But somehow she doesn’t seem to be mentioning that was a period of conservative government.
For all their constant references to the Eighties, surely neither could usefully remember them and analyse them. Sunak wasn't even born when Thatcher moved into number 10. He was in nappies when inflation was being squeezed out by her monetarist policy. Truss was 4 when Thatcher was elected, perhaps starting primary school at the height of the battle with inflation.
They may well have read of what went on, but neither are credible primary witnesses of what went on, good or bad.
I don't know, I am the same age as Truss and I have pretty strong memories of the eighties - the Falklands War, miners strike, Wapping, Brighton bombing, Herald of Free Enterprise, Clapham rail crash, King's Cross fire. Plus the music in the charts. Thatcher's horrible voice and hair on the TV. Spitting Image and the Young Ones. Playing out in the back lane on my bike. And the general feeling of poverty and despair in the North East of England at the time.
Yes, but all of those came after Thatchers monetarist squeeze on inflation.
Pop culture is different to economics. Very few primary school kids are up for a discussion on interest rates policy.
But that is the sort of stuff you can read up on afterwards. As an economist I could talk about Thatcher's economic policy all day long. All I am saying is that if Truss claims to remember the impact of Thatcherite policies on the industrial areas of the North and Scotland then I believe her, as I was there at the time too, and am the sane age, and have very vivid memories of the derelict factories, poverty and despair of the time, as well as the bitterness caused by the miners strike. Children pick up on a lot. And she was brought up in a political, anti Thatcher household. Her parents probably donated food to the striking miners and wrnt on plenty of demos. What I don't understand is how those experiences convinced her to become a Tory!
Same age not sane age! Although both are true if course.
It appears that the sudden rash of hepatitis in young children here and around the world can be put down to lockdowns and the inability to expose children to sufficient bugs at the right stage. I wonder if this is a one off or whether other adverse health effects will be tracked down to lockdowns. And I also wonder how the children in China are doing.
Interesting. Over the past couple of years I have often wondered whether the measures to supress Covid would also supress our immunity to seasonal coughs, colds, other viruses. At the time the view of experts was generally that they would not, but I was never convinced of this, as it just seems like common sense that you build up immunity to disease by being exposed to everyday bugs.
Surely the experts suggested the opposite, and that even colds seemed worse because of faded immunity.
About the only positive I can take from Liz Truss winning the leadership contest is that I can wind up my leftie friends and say that the nasty Tory party is on their third female leader/PM whilst the wonderful progressives make women feel like the suffragettes.
I'm sure with a little effort you will think of something in the event Rishi wins.
@RoryStewartUK And again Liz Truss keeps saying Levelling up and recession is personal to her because she experienced the pain or the 1980s and 90s in Paisley and Leeds. But somehow she doesn’t seem to be mentioning that was a period of conservative government.
@RoryStewartUK And again Liz Truss keeps saying Levelling up and recession is personal to her because she experienced the pain or the 1980s and 90s in Paisley and Leeds. But somehow she doesn’t seem to be mentioning that was a period of conservative government.
I watch some of last night's debate, after the cricket had finished. I wasn't particularly impressed by either of the two candidates, but then I'm not the target audience!
This morning I've had a quick look at Pb and as usual a quick look at the headlines in the newspapers as reported on the BBC. I note with interest that the Mail refers to the female candidate as Miss.
Good morning OKC, hope you’re feeling better today.
Thank you both. Not very positive, but we did have a very good face-to-face with the very helpful GP yesterday! Just might get an appointment sooner than October.
It’s very good - but also very much a concept car, full of F1 and Formula E tech, with a hand-built carbon chassis and relentless attention to aerodynamic detail.
A production version would be in supercar pricing territory and have a lot less range, but some people will definitely pay top dollar to avoid having to deal with the various charging systems on road trips.
I am but a lowly voter, clearly no match for the intellectual titans who make up the Parliamentary Conservative Party, but I still genuinely have no idea what the strategy was for supporting Sunak.
We knew from the first YouGov poll that he lost every matchup, whether it was against Mordaunt, Badenoch or Tugendhat. My assumption was that MPs would understand there's a substantial anyone-but-Rishi vote and that it's non-ideological; somewhere between 30/40% was Sunak's ceiling, and the rest of the membership would back anyone to stop him.
So if you're an MP and you're backing Sunak in the first round of voting, you haven't seen the poll, fine, I get that. And I understand backing him when the field is crowded with Zahawi, Hunt, etc. But I cannot understand, after the second YouGov poll confirming that members have made their minds up and there's no viable path for Sunak to win over the membership, why MPs kept voting for him? Surely it is a suicide mission, handing the leadership to whoever is going against him? Unless you think Sunak can win over the membership despite starting at a massive disadvantage and against all logic or conventional wisdom - but as we've just seen, he can't?
I'm honestly not trolling - can anyone explain this to me?
The most simple explanation would be to assume that Conservative MPs are not very bright.
@RoryStewartUK And again Liz Truss keeps saying Levelling up and recession is personal to her because she experienced the pain or the 1980s and 90s in Paisley and Leeds. But somehow she doesn’t seem to be mentioning that was a period of conservative government.
For all their constant references to the Eighties, surely neither could usefully remember them and analyse them. Sunak wasn't even born when Thatcher moved into number 10. He was in nappies when inflation was being squeezed out by her monetarist policy. Truss was 4 when Thatcher was elected, perhaps starting primary school at the height of the battle with inflation.
They may well have read of what went on, but neither are credible primary witnesses of what went on, good or bad.
I don't know, I am the same age as Truss and I have pretty strong memories of the eighties - the Falklands War, miners strike, Wapping, Brighton bombing, Herald of Free Enterprise, Clapham rail crash, King's Cross fire. Plus the music in the charts. Thatcher's horrible voice and hair on the TV. Spitting Image and the Young Ones. Playing out in the back lane on my bike. And the general feeling of poverty and despair in the North East of England at the time.
Yes, but all of those came after Thatchers monetarist squeeze on inflation.
Pop culture is different to economics. Very few primary school kids are up for a discussion on interest rates policy.
But that is the sort of stuff you can read up on afterwards. As an economist I could talk about Thatcher's economic policy all day long. All I am saying is that if Truss claims to remember the impact of Thatcherite policies on the industrial areas of the North and Scotland then I believe her, as I was there at the time too, and am the sane age, and have very vivid memories of the derelict factories, poverty and despair of the time, as well as the bitterness caused by the miners strike. Children pick up on a lot. And she was brought up in a political, anti Thatcher household. Her parents probably donated food to the striking miners and wrnt on plenty of demos. What I don't understand is how those experiences convinced her to become a Tory!
Rebellion against her parents views? After all she became a LibDem in her late teens!
It’s very good - but also very much a concept car, full of F1 and Formula E tech, with a hand-built carbon chassis and relentless attention to aerodynamic detail.
A production version would be in supercar pricing territory and have a lot less range, but some people will definitely pay top dollar to avoid having to deal with the various charging systems on road trips.
I noticed in passing while reading about the new MG 4 that their new floor design allows for battery packs of between 40kwh and 150kwh... So they are looking at building cars with a range of 700 miles +
Our brutal parliamentary system, in which heads of government are removed by voters or MPs and rarely come to a dignified end of their term, makes the torment of being replaced even harder to bear. This is particularly severe if a PM believes they never did anything wrong — think Heath — or if they consider the electorate always backed them but their MPs were too weak to stick with them — think Thatcher.
Now think of Boris Johnson. All of these feelings will apply to him. He is going to be Heath with jokes added in, and Thatcher with consistency taken out, all rolled into a bundle of resentment, denial, attention-seeking and attempted vindication that will be a permanent nightmare for the new prime minister.
@RoryStewartUK And again Liz Truss keeps saying Levelling up and recession is personal to her because she experienced the pain or the 1980s and 90s in Paisley and Leeds. But somehow she doesn’t seem to be mentioning that was a period of conservative government.
For all their constant references to the Eighties, surely neither could usefully remember them and analyse them. Sunak wasn't even born when Thatcher moved into number 10. He was in nappies when inflation was being squeezed out by her monetarist policy. Truss was 4 when Thatcher was elected, perhaps starting primary school at the height of the battle with inflation.
They may well have read of what went on, but neither are credible primary witnesses of what went on, good or bad.
I don't know, I am the same age as Truss and I have pretty strong memories of the eighties - the Falklands War, miners strike, Wapping, Brighton bombing, Herald of Free Enterprise, Clapham rail crash, King's Cross fire. Plus the music in the charts. Thatcher's horrible voice and hair on the TV. Spitting Image and the Young Ones. Playing out in the back lane on my bike. And the general feeling of poverty and despair in the North East of England at the time.
Yes, but all of those came after Thatchers monetarist squeeze on inflation.
Pop culture is different to economics. Very few primary school kids are up for a discussion on interest rates policy.
But that is the sort of stuff you can read up on afterwards. As an economist I could talk about Thatcher's economic policy all day long. All I am saying is that if Truss claims to remember the impact of Thatcherite policies on the industrial areas of the North and Scotland then I believe her, as I was there at the time too, and am the sane age, and have very vivid memories of the derelict factories, poverty and despair of the time, as well as the bitterness caused by the miners strike. Children pick up on a lot. And she was brought up in a political, anti Thatcher household. Her parents probably donated food to the striking miners and wrnt on plenty of demos. What I don't understand is how those experiences convinced her to become a Tory!
Rebellion against her parents views? After all she became a LibDem in her late teens!
I assumed Oxford was to blame. As we know, universities are hotbeds of radical political indoctrination.
@RoryStewartUK And again Liz Truss keeps saying Levelling up and recession is personal to her because she experienced the pain or the 1980s and 90s in Paisley and Leeds. But somehow she doesn’t seem to be mentioning that was a period of conservative government.
For all their constant references to the Eighties, surely neither could usefully remember them and analyse them. Sunak wasn't even born when Thatcher moved into number 10. He was in nappies when inflation was being squeezed out by her monetarist policy. Truss was 4 when Thatcher was elected, perhaps starting primary school at the height of the battle with inflation.
They may well have read of what went on, but neither are credible primary witnesses of what went on, good or bad.
I don't know, I am the same age as Truss and I have pretty strong memories of the eighties - the Falklands War, miners strike, Wapping, Brighton bombing, Herald of Free Enterprise, Clapham rail crash, King's Cross fire. Plus the music in the charts. Thatcher's horrible voice and hair on the TV. Spitting Image and the Young Ones. Playing out in the back lane on my bike. And the general feeling of poverty and despair in the North East of England at the time.
Yes, but all of those came after Thatchers monetarist squeeze on inflation.
Pop culture is different to economics. Very few primary school kids are up for a discussion on interest rates policy.
But that is the sort of stuff you can read up on afterwards. As an economist I could talk about Thatcher's economic policy all day long. All I am saying is that if Truss claims to remember the impact of Thatcherite policies on the industrial areas of the North and Scotland then I believe her, as I was there at the time too, and am the sane age, and have very vivid memories of the derelict factories, poverty and despair of the time, as well as the bitterness caused by the miners strike. Children pick up on a lot. And she was brought up in a political, anti Thatcher household. Her parents probably donated food to the striking miners and wrnt on plenty of demos. What I don't understand is how those experiences convinced her to become a Tory!
To be fair, Thatcherism inspired Liz Truss to become a LibDem. And an accountant. Conservatism came later.
Our brutal parliamentary system, in which heads of government are removed by voters or MPs and rarely come to a dignified end of their term, makes the torment of being replaced even harder to bear. This is particularly severe if a PM believes they never did anything wrong — think Heath — or if they consider the electorate always backed them but their MPs were too weak to stick with them — think Thatcher.
Now think of Boris Johnson. All of these feelings will apply to him. He is going to be Heath with jokes added in, and Thatcher with consistency taken out, all rolled into a bundle of resentment, denial, attention-seeking and attempted vindication that will be a permanent nightmare for the new prime minister.
And also - for the entirely theoretical notion - of witnessing the Mail's moral dilemma if it should have helped put Betty Whiplash into Downing Street.
Also makes for an interesting dilemma for other newspapers sitting on this theoretical story - do they go early and crash the candidacy? Or wait to see if they can bring down a sitting PM?
Truss doesn’t seem to care. This stuff is not hard to Google
This is why I think pb is underrating her as a politician. She works out what it takes to win and does it. Clearly she's got her membership polling in and found out that she has a 37% lead with subs but trails by 17.5% with doms, so some staffer has been tasked with finding a way to send appropriate subtle-but-not-too-subtle signal to this important demographic segment.
Debate in the Truss camp on what precisely to wear raged fiercely, but in the end it was a moot point as the pendant arrived from Amazon before the nipple clamps.
About the only positive I can take from Liz Truss winning the leadership contest is that I can wind up my leftie friends and say that the nasty Tory party is on their third female leader/PM whilst the wonderful progressives make women feel like the suffragettes.
I'm sure with a little effort you will think of something in the event Rishi wins.
The heart warming story about how awesome private schools are and how they can transform the children of non white immigrants into fantastic people who can run the country and are at the top of industry.
Haven`t watched the full debate the clips seem to suggest Liz had the better answers in the debate. Am preparing for a loss on my Sunak bet.
Your Sunak bet is toast and has been for a good week or so. Truss will win - but not because she had the better answers. She has no answers. She has done this extraordinary thing with her voice and wears Thatcher dominatrix clothes, but her economic policies are as un-Thatcher as you can get.
OK, so the Tory MPs put Sunak against her, but it seems that the membership want Boris. So will vote for continuity Boris. Regardless of which other candidate she is up against. Nor can we say that Badenoch or Mordaunt were exactly the finished article and shouldn't have been passed over.
No, the true tragedy here is the leadership election format. As with Labour's mad system, this one guarantees that lunatics can vote for unelectable.
Help me out guys: when I go onto YouTube later, at what time was the discussion of our new alien overlords and how we're going to deal with them?
It came shortly before the bit on Dalle 2, and after their discussion of the lab leak theory of Covid.
Apparently Anthony Fauci now says he's 'open minded' on it, which I'd take as confirmation, wouldn't you?
I don't think we can ever know, so a pointless discussion, hence it's position in my response to @rcs1000.
Why do you say that? The evidence out there could easily be enough to establish the answer one way or the other with at least as much certainty as we think is enough to convict people for murder.
It’s very good - but also very much a concept car, full of F1 and Formula E tech, with a hand-built carbon chassis and relentless attention to aerodynamic detail.
A production version would be in supercar pricing territory and have a lot less range, but some people will definitely pay top dollar to avoid having to deal with the various charging systems on road trips.
I noticed in passing while reading about the new MG 4 that their new floor design allows for battery packs of between 40kwh and 150kwh... So they are looking at building cars with a range of 700 miles +
That’s sensible planning, for when the price of batteries comes down. There is also going to be a market for retro-fitting upgraded batteries to older EVs, which have suffered degradation over time.
Instructive to note that she says 'Universities should take responsibility for the quality assurance of A-levels' when the qualifications she helped create take precisely the opposite approach and have left QA in the hands of the useless twats at OFQUAL.
The rest AFAICS on a quick look is mostly empty, cliché ridden drivel expressed very badly as befits not very intelligent people who don't know what they're talking about, but I have downloaded a copy for proper analysis later. So thanks.
Comments
I feel old.
Now don't shoot me, I'm the messenger reporting Mr Stewart's analysis.
Betfair next prime minister
1.34 Liz Truss 75%
4 Rishi Sunak 25%
Next Conservative leader
1.33 Liz Truss 75%
4.1 Rishi Sunak 24%
I missed out on the tickets, so maybe envy is behind my utter contempt for Johnson.
I am intrigued as to how both of them have concluded that this Government's version of Brexit can be seen as such a rip-roaring success. Truss in particular as an innocent by stander having just witnessed a car crash has declared "I want to have one of those!"
The DRESS is domme. So she’s doing fine with D, S and the switchers (I strongly suspect she is switch)
However she needs to wear kitten heels for the pet players, latex and chaps for the leather lovers, a proper harness for the pony club, a zip-gag for the consensual non-consenters, and a Hello Kitty sporran for the ddlg contingent. To my mind
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/25/us/politics/china-taiwan-biden-pelosi.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
No biggie
1.34 Liz Truss 75%
3.95 Rishi Sunak 25%
Next Conservative leader
1.34 Liz Truss 75%
3.95 Rishi Sunak 25%
Do you feel that there is a short-term betting market over-reaction & more money will gradually flow back to Sunak over the next few days, so that he goes back to 3 ?
Or, is it based on a view that Sunak would improve his position through better debate performances ? Or that undecideds would break for Sunak in future polling ?
Words fail me. I am not sure that either candidate rose above abysmal. Truly dire. It was a total car crash, nonsense at best and extremely dishonest at worst.
One might have thought a bit of contrition and some realistic plans might by the best antidote to the bullshit era of Johnson. In fact, I now understand why a significant number of Conservative members prefer the disaster they have got to the disaster they are going to get. The "ideas" under debate were banal at best, but mostly unworkable, dangerously economically illiterate and stupid, especially from Liz Truss.
OK PB Tories, explain to the waiting world why this is the best that Britain can do. Personally I now share OGH´s view that the voters will conclude that the best we can do is get rid of the these third rate shysters and push the Tories out of power, bag and baggage for a generation.
It was almost certainly accidental not planned.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/07/we-test-an-electric-mercedes-that-can-can-go-747-miles-on-a-single-charge/
It's also quite a fully-featured concept.
Do you have sources for that claim? What was the tax burden in 1990 compared to 1979? And I'm fairly sure a heck of a lot of infrastructure was built in the 1980s...
https://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/past_spending
During the 1980s public spending was cut as a percent of GDP from about 45 percent down to 34 percent in 1989. But then, with the ERM sterling crisis and associated recession, it rose back to 40 percent of GDP before declining to 35 percent in 2000.
After 2000 public spending increased rapidly, with a peak of 44.9 percent of GDP in 2011 in the afermath of the financial crisis of 2008, followed by a slow decrease to 40.6 percent GDP in 2016 and a projected 38.8 percent GDP by 2020.
To make it clear: my stated position is that taxes have to go up, and that burden will mainly have to go on the better-off. And the smokers and drinkers.
Oh, and you should get a small tax rebate for every hour's exercise you do...
I watch some of last night's debate, after the cricket had finished. I wasn't particularly impressed by either of the two candidates, but then I'm not the target audience!
This morning I've had a quick look at Pb and as usual a quick look at the headlines in the newspapers as reported on the BBC. I note with interest that the Mail refers to the female candidate as Miss.
ETA the tangent Leon chose was not the one I was expecting.
And if Liz Truss did go back to the Lib Dems, would you follow her?
Not that I think either event is the least likely, but as they say in the media, just for a bit of fun......
Is Sunak's goose cooked?
One day you might write something interesting or perceptive but I think a new decent album by Radiohead is more likely.
From September, monthly subscriptions will go up £1 to £8.99 and annual membership will increase from £79 to £95.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62297014
It appears that the sudden rash of hepatitis in young children here and around the world can be put down to lockdowns and the inability to expose children to sufficient bugs at the right stage. I wonder if this is a one off or whether other adverse health effects will be tracked down to lockdowns. And I also wonder how the children in China are doing.
Mr. Roger, Starmer benefits from not being in government at a time of economic woe. It's still his election to lose, I think.
also supress our immunity to seasonal coughs, colds, other viruses. At the time the view of experts was generally that they would not, but I was never convinced of this, as it just seems like common sense that you build up immunity to disease by being exposed to everyday bugs.
A production version would be in supercar pricing territory and have a lot less range, but some people will definitely pay top dollar to avoid having to deal with the various charging systems on road trips.
EV charging is still very hit and miss. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cars/features/what-learned-when-embarked-britains-longest-iconic-road-trip/
Truss = Scipio
Currently look fairly matched but Truss's cavalry are just about to attack Sunak's infantry in the rear and administer the coup de grace.
Socialist Appeal and the rest of the left should call a general strike and not go back to work until Keir Starmer is removed and the true leader reinstated
Truss = Ukraine, equipped and trained with modern HIMARS and M270 MLRS.
Truss = M177
Country = Russian ammo dump.
Pop culture is different to economics. Very
few primary school kids are up for a discussion on interest rates policy.
Betfair next prime minister
1.32 Liz Truss 76%
4.2 Rishi Sunak 24%
Next Conservative leader
1.32 Liz Truss 76%
4.1 Rishi Sunak 24%
What I don't understand is how those experiences convinced her to become a Tory!
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-07-25/london-s-record-9-724-54-per-megawatt-hour-to-avoid-a-blackout (£££)
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/uk-forced-to-get-electricity-from-belgium-during-heatwave-to-stop-blackout-but-paid-5000percent-more/ar-AAZXJnb
Now think of Boris Johnson. All of these feelings will apply to him. He is going to be Heath with jokes added in, and Thatcher with consistency taken out, all rolled into a bundle of resentment, denial, attention-seeking and attempted vindication that will be a permanent nightmare for the new prime minister.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tories-must-beware-boris-the-incredible-sulk-m5lsbmjtb
#GivePrivateSchoolsBiggerTaxBreaks
As there's no proof either way, any scientist ought to be open minded on it.
There's being 'open-minded' and there's being absurdly stoopid.
OK, so the Tory MPs put Sunak against her, but it seems that the membership want Boris. So will vote for continuity Boris. Regardless of which other candidate she is up against. Nor can we say that Badenoch or Mordaunt were exactly the finished article and shouldn't have been passed over.
No, the true tragedy here is the leadership election format. As with Labour's mad system, this one guarantees that lunatics can vote for unelectable.
https://web.archive.org/web/20120503122130/http://www.reform.co.uk/client_files/www.reform.co.uk/files/a_new_level.pdf
The rest AFAICS on a quick look is mostly empty, cliché ridden drivel expressed very badly as befits not very intelligent people who don't know what they're talking about, but I have downloaded a copy for proper analysis later. So thanks.