- “The big challenges for Truss now are how she deals with Johnson and Sunak.“
Partly correct: those two are important in terms of marketing strategy.
However, in substantive terms - affecting the English constitution and parliamentary democracy itself - the key appointment is Her Majesty's Attorney General for England and Wales. If Prime Minister Mary Elizabeth Truss, a Paisley Buddy, re-appoints Suella Braverman QC then the country is headed into dreadful problems. Democracy itself is at threat.
Yep - Braverman's reappointment would confirm the Tory abandonment of Parliamentary democracy.
The only body that can abandon parliamentary democracy is parliament. Government can only do it if parliament is willing. And in the long run the voters have to be willing too.
What government has displayed is not abandonment but contempt. Which is why the best chance is a Labour government reliant on the LDs.
Parliament did badly over Brexit, displaying little strength and much weakness at a time when it was essential to show that parliament, not government is our supreme authority. This has not helped.
If Parliament had been weak over Brexit then Theresa May would have been able to force through her Brexit deal at any of the three attempts she tried to do so.
Parliament showed its strength in rejecting the Government's flagship policy. What it also showed was it was helplessly divided and unable to agree with itself which is why the voters ultimately changed the composition of Parliament significantly when they had the opportunity to get it done.
Given the toxic nature of the campaign will Mourdaunt serve under Truss?
She might be wise to keep her distance in case things do go horribly wrong.
Tugs and Wallace have nailed their colours to the mast, they look to be playing the Starmer game.
If a clean break from the past is needed next time maybe better for Mordaunt to stay above the fray. Although history suggests it didn't work for Hunt.
You would hope that Mordaunt would spend the time working out how to spot and then dismantle elephant traps. Especially those set by the Daily Mail. It was really surprising to see how badly she fared against the one issue that sank her - being painted as "woke".
She needs far better people around her prepping her if there is to be a next time.
She’d have been fine if her ‘wokeness’ had been confined to speeches, rather than actually introducing legislation that had clearly been written by Stonewall.
Her twin-brother has probably cost her the top job.
For now.
I think you get once chance at the top job. She's done.
I reckon Kemi gets another shot, after significantly raising her profile this time around.
Given the toxic nature of the campaign will Mourdaunt serve under Truss?
She might be wise to keep her distance in case things do go horribly wrong.
Tugs and Wallace have nailed their colours to the mast, they look to be playing the Starmer game.
If a clean break from the past is needed next time maybe better for Mordaunt to stay above the fray. Although history suggests it didn't work for Hunt.
You would hope that Mordaunt would spend the time working out how to spot and then dismantle elephant traps. Especially those set by the Daily Mail. It was really surprising to see how badly she fared against the one issue that sank her - being painted as "woke".
She needs far better people around her prepping her if there is to be a next time.
She’d have been fine if her ‘wokeness’ had been confined to speeches, rather than actually introducing legislation that had clearly been written by Stonewall.
Her twin-brother has probably cost her the top job.
For now.
I think you get once chance at the top job. She's done.
The only one I can think of who managed a second coming in recent years was Howard in 2003.
- “The big challenges for Truss now are how she deals with Johnson and Sunak.“
Partly correct: those two are important in terms of marketing strategy.
However, in substantive terms - affecting the English constitution and parliamentary democracy itself - the key appointment is Her Majesty's Attorney General for England and Wales. If Prime Minister Mary Elizabeth Truss, a Paisley Buddy, re-appoints Suella Braverman QC then the country is headed into dreadful problems. Democracy itself is at threat.
One begins to wonder whether it was Truss lending Sunak votes as she flew under the radar. It was absolutely clear that Mourdaunt was the one she feared.
Do you remember those heady days when half of PB were telling us how Kemi Badenoch would overtake Truss?
PB has a bias to "unexpected results". We love hearing about 50-1 bets that came off, and it leads us to predict surprises. I've always thought Truss was likely to win because she's the closest fit to today's Tory membership, and although Badenoch certainly surprised on the upside, she started an a rank outsider and merely moved to credible also-ran.
As spectators looking for fun, why not cheer on the long-shots? But it's unwise to bet the house on them. In the same way, it's possible that the next GE will be either a Labour landslide or a Tory triumph, but actually it's been clear for a long time that a Labour minority government is the most likely outcome - it's not as exciting as landslides, but it's the logical consequence of years of modest but consistent Labour polling leads, the closeness of Lab and LibDem outlooks, the bleak economic outlook, the lack of huge enthusiasm for Labour and the evident weariness of the Government.
The length of the longshots comes from predictions a long way out, not comparative unlikelihood at the start of the contest. In this two horse race there's people with active bets at 100 and 250 which is longer than anyone was when the runners and riders were declared.
Given the toxic nature of the campaign will Mourdaunt serve under Truss?
She might be wise to keep her distance in case things do go horribly wrong.
Tugs and Wallace have nailed their colours to the mast, they look to be playing the Starmer game.
If a clean break from the past is needed next time maybe better for Mordaunt to stay above the fray. Although history suggests it didn't work for Hunt.
You would hope that Mordaunt would spend the time working out how to spot and then dismantle elephant traps. Especially those set by the Daily Mail. It was really surprising to see how badly she fared against the one issue that sank her - being painted as "woke".
She needs far better people around her prepping her if there is to be a next time.
She’d have been fine if her ‘wokeness’ had been confined to speeches, rather than actually introducing legislation that had clearly been written by Stonewall.
Her twin-brother has probably cost her the top job.
For now.
I think you get once chance at the top job. She's done.
The only one I can think of who managed a second coming in recent years was Howard in 2003.
Given the toxic nature of the campaign will Mourdaunt serve under Truss?
She might be wise to keep her distance in case things do go horribly wrong.
Tugs and Wallace have nailed their colours to the mast, they look to be playing the Starmer game.
If a clean break from the past is needed next time maybe better for Mordaunt to stay above the fray. Although history suggests it didn't work for Hunt.
You would hope that Mordaunt would spend the time working out how to spot and then dismantle elephant traps. Especially those set by the Daily Mail. It was really surprising to see how badly she fared against the one issue that sank her - being painted as "woke".
She needs far better people around her prepping her if there is to be a next time.
She’d have been fine if her ‘wokeness’ had been confined to speeches, rather than actually introducing legislation that had clearly been written by Stonewall.
Her twin-brother has probably cost her the top job.
For now.
I think you get once chance at the top job. She's done.
The only one I can think of who managed a second coming in recent years was Howard in 2003.
I don't think he can withdraw under the rules. But he could just stop campaigning. If I were him, though, I wouldn't. There is a certain valour in carrying on - and certainly some political advantage in being seen to have done all he could to oppose Truss if she ends up crashing and burning.
Meanwhile, Tugendhat's embrace of Truss confirms that the old Conservative party of sound money and the rule of law is now finished. It's populist English nationalism from here on in.
Yes. I was listening to the James O’Brien show on LBC last week, and a lovely lady phoned in and poured out her heart. A huge David Cameron fan, she had once been an approved Con candidate. She is completely devastated by the death of the old Conservative Party she once loved. Although still a member (she is voting Sunak), she said that her party had now transformed into “The English Nationalist Party” (her words). Hard to disagree with her.
It's not even nationalism; it's populism, and generally mindless populism at that.
It was a veteran Conservative member and former approved candidate who described it as “nationalist”. I consider it fairly obvious that she is correct. (Doesn’t necessarily exclude being populist too.)
Given the toxic nature of the campaign will Mourdaunt serve under Truss?
She might be wise to keep her distance in case things do go horribly wrong.
Tugs and Wallace have nailed their colours to the mast, they look to be playing the Starmer game.
If a clean break from the past is needed next time maybe better for Mordaunt to stay above the fray. Although history suggests it didn't work for Hunt.
You would hope that Mordaunt would spend the time working out how to spot and then dismantle elephant traps. Especially those set by the Daily Mail. It was really surprising to see how badly she fared against the one issue that sank her - being painted as "woke".
She needs far better people around her prepping her if there is to be a next time.
One has to admit that the last leg of Truss's ascent of the greasy pole has been more than impressive. Both Mordaunt and Sunak have been thoroughly dismantled by her team.
Truss remains a comprehensive air head, nonetheless she appears to have some seriously clever and ruthless people behind the scenes. Are the Aussies involved? From what we have seen so far, they will make light work of the Labour Party.
Continuity Johnson without the parties could see a swift polling lead for the Conservatives.
Short term yes - but "the Economy, Stupid" will come back and bite the current Government.
One begins to wonder whether it was Truss lending Sunak votes as she flew under the radar. It was absolutely clear that Mourdaunt was the one she feared.
Do you remember those heady days when half of PB were telling us how Kemi Badenoch would overtake Truss?
PB has a bias to "unexpected results". We love hearing about 50-1 bets that came off, and it leads us to predict surprises. I've always thought Truss was likely to win because she's the closest fit to today's Tory membership, and although Badenoch certainly surprised on the upside, she started an a rank outsider and merely moved to credible also-ran.
As spectators looking for fun, why not cheer on the long-shots? But it's unwise to bet the house on them. In the same way, it's possible that the next GE will be either a Labour landslide or a Tory triumph, but actually it's been clear for a long time that a Labour minority government is the most likely outcome - it's not as exciting as landslides, but it's the logical consequence of years of modest but consistent Labour polling leads, the closeness of Lab and LibDem outlooks, the bleak economic outlook, the lack of huge enthusiasm for Labour and the evident weariness of the Government.
The length of the longshots comes from predictions a long way out, not comparative unlikelihood at the start of the contest. In this two horse race there's people with active bets at 100 and 250 which is longer than anyone was when the runners and riders were declared.
Yes I still have my 250/1 £20 bet with Ladbrokes that Sunak will be next PM. This is why I can now take even the tightest odds on Truss in the certain knowledge that I will be a winner.
I don't think he can withdraw under the rules. But he could just stop campaigning. If I were him, though, I wouldn't. There is a certain valour in carrying on - and certainly some political advantage in being seen to have done all he could to oppose Truss if she ends up crashing and burning.
Meanwhile, Tugendhat's embrace of Truss confirms that the old Conservative party of sound money and the rule of law is now finished. It's populist English nationalism from here on in.
Yes. I was listening to the James O’Brien show on LBC last week, and a lovely lady phoned in and poured out her heart. A huge David Cameron fan, she had once been an approved Con candidate. She is completely devastated by the death of the old Conservative Party she once loved. Although still a member (she is voting Sunak), she said that her party had now transformed into “The English Nationalist Party” (her words). Hard to disagree with her.
It's not even nationalism; it's populism, and generally mindless populism at that.
It was a veteran Conservative member and former approved candidate who described it as “nationalist”. I consider it fairly obvious that she is correct. (Doesn’t necessarily exclude being populist too.)
So they've become a bit like the SNP, only with more power?
Yep - Braverman's reappointment would confirm the Tory abandonment of Parliamentary democracy.
And rational thought.
Matthew Parris in The Times today is thoroughly depressing on what will happen with these idiots in power, but I think it is sadly accurate
We remain a relatively civilised, gently declining manufacturing economy, living slightly beyond our means, quite good at R&D but keeping afloat substantially through the efforts of wide-boys in the City of London, a metropolis the rest of the country seems to despise, its politicians too cowardly to explain that the sheep on our hills and pork pies from Melton Mowbray are not what fund our living standards. London does.
It sounds very similar to an article Alastair Meeks wrote for us here back in 2016 about Britain turning into Argentina. He remains a long-term pessimist about Britain's prospects.
Given the toxic nature of the campaign will Mourdaunt serve under Truss?
She’d be wise not to. Someone has to pick up the pieces in 2025, after the car crash.
Who is going to.picknup.the pieces after Sturgeon?
Although a valid question it is completely unrelated question and seems like an unnecessary jibe at Stuart who gives his opinion on an interesting question on whether Mourdaunt would be wise to take a job or not. Seemed unnecessary in a civilised exchange..
I wonder if in Russia there is a discussion forum pouring over the political significance of comments on Loose Women and weird maps posted by random people on the net.
Vladimir Solovyov suggested destroying England with a nuclear missile but leaving Wales intact in order to ensure that the UK is over.
Speaking on Rossiya1, the state-owned news channel, he said that “quiet” Wales would then be “independent”.
“Listen Brits, wake up, you showed the whole world that you are arrogant, illiterate and can’t do anything but steal,” he said.
“The only reason you don’t have Egyptian pyramids in the British Museum is that you physically couldn’t steal them. You stole everything.
“They are lecturing us, a country we can destroy with one nuclear missile,” he added.
He’s not wrong about the Pyramids
He's amusingly unselfaware about the bit I've bolded.
Russia Today really is a sewer of thick, nasty, racist scum who are unfit to live. At least the Deutsches Nachrichten Buro was capable of doing subtlety.
Prudent from TT but honestly, to present yourself as a clean skin and then pivot in behind a business as usual candidate is brave enough. To pivot from there to another one...
One begins to wonder whether it was Truss lending Sunak votes as she flew under the radar. It was absolutely clear that Mourdaunt was the one she feared.
Do you remember those heady days when half of PB were telling us how Kemi Badenoch would overtake Truss?
PB has a bias to "unexpected results". We love hearing about 50-1 bets that came off, and it leads us to predict surprises. I've always thought Truss was likely to win because she's the closest fit to today's Tory membership, and although Badenoch certainly surprised on the upside, she started an a rank outsider and merely moved to credible also-ran.
As spectators looking for fun, why not cheer on the long-shots? But it's unwise to bet the house on them. In the same way, it's possible that the next GE will be either a Labour landslide or a Tory triumph, but actually it's been clear for a long time that a Labour minority government is the most likely outcome - it's not as exciting as landslides, but it's the logical consequence of years of modest but consistent Labour polling leads, the closeness of Lab and LibDem outlooks, the bleak economic outlook, the lack of huge enthusiasm for Labour and the evident weariness of the Government.
The length of the longshots comes from predictions a long way out, not comparative unlikelihood at the start of the contest. In this two horse race there's people with active bets at 100 and 250 which is longer than anyone was when the runners and riders were declared.
Yes I still have my 250/1 £20 bet with Ladbrokes that Sunak will be next PM. This is why I can now take even the tightest odds on Truss in the certain knowledge that I will be a winner.
And conversely I can safely have a flutter on Rishi at 10/1
One begins to wonder whether it was Truss lending Sunak votes as she flew under the radar. It was absolutely clear that Mourdaunt was the one she feared.
Do you remember those heady days when half of PB were telling us how Kemi Badenoch would overtake Truss?
Yes, and it's a learning point we have to learn and re-learn, myself included.
It's so easy in a complex situation to get mired in lots of detail, and miss the wider certainties even when they are over-riding. Replacing a PM in office, it's almost always by the holder of one of the big three (usually the big two) Cab posts. The MPs' election played out with all its twists and turns yet arrived offering their members a choice between the big two.
That the big two aren't the strongest of potential replacements is down to the guy who gave them those jobs in the first place.
Mordaunt deserves credit for so nearly upsetting the received wisdom (which is also, of course, a comment on the weakness of Sunak/Truss).
Vladimir Solovyov suggested destroying England with a nuclear missile but leaving Wales intact in order to ensure that the UK is over.
Speaking on Rossiya1, the state-owned news channel, he said that “quiet” Wales would then be “independent”.
“Listen Brits, wake up, you showed the whole world that you are arrogant, illiterate and can’t do anything but steal,” he said.
“The only reason you don’t have Egyptian pyramids in the British Museum is that you physically couldn’t steal them. You stole everything.
“They are lecturing us, a country we can destroy with one nuclear missile,” he added.
He’s not wrong about the Pyramids
The only portable thing we didn't steal off Egypt was the Rosetta Stone. And that's because the French had already nicked it so we stole it off them. A shame Tut wasn't found 100 years earlier...
- “The big challenges for Truss now are how she deals with Johnson and Sunak.“
Partly correct: those two are important in terms of marketing strategy.
However, in substantive terms - affecting the English constitution and parliamentary democracy itself - the key appointment is Her Majesty's Attorney General for England and Wales. If Prime Minister Mary Elizabeth Truss, a Paisley Buddy, re-appoints Suella Braverman QC then the country is headed into dreadful problems. Democracy itself is at threat.
Yep - Braverman's reappointment would confirm the Tory abandonment of Parliamentary democracy.
The only body that can abandon parliamentary democracy is parliament. Government can only do it if parliament is willing. And in the long run the voters have to be willing too.
What government has displayed is not abandonment but contempt. Which is why the best chance is a Labour government reliant on the LDs.
Parliament did badly over Brexit, displaying little strength and much weakness at a time when it was essential to show that parliament, not government is our supreme authority. This has not helped.
If Parliament had been weak over Brexit then Theresa May would have been able to force through her Brexit deal at any of the three attempts she tried to do so.
Parliament showed its strength in rejecting the Government's flagship policy. What it also showed was it was helplessly divided and unable to agree with itself which is why the voters ultimately changed the composition of Parliament significantly when they had the opportunity to get it done.
Largely because the extreme Brexiters were making May's job impossible and because the clown knew that May's ministry had to run into a disaster in order to open up a chance for him to have a second shot at winning the big chair. So he helped to create that mess for entirely self-serving reasons.
It's almost as if Johnson remembered that Churchill having landed British troops onto Norwegian snow without skis, winter clothes, artillery, aircraft cover or even any maps of Norway (and with the intention of joining Finland in its war against the USSR - which could have been a world-changing misjudgement) didn't prevent his becoming the next PM when what turned into an abject fiasco brought the existing PM down.
Given the toxic nature of the campaign will Mourdaunt serve under Truss?
She might be wise to keep her distance in case things do go horribly wrong.
Tugs and Wallace have nailed their colours to the mast, they look to be playing the Starmer game.
If a clean break from the past is needed next time maybe better for Mordaunt to stay above the fray. Although history suggests it didn't work for Hunt.
You would hope that Mordaunt would spend the time working out how to spot and then dismantle elephant traps. Especially those set by the Daily Mail. It was really surprising to see how badly she fared against the one issue that sank her - being painted as "woke".
She needs far better people around her prepping her if there is to be a next time.
One has to admit that the last leg of Truss's ascent of the greasy pole has been more than impressive. Both Mordaunt and Sunak have been thoroughly dismantled by her team.
Truss remains a comprehensive air head, nonetheless she appears to have some seriously clever and ruthless people behind the scenes. Are the Aussies involved? From what we have seen so far, they will make light work of the Labour Party.
Continuity Johnson without the parties could see a swift polling lead for the Conservatives.
Short term yes - but "the Economy, Stupid" will come back and bite the current Government.
The economy has been my go to for a Conservative defeat for a couple of years. However, if Truss and the Mail can propagate the lie that it was Johnson and Sunak's socialism that caused all the problems Labour are in the cart!
Vladimir Solovyov suggested destroying England with a nuclear missile but leaving Wales intact in order to ensure that the UK is over.
Speaking on Rossiya1, the state-owned news channel, he said that “quiet” Wales would then be “independent”.
“Listen Brits, wake up, you showed the whole world that you are arrogant, illiterate and can’t do anything but steal,” he said.
“The only reason you don’t have Egyptian pyramids in the British Museum is that you physically couldn’t steal them. You stole everything.
“They are lecturing us, a country we can destroy with one nuclear missile,” he added.
He’s not wrong about the Pyramids
He's amusingly unselfaware about the bit I've bolded.
Russia Today really is a sewer of thick, nasty, racist scum who are unfit to live. At least the Deutsches Nachrichten Buro was capable of doing subtlety.
Given the toxic nature of the campaign will Mourdaunt serve under Truss?
She might be wise to keep her distance in case things do go horribly wrong.
Tugs and Wallace have nailed their colours to the mast, they look to be playing the Starmer game.
If a clean break from the past is needed next time maybe better for Mordaunt to stay above the fray. Although history suggests it didn't work for Hunt.
You would hope that Mordaunt would spend the time working out how to spot and then dismantle elephant traps. Especially those set by the Daily Mail. It was really surprising to see how badly she fared against the one issue that sank her - being painted as "woke".
She needs far better people around her prepping her if there is to be a next time.
One has to admit that the last leg of Truss's ascent of the greasy pole has been more than impressive. Both Mordaunt and Sunak have been thoroughly dismantled by her team.
Truss remains a comprehensive air head, nonetheless she appears to have some seriously clever and ruthless people behind the scenes. Are the Aussies involved? From what we have seen so far, they will make light work of the Labour Party.
Continuity Johnson without the parties could see a swift polling lead for the Conservatives.
Short term yes - but "the Economy, Stupid" will come back and bite the current Government.
The economy has been my go to for a Conservative defeat for a couple of years. However, if Truss and the Mail can propagate the lie that it was Johnson and Sunak's socialism that caused all the problems Labour are in the cart!
The next year is going to be pretty horrible economically, as the pandemic recovery and Russian war dominate. It’s not impossible that by the beginning of 2024 though, things are starting to look up and people are more hopeful about the direction of the future.
There's no point really in a premature concession. Parliament is in recess anyway and the new leader is due to be announced on the first day that Parliament returns.
Vladimir Solovyov suggested destroying England with a nuclear missile but leaving Wales intact in order to ensure that the UK is over.
Speaking on Rossiya1, the state-owned news channel, he said that “quiet” Wales would then be “independent”.
“Listen Brits, wake up, you showed the whole world that you are arrogant, illiterate and can’t do anything but steal,” he said.
“The only reason you don’t have Egyptian pyramids in the British Museum is that you physically couldn’t steal them. You stole everything.
“They are lecturing us, a country we can destroy with one nuclear missile,” he added.
He’s not wrong about the Pyramids
He's amusingly unselfaware about the bit I've bolded.
Russia Today really is a sewer of thick, nasty, racist scum who are unfit to live. At least the Deutsches Nachrichten Buro was capable of doing subtlety.
There's no point really in a premature concession. Parliament is in recess anyway and the new leader is due to be announced on the first day that Parliament returns.
Do this properly. Finish the contest right.
Probably better for the country for Liz to spend 6 weeks thinking and arguing about the big picture vs being pitched in to reshuffles, wallpaper decisions etc
Yep - Braverman's reappointment would confirm the Tory abandonment of Parliamentary democracy.
And rational thought.
Matthew Parris in The Times today is thoroughly depressing on what will happen with these idiots in power, but I think it is sadly accurate
We remain a relatively civilised, gently declining manufacturing economy, living slightly beyond our means, quite good at R&D but keeping afloat substantially through the efforts of wide-boys in the City of London, a metropolis the rest of the country seems to despise, its politicians too cowardly to explain that the sheep on our hills and pork pies from Melton Mowbray are not what fund our living standards. London does.
It sounds very similar to an article Alastair Meeks wrote for us here back in 2016 about Britain turning into Argentina. He remains a long-term pessimist about Britain's prospects.
Given the toxic nature of the campaign will Mourdaunt serve under Truss?
She’d be wise not to. Someone has to pick up the pieces in 2025, after the car crash.
Who is going to.picknup.the pieces after Sturgeon?
Although a valid question it is completely unrelated question and seems like an unnecessary jibe at Stuart who gives his opinion on an interesting question on whether Mourdaunt would be wise to take a job or not. Seemed unnecessary in a civilised exchange..
VM for you.
I just posted that I had replied having not noticed this from you @Cyclefree . I hope I can help.
There's no point really in a premature concession. Parliament is in recess anyway and the new leader is due to be announced on the first day that Parliament returns.
Do this properly. Finish the contest right.
And who knows, a month is a long time, Truss might implode and be forced to withdraw.
Yep - Braverman's reappointment would confirm the Tory abandonment of Parliamentary democracy.
And rational thought.
Matthew Parris in The Times today is thoroughly depressing on what will happen with these idiots in power, but I think it is sadly accurate
We remain a relatively civilised, gently declining manufacturing economy, living slightly beyond our means, quite good at R&D but keeping afloat substantially through the efforts of wide-boys in the City of London, a metropolis the rest of the country seems to despise, its politicians too cowardly to explain that the sheep on our hills and pork pies from Melton Mowbray are not what fund our living standards. London does.
It sounds very similar to an article Alastair Meeks wrote for us here back in 2016 about Britain turning into Argentina. He remains a long-term pessimist about Britain's prospects.
Given the toxic nature of the campaign will Mourdaunt serve under Truss?
She’d be wise not to. Someone has to pick up the pieces in 2025, after the car crash.
Who is going to.picknup.the pieces after Sturgeon?
Although a valid question it is completely unrelated question and seems like an unnecessary jibe at Stuart who gives his opinion on an interesting question on whether Mourdaunt would be wise to take a job or not. Seemed unnecessary in a civilised exchange..
VM for you.
I just posted that I had replied having not noticed this from you @Cyclefree . I hope I can help.
Given the toxic nature of the campaign will Mourdaunt serve under Truss?
She might be wise to keep her distance in case things do go horribly wrong.
Tugs and Wallace have nailed their colours to the mast, they look to be playing the Starmer game.
If a clean break from the past is needed next time maybe better for Mordaunt to stay above the fray. Although history suggests it didn't work for Hunt.
You would hope that Mordaunt would spend the time working out how to spot and then dismantle elephant traps. Especially those set by the Daily Mail. It was really surprising to see how badly she fared against the one issue that sank her - being painted as "woke".
She needs far better people around her prepping her if there is to be a next time.
One has to admit that the last leg of Truss's ascent of the greasy pole has been more than impressive. Both Mordaunt and Sunak have been thoroughly dismantled by her team.
Truss remains a comprehensive air head, nonetheless she appears to have some seriously clever and ruthless people behind the scenes. Are the Aussies involved? From what we have seen so far, they will make light work of the Labour Party.
Continuity Johnson without the parties could see a swift polling lead for the Conservatives.
Short term yes - but "the Economy, Stupid" will come back and bite the current Government.
The economy has been my go to for a Conservative defeat for a couple of years. However, if Truss and the Mail can propagate the lie that it was Johnson and Sunak's socialism that caused all the problems Labour are in the cart!
The next year is going to be pretty horrible economically, as the pandemic recovery and Russian war dominate. It’s not impossible that by the beginning of 2024 though, things are starting to look up and people are more hopeful about the direction of the future.
The hit will be so devastating during late '22 and through '23 so that any upturn will be of limited value, unless Zahawi can generate an '80s style boom, which may be enough for a healthy Conservative majority. I doubt that, so the key is apportionment of blame to 13 years of Labour Government and a "socialist" Prime Minister and Chancellor post Brexit.
There's no point really in a premature concession. Parliament is in recess anyway and the new leader is due to be announced on the first day that Parliament returns.
Do this properly. Finish the contest right.
But we have complete Government inertia, and a shiny new PM who is raring to go!
Given the toxic nature of the campaign will Mourdaunt serve under Truss?
She might be wise to keep her distance in case things do go horribly wrong.
Tugs and Wallace have nailed their colours to the mast, they look to be playing the Starmer game.
If a clean break from the past is needed next time maybe better for Mordaunt to stay above the fray. Although history suggests it didn't work for Hunt.
You would hope that Mordaunt would spend the time working out how to spot and then dismantle elephant traps. Especially those set by the Daily Mail. It was really surprising to see how badly she fared against the one issue that sank her - being painted as "woke".
She needs far better people around her prepping her if there is to be a next time.
She’d have been fine if her ‘wokeness’ had been confined to speeches, rather than actually introducing legislation that had clearly been written by Stonewall.
Her twin-brother has probably cost her the top job.
For now.
I think you get once chance at the top job. She's done.
The only one I can think of who managed a second coming in recent years was Howard in 2003.
Though many are talking about Kemi as a leader in waiting. Perhaps you have to put a marker down but not get too close. Penny was essentially a blank slate who was easy on the eye. When she didn't stand for anything apart from winning, she got a hearing. Once people dug into what she did stand for, not so much.
- “The big challenges for Truss now are how she deals with Johnson and Sunak.“
Partly correct: those two are important in terms of marketing strategy.
However, in substantive terms - affecting the English constitution and parliamentary democracy itself - the key appointment is Her Majesty's Attorney General for England and Wales. If Prime Minister Mary Elizabeth Truss, a Paisley Buddy, re-appoints Suella Braverman QC then the country is headed into dreadful problems. Democracy itself is at threat.
Yep - Braverman's reappointment would confirm the Tory abandonment of Parliamentary democracy.
The only body that can abandon parliamentary democracy is parliament. Government can only do it if parliament is willing. And in the long run the voters have to be willing too.
What government has displayed is not abandonment but contempt. Which is why the best chance is a Labour government reliant on the LDs.
Parliament did badly over Brexit, displaying little strength and much weakness at a time when it was essential to show that parliament, not government is our supreme authority. This has not helped.
If Parliament had been weak over Brexit then Theresa May would have been able to force through her Brexit deal at any of the three attempts she tried to do so.
Parliament showed its strength in rejecting the Government's flagship policy. What it also showed was it was helplessly divided and unable to agree with itself which is why the voters ultimately changed the composition of Parliament significantly when they had the opportunity to get it done.
Largely because the extreme Brexiters were making May's job impossible and because the clown knew that May's ministry had to run into a disaster in order to open up a chance for him to have a second shot at winning the big chair. So he helped to create that mess for entirely self-serving reasons.
I think Remainers are slightly at fault here, and my thinking on this has developed recently. It's all very difficult because Brexit wasn't the only political consideration going, with MPs in Labour having Corbyn to worry about, in addition to the Lib Dems breathing down their necks for remain votes. But, the long and short of it is, in hindsight, May's deal was better for Remainers and represented a better platform for closer relations with the EU than Boris's. I was one of the diehard who opposed May's deal but I was wrong.
Forcing through May's deal with Labour votes would have been a shit show of epic proportions, for everyone involved, but a key weapon would have been removed from Boris's arsenal. An interesting counterfactual, I think.
- “The big challenges for Truss now are how she deals with Johnson and Sunak.“
Partly correct: those two are important in terms of marketing strategy.
However, in substantive terms - affecting the English constitution and parliamentary democracy itself - the key appointment is Her Majesty's Attorney General for England and Wales. If Prime Minister Mary Elizabeth Truss, a Paisley Buddy, re-appoints Suella Braverman QC then the country is headed into dreadful problems. Democracy itself is at threat.
Yep - Braverman's reappointment would confirm the Tory abandonment of Parliamentary democracy.
The only body that can abandon parliamentary democracy is parliament. Government can only do it if parliament is willing. And in the long run the voters have to be willing too.
What government has displayed is not abandonment but contempt. Which is why the best chance is a Labour government reliant on the LDs.
Parliament did badly over Brexit, displaying little strength and much weakness at a time when it was essential to show that parliament, not government is our supreme authority. This has not helped.
If Parliament had been weak over Brexit then Theresa May would have been able to force through her Brexit deal at any of the three attempts she tried to do so.
Parliament showed its strength in rejecting the Government's flagship policy. What it also showed was it was helplessly divided and unable to agree with itself which is why the voters ultimately changed the composition of Parliament significantly when they had the opportunity to get it done.
Largely because the extreme Brexiters were making May's job impossible and because the clown knew that May's ministry had to run into a disaster in order to open up a chance for him to have a second shot at winning the big chair. So he helped to create that mess for entirely self-serving reasons.
It's almost as if Johnson remembered that Churchill having landed British troops onto Norwegian snow without skis, winter clothes, artillery, aircraft cover or even any maps of Norway (and with the intention of joining Finland in its war against the USSR - which could have been a world-changing misjudgement) didn't prevent his becoming the next PM when what turned into an abject fiasco brought the existing PM down.
I think my grandfather was involved in that misadventure - though he was in the navy, so I'm not sure in what capacity. One of quite a small number to name it back though. He was also on the ship which evacuated the Norwegian royal family.
There's no point really in a premature concession. Parliament is in recess anyway and the new leader is due to be announced on the first day that Parliament returns.
Do this properly. Finish the contest right.
But we have complete Government inertia, and a shiny new PM who is raring to go!
By getting people like John Redwood to challenge Treasury orthodoxy.... yay!
I'm no particular fan of Sunak but the idea that Redwood has the answers to today's issues shows how bereft of ideas Truss really is.
- “The big challenges for Truss now are how she deals with Johnson and Sunak.“
Partly correct: those two are important in terms of marketing strategy.
However, in substantive terms - affecting the English constitution and parliamentary democracy itself - the key appointment is Her Majesty's Attorney General for England and Wales. If Prime Minister Mary Elizabeth Truss, a Paisley Buddy, re-appoints Suella Braverman QC then the country is headed into dreadful problems. Democracy itself is at threat.
Yep - Braverman's reappointment would confirm the Tory abandonment of Parliamentary democracy.
The only body that can abandon parliamentary democracy is parliament. Government can only do it if parliament is willing. And in the long run the voters have to be willing too.
What government has displayed is not abandonment but contempt. Which is why the best chance is a Labour government reliant on the LDs.
Parliament did badly over Brexit, displaying little strength and much weakness at a time when it was essential to show that parliament, not government is our supreme authority. This has not helped.
If Parliament had been weak over Brexit then Theresa May would have been able to force through her Brexit deal at any of the three attempts she tried to do so.
Parliament showed its strength in rejecting the Government's flagship policy. What it also showed was it was helplessly divided and unable to agree with itself which is why the voters ultimately changed the composition of Parliament significantly when they had the opportunity to get it done.
Yes. Parliament was strong in making clear what it didn't want, but very weak in finding a way of having a majority in favour of what it did want - with all the concessions and compromises necessary to such things.
Parliament (only after an election) in the end agreed a deal which, in the Ireland dimension, immediately unravelled.
'Norway' remained and remains the only solution that respects the actual vote (nothing can respect the campaigning, which was inconsistent rubbish on both sides) and respects reality.
That SKS has excluded it could just possibly result in an interesting 'compromise' under a Lab/LD government in which by joining EFTA/EEA we both respect the Brexit vote and by doing a bit of what the LDs want, respect a minority government's situation. But don't bet the farm. This is a pious hope only.
Given the toxic nature of the campaign will Mourdaunt serve under Truss?
She might be wise to keep her distance in case things do go horribly wrong.
Tugs and Wallace have nailed their colours to the mast, they look to be playing the Starmer game.
If a clean break from the past is needed next time maybe better for Mordaunt to stay above the fray. Although history suggests it didn't work for Hunt.
You would hope that Mordaunt would spend the time working out how to spot and then dismantle elephant traps. Especially those set by the Daily Mail. It was really surprising to see how badly she fared against the one issue that sank her - being painted as "woke".
She needs far better people around her prepping her if there is to be a next time.
She’d have been fine if her ‘wokeness’ had been confined to speeches, rather than actually introducing legislation that had clearly been written by Stonewall.
Her twin-brother has probably cost her the top job.
For now.
I think you get once chance at the top job. She's done.
The only one I can think of who managed a second coming in recent years was Howard in 2003.
Though many are talking about Kemi as a leader in waiting. Perhaps you have to put a marker down but not get too close. Penny was essentially a blank slate who was easy on the eye. When she didn't stand for anything apart from winning, she got a hearing. Once people dug into what she did stand for, not so much.
The successors to Cameroon and Osborne did not prosper. Meanwhile IDS seemed pretty happy.
The Tory party today is a really curious mixture of populism, with any policy wrapped in a thin veneer of right wing rhetoric. We’ve not seen this before.
- “The big challenges for Truss now are how she deals with Johnson and Sunak.“
Partly correct: those two are important in terms of marketing strategy.
However, in substantive terms - affecting the English constitution and parliamentary democracy itself - the key appointment is Her Majesty's Attorney General for England and Wales. If Prime Minister Mary Elizabeth Truss, a Paisley Buddy, re-appoints Suella Braverman QC then the country is headed into dreadful problems. Democracy itself is at threat.
Yep - Braverman's reappointment would confirm the Tory abandonment of Parliamentary democracy.
The only body that can abandon parliamentary democracy is parliament. Government can only do it if parliament is willing. And in the long run the voters have to be willing too.
What government has displayed is not abandonment but contempt. Which is why the best chance is a Labour government reliant on the LDs.
Parliament did badly over Brexit, displaying little strength and much weakness at a time when it was essential to show that parliament, not government is our supreme authority. This has not helped.
If Parliament had been weak over Brexit then Theresa May would have been able to force through her Brexit deal at any of the three attempts she tried to do so.
Parliament showed its strength in rejecting the Government's flagship policy. What it also showed was it was helplessly divided and unable to agree with itself which is why the voters ultimately changed the composition of Parliament significantly when they had the opportunity to get it done.
Largely because the extreme Brexiters were making May's job impossible and because the clown knew that May's ministry had to run into a disaster in order to open up a chance for him to have a second shot at winning the big chair. So he helped to create that mess for entirely self-serving reasons.
I think Remainers are slightly at fault here, and my thinking on this has developed recently. It's all very difficult because Brexit wasn't the only political consideration going, with MPs in Labour having Corbyn to worry about, in addition to the Lib Dems breathing down their necks for remain votes. But, the long and short of it is, in hindsight, May's deal was better for Remainers and represented a better platform for closer relations with the EU than Boris's. I was one of the diehard who opposed May's deal but I was wrong.
Forcing through May's deal with Labour votes would have been a shit show of epic proportions, for everyone involved, but a key weapon would have been removed from Boris's arsenal. An interesting counterfactual, I think.
With hindsight, if Labour had even just abstained on Mrs May’s deal, it would have passed and split the Tories in half. There would probably be a Labour government now, for better or worse, and we’d be stuck in the EU backstop.
- “The big challenges for Truss now are how she deals with Johnson and Sunak.“
Partly correct: those two are important in terms of marketing strategy.
However, in substantive terms - affecting the English constitution and parliamentary democracy itself - the key appointment is Her Majesty's Attorney General for England and Wales. If Prime Minister Mary Elizabeth Truss, a Paisley Buddy, re-appoints Suella Braverman QC then the country is headed into dreadful problems. Democracy itself is at threat.
Yep - Braverman's reappointment would confirm the Tory abandonment of Parliamentary democracy.
The only body that can abandon parliamentary democracy is parliament. Government can only do it if parliament is willing. And in the long run the voters have to be willing too.
What government has displayed is not abandonment but contempt. Which is why the best chance is a Labour government reliant on the LDs.
Parliament did badly over Brexit, displaying little strength and much weakness at a time when it was essential to show that parliament, not government is our supreme authority. This has not helped.
If Parliament had been weak over Brexit then Theresa May would have been able to force through her Brexit deal at any of the three attempts she tried to do so.
Parliament showed its strength in rejecting the Government's flagship policy. What it also showed was it was helplessly divided and unable to agree with itself which is why the voters ultimately changed the composition of Parliament significantly when they had the opportunity to get it done.
Largely because the extreme Brexiters were making May's job impossible and because the clown knew that May's ministry had to run into a disaster in order to open up a chance for him to have a second shot at winning the big chair. So he helped to create that mess for entirely self-serving reasons.
I think Remainers are slightly at fault here, and my thinking on this has developed recently. It's all very difficult because Brexit wasn't the only political consideration going, with MPs in Labour having Corbyn to worry about, in addition to the Lib Dems breathing down their necks for remain votes. But, the long and short of it is, in hindsight, May's deal was better for Remainers and represented a better platform for closer relations with the EU than Boris's. I was one of the diehard who opposed May's deal but I was wrong.
Forcing through May's deal with Labour votes would have been a shit show of epic proportions, for everyone involved, but a key weapon would have been removed from Boris's arsenal. An interesting counterfactual, I think.
Yes, as things turned out, the clowns in that fiasco were the Remainers. May's deal gave them as much as they were realistically going to get, but they doubled down and ended up with nothing. Boris played it like a master.
- “The big challenges for Truss now are how she deals with Johnson and Sunak.“
Partly correct: those two are important in terms of marketing strategy.
However, in substantive terms - affecting the English constitution and parliamentary democracy itself - the key appointment is Her Majesty's Attorney General for England and Wales. If Prime Minister Mary Elizabeth Truss, a Paisley Buddy, re-appoints Suella Braverman QC then the country is headed into dreadful problems. Democracy itself is at threat.
Yep - Braverman's reappointment would confirm the Tory abandonment of Parliamentary democracy.
The only body that can abandon parliamentary democracy is parliament. Government can only do it if parliament is willing. And in the long run the voters have to be willing too.
What government has displayed is not abandonment but contempt. Which is why the best chance is a Labour government reliant on the LDs.
Parliament did badly over Brexit, displaying little strength and much weakness at a time when it was essential to show that parliament, not government is our supreme authority. This has not helped.
If Parliament had been weak over Brexit then Theresa May would have been able to force through her Brexit deal at any of the three attempts she tried to do so.
Parliament showed its strength in rejecting the Government's flagship policy. What it also showed was it was helplessly divided and unable to agree with itself which is why the voters ultimately changed the composition of Parliament significantly when they had the opportunity to get it done.
Largely because the extreme Brexiters were making May's job impossible and because the clown knew that May's ministry had to run into a disaster in order to open up a chance for him to have a second shot at winning the big chair. So he helped to create that mess for entirely self-serving reasons.
I think Remainers are slightly at fault here, and my thinking on this has developed recently. It's all very difficult because Brexit wasn't the only political consideration going, with MPs in Labour having Corbyn to worry about, in addition to the Lib Dems breathing down their necks for remain votes. But, the long and short of it is, in hindsight, May's deal was better for Remainers and represented a better platform for closer relations with the EU than Boris's. I was one of the diehard who opposed May's deal but I was wrong.
Forcing through May's deal with Labour votes would have been a shit show of epic proportions, for everyone involved, but a key weapon would have been removed from Boris's arsenal. An interesting counterfactual, I think.
For sure, Remain MPs missed chances to go in a different direction, particularly during the Letwin process where they all displayed what turned out to be self-defeating inflexibility and intransigence. I had a go at the LibDem MPs about this - whose votes could have changed the outcome - while the votes were going on, and their misjudgement is one of the reasons I am no longer a party member.
But the problems for the government were of the ERG's making, with Johnson helping along hoping and waiting for May to run into the rocks.
Once in office Johnson of course already knew how an administration could be destabilised by disloyalty, and consequently was paranoid of trusting anyone competent with power. Leading directly to the current contest between Sunak, chosen as a supposedly inexperienced and pliable patsy after Javid demonstrated just a smidgin of independence by wanting to choose his own advisers, and Truss who he imagined to be mostly harmless and never a credible contender for the big chair.
Mr. 86, jein. I think Badenoch could have another tilt.
The problem is being seen as a real contender and losing. If you're an outsider, especially on the young side, it matters less.
Please Morris embed the post to which you refer. Your refusal to do so is frustrating for the rest of us who have to trawl back to find the post to which you are referring. One click and it's done!
There's no point really in a premature concession. Parliament is in recess anyway and the new leader is due to be announced on the first day that Parliament returns.
Do this properly. Finish the contest right.
But we have complete Government inertia, and a shiny new PM who is raring to go!
By getting people like John Redwood to challenge Treasury orthodoxy.... yay!
I'm no particular fan of Sunak but the idea that Redwood has the answers to today's issues shows how bereft of ideas Truss really is.
People are slightly unfair to Redwood. He uses argument rather than rhetoric and assertion more than most; he sets out his position in public and some detail; he fundamentally believes in sound money and is the successor to JE Powell's (correct in this instance) case that "inflation is theft"; he is fairly libertarian; and he actually reads the comments on his blog. he is philosophically Tory.
He is in many ways (both strengths and weaknesses) the intellectual's David Davies.
There's no point really in a premature concession. Parliament is in recess anyway and the new leader is due to be announced on the first day that Parliament returns.
Do this properly. Finish the contest right.
But we have complete Government inertia, and a shiny new PM who is raring to go!
Government is always inert at this time of year. 12 months back it was Kabul. Didn't keep the FS from his hols
- “The big challenges for Truss now are how she deals with Johnson and Sunak.“
Partly correct: those two are important in terms of marketing strategy.
However, in substantive terms - affecting the English constitution and parliamentary democracy itself - the key appointment is Her Majesty's Attorney General for England and Wales. If Prime Minister Mary Elizabeth Truss, a Paisley Buddy, re-appoints Suella Braverman QC then the country is headed into dreadful problems. Democracy itself is at threat.
Yep - Braverman's reappointment would confirm the Tory abandonment of Parliamentary democracy.
The only body that can abandon parliamentary democracy is parliament. Government can only do it if parliament is willing. And in the long run the voters have to be willing too.
What government has displayed is not abandonment but contempt. Which is why the best chance is a Labour government reliant on the LDs.
Parliament did badly over Brexit, displaying little strength and much weakness at a time when it was essential to show that parliament, not government is our supreme authority. This has not helped.
If Parliament had been weak over Brexit then Theresa May would have been able to force through her Brexit deal at any of the three attempts she tried to do so.
Parliament showed its strength in rejecting the Government's flagship policy. What it also showed was it was helplessly divided and unable to agree with itself which is why the voters ultimately changed the composition of Parliament significantly when they had the opportunity to get it done.
Largely because the extreme Brexiters were making May's job impossible and because the clown knew that May's ministry had to run into a disaster in order to open up a chance for him to have a second shot at winning the big chair. So he helped to create that mess for entirely self-serving reasons.
I think Remainers are slightly at fault here, and my thinking on this has developed recently. It's all very difficult because Brexit wasn't the only political consideration going, with MPs in Labour having Corbyn to worry about, in addition to the Lib Dems breathing down their necks for remain votes. But, the long and short of it is, in hindsight, May's deal was better for Remainers and represented a better platform for closer relations with the EU than Boris's. I was one of the diehard who opposed May's deal but I was wrong.
Forcing through May's deal with Labour votes would have been a shit show of epic proportions, for everyone involved, but a key weapon would have been removed from Boris's arsenal. An interesting counterfactual, I think.
I don't think that was the key mistake. I think Remainers could have done better than May's Hard Brexit.
The key mistake was the split between a second referendum and a Common Market 2.0 position. The support for a second vote didn't make sense, because there was no evidence that the British public had changed their mind, and so a second vote would have been a waste of time. The campaign for a second vote served only to enrage those who had voted Leave.
Had erstwhile Remainers united around support for a Common Market 2.0 position, or Norway for Now, etc, then I think they could have carried a majority in Parliament and the country with them. But there was no leader capable of rallying support around this position.
- “The big challenges for Truss now are how she deals with Johnson and Sunak.“
Partly correct: those two are important in terms of marketing strategy.
However, in substantive terms - affecting the English constitution and parliamentary democracy itself - the key appointment is Her Majesty's Attorney General for England and Wales. If Prime Minister Mary Elizabeth Truss, a Paisley Buddy, re-appoints Suella Braverman QC then the country is headed into dreadful problems. Democracy itself is at threat.
Yep - Braverman's reappointment would confirm the Tory abandonment of Parliamentary democracy.
The only body that can abandon parliamentary democracy is parliament. Government can only do it if parliament is willing. And in the long run the voters have to be willing too.
What government has displayed is not abandonment but contempt. Which is why the best chance is a Labour government reliant on the LDs.
Parliament did badly over Brexit, displaying little strength and much weakness at a time when it was essential to show that parliament, not government is our supreme authority. This has not helped.
If Parliament had been weak over Brexit then Theresa May would have been able to force through her Brexit deal at any of the three attempts she tried to do so.
Parliament showed its strength in rejecting the Government's flagship policy. What it also showed was it was helplessly divided and unable to agree with itself which is why the voters ultimately changed the composition of Parliament significantly when they had the opportunity to get it done.
Largely because the extreme Brexiters were making May's job impossible and because the clown knew that May's ministry had to run into a disaster in order to open up a chance for him to have a second shot at winning the big chair. So he helped to create that mess for entirely self-serving reasons.
I think Remainers are slightly at fault here, and my thinking on this has developed recently. It's all very difficult because Brexit wasn't the only political consideration going, with MPs in Labour having Corbyn to worry about, in addition to the Lib Dems breathing down their necks for remain votes. But, the long and short of it is, in hindsight, May's deal was better for Remainers and represented a better platform for closer relations with the EU than Boris's. I was one of the diehard who opposed May's deal but I was wrong.
Forcing through May's deal with Labour votes would have been a shit show of epic proportions, for everyone involved, but a key weapon would have been removed from Boris's arsenal. An interesting counterfactual, I think.
Yes, as things turned out, the clowns in that fiasco were the Remainers. May's deal gave them as much as they were realistically going to get, but they doubled down and ended up with nothing. Boris played it like a master.
- “The big challenges for Truss now are how she deals with Johnson and Sunak.“
Partly correct: those two are important in terms of marketing strategy.
However, in substantive terms - affecting the English constitution and parliamentary democracy itself - the key appointment is Her Majesty's Attorney General for England and Wales. If Prime Minister Mary Elizabeth Truss, a Paisley Buddy, re-appoints Suella Braverman QC then the country is headed into dreadful problems. Democracy itself is at threat.
Yep - Braverman's reappointment would confirm the Tory abandonment of Parliamentary democracy.
The only body that can abandon parliamentary democracy is parliament. Government can only do it if parliament is willing. And in the long run the voters have to be willing too.
What government has displayed is not abandonment but contempt. Which is why the best chance is a Labour government reliant on the LDs.
Parliament did badly over Brexit, displaying little strength and much weakness at a time when it was essential to show that parliament, not government is our supreme authority. This has not helped.
If Parliament had been weak over Brexit then Theresa May would have been able to force through her Brexit deal at any of the three attempts she tried to do so.
Parliament showed its strength in rejecting the Government's flagship policy. What it also showed was it was helplessly divided and unable to agree with itself which is why the voters ultimately changed the composition of Parliament significantly when they had the opportunity to get it done.
Largely because the extreme Brexiters were making May's job impossible and because the clown knew that May's ministry had to run into a disaster in order to open up a chance for him to have a second shot at winning the big chair. So he helped to create that mess for entirely self-serving reasons.
I think Remainers are slightly at fault here, and my thinking on this has developed recently. It's all very difficult because Brexit wasn't the only political consideration going, with MPs in Labour having Corbyn to worry about, in addition to the Lib Dems breathing down their necks for remain votes. But, the long and short of it is, in hindsight, May's deal was better for Remainers and represented a better platform for closer relations with the EU than Boris's. I was one of the diehard who opposed May's deal but I was wrong.
Forcing through May's deal with Labour votes would have been a shit show of epic proportions, for everyone involved, but a key weapon would have been removed from Boris's arsenal. An interesting counterfactual, I think.
Yes, as things turned out, the clowns in that fiasco were the Remainers. May's deal gave them as much as they were realistically going to get, but they doubled down and ended up with nothing. Boris played it like a master.
I wouldn't go that far, perhaps. I think the difference between the intransigence of the Remainers and the ERG was that the ERG won in the end. I'm sure in our vast and infinite universe there are not a few worlds out there where the ERG's pigheaded unwillingness to compromise meant that they got nothing. And the Leavers there are wishing they had voted for May's deal while a Labour Government prepares to re-establish free movement.
One reason GIDS is being shut is because of its reliance on the ‘affirmation only’ approach: if a kid says they are trans, believe them; don’t explore the issue. Now, at last, the system agrees that exploring the issue is the right thing to do. What sane person would disagree?
I’ll tell you who doesn’t agree. Stonewall, Mermaids, the entire rainbow movement, the Labour Party, the Lib Dems and the Greens. They have their own term for ‘exploring the issue’. They call it ‘trans conversion therapy’ and they’ve been baying to get it banned.
They piggybacked this demand onto a move to ban gay conversion therapy, a genuinely nasty practice (although very rare in this country). Contrast that with the really dangerous gay conversion therapy: telling fey boys and butch girls they’re in the wrong body and need transing.
There's no point really in a premature concession. Parliament is in recess anyway and the new leader is due to be announced on the first day that Parliament returns.
Do this properly. Finish the contest right.
But we have complete Government inertia, and a shiny new PM who is raring to go!
By getting people like John Redwood to challenge Treasury orthodoxy.... yay!
I'm no particular fan of Sunak but the idea that Redwood has the answers to today's issues shows how bereft of ideas Truss really is.
People are slightly unfair to Redwood. He uses argument rather than rhetoric and assertion more than most; he sets out his position in public and some detail; he fundamentally believes in sound money and is the successor to JE Powell's (correct in this instance) case that "inflation is theft"; he is fairly libertarian; and he actually reads the comments on his blog. he is philosophically Tory.
He is in many ways (both strengths and weaknesses) the intellectual's David Davies.
But the substance of what he often says, however beautifully it is presented and argued, is quite often utterly mistaken and rubbish.
If he really believed in sound money I do not see how he could credibly support a Truss policy of borrowing to give tax cuts in an economy where inflation is already high and likely to get higher.
The noose around the Russian forces west of the Dnieper is tightening.
The paper has been previously posted - it is very good and well researched.
One crunch point for the Russian economy - modern oil and gas production depends on a lot of very high tech. In Russian they make some of the more basic equipment, but import the ultra high end stuff.
Without it, the Russian extraction industry (and refining) will revert to the capabilities of the Cold War times. Cue massive production cuts….
Russia’s plans for post-war Europe. Great for Serbia and Ireland. Bad for Finland
Haha! Bonkers. Loving the fact they’ve carved out a “kingdom of Wessex” leaving out the heartland and capital of Wessex and lumped in Devon and Cornwall which were never Wessex.
Would assume this is a puss take but then I remember this is Russia so probably would be their plan.
There is a point where the plans of Greater X Nationalists converge on a game of Risk played by poorly socialised 10 year olds…
"About 32.5 million people — 10 percent of the population of the contiguous United States — live in the areas expected to have dangerous levels of heat."
Morning all. So I suppose 'big beasts' Wallace and TT endorsing Liz Truss is about siding with the winner. Looks like we can give it to her anyway. PM Truss it is.
To me it looks like the party is still Johnson's. They'd much rather have him, truth be told, but since they can't they're choosing the nearest thing.
Oh dear. Imagine being a poundland Boris Johnson. But there is an upside. She can't really disappoint.
The noose around the Russian forces west of the Dnieper is tightening.
Another day, another Russian ammo store in Ukraine on fire…
The Yale piece is also very good, debunking the Russian narrative that life is good under sanctions, spread by propogandists and useful idiots in the West - a couple of whom were on the previous thread. It’s taken perhaps a little longer than many expected, but the Russian economy is being squeezed hard. They’re self-sufficient in food, so they’re not going to starve, but with GDP down 10% there’s going to be mass unemployment and unsustainable state intervention in the economy.
The developing Ukranian strategy is an interesting one, and closer to NATO doctrine of only moving in ground troops after a long preparation.
The Russian forces west of the Dnieper can neither be easily resupplied, or withdrawn with their heavy equipment. The already weak logistical tail to Kherson is now much longer, and requires more lorries and either a difficult and vulnerable ferry crossing, or a much longer and not much easier trip via the Nova Kakhovka bridge. Simply supplying them is going to absorb tremendous Russian effort.
It also means these forces cannot be rotated (should forces allow) or redeploy should Ukraine put their counter-offensive elsewhere, such as South from Dnipro.
Russia is said to be assembling an operational reserve in Crimea, which suggests they are alive to a wider potential threat.
Reserve armies are standard Russian doctrine since way back - Deep Battle and all that.
The recent bridge hits must be giving them nightmares. That bridge to the Crimea…
The noose around the Russian forces west of the Dnieper is tightening.
Another day, another Russian ammo store in Ukraine on fire…
The Yale piece is also very good, debunking the Russian narrative that life is good under sanctions, spread by propogandists and useful idiots in the West - a couple of whom were on the previous thread. It’s taken perhaps a little longer than many expected, but the Russian economy is being squeezed hard. They’re self-sufficient in food, so they’re not going to starve, but with GDP down 10% there’s going to be mass unemployment and unsustainable state intervention in the economy.
The developing Ukranian strategy is an interesting one, and closer to NATO doctrine of only moving in ground troops after a long preparation.
The Russian forces west of the Dnieper can neither be easily resupplied, or withdrawn with their heavy equipment. The already weak logistical tail to Kherson is now much longer, and requires more lorries and either a difficult and vulnerable ferry crossing, or a much longer and not much easier trip via the Nova Kakhovka bridge. Simply supplying them is going to absorb tremendous Russian effort.
It also means these forces cannot be rotated (should forces allow) or redeploy should Ukraine put their counter-offensive elsewhere, such as South from Dnipro.
At some point, hopefully sooner rather than later, the Russians in Kherson are going to have the choice of either crossing back over the Deniper bridge on foot or by car, or suffering nightly attacks on their positions and their supply vehicles.
Confining the enemy East of the river is a key strategic goal, which frees up a lot of defending forces to attack the remaining enemy from their North and West. It might also allow for UN or NATO peacekeepers to be stationed in the ‘safe’ West of the country, further protecting Ukranian supply lines and freeing up more of their troops.
I can't see NATO peacekeepers being sent to any part of Ukraine while the war is still going on unfortunately. We and the Poles might just about accept it but there is no way the Americans would, and as for the French, Germans and Italians ...
- “The big challenges for Truss now are how she deals with Johnson and Sunak.“
Partly correct: those two are important in terms of marketing strategy.
However, in substantive terms - affecting the English constitution and parliamentary democracy itself - the key appointment is Her Majesty's Attorney General for England and Wales. If Prime Minister Mary Elizabeth Truss, a Paisley Buddy, re-appoints Suella Braverman QC then the country is headed into dreadful problems. Democracy itself is at threat.
Yep - Braverman's reappointment would confirm the Tory abandonment of Parliamentary democracy.
The only body that can abandon parliamentary democracy is parliament. Government can only do it if parliament is willing. And in the long run the voters have to be willing too.
What government has displayed is not abandonment but contempt. Which is why the best chance is a Labour government reliant on the LDs.
Parliament did badly over Brexit, displaying little strength and much weakness at a time when it was essential to show that parliament, not government is our supreme authority. This has not helped.
If Parliament had been weak over Brexit then Theresa May would have been able to force through her Brexit deal at any of the three attempts she tried to do so.
Parliament showed its strength in rejecting the Government's flagship policy. What it also showed was it was helplessly divided and unable to agree with itself which is why the voters ultimately changed the composition of Parliament significantly when they had the opportunity to get it done.
Largely because the extreme Brexiters were making May's job impossible and because the clown knew that May's ministry had to run into a disaster in order to open up a chance for him to have a second shot at winning the big chair. So he helped to create that mess for entirely self-serving reasons.
I think Remainers are slightly at fault here, and my thinking on this has developed recently. It's all very difficult because Brexit wasn't the only political consideration going, with MPs in Labour having Corbyn to worry about, in addition to the Lib Dems breathing down their necks for remain votes. But, the long and short of it is, in hindsight, May's deal was better for Remainers and represented a better platform for closer relations with the EU than Boris's. I was one of the diehard who opposed May's deal but I was wrong.
Forcing through May's deal with Labour votes would have been a shit show of epic proportions, for everyone involved, but a key weapon would have been removed from Boris's arsenal. An interesting counterfactual, I think.
Yes, as things turned out, the clowns in that fiasco were the Remainers. May's deal gave them as much as they were realistically going to get, but they doubled down and ended up with nothing. Boris played it like a master.
- “The big challenges for Truss now are how she deals with Johnson and Sunak.“
Partly correct: those two are important in terms of marketing strategy.
However, in substantive terms - affecting the English constitution and parliamentary democracy itself - the key appointment is Her Majesty's Attorney General for England and Wales. If Prime Minister Mary Elizabeth Truss, a Paisley Buddy, re-appoints Suella Braverman QC then the country is headed into dreadful problems. Democracy itself is at threat.
Yep - Braverman's reappointment would confirm the Tory abandonment of Parliamentary democracy.
The only body that can abandon parliamentary democracy is parliament. Government can only do it if parliament is willing. And in the long run the voters have to be willing too.
What government has displayed is not abandonment but contempt. Which is why the best chance is a Labour government reliant on the LDs.
Parliament did badly over Brexit, displaying little strength and much weakness at a time when it was essential to show that parliament, not government is our supreme authority. This has not helped.
If Parliament had been weak over Brexit then Theresa May would have been able to force through her Brexit deal at any of the three attempts she tried to do so.
Parliament showed its strength in rejecting the Government's flagship policy. What it also showed was it was helplessly divided and unable to agree with itself which is why the voters ultimately changed the composition of Parliament significantly when they had the opportunity to get it done.
Largely because the extreme Brexiters were making May's job impossible and because the clown knew that May's ministry had to run into a disaster in order to open up a chance for him to have a second shot at winning the big chair. So he helped to create that mess for entirely self-serving reasons.
I think Remainers are slightly at fault here, and my thinking on this has developed recently. It's all very difficult because Brexit wasn't the only political consideration going, with MPs in Labour having Corbyn to worry about, in addition to the Lib Dems breathing down their necks for remain votes. But, the long and short of it is, in hindsight, May's deal was better for Remainers and represented a better platform for closer relations with the EU than Boris's. I was one of the diehard who opposed May's deal but I was wrong.
Forcing through May's deal with Labour votes would have been a shit show of epic proportions, for everyone involved, but a key weapon would have been removed from Boris's arsenal. An interesting counterfactual, I think.
Yes, as things turned out, the clowns in that fiasco were the Remainers. May's deal gave them as much as they were realistically going to get, but they doubled down and ended up with nothing. Boris played it like a master.
I wouldn't go that far, perhaps. I think the difference between the intransigence of the Remainers and the ERG was that the ERG won in the end. I'm sure in our vast and infinite universe there are not a few worlds out there where the ERG's pigheaded unwillingness to compromise meant that they got nothing. And the Leavers there are wishing they had voted for May's deal while a Labour Government prepares to re-establish free movement.
One reason GIDS is being shut is because of its reliance on the ‘affirmation only’ approach: if a kid says they are trans, believe them; don’t explore the issue. Now, at last, the system agrees that exploring the issue is the right thing to do. What sane person would disagree?
I’ll tell you who doesn’t agree. Stonewall, Mermaids, the entire rainbow movement, the Labour Party, the Lib Dems and the Greens. They have their own term for ‘exploring the issue’. They call it ‘trans conversion therapy’ and they’ve been baying to get it banned.
They piggybacked this demand onto a move to ban gay conversion therapy, a genuinely nasty practice (although very rare in this country). Contrast that with the really dangerous gay conversion therapy: telling fey boys and butch girls they’re in the wrong body and need transing.
You are in the manic phase of bipolar disorder. On the plus side you seem to be enjoying it (people don't always), on the down side it will come to an end. I think you should talk to your professional adviser now. The more unnecessary that feels the better an idea it is.
The biggest error by far in the whole post referendum scenario was May holding the 2017 election.
Well the reasoning was sound - She wanted to do a soft Brexit and she knew she would need a bigger majority to get it through... The error was screwing up the election and being an utterly, utterly useless campaigner...
It's called a Mini Star cucumber and it's the thirty first one I've had off the plant. There are another twenty still growing and I expect more to come. I'm glad I only bought one plant, I couldn't eat much more cucumber
It's called a Mini Star cucumber and it's the thirty first one I've had off the plant. There are another twenty still growing and I expect more to come. I'm glad I only bought one plant, I couldn't eat much more cucumber
One begins to wonder whether it was Truss lending Sunak votes as she flew under the radar. It was absolutely clear that Mourdaunt was the one she feared.
Do you remember those heady days when half of PB were telling us how Kemi Badenoch would overtake Truss?
PB has a bias to "unexpected results". We love hearing about 50-1 bets that came off, and it leads us to predict surprises. I've always thought Truss was likely to win because she's the closest fit to today's Tory membership, and although Badenoch certainly surprised on the upside, she started an a rank outsider and merely moved to credible also-ran.
As spectators looking for fun, why not cheer on the long-shots? But it's unwise to bet the house on them. In the same way, it's possible that the next GE will be either a Labour landslide or a Tory triumph, but actually it's been clear for a long time that a Labour minority government is the most likely outcome - it's not as exciting as landslides, but it's the logical consequence of years of modest but consistent Labour polling leads, the closeness of Lab and LibDem outlooks, the bleak economic outlook, the lack of huge enthusiasm for Labour and the evident weariness of the Government.
Given the current Labour leadership is not changing any time soon, how should Labour cure that palpable lack of enthusiasm for a Labour government, minority or not?
Having now pissed off the Corbynistas, the europhiles and now the Trade Unions, how on earth does Starmer get out the vote? I am very much the Centrist Dad switch voting demographic, but would struggle to vote for such an anaemic Labour programme. It is a very different feel from the late nineties New Labour.
I'd almost settle for the 'manifesto' written by Jesse Norman in his resignation letter to Boris Johnson. It's an upgrade on what we seem to be getting now
Just sorting out my energy this morning. A few comments:
- I'm reasonably competent at using spreadsheets (do it for a living) and this is far from simple - I can go for a fix or a variable - The energy company has provided zero explanation for how the price cap works when they have set out my options. I think many people, used to being on fixes, will have switched to the cheaper variable without even thinking about it - The energy company has priced their fix very well - it's just slightly less than my very rough projection of the weighted average for the variable tariff over the next 12 months. This brings me to... - Inflation* and the time value of money. The former suggests fix, the latter variable. I'm also going for promotion again, meaning that I'll have more cash to burn in the future (if I get it, 50:50). Hmmm. - Standard charges remain the same proportion of my estimated bill under the variable tariff, despite the massive increase in overall cost. They are a smaller proportion of the fix I have been offered, as the standing charges are the same. - I can't really use this in my decision making process: OFGEM just make up how they apply changes to the price cap (standing v unit rate), which is really fucking stupid. I'm drafting an email to them. - The £400 help we are getting really takes the edge off for me - Politically, there must be a chance something is done this winter to prevent disaster for many households. Do I hold off fixing in expectation?
*Note: I'm struggling with whether I should take inflation into account - energy costs are the inflation. Anyone help?
- “The big challenges for Truss now are how she deals with Johnson and Sunak.“
Partly correct: those two are important in terms of marketing strategy.
However, in substantive terms - affecting the English constitution and parliamentary democracy itself - the key appointment is Her Majesty's Attorney General for England and Wales. If Prime Minister Mary Elizabeth Truss, a Paisley Buddy, re-appoints Suella Braverman QC then the country is headed into dreadful problems. Democracy itself is at threat.
Yep - Braverman's reappointment would confirm the Tory abandonment of Parliamentary democracy.
The only body that can abandon parliamentary democracy is parliament. Government can only do it if parliament is willing. And in the long run the voters have to be willing too.
What government has displayed is not abandonment but contempt. Which is why the best chance is a Labour government reliant on the LDs.
Parliament did badly over Brexit, displaying little strength and much weakness at a time when it was essential to show that parliament, not government is our supreme authority. This has not helped.
If Parliament had been weak over Brexit then Theresa May would have been able to force through her Brexit deal at any of the three attempts she tried to do so.
Parliament showed its strength in rejecting the Government's flagship policy. What it also showed was it was helplessly divided and unable to agree with itself which is why the voters ultimately changed the composition of Parliament significantly when they had the opportunity to get it done.
Largely because the extreme Brexiters were making May's job impossible and because the clown knew that May's ministry had to run into a disaster in order to open up a chance for him to have a second shot at winning the big chair. So he helped to create that mess for entirely self-serving reasons.
It's almost as if Johnson remembered that Churchill having landed British troops onto Norwegian snow without skis, winter clothes, artillery, aircraft cover or even any maps of Norway (and with the intention of joining Finland in its war against the USSR - which could have been a world-changing misjudgement) didn't prevent his becoming the next PM when what turned into an abject fiasco brought the existing PM down.
I think my grandfather was involved in that misadventure - though he was in the navy, so I'm not sure in what capacity. One of quite a small number to name it back though. He was also on the ship which evacuated the Norwegian royal family.
The Devonshire, that must have been?
The navy did inflict some serious destruction in on the German Kriegsmarine, but its record was badly blotted by the fiasco of the sinking of HMS Glorious, because its commanding officer was at daggers drawn with its air component and didn't react properly to the encounter with two German battlecruisers. The father of a schoolfriend of mine was on the Glorious, but very fortunately for him he'd been held back in the UK for some reason and missed the sinking.
Just sorting out my energy this morning. A few comments:
- I'm reasonably competent at using spreadsheets (do it for a living) and this is far from simple - I can go for a fix or a variable - The energy company has provided zero explanation for how the price cap works when they have set out my options. I think many people, used to being on fixes, will have switched to the cheaper variable without even thinking about it - The energy company has priced their fix very well - it's just slightly less than my very rough projection of the weighted average for the variable tariff over the next 12 months. This brings me to... - Inflation* and the time value of money. The former suggests fix, the latter variable. I'm also going for promotion again, meaning that I'll have more cash to burn in the future (if I get it, 50:50). Hmmm. - Standard charges remain the same proportion of my estimated bill under the variable tariff, despite the massive increase in overall cost. They are a smaller proportion of the fix I have been offered, as the standing charges are the same. - I can't really use this in my decision making process: OFGEM just make up how they apply changes to the price cap (standing v unit rate), which is really fucking stupid. I'm drafting an email to them. - The £400 help we are getting really takes the edge off for me - Politically, there must be a chance something is done this winter to prevent disaster for many households. Do I hold off fixing in expectation?
*Note: I'm struggling with whether I should take inflation into account - energy costs are the inflation. Anyone help?
Sorry for the spam, helps to write this stuff out. And hopefully useful for other PBers facing the same problem.
Just sorting out my energy this morning. A few comments:
- I'm reasonably competent at using spreadsheets (do it for a living) and this is far from simple - I can go for a fix or a variable - The energy company has provided zero explanation for how the price cap works when they have set out my options. I think many people, used to being on fixes, will have switched to the cheaper variable without even thinking about it - The energy company has priced their fix very well - it's just slightly less than my very rough projection of the weighted average for the variable tariff over the next 12 months. This brings me to... - Inflation* and the time value of money. The former suggests fix, the latter variable. I'm also going for promotion again, meaning that I'll have more cash to burn in the future (if I get it, 50:50). Hmmm. - Standard charges remain the same proportion of my estimated bill under the variable tariff, despite the massive increase in overall cost. They are a smaller proportion of the fix I have been offered, as the standing charges are the same. - I can't really use this in my decision making process: OFGEM just make up how they apply changes to the price cap (standing v unit rate), which is really fucking stupid. I'm drafting an email to them. - The £400 help we are getting really takes the edge off for me - Politically, there must be a chance something is done this winter to prevent disaster for many households. Do I hold off fixing in expectation?
*Note: I'm struggling with whether I should take inflation into account - energy costs are the inflation. Anyone help?
Sorry for the spam, helps to write this stuff out. And hopefully useful for other PBers facing the same problem.
Not at all; it's a very interesting observation. As you say, we're all in the same pan.
One reason GIDS is being shut is because of its reliance on the ‘affirmation only’ approach: if a kid says they are trans, believe them; don’t explore the issue. Now, at last, the system agrees that exploring the issue is the right thing to do. What sane person would disagree?
I’ll tell you who doesn’t agree. Stonewall, Mermaids, the entire rainbow movement, the Labour Party, the Lib Dems and the Greens. They have their own term for ‘exploring the issue’. They call it ‘trans conversion therapy’ and they’ve been baying to get it banned.
They piggybacked this demand onto a move to ban gay conversion therapy, a genuinely nasty practice (although very rare in this country). Contrast that with the really dangerous gay conversion therapy: telling fey boys and butch girls they’re in the wrong body and need transing.
Thankfully, it appears that the wheels are starting to fall off the whole aggressive trans industry. Not before time.
Not yet in the US where the Biden administration appears still to be in thrall to the “affirmative care” lobby and their unchallenged data free assertions. As Dr Cass observed in her most recent letter “Without data you’re just another person with an opinion”.
Oh for goodness sake! Could the Tory leadership race get any dumber? It’s not the Equality Act that’s the problem! 🤦♀️ It acknowledges the biological reality of sex as Scotland’s Supreme Court held recently thanx to @ForWomenScot
Oh for goodness sake! Could the Tory leadership race get any dumber? It’s not the Equality Act that’s the problem! 🤦♀️ It acknowledges the biological reality of sex as Scotland’s Supreme Court held recently thanx to @ForWomenScot
Let's choose. He is either - a) an idiot b) badly informed c) well-informed but pandering to the gallery d) panicking e) using this issue to attack equalities law more generally.
The possibility of (e) worries me, especially given the nonsense Suella Braverman has been coming out with. Yet even now the Labour Party cannot be relied on to protect womens' rights or the rights of troubled children to have the best possible medical care.
Is it beyond them to get advice from well-informed equalities lawyers?
Trump Just Told Us His Master Plan If he gets in next time, he won’t be dislodged by any means.
"Trump sketched out a vision that a new Republican Congress could enact sweeping new emergency powers for the next Republican president. The president would be empowered to disregard state jurisdiction over criminal law. The president would be allowed to push aside a “weak, foolish, and stupid governor,” and to fire “radical and racist prosecutors”—racist here meaning “anti-white.” The president could federalize state National Guards for law-enforcement duties, stop and frisk suspects for illegal weapons, and impose death sentences on drug dealers after expedited trials."
Given the toxic nature of the campaign will Mourdaunt serve under Truss?
She might be wise to keep her distance in case things do go horribly wrong.
Tugs and Wallace have nailed their colours to the mast, they look to be playing the Starmer game.
If a clean break from the past is needed next time maybe better for Mordaunt to stay above the fray. Although history suggests it didn't work for Hunt.
You would hope that Mordaunt would spend the time working out how to spot and then dismantle elephant traps. Especially those set by the Daily Mail. It was really surprising to see how badly she fared against the one issue that sank her - being painted as "woke".
She needs far better people around her prepping her if there is to be a next time.
She’d have been fine if her ‘wokeness’ had been confined to speeches, rather than actually introducing legislation that had clearly been written by Stonewall.
Her twin-brother has probably cost her the top job.
For now.
I think you get once chance at the top job. She's done.
The only one I can think of who managed a second coming in recent years was Howard in 2003.
Salmond became SNP leader twice, if that counts as recent years. Thrice may be beyond him..
Oh for goodness sake! Could the Tory leadership race get any dumber? It’s not the Equality Act that’s the problem! 🤦♀️ It acknowledges the biological reality of sex as Scotland’s Supreme Court held recently thanx to @ForWomenScot
Let's choose. He is either - a) an idiot b) badly informed c) well-informed but pandering to the gallery d) panicking e) using this issue to attack equalities law more generally.
The possibility of (e) worries me, especially given the nonsense Suella Braverman has been coming out with. Yet even now the Labour Party cannot be relied on to protect womens' rights or the rights of troubled children to have the best possible medical care.
Is it beyond them to get advice from well-informed equalities lawyers?
Please define well informed. We have numerous examples of QCs who are mad as a box of frogs and seem to know less about the law than I do*.
*in a recent matter I have knowledge of a QC advised his client to break a binding arbitration agreement in a contract, without even trying it. The result in court was a complete fail for his client. In minutes….
I don't think he can withdraw under the rules. But he could just stop campaigning. If I were him, though, I wouldn't. There is a certain valour in carrying on - and certainly some political advantage in being seen to have done all he could to oppose Truss if she ends up crashing and burning.
Meanwhile, Tugendhat's embrace of Truss confirms that the old Conservative party of sound money and the rule of law is now finished. It's populist English nationalism from here on in.
One party clearly takes precedence over One Nation.
a) A notorious leaker b) Minister for Instagram c) Loyal to Johnson to the last d) A fan of wild economic theories
Is this what Tory members are after?
I'd also like to see some analysis of Roundhay Comp. From what we hear it sounds like one of the best state schools in Leeds at the time.
iirc at least two people who went to the school have publically commented. A Leeds Tory councillor who was there at the same time has gone on record with Peston to say she is talking utter tosh about how poor and failing the school was. Then, CNN's Richard Quest has written about his time there (a few years before Truss) saying it was a nightmare.
Comments
Parliament showed its strength in rejecting the Government's flagship policy. What it also showed was it was helplessly divided and unable to agree with itself which is why the voters ultimately changed the composition of Parliament significantly when they had the opportunity to get it done.
https://twitter.com/dr_oleksan/status/1553108943676882946?s=21&t=8Q5Ls6Ff3WBApaIu878pYA
https://nation.cymru/news/bizarre-russian-plan-for-post-war-europe-gives-kingdom-of-wales-half-of-england-but-cuts-out-cardiff/
Vladimir Solovyov suggested destroying England with a nuclear missile but leaving Wales intact in order to ensure that the UK is over.
Speaking on Rossiya1, the state-owned news channel, he said that “quiet” Wales would then be “independent”.
“Listen Brits, wake up, you showed the whole world that you are arrogant, illiterate and can’t do anything but steal,” he said.
“The only reason you don’t have Egyptian pyramids in the British Museum is that you physically couldn’t steal them. You stole everything.
“They are lecturing us, a country we can destroy with one nuclear missile,” he added.
And don't forget it's MP was once a fiery Republican.
Otherwise, I largely agree that the long odds are a function of time.
Russia Today really is a sewer of thick, nasty, racist scum who are unfit to live. At least the Deutsches Nachrichten Buro was capable of doing subtlety.
It's so easy in a complex situation to get mired in lots of detail, and miss the wider certainties even when they are over-riding. Replacing a PM in office, it's almost always by the holder of one of the big three (usually the big two) Cab posts. The MPs' election played out with all its twists and turns yet arrived offering their members a choice between the big two.
That the big two aren't the strongest of potential replacements is down to the guy who gave them those jobs in the first place.
Mordaunt deserves credit for so nearly upsetting the received wisdom (which is also, of course, a comment on the weakness of Sunak/Truss).
It's almost as if Johnson remembered that Churchill having landed British troops onto Norwegian snow without skis, winter clothes, artillery, aircraft cover or even any maps of Norway (and with the intention of joining Finland in its war against the USSR - which could have been a world-changing misjudgement) didn't prevent his becoming the next PM when what turned into an abject fiasco brought the existing PM down.
Do this properly. Finish the contest right.
Perhaps you have to put a marker down but not get too close.
Penny was essentially a blank slate who was easy on the eye. When she didn't stand for anything apart from winning, she got a hearing. Once people dug into what she did stand for, not so much.
Forcing through May's deal with Labour votes would have been a shit show of epic proportions, for everyone involved, but a key weapon would have been removed from Boris's arsenal. An interesting counterfactual, I think.
I'm no particular fan of Sunak but the idea that Redwood has the answers to today's issues shows how bereft of ideas Truss really is.
Parliament (only after an election) in the end agreed a deal which, in the Ireland dimension, immediately unravelled.
'Norway' remained and remains the only solution that respects the actual vote (nothing can respect the campaigning, which was inconsistent rubbish on both sides) and respects reality.
That SKS has excluded it could just possibly result in an interesting 'compromise' under a Lab/LD government in which by joining EFTA/EEA we both respect the Brexit vote and by doing a bit of what the LDs want, respect a minority government's situation. But don't bet the farm. This is a pious hope only.
The Tory party today is a really curious mixture of populism, with any policy wrapped in a thin veneer of right wing rhetoric. We’ve not seen this before.
Borrowing to lower taxes.
But the problems for the government were of the ERG's making, with Johnson helping along hoping and waiting for May to run into the rocks.
Once in office Johnson of course already knew how an administration could be destabilised by disloyalty, and consequently was paranoid of trusting anyone competent with power. Leading directly to the current contest between Sunak, chosen as a supposedly inexperienced and pliable patsy after Javid demonstrated just a smidgin of independence by wanting to choose his own advisers, and Truss who he imagined to be mostly harmless and never a credible contender for the big chair.
He is in many ways (both strengths and weaknesses) the intellectual's David Davies.
The key mistake was the split between a second referendum and a Common Market 2.0 position. The support for a second vote didn't make sense, because there was no evidence that the British public had changed their mind, and so a second vote would have been a waste of time. The campaign for a second vote served only to enrage those who had voted Leave.
Had erstwhile Remainers united around support for a Common Market 2.0 position, or Norway for Now, etc, then I think they could have carried a majority in Parliament and the country with them. But there was no leader capable of rallying support around this position.
I’ll tell you who doesn’t agree. Stonewall, Mermaids, the entire rainbow movement, the Labour Party, the Lib Dems and the Greens. They have their own term for ‘exploring the issue’. They call it ‘trans conversion therapy’ and they’ve been baying to get it banned.
They piggybacked this demand onto a move to ban gay conversion therapy, a genuinely nasty practice (although very rare in this country). Contrast that with the really dangerous gay conversion therapy: telling fey boys and butch girls they’re in the wrong body and need transing.
https://twitter.com/simonjedge/status/1553303616655704072
If he really believed in sound money I do not see how he could credibly support a Truss policy of borrowing to give tax cuts in an economy where inflation is already high and likely to get higher.
One crunch point for the Russian economy - modern oil and gas production depends on a lot of very high tech. In Russian they make some of the more basic equipment, but import the ultra high end stuff.
Without it, the Russian extraction industry (and refining) will revert to the capabilities of the Cold War times. Cue massive production cuts….
"About 32.5 million people — 10 percent of the population of the contiguous United States — live in the areas expected to have dangerous levels of heat."
NY Times
To me it looks like the party is still Johnson's. They'd much rather have him, truth be told, but since they can't they're choosing the nearest thing.
Oh dear. Imagine being a poundland Boris Johnson. But there is an upside. She can't really disappoint.
The recent bridge hits must be giving them nightmares. That bridge to the Crimea…
Good morning PB!
Why? No votes have been cast yet.
- I'm reasonably competent at using spreadsheets (do it for a living) and this is far from simple
- I can go for a fix or a variable
- The energy company has provided zero explanation for how the price cap works when they have set out my options. I think many people, used to being on fixes, will have switched to the cheaper variable without even thinking about it
- The energy company has priced their fix very well - it's just slightly less than my very rough projection of the weighted average for the variable tariff over the next 12 months. This brings me to...
- Inflation* and the time value of money. The former suggests fix, the latter variable. I'm also going for promotion again, meaning that I'll have more cash to burn in the future (if I get it, 50:50). Hmmm.
- Standard charges remain the same proportion of my estimated bill under the variable tariff, despite the massive increase in overall cost. They are a smaller proportion of the fix I have been offered, as the standing charges are the same.
- I can't really use this in my decision making process: OFGEM just make up how they apply changes to the price cap (standing v unit rate), which is really fucking stupid. I'm drafting an email to them.
- The £400 help we are getting really takes the edge off for me
- Politically, there must be a chance something is done this winter to prevent disaster for many households. Do I hold off fixing in expectation?
*Note: I'm struggling with whether I should take inflation into account - energy costs are the inflation. Anyone help?
The navy did inflict some serious destruction in on the German Kriegsmarine, but its record was badly blotted by the fiasco of the sinking of HMS Glorious, because its commanding officer was at daggers drawn with its air component and didn't react properly to the encounter with two German battlecruisers. The father of a schoolfriend of mine was on the Glorious, but very fortunately for him he'd been held back in the UK for some reason and missed the sinking.
a) A notorious leaker
b) Minister for Instagram
c) Loyal to Johnson to the last
d) A fan of wild economic theories
Is this what Tory members are after?
I'd also like to see some analysis of Roundhay Comp. From what we hear it sounds like one of the best state schools in Leeds at the time.
Oh for goodness sake! Could the Tory leadership race get any dumber? It’s not the Equality Act that’s the problem! 🤦♀️ It acknowledges the biological reality of sex as Scotland’s Supreme Court held recently thanx to @ForWomenScot
https://twitter.com/joannaccherry/status/1553318558314160128
I see sleepy joe has managed to get Mexico to pay $1.5bn to finish some wall the orange one failed to construct.
a) an idiot
b) badly informed
c) well-informed but pandering to the gallery
d) panicking
e) using this issue to attack equalities law more generally.
The possibility of (e) worries me, especially given the nonsense Suella Braverman has been coming out with. Yet even now the Labour Party cannot be relied on to protect womens' rights or the rights of troubled children to have the best possible medical care.
Is it beyond them to get advice from well-informed equalities lawyers?
If he gets in next time, he won’t be dislodged by any means.
"Trump sketched out a vision that a new Republican Congress could enact sweeping new emergency powers for the next Republican president. The president would be empowered to disregard state jurisdiction over criminal law. The president would be allowed to push aside a “weak, foolish, and stupid governor,” and to fire “radical and racist prosecutors”—racist here meaning “anti-white.” The president could federalize state National Guards for law-enforcement duties, stop and frisk suspects for illegal weapons, and impose death sentences on drug dealers after expedited trials."
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/07/trumps-america-first-speech-revealed-a-plan-for-power/670963/
Please define well informed. We have numerous examples of QCs who are mad as a box of frogs and seem to know less about the law than I do*.
*in a recent matter I have knowledge of a QC advised his client to break a binding arbitration agreement in a contract, without even trying it. The result in court was a complete fail for his client. In minutes….
So, take your pick.