My prediction on Truss - she will do a better job than many expect, because she is smart, asks questions and understands the details of policy. But it won't matter, because the problems she faces are insurmountable, she is terrible at presentation, she has too many enemies inside the Tory party and its wider ecosystem, and her ideology is ill-suited to the times. She will lead the Tories to a big defeat. The tldr version - she's not an idiot, but the public will view her as one.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
Spoke this morning to someone who worked at the Treasury while Truss was Chief Sec.
They report that civil servants would do their utmost to keep all important decisions from landing on Truss's desk because she could be relied upon to make the worst choice in any given situation.
So our third female PM. All Tories, of course. When will Labour even give us the option of a female leader? Even the Lib Dems had a rather unsuccesful go.
If we get Kwarteng, Cleverly, Braverman as mooted all 4 great offices held by women and/or BAME MPs. Labour - Wes Streeting as next leader! All women shortlists! Drakefords ladder!
Those Barstewards at the BBC are seeking to undermine the new PM already. They are advertising a link to her full speech on the front page! Is there no end to their perfidity?
Spoke this morning to someone who worked at the Treasury while Truss was Chief Sec.
They report that civil servants would do their utmost to keep all important decisions from landing on Truss's desk because she could be relied upon to make the worst choice in any given situation.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
For comparison, Boris Johnson won 66.4% of the vote in 2019, David Cameron 67.6% in 2005 and Iain Duncan Smith 60.7% in 2001.
The number of similarities this election result has to IDS's stint is frankly worrying...
More worrying is the obvious difference - her party is in government.
She didn’t have much to say today.
Seems a waist of microphone and the moment, so many people listening. to sell your yourself, your politics, your approach to issues, set the tempo about how serious you are as a politician and the challenges ahead.
If you need to sell belt tightening you need to use every opportunity?
Spoke this morning to someone who worked at the Treasury while Truss was Chief Sec.
They report that civil servants would do their utmost to keep all important decisions from landing on Truss's desk because she could be relied upon to make the worst choice in any given situation.
Just a cheery anecdote to brighten the afternoon.
I've heard similar from multiple sources....
And people mock those who talk about a 'deep state'.
Any such Civil Servants should hopefully end up out a job if they keep that up.
Spoke this morning to someone who worked at the Treasury while Truss was Chief Sec.
They report that civil servants would do their utmost to keep all important decisions from landing on Truss's desk because she could be relied upon to make the worst choice in any given situation.
Spoke this morning to someone who worked at the Treasury while Truss was Chief Sec.
They report that civil servants would do their utmost to keep all important decisions from landing on Truss's desk because she could be relied upon to make the worst choice in any given situation.
Just a cheery anecdote to brighten the afternoon.
Any politician determined to make the worst possible choice, as seen from the point of view of the treasury civil servants, sounds like a good politician to me.
My wife dealt with Liz Truss in I think her first ministerial job at Department of Education. She had very low opinion of her understanding of pre-school and early years issues and an even lower opinion of the decisions she made. This was ten years ago so maybe she has improved over the years.
Congratulations to Liz Truss. Our political differences are deep, but I will seek to build a good working relationship with her as I did with last 3 PMs. She must now freeze energy bills for people & businesses, deliver more cash support, and increase funding for public services
On another point: it's a sign of Starmer's political stupidity that on a day when the Conservatives choose a new leader, on a date known for a month or more, he is at a school in *North London*.
He really does give the impression that he'd be PM of the middle-class Londoners, not the country.
Schools are facing 2 big issues: teacher recruitment and energy costs. Showing he understands that is pretty shrewd in my view.
Anyway, my drink is coming so I will leave you all.
Sure. But I think the point being made is that they also have schools in Wolverhampton, and one of those would've been a wiser choice optically.
Hard to disagree with that, not to feel Labour HQ is routinely quite bad on those sort of points.
I think Truss will fail because I think events are too much for pretty much any PM to handle. That said, I still think she was a better choice than Sunak. A dice roll, but one the Tories probably had to make.
Chances are she will be swept away in 2024 on a wave on anti-incumbent sentiment (I’m really not convinced by the argument the Tories will foist a second change in leader on us before then). There is a path to a win. But it’s a very narrow one and it relies on her being able, in this small window of opportunity, to define herself in a way that speaks to the electorate. She has proven deft at redefining herself to her electorate before (Cameroons/Brexiteers/Tory Members) but she has to do this with the country at large now which is a much bigger ask.
My wife dealt with Liz Truss in I think her first ministerial job at Department of Education. She had very low opinion of her understanding of pre-school and early years issues and an even lower opinion of the decisions she made. This was ten years ago so maybe she has improved over the years.
To be fair though, the pressure on a career politician has to be to deliver party policy not good government.
Also, although the markets were correct (thanks @DecrepiterJohnL for keeping us up to date daily on price moves - hope your hospital visit is all good), 57% is no way a 1/20 shot, as the markets were saying.
As I keep saying, I would put us as amongst some of the most knowledgeable political commentators around and we can't agree on anything; why on earth should we trust what the "betting markets" say about anything.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Sturgeon is on PB confirmed. She just tweeted that.
Sturgeon also said this: "So let me be clear. To propose another referendum in the next parliament without strong evidence that a significant number of those who voted No have changed their minds would be wrong and we won’t do it.”
Spoke this morning to someone who worked at the Treasury while Truss was Chief Sec.
They report that civil servants would do their utmost to keep all important decisions from landing on Truss's desk because she could be relied upon to make the worst choice in any given situation.
Just a cheery anecdote to brighten the afternoon.
I've heard similar from multiple sources....
And people mock those who talk about a 'deep state'.
Any such Civil Servants should hopefully end up out a job if they keep that up.
Um, kind of. I take the fundamental point that it's for ministers to decide and civil servants to implement, obviously. But one of the strengths of the British system is that we have a very strong element of enforced "continuity", most obviously expressed through the House of Lords and through the civil service. It acts as a brake on the more egregious ideas of politicians of whatever stripe - and I suspect, pro rata, it has restrained Labour politicians more than Conservative ones. It does lend a certain conservatism to the national character but I'm ok with that.
Spoke this morning to someone who worked at the Treasury while Truss was Chief Sec.
They report that civil servants would do their utmost to keep all important decisions from landing on Truss's desk because she could be relied upon to make the worst choice in any given situation.
Just a cheery anecdote to brighten the afternoon.
I've heard similar from multiple sources....
And people mock those who talk about a 'deep state'.
Any such Civil Servants should hopefully end up out a job if they keep that up.
Um, kind of. I take the fundamental point that it's for ministers to decide and civil servants to implement, obviously. But one of the strengths of the British system is that we have a very strong element of enforced "continuity", most obviously expressed through the House of Lords and through the civil service. It acts as a brake on the more egregious ideas of politicians of whatever stripe - and I suspect, pro rata, it has restrained Labour politicians more than Conservative ones. It does lend a certain conservatism to the national character but I'm ok with that.
Continuity of support, yes.
When those who are supposed to be supporting the Ministers start trying to make the decisions themselves by withholding choices, that's when they've crossed the line.
@JustinWelby I am praying for Liz Truss as she takes on the great responsibilities of leadership at a time of such significant challenges.
May God guide her, and all who serve in our political life, towards His hope for our nation, and particular care for those who are vulnerable
I read that and thought another message from some religious zealot and then read who said it and thought 'fair enough, silly me, after all it is his job'.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The obvious response to the 60% threshold was there therefore wasn't a mandate for leaving the EU then. How to upset both leavers and remainers simultaneously with a policy announcement.
The obvious counter-response is that we had a referendum on Scottish independence and the SNP lost. It may appear reasonable to say that the rules for a second referendum are different.
My prediction on Truss - she will do a better job than many expect, because she is smart, asks questions and understands the details of policy. But it won't matter, because the problems she faces are insurmountable, she is terrible at presentation, she has too many enemies inside the Tory party and its wider ecosystem, and her ideology is ill-suited to the times. She will lead the Tories to a big defeat. The tldr version - she's not an idiot, but the public will view her as one.
Pretty much my thoughts to be honest. She is underestimated, but whether she is underestimated enough to surprise so much on the upside that she delivers a fifth consecutive GE victory coming off the back of the current problems is… well… asking for a very big upside.
After a decade of PMs changing mid term from one Tory to another it’s an oddly nostalgic situation we now find ourselves in where the most likely scenario is an election in 2 years followed by a change in government and prime minister.
Last time that happened was 2010. Last time it happened to a conservative administration was in 1997, 25 years ago.
Liz could of course turn it around in 2024. To do so from here would be miraculous and would probably require Labour to cock things up big time.
As a Lib Dem the last time I was anything other than disappointed at a GE was 2005.
@David_Cameron Many congratulations to new PM @trussliz . At this time of challenge & global uncertainty, I wish the new government well. I never forget the support I had from all former Conservative leaders when I won the ballot in 2005 & I hope all Conservatives will unite behind the new PM
You can bet John Major will already be getting set to denounce her as will Hezza and the rest of the 92-97 Conservative rabble...
If it lands here we will provide heat for one of your children for 2 of the 3 winter months. Or you can gamble for our star prize of Pure Cremation deals for all the family
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The obvious response to the 60% threshold was there therefore wasn't a mandate for leaving the EU then. How to upset both leavers and remainers simultaneously with a policy announcement.
The obvious counter-response is that we had a referendum on Scottish independence and the SNP lost. It may appear reasonable to say that the rules for a second referendum are different.
Two completely different rules for leaving a union seems, how shall I put it, hypocritical.
Spoke this morning to someone who worked at the Treasury while Truss was Chief Sec.
They report that civil servants would do their utmost to keep all important decisions from landing on Truss's desk because she could be relied upon to make the worst choice in any given situation.
Just a cheery anecdote to brighten the afternoon.
I've heard similar from multiple sources....
And people mock those who talk about a 'deep state'.
Any such Civil Servants should hopefully end up out a job if they keep that up.
Indeed. Shows an especially large lack of self awareness on the Treasury official’s part given how appallingly the department has been run for basically my entire adult life, with the common denominator being the civil servants attached to it.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
Maybe Sholz and Macron might now start being constructive in how to deal with the demand problem, as the supply ain’t coming back this winter.
The Germans have cut gas demand by 15% so far, and have managed to get to 85% of gas storage capacity by early September. That's hardly nothing. They've also given their lignite mines/plants the instruction to avoid running any more than is necessary now, so as to build stocks for the winter.
Is all this sufficient to get Germany through the winter, if it is cold, cloudy and the wind doesn't blow? Probably not.
But they've moved a lot more quickly than you give them credit for.
We also need to give some credit to the Norwegians: they have ceased reinjecting natural gas into their oil wells to increase the amount they can export to the UK and to the Continent, which is making a big difference to the European supply situation.
@David_Cameron Many congratulations to new PM @trussliz . At this time of challenge & global uncertainty, I wish the new government well. I never forget the support I had from all former Conservative leaders when I won the ballot in 2005 & I hope all Conservatives will unite behind the new PM
You can bet John Major will already be getting set to denounce her as will Hezza and the rest of the 92-97 Conservative rabble...
Big John is already planning his first 'astonishing intervention'.
My prediction on Truss - she will do a better job than many expect, because she is smart, asks questions and understands the details of policy. But it won't matter, because the problems she faces are insurmountable, she is terrible at presentation, she has too many enemies inside the Tory party and its wider ecosystem, and her ideology is ill-suited to the times. She will lead the Tories to a big defeat. The tldr version - she's not an idiot, but the public will view her as one.
I'm sure that will be the case. However, people who know her (including ofc dozens and dozens of Cons MPs) think she is an idiot.
I certainly don't think any MP is an idiot. Just to be in the chamber shows that they have drive, ambition, focus, and determination and you ain't got that if you are an idiot. But it's the vision thing. What is hers I am interested to see away from the hustings and in the actual job.
My prediction on Truss - she will do a better job than many expect, because she is smart ...
Is she smart?
If so it can only mean we have gone from a stupid prime minister pretending to be a clever one pretending to be stupid, to a clever prime minister pretending to be a stupid one pretending to be clever.
@David_Cameron Many congratulations to new PM @trussliz . At this time of challenge & global uncertainty, I wish the new government well. I never forget the support I had from all former Conservative leaders when I won the ballot in 2005 & I hope all Conservatives will unite behind the new PM
You can bet John Major will already be getting set to denounce her as will Hezza and the rest of the 92-97 Conservative rabble...
It shows how strong the left-wing ratchet that Thatcher talked about is.
1990s Conservatives used to argue vehemently against having a minimum wage, but are now calling Liz Truss the most right-wing PM for a century because she might possibly want to repeal the working time directive.
@David_Cameron Many congratulations to new PM @trussliz . At this time of challenge & global uncertainty, I wish the new government well. I never forget the support I had from all former Conservative leaders when I won the ballot in 2005 & I hope all Conservatives will unite behind the new PM
You can bet John Major will already be getting set to denounce her as will Hezza and the rest of the 92-97 Conservative rabble...
Big John is already planning his first 'astonishing intervention'.
Big John will probably join Hezza and vote LD at the next general election in the privacy of the polling booth at least
My prediction on Truss - she will do a better job than many expect, because she is smart ...
Is she smart?
If so it can only mean we have gone from a stupid prime minister pretending to be a clever one pretending to be stupid, to a clever prime minister pretending to be a stupid one pretending to be clever.
I think.
Scarily that makes perfect sense, which is also worrying me.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Sturgeon is on PB confirmed. She just tweeted that.
Sturgeon also said this: "So let me be clear. To propose another referendum in the next parliament without strong evidence that a significant number of those who voted No have changed their minds would be wrong and we won’t do it.”
That was in 2015 of course.
That was 2 parliaments ago of course.
It's almost like contrary to the threats/promises made pre Sep 2014 Scotland was subsequently dragged out of the EU against its wishes, and then completely ignored in the subsequent psychodrama of England working out its relationship with the EU.
So Russia places sanctions on itself. Well done Putin for forcing Europe into doing something it didn't have the collective will to do on its own.
This should be a helpful moment of clarity. It means Nordstream 1 isn't coming back on, possibly ever, so the West must restructure its energy demand now.
On another point: it's a sign of Starmer's political stupidity that on a day when the Conservatives choose a new leader, on a date known for a month or more, he is at a school in *North London*.
He really does give the impression that he'd be PM of the middle-class Londoners, not the country.
Schools are facing 2 big issues: teacher recruitment and energy costs. Showing he understands that is pretty shrewd in my view.
Anyway, my drink is coming so I will leave you all.
Sure. But I think the point being made is that they also have schools in Wolverhampton, and one of those would've been a wiser choice optically.
Hard to disagree with that, not to feel Labour HQ is routinely quite bad on those sort of points.
Depends. If Liz is absolutely abysmal and Con are staring down the barrel of a 97 type landslide in late 2024 they might be tempted to get Boris back.
If Truss is just moderately bad and Con are facing a respectable defeat then Kemi will be the next leader and LOTO.
There is no chance of the Tories changing leader (short of death or huge scandal) this side of a General Election, and certainly not to return to Johnson given the circumstances of his departure and bad blood that exists.
All that stuff is what certain people might describe as piffle built on foundations of hogwash.
On another point: it's a sign of Starmer's political stupidity that on a day when the Conservatives choose a new leader, on a date known for a month or more, he is at a school in *North London*.
He really does give the impression that he'd be PM of the middle-class Londoners, not the country.
Schools are facing 2 big issues: teacher recruitment and energy costs. Showing he understands that is pretty shrewd in my view.
Anyway, my drink is coming so I will leave you all.
Sure. But I think the point being made is that they also have schools in Wolverhampton, and one of those would've been a wiser choice optically.
Hard to disagree with that, not to feel Labour HQ is routinely quite bad on those sort of points.
Nobody hates North London more than me, but this is a comprehensive school in the outer suburbs with twice the national average proportion of pupil premium kids, not Polly Toynbee and Alan Bennett discussing the latest edition of the LRB over a vegan risotto in Primrose Hill.
Its not pathetic though is it? She was facing a credible alternative candidate not 'fuck you we are joining the Euro' Clarke, 'big jugs are vote winners' Davis or 'Remainer but i'll totes get Brexit done' Hunt If she had been facing them, yes, terrible. But she wasnt.
On another point: it's a sign of Starmer's political stupidity that on a day when the Conservatives choose a new leader, on a date known for a month or more, he is at a school in *North London*.
He really does give the impression that he'd be PM of the middle-class Londoners, not the country.
Schools are facing 2 big issues: teacher recruitment and energy costs. Showing he understands that is pretty shrewd in my view.
Anyway, my drink is coming so I will leave you all.
Sure. But I think the point being made is that they also have schools in Wolverhampton, and one of those would've been a wiser choice optically.
Hard to disagree with that, not to feel Labour HQ is routinely quite bad on those sort of points.
Nobody hates North London more than me, but this is a comprehensive school in the outer suburbs with twice the national average proportion of pupil premium kids, not Polly Toynbee and Alan Bennett discussing the latest edition of the LRB over a vegan risotto in Primrose Hill.
+1 - it really should have been a Red Wall seat but I suspect SKS and everyone else needs to be in Parliament this afternoon for other meetings so somewhere in London was the only option.
@David_Cameron Many congratulations to new PM @trussliz . At this time of challenge & global uncertainty, I wish the new government well. I never forget the support I had from all former Conservative leaders when I won the ballot in 2005 & I hope all Conservatives will unite behind the new PM
You can bet John Major will already be getting set to denounce her as will Hezza and the rest of the 92-97 Conservative rabble...
Big John is already planning his first 'astonishing intervention'.
Big John will probably join Hezza and vote LD at the next general election in the privacy of the polling booth at least
Nah he will be at the cricket forlornly remembering cracking eggs on Edwinas naked body
On another point: it's a sign of Starmer's political stupidity that on a day when the Conservatives choose a new leader, on a date known for a month or more, he is at a school in *North London*.
He really does give the impression that he'd be PM of the middle-class Londoners, not the country.
Schools are facing 2 big issues: teacher recruitment and energy costs. Showing he understands that is pretty shrewd in my view.
Anyway, my drink is coming so I will leave you all.
I've zero problem with it being at a school. It's being in North London rather than, say, Swansea. Or Glasgow. Or Mansfield. It was a time he could guarantee he'd get the cameras on him for his reaction, and he's down in London.
The 'levelling up' agenda is still powerful: it was mentioned positively on a couple of voxpops this morning. You or I may believe the Conservatives will never deliver it, but it's massively important for Labour to give the impression they care about it as well.
Starmer will get elected in his constituency at the next election. The polling shows he will do well in London. He needs the Midlands. He needs the north.
So Russia places sanctions on itself. Well done Putin for forcing Europe into doing something it didn't have the collective will to do on its own.
This should be a helpful moment of clarity. It means Nordstream 1 isn't coming back on, possibly ever, so the West must restructure its energy demand now.
Russia has blundered, again.
Certainly has... Even the French and Germans are just going to shrug and say "f&£# them". Meanwhile in the Baltic we are already getting prepared. Truth is that there is literally no contract the Russians won't break, so don't bother even signing one.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The obvious response to the 60% threshold was there therefore wasn't a mandate for leaving the EU then. How to upset both leavers and remainers simultaneously with a policy announcement.
The obvious counter-response is that we had a referendum on Scottish independence and the SNP lost. It may appear reasonable to say that the rules for a second referendum are different.
Two completely different rules for leaving a union seems, how shall I put it, hypocritical.
Had Remain won the EU referendum and UKIP/some Tories had pushed for a second vote on some pretext, then we would have an appropriate parallel for the situation around a second Scottish independence referendum. But they didn’t, so we don’t.
I’m not saying I agree with Truss’s proposal, but it does, it seems to me, matter that we’re talking about a second bite at the cherry and that complicates direct comparisons. A debate on when it would be appropriate to have a 2nd referendum can be had.
Didn't she do Maths and Further Maths at A Level? That's how we all talk.
(Oxford types: anyone know if she took The Union seriously while she was there? It's obviously a ghastly collection of terrible people with absurd ambitions and both Oxbridge Unions should be fired into the heart of Jupiter, but doing loads of speeches must help you get better at public speaking.)
My prediction on Truss - she will do a better job than many expect, because she is smart ...
Is she smart?
If so it can only mean we have gone from a stupid prime minister pretending to be a clever one pretending to be stupid, to a clever prime minister pretending to be a stupid one pretending to be clever.
I think.
She is certainly smart - went to Oxford from a comprehensive, became an MP and senior minister, beat the favourite to become Tory leader. None of that is easy. People will write her off too easily because there is still prejudice against women and state educated people in senior roles. I still think she will fail and has bad ideas, and her surprisingly poor speaking skills won't help her either.
On another point: it's a sign of Starmer's political stupidity that on a day when the Conservatives choose a new leader, on a date known for a month or more, he is at a school in *North London*.
He really does give the impression that he'd be PM of the middle-class Londoners, not the country.
Schools are facing 2 big issues: teacher recruitment and energy costs. Showing he understands that is pretty shrewd in my view.
Anyway, my drink is coming so I will leave you all.
I've zero problem with it being at a school. It's being in North London rather than, say, Swansea. Or Glasgow. Or Mansfield. It was a time he could guarantee he'd get the cameras on him for his reaction, and he's down in London.
The 'levelling up' agenda is still powerful: it was mentioned positively on a couple of voxpops this morning. You or I may believe the Conservatives will never deliver it, but it's massively important for Labour to give the impression they care about it as well.
Starmer will get elected in his constituency at the next election. The polling shows he will do well in London. He needs the Midlands. He needs the north.
And I don't mean North London.
Enjoy your drink!
Quite. He has extraordinarily narrow scope for London gains and not a huge amount in the South generally (LDs on the other hand.........)
@David_Cameron Many congratulations to new PM @trussliz . At this time of challenge & global uncertainty, I wish the new government well. I never forget the support I had from all former Conservative leaders when I won the ballot in 2005 & I hope all Conservatives will unite behind the new PM
You can bet John Major will already be getting set to denounce her as will Hezza and the rest of the 92-97 Conservative rabble...
Big John is already planning his first 'astonishing intervention'.
Big John will probably join Hezza and vote LD at the next general election in the privacy of the polling booth at least
You may well be right. I sometimes wonder why I am not a Tory in the mould of Heseltine and then I realise I did not like the way they interfered in peoples lives. I often think Tories are no different to socialists in the way they do so, but just don't realise it. Socialists know they are doing it. I will never forgive Heseltine for the setting up of the Training and Enterprise Councils. A monumental waste of money, which benefited nobody except people ticking boxes, for no purpose, and people like me who sold them stuff (paid for from taxpayer funds), so they could automate the ticking of boxes.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
Starmer: “there can be no justification for not freezing energy prices and imposing a windfall tax on producers”.
Other than it will break the market mechanism and lead to rationing, and disincentivise investment in boosting supply.
Bore off you dimwitted twit. We are in the midst of a once in a generation energy crisis and now have a PM who spent years working in the energy sector. Let’s see what she does.
I think a windfall tax on LNG production in UAE is an excellent idea. Also a price cap.
Shades of the time the RN rocked up at some South American port, trained their guns on the town and sent a chap ashore to ask about the continuing of payments on British loans…
@David_Cameron Many congratulations to new PM @trussliz . At this time of challenge & global uncertainty, I wish the new government well. I never forget the support I had from all former Conservative leaders when I won the ballot in 2005 & I hope all Conservatives will unite behind the new PM
You can bet John Major will already be getting set to denounce her as will Hezza and the rest of the 92-97 Conservative rabble...
Big John is already planning his first 'astonishing intervention'.
Big John will probably join Hezza and vote LD at the next general election in the privacy of the polling booth at least
Nah he will be at the cricket forlornly remembering cracking eggs on Edwinas naked body
@David_Cameron Many congratulations to new PM @trussliz . At this time of challenge & global uncertainty, I wish the new government well. I never forget the support I had from all former Conservative leaders when I won the ballot in 2005 & I hope all Conservatives will unite behind the new PM
You can bet John Major will already be getting set to denounce her as will Hezza and the rest of the 92-97 Conservative rabble...
Big John is already planning his first 'astonishing intervention'.
Big John will probably join Hezza and vote LD at the next general election in the privacy of the polling booth at least
You may well be right. I sometimes wonder why I am not a Tory in the mould of Heseltine and then I realise I did not like the way they interfered in peoples lives. I often think Tories are often no different to socialists in the way they do so, but just don't realise it. Socialists know they are doing it. I will never forgive Heseltine for the setting up of the Training and Enterprise Councils. A monumental waste of money, which benefited nobody except people ticking boxes, for no purpose, and people like me who sold them stuff (paid for from taxpayer funds), so they could automate the ticking of boxes.
Tories are in some respects more patrician and interventionist than liberals who traditionally have been more free trade. Thatcher was indeed more of a Manchester Liberal than a Macmillan or Disraeli style Tory.
What unites the Thatcherite and Tory traditionalist wings of the party is a desire to keep out socialism and Labour. This article argues what the Tories need now is a return to patrician style Macmillan (or Heseltine) economics, which to some extent Boris was doing despite bring pro Brexit.
Truss however it seems will deliver liberal Thatcherism and small state economics in tooth and claw
Depends. If Liz is absolutely abysmal and Con are staring down the barrel of a 97 type landslide in late 2024 they might be tempted to get Boris back.
If Truss is just moderately bad and Con are facing a respectable defeat then Kemi will be the next leader and LOTO.
There is no chance of the Tories changing leader (short of death or huge scandal) this side of a General Election, and certainly not to return to Johnson given the circumstances of his departure and bad blood that exists.
All that stuff is what certain people might describe as piffle built on foundations of hogwash.
Agree. There is no chance.
You have one chance a Parliament to change leader. Beyond that there will have to be a damn good reason* and “being a bit crap” isn’t one of them.
* likely limited to (a) the old leader has dropped down dead or is incapacitated or (b) the old leader is the centre of a seismic political scandal that blows up their credibility.
Didn't she do Maths and Further Maths at A Level? That's how we all talk.
(Oxford types: anyone know if she took The Union seriously while she was there? It's obviously a ghastly collection of terrible people with absurd ambitions and both Oxbridge Unions should be fired into the heart of Jupiter, but doing loads of speeches must help you get better at public speaking.)
She was in the Liberal Club and Reform Club but not actively in the Union like say Boris or Hague
Tmrw's big speech on the steps of No10 will be the real moment she addresses the nation. But tho the rhetoric can only improve on today's, the central problem is unchanged: she's offering a curious cocktail of Thatcherism and Johnsonism - without the personal mandate of either. https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1566777758952349696
Didn't she do Maths and Further Maths at A Level? That's how we all talk.
(Oxford types: anyone know if she took The Union seriously while she was there? It's obviously a ghastly collection of terrible people with absurd ambitions and both Oxbridge Unions should be fired into the heart of Jupiter, but doing loads of speeches must help you get better at public speaking.)
IIRC one of her former SPADs was on Newscast a while back and said something along the lines of: she knows she's not great at public speaking, and she's had advice/coaching on it, but the problem is that when you're standing in front of people if you've got "mustn't screw this up" in the back of your mind then there's no way you're going to be able to sound fluid and natural, and if you then latch on to some fragment of advice from the coaching (like "slow down, don't rush through the bit where you put your key point") and end up self-consciously overemphasizing your words then It. Can. Sound. Very. Odd.
Obviously public speaking ability is important for politicians, but personally I don't care too much about Truss's ability or otherwise in this area: it's all the other stuff where I'm dubious.
Didn't she do Maths and Further Maths at A Level? That's how we all talk.
(Oxford types: anyone know if she took The Union seriously while she was there? It's obviously a ghastly collection of terrible people with absurd ambitions and both Oxbridge Unions should be fired into the heart of Jupiter, but doing loads of speeches must help you get better at public speaking.)
It is one of the annoying features of politics that the kind of people who are obsessed with becoming politicians from a young age, who in many ways are the last people who should be given any kind of power, actually learn plenty of useful skills, and make loads of useful contacts, during their student politics phase, which makes them good at the day to day business of politics. Labour used to have the alternative Trade Union track that provided similar training but that has largely dried up. One of the reasons Starmer isn't as effective as he should be is that he came to front line politics late, having had a successful career outside politics first. That should make him a better politician, but it doesn't.
Didn't she do Maths and Further Maths at A Level? That's how we all talk.
(Oxford types: anyone know if she took The Union seriously while she was there? It's obviously a ghastly collection of terrible people with absurd ambitions and both Oxbridge Unions should be fired into the heart of Jupiter, but doing loads of speeches must help you get better at public speaking.)
So she did, Maths and Further Maths
When was the last time someone was PM with some basic maths skills ?
Didn't she do Maths and Further Maths at A Level? That's how we all talk.
(Oxford types: anyone know if she took The Union seriously while she was there? It's obviously a ghastly collection of terrible people with absurd ambitions and both Oxbridge Unions should be fired into the heart of Jupiter, but doing loads of speeches must help you get better at public speaking.)
So she did, Maths and Further Maths
When was the last time someone was PM with some basic maths skills ?
Didn't she do Maths and Further Maths at A Level? That's how we all talk.
(Oxford types: anyone know if she took The Union seriously while she was there? It's obviously a ghastly collection of terrible people with absurd ambitions and both Oxbridge Unions should be fired into the heart of Jupiter, but doing loads of speeches must help you get better at public speaking.)
It is one of the annoying features of politics that the kind of people who are obsessed with becoming politicians from a young age, who in many ways are the last people who should be given any kind of power, actually learn plenty of useful skills, and make loads of useful contacts, during their student politics phase, which makes them good at the day to day business of politics. Labour used to have the alternative Trade Union track that provided similar training but that has largely dried up. One of the reasons Starmer isn't as effective as he should be is that he came to front line politics late, having had a successful career outside politics first. That should make him a better politician, but it doesn't.
I think Keir actually is a very good politician in terms of Labour Party politics, he has basically changed the party completely.
Didn't she do Maths and Further Maths at A Level? That's how we all talk.
(Oxford types: anyone know if she took The Union seriously while she was there? It's obviously a ghastly collection of terrible people with absurd ambitions and both Oxbridge Unions should be fired into the heart of Jupiter, but doing loads of speeches must help you get better at public speaking.)
So she did, Maths and Further Maths
When was the last time someone was PM with some basic maths skills ?
Didn't she do Maths and Further Maths at A Level? That's how we all talk.
(Oxford types: anyone know if she took The Union seriously while she was there? It's obviously a ghastly collection of terrible people with absurd ambitions and both Oxbridge Unions should be fired into the heart of Jupiter, but doing loads of speeches must help you get better at public speaking.)
So she did, Maths and Further Maths
When was the last time someone was PM with some basic maths skills ?
John Major’s experience in banking demonstrates some basic maths skills. I believe Gordon Brown was good with numbers.
My prediction on Truss - she will do a better job than many expect, because she is smart ...
Is she smart?
If so it can only mean we have gone from a stupid prime minister pretending to be a clever one pretending to be stupid, to a clever prime minister pretending to be a stupid one pretending to be clever.
I think.
It completes the Thatcher/Blair cycle. We finally have a PM whose metaphorical political clothes match her beliefs, following a long line of impersonators.
Didn't she do Maths and Further Maths at A Level? That's how we all talk.
(Oxford types: anyone know if she took The Union seriously while she was there? It's obviously a ghastly collection of terrible people with absurd ambitions and both Oxbridge Unions should be fired into the heart of Jupiter, but doing loads of speeches must help you get better at public speaking.)
It is one of the annoying features of politics that the kind of people who are obsessed with becoming politicians from a young age, who in many ways are the last people who should be given any kind of power, actually learn plenty of useful skills, and make loads of useful contacts, during their student politics phase, which makes them good at the day to day business of politics. Labour used to have the alternative Trade Union track that provided similar training but that has largely dried up. One of the reasons Starmer isn't as effective as he should be is that he came to front line politics late, having had a successful career outside politics first. That should make him a better politician, but it doesn't.
I think Keir actually is a very good politician in terms of Labour Party politics, he has basically changed the party completely.
That is fair. He is clearly a decent man, intelligent and thoughtful, with the necessary streak of ruthlessness. He has not yet succeeded in communicating a narrative for why Labour deserves to win, though. He is also lacking in charisma. I think he will win anyway and be a good PM.
Didn't she do Maths and Further Maths at A Level? That's how we all talk.
(Oxford types: anyone know if she took The Union seriously while she was there? It's obviously a ghastly collection of terrible people with absurd ambitions and both Oxbridge Unions should be fired into the heart of Jupiter, but doing loads of speeches must help you get better at public speaking.)
It is one of the annoying features of politics that the kind of people who are obsessed with becoming politicians from a young age, who in many ways are the last people who should be given any kind of power, actually learn plenty of useful skills, and make loads of useful contacts, during their student politics phase, which makes them good at the day to day business of politics. Labour used to have the alternative Trade Union track that provided similar training but that has largely dried up. One of the reasons Starmer isn't as effective as he should be is that he came to front line politics late, having had a successful career outside politics first. That should make him a better politician, but it doesn't.
I think Keir actually is a very good politician in terms of Labour Party politics, he has basically changed the party completely.
But is it a permanent change? back in 1995-7 people were saying Blair had changed the party totally: the Clause 4 change and all that. And yet twenty years later Labour elected Corbyn as party leader.
I don't see Starmer has put the left in its place anywhere near as firmly as Blair did. It's perfectly possible for the next Labour leader to be a Corbynite - especially if they somehow lose the next GE.
Didn't she do Maths and Further Maths at A Level? That's how we all talk.
(Oxford types: anyone know if she took The Union seriously while she was there? It's obviously a ghastly collection of terrible people with absurd ambitions and both Oxbridge Unions should be fired into the heart of Jupiter, but doing loads of speeches must help you get better at public speaking.)
So she did, Maths and Further Maths
When was the last time someone was PM with some basic maths skills ?
Brown, Thatcher, Major was a banker
Thatcher, I agree.
Not sure being a banker means you understand basic maths. I thought Brown was a historian.
The low number for Truss also blows up her cunning IndyRef scheme.
Why should Scots meet a 60% threshold, if she only got 47%...
The 60% threshold is support for indyref2 to even get a vote
How remarkable, you have gleefully dumped the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy in favour of anyone who can fiddle an opinion poll. Your party is not fit to hold the title of 'Conservative'.
Not my position, Truss', however still her decision and that of Westminster and she has made clear she will not allow indyref2 without at least 60%+ wanting one for a year consistently and will put that in law
I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that referenda that change the constitutional status quo massively should have more than just a pure majority support, and should be somewhere in the realm of 2/3s - 3/4s in favour. The problem is the biggest constitutional change of our lifetimes, Brexit, was on a bare majority, and that bare majority was then used as a justification for the most radical form of that policy rather than a conciliatory version of that policy, so why shouldn't Scotland or republicans, or whoever wants any referenda now demand the same.
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
I totally disagree on the threshold principle. People should get whatever they vote for, as a majority. If you don't like it, a new majority can always reverse it.
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row. 2015: Majority to hold a referendum 2016: Majority to Vote Leave 2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote 2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
I mean, sure, but only half of those were a majority, right? I think a majority of MPs were elected on a manifesto to hold a referendum, and 52% voted leave on the day. The "respect" vote leave thing is a bit difficult, because Labour's view of "Leave" was different to Tories view of "Leave", and indeed, neither of those visions of the type of Leave got a majority. And Johnson didn't get a majority of votes. And of course, referenda are specifically a vote on one issue, voting for MPs is not.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
I totally oppose the "once in a generation" gibberish, that's just grasping for straws to deny democracy. If Scotland's voters don't want another referendum for a generation, they shouldn't elect a government pledged to hold one. If they do, that's their choice and that's democracy.
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
I'm not just talking about Brexit, though, but big constitutional change in general.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
Didn't she do Maths and Further Maths at A Level? That's how we all talk.
(Oxford types: anyone know if she took The Union seriously while she was there? It's obviously a ghastly collection of terrible people with absurd ambitions and both Oxbridge Unions should be fired into the heart of Jupiter, but doing loads of speeches must help you get better at public speaking.)
So she did, Maths and Further Maths
When was the last time someone was PM with some basic maths skills ?
Brown, Thatcher, Major was a banker
Thatcher, I agree.
Not sure being a banker means you understand basic maths. I thought Brown was a historian.
Surely Tories like the MPs rumoured to have put in no confidence letters, and people of the party on PB with the same desire to get Boris back in, are now disloyal rebels and not proper tory members?
Oh - and I’d be well chuffed if I were Sunak. I’d sit out this next phase of govt and make a comeback when it all goes inevitably tits up
If it goes wrong the Tories will be out of office, probably for some time. A super rich guy like Rishi sticking around whilst out of office? I doubt it.
I do hope Maugham isnt pretending this means the Tories arent ready for a brown man.
Rishi Sunak won the MPs round, had the highest members %vote of any runner-up this century and held the second top government job for most of the last three years…
…will Truss really not offer him a substantial cabinet role?
Comments
https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1566766743388930049
Huge constitutional change needs buy in from a lot of people and, typically, if you get a bare majority then those people probably don't agree on the form that huge constitutional change takes (see: all the problems with making a "real" Brexit happen). If you have a 66% mandate then you can still disappoint a large chunk of the people who wanted the change with the material implementation of that change and potentially still have a mandate for it.
So whilst I don't in principle disagree with this IndyRef threshold (to either hold the ref or for the eventual result), I do think that horse has bolted and, from now on, referenda in the UK / parts of the UK will have to be purely based on "winner takes all" 50% + 1, because that's how people did Brexit.
They report that civil servants would do their utmost to keep all important decisions from landing on Truss's desk because she could be relied upon to make the worst choice in any given situation.
Just a cheery anecdote to brighten the afternoon.
Labour - Wes Streeting as next leader! All women shortlists! Drakefords ladder!
Brexit wasn't simply won on a simple majority basis, it won 4 elections/referenda in a row.
2015: Majority to hold a referendum
2016: Majority to Vote Leave
2017: About 600 MPs elected promising to respect the Leave Vote
2019: 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done
Had any of those four elections turned out differently, Brexit wouldn't have happened.
If you need to sell belt tightening you need to use every opportunity?
Any such Civil Servants should hopefully end up out a job if they keep that up.
https://twitter.com/bencsmoke/status/1566750112596037633?s=20&t=zEh5ZCtD01-y3NKrfSmIIQ
She must now freeze energy bills for people & businesses, deliver more cash support, and increase funding for public services
Emphasis my own.
Hard to disagree with that, not to feel Labour HQ is routinely quite bad on those sort of points.
https://mobile.twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1566768172933550081
Chances are she will be swept away in 2024 on a wave on anti-incumbent sentiment (I’m really not convinced by the argument the Tories will foist a second change in leader on us before then). There is a path to a win. But it’s a very narrow one and it relies on her being able, in this small window of opportunity, to define herself in a way that speaks to the electorate. She has proven deft at redefining herself to her electorate before (Cameroons/Brexiteers/Tory Members) but she has to do this with the country at large now which is a much bigger ask.
As I keep saying, I would put us as amongst some of the most knowledgeable political commentators around and we can't agree on anything; why on earth should we trust what the "betting markets" say about anything.
"So let me be clear. To propose another referendum in the next parliament without strong evidence that a significant number of those who voted No have changed their minds would be wrong and we won’t do it.”
That was in 2015 of course.
We need to support Ukraine to win this war and reclaim all lost land including Crimea, then it'll be possible to move on, not an inch before.
When those who are supposed to be supporting the Ministers start trying to make the decisions themselves by withholding choices, that's when they've crossed the line.
Last time that happened was 2010. Last time it happened to a conservative administration was in 1997, 25 years ago.
Liz could of course turn it around in 2024. To do so from here would be miraculous and would probably require Labour to cock things up big time.
As a Lib Dem the last time I was anything other than disappointed at a GE was 2005.
And even that would be wasted on La Truss's victory.
Depends. If Liz is absolutely abysmal and Con are staring down the barrel of a 97 type landslide in late 2024 they might be tempted to get Boris back.
If Truss is just moderately bad and Con are facing a respectable defeat then Kemi will be the next leader and LOTO.
And big constitutional change, by its very nature, can't easily just be overturned by a new majority soon. Either practically, it takes time to see the impacts of big political change, but also politically. All the people here say indyref or the EU referendum were "once in a generation votes, and people don't like their votes "not counting". I think had we set a 60% threshold on the Brexit referendum, for example, with the result we had we would still be a country planning to leave the EU, we would just have had a period of time for better planning and more explanation of what that would really look like. Either the EU would have seen the writing on the wall and negotiated us out, or a new Con government would have been elected on the mandate to withdraw from the EU with a specific vision of what that looked like. But the political heat of a 52/48 divide meant having to do it as quickly as possible, because that coalition of 52% of the population could only be held together for a very short period of time because they don't agree on much at all. So the political atmosphere turned extremely ugly extremely quickly.
Is all this sufficient to get Germany through the winter, if it is cold, cloudy and the wind doesn't blow? Probably not.
But they've moved a lot more quickly than you give them credit for.
We also need to give some credit to the Norwegians: they have ceased reinjecting natural gas into their oil wells to increase the amount they can export to the UK and to the Continent, which is making a big difference to the European supply situation.
I certainly don't think any MP is an idiot. Just to be in the chamber shows that they have drive, ambition, focus, and determination and you ain't got that if you are an idiot. But it's the vision thing. What is hers I am interested to see away from the hustings and in the actual job.
If so it can only mean we have gone from a stupid prime minister pretending to be a clever one pretending to be stupid, to a clever prime minister pretending to be a stupid one pretending to be clever.
I think.
1990s Conservatives used to argue vehemently against having a minimum wage, but are now calling Liz Truss the most right-wing PM for a century because she might possibly want to repeal the working time directive.
Why does she talk in that odd cadence?
It's almost like contrary to the threats/promises made pre Sep 2014 Scotland was subsequently dragged out of the EU against its wishes, and then completely ignored in the subsequent psychodrama of England working out its relationship with the EU.
This should be a helpful moment of clarity. It means Nordstream 1 isn't coming back on, possibly ever, so the West must restructure its energy demand now.
Russia has blundered, again.
All that stuff is what certain people might describe as piffle built on foundations of hogwash.
If she had been facing them, yes, terrible. But she wasnt.
The 'levelling up' agenda is still powerful: it was mentioned positively on a couple of voxpops this morning. You or I may believe the Conservatives will never deliver it, but it's massively important for Labour to give the impression they care about it as well.
Starmer will get elected in his constituency at the next election. The polling shows he will do well in London. He needs the Midlands. He needs the north.
And I don't mean North London.
Enjoy your drink!
I’m not saying I agree with Truss’s proposal, but it does, it seems to me, matter that we’re talking about a second bite at the cherry and that complicates direct comparisons. A debate on when it would be appropriate to have a 2nd referendum can be had.
(Oxford types: anyone know if she took The Union seriously while she was there? It's obviously a ghastly collection of terrible people with absurd ambitions and both Oxbridge Unions should be fired into the heart of Jupiter, but doing loads of speeches must help you get better at public speaking.)
The public voted for Brexit. That's it. How we Brexited, well that was up to who we elect in Parliament and voters gave a majority in Parliament to a specific plan in the end.
Anyone putting a threshold is just trying to overturn defeat.
Shades of the time the RN rocked up at some South American port, trained their guns on the town and sent a chap ashore to ask about the continuing of payments on British loans…
Anyone got the ambassadors phone number?
What unites the Thatcherite and Tory traditionalist wings of the party is a desire to keep out socialism and Labour. This article argues what the Tories need now is a return to patrician style Macmillan (or Heseltine) economics, which to some extent Boris was doing despite bring pro Brexit.
Truss however it seems will deliver liberal Thatcherism and small state economics in tooth and claw
https://unherd.com/2022/07/britain-needs-macmillan-not-thatcher/
You have one chance a Parliament to change leader. Beyond that there will have to be a damn good reason* and “being a bit crap” isn’t one of them.
* likely limited to (a) the old leader has dropped down dead or is incapacitated or (b) the old leader is the centre of a seismic political scandal that blows up their credibility.
We will deliver
We will deliver
Liz "Dalek" Truss
Which suggests that things are really, really bad for the Putin mob at the moment.
Only an existential threat to them, personally, would get them to pass up all that lovely hard currency.
But tho the rhetoric can only improve on today's, the central problem is unchanged: she's offering a curious cocktail of Thatcherism and Johnsonism - without the personal mandate of either.
https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1566777758952349696
Obviously public speaking ability is important for politicians, but personally I don't care too much about Truss's ability or otherwise in this area: it's all the other stuff where I'm dubious.
One of the reasons Starmer isn't as effective as he should be is that he came to front line politics late, having had a successful career outside politics first. That should make him a better politician, but it doesn't.
When was the last time someone was PM with some basic maths skills ?
I don't see Starmer has put the left in its place anywhere near as firmly as Blair did. It's perfectly possible for the next Labour leader to be a Corbynite - especially if they somehow lose the next GE.
This concerns me.
Not sure being a banker means you understand basic maths. I thought Brown was a historian.
For example, I'm a republican, I don't want the monarchy. Imagine a world (mad I know), where 52% vote for a republic. Sorted. Well, what if half of those who want a republic want an elected president, and half of those want the PM to be the new head of state and not create a new role. Maybe you can convince some of those one way or another, but at the end of the day it will be nigh impossible to actually get consensus on what the big new political settlement should be. That changes when you get to 66-75% - a wider agreement for the change to happen, and wiggle room for whatever the practical settlement might be. Sure, in an ideal world, those 52% of people are all voting for the same thing, but in reality they aren't. And it is a bit dishonest to claim they are. So waiting for more consensus over such foundational issues allows those changes to really have a mandate.
Going back to Brexit, because the nature of the vote and the subsequent political atmosphere afterwards, there was no real acceptance about the nature of the coalition that came to 52% - no acceptance that even those campaigning for Brexit offered access to the Single Market and such, that rich voters wanted a low tax small state outside of the EU, and working class voters wanted more what Johnson promised with money for the NHS and more protectionism. So when political realities hit, Brexit was (and arguably still is) unachievable. The "oven ready" deal is unacceptable to a number of Unionists due to the NI issue, and to a number of the working class who voted for it believing what they were told about more populist economic policies coming home. Brexit will never be "done" because the work of planning an acceptable political settlement was never done. And that's why the higher threshold is useful, it gives politicians more leeway in implementing that change.
I'm a fan of democracy, but a) we don't have a majoritarian system at most levels in this country; MPs aren't elected with majorities, parties can get huge majorities with a 35-40% of the vote, and this is repeated in local government and b) referenda on big issues are really complicated and we shouldn't shy away from that fact. To just say "a majority want something, sort it out asap" is not how politics shakes out.
I do hope Maugham isnt pretending this means the Tories arent ready for a brown man.
…will Truss really not offer him a substantial cabinet role?
https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1566780368900046849