FUDHY is a very odd Tory. He has paeans of praise for General Franco, the Sweden Democrats, Meloni, Farage and Scottish Labour, but none for his own leader.
He's an authoritarian, bordering on what gets called "far right".
Truss is a dry as dust, socially liberal Conservative. Some people here used to say the believed in that, but not him.
It is you who are the hardline libertarian who has backed a strategy which has taken the Tories to 28% in the polls, not me
Bart is Boris’s PB identity? Who’d’ve thunk it?
Boris did not pursue this strategy Truss and Kwarteng are following
Boris murdered the economy. Liz is just dancing on the grave.
As @Scott_xP helpfully informed us, under Boris, the UK was seen as just about the safest country in the G7.
But Boris campaign, manifesto, promises, and economic plan, as far as details go, was for spending. Even before covid borrowing, back to 2019 election, it was hardly low tax small state rhetoric and thinking from Boris and his government. They started to enjoy that cake before it was properly paid for.
What we have seen over this month, is a reaction to the cost of the Boris cake.
“Highest tax burden since the war? This. Is. A. Disgrace.”
Therefore what was the most logical policy to campaign on.
A spectre of doom is descending over the Tories. The only possible way to mitigate the damage that I can think of is to oust Truss and install some venerable 'Safe Pair of Hands' leader. This will be on the understanding that he or she fights the next election to avoid complete meltdown and then quits. But who? DD might be a possibility.
Can´t help feeling that we could be looking at the end of the modern Conservative party.
There are certainly parallels with the Liberal Party, during and after the first world war, with Johnson as the Lloyd George figure undermining the traditional heart of his party.
Longer term splits over Europe (Liberal Parallel; Ireland and the Suffragettes) have seen even former leadership contenders like Rory Stewart, Heseltine and Ken Clarke driven out from the party. These public service minded figures have been replaced by the hard-faced chancers, like JRM, Johnson and indeed Truss herself.
The divisions between Sunak and KK are fundamental, not just Wykhamist v Etonian. The party is fundamentally at odds with itself.
If I was an economically literate Tory MP, even with something like a 9K majority, I would be thinking very hard about whether it might not be better for the Parliamentary party to throw out the Populists now, before the Country does it in 2 years with the collateral damage being that I would also lose my seat.
Truss turns out to be the Militant Tendency of the modern Tories, and if not challenged the Tories could indeed go into a Canadian style meltdown. A 45-26 % split next time with a bit of tactical voting for the Lib Dems could get the Tories down into double figures.
PR then kills them.
It was the populist right Reform Party that killed the Canadian Tories in 1993 and turned a heavy defeat into annihilation.
However PR would not just kill the current Tories but Labour too. A Nationalist Farage style Party would take votes and seats from the Tories with PR and Corbynites would leave Labour and start a new hard Left Party which would also win seats under PR
It perfectly possible - heck it's likely, that the modern Labour would be happy to lose it's hard left members...
And yes that new harder left party may win a few seats in places like Liverpool but at the end of the day they would be voting with the Labour party on most matters...
Sports Personality of the Year to take place on [Wednesday] 21 December
They might as well not bother; we seem a bit rubbish at sport this year. Win some, lose the ones that matter.
What are you talking about? The test cricket was amazing
Stokes is the man
Yep. And Qatar to come. Southgate has us peaking at just the right time methinks.
What? 🥹
Yep. I'm a skilled sportswatcher and looking at England is like ... you're horses, aren't you? ... ok like seeing that one on the bridle, saving ground on the inner, middle of the pack and just starting its smooth accelerating run from about the 3f pole. I like our chances in the Sandpit. 6/1 a touch short though.
But not as "too short" as 2.8 to lay a Truss exit in 2023. I've gobbled that. Betting into overreactions is one of my fav techniques and I think we have that in spades here. They cannot change leaders again, no way. She's their bed and they have to lie in it now.
There is still a chance for Tory MPs to save us and their party from this calamity.
The party would be utterly screwed by changing the top team 3 weeks after the last change. I mean, seriously ratnered. Holed below the waterline. Possibly terminally damaged.
You can’t pretend to be a serious party of government by deposing your leadership 3 weeks after they take the helm.
Might be better for the country mind, but for the Tories, terrible move.
It would be cross the streams bad. I know that.
But the alternative is worse. Anyway, my scenario is that after an excretable party conference and a harsh reaction from the markets, MPs say "fuck this shit" and bring down la Truss by voting down her Financial Suicide bill. And anoint Sunak. Who was their choice. Who was right about the economy. Who would prompt a big markets u-turn.
Truss would be spun as a terrible mistake imposed by the membership who were wrong. Change the rules to remove the stupid and they have a defensible line.
Or, don't. And they end.
He was the choice of barely a third of them.
The problem is the Tory Party has absolutely zero clue what it actually wants to be anymore. This does happen to all parties in power for too long, to some extent, but this is particularly bad.
Truss and Kwarteng are low tax, low spend, free market-eers who dont believe in sound money.
Sunak is a tax and spender with roots in the Johnsonian “levelling up” “spend it on our NHS instead” boosterism (on which let’s not forget the Conservative Party was elected in 2019 - NOT the policies Truss and Kwarteng are now following).
You’ve then got a dwindling band of Cameroony moderates like Hunt, a scattering of sound money Thatcherites, and a group that probably don’t care what the economic policy of the country is so long as they can attack the other parties on what the definition of a woman is.
I know all political parties are broad churches but the Tory Party is basically schizophrenic now.
The solution to this is PR. Let the Tories and labout split, and the loonies can be idelogically pure, then the grown ups can actually form the government.
Starmer's reaction to the party vote in favour of PR is disappointing and disingenuous. Calling it "not a priority" is effectively the same as saying he opposes it, without being honest about it.
Starmer is heading for a majority now in the polls, why on earth would he want PR forcing him to make deals with the Greens or LDs or a new Corbynite party to form a government?
Faisal Islam @faisalislam · 4m RIP the Truss plan to stretch out the debt with COVID bonds… 30 year yields just hit 4.7% - highest levels now since before great financial crisis June 2007
There is still a chance for Tory MPs to save us and their party from this calamity.
The party would be utterly screwed by changing the top team 3 weeks after the last change. I mean, seriously ratnered. Holed below the waterline. Possibly terminally damaged.
You can’t pretend to be a serious party of government by deposing your leadership 3 weeks after they take the helm.
Might be better for the country mind, but for the Tories, terrible move.
It would be cross the streams bad. I know that.
But the alternative is worse. Anyway, my scenario is that after an excretable party conference and a harsh reaction from the markets, MPs say "fuck this shit" and bring down la Truss by voting down her Financial Suicide bill. And anoint Sunak. Who was their choice. Who was right about the economy. Who would prompt a big markets u-turn.
Truss would be spun as a terrible mistake imposed by the membership who were wrong. Change the rules to remove the stupid and they have a defensible line.
Or, don't. And they end.
He was the choice of barely a third of them.
He won every round of voting. Comfortably. Compared to Truss it would be very easy to make a case for Sunak being the leader the MPs wanted.
The only feasible alternative to Truss before the general election is Wallace by coronation, who MPs and members could support. Though Truss likely holds on
Genuinely interested in your take on this. You were openly a Sunak supporter. And why that was. Sunak - and you - were right. So why do you say Wallace?
Its an economic crisis on a massive scale. You need a new leader to calm the markets and bring stability to the political table. You can have your former chancellor who called this right and was the choice of MPs. Or the Defence Secretary who isn't seen as up on finance and wasn't the choice of MPs.
Why are you suggesting Wallace instead of Sunak? It would need to be a coronation though, wouldn't it?
The 1922 could change the rules to make it an MP vote over a week.
They couldn't. As has been pointed out they are responsible for admin, not for the basic structure.
EXCEPT they could say Fuck it, let's break the rules and ride roughshod over the rights of the members and appoint a new PM in the expectation a court would say to the members Sorry lads, not getting involved in politics.
FUDHY is a very odd Tory. He has paeans of praise for General Franco, the Sweden Democrats, Meloni, Farage and Scottish Labour, but none for his own leader.
He's an authoritarian, bordering on what gets called "far right".
Truss is a dry as dust, socially liberal Conservative. Some people here used to say the believed in that, but not him.
It is you who are the hardline libertarian who has backed a strategy which has taken the Tories to 28% in the polls, not me
Yes it is, and your point is?
I would rather see the Tories lose with a libertarian time in office, than win with an authoritarian one.
Maybe but if this strategy sees the Tories face heave defeat at the next general election that will kill off libertarianism within the Tory party for a generation
Perhaps.
And if the Tory Party lurch to authoritarianism, then they deserve to be out of power for a generation anyway. And I would gladly vote against them.
Can´t help feeling that we could be looking at the end of the modern Conservative party.
There are certainly parallels with the Liberal Party, during and after the first world war, with Johnson as the Lloyd George figure undermining the traditional heart of his party.
Longer term splits over Europe (Liberal Parallel; Ireland and the Suffragettes) have seen even former leadership contenders like Rory Stewart, Heseltine and Ken Clarke driven out from the party. These public service minded figures have been replaced by the hard-faced chancers, like JRM, Johnson and indeed Truss herself.
The divisions between Sunak and KK are fundamental, not just Wykhamist v Etonian. The party is fundamentally at odds with itself.
If I was an economically literate Tory MP, even with something like a 9K majority, I would be thinking very hard about whether it might not be better for the Parliamentary party to throw out the Populists now, before the Country does it in 2 years with the collateral damage being that I would also lose my seat.
Truss turns out to be the Militant Tendency of the modern Tories, and if not challenged the Tories could indeed go into a Canadian style meltdown. A 45-26 % split next time with a bit of tactical voting for the Lib Dems could get the Tories down into double figures.
PR then kills them.
You may be right about the split in the Tory party, but you're making an assumption that it won't be the Trussites who look vindicated in 12-months time. A lot can change domestically and internationally between now and then.
Not a chance. Truss is not the most appealing character as the best of times, and she's literally gambled the British economy on the acne-cream economic notions of Reaganonics and the Laffter Curve. It's a grisly spectacle. The Tories are utterly undone.
There is still a chance for Tory MPs to save us and their party from this calamity.
The party would be utterly screwed by changing the top team 3 weeks after the last change. I mean, seriously ratnered. Holed below the waterline. Possibly terminally damaged.
You can’t pretend to be a serious party of government by deposing your leadership 3 weeks after they take the helm.
Might be better for the country mind, but for the Tories, terrible move.
It would be cross the streams bad. I know that.
But the alternative is worse. Anyway, my scenario is that after an excretable party conference and a harsh reaction from the markets, MPs say "fuck this shit" and bring down la Truss by voting down her Financial Suicide bill. And anoint Sunak. Who was their choice. Who was right about the economy. Who would prompt a big markets u-turn.
Truss would be spun as a terrible mistake imposed by the membership who were wrong. Change the rules to remove the stupid and they have a defensible line.
Or, don't. And they end.
He was the choice of barely a third of them.
The problem is the Tory Party has absolutely zero clue what it actually wants to be anymore. This does happen to all parties in power for too long, to some extent, but this is particularly bad.
Truss and Kwarteng are low tax, low spend, free market-eers who dont believe in sound money.
Sunak is a tax and spender with roots in the Johnsonian “levelling up” “spend it on our NHS instead” boosterism (on which let’s not forget the Conservative Party was elected in 2019 - NOT the policies Truss and Kwarteng are now following).
You’ve then got a dwindling band of Cameroony moderates like Hunt, a scattering of sound money Thatcherites, and a group that probably don’t care what the economic policy of the country is so long as they can attack the other parties on what the definition of a woman is.
I know all political parties are broad churches but the Tory Party is basically schizophrenic now.
The solution to this is PR. Let the Tories and labout split, and the loonies can be idelogically pure, then the grown ups can actually form the government.
Starmer's reaction to the party vote in favour of PR is disappointing and disingenuous. Calling it "not a priority" is effectively the same as saying he opposes it, without being honest about it.
Starmer is heading for a majority now in the polls, why on earth would he want PR forcing him to make deals with the Greens or LDs to form a government?
But he still gets his majority govt, doesn't he? Just with a pledge to hold a Ref on PR - with a Yes implemented for the next election. Wouldn't that be the route?
A spectre of doom is descending over the Tories. The only possible way to mitigate the damage that I can think of is to oust Truss and install some venerable 'Safe Pair of Hands' leader. This will be on the understanding that he or she fights the next election to avoid complete meltdown and then quits. But who? DD might be a possibility.
That's actually the argument in favour of Wallace. He doesn't want the job, so the 'understanding' is easily achieved. And he stands outside the factions which emerged in the leadership contest.
He'd need to bring Sunak back as Chancellor, as it really does need someone who can hit the ground running, as opposed to hit the ground with a wet splat.
Can´t help feeling that we could be looking at the end of the modern Conservative party.
There are certainly parallels with the Liberal Party, during and after the first world war, with Johnson as the Lloyd George figure undermining the traditional heart of his party.
Longer term splits over Europe (Liberal Parallel; Ireland and the Suffragettes) have seen even former leadership contenders like Rory Stewart, Heseltine and Ken Clarke driven out from the party. These public service minded figures have been replaced by the hard-faced chancers, like JRM, Johnson and indeed Truss herself.
The divisions between Sunak and KK are fundamental, not just Wykhamist v Etonian. The party is fundamentally at odds with itself.
If I was an economically literate Tory MP, even with something like a 9K majority, I would be thinking very hard about whether it might not be better for the Parliamentary party to throw out the Populists now, before the Country does it in 2 years with the collateral damage being that I would also lose my seat.
Truss turns out to be the Militant Tendency of the modern Tories, and if not challenged the Tories could indeed go into a Canadian style meltdown. A 45-26 % split next time with a bit of tactical voting for the Lib Dems could get the Tories down into double figures.
PR then kills them.
Starmer doesn’t want to kill the Conservative Party. He needs them. No Punch n Judy show without Punch.
There is still a chance for Tory MPs to save us and their party from this calamity.
The party would be utterly screwed by changing the top team 3 weeks after the last change. I mean, seriously ratnered. Holed below the waterline. Possibly terminally damaged.
You can’t pretend to be a serious party of government by deposing your leadership 3 weeks after they take the helm.
Might be better for the country mind, but for the Tories, terrible move.
It would be cross the streams bad. I know that.
But the alternative is worse. Anyway, my scenario is that after an excretable party conference and a harsh reaction from the markets, MPs say "fuck this shit" and bring down la Truss by voting down her Financial Suicide bill. And anoint Sunak. Who was their choice. Who was right about the economy. Who would prompt a big markets u-turn.
Truss would be spun as a terrible mistake imposed by the membership who were wrong. Change the rules to remove the stupid and they have a defensible line.
Or, don't. And they end.
He was the choice of barely a third of them.
He won every round of voting. Comfortably. Compared to Truss it would be very easy to make a case for Sunak being the leader the MPs wanted.
The only feasible alternative to Truss before the general election is Wallace by coronation, who MPs and members could support. Though Truss likely holds on
Genuinely interested in your take on this. You were openly a Sunak supporter. And why that was. Sunak - and you - were right. So why do you say Wallace?
Its an economic crisis on a massive scale. You need a new leader to calm the markets and bring stability to the political table. You can have your former chancellor who called this right and was the choice of MPs. Or the Defence Secretary who isn't seen as up on finance and wasn't the choice of MPs.
Why are you suggesting Wallace instead of Sunak? It would need to be a coronation though, wouldn't it?
The 1922 could change the rules to make it an MP vote over a week.
They couldn't. As has been pointed out they are responsible for admin, not for the basic structure.
EXCEPT they could say Fuck it, let's break the rules and ride roughshod over the rights of the members and appoint a new PM in the expectation a court would say to the members Sorry lads, not getting involved in politics.
The Palace would absolutely hate a scenario whereby HM was forced to appoint a PM not appointed party leader in line with the party’s constitution. I guess he’d probably be forced to though, if that person could demonstrate they had the confidence of the House.
Can´t help feeling that we could be looking at the end of the modern Conservative party.
There are certainly parallels with the Liberal Party, during and after the first world war, with Johnson as the Lloyd George figure undermining the traditional heart of his party.
Longer term splits over Europe (Liberal Parallel; Ireland and the Suffragettes) have seen even former leadership contenders like Rory Stewart, Heseltine and Ken Clarke driven out from the party. These public service minded figures have been replaced by the hard-faced chancers, like JRM, Johnson and indeed Truss herself.
The divisions between Sunak and KK are fundamental, not just Wykhamist v Etonian. The party is fundamentally at odds with itself.
If I was an economically literate Tory MP, even with something like a 9K majority, I would be thinking very hard about whether it might not be better for the Parliamentary party to throw out the Populists now, before the Country does it in 2 years with the collateral damage being that I would also lose my seat.
Truss turns out to be the Militant Tendency of the modern Tories, and if not challenged the Tories could indeed go into a Canadian style meltdown. A 45-26 % split next time with a bit of tactical voting for the Lib Dems could get the Tories down into double figures.
PR then kills them.
LOL! We've been here time and again! If the Tories can survive 1997-2001 they can survive anything.
And the same for Labour. Around 1992 and again in 2019 a lot of people were predicting the demise of Labour but here we are on the cusp of another Labour government.
What goes around comes around and political parties survive and endure...
And PR would see both Con AND Lab both split (Con would split between "one nation" and Tory/Lab would split between centrists and socialists)
The political pendulum would still swing left and right as it has always done just it would swing between "blocks" of 2 or more parties rather than one single grouping of Con and Lab as we as we have now.
The right wing "block" would still get their share of governments... But the fact Labour will splinter under PR is why Labour will never do it (but I expect they will continue to dangle the carrot in front of the Lib-Dems, Greens etc )
Can´t help feeling that we could be looking at the end of the modern Conservative party.
There are certainly parallels with the Liberal Party, during and after the first world war, with Johnson as the Lloyd George figure undermining the traditional heart of his party.
Longer term splits over Europe (Liberal Parallel; Ireland and the Suffragettes) have seen even former leadership contenders like Rory Stewart, Heseltine and Ken Clarke driven out from the party. These public service minded figures have been replaced by the hard-faced chancers, like JRM, Johnson and indeed Truss herself.
The divisions between Sunak and KK are fundamental, not just Wykhamist v Etonian. The party is fundamentally at odds with itself.
If I was an economically literate Tory MP, even with something like a 9K majority, I would be thinking very hard about whether it might not be better for the Parliamentary party to throw out the Populists now, before the Country does it in 2 years with the collateral damage being that I would also lose my seat.
Truss turns out to be the Militant Tendency of the modern Tories, and if not challenged the Tories could indeed go into a Canadian style meltdown. A 45-26 % split next time with a bit of tactical voting for the Lib Dems could get the Tories down into double figures.
PR then kills them.
It was the populist right Reform Party that killed the Canadian Tories in 1993 and turned a heavy defeat into annihilation.
However PR would not just kill the current Tories but Labour too. A Nationalist Farage style Party would take votes and seats from the Tories with PR and Corbynites would leave Labour and start a new hard Left Party which would also win seats under PR
That's the point. PR allows those views to be actively represented, and form part of government, without hijacking it as Truss just did.
I somehow came by a Leaked copy of Starmer's speech! Here goes:
Comrades, this is your captain. It is an honour to speak to you today, and I am honored to be sailing with you on the maiden voyage of our Party's most recent achievement. Once more, we play our dangerous game, a game of chess against our old adversary — the Conservative Party. For 100 years, your fathers before you and your older brothers played this game and played it well. But today, the game is different. We have the advantage, and it reminds me of the heady days of the Welfare State and Clement Attlee, when the world trembled at the sound of our nationalisations. Well, they will tremble again — at the sound of our poll leads. The order is: engage the Starmer Drive!
Comrades, our own Unionised Left-wing don't know our full potential. They will do everything possible to test us; but they will only test their own embarrassment. We will leave our extremists behind, we will pass through the Conservative patrols, past their sonar nets, and lay off their largest constituency, and listen to their chortling and tittering... while we conduct austerity debates. Then, and when we are finished, the only sound they will hear is our own laughter, while we sail to Liverpool, where the sun is warm, and so is the... comradeship.
There is still a chance for Tory MPs to save us and their party from this calamity.
The party would be utterly screwed by changing the top team 3 weeks after the last change. I mean, seriously ratnered. Holed below the waterline. Possibly terminally damaged.
You can’t pretend to be a serious party of government by deposing your leadership 3 weeks after they take the helm.
Might be better for the country mind, but for the Tories, terrible move.
It would be cross the streams bad. I know that.
But the alternative is worse. Anyway, my scenario is that after an excretable party conference and a harsh reaction from the markets, MPs say "fuck this shit" and bring down la Truss by voting down her Financial Suicide bill. And anoint Sunak. Who was their choice. Who was right about the economy. Who would prompt a big markets u-turn.
Truss would be spun as a terrible mistake imposed by the membership who were wrong. Change the rules to remove the stupid and they have a defensible line.
Or, don't. And they end.
He was the choice of barely a third of them.
He won every round of voting. Comfortably. Compared to Truss it would be very easy to make a case for Sunak being the leader the MPs wanted.
The only feasible alternative to Truss before the general election is Wallace by coronation, who MPs and members could support. Though Truss likely holds on
Genuinely interested in your take on this. You were openly a Sunak supporter. And why that was. Sunak - and you - were right. So why do you say Wallace?
Its an economic crisis on a massive scale. You need a new leader to calm the markets and bring stability to the political table. You can have your former chancellor who called this right and was the choice of MPs. Or the Defence Secretary who isn't seen as up on finance and wasn't the choice of MPs.
Why are you suggesting Wallace instead of Sunak? It would need to be a coronation though, wouldn't it?
The 1922 could change the rules to make it an MP vote over a week.
They couldn't. As has been pointed out they are responsible for admin, not for the basic structure.
EXCEPT they could say Fuck it, let's break the rules and ride roughshod over the rights of the members and appoint a new PM in the expectation a court would say to the members Sorry lads, not getting involved in politics.
The Palace would absolutely hate a scenario whereby HM was forced to appoint a PM not appointed party leader in line with the party’s constitution. I guess he’d probably be forced to though, if that person could demonstrate they had the confidence of the House.
Er, who gives a shite about X party's constitution? They don't own the UK, despite the current lot very much trying to.
Can´t help feeling that we could be looking at the end of the modern Conservative party.
There are certainly parallels with the Liberal Party, during and after the first world war, with Johnson as the Lloyd George figure undermining the traditional heart of his party.
Longer term splits over Europe (Liberal Parallel; Ireland and the Suffragettes) have seen even former leadership contenders like Rory Stewart, Heseltine and Ken Clarke driven out from the party. These public service minded figures have been replaced by the hard-faced chancers, like JRM, Johnson and indeed Truss herself.
The divisions between Sunak and KK are fundamental, not just Wykhamist v Etonian. The party is fundamentally at odds with itself.
If I was an economically literate Tory MP, even with something like a 9K majority, I would be thinking very hard about whether it might not be better for the Parliamentary party to throw out the Populists now, before the Country does it in 2 years with the collateral damage being that I would also lose my seat.
Truss turns out to be the Militant Tendency of the modern Tories, and if not challenged the Tories could indeed go into a Canadian style meltdown. A 45-26 % split next time with a bit of tactical voting for the Lib Dems could get the Tories down into double figures.
PR then kills them.
It was the populist right Reform Party that killed the Canadian Tories in 1993 and turned a heavy defeat into annihilation.
However PR would not just kill the current Tories but Labour too. A Nationalist Farage style Party would take votes and seats from the Tories with PR and Corbynites would leave Labour and start a new hard Left Party which would also win seats under PR
That's the point. PR allows those views to be actively represented, and form part of government, without hijacking it as Truss just did.
True but at the price of more unstable coalition governments with one party rarely ever winning a majority
There is still a chance for Tory MPs to save us and their party from this calamity.
The party would be utterly screwed by changing the top team 3 weeks after the last change. I mean, seriously ratnered. Holed below the waterline. Possibly terminally damaged.
You can’t pretend to be a serious party of government by deposing your leadership 3 weeks after they take the helm.
Might be better for the country mind, but for the Tories, terrible move.
It would be cross the streams bad. I know that.
But the alternative is worse. Anyway, my scenario is that after an excretable party conference and a harsh reaction from the markets, MPs say "fuck this shit" and bring down la Truss by voting down her Financial Suicide bill. And anoint Sunak. Who was their choice. Who was right about the economy. Who would prompt a big markets u-turn.
Truss would be spun as a terrible mistake imposed by the membership who were wrong. Change the rules to remove the stupid and they have a defensible line.
Or, don't. And they end.
He was the choice of barely a third of them.
He won every round of voting. Comfortably. Compared to Truss it would be very easy to make a case for Sunak being the leader the MPs wanted.
The only feasible alternative to Truss before the general election is Wallace by coronation, who MPs and members could support. Though Truss likely holds on
Genuinely interested in your take on this. You were openly a Sunak supporter. And why that was. Sunak - and you - were right. So why do you say Wallace?
Its an economic crisis on a massive scale. You need a new leader to calm the markets and bring stability to the political table. You can have your former chancellor who called this right and was the choice of MPs. Or the Defence Secretary who isn't seen as up on finance and wasn't the choice of MPs.
Why are you suggesting Wallace instead of Sunak? It would need to be a coronation though, wouldn't it?
The 1922 could change the rules to make it an MP vote over a week.
They couldn't. As has been pointed out they are responsible for admin, not for the basic structure.
EXCEPT they could say Fuck it, let's break the rules and ride roughshod over the rights of the members and appoint a new PM in the expectation a court would say to the members Sorry lads, not getting involved in politics.
The Palace would absolutely hate a scenario whereby HM was forced to appoint a PM not appointed party leader in line with the party’s constitution. I guess he’d probably be forced to though, if that person could demonstrate they had the confidence of the House.
Er, who gives a shite about X party's constitution? They don't own the UK, despite the current lot very much trying to.
Constitutional monarchies tend to give a shit about parties, constitutions and politics.
There is still a chance for Tory MPs to save us and their party from this calamity.
The party would be utterly screwed by changing the top team 3 weeks after the last change. I mean, seriously ratnered. Holed below the waterline. Possibly terminally damaged.
You can’t pretend to be a serious party of government by deposing your leadership 3 weeks after they take the helm.
Might be better for the country mind, but for the Tories, terrible move.
It would be cross the streams bad. I know that.
But the alternative is worse. Anyway, my scenario is that after an excretable party conference and a harsh reaction from the markets, MPs say "fuck this shit" and bring down la Truss by voting down her Financial Suicide bill. And anoint Sunak. Who was their choice. Who was right about the economy. Who would prompt a big markets u-turn.
Truss would be spun as a terrible mistake imposed by the membership who were wrong. Change the rules to remove the stupid and they have a defensible line.
Or, don't. And they end.
He was the choice of barely a third of them.
The problem is the Tory Party has absolutely zero clue what it actually wants to be anymore. This does happen to all parties in power for too long, to some extent, but this is particularly bad.
Truss and Kwarteng are low tax, low spend, free market-eers who dont believe in sound money.
Sunak is a tax and spender with roots in the Johnsonian “levelling up” “spend it on our NHS instead” boosterism (on which let’s not forget the Conservative Party was elected in 2019 - NOT the policies Truss and Kwarteng are now following).
You’ve then got a dwindling band of Cameroony moderates like Hunt, a scattering of sound money Thatcherites, and a group that probably don’t care what the economic policy of the country is so long as they can attack the other parties on what the definition of a woman is.
I know all political parties are broad churches but the Tory Party is basically schizophrenic now.
The solution to this is PR. Let the Tories and labout split, and the loonies can be idelogically pure, then the grown ups can actually form the government.
Starmer's reaction to the party vote in favour of PR is disappointing and disingenuous. Calling it "not a priority" is effectively the same as saying he opposes it, without being honest about it.
Starmer is heading for a majority now in the polls, why on earth would he want PR forcing him to make deals with the Greens or LDs to form a government?
But he still gets his majority govt, doesn't he? Just with a pledge to hold a Ref on PR - with a Yes implemented for the next election. Wouldn't that be the route?
If you’re Starmer right now, you’re looking at what all of a sudden could be a decade plus of majority Labour government if the Tories implode. Are you going to want to share that power?
Is Dmitry Medvedev signalling a concession by Russia when he says Russia won't tolerate nuclear weapons being put in NATO-controlled Ukraine?
Does this mark a backtracking from the stated Russian war aim of demilitarising the Ukraine?
Could there be an agreement to the effect that
* Russian territory does not come under foreign or foreign-backed attack and any local neo-Nazi forces on Russian territory either surrender or f*** off out of it
* Ukraine can ally with who TF it likes, so long as no nuclear weapons are stationed on its soil?
Cf. the resolution of the Turkey-Italy-Cuba missile crisis in 1962, which ill-informed idiots call the Cuban missile crisis, but which at least they are right to term a crisis. Turkey and Italy stayed in NATO, but burgermuncher nukes were removed from their territory.
The YouGov details are all fairly predictable and of course dire for the Tories in every respect. Two things to note:
There is as much as usual self interest in the views about tax - supporting all the stuff that advantages the majority, and opposing everything that gives to someone else.
And the figure for those who "Cannot afford my costs and often have to go without essentials....." is, at 5% lower than I would have thought.
Maybe that's why I am told, counter intuitively, that our local foodbank is remarkably quiet at the moment.
So SNP down from the 45% they got in 2019, SLAB up from 18%
That'll be all them Unionist SCons and SLDs going tactical on the SNP's ass..
The trick for SLab is attracting SLD and SCon tactical votes without losing voters out the other side to the SNP and Greens.
I confidently predict that that finesse is beyond them.
Did you see that wee diddy (in front of a yooj Union flag logo) at the Liverpool conference putting Meloni and her crew in the same bag as the SNP and Greens? It's like a sickness with them.
Hard to spot the diddy in a room full of diddies.
My favourite bit was promising to double the number of district nurses every year. Exponential graphing must have been covered when she missed that maths lesson.
Can´t help feeling that we could be looking at the end of the modern Conservative party.
There are certainly parallels with the Liberal Party, during and after the first world war, with Johnson as the Lloyd George figure undermining the traditional heart of his party.
Longer term splits over Europe (Liberal Parallel; Ireland and the Suffragettes) have seen even former leadership contenders like Rory Stewart, Heseltine and Ken Clarke driven out from the party. These public service minded figures have been replaced by the hard-faced chancers, like JRM, Johnson and indeed Truss herself.
The divisions between Sunak and KK are fundamental, not just Wykhamist v Etonian. The party is fundamentally at odds with itself.
If I was an economically literate Tory MP, even with something like a 9K majority, I would be thinking very hard about whether it might not be better for the Parliamentary party to throw out the Populists now, before the Country does it in 2 years with the collateral damage being that I would also lose my seat.
Truss turns out to be the Militant Tendency of the modern Tories, and if not challenged the Tories could indeed go into a Canadian style meltdown. A 45-26 % split next time with a bit of tactical voting for the Lib Dems could get the Tories down into double figures.
PR then kills them.
You may be right about the split in the Tory party, but you're making an assumption that it won't be the Trussites who look vindicated in 12-months time. A lot can change domestically and internationally between now and then.
The Trussites cannot be vindicated. The Markets wont wear it. Today Dollar Parity, 3 months time, Euro Parity.
Reserves blown, rates into double figures, national humiliation, ergo KamiKwasi can not do what he is trying to do.
FUDHY is a very odd Tory. He has paeans of praise for General Franco, the Sweden Democrats, Meloni, Farage and Scottish Labour, but none for his own leader.
He's an authoritarian, bordering on what gets called "far right".
Truss is a dry as dust, socially liberal Conservative. Some people here used to say the believed in that, but not him.
It is you who are the hardline libertarian who has backed a strategy which has taken the Tories to 28% in the polls, not me
Yes it is, and your point is?
I would rather see the Tories lose with a libertarian time in office, than win with an authoritarian one.
Maybe but if this strategy sees the Tories face heave defeat at the next general election that will kill off libertarianism within the Tory party for a generation
There is still a chance for Tory MPs to save us and their party from this calamity.
The party would be utterly screwed by changing the top team 3 weeks after the last change. I mean, seriously ratnered. Holed below the waterline. Possibly terminally damaged.
You can’t pretend to be a serious party of government by deposing your leadership 3 weeks after they take the helm.
Might be better for the country mind, but for the Tories, terrible move.
It would be cross the streams bad. I know that.
But the alternative is worse. Anyway, my scenario is that after an excretable party conference and a harsh reaction from the markets, MPs say "fuck this shit" and bring down la Truss by voting down her Financial Suicide bill. And anoint Sunak. Who was their choice. Who was right about the economy. Who would prompt a big markets u-turn.
Truss would be spun as a terrible mistake imposed by the membership who were wrong. Change the rules to remove the stupid and they have a defensible line.
Or, don't. And they end.
He was the choice of barely a third of them.
The problem is the Tory Party has absolutely zero clue what it actually wants to be anymore. This does happen to all parties in power for too long, to some extent, but this is particularly bad.
Truss and Kwarteng are low tax, low spend, free market-eers who dont believe in sound money.
Sunak is a tax and spender with roots in the Johnsonian “levelling up” “spend it on our NHS instead” boosterism (on which let’s not forget the Conservative Party was elected in 2019 - NOT the policies Truss and Kwarteng are now following).
You’ve then got a dwindling band of Cameroony moderates like Hunt, a scattering of sound money Thatcherites, and a group that probably don’t care what the economic policy of the country is so long as they can attack the other parties on what the definition of a woman is.
I know all political parties are broad churches but the Tory Party is basically schizophrenic now.
The solution to this is PR. Let the Tories and labout split, and the loonies can be idelogically pure, then the grown ups can actually form the government.
Starmer's reaction to the party vote in favour of PR is disappointing and disingenuous. Calling it "not a priority" is effectively the same as saying he opposes it, without being honest about it.
Starmer is heading for a majority now in the polls, why on earth would he want PR forcing him to make deals with the Greens or LDs to form a government?
But he still gets his majority govt, doesn't he? Just with a pledge to hold a Ref on PR - with a Yes implemented for the next election. Wouldn't that be the route?
Unless a Labour government trailed badly in the polls I cannot even see them holding a referendum on PR
Fascinating thread on what is speculated the US has provided to Ukraine based on their orders for new equipment.
TL;DR - lots!
Pentagon budget realignment files are a magnificent source of info about what the US military is up to, what classified programs US Special Operations Command runs in Ukraine, and what equipment has been sent to Ukraine.
Can´t help feeling that we could be looking at the end of the modern Conservative party.
There are certainly parallels with the Liberal Party, during and after the first world war, with Johnson as the Lloyd George figure undermining the traditional heart of his party.
Longer term splits over Europe (Liberal Parallel; Ireland and the Suffragettes) have seen even former leadership contenders like Rory Stewart, Heseltine and Ken Clarke driven out from the party. These public service minded figures have been replaced by the hard-faced chancers, like JRM, Johnson and indeed Truss herself.
The divisions between Sunak and KK are fundamental, not just Wykhamist v Etonian. The party is fundamentally at odds with itself.
If I was an economically literate Tory MP, even with something like a 9K majority, I would be thinking very hard about whether it might not be better for the Parliamentary party to throw out the Populists now, before the Country does it in 2 years with the collateral damage being that I would also lose my seat.
Truss turns out to be the Militant Tendency of the modern Tories, and if not challenged the Tories could indeed go into a Canadian style meltdown. A 45-26 % split next time with a bit of tactical voting for the Lib Dems could get the Tories down into double figures.
PR then kills them.
You may be right about the split in the Tory party, but you're making an assumption that it won't be the Trussites who look vindicated in 12-months time. A lot can change domestically and internationally between now and then.
The Trussites cannot be vindicated. The Markets wont wear it. Today Dollar Parity, 3 months time, Euro Parity.
Reserves blown, rates into double figures, national humiliation, ergo KamiKwasi can not do what he is trying to do.
Who gives a flying f**k if we pass parity with either the dollar or the Euro? What difference does it make?
If the pound reaches a new equilibrium that encourages economic growth and exports more than consumerism and imports, then that could help not hinder Truss's agenda.
The YouGov details are all fairly predictable and of course dire for the Tories in every respect. Two things to note:
There is as much as usual self interest in the views about tax - supporting all the stuff that advantages the majority, and opposing everything that gives to someone else.
And the figure for those who "Cannot afford my costs and often have to go without essentials....." is, at 5% lower than I would have thought.
Maybe that's why I am told, counter intuitively, that our local foodbank is remarkably quiet at the moment.
So SNP down from the 45% they got in 2019, SLAB up from 18%
That'll be all them Unionist SCons and SLDs going tactical on the SNP's ass..
The trick for SLab is attracting SLD and SCon tactical votes without losing voters out the other side to the SNP and Greens.
I confidently predict that that finesse is beyond them.
Did you see that wee diddy (in front of a yooj Union flag logo) at the Liverpool conference putting Meloni and her crew in the same bag as the SNP and Greens? It's like a sickness with them.
Hard to spot the diddy in a room full of diddies.
My favourite bit was promising to double the number of district nurses every year. Exponential graphing must have been covered when she missed that maths lesson.
tbf it could be promising to double the (number of district nurses every year), ie double the current output rate pa and leave it at that, rathger than promising to double the (number of district nurses) every year
There is still a chance for Tory MPs to save us and their party from this calamity.
The party would be utterly screwed by changing the top team 3 weeks after the last change. I mean, seriously ratnered. Holed below the waterline. Possibly terminally damaged.
You can’t pretend to be a serious party of government by deposing your leadership 3 weeks after they take the helm.
Might be better for the country mind, but for the Tories, terrible move.
It would be cross the streams bad. I know that.
But the alternative is worse. Anyway, my scenario is that after an excretable party conference and a harsh reaction from the markets, MPs say "fuck this shit" and bring down la Truss by voting down her Financial Suicide bill. And anoint Sunak. Who was their choice. Who was right about the economy. Who would prompt a big markets u-turn.
Truss would be spun as a terrible mistake imposed by the membership who were wrong. Change the rules to remove the stupid and they have a defensible line.
Or, don't. And they end.
He was the choice of barely a third of them.
He won every round of voting. Comfortably. Compared to Truss it would be very easy to make a case for Sunak being the leader the MPs wanted.
The only feasible alternative to Truss before the general election is Wallace by coronation, who MPs and members could support. Though Truss likely holds on
Genuinely interested in your take on this. You were openly a Sunak supporter. And why that was. Sunak - and you - were right. So why do you say Wallace?
Its an economic crisis on a massive scale. You need a new leader to calm the markets and bring stability to the political table. You can have your former chancellor who called this right and was the choice of MPs. Or the Defence Secretary who isn't seen as up on finance and wasn't the choice of MPs.
Why are you suggesting Wallace instead of Sunak? It would need to be a coronation though, wouldn't it?
The 1922 could change the rules to make it an MP vote over a week.
They couldn't. As has been pointed out they are responsible for admin, not for the basic structure.
EXCEPT they could say Fuck it, let's break the rules and ride roughshod over the rights of the members and appoint a new PM in the expectation a court would say to the members Sorry lads, not getting involved in politics.
The Palace would absolutely hate a scenario whereby HM was forced to appoint a PM not appointed party leader in line with the party’s constitution. I guess he’d probably be forced to though, if that person could demonstrate they had the confidence of the House.
Surely a coronation is within their rules? They did it for May.
The YouGov details are all fairly predictable and of course dire for the Tories in every respect. Two things to note:
There is as much as usual self interest in the views about tax - supporting all the stuff that advantages the majority, and opposing everything that gives to someone else.
And the figure for those who "Cannot afford my costs and often have to go without essentials....." is, at 5% lower than I would have thought.
Maybe that's why I am told, counter intuitively, that our local foodbank is remarkably quiet at the moment.
So SNP down from the 45% they got in 2019, SLAB up from 18%
That'll be all them Unionist SCons and SLDs going tactical on the SNP's ass..
The trick for SLab is attracting SLD and SCon tactical votes without losing voters out the other side to the SNP and Greens.
I confidently predict that that finesse is beyond them.
Did you see that wee diddy (in front of a yooj Union flag logo) at the Liverpool conference putting Meloni and her crew in the same bag as the SNP and Greens? It's like a sickness with them.
There is still a chance for Tory MPs to save us and their party from this calamity.
The party would be utterly screwed by changing the top team 3 weeks after the last change. I mean, seriously ratnered. Holed below the waterline. Possibly terminally damaged.
You can’t pretend to be a serious party of government by deposing your leadership 3 weeks after they take the helm.
Might be better for the country mind, but for the Tories, terrible move.
It would be cross the streams bad. I know that.
But the alternative is worse. Anyway, my scenario is that after an excretable party conference and a harsh reaction from the markets, MPs say "fuck this shit" and bring down la Truss by voting down her Financial Suicide bill. And anoint Sunak. Who was their choice. Who was right about the economy. Who would prompt a big markets u-turn.
Truss would be spun as a terrible mistake imposed by the membership who were wrong. Change the rules to remove the stupid and they have a defensible line.
Or, don't. And they end.
He was the choice of barely a third of them.
He won every round of voting. Comfortably. Compared to Truss it would be very easy to make a case for Sunak being the leader the MPs wanted.
The only feasible alternative to Truss before the general election is Wallace by coronation, who MPs and members could support. Though Truss likely holds on
Genuinely interested in your take on this. You were openly a Sunak supporter. And why that was. Sunak - and you - were right. So why do you say Wallace?
Its an economic crisis on a massive scale. You need a new leader to calm the markets and bring stability to the political table. You can have your former chancellor who called this right and was the choice of MPs. Or the Defence Secretary who isn't seen as up on finance and wasn't the choice of MPs.
Why are you suggesting Wallace instead of Sunak? It would need to be a coronation though, wouldn't it?
The 1922 could change the rules to make it an MP vote over a week.
They couldn't. As has been pointed out they are responsible for admin, not for the basic structure.
EXCEPT they could say Fuck it, let's break the rules and ride roughshod over the rights of the members and appoint a new PM in the expectation a court would say to the members Sorry lads, not getting involved in politics.
The Palace would absolutely hate a scenario whereby HM was forced to appoint a PM not appointed party leader in line with the party’s constitution. I guess he’d probably be forced to though, if that person could demonstrate they had the confidence of the House.
Er, who gives a shite about X party's constitution? They don't own the UK, despite the current lot very much trying to.
Constitutional monarchies tend to give a shit about parties, constitutions and politics.
But the Tory Party constitution is not the UK constitution. The PM is whomsoever the MPs vote for in toto.
Can´t help feeling that we could be looking at the end of the modern Conservative party.
There are certainly parallels with the Liberal Party, during and after the first world war, with Johnson as the Lloyd George figure undermining the traditional heart of his party.
Longer term splits over Europe (Liberal Parallel; Ireland and the Suffragettes) have seen even former leadership contenders like Rory Stewart, Heseltine and Ken Clarke driven out from the party. These public service minded figures have been replaced by the hard-faced chancers, like JRM, Johnson and indeed Truss herself.
The divisions between Sunak and KK are fundamental, not just Wykhamist v Etonian. The party is fundamentally at odds with itself.
If I was an economically literate Tory MP, even with something like a 9K majority, I would be thinking very hard about whether it might not be better for the Parliamentary party to throw out the Populists now, before the Country does it in 2 years with the collateral damage being that I would also lose my seat.
Truss turns out to be the Militant Tendency of the modern Tories, and if not challenged the Tories could indeed go into a Canadian style meltdown. A 45-26 % split next time with a bit of tactical voting for the Lib Dems could get the Tories down into double figures.
PR then kills them.
You may be right about the split in the Tory party, but you're making an assumption that it won't be the Trussites who look vindicated in 12-months time. A lot can change domestically and internationally between now and then.
The Trussites cannot be vindicated. The Markets wont wear it. Today Dollar Parity, 3 months time, Euro Parity.
Reserves blown, rates into double figures, national humiliation, ergo KamiKwasi can not do what he is trying to do.
What if the pound going below dollar and euro parity and an increase in long-term rates is accompanied by a turnaround in UK growth? Would that not count as vindication? Her strategy will have worked.
FUDHY is a very odd Tory. He has paeans of praise for General Franco, the Sweden Democrats, Meloni, Farage and Scottish Labour, but none for his own leader.
He's an authoritarian, bordering on what gets called "far right".
Truss is a dry as dust, socially liberal Conservative. Some people here used to say the believed in that, but not him.
It is you who are the hardline libertarian who has backed a strategy which has taken the Tories to 28% in the polls, not me
Yes it is, and your point is?
I would rather see the Tories lose with a libertarian time in office, than win with an authoritarian one.
Maybe but if this strategy sees the Tories face heave defeat at the next general election that will kill off libertarianism within the Tory party for a generation
There is still a chance for Tory MPs to save us and their party from this calamity.
The party would be utterly screwed by changing the top team 3 weeks after the last change. I mean, seriously ratnered. Holed below the waterline. Possibly terminally damaged.
You can’t pretend to be a serious party of government by deposing your leadership 3 weeks after they take the helm.
Might be better for the country mind, but for the Tories, terrible move.
It would be cross the streams bad. I know that.
But the alternative is worse. Anyway, my scenario is that after an excretable party conference and a harsh reaction from the markets, MPs say "fuck this shit" and bring down la Truss by voting down her Financial Suicide bill. And anoint Sunak. Who was their choice. Who was right about the economy. Who would prompt a big markets u-turn.
Truss would be spun as a terrible mistake imposed by the membership who were wrong. Change the rules to remove the stupid and they have a defensible line.
Or, don't. And they end.
He was the choice of barely a third of them.
The problem is the Tory Party has absolutely zero clue what it actually wants to be anymore. This does happen to all parties in power for too long, to some extent, but this is particularly bad.
Truss and Kwarteng are low tax, low spend, free market-eers who dont believe in sound money.
Sunak is a tax and spender with roots in the Johnsonian “levelling up” “spend it on our NHS instead” boosterism (on which let’s not forget the Conservative Party was elected in 2019 - NOT the policies Truss and Kwarteng are now following).
You’ve then got a dwindling band of Cameroony moderates like Hunt, a scattering of sound money Thatcherites, and a group that probably don’t care what the economic policy of the country is so long as they can attack the other parties on what the definition of a woman is.
I know all political parties are broad churches but the Tory Party is basically schizophrenic now.
The solution to this is PR. Let the Tories and labout split, and the loonies can be idelogically pure, then the grown ups can actually form the government.
Starmer's reaction to the party vote in favour of PR is disappointing and disingenuous. Calling it "not a priority" is effectively the same as saying he opposes it, without being honest about it.
Starmer is heading for a majority now in the polls, why on earth would he want PR forcing him to make deals with the Greens or LDs to form a government?
But he still gets his majority govt, doesn't he? Just with a pledge to hold a Ref on PR - with a Yes implemented for the next election. Wouldn't that be the route?
If you’re Starmer right now, you’re looking at what all of a sudden could be a decade plus of majority Labour government if the Tories implode. Are you going to want to share that power?
A pledge???? From a Labour leader????? We've been had like that once before. More than once if you count the cases of Tory deceit as well.
I somehow came by a Leaked copy of Starmer's speech! Here goes:
Comrades, this is your captain. It is an honour to speak to you today, and I am honored to be sailing with you on the maiden voyage of our Party's most recent achievement. Once more, we play our dangerous game, a game of chess against our old adversary — the Conservative Party. For 100 years, your fathers before you and your older brothers played this game and played it well. But today, the game is different. We have the advantage, and it reminds me of the heady days of the Welfare State and Clement Attlee, when the world trembled at the sound of our nationalisations. Well, they will tremble again — at the sound of our poll leads. The order is: engage the Starmer Drive!
Comrades, our own Unionised Left-wing don't know our full potential. They will do everything possible to test us; but they will only test their own embarrassment. We will leave our extremists behind, we will pass through the Conservative patrols, past their sonar nets, and lay off their largest constituency, and listen to their chortling and tittering... while we conduct austerity debates. Then, and when we are finished, the only sound they will hear is our own laughter, while we sail to Liverpool, where the sun is warm, and so is the... comradeship.
The YouGov details are all fairly predictable and of course dire for the Tories in every respect. Two things to note:
There is as much as usual self interest in the views about tax - supporting all the stuff that advantages the majority, and opposing everything that gives to someone else.
And the figure for those who "Cannot afford my costs and often have to go without essentials....." is, at 5% lower than I would have thought.
Maybe that's why I am told, counter intuitively, that our local foodbank is remarkably quiet at the moment.
So SNP down from the 45% they got in 2019, SLAB up from 18%
That'll be all them Unionist SCons and SLDs going tactical on the SNP's ass..
The trick for SLab is attracting SLD and SCon tactical votes without losing voters out the other side to the SNP and Greens.
I confidently predict that that finesse is beyond them.
Did you see that wee diddy (in front of a yooj Union flag logo) at the Liverpool conference putting Meloni and her crew in the same bag as the SNP and Greens? It's like a sickness with them.
Hard to spot the diddy in a room full of diddies.
My favourite bit was promising to double the number of district nurses every year. Exponential graphing must have been covered when she missed that maths lesson.
tbf it could be promising to double the (number of district nurses every year), ie double the current output rate pa and leave it at that, rathger than promising to double the (number of district nurses) every year
There is still a chance for Tory MPs to save us and their party from this calamity.
The party would be utterly screwed by changing the top team 3 weeks after the last change. I mean, seriously ratnered. Holed below the waterline. Possibly terminally damaged.
You can’t pretend to be a serious party of government by deposing your leadership 3 weeks after they take the helm.
Might be better for the country mind, but for the Tories, terrible move.
It would be cross the streams bad. I know that.
But the alternative is worse. Anyway, my scenario is that after an excretable party conference and a harsh reaction from the markets, MPs say "fuck this shit" and bring down la Truss by voting down her Financial Suicide bill. And anoint Sunak. Who was their choice. Who was right about the economy. Who would prompt a big markets u-turn.
Truss would be spun as a terrible mistake imposed by the membership who were wrong. Change the rules to remove the stupid and they have a defensible line.
Or, don't. And they end.
He was the choice of barely a third of them.
The problem is the Tory Party has absolutely zero clue what it actually wants to be anymore. This does happen to all parties in power for too long, to some extent, but this is particularly bad.
Truss and Kwarteng are low tax, low spend, free market-eers who dont believe in sound money.
Sunak is a tax and spender with roots in the Johnsonian “levelling up” “spend it on our NHS instead” boosterism (on which let’s not forget the Conservative Party was elected in 2019 - NOT the policies Truss and Kwarteng are now following).
You’ve then got a dwindling band of Cameroony moderates like Hunt, a scattering of sound money Thatcherites, and a group that probably don’t care what the economic policy of the country is so long as they can attack the other parties on what the definition of a woman is.
I know all political parties are broad churches but the Tory Party is basically schizophrenic now.
The solution to this is PR. Let the Tories and labout split, and the loonies can be idelogically pure, then the grown ups can actually form the government.
Starmer's reaction to the party vote in favour of PR is disappointing and disingenuous. Calling it "not a priority" is effectively the same as saying he opposes it, without being honest about it.
Starmer is heading for a majority now in the polls, why on earth would he want PR forcing him to make deals with the Greens or LDs to form a government?
But he still gets his majority govt, doesn't he? Just with a pledge to hold a Ref on PR - with a Yes implemented for the next election. Wouldn't that be the route?
If you’re Starmer right now, you’re looking at what all of a sudden could be a decade plus of majority Labour government if the Tories implode. Are you going to want to share that power?
Probably not. After putting the hard yards in, you want your full reward. Shame though. FPTP is great theatre, and has other merits, but it's not optimal for representation and it's getting ever harder to conclude it brings good government.
Can´t help feeling that we could be looking at the end of the modern Conservative party.
There are certainly parallels with the Liberal Party, during and after the first world war, with Johnson as the Lloyd George figure undermining the traditional heart of his party.
Longer term splits over Europe (Liberal Parallel; Ireland and the Suffragettes) have seen even former leadership contenders like Rory Stewart, Heseltine and Ken Clarke driven out from the party. These public service minded figures have been replaced by the hard-faced chancers, like JRM, Johnson and indeed Truss herself.
The divisions between Sunak and KK are fundamental, not just Wykhamist v Etonian. The party is fundamentally at odds with itself.
If I was an economically literate Tory MP, even with something like a 9K majority, I would be thinking very hard about whether it might not be better for the Parliamentary party to throw out the Populists now, before the Country does it in 2 years with the collateral damage being that I would also lose my seat.
Truss turns out to be the Militant Tendency of the modern Tories, and if not challenged the Tories could indeed go into a Canadian style meltdown. A 45-26 % split next time with a bit of tactical voting for the Lib Dems could get the Tories down into double figures.
PR then kills them.
I like a lot of what you are thinking there, the traditional conservative heart of the party eroded by populism and libertariani economics - which are not the same thing, it’s various ideas contrary to conservatism leeching UK Conservative Party right now. Ideas Contrary - or as you say, fundamentally at odds.
Correct me where wrong, in my rather rambling theory. it’s starts in 1960s a bit of the story I’m not familiar with, but the Daily Mail used to be a conservative newspaper once - its amazing to think that really after the last ten years - I think it started to switch to populism in 1960s when it merged with another title? More recently we have started to import politics from the USA via the social and alternative media. Like importing grey squirrels when we used to be red squirrel.
Populism (right or left) pushes the idea of popular sovereignty above the independence of democratic institutions and the professionalism of the representatives and leaders of those institutions - populism as populist opportunism, masquerading as values and agenda for government like a crusading ideology pretending it is voice of all the people, whilst acting undemocratically deaf to anyone with a different view. Likewise the undermining of civil service and attack on all the counterbalances of power, this is a very opposite ideology to UK Conservatism (red squirrel)
Simple question. Did the paper which printed this (from the linked article) have too much influence over the recent Conservative Party leadership contest - this in reply to HY saying, but with PR libdems will quite happily cosy up to all this, keeping Labour out of power. But I agree with your PR is coming and is the chance to fight back against the Mail’s populism.
It’s “enemy of the people” populism was supported by a politician, who was then supported in return.
FUDHY is a very odd Tory. He has paeans of praise for General Franco, the Sweden Democrats, Meloni, Farage and Scottish Labour, but none for his own leader.
He's an authoritarian, bordering on what gets called "far right".
Truss is a dry as dust, socially liberal Conservative. Some people here used to say the believed in that, but not him.
It is you who are the hardline libertarian who has backed a strategy which has taken the Tories to 28% in the polls, not me
Yes it is, and your point is?
I would rather see the Tories lose with a libertarian time in office, than win with an authoritarian one.
Maybe but if this strategy sees the Tories face heave defeat at the next general election that will kill off libertarianism within the Tory party for a generation
Truss turns out to be the Militant Tendency of the modern Tories, and if not challenged the Tories could indeed go down to Canadian style meltdown. A 45-26 % split next time with a bit of tactical voting for the Lib Dems could get the Tories down into double figures.
PR then kills them.
If it is 45-26, of course. Opinium’s head of polling this morning:
“I keep hammering this point, but the large poll lead is mostly built off Tory 2019 voters switching to don't know. Labour still needs to convert more of them if they want to get a majority at the next election. It's not as bad for the Tories as the headline number suggests.“
Yes. While 53% of 2019 Tory voters no longer say they will vote Tory, only 8% are intending to vote Labour - about 2-in-13.
Labour need to convert more of those disillusioned by the Tories into Labour voters. Of course, if they do so, then the headline numbers will deteriorate even further for the Tories.
There is still a chance for Tory MPs to save us and their party from this calamity.
The party would be utterly screwed by changing the top team 3 weeks after the last change. I mean, seriously ratnered. Holed below the waterline. Possibly terminally damaged.
You can’t pretend to be a serious party of government by deposing your leadership 3 weeks after they take the helm.
Might be better for the country mind, but for the Tories, terrible move.
It would be cross the streams bad. I know that.
But the alternative is worse. Anyway, my scenario is that after an excretable party conference and a harsh reaction from the markets, MPs say "fuck this shit" and bring down la Truss by voting down her Financial Suicide bill. And anoint Sunak. Who was their choice. Who was right about the economy. Who would prompt a big markets u-turn.
Truss would be spun as a terrible mistake imposed by the membership who were wrong. Change the rules to remove the stupid and they have a defensible line.
Or, don't. And they end.
He was the choice of barely a third of them.
He won every round of voting. Comfortably. Compared to Truss it would be very easy to make a case for Sunak being the leader the MPs wanted.
The only feasible alternative to Truss before the general election is Wallace by coronation, who MPs and members could support. Though Truss likely holds on
Genuinely interested in your take on this. You were openly a Sunak supporter. And why that was. Sunak - and you - were right. So why do you say Wallace?
Its an economic crisis on a massive scale. You need a new leader to calm the markets and bring stability to the political table. You can have your former chancellor who called this right and was the choice of MPs. Or the Defence Secretary who isn't seen as up on finance and wasn't the choice of MPs.
Why are you suggesting Wallace instead of Sunak? It would need to be a coronation though, wouldn't it?
The 1922 could change the rules to make it an MP vote over a week.
They couldn't. As has been pointed out they are responsible for admin, not for the basic structure.
EXCEPT they could say Fuck it, let's break the rules and ride roughshod over the rights of the members and appoint a new PM in the expectation a court would say to the members Sorry lads, not getting involved in politics.
The Palace would absolutely hate a scenario whereby HM was forced to appoint a PM not appointed party leader in line with the party’s constitution. I guess he’d probably be forced to though, if that person could demonstrate they had the confidence of the House.
Er, who gives a shite about X party's constitution? They don't own the UK, despite the current lot very much trying to.
Constitutional monarchies tend to give a shit about parties, constitutions and politics.
But the Tory Party constitution is not the UK constitution. The PM is whomsoever the MPs vote for in toto.
...in whatever procedure the executive of the '22 decide they want.
There is still a chance for Tory MPs to save us and their party from this calamity.
The party would be utterly screwed by changing the top team 3 weeks after the last change. I mean, seriously ratnered. Holed below the waterline. Possibly terminally damaged.
You can’t pretend to be a serious party of government by deposing your leadership 3 weeks after they take the helm.
Might be better for the country mind, but for the Tories, terrible move.
It would be cross the streams bad. I know that.
But the alternative is worse. Anyway, my scenario is that after an excretable party conference and a harsh reaction from the markets, MPs say "fuck this shit" and bring down la Truss by voting down her Financial Suicide bill. And anoint Sunak. Who was their choice. Who was right about the economy. Who would prompt a big markets u-turn.
Truss would be spun as a terrible mistake imposed by the membership who were wrong. Change the rules to remove the stupid and they have a defensible line.
Or, don't. And they end.
He was the choice of barely a third of them.
He won every round of voting. Comfortably. Compared to Truss it would be very easy to make a case for Sunak being the leader the MPs wanted.
The only feasible alternative to Truss before the general election is Wallace by coronation, who MPs and members could support. Though Truss likely holds on
Genuinely interested in your take on this. You were openly a Sunak supporter. And why that was. Sunak - and you - were right. So why do you say Wallace?
Its an economic crisis on a massive scale. You need a new leader to calm the markets and bring stability to the political table. You can have your former chancellor who called this right and was the choice of MPs. Or the Defence Secretary who isn't seen as up on finance and wasn't the choice of MPs.
Why are you suggesting Wallace instead of Sunak? It would need to be a coronation though, wouldn't it?
The 1922 could change the rules to make it an MP vote over a week.
They couldn't. As has been pointed out they are responsible for admin, not for the basic structure.
EXCEPT they could say Fuck it, let's break the rules and ride roughshod over the rights of the members and appoint a new PM in the expectation a court would say to the members Sorry lads, not getting involved in politics.
The Palace would absolutely hate a scenario whereby HM was forced to appoint a PM not appointed party leader in line with the party’s constitution. I guess he’d probably be forced to though, if that person could demonstrate they had the confidence of the House.
Er, who gives a shite about X party's constitution? They don't own the UK, despite the current lot very much trying to.
Constitutional monarchies tend to give a shit about parties, constitutions and politics.
But the Tory Party constitution is not the UK constitution. The PM is whomsoever the MPs vote for in toto.
That’s absolutely correct. I’m not doubting that is the constitutionally correct position, i I am just saying that the Palace would hate it because it would force the Crown to make an appointment in the absence of fixed party processes.
The YouGov details are all fairly predictable and of course dire for the Tories in every respect. Two things to note:
There is as much as usual self interest in the views about tax - supporting all the stuff that advantages the majority, and opposing everything that gives to someone else.
And the figure for those who "Cannot afford my costs and often have to go without essentials....." is, at 5% lower than I would have thought.
Maybe that's why I am told, counter intuitively, that our local foodbank is remarkably quiet at the moment.
So SNP down from the 45% they got in 2019, SLAB up from 18%
That'll be all them Unionist SCons and SLDs going tactical on the SNP's ass..
The trick for SLab is attracting SLD and SCon tactical votes without losing voters out the other side to the SNP and Greens.
I confidently predict that that finesse is beyond them.
Did you see that wee diddy (in front of a yooj Union flag logo) at the Liverpool conference putting Meloni and her crew in the same bag as the SNP and Greens? It's like a sickness with them.
Hard to spot the diddy in a room full of diddies.
My favourite bit was promising to double the number of district nurses every year. Exponential graphing must have been covered when she missed that maths lesson.
tbf it could be promising to double the (number of district nurses every year), ie double the current output rate pa and leave it at that, rathger than promising to double the (number of district nurses) every year
Never give a diddy the benefit of the doubt.
Quite, like Mr Gove wanting everyone to be above average.
Can´t help feeling that we could be looking at the end of the modern Conservative party.
There are certainly parallels with the Liberal Party, during and after the first world war, with Johnson as the Lloyd George figure undermining the traditional heart of his party.
Longer term splits over Europe (Liberal Parallel; Ireland and the Suffragettes) have seen even former leadership contenders like Rory Stewart, Heseltine and Ken Clarke driven out from the party. These public service minded figures have been replaced by the hard-faced chancers, like JRM, Johnson and indeed Truss herself.
The divisions between Sunak and KK are fundamental, not just Wykhamist v Etonian. The party is fundamentally at odds with itself.
If I was an economically literate Tory MP, even with something like a 9K majority, I would be thinking very hard about whether it might not be better for the Parliamentary party to throw out the Populists now, before the Country does it in 2 years with the collateral damage being that I would also lose my seat.
Truss turns out to be the Militant Tendency of the modern Tories, and if not challenged the Tories could indeed go into a Canadian style meltdown. A 45-26 % split next time with a bit of tactical voting for the Lib Dems could get the Tories down into double figures.
PR then kills them.
You may be right about the split in the Tory party, but you're making an assumption that it won't be the Trussites who look vindicated in 12-months time. A lot can change domestically and internationally between now and then.
The Trussites cannot be vindicated. The Markets wont wear it. Today Dollar Parity, 3 months time, Euro Parity.
Reserves blown, rates into double figures, national humiliation, ergo KamiKwasi can not do what he is trying to do.
What if the pound going below dollar and euro parity and an increase in long-term rates is accompanied by a turnaround in UK growth? Would that not count as vindication? Her strategy will have worked.
Trashing the economy to the extent that it starts to grow from the rubble? Not ideal.
Is Dmitry Medvedev signalling a concession by Russia when he says Russia won't tolerate nuclear weapons being put in NATO-controlled Ukraine?
Does this mark a backtracking from the stated Russian war aim of demilitarising the Ukraine?
Could there be an agreement to the effect that
* Russian territory does not come under foreign or foreign-backed attack and any local neo-Nazi forces on Russian territory either surrender or f*** off out of it
* Ukraine can ally with who TF it likes, so long as no nuclear weapons are stationed on its soil?
Cf. the resolution of the Turkey-Italy-Cuba missile crisis in 1962, which ill-informed idiots call the Cuban missile crisis, but which at least they are right to term a crisis. Turkey and Italy stayed in NATO, but burgermuncher nukes were removed from their territory.
What about the Z fascists currently on Ukrainian territory?
There is still a chance for Tory MPs to save us and their party from this calamity.
The party would be utterly screwed by changing the top team 3 weeks after the last change. I mean, seriously ratnered. Holed below the waterline. Possibly terminally damaged.
You can’t pretend to be a serious party of government by deposing your leadership 3 weeks after they take the helm.
Might be better for the country mind, but for the Tories, terrible move.
It would be cross the streams bad. I know that.
But the alternative is worse. Anyway, my scenario is that after an excretable party conference and a harsh reaction from the markets, MPs say "fuck this shit" and bring down la Truss by voting down her Financial Suicide bill. And anoint Sunak. Who was their choice. Who was right about the economy. Who would prompt a big markets u-turn.
Truss would be spun as a terrible mistake imposed by the membership who were wrong. Change the rules to remove the stupid and they have a defensible line.
Or, don't. And they end.
He was the choice of barely a third of them.
He won every round of voting. Comfortably. Compared to Truss it would be very easy to make a case for Sunak being the leader the MPs wanted.
The only feasible alternative to Truss before the general election is Wallace by coronation, who MPs and members could support. Though Truss likely holds on
Genuinely interested in your take on this. You were openly a Sunak supporter. And why that was. Sunak - and you - were right. So why do you say Wallace?
Its an economic crisis on a massive scale. You need a new leader to calm the markets and bring stability to the political table. You can have your former chancellor who called this right and was the choice of MPs. Or the Defence Secretary who isn't seen as up on finance and wasn't the choice of MPs.
Why are you suggesting Wallace instead of Sunak? It would need to be a coronation though, wouldn't it?
The 1922 could change the rules to make it an MP vote over a week.
They couldn't. As has been pointed out they are responsible for admin, not for the basic structure.
EXCEPT they could say Fuck it, let's break the rules and ride roughshod over the rights of the members and appoint a new PM in the expectation a court would say to the members Sorry lads, not getting involved in politics.
The Palace would absolutely hate a scenario whereby HM was forced to appoint a PM not appointed party leader in line with the party’s constitution. I guess he’d probably be forced to though, if that person could demonstrate they had the confidence of the House.
Er, who gives a shite about X party's constitution? They don't own the UK, despite the current lot very much trying to.
Constitutional monarchies tend to give a shit about parties, constitutions and politics.
But the Tory Party constitution is not the UK constitution. The PM is whomsoever the MPs vote for in toto.
2B fair the courts were happy to get stuck in with Corbyn vs NEC in 2016 despite that being interfering in the identity of the LOTO which is a formally recognised, salaried position. I don't think a "separation of powers" argument was even raised. But I still think LOTOs is one thing, PMs is another.
Can´t help feeling that we could be looking at the end of the modern Conservative party.
There are certainly parallels with the Liberal Party, during and after the first world war, with Johnson as the Lloyd George figure undermining the traditional heart of his party.
Longer term splits over Europe (Liberal Parallel; Ireland and the Suffragettes) have seen even former leadership contenders like Rory Stewart, Heseltine and Ken Clarke driven out from the party. These public service minded figures have been replaced by the hard-faced chancers, like JRM, Johnson and indeed Truss herself.
The divisions between Sunak and KK are fundamental, not just Wykhamist v Etonian. The party is fundamentally at odds with itself.
If I was an economically literate Tory MP, even with something like a 9K majority, I would be thinking very hard about whether it might not be better for the Parliamentary party to throw out the Populists now, before the Country does it in 2 years with the collateral damage being that I would also lose my seat.
Truss turns out to be the Militant Tendency of the modern Tories, and if not challenged the Tories could indeed go into a Canadian style meltdown. A 45-26 % split next time with a bit of tactical voting for the Lib Dems could get the Tories down into double figures.
PR then kills them.
It was the populist right Reform Party that killed the Canadian Tories in 1993 and turned a heavy defeat into annihilation.
However PR would not just kill the current Tories but Labour too. A Nationalist Farage style Party would take votes and seats from the Tories with PR and Corbynites would leave Labour and start a new hard Left Party which would also win seats under PR
That's the point. PR allows those views to be actively represented, and form part of government, without hijacking it as Truss just did.
True but at the price of more unstable coalition governments with one party rarely ever winning a majority
Do you think this government is stable under FPTP? Or any government since 2015? The most stable recent government 2010-15 was a coalition.
There is still a chance for Tory MPs to save us and their party from this calamity.
The party would be utterly screwed by changing the top team 3 weeks after the last change. I mean, seriously ratnered. Holed below the waterline. Possibly terminally damaged.
You can’t pretend to be a serious party of government by deposing your leadership 3 weeks after they take the helm.
Might be better for the country mind, but for the Tories, terrible move.
It would be cross the streams bad. I know that.
But the alternative is worse. Anyway, my scenario is that after an excretable party conference and a harsh reaction from the markets, MPs say "fuck this shit" and bring down la Truss by voting down her Financial Suicide bill. And anoint Sunak. Who was their choice. Who was right about the economy. Who would prompt a big markets u-turn.
Truss would be spun as a terrible mistake imposed by the membership who were wrong. Change the rules to remove the stupid and they have a defensible line.
Or, don't. And they end.
He was the choice of barely a third of them.
He won every round of voting. Comfortably. Compared to Truss it would be very easy to make a case for Sunak being the leader the MPs wanted.
The only feasible alternative to Truss before the general election is Wallace by coronation, who MPs and members could support. Though Truss likely holds on
Genuinely interested in your take on this. You were openly a Sunak supporter. And why that was. Sunak - and you - were right. So why do you say Wallace?
Its an economic crisis on a massive scale. You need a new leader to calm the markets and bring stability to the political table. You can have your former chancellor who called this right and was the choice of MPs. Or the Defence Secretary who isn't seen as up on finance and wasn't the choice of MPs.
Why are you suggesting Wallace instead of Sunak? It would need to be a coronation though, wouldn't it?
The 1922 could change the rules to make it an MP vote over a week.
They couldn't. As has been pointed out they are responsible for admin, not for the basic structure.
EXCEPT they could say Fuck it, let's break the rules and ride roughshod over the rights of the members and appoint a new PM in the expectation a court would say to the members Sorry lads, not getting involved in politics.
The Palace would absolutely hate a scenario whereby HM was forced to appoint a PM not appointed party leader in line with the party’s constitution. I guess he’d probably be forced to though, if that person could demonstrate they had the confidence of the House.
Er, who gives a shite about X party's constitution? They don't own the UK, despite the current lot very much trying to.
Constitutional monarchies tend to give a shit about parties, constitutions and politics.
But the Tory Party constitution is not the UK constitution. The PM is whomsoever the MPs vote for in toto.
...in whatever procedure the executive of the '22 decide they want.
No; the House of Commons. The Tory Party can get up to whatever specialised perversions they like in deciding for whom their MPs will vote, but tractors, bondage andd so on are of no interest to Bagehot et al.
FUDHY is a very odd Tory. He has paeans of praise for General Franco, the Sweden Democrats, Meloni, Farage and Scottish Labour, but none for his own leader.
He's an authoritarian, bordering on what gets called "far right".
Truss is a dry as dust, socially liberal Conservative. Some people here used to say the believed in that, but not him.
It is you who are the hardline libertarian who has backed a strategy which has taken the Tories to 28% in the polls, not me
Yes it is, and your point is?
I would rather see the Tories lose with a libertarian time in office, than win with an authoritarian one.
Maybe but if this strategy sees the Tories face heave defeat at the next general election that will kill off libertarianism within the Tory party for a generation
There is still a chance for Tory MPs to save us and their party from this calamity.
The party would be utterly screwed by changing the top team 3 weeks after the last change. I mean, seriously ratnered. Holed below the waterline. Possibly terminally damaged.
You can’t pretend to be a serious party of government by deposing your leadership 3 weeks after they take the helm.
Might be better for the country mind, but for the Tories, terrible move.
It would be cross the streams bad. I know that.
But the alternative is worse. Anyway, my scenario is that after an excretable party conference and a harsh reaction from the markets, MPs say "fuck this shit" and bring down la Truss by voting down her Financial Suicide bill. And anoint Sunak. Who was their choice. Who was right about the economy. Who would prompt a big markets u-turn.
Truss would be spun as a terrible mistake imposed by the membership who were wrong. Change the rules to remove the stupid and they have a defensible line.
Or, don't. And they end.
He was the choice of barely a third of them.
The problem is the Tory Party has absolutely zero clue what it actually wants to be anymore. This does happen to all parties in power for too long, to some extent, but this is particularly bad.
Truss and Kwarteng are low tax, low spend, free market-eers who dont believe in sound money.
Sunak is a tax and spender with roots in the Johnsonian “levelling up” “spend it on our NHS instead” boosterism (on which let’s not forget the Conservative Party was elected in 2019 - NOT the policies Truss and Kwarteng are now following).
You’ve then got a dwindling band of Cameroony moderates like Hunt, a scattering of sound money Thatcherites, and a group that probably don’t care what the economic policy of the country is so long as they can attack the other parties on what the definition of a woman is.
I know all political parties are broad churches but the Tory Party is basically schizophrenic now.
The solution to this is PR. Let the Tories and labout split, and the loonies can be idelogically pure, then the grown ups can actually form the government.
Starmer's reaction to the party vote in favour of PR is disappointing and disingenuous. Calling it "not a priority" is effectively the same as saying he opposes it, without being honest about it.
Starmer is heading for a majority now in the polls, why on earth would he want PR forcing him to make deals with the Greens or LDs to form a government?
But he still gets his majority govt, doesn't he? Just with a pledge to hold a Ref on PR - with a Yes implemented for the next election. Wouldn't that be the route?
Unless a Labour government trailed badly in the polls I cannot even see them holding a referendum on PR
If Labour are heading towards a comfortable working majority, a referendum on PR is not happening. The only reason they'd consider it is if you accept the argument that the SNP being dominant in Scotland makes a Labour majority impossible unless they win big in England and Wales. Thing is, it looks right now they are going to win big in England and Wales.
What an interesting moment Michael Gove has chosen to criticise the government from the back benches. And what an interesting issue - the green farming subsidies Brexit headbangers are demanding are ditched. ~AA
There is still a chance for Tory MPs to save us and their party from this calamity.
The party would be utterly screwed by changing the top team 3 weeks after the last change. I mean, seriously ratnered. Holed below the waterline. Possibly terminally damaged.
You can’t pretend to be a serious party of government by deposing your leadership 3 weeks after they take the helm.
Might be better for the country mind, but for the Tories, terrible move.
It would be cross the streams bad. I know that.
But the alternative is worse. Anyway, my scenario is that after an excretable party conference and a harsh reaction from the markets, MPs say "fuck this shit" and bring down la Truss by voting down her Financial Suicide bill. And anoint Sunak. Who was their choice. Who was right about the economy. Who would prompt a big markets u-turn.
Truss would be spun as a terrible mistake imposed by the membership who were wrong. Change the rules to remove the stupid and they have a defensible line.
Or, don't. And they end.
He was the choice of barely a third of them.
He won every round of voting. Comfortably. Compared to Truss it would be very easy to make a case for Sunak being the leader the MPs wanted.
The only feasible alternative to Truss before the general election is Wallace by coronation, who MPs and members could support. Though Truss likely holds on
Genuinely interested in your take on this. You were openly a Sunak supporter. And why that was. Sunak - and you - were right. So why do you say Wallace?
Its an economic crisis on a massive scale. You need a new leader to calm the markets and bring stability to the political table. You can have your former chancellor who called this right and was the choice of MPs. Or the Defence Secretary who isn't seen as up on finance and wasn't the choice of MPs.
Why are you suggesting Wallace instead of Sunak? It would need to be a coronation though, wouldn't it?
The 1922 could change the rules to make it an MP vote over a week.
They couldn't. As has been pointed out they are responsible for admin, not for the basic structure.
EXCEPT they could say Fuck it, let's break the rules and ride roughshod over the rights of the members and appoint a new PM in the expectation a court would say to the members Sorry lads, not getting involved in politics.
The Palace would absolutely hate a scenario whereby HM was forced to appoint a PM not appointed party leader in line with the party’s constitution. I guess he’d probably be forced to though, if that person could demonstrate they had the confidence of the House.
Surely a coronation is within their rules? They did it for May.
Because Angela fell over and withdrew. You could of course fix a similar result if there were enough appetite for it....
Can´t help feeling that we could be looking at the end of the modern Conservative party.
There are certainly parallels with the Liberal Party, during and after the first world war, with Johnson as the Lloyd George figure undermining the traditional heart of his party.
Longer term splits over Europe (Liberal Parallel; Ireland and the Suffragettes) have seen even former leadership contenders like Rory Stewart, Heseltine and Ken Clarke driven out from the party. These public service minded figures have been replaced by the hard-faced chancers, like JRM, Johnson and indeed Truss herself.
The divisions between Sunak and KK are fundamental, not just Wykhamist v Etonian. The party is fundamentally at odds with itself.
If I was an economically literate Tory MP, even with something like a 9K majority, I would be thinking very hard about whether it might not be better for the Parliamentary party to throw out the Populists now, before the Country does it in 2 years with the collateral damage being that I would also lose my seat.
Truss turns out to be the Militant Tendency of the modern Tories, and if not challenged the Tories could indeed go into a Canadian style meltdown. A 45-26 % split next time with a bit of tactical voting for the Lib Dems could get the Tories down into double figures.
PR then kills them.
Starmer doesn’t want to kill the Conservative Party. He needs them. No Punch n Judy show without Punch.
Pah! Judy is throughly sick of having had to put up with 30 years of Punch ruling the roost out of the past 43 years.
Get rid of the Tories and Labour can concentrate on what it loves best - in-fighting!
There is still a chance for Tory MPs to save us and their party from this calamity.
The party would be utterly screwed by changing the top team 3 weeks after the last change. I mean, seriously ratnered. Holed below the waterline. Possibly terminally damaged.
You can’t pretend to be a serious party of government by deposing your leadership 3 weeks after they take the helm.
Might be better for the country mind, but for the Tories, terrible move.
It would be cross the streams bad. I know that.
But the alternative is worse. Anyway, my scenario is that after an excretable party conference and a harsh reaction from the markets, MPs say "fuck this shit" and bring down la Truss by voting down her Financial Suicide bill. And anoint Sunak. Who was their choice. Who was right about the economy. Who would prompt a big markets u-turn.
Truss would be spun as a terrible mistake imposed by the membership who were wrong. Change the rules to remove the stupid and they have a defensible line.
Or, don't. And they end.
He was the choice of barely a third of them.
He won every round of voting. Comfortably. Compared to Truss it would be very easy to make a case for Sunak being the leader the MPs wanted.
The only feasible alternative to Truss before the general election is Wallace by coronation, who MPs and members could support. Though Truss likely holds on
Genuinely interested in your take on this. You were openly a Sunak supporter. And why that was. Sunak - and you - were right. So why do you say Wallace?
Its an economic crisis on a massive scale. You need a new leader to calm the markets and bring stability to the political table. You can have your former chancellor who called this right and was the choice of MPs. Or the Defence Secretary who isn't seen as up on finance and wasn't the choice of MPs.
Why are you suggesting Wallace instead of Sunak? It would need to be a coronation though, wouldn't it?
The 1922 could change the rules to make it an MP vote over a week.
They couldn't. As has been pointed out they are responsible for admin, not for the basic structure.
EXCEPT they could say Fuck it, let's break the rules and ride roughshod over the rights of the members and appoint a new PM in the expectation a court would say to the members Sorry lads, not getting involved in politics.
The Palace would absolutely hate a scenario whereby HM was forced to appoint a PM not appointed party leader in line with the party’s constitution. I guess he’d probably be forced to though, if that person could demonstrate they had the confidence of the House.
Er, who gives a shite about X party's constitution? They don't own the UK, despite the current lot very much trying to.
Constitutional monarchies tend to give a shit about parties, constitutions and politics.
But the Tory Party constitution is not the UK constitution. The PM is whomsoever the MPs vote for in toto.
2B fair the courts were happy to get stuck in with Corbyn vs NEC in 2016 despite that being interfering in the identity of the LOTO which is a formally recognised, salaried position. I don't think a "separation of powers" argument was even raised. But I still think LOTOs is one thing, PMs is another.
Interesting apparent paradox - LOTO must involve the identification of a specific party, and therefore the LB constitution is relevant; but PM doesn't - slightly paradoxically: the PM is whomsoever the house as a whole will reliably vote for. Hell, Ms Lucas could in principle be PM.
The good point made here is that the pound has stabilised today partly because the markets are already expecting massive spending cuts to pay for the tax cuts, as I alluded to with Adam Tooze's article earlier.
If the Tories keep Truss and Kwarteng on, it will be seen as a statement of support for what may be those pre-prepared plans.
Is Dmitry Medvedev signalling a concession by Russia when he says Russia won't tolerate nuclear weapons being put in NATO-controlled Ukraine?
Does this mark a backtracking from the stated Russian war aim of demilitarising the Ukraine?
Could there be an agreement to the effect that
* Russian territory does not come under foreign or foreign-backed attack and any local neo-Nazi forces on Russian territory either surrender or f*** off out of it
* Ukraine can ally with who TF it likes, so long as no nuclear weapons are stationed on its soil?
Cf. the resolution of the Turkey-Italy-Cuba missile crisis in 1962, which ill-informed idiots call the Cuban missile crisis, but which at least they are right to term a crisis. Turkey and Italy stayed in NATO, but burgermuncher nukes were removed from their territory.
Russia does not get to undertake fake referenda to decide what is "Russian territory". As per Erdogan, that includes fucking off out of Crimea.
The YouGov details are all fairly predictable and of course dire for the Tories in every respect. Two things to note:
There is as much as usual self interest in the views about tax - supporting all the stuff that advantages the majority, and opposing everything that gives to someone else.
And the figure for those who "Cannot afford my costs and often have to go without essentials....." is, at 5% lower than I would have thought.
Maybe that's why I am told, counter intuitively, that our local foodbank is remarkably quiet at the moment.
So SNP down from the 45% they got in 2019, SLAB up from 18%
That'll be all them Unionist SCons and SLDs going tactical on the SNP's ass..
The trick for SLab is attracting SLD and SCon tactical votes without losing voters out the other side to the SNP and Greens.
I confidently predict that that finesse is beyond them.
Did you see that wee diddy (in front of a yooj Union flag logo) at the Liverpool conference putting Meloni and her crew in the same bag as the SNP and Greens? It's like a sickness with them.
Hard to spot the diddy in a room full of diddies.
My favourite bit was promising to double the number of district nurses every year. Exponential graphing must have been covered when she missed that maths lesson.
tbf it could be promising to double the (number of district nurses every year), ie double the current output rate pa and leave it at that, rathger than promising to double the (number of district nurses) every year
Never give a diddy the benefit of the doubt.
Quite, like Mr Gove wanting everyone to be above average.
I wonder if it was Mr Gove who gave Kwarteng the wee “snifter” that resulted in his unseemly antics at Westminster Abbey during HM’s funeral?
Can´t help feeling that we could be looking at the end of the modern Conservative party.
There are certainly parallels with the Liberal Party, during and after the first world war, with Johnson as the Lloyd George figure undermining the traditional heart of his party.
Longer term splits over Europe (Liberal Parallel; Ireland and the Suffragettes) have seen even former leadership contenders like Rory Stewart, Heseltine and Ken Clarke driven out from the party. These public service minded figures have been replaced by the hard-faced chancers, like JRM, Johnson and indeed Truss herself.
The divisions between Sunak and KK are fundamental, not just Wykhamist v Etonian. The party is fundamentally at odds with itself.
If I was an economically literate Tory MP, even with something like a 9K majority, I would be thinking very hard about whether it might not be better for the Parliamentary party to throw out the Populists now, before the Country does it in 2 years with the collateral damage being that I would also lose my seat.
Truss turns out to be the Militant Tendency of the modern Tories, and if not challenged the Tories could indeed go into a Canadian style meltdown. A 45-26 % split next time with a bit of tactical voting for the Lib Dems could get the Tories down into double figures.
PR then kills them.
You may be right about the split in the Tory party, but you're making an assumption that it won't be the Trussites who look vindicated in 12-months time. A lot can change domestically and internationally between now and then.
The Trussites cannot be vindicated. The Markets wont wear it. Today Dollar Parity, 3 months time, Euro Parity.
Reserves blown, rates into double figures, national humiliation, ergo KamiKwasi can not do what he is trying to do.
What if the pound going below dollar and euro parity and an increase in long-term rates is accompanied by a turnaround in UK growth? Would that not count as vindication? Her strategy will have worked.
Trashing the economy to the extent that it starts to grow from the rubble? Not ideal.
It's more a process of clearing out the trash that has been allowed to accumulate by previous governments.
Not so long ago the Tories had a 15% lead over labour, now Labour have a 15 % lead over the Tories, I dont actually think either are or were true.Things are fluid, when it settles down it will more likely be a 5% lead for Labour we see consistently, just because we are interested in politics, we falsely assume the whole country is , which couldnt be further from the truth, in reality the vast majority of the population only switch on around GE time, if you are lucky. So when Uncle Rupert declares in the Sun in 2024, that the Tories are the party to get us out of this mess, that precarious labour lead will fall further
FUDHY is a very odd Tory. He has paeans of praise for General Franco, the Sweden Democrats, Meloni, Farage and Scottish Labour, but none for his own leader.
He's an authoritarian, bordering on what gets called "far right".
Truss is a dry as dust, socially liberal Conservative. Some people here used to say the believed in that, but not him.
It is you who are the hardline libertarian who has backed a strategy which has taken the Tories to 28% in the polls, not me
Yes it is, and your point is?
I would rather see the Tories lose with a libertarian time in office, than win with an authoritarian one.
Maybe but if this strategy sees the Tories face heave defeat at the next general election that will kill off libertarianism within the Tory party for a generation
Is Dmitry Medvedev signalling a concession by Russia when he says Russia won't tolerate nuclear weapons being put in NATO-controlled Ukraine?
Does this mark a backtracking from the stated Russian war aim of demilitarising the Ukraine?
Could there be an agreement to the effect that
* Russian territory does not come under foreign or foreign-backed attack and any local neo-Nazi forces on Russian territory either surrender or f*** off out of it
* Ukraine can ally with who TF it likes, so long as no nuclear weapons are stationed on its soil?
Cf. the resolution of the Turkey-Italy-Cuba missile crisis in 1962, which ill-informed idiots call the Cuban missile crisis, but which at least they are right to term a crisis. Turkey and Italy stayed in NATO, but burgermuncher nukes were removed from their territory.
Both Italy and Turkey had nuclear weapons on their soil through the Cold War.
There are B61s at Incirlik right now.
Italy is similarly part of the NATO nuclear sharing system - BorrowABomb from the US.
The reason that the Jupiter missiles were removed from Turkey was that, with the arrival of Minuteman and Polaris, a huge pile of emergency developed weapons systems were obsolete. The Kennedy administration policy was to get rid of the weird and dangerous junk and built lots of the stuff that worked.
Hence the end of Skybolt and a raft of other weapons that were less good than Polaris and Minuteman.
And why the missiles in Turkey were due for removal before the Cuban Missile Crisis.
I somehow came by a Leaked copy of Starmer's speech! Here goes:
Comrades, this is your captain. It is an honour to speak to you today, and I am honored to be sailing with you on the maiden voyage of our Party's most recent achievement. Once more, we play our dangerous game, a game of chess against our old adversary — the Conservative Party. For 100 years, your fathers before you and your older brothers played this game and played it well. But today, the game is different. We have the advantage, and it reminds me of the heady days of the Welfare State and Clement Attlee, when the world trembled at the sound of our nationalisations. Well, they will tremble again — at the sound of our poll leads. The order is: engage the Starmer Drive!
Comrades, our own Unionised Left-wing don't know our full potential. They will do everything possible to test us; but they will only test their own embarrassment. We will leave our extremists behind, we will pass through the Conservative patrols, past their sonar nets, and lay off their largest constituency, and listen to their chortling and tittering... while we conduct austerity debates. Then, and when we are finished, the only sound they will hear is our own laughter, while we sail to Liverpool, where the sun is warm, and so is the... comradeship.
A great day, comrades. We sail into history!
If only Starmer had the charisma of Connery.
"We will shit of theirr coasht and lishten to theirr rrock and rroll". Well the Tories certainly know enough about shit off the coast these days,
Can´t help feeling that we could be looking at the end of the modern Conservative party.
There are certainly parallels with the Liberal Party, during and after the first world war, with Johnson as the Lloyd George figure undermining the traditional heart of his party.
Longer term splits over Europe (Liberal Parallel; Ireland and the Suffragettes) have seen even former leadership contenders like Rory Stewart, Heseltine and Ken Clarke driven out from the party. These public service minded figures have been replaced by the hard-faced chancers, like JRM, Johnson and indeed Truss herself.
The divisions between Sunak and KK are fundamental, not just Wykhamist v Etonian. The party is fundamentally at odds with itself.
If I was an economically literate Tory MP, even with something like a 9K majority, I would be thinking very hard about whether it might not be better for the Parliamentary party to throw out the Populists now, before the Country does it in 2 years with the collateral damage being that I would also lose my seat.
Truss turns out to be the Militant Tendency of the modern Tories, and if not challenged the Tories could indeed go into a Canadian style meltdown. A 45-26 % split next time with a bit of tactical voting for the Lib Dems could get the Tories down into double figures.
PR then kills them.
It was the populist right Reform Party that killed the Canadian Tories in 1993 and turned a heavy defeat into annihilation.
However PR would not just kill the current Tories but Labour too. A Nationalist Farage style Party would take votes and seats from the Tories with PR and Corbynites would leave Labour and start a new hard Left Party which would also win seats under PR
That's the point. PR allows those views to be actively represented, and form part of government, without hijacking it as Truss just did.
True but at the price of more unstable coalition governments with one party rarely ever winning a majority
There is still a chance for Tory MPs to save us and their party from this calamity.
The party would be utterly screwed by changing the top team 3 weeks after the last change. I mean, seriously ratnered. Holed below the waterline. Possibly terminally damaged.
You can’t pretend to be a serious party of government by deposing your leadership 3 weeks after they take the helm.
Might be better for the country mind, but for the Tories, terrible move.
It would be cross the streams bad. I know that.
But the alternative is worse. Anyway, my scenario is that after an excretable party conference and a harsh reaction from the markets, MPs say "fuck this shit" and bring down la Truss by voting down her Financial Suicide bill. And anoint Sunak. Who was their choice. Who was right about the economy. Who would prompt a big markets u-turn.
Truss would be spun as a terrible mistake imposed by the membership who were wrong. Change the rules to remove the stupid and they have a defensible line.
Or, don't. And they end.
He was the choice of barely a third of them.
He won every round of voting. Comfortably. Compared to Truss it would be very easy to make a case for Sunak being the leader the MPs wanted.
The only feasible alternative to Truss before the general election is Wallace by coronation, who MPs and members could support. Though Truss likely holds on
Genuinely interested in your take on this. You were openly a Sunak supporter. And why that was. Sunak - and you - were right. So why do you say Wallace?
Its an economic crisis on a massive scale. You need a new leader to calm the markets and bring stability to the political table. You can have your former chancellor who called this right and was the choice of MPs. Or the Defence Secretary who isn't seen as up on finance and wasn't the choice of MPs.
Why are you suggesting Wallace instead of Sunak? It would need to be a coronation though, wouldn't it?
The 1922 could change the rules to make it an MP vote over a week.
They couldn't. As has been pointed out they are responsible for admin, not for the basic structure.
EXCEPT they could say Fuck it, let's break the rules and ride roughshod over the rights of the members and appoint a new PM in the expectation a court would say to the members Sorry lads, not getting involved in politics.
The Palace would absolutely hate a scenario whereby HM was forced to appoint a PM not appointed party leader in line with the party’s constitution. I guess he’d probably be forced to though, if that person could demonstrate they had the confidence of the House.
Surely a coronation is within their rules? They did it for May.
Because Angela fell over and withdrew. You could of course fix a similar result if there were enough appetite for it....
The last thing Tory MPs are going to do is allow a vote of members to give us Truss 2.0 (ever assuming there is anybody that shite amongst their ranks).
Can´t help feeling that we could be looking at the end of the modern Conservative party.
There are certainly parallels with the Liberal Party, during and after the first world war, with Johnson as the Lloyd George figure undermining the traditional heart of his party.
Longer term splits over Europe (Liberal Parallel; Ireland and the Suffragettes) have seen even former leadership contenders like Rory Stewart, Heseltine and Ken Clarke driven out from the party. These public service minded figures have been replaced by the hard-faced chancers, like JRM, Johnson and indeed Truss herself.
The divisions between Sunak and KK are fundamental, not just Wykhamist v Etonian. The party is fundamentally at odds with itself.
If I was an economically literate Tory MP, even with something like a 9K majority, I would be thinking very hard about whether it might not be better for the Parliamentary party to throw out the Populists now, before the Country does it in 2 years with the collateral damage being that I would also lose my seat.
Truss turns out to be the Militant Tendency of the modern Tories, and if not challenged the Tories could indeed go into a Canadian style meltdown. A 45-26 % split next time with a bit of tactical voting for the Lib Dems could get the Tories down into double figures.
PR then kills them.
Starmer doesn’t want to kill the Conservative Party. He needs them. No Punch n Judy show without Punch.
Pah! Judy is throughly sick of having had to put up with 30 years of Punch ruling the roost out of the past 43 years.
Get rid of the Tories and Labour can concentrate on what it loves best - in-fighting!
Try being a Scot. We haven’t voted Tory since 1955, and still the wee pests think they rule our roost.
FUDHY is a very odd Tory. He has paeans of praise for General Franco, the Sweden Democrats, Meloni, Farage and Scottish Labour, but none for his own leader.
He's an authoritarian, bordering on what gets called "far right".
Truss is a dry as dust, socially liberal Conservative. Some people here used to say the believed in that, but not him.
It is you who are the hardline libertarian who has backed a strategy which has taken the Tories to 28% in the polls, not me
Yes it is, and your point is?
I would rather see the Tories lose with a libertarian time in office, than win with an authoritarian one.
Maybe but if this strategy sees the Tories face heave defeat at the next general election that will kill off libertarianism within the Tory party for a generation
Can´t help feeling that we could be looking at the end of the modern Conservative party.
There are certainly parallels with the Liberal Party, during and after the first world war, with Johnson as the Lloyd George figure undermining the traditional heart of his party.
Longer term splits over Europe (Liberal Parallel; Ireland and the Suffragettes) have seen even former leadership contenders like Rory Stewart, Heseltine and Ken Clarke driven out from the party. These public service minded figures have been replaced by the hard-faced chancers, like JRM, Johnson and indeed Truss herself.
The divisions between Sunak and KK are fundamental, not just Wykhamist v Etonian. The party is fundamentally at odds with itself.
If I was an economically literate Tory MP, even with something like a 9K majority, I would be thinking very hard about whether it might not be better for the Parliamentary party to throw out the Populists now, before the Country does it in 2 years with the collateral damage being that I would also lose my seat.
Truss turns out to be the Militant Tendency of the modern Tories, and if not challenged the Tories could indeed go into a Canadian style meltdown. A 45-26 % split next time with a bit of tactical voting for the Lib Dems could get the Tories down into double figures.
PR then kills them.
It was the populist right Reform Party that killed the Canadian Tories in 1993 and turned a heavy defeat into annihilation.
However PR would not just kill the current Tories but Labour too. A Nationalist Farage style Party would take votes and seats from the Tories with PR and Corbynites would leave Labour and start a new hard Left Party which would also win seats under PR
That's the point. PR allows those views to be actively represented, and form part of government, without hijacking it as Truss just did.
True but at the price of more unstable coalition governments with one party rarely ever winning a majority
So no downsides then.
No, not unless you think parties stitching up the composition of the government behind closed doors without giving a damn what the people want or voted for is a "downside".
There is still a chance for Tory MPs to save us and their party from this calamity.
The party would be utterly screwed by changing the top team 3 weeks after the last change. I mean, seriously ratnered. Holed below the waterline. Possibly terminally damaged.
You can’t pretend to be a serious party of government by deposing your leadership 3 weeks after they take the helm.
Might be better for the country mind, but for the Tories, terrible move.
It would be cross the streams bad. I know that.
But the alternative is worse. Anyway, my scenario is that after an excretable party conference and a harsh reaction from the markets, MPs say "fuck this shit" and bring down la Truss by voting down her Financial Suicide bill. And anoint Sunak. Who was their choice. Who was right about the economy. Who would prompt a big markets u-turn.
Truss would be spun as a terrible mistake imposed by the membership who were wrong. Change the rules to remove the stupid and they have a defensible line.
Or, don't. And they end.
He was the choice of barely a third of them.
He won every round of voting. Comfortably. Compared to Truss it would be very easy to make a case for Sunak being the leader the MPs wanted.
The only feasible alternative to Truss before the general election is Wallace by coronation, who MPs and members could support. Though Truss likely holds on
Genuinely interested in your take on this. You were openly a Sunak supporter. And why that was. Sunak - and you - were right. So why do you say Wallace?
Its an economic crisis on a massive scale. You need a new leader to calm the markets and bring stability to the political table. You can have your former chancellor who called this right and was the choice of MPs. Or the Defence Secretary who isn't seen as up on finance and wasn't the choice of MPs.
Why are you suggesting Wallace instead of Sunak? It would need to be a coronation though, wouldn't it?
The 1922 could change the rules to make it an MP vote over a week.
They couldn't. As has been pointed out they are responsible for admin, not for the basic structure.
EXCEPT they could say Fuck it, let's break the rules and ride roughshod over the rights of the members and appoint a new PM in the expectation a court would say to the members Sorry lads, not getting involved in politics.
The Palace would absolutely hate a scenario whereby HM was forced to appoint a PM not appointed party leader in line with the party’s constitution. I guess he’d probably be forced to though, if that person could demonstrate they had the confidence of the House.
Er, who gives a shite about X party's constitution? They don't own the UK, despite the current lot very much trying to.
Constitutional monarchies tend to give a shit about parties, constitutions and politics.
But the Tory Party constitution is not the UK constitution. The PM is whomsoever the MPs vote for in toto.
...in whatever procedure the executive of the '22 decide they want.
Technically not so, you just need to go along to the palace with a letter saying dear Charlie, X has our confidence and is the tops, signed 326 MPs of any description whatever.
Can´t help feeling that we could be looking at the end of the modern Conservative party.
There are certainly parallels with the Liberal Party, during and after the first world war, with Johnson as the Lloyd George figure undermining the traditional heart of his party.
Longer term splits over Europe (Liberal Parallel; Ireland and the Suffragettes) have seen even former leadership contenders like Rory Stewart, Heseltine and Ken Clarke driven out from the party. These public service minded figures have been replaced by the hard-faced chancers, like JRM, Johnson and indeed Truss herself.
The divisions between Sunak and KK are fundamental, not just Wykhamist v Etonian. The party is fundamentally at odds with itself.
If I was an economically literate Tory MP, even with something like a 9K majority, I would be thinking very hard about whether it might not be better for the Parliamentary party to throw out the Populists now, before the Country does it in 2 years with the collateral damage being that I would also lose my seat.
Truss turns out to be the Militant Tendency of the modern Tories, and if not challenged the Tories could indeed go into a Canadian style meltdown. A 45-26 % split next time with a bit of tactical voting for the Lib Dems could get the Tories down into double figures.
PR then kills them.
You may be right about the split in the Tory party, but you're making an assumption that it won't be the Trussites who look vindicated in 12-months time. A lot can change domestically and internationally between now and then.
The Trussites cannot be vindicated. The Markets wont wear it. Today Dollar Parity, 3 months time, Euro Parity.
Reserves blown, rates into double figures, national humiliation, ergo KamiKwasi can not do what he is trying to do.
Who gives a flying f**k if we pass parity with either the dollar or the Euro? What difference does it make?
If the pound reaches a new equilibrium that encourages economic growth and exports more than consumerism and imports, then that could help not hinder Truss's agenda.
It may have escaped your notice but the English identity is inextricably bound up in a peculiarly insecure iteration of nationalism. Hence the need to believe everything is the best and world beating often in sweet oblivion to the facts.
If the pound goes below $1 and stays there then that is a stark and simply comprehended marker of ego death for the English identity. The voters of Hartlepool will be so enraged that they will vomit up the seagull and oven chips they had for their "tea". All of this spreadsheet wanker stuff about equilibrium and exports means nothing compared to the emotional implications.
Can´t help feeling that we could be looking at the end of the modern Conservative party.
There are certainly parallels with the Liberal Party, during and after the first world war, with Johnson as the Lloyd George figure undermining the traditional heart of his party.
Longer term splits over Europe (Liberal Parallel; Ireland and the Suffragettes) have seen even former leadership contenders like Rory Stewart, Heseltine and Ken Clarke driven out from the party. These public service minded figures have been replaced by the hard-faced chancers, like JRM, Johnson and indeed Truss herself.
The divisions between Sunak and KK are fundamental, not just Wykhamist v Etonian. The party is fundamentally at odds with itself.
If I was an economically literate Tory MP, even with something like a 9K majority, I would be thinking very hard about whether it might not be better for the Parliamentary party to throw out the Populists now, before the Country does it in 2 years with the collateral damage being that I would also lose my seat.
Truss turns out to be the Militant Tendency of the modern Tories, and if not challenged the Tories could indeed go into a Canadian style meltdown. A 45-26 % split next time with a bit of tactical voting for the Lib Dems could get the Tories down into double figures.
PR then kills them.
You may be right about the split in the Tory party, but you're making an assumption that it won't be the Trussites who look vindicated in 12-months time. A lot can change domestically and internationally between now and then.
The Trussites cannot be vindicated. The Markets wont wear it. Today Dollar Parity, 3 months time, Euro Parity.
Reserves blown, rates into double figures, national humiliation, ergo KamiKwasi can not do what he is trying to do.
What if the pound going below dollar and euro parity and an increase in long-term rates is accompanied by a turnaround in UK growth? Would that not count as vindication? Her strategy will have worked.
Agreed.
If the Tories u-turn now then that's it, over, Black Wednesday redux. They would have torched their credibility on the economy and for serious government for nothing.
But if they stick the course and it works, then Truss can in a couple of years make the argument "we made the tough choices and saw it through, now don't let Labour put it at risk".
Those obsessing over Sterling aren't seeing the woods for the trees. Sterling stability to the Deutschemark was government policy in ERM, and defending Sterling was policy, so allowing Sterling to fall then was a major failure.
Sterling is freely floating now. Freely floating currencies can go up or down, its not a problem. The government's stated goal is to get the economy growing, if lower taxes and lower Sterling helps make that viable, then they will have achieved their goal.
There is still a chance for Tory MPs to save us and their party from this calamity.
The party would be utterly screwed by changing the top team 3 weeks after the last change. I mean, seriously ratnered. Holed below the waterline. Possibly terminally damaged.
You can’t pretend to be a serious party of government by deposing your leadership 3 weeks after they take the helm.
Might be better for the country mind, but for the Tories, terrible move.
It would be cross the streams bad. I know that.
But the alternative is worse. Anyway, my scenario is that after an excretable party conference and a harsh reaction from the markets, MPs say "fuck this shit" and bring down la Truss by voting down her Financial Suicide bill. And anoint Sunak. Who was their choice. Who was right about the economy. Who would prompt a big markets u-turn.
Truss would be spun as a terrible mistake imposed by the membership who were wrong. Change the rules to remove the stupid and they have a defensible line.
Or, don't. And they end.
He was the choice of barely a third of them.
He won every round of voting. Comfortably. Compared to Truss it would be very easy to make a case for Sunak being the leader the MPs wanted.
The only feasible alternative to Truss before the general election is Wallace by coronation, who MPs and members could support. Though Truss likely holds on
Genuinely interested in your take on this. You were openly a Sunak supporter. And why that was. Sunak - and you - were right. So why do you say Wallace?
Its an economic crisis on a massive scale. You need a new leader to calm the markets and bring stability to the political table. You can have your former chancellor who called this right and was the choice of MPs. Or the Defence Secretary who isn't seen as up on finance and wasn't the choice of MPs.
Why are you suggesting Wallace instead of Sunak? It would need to be a coronation though, wouldn't it?
The 1922 could change the rules to make it an MP vote over a week.
They couldn't. As has been pointed out they are responsible for admin, not for the basic structure.
EXCEPT they could say Fuck it, let's break the rules and ride roughshod over the rights of the members and appoint a new PM in the expectation a court would say to the members Sorry lads, not getting involved in politics.
The Palace would absolutely hate a scenario whereby HM was forced to appoint a PM not appointed party leader in line with the party’s constitution. I guess he’d probably be forced to though, if that person could demonstrate they had the confidence of the House.
Surely a coronation is within their rules? They did it for May.
Because Angela fell over and withdrew. You could of course fix a similar result if there were enough appetite for it....
In the real world, the media has not managed find one current senior tory to go on the record to criticise Truss and Kwarteng. Not effing one.
There is still a chance for Tory MPs to save us and their party from this calamity.
The party would be utterly screwed by changing the top team 3 weeks after the last change. I mean, seriously ratnered. Holed below the waterline. Possibly terminally damaged.
You can’t pretend to be a serious party of government by deposing your leadership 3 weeks after they take the helm.
Might be better for the country mind, but for the Tories, terrible move.
It would be cross the streams bad. I know that.
But the alternative is worse. Anyway, my scenario is that after an excretable party conference and a harsh reaction from the markets, MPs say "fuck this shit" and bring down la Truss by voting down her Financial Suicide bill. And anoint Sunak. Who was their choice. Who was right about the economy. Who would prompt a big markets u-turn.
Truss would be spun as a terrible mistake imposed by the membership who were wrong. Change the rules to remove the stupid and they have a defensible line.
Or, don't. And they end.
He was the choice of barely a third of them.
He won every round of voting. Comfortably. Compared to Truss it would be very easy to make a case for Sunak being the leader the MPs wanted.
The only feasible alternative to Truss before the general election is Wallace by coronation, who MPs and members could support. Though Truss likely holds on
Genuinely interested in your take on this. You were openly a Sunak supporter. And why that was. Sunak - and you - were right. So why do you say Wallace?
Its an economic crisis on a massive scale. You need a new leader to calm the markets and bring stability to the political table. You can have your former chancellor who called this right and was the choice of MPs. Or the Defence Secretary who isn't seen as up on finance and wasn't the choice of MPs.
Why are you suggesting Wallace instead of Sunak? It would need to be a coronation though, wouldn't it?
The 1922 could change the rules to make it an MP vote over a week.
They couldn't. As has been pointed out they are responsible for admin, not for the basic structure.
EXCEPT they could say Fuck it, let's break the rules and ride roughshod over the rights of the members and appoint a new PM in the expectation a court would say to the members Sorry lads, not getting involved in politics.
The Palace would absolutely hate a scenario whereby HM was forced to appoint a PM not appointed party leader in line with the party’s constitution. I guess he’d probably be forced to though, if that person could demonstrate they had the confidence of the House.
Surely a coronation is within their rules? They did it for May.
Because Angela fell over and withdrew. You could of course fix a similar result if there were enough appetite for it....
Can´t help feeling that we could be looking at the end of the modern Conservative party.
There are certainly parallels with the Liberal Party, during and after the first world war, with Johnson as the Lloyd George figure undermining the traditional heart of his party.
Longer term splits over Europe (Liberal Parallel; Ireland and the Suffragettes) have seen even former leadership contenders like Rory Stewart, Heseltine and Ken Clarke driven out from the party. These public service minded figures have been replaced by the hard-faced chancers, like JRM, Johnson and indeed Truss herself.
The divisions between Sunak and KK are fundamental, not just Wykhamist v Etonian. The party is fundamentally at odds with itself.
If I was an economically literate Tory MP, even with something like a 9K majority, I would be thinking very hard about whether it might not be better for the Parliamentary party to throw out the Populists now, before the Country does it in 2 years with the collateral damage being that I would also lose my seat.
Truss turns out to be the Militant Tendency of the modern Tories, and if not challenged the Tories could indeed go into a Canadian style meltdown. A 45-26 % split next time with a bit of tactical voting for the Lib Dems could get the Tories down into double figures.
PR then kills them.
You may be right about the split in the Tory party, but you're making an assumption that it won't be the Trussites who look vindicated in 12-months time. A lot can change domestically and internationally between now and then.
The Trussites cannot be vindicated. The Markets wont wear it. Today Dollar Parity, 3 months time, Euro Parity.
Reserves blown, rates into double figures, national humiliation, ergo KamiKwasi can not do what he is trying to do.
Who gives a flying f**k if we pass parity with either the dollar or the Euro? What difference does it make?
If the pound reaches a new equilibrium that encourages economic growth and exports more than consumerism and imports, then that could help not hinder Truss's agenda.
It may have escaped your notice but the English identity is inextricably bound up in a peculiarly insecure iteration of nationalism. Hence the need to believe everything is the best and world beating often in sweet oblivion to the facts.
If the pound goes below $1 and stays there then that is a stark and simply comprehended marker of ego death for the English identity. The voters of Hartlepool will be so enraged that they will vomit up the seagull and oven chips they had for their "tea". All of this spreadsheet wanker stuff about equilibrium and exports means nothing compared to the emotional implications.
Not the first time they've been taken for a monkey, mind.
Not so long ago the Tories had a 15% lead over labour, now Labour have a 15 % lead over the Tories, I dont actually think either are or were true.Things are fluid, when it settles down it will more likely be a 5% lead for Labour we see consistently, just because we are interested in politics, we falsely assume the whole country is , which couldnt be further from the truth, in reality the vast majority of the population only switch on around GE time, if you are lucky. So when Uncle Rupert declares in the Sun in 2024, that the Tories are the party to get us out of this mess, that precarious labour lead will fall further
Sterling is freely floating now. Freely floating currencies can go up or down, its not a problem. The government's stated goal is to get the economy growing, if lower taxes and lower Sterling helps make that viable, then they will have achieved their goal.
Sports Personality of the Year to take place on [Wednesday] 21 December
They might as well not bother; we seem a bit rubbish at sport this year. Win some, lose the ones that matter.
What are you talking about? The test cricket was amazing
Stokes is the man
Yep. And Qatar to come. Southgate has us peaking at just the right time methinks.
What? 🥹
Yep. I'm a skilled sportswatcher and looking at England is like ... you're horses, aren't you? ... ok like seeing that one on the bridle, saving ground on the inner, middle of the pack and just starting its smooth accelerating run from about the 3f pole. I like our chances in the Sandpit. 6/1 a touch short though.
But not as "too short" as 2.8 to lay a Truss exit in 2023. I've gobbled that. Betting into overreactions is one of my fav techniques and I think we have that in spades here. They cannot change leaders again, no way. She's their bed and they have to lie in it now.
There is still a chance for Tory MPs to save us and their party from this calamity.
The party would be utterly screwed by changing the top team 3 weeks after the last change. I mean, seriously ratnered. Holed below the waterline. Possibly terminally damaged.
You can’t pretend to be a serious party of government by deposing your leadership 3 weeks after they take the helm.
Might be better for the country mind, but for the Tories, terrible move.
It would be cross the streams bad. I know that.
But the alternative is worse. Anyway, my scenario is that after an excretable party conference and a harsh reaction from the markets, MPs say "fuck this shit" and bring down la Truss by voting down her Financial Suicide bill. And anoint Sunak. Who was their choice. Who was right about the economy. Who would prompt a big markets u-turn.
Truss would be spun as a terrible mistake imposed by the membership who were wrong. Change the rules to remove the stupid and they have a defensible line.
Or, don't. And they end.
He was the choice of barely a third of them.
He won every round of voting. Comfortably. Compared to Truss it would be very easy to make a case for Sunak being the leader the MPs wanted.
The only feasible alternative to Truss before the general election is Wallace by coronation, who MPs and members could support. Though Truss likely holds on
Genuinely interested in your take on this. You were openly a Sunak supporter. And why that was. Sunak - and you - were right. So why do you say Wallace?
Its an economic crisis on a massive scale. You need a new leader to calm the markets and bring stability to the political table. You can have your former chancellor who called this right and was the choice of MPs. Or the Defence Secretary who isn't seen as up on finance and wasn't the choice of MPs.
Why are you suggesting Wallace instead of Sunak? It would need to be a coronation though, wouldn't it?
The 1922 could change the rules to make it an MP vote over a week.
They couldn't. As has been pointed out they are responsible for admin, not for the basic structure.
EXCEPT they could say Fuck it, let's break the rules and ride roughshod over the rights of the members and appoint a new PM in the expectation a court would say to the members Sorry lads, not getting involved in politics.
The Palace would absolutely hate a scenario whereby HM was forced to appoint a PM not appointed party leader in line with the party’s constitution. I guess he’d probably be forced to though, if that person could demonstrate they had the confidence of the House.
Surely a coronation is within their rules? They did it for May.
Because Angela fell over and withdrew. You could of course fix a similar result if there were enough appetite for it....
In the real world, the media has not managed find one current senior tory to go on the record to criticise Truss and Kwarteng. Not effing one.
Anonymous "a former Tory Minister" briefings really are weak. Truss doesn't even have any former Ministers yet.
Can´t help feeling that we could be looking at the end of the modern Conservative party.
There are certainly parallels with the Liberal Party, during and after the first world war, with Johnson as the Lloyd George figure undermining the traditional heart of his party.
Longer term splits over Europe (Liberal Parallel; Ireland and the Suffragettes) have seen even former leadership contenders like Rory Stewart, Heseltine and Ken Clarke driven out from the party. These public service minded figures have been replaced by the hard-faced chancers, like JRM, Johnson and indeed Truss herself.
The divisions between Sunak and KK are fundamental, not just Wykhamist v Etonian. The party is fundamentally at odds with itself.
If I was an economically literate Tory MP, even with something like a 9K majority, I would be thinking very hard about whether it might not be better for the Parliamentary party to throw out the Populists now, before the Country does it in 2 years with the collateral damage being that I would also lose my seat.
Truss turns out to be the Militant Tendency of the modern Tories, and if not challenged the Tories could indeed go into a Canadian style meltdown. A 45-26 % split next time with a bit of tactical voting for the Lib Dems could get the Tories down into double figures.
PR then kills them.
You may be right about the split in the Tory party, but you're making an assumption that it won't be the Trussites who look vindicated in 12-months time. A lot can change domestically and internationally between now and then.
The Trussites cannot be vindicated. The Markets wont wear it. Today Dollar Parity, 3 months time, Euro Parity.
Reserves blown, rates into double figures, national humiliation, ergo KamiKwasi can not do what he is trying to do.
What if the pound going below dollar and euro parity and an increase in long-term rates is accompanied by a turnaround in UK growth? Would that not count as vindication? Her strategy will have worked.
Trashing the economy to the extent that it starts to grow from the rubble? Not ideal.
Some people here seem to be incredibly blasé about the immediate effects the collapse of the pound and the rise in the cost of borrowing are going to have on actual physical flesh-and-blood people, many of whom were already staring into the abyss because of energy costs alone. Now they are going to be much worse off.
This is about the lives of millions of real people. It's not some kind of Micky Mouse brainstorming exercise for wet-behind-the-ears self-styled economic theorists, in which they can argue academic points about the definition of success.
Can´t help feeling that we could be looking at the end of the modern Conservative party.
There are certainly parallels with the Liberal Party, during and after the first world war, with Johnson as the Lloyd George figure undermining the traditional heart of his party.
Longer term splits over Europe (Liberal Parallel; Ireland and the Suffragettes) have seen even former leadership contenders like Rory Stewart, Heseltine and Ken Clarke driven out from the party. These public service minded figures have been replaced by the hard-faced chancers, like JRM, Johnson and indeed Truss herself.
The divisions between Sunak and KK are fundamental, not just Wykhamist v Etonian. The party is fundamentally at odds with itself.
If I was an economically literate Tory MP, even with something like a 9K majority, I would be thinking very hard about whether it might not be better for the Parliamentary party to throw out the Populists now, before the Country does it in 2 years with the collateral damage being that I would also lose my seat.
Truss turns out to be the Militant Tendency of the modern Tories, and if not challenged the Tories could indeed go into a Canadian style meltdown. A 45-26 % split next time with a bit of tactical voting for the Lib Dems could get the Tories down into double figures.
PR then kills them.
You may be right about the split in the Tory party, but you're making an assumption that it won't be the Trussites who look vindicated in 12-months time. A lot can change domestically and internationally between now and then.
The Trussites cannot be vindicated. The Markets wont wear it. Today Dollar Parity, 3 months time, Euro Parity.
Reserves blown, rates into double figures, national humiliation, ergo KamiKwasi can not do what he is trying to do.
Who gives a flying f**k if we pass parity with either the dollar or the Euro? What difference does it make?
If the pound reaches a new equilibrium that encourages economic growth and exports more than consumerism and imports, then that could help not hinder Truss's agenda.
In two words: confidence and capacity.
The long term productivity numbers show that there has been insufficient investment in the UK over the past 30-odd years, so lower currency rates do not improve the competitive position of the economy sufficient to trigger growth. The economic capacity, especially the industrial capacity, is too small and too weak for Sterling based assets alone to restore a stable growth rate. The negative view of the country means that it would take a very long time to gain inward investment, especially as we are not in the single market.
The impact of a collapse of confidence in the UK means that we can no longer afford so many imports but do not have the capacity for import substitution and there will be a persistent investment gap. So the most likely impact is a very long and very deep depression.
Is Dmitry Medvedev signalling a concession by Russia when he says Russia won't tolerate nuclear weapons being put in NATO-controlled Ukraine?
Does this mark a backtracking from the stated Russian war aim of demilitarising the Ukraine?
Could there be an agreement to the effect that
* Russian territory does not come under foreign or foreign-backed attack and any local neo-Nazi forces on Russian territory either surrender or f*** off out of it
* Ukraine can ally with who TF it likes, so long as no nuclear weapons are stationed on its soil?
Cf. the resolution of the Turkey-Italy-Cuba missile crisis in 1962, which ill-informed idiots call the Cuban missile crisis, but which at least they are right to term a crisis. Turkey and Italy stayed in NATO, but burgermuncher nukes were removed from their territory.
Both Italy and Turkey had nuclear weapons on their soil through the Cold War.
There are B61s at Incirlik right now.
Italy is similarly part of the NATO nuclear sharing system - BorrowABomb from the US.
The reason that the Jupiter missiles were removed from Turkey was that, with the arrival of Minuteman and Polaris, a huge pile of emergency developed weapons systems were obsolete. The Kennedy administration policy was to get rid of the weird and dangerous junk and built lots of the stuff that worked.
Hence the end of Skybolt and a raft of other weapons that were less good than Polaris and Minuteman.
And why the missiles in Turkey were due for removal before the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Italy and Turkey did not have nuclear weapons on their soil throughout the cold war, and the idea that the missiles in Turkey (which had been placed there in 1961 if I recall correctly) were due for removal anyway, was just a bullsh*t line that the western governments told their home market. For another line of the same type, see the idea that Greville Wynne was just an innocent businessman innocently caught in a spy flap and the only reason Britain agreed to swap him for Konon Molody aka Gordon Lonsdale was to let the Soviets save face. Hahaha! Sixty years later and you still believe this crap.
Not so long ago the Tories had a 15% lead over labour, now Labour have a 15 % lead over the Tories, I dont actually think either are or were true.Things are fluid, when it settles down it will more likely be a 5% lead for Labour we see consistently, just because we are interested in politics, we falsely assume the whole country is , which couldnt be further from the truth, in reality the vast majority of the population only switch on around GE time, if you are lucky. So when Uncle Rupert declares in the Sun in 2024, that the Tories are the party to get us out of this mess, that precarious labour lead will fall further
9 times out of 10 I’d agree with you. But I dunno, this really does feel very different. It’s the very real economic pain that will prevent the normally highly dependable swingback.
Maybe the Con DKs won’t end up voting Labour, but I expect a late LD surge and a heck of a lot of Con2019 abstentions. Meanwhile, Lab, SNP and LD abstentions from 2019 are likely to be back with a bang. Especially the Lab ones (Corbyn bounceback).
Re a coronation - In the last leadership race however, they were hopelessly split. Who can they actually unite behind?
Can’t be Rishi - members have just rejected him…
Appears to me it can only be Wallace*. But he doesn’t want it and it’s a poisoned chalice, particularly when he is perfectly happy doing the job he likes doing at the MOD.
Penny or Kemi are other options I suppose but they are both relatively inexperienced and the hour would not call for another gamble.
*or, whisper it, the Rt Hon Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip?
Sports Personality of the Year to take place on [Wednesday] 21 December
They might as well not bother; we seem a bit rubbish at sport this year. Win some, lose the ones that matter.
What are you talking about? The test cricket was amazing
Stokes is the man
Yep. And Qatar to come. Southgate has us peaking at just the right time methinks.
What? 🥹
Yep. I'm a skilled sportswatcher and looking at England is like ... you're horses, aren't you? ... ok like seeing that one on the bridle, saving ground on the inner, middle of the pack and just starting its smooth accelerating run from about the 3f pole. I like our chances in the Sandpit. 6/1 a touch short though.
But not as "too short" as 2.8 to lay a Truss exit in 2023. I've gobbled that. Betting into overreactions is one of my fav techniques and I think we have that in spades here. They cannot change leaders again, no way. She's their bed and they have to lie in it now.
What? 🥹
BTW just out of interest, esteemed leporid, what's that squiggle in a box after your post mean, please?
Comments
What we have seen over this month, is a reaction to the cost of the Boris cake.
“Highest tax burden since the war? This. Is. A. Disgrace.”
Therefore what was the most logical policy to campaign on.
It’s politics of reaction.
The yield, or interest rate, on 30-year gilts has jumped above 4.6% this morning, up from 4.4% on Monday. That’s the highest since 2008.
At the start of last week, 30-year gilts were trading at a yield of 3.5%.
A video of a convoy of buses with mobilized people in temporarily occupied Sevastopol appeared online.
At least 2,000 men were mobilized.
https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1574721915570163713
And yes that new harder left party may win a few seats in places like Liverpool but at the end of the day they would be voting with the Labour party on most matters...
But not as "too short" as 2.8 to lay a Truss exit in 2023. I've gobbled that. Betting into overreactions is one of my fav techniques and I think we have that in spades here. They cannot change leaders again, no way. She's their bed and they have to lie in it now.
@faisalislam
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4m
RIP the Truss plan to stretch out the debt with COVID bonds… 30 year yields just hit 4.7% - highest levels now since before great financial crisis June 2007
https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/1574722721363140608
EXCEPT they could say Fuck it, let's break the rules and ride roughshod over the rights of the members and appoint a new PM in the expectation a court would say to the members Sorry lads, not getting involved in politics.
And if the Tory Party lurch to authoritarianism, then they deserve to be out of power for a generation anyway. And I would gladly vote against them.
He doesn't want the job, so the 'understanding' is easily achieved. And he stands outside the factions which emerged in the leadership contest.
He'd need to bring Sunak back as Chancellor, as it really does need someone who can hit the ground running, as opposed to hit the ground with a wet splat.
And the same for Labour. Around 1992 and again in 2019 a lot of people were predicting the demise of Labour but here we are on the cusp of another Labour government.
What goes around comes around and political parties survive and endure...
And PR would see both Con AND Lab both split (Con would split between "one nation" and Tory/Lab would split between centrists and socialists)
The political pendulum would still swing left and right as it has always done just it would swing between "blocks" of 2 or more parties rather than one single grouping of Con and Lab as we as we have now.
The right wing "block" would still get their share of governments... But the fact Labour will splinter under PR is why Labour will never do it (but I expect they will continue to dangle the carrot in front of the Lib-Dems, Greens etc
Comrades, this is your captain. It is an honour to speak to you today, and I am honored to be sailing with you on the maiden voyage of our Party's most recent achievement. Once more, we play our dangerous game, a game of chess against our old adversary — the Conservative Party. For 100 years, your fathers before you and your older brothers played this game and played it well. But today, the game is different. We have the advantage, and it reminds me of the heady days of the Welfare State and Clement Attlee, when the world trembled at the sound of our nationalisations. Well, they will tremble again — at the sound of our poll leads. The order is: engage the Starmer Drive!
Comrades, our own Unionised Left-wing don't know our full potential. They will do everything possible to test us; but they will only test their own embarrassment. We will leave our extremists behind, we will pass through the Conservative patrols, past their sonar nets, and lay off their largest constituency, and listen to their chortling and tittering... while we conduct austerity debates. Then, and when we are finished, the only sound they will hear is our own laughter, while we sail to Liverpool, where the sun is warm, and so is the... comradeship.
A great day, comrades. We sail into history!
Does this mark a backtracking from the stated Russian war aim of demilitarising the Ukraine?
Could there be an agreement to the effect that
* Russian territory does not come under foreign or foreign-backed attack and any local neo-Nazi forces on Russian territory either surrender or f*** off out of it
* Ukraine can ally with who TF it likes, so long as no nuclear weapons are stationed on its soil?
Cf. the resolution of the Turkey-Italy-Cuba missile crisis in 1962, which ill-informed idiots call the Cuban missile crisis, but which at least they are right to term a crisis. Turkey and Italy stayed in NATO, but burgermuncher nukes were removed from their territory.
My favourite bit was promising to double the number of district nurses every year.
Exponential graphing must have been covered when she missed that maths lesson.
Reserves blown, rates into double figures, national humiliation, ergo KamiKwasi can not do what he is trying to do.
LAB: 44% (+2)
CON: 31% (-1)
LDM: 12% (+2)
GRN: 4% (-2)
REF: 2% (=)
It’s over. Labour 20 point lead nailed on
If the pound reaches a new equilibrium that encourages economic growth and exports more than consumerism and imports, then that could help not hinder Truss's agenda.
FUDHY must be delighted with this upstanding Christian administration.
Once bitten, twice shy, and all that.....
Correct me where wrong, in my rather rambling theory. it’s starts in 1960s a bit of the story I’m not familiar with, but the Daily Mail used to be a conservative newspaper once - its amazing to think that really after the last ten years - I think it started to switch to populism in 1960s when it merged with another title? More recently we have started to import politics from the USA via the social and alternative media. Like importing grey squirrels when we used to be red squirrel.
Populism (right or left) pushes the idea of popular sovereignty above the independence of democratic institutions and the professionalism of the representatives and leaders of those institutions - populism as populist opportunism, masquerading as values and agenda for government like a crusading ideology pretending it is voice of all the people, whilst acting undemocratically deaf to anyone with a different view. Likewise the undermining of civil service and attack on all the counterbalances of power, this is a very opposite ideology to UK Conservatism (red squirrel)
Simple question. Did the paper which printed this (from the linked article) have too much influence over the recent Conservative Party leadership contest - this in reply to HY saying, but with PR libdems will quite happily cosy up to all this, keeping Labour out of power. But I agree with your PR is coming and is the chance to fight back against the Mail’s populism.
It’s “enemy of the people” populism was supported by a politician, who was then supported in return.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemies_of_the_People_(headline)
Labour need to convert more of those disillusioned by the Tories into Labour voters. Of course, if they do so, then the headline numbers will deteriorate even further for the Tories.
Investor confidence has been shattered by the mini-budget rolled out by the Truss government http://trib.al/OcpmAAt https://twitter.com/BloombergUK/status/1574721286827294720/photo/1
Or any government since 2015?
The most stable recent government 2010-15 was a coalition.
Or maybe that only applies outwith its natural range, eg in Scotland, where it is a notoriously fragile and sick pest.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/dont-ditch-green-brexit-farm-subsidies-michael-gove-warns-rr0hswhmg
Get rid of the Tories and Labour can concentrate on what it loves best - in-fighting!
If the Tories keep Truss and Kwarteng on, it will be seen as a statement of support for what may be those pre-prepared plans.
https://twitter.com/benfenton/status/1574722332416950273
There are B61s at Incirlik right now.
Italy is similarly part of the NATO nuclear sharing system - BorrowABomb from the US.
The reason that the Jupiter missiles were removed from Turkey was that, with the arrival of Minuteman and Polaris, a huge pile of emergency developed weapons systems were obsolete. The Kennedy administration policy was to get rid of the weird and dangerous junk and built lots of the stuff that worked.
Hence the end of Skybolt and a raft of other weapons that were less good than Polaris and Minuteman.
And why the missiles in Turkey were due for removal before the Cuban Missile Crisis.
It will be a coronation, baby, all the way.
https://news.cityoflondon.gov.uk/ancient-trees-celebrated-at-epping-forest/
If the pound goes below $1 and stays there then that is a stark and simply comprehended marker of ego death for the English identity. The voters of Hartlepool will be so enraged that they will vomit up the seagull and oven chips they had for their "tea". All of this spreadsheet wanker stuff about equilibrium and exports means nothing compared to the emotional implications.
If the Tories u-turn now then that's it, over, Black Wednesday redux. They would have torched their credibility on the economy and for serious government for nothing.
But if they stick the course and it works, then Truss can in a couple of years make the argument "we made the tough choices and saw it through, now don't let Labour put it at risk".
Those obsessing over Sterling aren't seeing the woods for the trees. Sterling stability to the Deutschemark was government policy in ERM, and defending Sterling was policy, so allowing Sterling to fall then was a major failure.
Sterling is freely floating now. Freely floating currencies can go up or down, its not a problem. The government's stated goal is to get the economy growing, if lower taxes and lower Sterling helps make that viable, then they will have achieved their goal.
This is about the lives of millions of real people. It's not some kind of Micky Mouse brainstorming exercise for wet-behind-the-ears self-styled economic theorists, in which they can argue academic points about the definition of success.
The long term productivity numbers show that there has been insufficient investment in the UK over the past 30-odd years, so lower currency rates do not improve the competitive position of the economy sufficient to trigger growth. The economic capacity, especially the industrial capacity, is too small and too weak for Sterling based assets alone to restore a stable growth rate. The negative view of the country means that it would take a very long time to gain inward investment, especially as we are not in the single market.
The impact of a collapse of confidence in the UK means that we can no longer afford so many imports but do not have the capacity for import substitution and there will be a persistent investment gap. So the most likely impact is a very long and very deep depression.
Maybe the Con DKs won’t end up voting Labour, but I expect a late LD surge and a heck of a lot of Con2019 abstentions. Meanwhile, Lab, SNP and LD abstentions from 2019 are likely to be back with a bang. Especially the Lab ones (Corbyn bounceback).
Can’t be Rishi - members have just rejected him…
Appears to me it can only be Wallace*. But he doesn’t want it and it’s a poisoned chalice, particularly when he is perfectly happy doing the job he likes doing at the MOD.
Penny or Kemi are other options I suppose but they are both relatively inexperienced and the hour would not call for another gamble.
*or, whisper it, the Rt Hon Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip?