"Correction: economists expect -0.4% growth in 2023"
Yes, quite a major error!
8.8% is the expected inflation rate, it’s not -8.8% GDP
That would be worse than Covid
However -0.4% seems optimistic to me. This war isn’t going anywhere and all the risks are on the downside
OECD had them on -0.7% next year in Tuesdays figure release. Of course i am not an economist but given Germany's susceptibility to energy disruption, the panicked German Green calls for keeping nuclear going, the very weak Euro and the ECB lagging everyone (even the BoE) in acting, id probably be temoted to bet on a larger drop.
I think it could be still worse than that
Yesterday you and I were viewing the Trussterfuck as indicative of a wider global problem. I stand by that view. There is too much debt and a ton of anxiety. The USA itself is paying a lot more to lenders
My bet is that the bond markets will now move on to the next victim. There is money to be made in menacing countries as well as companies so the logic is inexorable
Who is next? The obvious targets are Italy or Japan (massive debt) but it may be more surprising. Belgium?
@MarqueeMark , forget the party politics, but are you lobbying Jonathan Reynolds to get your Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon up and running after day one of any change in Government? Time might be ticking.
I'm waiting until next month, to lobby Prime Minister Ben Wallace.....
I mean, that might be trite and humorous. But who in their right mind is going to bother lobbying Truss/Kwarteng? They will be gone before they can deliver on anything.
You'll wait until the grown-ups are back in the room.
MIRAS is almost certainly going to be back on the cards. As with energy bills, there is no way the Government is going to let households - particularly such a key demographic - take such a hit.
Also expect a reverse ferret of the Bank of England unwinding its QE programme. To some degree, it has already happened.
What does MIRAS actually solve (although it removes an inbalance between buy to renters and private owners)?
@MarqueeMark , forget the party politics, but are you lobbying Jonathan Reynolds to get your Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon up and running after day one of any change in Government? Time might be ticking.
I'm waiting until next month, to lobby Prime Minister Ben Wallace.....
I mean, that might be trite and humorous. But who in their right mind is going to bother lobbying Truss/Kwarteng? They will be gone before they can deliver on anything.
You'll wait until the grown-ups are back in the room.
No, it came over as deadly serious first time round.
Re Header, I have laid a 23 exit for Truss @ 2.5 for quite a chunk. I think punters are getting carried away. The Cons will look utter plonkers if they change leaders again before the election. Of course they might if things get crazy enough but the price should be more like 5 or 6 imo.
Yes - plus BF 2.42 @ "No" Truss Vote of no confidence before next GE is worth taking IMO. I'm on already.
AIUI CP can't have VONC for 12 months from when she took over and the BF rules say:
"If Liz Truss stands down/is removed as leader without the need of a confidence vote then No will be settled as a winner
If Liz Truss stands down as leader after the No Confidence vote is triggered but before the actual vote takes place then No will be settled as the winner."
Yep I've done that bet also. And I've laid Muscles as next Con leader at 8.
There's some good "overreaction" money to bet into atm imo.
Ed Davey must be excited about being the official Leader of the Opposition after the election.
Sir Ed v Sir Keir, sounds very Game of Thrones.
If there was to be a non Tory leader of the Opposition to a Starmer government it would be led by Farage not Davey, if the Tories completely collapsed Canada 1993 style and were replaced by RefUK
You will know more than I do how many seats the LD’s are second to the Tories in so I am possibly wrong but surely if the Tories haemorrhage votes a lot will go to the Lib Dems as things stand (West Country, Winchester type seats).
If there is a Farage party up and running ahead of the next election they will indeed attract a lump of Tory votes but of the Tory vote gets split three ways (Farage, Tory hold-outs and LD) then the Tories will be wiped and Faragists unlikely to pick up many seats at the election.
Added to those seats that will go from Tory to Labour I can easily see a way for Ed Davey to be next leader of the opposition.
No, if the Tory vote collapsed completely ie to about 10% most of that would go to Farage as in the European elections who would then win most of the remaining Tory safe seats while Labour picked up most of the marginals. Even if the LDs picked up a few Tory home counties seats
I know this is completely academic as the Tories won't go down to 10% (I know European elections, but people protest there, not so a GE), but if the Tories did go to 10% I disagree with your prediction (although my views are entirely a gut reaction so I accept I might be entirely wrong). I would predict that if the Tories were on 10% (and the LDs on a decent percentage) the LDs would sweep much of the South and South West and take a significant number of affluent or rural seats elsewhere (Harrogate, Hereford, etc). I agree there would be a Farage boom turning the remaining previously safe Tory seats which didn't go LD in Kent and Essex and such like into Labour/Farage marginals (Clacton and such like). I also think there would be a lot of Labour/Farage marginals in the Redwall.
So I could see a Labour landslide with a LD opposition and a handful of Farage if the Tories went to 10%. Of course we will never know as I think the Tories have the most stable highest core of all the main parties.
PS actually on re-reading your post I realise I only partly disagree and agree with some of it.
Farage and his parties benefit from PR systems - I don't know how well Reform or any new vehicle would do in FPTP.
This is why I think Tories going down to 15-20% in a GE would probably lead to Lab and LDs gaining almost all, with a Faragist party maybe picking up a handful of seats.
MIRAS is almost certainly going to be back on the cards. As with energy bills, there is no way the Government is going to let households - particularly such a key demographic - take such a hit.
Also expect a reverse ferret of the Bank of England unwinding its QE programme. To some degree, it has already happened.
Hope you're right about MIRAS, it'd be expensive mind... perhaps an upper cap on it of say 300k of o/s capital ?
The Truss round of local radio stations was arranged pre budget. So that confirms (if conformation were needed) that, no, neither No 10 or No 11 anticipated the possibility the budget would crash the economy. It also so shows how utterly hopeless she is in a political crisis. https://twitter.com/fatshez/status/1575428119963525121
It's funny how many of the posters on here who screeched and wailed about the evils of Europe and desired Brexit above everything else, are now condemning the government that gave them exactly what you wanted.
Your desire for Brexit got us extremists into government. Each PM has been more 'extreme' than the last: but it did not matter, as long as you got Brexit.
Although I bet most of you are fairly well-off, and so won't suffer too much in the economic downturn *your* perverted dream has caused.
Agreed. Surely this is the Singapore-on-Thames Brexit that the ERG dreamed of.
Brexit itself was bad enough but the calibre of Brexiteer governments that it brought in in its wake has been a total disaster
It isn't SoT. Yet. The market calamity has collapsed our room to maneuverer. So we must have Massive Spending Cuts. And a Bonfire of Regulations. So that the workshy scum which is the British working people will be forced to finally work hard for their masters.
In late November, the plan is to take an axe to the safety net, to support services, and to all the woke things that make us soft. To your rights as an employee, to your rights as a resident, to your rights as a human being in a western democracy.
They talk about fracking and planning. That means they can develop land next to you without you having a say. Without your NIMBY consent. The creation of these Special Economic Zones where private cabals can do what they like in a low tax low regulation free-for-all.
Will it be good for the public? Hell no. Will it be great for Tory donors and patrons? Oh yeah. cf South Tees Development Corporation for a road map. Note that BBC Tees asked about local sea life death. Which the Mayor insists is nothing at all to do with dredging done by STDC's masters with no public oversight.
I don't doubt that Truss is trying to unleash some kind of IEA inspired "Singapore on Thames" fantasy on the country, and the next stage is "emergency cuts". They are basically like weirdo university students pursuing a poorly understood version of "Thatcherism" on the UK. Maybe this is the problem, the people running the country have lived in an academic/political bubble for their whole lives and haven't lived in the real world.
But, the thing is this. Singapore has an ordered and powerful state. The singapore analogy falls, as does the US analogy. There is no country that just goes around smashing up the state in the way they would like to do.
I wouldn't be surprised if this all leads to protests and riots. Even the police have had enough of this crap.
MIRAS is almost certainly going to be back on the cards. As with energy bills, there is no way the Government is going to let households - particularly such a key demographic - take such a hit.
Also expect a reverse ferret of the Bank of England unwinding its QE programme. To some degree, it has already happened.
What does MIRAS actually solve (although it removes an inbalance between buy to renters and private owners)?
It'd solve some of the mortgage payments of potential Tory voters.
Ed Davey must be excited about being the official Leader of the Opposition after the election.
Sir Ed v Sir Keir, sounds very Game of Thrones.
If there was to be a non Tory leader of the Opposition to a Starmer government it would be led by Farage not Davey, if the Tories completely collapsed Canada 1993 style and were replaced by RefUK
You will know more than I do how many seats the LD’s are second to the Tories in so I am possibly wrong but surely if the Tories haemorrhage votes a lot will go to the Lib Dems as things stand (West Country, Winchester type seats).
If there is a Farage party up and running ahead of the next election they will indeed attract a lump of Tory votes but of the Tory vote gets split three ways (Farage, Tory hold-outs and LD) then the Tories will be wiped and Faragists unlikely to pick up many seats at the election.
Added to those seats that will go from Tory to Labour I can easily see a way for Ed Davey to be next leader of the opposition.
No, if the Tory vote collapsed completely ie to about 10% most of that would go to Farage as in the European elections who would then win most of the remaining Tory safe seats while Labour picked up most of the marginals. Even if the LDs picked up a few Tory home counties seats
I know this is completely academic as the Tories won't go down to 10% (I know European elections, but people protest there, not so a GE), but if the Tories did go to 10% I disagree with your prediction (although my views are entirely a gut reaction so I accept I might be entirely wrong). I would predict that if the Tories were on 10% (and the LDs on a decent percentage) the LDs would sweep much of the South and South West and take a significant number of affluent or rural seats elsewhere (Harrogate, Hereford, etc). I agree there would be a Farage boom turning the remaining previously safe Tory seats which didn't go LD in Kent and Essex and such like into Labour/Farage marginals (Clacton and such like). I also think there would be a lot of Labour/Farage marginals in the Redwall.
So I could see a Labour landslide with a LD opposition and a handful of Farage if the Tories went to 10%. Of course we will never know as I think the Tories have the most stable highest core of all the main parties.
PS actually on re-reading your post I realise I only partly disagree and agree with some of it.
Farage and his parties benefit from PR systems - I don't know how well Reform or any new vehicle would do in FPTP.
This is why I think Tories going down to 15-20% in a GE would probably lead to Lab and LDs gaining almost all, with a Faragist party maybe picking up a handful of seats.
I agree. The premise though was 10%.
But 10% is unlikely - GE squeeze is different to PR squeeze. I think 15-20% is more reasonable.
Kwarteng and Truss aren't idiots so they'll need to find some way to square the circle come November. Further cuts to local Gov't looks one on the books to me, so everyone will get a huge council tax rise to go along with the big mortgage increase particularly in red wall areas. I thought my seat Bassetlaw would be Tory for a long long time but I'm not sure about that any more. I'll be voting Starmer anyway - could be a tight marginal.
Truss went and did 8 local radio interviews today - including Norwich and Lancashire.
In Norwich where she is a local MP she couldn't even promise that the hospital that is falling apart can be repaired.
In Lancashire she couldn't provide a sane answer regarding Fracking.
Both were the obvious questions that were going to be asked for which she should have had prepared answers.
To say she is useless is to insult 99.999% of people who are useless she is way way beyond useless
If Truss goes it will be a very peculiar historical situation where she essentially popped into No.10 to see off the Queen and then was the new monarch’s PM for a matter of weeks.
If she did a favour for any of us it was sparing us BoJos eulogy…
Ed Davey must be excited about being the official Leader of the Opposition after the election.
Sir Ed v Sir Keir, sounds very Game of Thrones.
If there was to be a non Tory leader of the Opposition to a Starmer government it would be led by Farage not Davey, if the Tories completely collapsed Canada 1993 style and were replaced by RefUK
You will know more than I do how many seats the LD’s are second to the Tories in so I am possibly wrong but surely if the Tories haemorrhage votes a lot will go to the Lib Dems as things stand (West Country, Winchester type seats).
If there is a Farage party up and running ahead of the next election they will indeed attract a lump of Tory votes but of the Tory vote gets split three ways (Farage, Tory hold-outs and LD) then the Tories will be wiped and Faragists unlikely to pick up many seats at the election.
Added to those seats that will go from Tory to Labour I can easily see a way for Ed Davey to be next leader of the opposition.
No, if the Tory vote collapsed completely ie to about 10% most of that would go to Farage as in the European elections who would then win most of the remaining Tory safe seats while Labour picked up most of the marginals. Even if the LDs picked up a few Tory home counties seats
I know this is completely academic as the Tories won't go down to 10% (I know European elections, but people protest there, not so a GE), but if the Tories did go to 10% I disagree with your prediction (although my views are entirely a gut reaction so I accept I might be entirely wrong). I would predict that if the Tories were on 10% (and the LDs on a decent percentage) the LDs would sweep much of the South and South West and take a significant number of affluent or rural seats elsewhere (Harrogate, Hereford, etc). I agree there would be a Farage boom turning the remaining previously safe Tory seats which didn't go LD in Kent and Essex and such like into Labour/Farage marginals (Clacton and such like). I also think there would be a lot of Labour/Farage marginals in the Redwall.
So I could see a Labour landslide with a LD opposition and a handful of Farage if the Tories went to 10%. Of course we will never know as I think the Tories have the most stable highest core of all the main parties.
PS actually on re-reading your post I realise I only partly disagree and agree with some of it.
Farage and his parties benefit from PR systems - I don't know how well Reform or any new vehicle would do in FPTP.
This is why I think Tories going down to 15-20% in a GE would probably lead to Lab and LDs gaining almost all, with a Faragist party maybe picking up a handful of seats.
I agree. The premise though was 10%.
But 10% is unlikely - GE squeeze is different to PR squeeze. I think 15-20% is more reasonable.
Lets look at the next election.
Labour need 320+ seats - they used to get 50 in Scotland but are going to get about 4 max .
That means as a Tory voter you have 2 options at the next election - vote Tory for a hung Parliament or lend Labour your vote and ensure they get a decent majority that allows them to do something...
A lot of sane voters are going to be giving SKS the benefit of the doubt because the other option is complete and utter chaos...
MIRAS is almost certainly going to be back on the cards. As with energy bills, there is no way the Government is going to let households - particularly such a key demographic - take such a hit.
Also expect a reverse ferret of the Bank of England unwinding its QE programme. To some degree, it has already happened.
What does MIRAS actually solve (although it removes an inbalance between buy to renters and private owners)?
And creates an imbalance between home owners and renters.
"Correction: economists expect -0.4% growth in 2023"
Yes, quite a major error!
8.8% is the expected inflation rate, it’s not -8.8% GDP
That would be worse than Covid
However -0.4% seems optimistic to me. This war isn’t going anywhere and all the risks are on the downside
OECD had them on -0.7% next year in Tuesdays figure release. Of course i am not an economist but given Germany's susceptibility to energy disruption, the panicked German Green calls for keeping nuclear going, the very weak Euro and the ECB lagging everyone (even the BoE) in acting, id probably be temoted to bet on a larger drop.
I think it could be still worse than that
Yesterday you and I were viewing the Trussterfuck as indicative of a wider global problem. I stand by that view. There is too much debt and a ton of anxiety. The USA itself is paying a lot more to lenders
My bet is that the bond markets will now move on to the next victim. There is money to be made in menacing countries as well as companies so the logic is inexorable
Who is next? The obvious targets are Italy or Japan (massive debt) but it may be more surprising. Belgium?
Theyll go for whoever sticks their head above the parapet, probe for weakness etc. Its ideal conditions for the Masters of the Universe to make an even more massive fortune at our expense. Not so sure about Japan, they just accept another three lost decades and bumble along, not a panic economy. Europe is the puppy, its collective is its weakness, countries being expected to go against what they want to protect the hive. Look at what was done to Greece. Its ripe for a ruining frankly. As are we I should add (as right now shows)
The Truss round of local radio stations was arranged pre budget. So that confirms (if conformation were needed) that, no, neither No 10 or No 11 anticipated the possibility the budget would crash the economy. It also so shows how utterly hopeless she is in a political crisis. https://twitter.com/fatshez/status/1575428119963525121
That's even worse. Given a week to prepare for some specifically local questions she didn't bother....
Ed Davey must be excited about being the official Leader of the Opposition after the election.
Sir Ed v Sir Keir, sounds very Game of Thrones.
If there was to be a non Tory leader of the Opposition to a Starmer government it would be led by Farage not Davey, if the Tories completely collapsed Canada 1993 style and were replaced by RefUK
You will know more than I do how many seats the LD’s are second to the Tories in so I am possibly wrong but surely if the Tories haemorrhage votes a lot will go to the Lib Dems as things stand (West Country, Winchester type seats).
If there is a Farage party up and running ahead of the next election they will indeed attract a lump of Tory votes but of the Tory vote gets split three ways (Farage, Tory hold-outs and LD) then the Tories will be wiped and Faragists unlikely to pick up many seats at the election.
Added to those seats that will go from Tory to Labour I can easily see a way for Ed Davey to be next leader of the opposition.
No, if the Tory vote collapsed completely ie to about 10% most of that would go to Farage as in the European elections who would then win most of the remaining Tory safe seats while Labour picked up most of the marginals. Even if the LDs picked up a few Tory home counties seats
I know this is completely academic as the Tories won't go down to 10% (I know European elections, but people protest there, not so a GE), but if the Tories did go to 10% I disagree with your prediction (although my views are entirely a gut reaction so I accept I might be entirely wrong). I would predict that if the Tories were on 10% (and the LDs on a decent percentage) the LDs would sweep much of the South and South West and take a significant number of affluent or rural seats elsewhere (Harrogate, Hereford, etc). I agree there would be a Farage boom turning the remaining previously safe Tory seats which didn't go LD in Kent and Essex and such like into Labour/Farage marginals (Clacton and such like). I also think there would be a lot of Labour/Farage marginals in the Redwall.
So I could see a Labour landslide with a LD opposition and a handful of Farage if the Tories went to 10%. Of course we will never know as I think the Tories have the most stable highest core of all the main parties.
PS actually on re-reading your post I realise I only partly disagree and agree with some of it.
Farage and his parties benefit from PR systems - I don't know how well Reform or any new vehicle would do in FPTP.
This is why I think Tories going down to 15-20% in a GE would probably lead to Lab and LDs gaining almost all, with a Faragist party maybe picking up a handful of seats.
I agree. The premise though was 10%.
But 10% is unlikely - GE squeeze is different to PR squeeze. I think 15-20% is more reasonable.
Again I agree. Need to read my post. I was commenting on a hypothetical position raised which I pointed out, and that I think we all agree, is exceedingly unlikely. If you note I even commented that I think the Tories have the highest core vote of all the parties.
MIRAS is almost certainly going to be back on the cards. As with energy bills, there is no way the Government is going to let households - particularly such a key demographic - take such a hit.
Also expect a reverse ferret of the Bank of England unwinding its QE programme. To some degree, it has already happened.
What does MIRAS actually solve (although it removes an inbalance between buy to renters and private owners)?
I'm not sure it does - rent is taxed, and rent is higher than interest costs if the world's not falling apart. Home owners pay no equivalent tax on the benefit of living in the house.
It's funny how many of the posters on here who screeched and wailed about the evils of Europe and desired Brexit above everything else, are now condemning the government that gave them exactly what you wanted.
Your desire for Brexit got us extremists into government. Each PM has been more 'extreme' than the last: but it did not matter, as long as you got Brexit.
Although I bet most of you are fairly well-off, and so won't suffer too much in the economic downturn *your* perverted dream has caused.
Agreed. Surely this is the Singapore-on-Thames Brexit that the ERG dreamed of.
Brexit itself was bad enough but the calibre of Brexiteer governments that it brought in in its wake has been a total disaster
It isn't SoT. Yet. The market calamity has collapsed our room to maneuverer. So we must have Massive Spending Cuts. And a Bonfire of Regulations. So that the workshy scum which is the British working people will be forced to finally work hard for their masters.
In late November, the plan is to take an axe to the safety net, to support services, and to all the woke things that make us soft. To your rights as an employee, to your rights as a resident, to your rights as a human being in a western democracy.
They talk about fracking and planning. That means they can develop land next to you without you having a say. Without your NIMBY consent. The creation of these Special Economic Zones where private cabals can do what they like in a low tax low regulation free-for-all.
Will it be good for the public? Hell no. Will it be great for Tory donors and patrons? Oh yeah. cf South Tees Development Corporation for a road map. Note that BBC Tees asked about local sea life death. Which the Mayor insists is nothing at all to do with dredging done by STDC's masters with no public oversight.
I don't doubt that Truss is trying to unleash some kind of IEA inspired "Singapore on Thames" fantasy on the country, and the next stage is "emergency cuts". They are basically like weirdo university students pursuing a poorly understood version of "Thatcherism" on the UK. Maybe this is the problem, the people running the country have lived in an academic/political bubble for their whole lives and haven't lived in the real world.
But, the thing is this. Singapore has an ordered and powerful state. The singapore analogy falls, as does the US analogy. There is no country that just goes around smashing up the state in the way they would like to do.
I wouldn't be surprised if this all leads to protests and riots. Even the police have had enough of this crap.
In particular, the vast majority of people in Singapore are housed by the state, in subsidised housing. This has profound implications for the way the rest of the state is managed & run. It allows the state freedom of action in other areas that they wouldn’t otherwise have because they can mitigate the economic if they choose using their ability to control the rents of > 3/4 of the population.
Libertarian wierdos always seem to completely ignore this, which tells me that they’re not serious about their economic analysis - they’re just picking and choosing the bits they happen to like & pretending that the outcome will be the same.
Just thinking, has a UK government ever imploded so spectacularly? In the space of a year they’ve gone from looking set for another landslide to looking finished. And it’s almost all self-inflicted. Ditch the man who won them the last election because for all his ‘charisma’ he couldn’t tell the truth or govern competently and was crapping all over standards in public life, replace him with a lightweight who their MPs didn’t want and whose politics and personality have no popular appeal. Wham bam, thank you Tories, I say, with my Labour partisan hat on. I can’t pretend not to be pleased at the political ramifications. But taking that hat off for a second, it’s something of a tragedy. The country is being let down very badly by the Conservative party.
MIRAS is almost certainly going to be back on the cards. As with energy bills, there is no way the Government is going to let households - particularly such a key demographic - take such a hit.
Also expect a reverse ferret of the Bank of England unwinding its QE programme. To some degree, it has already happened.
What does MIRAS actually solve (although it removes an inbalance between buy to renters and private owners)?
And creates an imbalance between home owners and renters.
As I said what does it actually solve - and remember personally no interest deductions should be allowed on rental income...
Re Header, I have laid a 23 exit for Truss @ 2.5 for quite a chunk. I think punters are getting carried away. The Cons will look utter plonkers if they change leaders again before the election. Of course they might if things get crazy enough but the price should be more like 5 or 6 imo.
Yes - plus BF 2.42 @ Truss Vote of no confidence before next GE is worth taking IMO. I'm on already.
AIUI CP can't have VONC for 12 months from when she took over and the BF rules say:
"If Liz Truss stands down/is removed as leader without the need of a confidence vote then No will be settled as a winner
If Liz Truss stands down as leader after the No Confidence vote is triggered but before the actual vote takes place then No will be settled as the winner."
There can't be a VONC within 12 months of a leader winning the previous VONC. I've never heard that a new leader gets a 12 month grace period...
Surely, that VONC only applies to that leader who has been VONCed? No reason why the MPs should have to wait 12 months before they can undo a completely bat-shit crazy PM imposed on them by the members?
I may be wrong on this - I'm trying to remember where I heard this - probably a podcast.
"Correction: economists expect -0.4% growth in 2023"
Yes, quite a major error!
8.8% is the expected inflation rate, it’s not -8.8% GDP
That would be worse than Covid
However -0.4% seems optimistic to me. This war isn’t going anywhere and all the risks are on the downside
OECD had them on -0.7% next year in Tuesdays figure release. Of course i am not an economist but given Germany's susceptibility to energy disruption, the panicked German Green calls for keeping nuclear going, the very weak Euro and the ECB lagging everyone (even the BoE) in acting, id probably be temoted to bet on a larger drop.
I think it could be still worse than that
Yesterday you and I were viewing the Trussterfuck as indicative of a wider global problem. I stand by that view. There is too much debt and a ton of anxiety. The USA itself is paying a lot more to lenders
My bet is that the bond markets will now move on to the next victim. There is money to be made in menacing countries as well as companies so the logic is inexorable
Who is next? The obvious targets are Italy or Japan (massive debt) but it may be more surprising. Belgium?
Theyll go for whoever sticks their head above the parapet, probe for weakness etc. Its ideal conditions for the Masters of the Universe to make an even more massive fortune at our expense. Not so sure about Japan, they just accept another three lost decades and bumble along, not a panic economy. Europe is the puppy, its collective is its weakness, countries being expected to go against what they want to protect the hive. Look at what was done to Greece. Its ripe for a ruining frankly. As are we I should add (as right now shows)
What was done to Greece was that they chose to have a German currency while still trying to have Turkish fiscal policies. Eventually they chose option A.
If Truss goes it will be a very peculiar historical situation where she essentially popped into No.10 to see off the Queen and then was the new monarch’s PM for a matter of weeks.
If she did a favour for any of us it was sparing us BoJos eulogy…
Seeing Boris giving us another Peppa Pig story and then being hauled off to the Tower for lese majestie would have been interesting...
Ed Davey must be excited about being the official Leader of the Opposition after the election.
Sir Ed v Sir Keir, sounds very Game of Thrones.
If there was to be a non Tory leader of the Opposition to a Starmer government it would be led by Farage not Davey, if the Tories completely collapsed Canada 1993 style and were replaced by RefUK
You will know more than I do how many seats the LD’s are second to the Tories in so I am possibly wrong but surely if the Tories haemorrhage votes a lot will go to the Lib Dems as things stand (West Country, Winchester type seats).
If there is a Farage party up and running ahead of the next election they will indeed attract a lump of Tory votes but of the Tory vote gets split three ways (Farage, Tory hold-outs and LD) then the Tories will be wiped and Faragists unlikely to pick up many seats at the election.
Added to those seats that will go from Tory to Labour I can easily see a way for Ed Davey to be next leader of the opposition.
No, if the Tory vote collapsed completely ie to about 10% most of that would go to Farage as in the European elections who would then win most of the remaining Tory safe seats while Labour picked up most of the marginals. Even if the LDs picked up a few Tory home counties seats
I know this is completely academic as the Tories won't go down to 10% (I know European elections, but people protest there, not so a GE), but if the Tories did go to 10% I disagree with your prediction (although my views are entirely a gut reaction so I accept I might be entirely wrong). I would predict that if the Tories were on 10% (and the LDs on a decent percentage) the LDs would sweep much of the South and South West and take a significant number of affluent or rural seats elsewhere (Harrogate, Hereford, etc). I agree there would be a Farage boom turning the remaining previously safe Tory seats which didn't go LD in Kent and Essex and such like into Labour/Farage marginals (Clacton and such like). I also think there would be a lot of Labour/Farage marginals in the Redwall.
So I could see a Labour landslide with a LD opposition and a handful of Farage if the Tories went to 10%. Of course we will never know as I think the Tories have the most stable highest core of all the main parties.
PS actually on re-reading your post I realise I only partly disagree and agree with some of it.
Farage and his parties benefit from PR systems - I don't know how well Reform or any new vehicle would do in FPTP.
This is why I think Tories going down to 15-20% in a GE would probably lead to Lab and LDs gaining almost all, with a Faragist party maybe picking up a handful of seats.
I agree. The premise though was 10%.
But 10% is unlikely - GE squeeze is different to PR squeeze. I think 15-20% is more reasonable.
Lets look at the next election.
Labour need 320+ seats - they used to get 50 in Scotland but are going to get about 4 max .
That means as a Tory voter you have 2 options at the next election - vote Tory for a hung Parliament or lend Labour your vote and ensure they get a decent majority that allows them to do something...
A lot of sane voters are going to be giving SKS the benefit of the doubt because the other option is complete and utter chaos...
I mean, people don't vote on rationalities. And I also think that some Tory voters would be concerned about giving Starmer too much of a mandate, even if they no longer trust their party. I don't think the Tory vote collapses to 10% based on that alone. 15-20% seems to be the minimum of Tory vote.
Ed Davey must be excited about being the official Leader of the Opposition after the election.
Sir Ed v Sir Keir, sounds very Game of Thrones.
If there was to be a non Tory leader of the Opposition to a Starmer government it would be led by Farage not Davey, if the Tories completely collapsed Canada 1993 style and were replaced by RefUK
You will know more than I do how many seats the LD’s are second to the Tories in so I am possibly wrong but surely if the Tories haemorrhage votes a lot will go to the Lib Dems as things stand (West Country, Winchester type seats).
If there is a Farage party up and running ahead of the next election they will indeed attract a lump of Tory votes but of the Tory vote gets split three ways (Farage, Tory hold-outs and LD) then the Tories will be wiped and Faragists unlikely to pick up many seats at the election.
Added to those seats that will go from Tory to Labour I can easily see a way for Ed Davey to be next leader of the opposition.
No, if the Tory vote collapsed completely ie to about 10% most of that would go to Farage as in the European elections who would then win most of the remaining Tory safe seats while Labour picked up most of the marginals. Even if the LDs picked up a few Tory home counties seats
I know this is completely academic as the Tories won't go down to 10% (I know European elections, but people protest there, not so a GE), but if the Tories did go to 10% I disagree with your prediction (although my views are entirely a gut reaction so I accept I might be entirely wrong). I would predict that if the Tories were on 10% (and the LDs on a decent percentage) the LDs would sweep much of the South and South West and take a significant number of affluent or rural seats elsewhere (Harrogate, Hereford, etc). I agree there would be a Farage boom turning the remaining previously safe Tory seats which didn't go LD in Kent and Essex and such like into Labour/Farage marginals (Clacton and such like). I also think there would be a lot of Labour/Farage marginals in the Redwall.
So I could see a Labour landslide with a LD opposition and a handful of Farage if the Tories went to 10%. Of course we will never know as I think the Tories have the most stable highest core of all the main parties.
PS actually on re-reading your post I realise I only partly disagree and agree with some of it.
Farage and his parties benefit from PR systems - I don't know how well Reform or any new vehicle would do in FPTP.
This is why I think Tories going down to 15-20% in a GE would probably lead to Lab and LDs gaining almost all, with a Faragist party maybe picking up a handful of seats.
I agree. The premise though was 10%.
But 10% is unlikely - GE squeeze is different to PR squeeze. I think 15-20% is more reasonable.
Lets look at the next election.
Labour need 320+ seats - they used to get 50 in Scotland but are going to get about 4 max .
That means as a Tory voter you have 2 options at the next election - vote Tory for a hung Parliament or lend Labour your vote and ensure they get a decent majority that allows them to do something...
A lot of sane voters are going to be giving SKS the benefit of the doubt because the other option is complete and utter chaos...
I expect Labour to win but it won’t be simply handed to them
Starmer will need to offer remedies. And he will have to be honest about spending cuts. Not easy for a prospective Labour PM
@thehistoryguy That was the worst provincial campaign of any of our leaders since autumn 1216 when King John marched about dealing with a rebellion & two invasions, caught dysentery in Norfolk, lost the Crown Jewels in The Wash and died in Nottinghamshire
MIRAS is almost certainly going to be back on the cards. As with energy bills, there is no way the Government is going to let households - particularly such a key demographic - take such a hit.
Also expect a reverse ferret of the Bank of England unwinding its QE programme. To some degree, it has already happened.
What does MIRAS actually solve (although it removes an inbalance between buy to renters and private owners)?
Save home owners £££? The economy and people need to get to a position where a base rate of 4% or so is normality again, the damage wrought be 12 years of insanity rate zero has to be undone We need savings back with a return on them.
MIRAS is almost certainly going to be back on the cards. As with energy bills, there is no way the Government is going to let households - particularly such a key demographic - take such a hit.
Also expect a reverse ferret of the Bank of England unwinding its QE programme. To some degree, it has already happened.
What does MIRAS actually solve (although it removes an inbalance between buy to renters and private owners)?
It'd solve some of the mortgage payments of potential Tory voters.
That can be solved by letting market prices return to sane levels with different schemes for those that end up in negative equity as the NI banks offered between 2010 and 2015....
I remember Harold doing the rounds, explaining that the pound in your pocket hadn't been devalued. and it was only those gnomes in Zurich playing games.
He was listened to with some scorn but it was a much calmer era.
"Tory MPs may be penning new letters of no confidence in Liz Truss but, as we report on @TheNewsDesk tonight, there's a little known 1922 Committee rule (confirmed by Sir Graham Brady) that a new leader can't be challenged during their first 12 months. So she's safe for a year."
MIRAS is almost certainly going to be back on the cards. As with energy bills, there is no way the Government is going to let households - particularly such a key demographic - take such a hit.
Also expect a reverse ferret of the Bank of England unwinding its QE programme. To some degree, it has already happened.
What does MIRAS actually solve (although it removes an inbalance between buy to renters and private owners)?
Save home owners £££? The economy and people need to get to a position where a base rate of 4% or so is normality again, the damage wrought be 12 years of insanity rate zero has to be undone We need savings back with a return on them.
MIRAS is almost certainly going to be back on the cards. As with energy bills, there is no way the Government is going to let households - particularly such a key demographic - take such a hit.
Also expect a reverse ferret of the Bank of England unwinding its QE programme. To some degree, it has already happened.
What does MIRAS actually solve (although it removes an inbalance between buy to renters and private owners)?
It'd solve some of the mortgage payments of potential Tory voters.
That can be solved by letting market prices return to sane levels with different schemes for those that end up in negative equity as the NI banks offered between 2010 and 2015....
Such schemes involved an IMF bailout for Ireland's government to take over its banking system, including its NI assets...
MIRAS is almost certainly going to be back on the cards. As with energy bills, there is no way the Government is going to let households - particularly such a key demographic - take such a hit.
Also expect a reverse ferret of the Bank of England unwinding its QE programme. To some degree, it has already happened.
What does MIRAS actually solve (although it removes an inbalance between buy to renters and private owners)?
It'd solve some of the mortgage payments of potential Tory voters.
That can be solved by letting market prices return to sane levels with different schemes for those that end up in negative equity as the NI banks offered between 2010 and 2015....
Such schemes involved an IMF bailout for Ireland's government to take over its banking system, including its NI assets...
Which NI banks are owned by Irish Banks? Danske / Northern definitely isn't and neither is Ulster.
Ed Davey must be excited about being the official Leader of the Opposition after the election.
Sir Ed v Sir Keir, sounds very Game of Thrones.
If there was to be a non Tory leader of the Opposition to a Starmer government it would be led by Farage not Davey, if the Tories completely collapsed Canada 1993 style and were replaced by RefUK
You will know more than I do how many seats the LD’s are second to the Tories in so I am possibly wrong but surely if the Tories haemorrhage votes a lot will go to the Lib Dems as things stand (West Country, Winchester type seats).
If there is a Farage party up and running ahead of the next election they will indeed attract a lump of Tory votes but of the Tory vote gets split three ways (Farage, Tory hold-outs and LD) then the Tories will be wiped and Faragists unlikely to pick up many seats at the election.
Added to those seats that will go from Tory to Labour I can easily see a way for Ed Davey to be next leader of the opposition.
No, if the Tory vote collapsed completely ie to about 10% most of that would go to Farage as in the European elections who would then win most of the remaining Tory safe seats while Labour picked up most of the marginals. Even if the LDs picked up a few Tory home counties seats
I know this is completely academic as the Tories won't go down to 10% (I know European elections, but people protest there, not so a GE), but if the Tories did go to 10% I disagree with your prediction (although my views are entirely a gut reaction so I accept I might be entirely wrong). I would predict that if the Tories were on 10% (and the LDs on a decent percentage) the LDs would sweep much of the South and South West and take a significant number of affluent or rural seats elsewhere (Harrogate, Hereford, etc). I agree there would be a Farage boom turning the remaining previously safe Tory seats which didn't go LD in Kent and Essex and such like into Labour/Farage marginals (Clacton and such like). I also think there would be a lot of Labour/Farage marginals in the Redwall.
So I could see a Labour landslide with a LD opposition and a handful of Farage if the Tories went to 10%. Of course we will never know as I think the Tories have the most stable highest core of all the main parties.
PS actually on re-reading your post I realise I only partly disagree and agree with some of it.
Farage and his parties benefit from PR systems - I don't know how well Reform or any new vehicle would do in FPTP.
This is why I think Tories going down to 15-20% in a GE would probably lead to Lab and LDs gaining almost all, with a Faragist party maybe picking up a handful of seats.
I agree. The premise though was 10%.
But 10% is unlikely - GE squeeze is different to PR squeeze. I think 15-20% is more reasonable.
Lets look at the next election.
Labour need 320+ seats - they used to get 50 in Scotland but are going to get about 4 max .
That means as a Tory voter you have 2 options at the next election - vote Tory for a hung Parliament or lend Labour your vote and ensure they get a decent majority that allows them to do something...
A lot of sane voters are going to be giving SKS the benefit of the doubt because the other option is complete and utter chaos...
Maybe. But if Truss is a short-term aberration and is quickly replaced by somebody like Wallace, who is seen as an entirely pragmatic Tory with no interest in any -ism but in getting the country through the international market traumas, then it depends on what he actually delivers.
If he reinstates Sunak as his Chancellor (perhaps with a quiet private assurance that he really doesn't want to be PM for very long and would happily endorse Rishi as his successor), then it is not so clear cut.
The Doomcasting for the Conservatives is predicated on Truss staying in place to the election. A Wallace-Sunak ticket for 18 months might well shoot most of Labour's foxes.
"Correction: economists expect -0.4% growth in 2023"
Yes, quite a major error!
8.8% is the expected inflation rate, it’s not -8.8% GDP
That would be worse than Covid
However -0.4% seems optimistic to me. This war isn’t going anywhere and all the risks are on the downside
OECD had them on -0.7% next year in Tuesdays figure release. Of course i am not an economist but given Germany's susceptibility to energy disruption, the panicked German Green calls for keeping nuclear going, the very weak Euro and the ECB lagging everyone (even the BoE) in acting, id probably be temoted to bet on a larger drop.
I think it could be still worse than that
Yesterday you and I were viewing the Trussterfuck as indicative of a wider global problem. I stand by that view. There is too much debt and a ton of anxiety. The USA itself is paying a lot more to lenders
My bet is that the bond markets will now move on to the next victim. There is money to be made in menacing countries as well as companies so the logic is inexorable
Who is next? The obvious targets are Italy or Japan (massive debt) but it may be more surprising. Belgium?
Thinking of victims and targets is simply wrong.
That’s like blaming the Greek crisis on Goldman Sachs. Yes, they bullshitted the reporting (at the er… suggestion if I the Greek Government and the EU), but ultimately, the Greek government borrowed more money than they could repay.
What is happening is that, since 2008, we have been running an emergency economy, worldwide. Quantative Easing was supposed to be a bridge. To get us to a place where we could fix the problems, rather than heading off the cliff. The problem was that QA became the new normal.
Bit like Greece using the Euro to finance lots of debt, rather than fixing the economy.
Truss & Co. triggered the comedy. The IMF and US reactions were about recognising they are not far off the same sequence of events.
Setting your hair on fire when you are swimming in petrol is not a good idea. The ultimate problem is the petrol, though.
"Tory MPs may be penning new letters of no confidence in Liz Truss but, as we report on @TheNewsDesk tonight, there's a little known 1922 Committee rule (confirmed by Sir Graham Brady) that a new leader can't be challenged during their first 12 months. So she's safe for a year."
Well spotted - that's going to make next week interesting and explains why Rishi is keeping as far away as is politely possible (trains from London to Birmingham are easy, Northallerton to Birmingham is 5 hours or so)...
Ed Davey must be excited about being the official Leader of the Opposition after the election.
Sir Ed v Sir Keir, sounds very Game of Thrones.
If there was to be a non Tory leader of the Opposition to a Starmer government it would be led by Farage not Davey, if the Tories completely collapsed Canada 1993 style and were replaced by RefUK
You will know more than I do how many seats the LD’s are second to the Tories in so I am possibly wrong but surely if the Tories haemorrhage votes a lot will go to the Lib Dems as things stand (West Country, Winchester type seats).
If there is a Farage party up and running ahead of the next election they will indeed attract a lump of Tory votes but of the Tory vote gets split three ways (Farage, Tory hold-outs and LD) then the Tories will be wiped and Faragists unlikely to pick up many seats at the election.
Added to those seats that will go from Tory to Labour I can easily see a way for Ed Davey to be next leader of the opposition.
No, if the Tory vote collapsed completely ie to about 10% most of that would go to Farage as in the European elections who would then win most of the remaining Tory safe seats while Labour picked up most of the marginals. Even if the LDs picked up a few Tory home counties seats
I know this is completely academic as the Tories won't go down to 10% (I know European elections, but people protest there, not so a GE), but if the Tories did go to 10% I disagree with your prediction (although my views are entirely a gut reaction so I accept I might be entirely wrong). I would predict that if the Tories were on 10% (and the LDs on a decent percentage) the LDs would sweep much of the South and South West and take a significant number of affluent or rural seats elsewhere (Harrogate, Hereford, etc). I agree there would be a Farage boom turning the remaining previously safe Tory seats which didn't go LD in Kent and Essex and such like into Labour/Farage marginals (Clacton and such like). I also think there would be a lot of Labour/Farage marginals in the Redwall.
So I could see a Labour landslide with a LD opposition and a handful of Farage if the Tories went to 10%. Of course we will never know as I think the Tories have the most stable highest core of all the main parties.
PS actually on re-reading your post I realise I only partly disagree and agree with some of it.
Farage and his parties benefit from PR systems - I don't know how well Reform or any new vehicle would do in FPTP.
This is why I think Tories going down to 15-20% in a GE would probably lead to Lab and LDs gaining almost all, with a Faragist party maybe picking up a handful of seats.
I agree. The premise though was 10%.
But 10% is unlikely - GE squeeze is different to PR squeeze. I think 15-20% is more reasonable.
Lets look at the next election.
Labour need 320+ seats - they used to get 50 in Scotland but are going to get about 4 max .
That means as a Tory voter you have 2 options at the next election - vote Tory for a hung Parliament or lend Labour your vote and ensure they get a decent majority that allows them to do something...
A lot of sane voters are going to be giving SKS the benefit of the doubt because the other option is complete and utter chaos...
Maybe. But if Truss is a short-term aberration and is quickly replaced by somebody like Wallace, who is seen as an entirely pragmatic Tory with no interest in any -ism but in getting the country through the international market traumas, then it depends on what he actually delivers.
If he reinstates Sunak as his Chancellor (perhaps with a quiet private assurance that he really doesn't want to be PM for very long and would happily endorse Rishi as his successor), then it is not so clear cut.
The Doomcasting for the Conservatives is predicated on Truss staying in place to the election. A Wallace-Sunak ticket for 18 months might well shoot most of Labour's foxes.
No ism? You want your leader to subscribe to conservatism surely?
BREAKING: Hospital admissions of covid positive patients in England up 48% in a week.
Fourth Covid wave of 2022 now in full effect
That's not a helpful or informative tweet, especially from a journalist.
No info on how many were admitted to hospital with or because of Covid. No info on who is vaccinated or the demographics of people admitted. Crucially, no info on what the actual numbers were before and after.
The dashboard shows admissions/people in hospital is just off a 3 month low.
Not saying there's no reason to be concerned, but that tweet seems deliberately vague to try and get the iSAGE lot to start calling for masks and lockdowns.
"Correction: economists expect -0.4% growth in 2023"
Yes, quite a major error!
8.8% is the expected inflation rate, it’s not -8.8% GDP
That would be worse than Covid
However -0.4% seems optimistic to me. This war isn’t going anywhere and all the risks are on the downside
OECD had them on -0.7% next year in Tuesdays figure release. Of course i am not an economist but given Germany's susceptibility to energy disruption, the panicked German Green calls for keeping nuclear going, the very weak Euro and the ECB lagging everyone (even the BoE) in acting, id probably be temoted to bet on a larger drop.
I think it could be still worse than that
Yesterday you and I were viewing the Trussterfuck as indicative of a wider global problem. I stand by that view. There is too much debt and a ton of anxiety. The USA itself is paying a lot more to lenders
My bet is that the bond markets will now move on to the next victim. There is money to be made in menacing countries as well as companies so the logic is inexorable
Who is next? The obvious targets are Italy or Japan (massive debt) but it may be more surprising. Belgium?
Thinking of victims and targets is simply wrong.
That’s like blaming the Greek crisis on Goldman Sachs. Yes, they bullshitted the reporting (at the er… suggestion if I the Greek Government and the EU), but ultimately, the Greek government borrowed more money than they could repay.
What is happening is that, since 2008, we have been running an emergency economy, worldwide. Quantative Easing was supposed to be a bridge. To get us to a place where we could fix the problems, rather than heading off the cliff. The problem was that QA became the new normal.
Bit like Greece using the Euro to finance lots of debt, rather than fixing the economy.
Truss & Co. triggered the comedy. The IMF and US reactions were about recognising they are not far off the same sequence of events.
Setting your hair on fire when you are swimming in petrol is not a good idea. The ultimate problem is the petrol, though.
You misread me
I’m not “blaming” anyone. Just parsing the logical progression. The brutal questioning of debt will not stop with the UK
MIRAS is almost certainly going to be back on the cards. As with energy bills, there is no way the Government is going to let households - particularly such a key demographic - take such a hit.
Also expect a reverse ferret of the Bank of England unwinding its QE programme. To some degree, it has already happened.
What does MIRAS actually solve (although it removes an inbalance between buy to renters and private owners)?
Save home owners £££? The economy and people need to get to a position where a base rate of 4% or so is normality again, the damage wrought be 12 years of insanity rate zero has to be undone We need savings back with a return on them.
Won't be needed if rates are at 4%.
No, but we may transition to '4% normal' via 6 or 7% for a while.......
Ed Davey must be excited about being the official Leader of the Opposition after the election.
Sir Ed v Sir Keir, sounds very Game of Thrones.
If there was to be a non Tory leader of the Opposition to a Starmer government it would be led by Farage not Davey, if the Tories completely collapsed Canada 1993 style and were replaced by RefUK
You will know more than I do how many seats the LD’s are second to the Tories in so I am possibly wrong but surely if the Tories haemorrhage votes a lot will go to the Lib Dems as things stand (West Country, Winchester type seats).
If there is a Farage party up and running ahead of the next election they will indeed attract a lump of Tory votes but of the Tory vote gets split three ways (Farage, Tory hold-outs and LD) then the Tories will be wiped and Faragists unlikely to pick up many seats at the election.
Added to those seats that will go from Tory to Labour I can easily see a way for Ed Davey to be next leader of the opposition.
No, if the Tory vote collapsed completely ie to about 10% most of that would go to Farage as in the European elections who would then win most of the remaining Tory safe seats while Labour picked up most of the marginals. Even if the LDs picked up a few Tory home counties seats
I know this is completely academic as the Tories won't go down to 10% (I know European elections, but people protest there, not so a GE), but if the Tories did go to 10% I disagree with your prediction (although my views are entirely a gut reaction so I accept I might be entirely wrong). I would predict that if the Tories were on 10% (and the LDs on a decent percentage) the LDs would sweep much of the South and South West and take a significant number of affluent or rural seats elsewhere (Harrogate, Hereford, etc). I agree there would be a Farage boom turning the remaining previously safe Tory seats which didn't go LD in Kent and Essex and such like into Labour/Farage marginals (Clacton and such like). I also think there would be a lot of Labour/Farage marginals in the Redwall.
So I could see a Labour landslide with a LD opposition and a handful of Farage if the Tories went to 10%. Of course we will never know as I think the Tories have the most stable highest core of all the main parties.
PS actually on re-reading your post I realise I only partly disagree and agree with some of it.
Farage and his parties benefit from PR systems - I don't know how well Reform or any new vehicle would do in FPTP.
This is why I think Tories going down to 15-20% in a GE would probably lead to Lab and LDs gaining almost all, with a Faragist party maybe picking up a handful of seats.
I agree. The premise though was 10%.
But 10% is unlikely - GE squeeze is different to PR squeeze. I think 15-20% is more reasonable.
Lets look at the next election.
Labour need 320+ seats - they used to get 50 in Scotland but are going to get about 4 max .
That means as a Tory voter you have 2 options at the next election - vote Tory for a hung Parliament or lend Labour your vote and ensure they get a decent majority that allows them to do something...
A lot of sane voters are going to be giving SKS the benefit of the doubt because the other option is complete and utter chaos...
Maybe. But if Truss is a short-term aberration and is quickly replaced by somebody like Wallace, who is seen as an entirely pragmatic Tory with no interest in any -ism but in getting the country through the international market traumas, then it depends on what he actually delivers.
If he reinstates Sunak as his Chancellor (perhaps with a quiet private assurance that he really doesn't want to be PM for very long and would happily endorse Rishi as his successor), then it is not so clear cut.
The Doomcasting for the Conservatives is predicated on Truss staying in place to the election. A Wallace-Sunak ticket for 18 months might well shoot most of Labour's foxes.
See Stocky's post of a few minutes ago.
Somehow the 1922 committee needs to manoeuvre things otherwise Truss is safely in place until September next year...
MIRAS is almost certainly going to be back on the cards. As with energy bills, there is no way the Government is going to let households - particularly such a key demographic - take such a hit.
Also expect a reverse ferret of the Bank of England unwinding its QE programme. To some degree, it has already happened.
What does MIRAS actually solve (although it removes an inbalance between buy to renters and private owners)?
It'd solve some of the mortgage payments of potential Tory voters.
That can be solved by letting market prices return to sane levels with different schemes for those that end up in negative equity as the NI banks offered between 2010 and 2015....
Such schemes involved an IMF bailout for Ireland's government to take over its banking system, including its NI assets...
Which NI banks are owned by Irish Banks? Danske / Northern definitely isn't and neither is Ulster.
Correct, Ulster (RBS) got a massive UK bailout. It was BoI and First Trust that got Ireland / EU / IMF bailouts.
The striking thing about the 'discovery' that Liz Truss is both 'properly bonkers' (as Dominic Cummings put it) and an absolutely abysmal media performer is that it's not a discovery at all. Even if you weren't paying attention before the leadership campaign started, her performance in the campaign, complete with gaffes and screeching U-turns, was plentiful evidence of exactly how bad her premiership would be. It's baffling that Tory party members didn't notice, given all the hustings and the TV debates with Sunak.
Ed Davey must be excited about being the official Leader of the Opposition after the election.
Sir Ed v Sir Keir, sounds very Game of Thrones.
If there was to be a non Tory leader of the Opposition to a Starmer government it would be led by Farage not Davey, if the Tories completely collapsed Canada 1993 style and were replaced by RefUK
You will know more than I do how many seats the LD’s are second to the Tories in so I am possibly wrong but surely if the Tories haemorrhage votes a lot will go to the Lib Dems as things stand (West Country, Winchester type seats).
If there is a Farage party up and running ahead of the next election they will indeed attract a lump of Tory votes but of the Tory vote gets split three ways (Farage, Tory hold-outs and LD) then the Tories will be wiped and Faragists unlikely to pick up many seats at the election.
Added to those seats that will go from Tory to Labour I can easily see a way for Ed Davey to be next leader of the opposition.
No, if the Tory vote collapsed completely ie to about 10% most of that would go to Farage as in the European elections who would then win most of the remaining Tory safe seats while Labour picked up most of the marginals. Even if the LDs picked up a few Tory home counties seats
I know this is completely academic as the Tories won't go down to 10% (I know European elections, but people protest there, not so a GE), but if the Tories did go to 10% I disagree with your prediction (although my views are entirely a gut reaction so I accept I might be entirely wrong). I would predict that if the Tories were on 10% (and the LDs on a decent percentage) the LDs would sweep much of the South and South West and take a significant number of affluent or rural seats elsewhere (Harrogate, Hereford, etc). I agree there would be a Farage boom turning the remaining previously safe Tory seats which didn't go LD in Kent and Essex and such like into Labour/Farage marginals (Clacton and such like). I also think there would be a lot of Labour/Farage marginals in the Redwall.
So I could see a Labour landslide with a LD opposition and a handful of Farage if the Tories went to 10%. Of course we will never know as I think the Tories have the most stable highest core of all the main parties.
PS actually on re-reading your post I realise I only partly disagree and agree with some of it.
Farage and his parties benefit from PR systems - I don't know how well Reform or any new vehicle would do in FPTP.
This is why I think Tories going down to 15-20% in a GE would probably lead to Lab and LDs gaining almost all, with a Faragist party maybe picking up a handful of seats.
I agree. The premise though was 10%.
But 10% is unlikely - GE squeeze is different to PR squeeze. I think 15-20% is more reasonable.
Lets look at the next election.
Labour need 320+ seats - they used to get 50 in Scotland but are going to get about 4 max .
That means as a Tory voter you have 2 options at the next election - vote Tory for a hung Parliament or lend Labour your vote and ensure they get a decent majority that allows them to do something...
A lot of sane voters are going to be giving SKS the benefit of the doubt because the other option is complete and utter chaos...
Maybe. But if Truss is a short-term aberration and is quickly replaced by somebody like Wallace, who is seen as an entirely pragmatic Tory with no interest in any -ism but in getting the country through the international market traumas, then it depends on what he actually delivers.
If he reinstates Sunak as his Chancellor (perhaps with a quiet private assurance that he really doesn't want to be PM for very long and would happily endorse Rishi as his successor), then it is not so clear cut.
The Doomcasting for the Conservatives is predicated on Truss staying in place to the election. A Wallace-Sunak ticket for 18 months might well shoot most of Labour's foxes.
See Stocky's post of a few minutes ago.
Somehow the 1922 committee needs to manoeuvre things otherwise Truss is safely in place until September next year...
Ed Davey must be excited about being the official Leader of the Opposition after the election.
Sir Ed v Sir Keir, sounds very Game of Thrones.
If there was to be a non Tory leader of the Opposition to a Starmer government it would be led by Farage not Davey, if the Tories completely collapsed Canada 1993 style and were replaced by RefUK
You will know more than I do how many seats the LD’s are second to the Tories in so I am possibly wrong but surely if the Tories haemorrhage votes a lot will go to the Lib Dems as things stand (West Country, Winchester type seats).
If there is a Farage party up and running ahead of the next election they will indeed attract a lump of Tory votes but of the Tory vote gets split three ways (Farage, Tory hold-outs and LD) then the Tories will be wiped and Faragists unlikely to pick up many seats at the election.
Added to those seats that will go from Tory to Labour I can easily see a way for Ed Davey to be next leader of the opposition.
No, if the Tory vote collapsed completely ie to about 10% most of that would go to Farage as in the European elections who would then win most of the remaining Tory safe seats while Labour picked up most of the marginals. Even if the LDs picked up a few Tory home counties seats
I know this is completely academic as the Tories won't go down to 10% (I know European elections, but people protest there, not so a GE), but if the Tories did go to 10% I disagree with your prediction (although my views are entirely a gut reaction so I accept I might be entirely wrong). I would predict that if the Tories were on 10% (and the LDs on a decent percentage) the LDs would sweep much of the South and South West and take a significant number of affluent or rural seats elsewhere (Harrogate, Hereford, etc). I agree there would be a Farage boom turning the remaining previously safe Tory seats which didn't go LD in Kent and Essex and such like into Labour/Farage marginals (Clacton and such like). I also think there would be a lot of Labour/Farage marginals in the Redwall.
So I could see a Labour landslide with a LD opposition and a handful of Farage if the Tories went to 10%. Of course we will never know as I think the Tories have the most stable highest core of all the main parties.
PS actually on re-reading your post I realise I only partly disagree and agree with some of it.
Farage and his parties benefit from PR systems - I don't know how well Reform or any new vehicle would do in FPTP.
This is why I think Tories going down to 15-20% in a GE would probably lead to Lab and LDs gaining almost all, with a Faragist party maybe picking up a handful of seats.
I agree. The premise though was 10%.
But 10% is unlikely - GE squeeze is different to PR squeeze. I think 15-20% is more reasonable.
Lets look at the next election.
Labour need 320+ seats - they used to get 50 in Scotland but are going to get about 4 max .
That means as a Tory voter you have 2 options at the next election - vote Tory for a hung Parliament or lend Labour your vote and ensure they get a decent majority that allows them to do something...
A lot of sane voters are going to be giving SKS the benefit of the doubt because the other option is complete and utter chaos...
Maybe. But if Truss is a short-term aberration and is quickly replaced by somebody like Wallace, who is seen as an entirely pragmatic Tory with no interest in any -ism but in getting the country through the international market traumas, then it depends on what he actually delivers.
If he reinstates Sunak as his Chancellor (perhaps with a quiet private assurance that he really doesn't want to be PM for very long and would happily endorse Rishi as his successor), then it is not so clear cut.
The Doomcasting for the Conservatives is predicated on Truss staying in place to the election. A Wallace-Sunak ticket for 18 months might well shoot most of Labour's foxes.
See Stocky's post of a few minutes ago.
Somehow the 1922 committee needs to manoeuvre things otherwise Truss is safely in place until September next year...
Ed Davey must be excited about being the official Leader of the Opposition after the election.
Sir Ed v Sir Keir, sounds very Game of Thrones.
If there was to be a non Tory leader of the Opposition to a Starmer government it would be led by Farage not Davey, if the Tories completely collapsed Canada 1993 style and were replaced by RefUK
You will know more than I do how many seats the LD’s are second to the Tories in so I am possibly wrong but surely if the Tories haemorrhage votes a lot will go to the Lib Dems as things stand (West Country, Winchester type seats).
If there is a Farage party up and running ahead of the next election they will indeed attract a lump of Tory votes but of the Tory vote gets split three ways (Farage, Tory hold-outs and LD) then the Tories will be wiped and Faragists unlikely to pick up many seats at the election.
Added to those seats that will go from Tory to Labour I can easily see a way for Ed Davey to be next leader of the opposition.
No, if the Tory vote collapsed completely ie to about 10% most of that would go to Farage as in the European elections who would then win most of the remaining Tory safe seats while Labour picked up most of the marginals. Even if the LDs picked up a few Tory home counties seats
I know this is completely academic as the Tories won't go down to 10% (I know European elections, but people protest there, not so a GE), but if the Tories did go to 10% I disagree with your prediction (although my views are entirely a gut reaction so I accept I might be entirely wrong). I would predict that if the Tories were on 10% (and the LDs on a decent percentage) the LDs would sweep much of the South and South West and take a significant number of affluent or rural seats elsewhere (Harrogate, Hereford, etc). I agree there would be a Farage boom turning the remaining previously safe Tory seats which didn't go LD in Kent and Essex and such like into Labour/Farage marginals (Clacton and such like). I also think there would be a lot of Labour/Farage marginals in the Redwall.
So I could see a Labour landslide with a LD opposition and a handful of Farage if the Tories went to 10%. Of course we will never know as I think the Tories have the most stable highest core of all the main parties.
PS actually on re-reading your post I realise I only partly disagree and agree with some of it.
Farage and his parties benefit from PR systems - I don't know how well Reform or any new vehicle would do in FPTP.
This is why I think Tories going down to 15-20% in a GE would probably lead to Lab and LDs gaining almost all, with a Faragist party maybe picking up a handful of seats.
I agree. The premise though was 10%.
But 10% is unlikely - GE squeeze is different to PR squeeze. I think 15-20% is more reasonable.
Lets look at the next election.
Labour need 320+ seats - they used to get 50 in Scotland but are going to get about 4 max .
That means as a Tory voter you have 2 options at the next election - vote Tory for a hung Parliament or lend Labour your vote and ensure they get a decent majority that allows them to do something...
A lot of sane voters are going to be giving SKS the benefit of the doubt because the other option is complete and utter chaos...
Maybe. But if Truss is a short-term aberration and is quickly replaced by somebody like Wallace, who is seen as an entirely pragmatic Tory with no interest in any -ism but in getting the country through the international market traumas, then it depends on what he actually delivers.
If he reinstates Sunak as his Chancellor (perhaps with a quiet private assurance that he really doesn't want to be PM for very long and would happily endorse Rishi as his successor), then it is not so clear cut.
The Doomcasting for the Conservatives is predicated on Truss staying in place to the election. A Wallace-Sunak ticket for 18 months might well shoot most of Labour's foxes.
See Stocky's post of a few minutes ago.
Somehow the 1922 committee needs to manoeuvre things otherwise Truss is safely in place until September next year...
Ed Davey must be excited about being the official Leader of the Opposition after the election.
Sir Ed v Sir Keir, sounds very Game of Thrones.
If there was to be a non Tory leader of the Opposition to a Starmer government it would be led by Farage not Davey, if the Tories completely collapsed Canada 1993 style and were replaced by RefUK
You will know more than I do how many seats the LD’s are second to the Tories in so I am possibly wrong but surely if the Tories haemorrhage votes a lot will go to the Lib Dems as things stand (West Country, Winchester type seats).
If there is a Farage party up and running ahead of the next election they will indeed attract a lump of Tory votes but of the Tory vote gets split three ways (Farage, Tory hold-outs and LD) then the Tories will be wiped and Faragists unlikely to pick up many seats at the election.
Added to those seats that will go from Tory to Labour I can easily see a way for Ed Davey to be next leader of the opposition.
No, if the Tory vote collapsed completely ie to about 10% most of that would go to Farage as in the European elections who would then win most of the remaining Tory safe seats while Labour picked up most of the marginals. Even if the LDs picked up a few Tory home counties seats
I know this is completely academic as the Tories won't go down to 10% (I know European elections, but people protest there, not so a GE), but if the Tories did go to 10% I disagree with your prediction (although my views are entirely a gut reaction so I accept I might be entirely wrong). I would predict that if the Tories were on 10% (and the LDs on a decent percentage) the LDs would sweep much of the South and South West and take a significant number of affluent or rural seats elsewhere (Harrogate, Hereford, etc). I agree there would be a Farage boom turning the remaining previously safe Tory seats which didn't go LD in Kent and Essex and such like into Labour/Farage marginals (Clacton and such like). I also think there would be a lot of Labour/Farage marginals in the Redwall.
So I could see a Labour landslide with a LD opposition and a handful of Farage if the Tories went to 10%. Of course we will never know as I think the Tories have the most stable highest core of all the main parties.
PS actually on re-reading your post I realise I only partly disagree and agree with some of it.
Farage and his parties benefit from PR systems - I don't know how well Reform or any new vehicle would do in FPTP.
This is why I think Tories going down to 15-20% in a GE would probably lead to Lab and LDs gaining almost all, with a Faragist party maybe picking up a handful of seats.
I agree. The premise though was 10%.
But 10% is unlikely - GE squeeze is different to PR squeeze. I think 15-20% is more reasonable.
Lets look at the next election.
Labour need 320+ seats - they used to get 50 in Scotland but are going to get about 4 max .
That means as a Tory voter you have 2 options at the next election - vote Tory for a hung Parliament or lend Labour your vote and ensure they get a decent majority that allows them to do something...
A lot of sane voters are going to be giving SKS the benefit of the doubt because the other option is complete and utter chaos...
Maybe. But if Truss is a short-term aberration and is quickly replaced by somebody like Wallace, who is seen as an entirely pragmatic Tory with no interest in any -ism but in getting the country through the international market traumas, then it depends on what he actually delivers.
If he reinstates Sunak as his Chancellor (perhaps with a quiet private assurance that he really doesn't want to be PM for very long and would happily endorse Rishi as his successor), then it is not so clear cut.
The Doomcasting for the Conservatives is predicated on Truss staying in place to the election. A Wallace-Sunak ticket for 18 months might well shoot most of Labour's foxes.
See Stocky's post of a few minutes ago.
Somehow the 1922 committee needs to manoeuvre things otherwise Truss is safely in place until September next year...
If she loses enough support among the MPs she will go, the details of rules won't matter.
It's funny how many of the posters on here who screeched and wailed about the evils of Europe and desired Brexit above everything else, are now condemning the government that gave them exactly what you wanted.
Your desire for Brexit got us extremists into government. Each PM has been more 'extreme' than the last: but it did not matter, as long as you got Brexit.
Although I bet most of you are fairly well-off, and so won't suffer too much in the economic downturn *your* perverted dream has caused.
Agreed. Surely this is the Singapore-on-Thames Brexit that the ERG dreamed of.
Brexit itself was bad enough but the calibre of Brexiteer governments that it brought in in its wake has been a total disaster
It isn't SoT. Yet. The market calamity has collapsed our room to maneuverer. So we must have Massive Spending Cuts. And a Bonfire of Regulations. So that the workshy scum which is the British working people will be forced to finally work hard for their masters.
In late November, the plan is to take an axe to the safety net, to support services, and to all the woke things that make us soft. To your rights as an employee, to your rights as a resident, to your rights as a human being in a western democracy.
They talk about fracking and planning. That means they can develop land next to you without you having a say. Without your NIMBY consent. The creation of these Special Economic Zones where private cabals can do what they like in a low tax low regulation free-for-all.
Will it be good for the public? Hell no. Will it be great for Tory donors and patrons? Oh yeah. cf South Tees Development Corporation for a road map. Note that BBC Tees asked about local sea life death. Which the Mayor insists is nothing at all to do with dredging done by STDC's masters with no public oversight.
I don't doubt that Truss is trying to unleash some kind of IEA inspired "Singapore on Thames" fantasy on the country, and the next stage is "emergency cuts". They are basically like weirdo university students pursuing a poorly understood version of "Thatcherism" on the UK. Maybe this is the problem, the people running the country have lived in an academic/political bubble for their whole lives and haven't lived in the real world.
But, the thing is this. Singapore has an ordered and powerful state. The singapore analogy falls, as does the US analogy. There is no country that just goes around smashing up the state in the way they would like to do.
I wouldn't be surprised if this all leads to protests and riots. Even the police have had enough of this crap.
1. The next stage IS emergency cuts. The markets demand them, and ministers are blowing cold on previous commitments on things like welfare and wages 2. I never said the "Singapore" comparison made sense. But that is what they use 3. Protests and riots nailed on. Sadly.
"Correction: economists expect -0.4% growth in 2023"
Yes, quite a major error!
8.8% is the expected inflation rate, it’s not -8.8% GDP
That would be worse than Covid
However -0.4% seems optimistic to me. This war isn’t going anywhere and all the risks are on the downside
OECD had them on -0.7% next year in Tuesdays figure release. Of course i am not an economist but given Germany's susceptibility to energy disruption, the panicked German Green calls for keeping nuclear going, the very weak Euro and the ECB lagging everyone (even the BoE) in acting, id probably be temoted to bet on a larger drop.
I think it could be still worse than that
Yesterday you and I were viewing the Trussterfuck as indicative of a wider global problem. I stand by that view. There is too much debt and a ton of anxiety. The USA itself is paying a lot more to lenders
My bet is that the bond markets will now move on to the next victim. There is money to be made in menacing countries as well as companies so the logic is inexorable
Who is next? The obvious targets are Italy or Japan (massive debt) but it may be more surprising. Belgium?
Thinking of victims and targets is simply wrong.
That’s like blaming the Greek crisis on Goldman Sachs. Yes, they bullshitted the reporting (at the er… suggestion if I the Greek Government and the EU), but ultimately, the Greek government borrowed more money than they could repay.
What is happening is that, since 2008, we have been running an emergency economy, worldwide. Quantative Easing was supposed to be a bridge. To get us to a place where we could fix the problems, rather than heading off the cliff. The problem was that QA became the new normal.
Bit like Greece using the Euro to finance lots of debt, rather than fixing the economy.
Truss & Co. triggered the comedy. The IMF and US reactions were about recognising they are not far off the same sequence of events.
Setting your hair on fire when you are swimming in petrol is not a good idea. The ultimate problem is the petrol, though.
You misread me
I’m not “blaming” anyone. Just parsing the logical progression. The brutal questioning of debt will not stop with the UK
Sure. Just that blaming hedge funds etc is always nonsense.
The ERM was about an exchange rate that was wrong.
Greece was about borrowing so much that repayment was in doubt.
The current fuckup is about the actions of the government breaking confidence in the long term stability of the pound.
Economist: In its first weeks the new government has shredded its own reputation, unleashed higher inflation, forced emergency action from the central bank, and made growth harder. Just imagine what it can do in a month or two
The striking thing about the 'discovery' that Liz Truss is both 'properly bonkers' (as Dominic Cummings put it) and an absolutely abysmal media performer is that it's not a discovery at all. Even if you weren't paying attention before the leadership campaign started, her performance in the campaign, complete with gaffes and screeching U-turns, was plentiful evidence of exactly how bad her premiership would be. It's baffling that Tory party members didn't notice, given all the hustings and the TV debates with Sunak.
The membership polls had Truss top or thereabout for a long period but what is unclear is how much the anti-Sunak sentiment was a factor. He did better than expected but there was undoubtedly an "anyone but Sunak" faction. The reason for this seemed to be that they disliked his fiscal profligacy ......
The striking thing about the 'discovery' that Liz Truss is both 'properly bonkers' (as Dominic Cummings put it) and an absolutely abysmal media performer is that it's not a discovery at all. Even if you weren't paying attention before the leadership campaign started, her performance in the campaign, complete with gaffes and screeching U-turns, was plentiful evidence of exactly how bad her premiership would be. It's baffling that Tory party members didn't notice, given all the hustings and the TV debates with Sunak.
Pro Tory media spent a lot of time and energy ramping Truss & rubishing Sunak for their own reasons. I guess a lot of Tory voters rely more on the Telegraph & the Speccie for their opinions than on the evidence of their own eyes & ears.
Since both major parties allowed members to vote for the leader British politics has spun into a very dangerous place.
To a certain extent, you cannot blame the membership. They deserve some sort of participation for supporting their party.
The real blame lies with the MPs. They decide who the membership gets to vote on. If they only presented competent, sane politicians then the members would not be able to elect activist nutters like Truss and Corbyn.
The MPs did this. They ran a popularity contest and then presented a mediocre politician and a raving nut job to a selectorate renowned for helping themselves to other peoples' money / work / sweat.
It was a exercise in indulgence, not in leadership
The striking thing about the 'discovery' that Liz Truss is both 'properly bonkers' (as Dominic Cummings put it) and an absolutely abysmal media performer is that it's not a discovery at all. Even if you weren't paying attention before the leadership campaign started, her performance in the campaign, complete with gaffes and screeching U-turns, was plentiful evidence of exactly how bad her premiership would be. It's baffling that Tory party members didn't notice, given all the hustings and the TV debates with Sunak.
Being a poor media performer is OK though if your policies are actually any good though. I mean the old quips about Attlee getting out of an empty taxi up against war hero Churchill... - now he'd have probably been sunk in today's 24/7 media age but he ran a by all accounts good government between 45 and 51. To take a more recent example, Hilary Clinton didn't get elected but her uncharismatic style would have been perfectly fine for US gov't. Truss' media performance is by far the least of our worries. It's the rest of it that's the platform.
Ed Davey must be excited about being the official Leader of the Opposition after the election.
Sir Ed v Sir Keir, sounds very Game of Thrones.
If there was to be a non Tory leader of the Opposition to a Starmer government it would be led by Farage not Davey, if the Tories completely collapsed Canada 1993 style and were replaced by RefUK
You will know more than I do how many seats the LD’s are second to the Tories in so I am possibly wrong but surely if the Tories haemorrhage votes a lot will go to the Lib Dems as things stand (West Country, Winchester type seats).
If there is a Farage party up and running ahead of the next election they will indeed attract a lump of Tory votes but of the Tory vote gets split three ways (Farage, Tory hold-outs and LD) then the Tories will be wiped and Faragists unlikely to pick up many seats at the election.
Added to those seats that will go from Tory to Labour I can easily see a way for Ed Davey to be next leader of the opposition.
No, if the Tory vote collapsed completely ie to about 10% most of that would go to Farage as in the European elections who would then win most of the remaining Tory safe seats while Labour picked up most of the marginals. Even if the LDs picked up a few Tory home counties seats
I know this is completely academic as the Tories won't go down to 10% (I know European elections, but people protest there, not so a GE), but if the Tories did go to 10% I disagree with your prediction (although my views are entirely a gut reaction so I accept I might be entirely wrong). I would predict that if the Tories were on 10% (and the LDs on a decent percentage) the LDs would sweep much of the South and South West and take a significant number of affluent or rural seats elsewhere (Harrogate, Hereford, etc). I agree there would be a Farage boom turning the remaining previously safe Tory seats which didn't go LD in Kent and Essex and such like into Labour/Farage marginals (Clacton and such like). I also think there would be a lot of Labour/Farage marginals in the Redwall.
So I could see a Labour landslide with a LD opposition and a handful of Farage if the Tories went to 10%. Of course we will never know as I think the Tories have the most stable highest core of all the main parties.
PS actually on re-reading your post I realise I only partly disagree and agree with some of it.
Farage and his parties benefit from PR systems - I don't know how well Reform or any new vehicle would do in FPTP.
This is why I think Tories going down to 15-20% in a GE would probably lead to Lab and LDs gaining almost all, with a Faragist party maybe picking up a handful of seats.
I agree. The premise though was 10%.
But 10% is unlikely - GE squeeze is different to PR squeeze. I think 15-20% is more reasonable.
Lets look at the next election.
Labour need 320+ seats - they used to get 50 in Scotland but are going to get about 4 max .
That means as a Tory voter you have 2 options at the next election - vote Tory for a hung Parliament or lend Labour your vote and ensure they get a decent majority that allows them to do something...
A lot of sane voters are going to be giving SKS the benefit of the doubt because the other option is complete and utter chaos...
Maybe. But if Truss is a short-term aberration and is quickly replaced by somebody like Wallace, who is seen as an entirely pragmatic Tory with no interest in any -ism but in getting the country through the international market traumas, then it depends on what he actually delivers.
If he reinstates Sunak as his Chancellor (perhaps with a quiet private assurance that he really doesn't want to be PM for very long and would happily endorse Rishi as his successor), then it is not so clear cut.
The Doomcasting for the Conservatives is predicated on Truss staying in place to the election. A Wallace-Sunak ticket for 18 months might well shoot most of Labour's foxes.
See Stocky's post of a few minutes ago.
Somehow the 1922 committee needs to manoeuvre things otherwise Truss is safely in place until September next year...
Ed Davey must be excited about being the official Leader of the Opposition after the election.
Sir Ed v Sir Keir, sounds very Game of Thrones.
If there was to be a non Tory leader of the Opposition to a Starmer government it would be led by Farage not Davey, if the Tories completely collapsed Canada 1993 style and were replaced by RefUK
You will know more than I do how many seats the LD’s are second to the Tories in so I am possibly wrong but surely if the Tories haemorrhage votes a lot will go to the Lib Dems as things stand (West Country, Winchester type seats).
If there is a Farage party up and running ahead of the next election they will indeed attract a lump of Tory votes but of the Tory vote gets split three ways (Farage, Tory hold-outs and LD) then the Tories will be wiped and Faragists unlikely to pick up many seats at the election.
Added to those seats that will go from Tory to Labour I can easily see a way for Ed Davey to be next leader of the opposition.
No, if the Tory vote collapsed completely ie to about 10% most of that would go to Farage as in the European elections who would then win most of the remaining Tory safe seats while Labour picked up most of the marginals. Even if the LDs picked up a few Tory home counties seats
I know this is completely academic as the Tories won't go down to 10% (I know European elections, but people protest there, not so a GE), but if the Tories did go to 10% I disagree with your prediction (although my views are entirely a gut reaction so I accept I might be entirely wrong). I would predict that if the Tories were on 10% (and the LDs on a decent percentage) the LDs would sweep much of the South and South West and take a significant number of affluent or rural seats elsewhere (Harrogate, Hereford, etc). I agree there would be a Farage boom turning the remaining previously safe Tory seats which didn't go LD in Kent and Essex and such like into Labour/Farage marginals (Clacton and such like). I also think there would be a lot of Labour/Farage marginals in the Redwall.
So I could see a Labour landslide with a LD opposition and a handful of Farage if the Tories went to 10%. Of course we will never know as I think the Tories have the most stable highest core of all the main parties.
PS actually on re-reading your post I realise I only partly disagree and agree with some of it.
Farage and his parties benefit from PR systems - I don't know how well Reform or any new vehicle would do in FPTP.
This is why I think Tories going down to 15-20% in a GE would probably lead to Lab and LDs gaining almost all, with a Faragist party maybe picking up a handful of seats.
I agree. The premise though was 10%.
But 10% is unlikely - GE squeeze is different to PR squeeze. I think 15-20% is more reasonable.
Lets look at the next election.
Labour need 320+ seats - they used to get 50 in Scotland but are going to get about 4 max .
That means as a Tory voter you have 2 options at the next election - vote Tory for a hung Parliament or lend Labour your vote and ensure they get a decent majority that allows them to do something...
A lot of sane voters are going to be giving SKS the benefit of the doubt because the other option is complete and utter chaos...
Maybe. But if Truss is a short-term aberration and is quickly replaced by somebody like Wallace, who is seen as an entirely pragmatic Tory with no interest in any -ism but in getting the country through the international market traumas, then it depends on what he actually delivers.
If he reinstates Sunak as his Chancellor (perhaps with a quiet private assurance that he really doesn't want to be PM for very long and would happily endorse Rishi as his successor), then it is not so clear cut.
The Doomcasting for the Conservatives is predicated on Truss staying in place to the election. A Wallace-Sunak ticket for 18 months might well shoot most of Labour's foxes.
See Stocky's post of a few minutes ago.
Somehow the 1922 committee needs to manoeuvre things otherwise Truss is safely in place until September next year...
Ed Davey must be excited about being the official Leader of the Opposition after the election.
Sir Ed v Sir Keir, sounds very Game of Thrones.
If there was to be a non Tory leader of the Opposition to a Starmer government it would be led by Farage not Davey, if the Tories completely collapsed Canada 1993 style and were replaced by RefUK
You will know more than I do how many seats the LD’s are second to the Tories in so I am possibly wrong but surely if the Tories haemorrhage votes a lot will go to the Lib Dems as things stand (West Country, Winchester type seats).
If there is a Farage party up and running ahead of the next election they will indeed attract a lump of Tory votes but of the Tory vote gets split three ways (Farage, Tory hold-outs and LD) then the Tories will be wiped and Faragists unlikely to pick up many seats at the election.
Added to those seats that will go from Tory to Labour I can easily see a way for Ed Davey to be next leader of the opposition.
No, if the Tory vote collapsed completely ie to about 10% most of that would go to Farage as in the European elections who would then win most of the remaining Tory safe seats while Labour picked up most of the marginals. Even if the LDs picked up a few Tory home counties seats
I know this is completely academic as the Tories won't go down to 10% (I know European elections, but people protest there, not so a GE), but if the Tories did go to 10% I disagree with your prediction (although my views are entirely a gut reaction so I accept I might be entirely wrong). I would predict that if the Tories were on 10% (and the LDs on a decent percentage) the LDs would sweep much of the South and South West and take a significant number of affluent or rural seats elsewhere (Harrogate, Hereford, etc). I agree there would be a Farage boom turning the remaining previously safe Tory seats which didn't go LD in Kent and Essex and such like into Labour/Farage marginals (Clacton and such like). I also think there would be a lot of Labour/Farage marginals in the Redwall.
So I could see a Labour landslide with a LD opposition and a handful of Farage if the Tories went to 10%. Of course we will never know as I think the Tories have the most stable highest core of all the main parties.
PS actually on re-reading your post I realise I only partly disagree and agree with some of it.
Farage and his parties benefit from PR systems - I don't know how well Reform or any new vehicle would do in FPTP.
This is why I think Tories going down to 15-20% in a GE would probably lead to Lab and LDs gaining almost all, with a Faragist party maybe picking up a handful of seats.
I agree. The premise though was 10%.
But 10% is unlikely - GE squeeze is different to PR squeeze. I think 15-20% is more reasonable.
Lets look at the next election.
Labour need 320+ seats - they used to get 50 in Scotland but are going to get about 4 max .
That means as a Tory voter you have 2 options at the next election - vote Tory for a hung Parliament or lend Labour your vote and ensure they get a decent majority that allows them to do something...
A lot of sane voters are going to be giving SKS the benefit of the doubt because the other option is complete and utter chaos...
Maybe. But if Truss is a short-term aberration and is quickly replaced by somebody like Wallace, who is seen as an entirely pragmatic Tory with no interest in any -ism but in getting the country through the international market traumas, then it depends on what he actually delivers.
If he reinstates Sunak as his Chancellor (perhaps with a quiet private assurance that he really doesn't want to be PM for very long and would happily endorse Rishi as his successor), then it is not so clear cut.
The Doomcasting for the Conservatives is predicated on Truss staying in place to the election. A Wallace-Sunak ticket for 18 months might well shoot most of Labour's foxes.
See Stocky's post of a few minutes ago.
Somehow the 1922 committee needs to manoeuvre things otherwise Truss is safely in place until September next year...
If she loses enough support among the MPs she will go, the details of rules won't matter.
OK - so we are back to a Johnson-era speculation that the 1922 will change the rules on a sitting leader. Possible I grant you but I can't see it myself.
The striking thing about the 'discovery' that Liz Truss is both 'properly bonkers' (as Dominic Cummings put it) and an absolutely abysmal media performer is that it's not a discovery at all. Even if you weren't paying attention before the leadership campaign started, her performance in the campaign, complete with gaffes and screeching U-turns, was plentiful evidence of exactly how bad her premiership would be. It's baffling that Tory party members didn't notice, given all the hustings and the TV debates with Sunak.
The membership polls had Truss top or thereabout for a long period but what is unclear is how much the anti-Sunak sentiment was a factor. He did better than expected but there was undoubtedly an "anyone but Sunak" faction. The reason for this seemed to be that they disliked his fiscal profligacy ......
Let's be honest, though. No doubt a fair few disliked the colour of his skin. I was assured by a Tory-inclined acquaintance that he was just "too dark".
Ed Davey must be excited about being the official Leader of the Opposition after the election.
Sir Ed v Sir Keir, sounds very Game of Thrones.
If there was to be a non Tory leader of the Opposition to a Starmer government it would be led by Farage not Davey, if the Tories completely collapsed Canada 1993 style and were replaced by RefUK
You will know more than I do how many seats the LD’s are second to the Tories in so I am possibly wrong but surely if the Tories haemorrhage votes a lot will go to the Lib Dems as things stand (West Country, Winchester type seats).
If there is a Farage party up and running ahead of the next election they will indeed attract a lump of Tory votes but of the Tory vote gets split three ways (Farage, Tory hold-outs and LD) then the Tories will be wiped and Faragists unlikely to pick up many seats at the election.
Added to those seats that will go from Tory to Labour I can easily see a way for Ed Davey to be next leader of the opposition.
No, if the Tory vote collapsed completely ie to about 10% most of that would go to Farage as in the European elections who would then win most of the remaining Tory safe seats while Labour picked up most of the marginals. Even if the LDs picked up a few Tory home counties seats
I know this is completely academic as the Tories won't go down to 10% (I know European elections, but people protest there, not so a GE), but if the Tories did go to 10% I disagree with your prediction (although my views are entirely a gut reaction so I accept I might be entirely wrong). I would predict that if the Tories were on 10% (and the LDs on a decent percentage) the LDs would sweep much of the South and South West and take a significant number of affluent or rural seats elsewhere (Harrogate, Hereford, etc). I agree there would be a Farage boom turning the remaining previously safe Tory seats which didn't go LD in Kent and Essex and such like into Labour/Farage marginals (Clacton and such like). I also think there would be a lot of Labour/Farage marginals in the Redwall.
So I could see a Labour landslide with a LD opposition and a handful of Farage if the Tories went to 10%. Of course we will never know as I think the Tories have the most stable highest core of all the main parties.
PS actually on re-reading your post I realise I only partly disagree and agree with some of it.
Farage and his parties benefit from PR systems - I don't know how well Reform or any new vehicle would do in FPTP.
This is why I think Tories going down to 15-20% in a GE would probably lead to Lab and LDs gaining almost all, with a Faragist party maybe picking up a handful of seats.
I agree. The premise though was 10%.
But 10% is unlikely - GE squeeze is different to PR squeeze. I think 15-20% is more reasonable.
Lets look at the next election.
Labour need 320+ seats - they used to get 50 in Scotland but are going to get about 4 max .
That means as a Tory voter you have 2 options at the next election - vote Tory for a hung Parliament or lend Labour your vote and ensure they get a decent majority that allows them to do something...
A lot of sane voters are going to be giving SKS the benefit of the doubt because the other option is complete and utter chaos...
Maybe. But if Truss is a short-term aberration and is quickly replaced by somebody like Wallace, who is seen as an entirely pragmatic Tory with no interest in any -ism but in getting the country through the international market traumas, then it depends on what he actually delivers.
If he reinstates Sunak as his Chancellor (perhaps with a quiet private assurance that he really doesn't want to be PM for very long and would happily endorse Rishi as his successor), then it is not so clear cut.
The Doomcasting for the Conservatives is predicated on Truss staying in place to the election. A Wallace-Sunak ticket for 18 months might well shoot most of Labour's foxes.
See Stocky's post of a few minutes ago.
Somehow the 1922 committee needs to manoeuvre things otherwise Truss is safely in place until September next year...
"Tory MPs may be penning new letters of no confidence in Liz Truss but, as we report on @TheNewsDesk tonight, there's a little known 1922 Committee rule (confirmed by Sir Graham Brady) that a new leader can't be challenged during their first 12 months. So she's safe for a year."
Thanks. Makes the bet mentioned attractive.
I guess the 22 could quietly change the rules though, say if Brady got an overwhelming number of letters they might consider that (although perhaps more likely he'd have a quiet word with Truss first to suggest a resignation). Either way, the odds look attractive.
Just thinking, has a UK government ever imploded so spectacularly? In the space of a year they’ve gone from looking set for another landslide to looking finished. And it’s almost all self-inflicted. Ditch the man who won them the last election because for all his ‘charisma’ he couldn’t tell the truth or govern competently and was crapping all over standards in public life, replace him with a lightweight who their MPs didn’t want and whose politics and personality have no popular appeal. Wham bam, thank you Tories, I say, with my Labour partisan hat on. I can’t pretend not to be pleased at the political ramifications. But taking that hat off for a second, it’s something of a tragedy. The country is being let down very badly by the Conservative party.
Yes, I believe it’s about a year since the discussion on PB about whether the opposition would see another poll lead, with a fair few PB’ers arguing the Tories would continue to lead for the foreseeable?
Ed Davey must be excited about being the official Leader of the Opposition after the election.
Sir Ed v Sir Keir, sounds very Game of Thrones.
If there was to be a non Tory leader of the Opposition to a Starmer government it would be led by Farage not Davey, if the Tories completely collapsed Canada 1993 style and were replaced by RefUK
You will know more than I do how many seats the LD’s are second to the Tories in so I am possibly wrong but surely if the Tories haemorrhage votes a lot will go to the Lib Dems as things stand (West Country, Winchester type seats).
If there is a Farage party up and running ahead of the next election they will indeed attract a lump of Tory votes but of the Tory vote gets split three ways (Farage, Tory hold-outs and LD) then the Tories will be wiped and Faragists unlikely to pick up many seats at the election.
Added to those seats that will go from Tory to Labour I can easily see a way for Ed Davey to be next leader of the opposition.
No, if the Tory vote collapsed completely ie to about 10% most of that would go to Farage as in the European elections who would then win most of the remaining Tory safe seats while Labour picked up most of the marginals. Even if the LDs picked up a few Tory home counties seats
I know this is completely academic as the Tories won't go down to 10% (I know European elections, but people protest there, not so a GE), but if the Tories did go to 10% I disagree with your prediction (although my views are entirely a gut reaction so I accept I might be entirely wrong). I would predict that if the Tories were on 10% (and the LDs on a decent percentage) the LDs would sweep much of the South and South West and take a significant number of affluent or rural seats elsewhere (Harrogate, Hereford, etc). I agree there would be a Farage boom turning the remaining previously safe Tory seats which didn't go LD in Kent and Essex and such like into Labour/Farage marginals (Clacton and such like). I also think there would be a lot of Labour/Farage marginals in the Redwall.
So I could see a Labour landslide with a LD opposition and a handful of Farage if the Tories went to 10%. Of course we will never know as I think the Tories have the most stable highest core of all the main parties.
PS actually on re-reading your post I realise I only partly disagree and agree with some of it.
Farage and his parties benefit from PR systems - I don't know how well Reform or any new vehicle would do in FPTP.
This is why I think Tories going down to 15-20% in a GE would probably lead to Lab and LDs gaining almost all, with a Faragist party maybe picking up a handful of seats.
I agree. The premise though was 10%.
But 10% is unlikely - GE squeeze is different to PR squeeze. I think 15-20% is more reasonable.
Lets look at the next election.
Labour need 320+ seats - they used to get 50 in Scotland but are going to get about 4 max .
That means as a Tory voter you have 2 options at the next election - vote Tory for a hung Parliament or lend Labour your vote and ensure they get a decent majority that allows them to do something...
A lot of sane voters are going to be giving SKS the benefit of the doubt because the other option is complete and utter chaos...
Maybe. But if Truss is a short-term aberration and is quickly replaced by somebody like Wallace, who is seen as an entirely pragmatic Tory with no interest in any -ism but in getting the country through the international market traumas, then it depends on what he actually delivers.
If he reinstates Sunak as his Chancellor (perhaps with a quiet private assurance that he really doesn't want to be PM for very long and would happily endorse Rishi as his successor), then it is not so clear cut.
The Doomcasting for the Conservatives is predicated on Truss staying in place to the election. A Wallace-Sunak ticket for 18 months might well shoot most of Labour's foxes.
See Stocky's post of a few minutes ago.
Somehow the 1922 committee needs to manoeuvre things otherwise Truss is safely in place until September next year...
I assume MarqueeMark is banking on a resignation
I just don't see Truss resigning..
Neither do I but there is a higher chance than the 1922 changing the rules IMO.
Also of note - these local journos are not pulling their punches; something about not needing access in the future / not going to the same Spectator parties mean they're happy to gut the PM in a way no "big media" person has?
Just thinking, has a UK government ever imploded so spectacularly? In the space of a year they’ve gone from looking set for another landslide to looking finished. And it’s almost all self-inflicted. Ditch the man who won them the last election because for all his ‘charisma’ he couldn’t tell the truth or govern competently and was crapping all over standards in public life, replace him with a lightweight who their MPs didn’t want and whose politics and personality have no popular appeal. Wham bam, thank you Tories, I say, with my Labour partisan hat on. I can’t pretend not to be pleased at the political ramifications. But taking that hat off for a second, it’s something of a tragedy. The country is being let down very badly by the Conservative party.
Yep. This would all be great if there was an election due in a month.
As it is, I really hope (although don't expect) the Tories manage to eject Truss and put someone sensible in charge.
"Tory MPs may be penning new letters of no confidence in Liz Truss but, as we report on @TheNewsDesk tonight, there's a little known 1922 Committee rule (confirmed by Sir Graham Brady) that a new leader can't be challenged during their first 12 months. So she's safe for a year."
Quite right too, a new leader ought to be able to have time to front-load unpopular decisions and get their job done.
The striking thing about the 'discovery' that Liz Truss is both 'properly bonkers' (as Dominic Cummings put it) and an absolutely abysmal media performer is that it's not a discovery at all. Even if you weren't paying attention before the leadership campaign started, her performance in the campaign, complete with gaffes and screeching U-turns, was plentiful evidence of exactly how bad her premiership would be. It's baffling that Tory party members didn't notice, given all the hustings and the TV debates with Sunak.
These were the people who didn’t notice that the previous incumbent was lazy and dishonest and entirely without principle, policy or scruple….
BREAKING: Hospital admissions of covid positive patients in England up 48% in a week.
Fourth Covid wave of 2022 now in full effect
At this point the only answer is dark, sardonic laughter, and a stiff scotch before noon
At this point the only answer is to stop worrying about Covid.
I'm not joking when I say if people get sick and die, they get sick and die. We've spent years locked down, we've rolled out is four or five rounds of vaccines now. Seriously, get over it already.
"Tory MPs may be penning new letters of no confidence in Liz Truss but, as we report on @TheNewsDesk tonight, there's a little known 1922 Committee rule (confirmed by Sir Graham Brady) that a new leader can't be challenged during their first 12 months. So she's safe for a year."
Thanks. Makes the bet mentioned attractive.
I guess the 22 could quietly change the rules though, say if Brady got an overwhelming number of letters they might consider that (although perhaps more likely he'd have a quiet word with Truss first to suggest a resignation). Either way, the odds look attractive.
They already said they can change the rules. So "there is a rule" means nothing of substance. TBH I doubt her downfall should it happen will not involve any rules.
The grandees will simply go to her and say "its over". Not sure whether we even need cabinet resignations or not - all the wazzocks in her team saying "this is fine" are all Dorries-level finished as soon as she departs.
Just thinking, has a UK government ever imploded so spectacularly? In the space of a year they’ve gone from looking set for another landslide to looking finished. And it’s almost all self-inflicted. Ditch the man who won them the last election because for all his ‘charisma’ he couldn’t tell the truth or govern competently and was crapping all over standards in public life, replace him with a lightweight who their MPs didn’t want and whose politics and personality have no popular appeal. Wham bam, thank you Tories, I say, with my Labour partisan hat on. I can’t pretend not to be pleased at the political ramifications. But taking that hat off for a second, it’s something of a tragedy. The country is being let down very badly by the Conservative party.
Some of it is self inflicted but the covid recession and the war have been extreme head winds that would have been challenging for any government.
If Truss goes it will be a very peculiar historical situation where she essentially popped into No.10 to see off the Queen and then was the new monarch’s PM for a matter of weeks.
If she did a favour for any of us it was sparing us BoJos eulogy…
I'm thinking of it the other way round. Imagine that Her Majesty survived to early October. Her last days would be lying in Balmoral distressed at how her new Prime Minister is ruining the country.
Ed Davey must be excited about being the official Leader of the Opposition after the election.
Sir Ed v Sir Keir, sounds very Game of Thrones.
If there was to be a non Tory leader of the Opposition to a Starmer government it would be led by Farage not Davey, if the Tories completely collapsed Canada 1993 style and were replaced by RefUK
You will know more than I do how many seats the LD’s are second to the Tories in so I am possibly wrong but surely if the Tories haemorrhage votes a lot will go to the Lib Dems as things stand (West Country, Winchester type seats).
If there is a Farage party up and running ahead of the next election they will indeed attract a lump of Tory votes but of the Tory vote gets split three ways (Farage, Tory hold-outs and LD) then the Tories will be wiped and Faragists unlikely to pick up many seats at the election.
Added to those seats that will go from Tory to Labour I can easily see a way for Ed Davey to be next leader of the opposition.
No, if the Tory vote collapsed completely ie to about 10% most of that would go to Farage as in the European elections who would then win most of the remaining Tory safe seats while Labour picked up most of the marginals. Even if the LDs picked up a few Tory home counties seats
I know this is completely academic as the Tories won't go down to 10% (I know European elections, but people protest there, not so a GE), but if the Tories did go to 10% I disagree with your prediction (although my views are entirely a gut reaction so I accept I might be entirely wrong). I would predict that if the Tories were on 10% (and the LDs on a decent percentage) the LDs would sweep much of the South and South West and take a significant number of affluent or rural seats elsewhere (Harrogate, Hereford, etc). I agree there would be a Farage boom turning the remaining previously safe Tory seats which didn't go LD in Kent and Essex and such like into Labour/Farage marginals (Clacton and such like). I also think there would be a lot of Labour/Farage marginals in the Redwall.
So I could see a Labour landslide with a LD opposition and a handful of Farage if the Tories went to 10%. Of course we will never know as I think the Tories have the most stable highest core of all the main parties.
PS actually on re-reading your post I realise I only partly disagree and agree with some of it.
Farage and his parties benefit from PR systems - I don't know how well Reform or any new vehicle would do in FPTP.
This is why I think Tories going down to 15-20% in a GE would probably lead to Lab and LDs gaining almost all, with a Faragist party maybe picking up a handful of seats.
I agree. The premise though was 10%.
But 10% is unlikely - GE squeeze is different to PR squeeze. I think 15-20% is more reasonable.
Lets look at the next election.
Labour need 320+ seats - they used to get 50 in Scotland but are going to get about 4 max .
That means as a Tory voter you have 2 options at the next election - vote Tory for a hung Parliament or lend Labour your vote and ensure they get a decent majority that allows them to do something...
A lot of sane voters are going to be giving SKS the benefit of the doubt because the other option is complete and utter chaos...
I mean, people don't vote on rationalities. And I also think that some Tory voters would be concerned about giving Starmer too much of a mandate, even if they no longer trust their party. I don't think the Tory vote collapses to 10% based on that alone. 15-20% seems to be the minimum of Tory vote.
The Tories haven't received less than 30% of the vote in a general election since 1832, the first election after the Great Reform Act, when the Duke of Wellington was leader and they received 29.2% of the votes cast. Major's next with 30.7% in 1997.
Perhaps the electorate is more volatile now, but I struggle to see the Tories falling below 30% in almost any circumstances. If anything, thanks to the Brexit and Corbyn years, I'd expect the electorate to be more polarised than before, and so the floor for Tory support likely higher. Anything below one-third is inconceivable.
We are navel gazing. The Trussterfuck is bad and quite big, but this is dimensionally worse
Because it cements escalation in place. Putin is annexing a vast chunk of Ukraine (half of it he doesn’t even occupy). No way Kyiv can accept this, and Putin knows it
Kyiv will now be fighting “in Russia”. That legally allows Putin to threaten and use nukes. But it doesn’t just allow this, he will be obliged to wield nukes as otherwise he is just “letting Russia be attacked” and he will be toppled and a proper dictator will take over, who will actually defend Mother Russia. With nukes
I’m afraid to say all signs point to the use of nuclear weapons. Or something horribly close
"Tory MPs may be penning new letters of no confidence in Liz Truss but, as we report on @TheNewsDesk tonight, there's a little known 1922 Committee rule (confirmed by Sir Graham Brady) that a new leader can't be challenged during their first 12 months. So she's safe for a year."
Quite right too, a new leader ought to be able to have time to front-load unpopular decisions and get their job done.
The problem is this though - "unpopular decisions" normally raise revenue. They've taken unpopular decisions that will cut revenue. Which means they're still going to have to make even more unpopular decisions to raise the revenue they just lost through their initial unpopular decisions...
Considering well over half of Tory MPs didn't want Truss isn't there at least a reasonable chance that a move to instate Rishi might be underway? Like him or not he's a very slick operator. What's more everything he predicted and LOUDLY has happened. He said her plans were 'cloud cuckoo land' and would be a disaster and so it's proved. Cummings who is nobody's fool also knew it 'She's as close to probper crackers as anyone I've met in Parliament'
In my opinion ruling out a Tory putsch is a mistake
Cummings most definitely is a fool. He's a liar, a forger, a failure, a fantasist and a bully who has failed spectacularly at everything he's ever done because he has shocking judgment and a lazy intellect coupled, rather unfortunately, to a highly over-active imagination and a raging egomania.
That doesn't mean he's wrong about Truss, of course. In fact, if even somebody as bonkers as him thought she was a bit weird, that was probably a warning sign.
"who has failed spectacularly at everything he's ever done"
Exhibit 1: Brexit
You may hate Brexit, but delivering it was an historically spectacular achievement - the like of which few ever get to achieve.
And he (a) was far less important in it than he likes to pretend and (b) it hasn't delivered what he said it would. Which makes it a failure.
Even if I concede your point - which as you can see, I don't - name me one other achievement. Any other. In his whole life.
Cummings succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of most spin doctors. And that is how he must be judged
Brexit was epochal
And, on his terms, a failure.
To give Cummings some due credit, he did at least want Brexit to happen in order to achieve other stuff. The connections were somewhere between thin and utterly stupid, but they were there.
The trouble is that Brexit is now the prisoner of sozzled old farts for whom Brexit in itself is the achievement- possibly the only real achievement of their lives. That means that, however badly it harms future us, it is still a great achievement and cannot be reversed, diluted or even questioned.
Only thing that can be cut and generate the savings need to balance things up is Welfare....
Or unrolling the KamiKwasi budget. Of course, the reputational damage is now done and the worrying thing is that there are guaranteed to be at least two more budgets before the January 2025 election. Two more opportunities to destroy the country.
Hearing Liz Truss speaking on local radio saying the mini budget is going according to plan in the face of terrifying evidence is unsustainable. Blind to reality, which was the problem in the first place https://twitter.com/tobyhelm/status/1575384205747490817
She planned on making all our pensions insolvent?!?!? Christ ....
Here we go, so any attacks on those regions will be attacks directly onto Russia, and the nukes come out...
Yes of course. This was always the obvious next move
Putin will now “legally” threaten Ukraine/NATO with nukes unless they stop the war “inside Russia”. Ukraine probably won’t stop
Putin will be forced to follow through - by his own logic - and will drop a tactical nuke somewhere. This is now more likely than not
And sadly this may be what gets Truss out of the mess. It is going to be overtaken by another even bigger crisis.
Not a chance. If the international situation goes bad then it will require a politician with gravitas and ability, not a vacant idiot full of half-baked theories from the Libertarian right. She would be out faster than you could blink.
"Tory MPs may be penning new letters of no confidence in Liz Truss but, as we report on @TheNewsDesk tonight, there's a little known 1922 Committee rule (confirmed by Sir Graham Brady) that a new leader can't be challenged during their first 12 months. So she's safe for a year."
Quite right too, a new leader ought to be able to have time to front-load unpopular decisions and get their job done.
She needs an election then, so we can all have our say as to whether she has the mandate to take the sort of decisions she is taken
I’d agree with you had we’d just come out of a general election and she had won a stonking majority. She may be acting like it..
Ed Davey must be excited about being the official Leader of the Opposition after the election.
Sir Ed v Sir Keir, sounds very Game of Thrones.
If there was to be a non Tory leader of the Opposition to a Starmer government it would be led by Farage not Davey, if the Tories completely collapsed Canada 1993 style and were replaced by RefUK
You will know more than I do how many seats the LD’s are second to the Tories in so I am possibly wrong but surely if the Tories haemorrhage votes a lot will go to the Lib Dems as things stand (West Country, Winchester type seats).
If there is a Farage party up and running ahead of the next election they will indeed attract a lump of Tory votes but of the Tory vote gets split three ways (Farage, Tory hold-outs and LD) then the Tories will be wiped and Faragists unlikely to pick up many seats at the election.
Added to those seats that will go from Tory to Labour I can easily see a way for Ed Davey to be next leader of the opposition.
No, if the Tory vote collapsed completely ie to about 10% most of that would go to Farage as in the European elections who would then win most of the remaining Tory safe seats while Labour picked up most of the marginals. Even if the LDs picked up a few Tory home counties seats
I know this is completely academic as the Tories won't go down to 10% (I know European elections, but people protest there, not so a GE), but if the Tories did go to 10% I disagree with your prediction (although my views are entirely a gut reaction so I accept I might be entirely wrong). I would predict that if the Tories were on 10% (and the LDs on a decent percentage) the LDs would sweep much of the South and South West and take a significant number of affluent or rural seats elsewhere (Harrogate, Hereford, etc). I agree there would be a Farage boom turning the remaining previously safe Tory seats which didn't go LD in Kent and Essex and such like into Labour/Farage marginals (Clacton and such like). I also think there would be a lot of Labour/Farage marginals in the Redwall.
So I could see a Labour landslide with a LD opposition and a handful of Farage if the Tories went to 10%. Of course we will never know as I think the Tories have the most stable highest core of all the main parties.
PS actually on re-reading your post I realise I only partly disagree and agree with some of it.
Farage and his parties benefit from PR systems - I don't know how well Reform or any new vehicle would do in FPTP.
This is why I think Tories going down to 15-20% in a GE would probably lead to Lab and LDs gaining almost all, with a Faragist party maybe picking up a handful of seats.
I agree. The premise though was 10%.
But 10% is unlikely - GE squeeze is different to PR squeeze. I think 15-20% is more reasonable.
Lets look at the next election.
Labour need 320+ seats - they used to get 50 in Scotland but are going to get about 4 max .
That means as a Tory voter you have 2 options at the next election - vote Tory for a hung Parliament or lend Labour your vote and ensure they get a decent majority that allows them to do something...
A lot of sane voters are going to be giving SKS the benefit of the doubt because the other option is complete and utter chaos...
I mean, people don't vote on rationalities. And I also think that some Tory voters would be concerned about giving Starmer too much of a mandate, even if they no longer trust their party. I don't think the Tory vote collapses to 10% based on that alone. 15-20% seems to be the minimum of Tory vote.
The Tories haven't received less than 30% of the vote in a general election since 1832, the first election after the Great Reform Act, when the Duke of Wellington was leader and they received 29.2% of the votes cast. Major's next with 30.7% in 1997.
Perhaps the electorate is more volatile now, but I struggle to see the Tories falling below 30% in almost any circumstances. If anything, thanks to the Brexit and Corbyn years, I'd expect the electorate to be more polarised than before, and so the floor for Tory support likely higher. Anything below one-third is inconceivable.
May I tentatively ask whether Covid death age-differentials will have an effect on the core vote?
Just thinking, has a UK government ever imploded so spectacularly? In the space of a year they’ve gone from looking set for another landslide to looking finished. And it’s almost all self-inflicted. Ditch the man who won them the last election because for all his ‘charisma’ he couldn’t tell the truth or govern competently and was crapping all over standards in public life, replace him with a lightweight who their MPs didn’t want and whose politics and personality have no popular appeal. Wham bam, thank you Tories, I say, with my Labour partisan hat on. I can’t pretend not to be pleased at the political ramifications. But taking that hat off for a second, it’s something of a tragedy. The country is being let down very badly by the Conservative party.
Some of it is self inflicted but the covid recession and the war have been extreme head winds that would have been challenging for any government.
You don't need to use the subjunctive. The Covid recession and the war *is* challenging for many governments. Most have not reacted in a way that deliberately shafts the finances of their country though.
BREAKING: Hospital admissions of covid positive patients in England up 48% in a week.
Fourth Covid wave of 2022 now in full effect
At this point the only answer is dark, sardonic laughter, and a stiff scotch before noon
At this point the only answer is to stop worrying about Covid.
I'm not joking when I say if people get sick and die, they get sick and die. We've spent years locked down, we've rolled out is four or five rounds of vaccines now. Seriously, get over it already.
Er, my literal reaction was Fuck it. Dark laughter and a glass of noontime Glenlivet
I’m so over Covid. Unfortunately, we have vastly bigger problems
We are navel gazing. The Trussterfuck is bad and quite big, but this is dimensionally worse
Because it cements escalation in place. Putin is annexing a vast chunk of Ukraine (half of it he doesn’t even occupy). No way Kyiv can accept this, and Putin knows it
Kyiv will now be fighting “in Russia”. That legally allows Putin to threaten and use nukes. But it doesn’t just allow this, he will be obliged to wield nukes as otherwise he is just “letting Russia be attacked” and he will be toppled and a proper dictator will take over, who will actually defend Mother Russia. With nukes
I’m afraid to say all signs point to the use of nuclear weapons. Or something horribly close
Russia won't declare war (Which I previously thought) - my sources indicate the SMO will change to a counter-terrorist operation (CTO). Which as everyone knows then "allows" circumventing of the Geneva convention.
Comments
Yesterday you and I were viewing the Trussterfuck as indicative of a wider global problem. I stand by that view. There is too much debt and a ton of anxiety. The USA itself is paying a lot more to lenders
My bet is that the bond markets will now move on to the next victim. There is money to be made in menacing countries as well as companies so the logic is inexorable
Who is next? The obvious targets are Italy or Japan (massive debt) but it may be more surprising. Belgium?
You'll wait until the grown-ups are back in the room.
There's some good "overreaction" money to bet into atm imo.
And even then I don't think he would win many.
https://twitter.com/fatshez/status/1575428119963525121
But, the thing is this. Singapore has an ordered and powerful state. The singapore analogy falls, as does the US analogy. There is no country that just goes around smashing up the state in the way they would like to do.
I wouldn't be surprised if this all leads to protests and riots. Even the police have had enough of this crap.
In Norwich where she is a local MP she couldn't even promise that the hospital that is falling apart can be repaired.
In Lancashire she couldn't provide a sane answer regarding Fracking.
Both were the obvious questions that were going to be asked for which she should have had prepared answers.
To say she is useless is to insult 99.999% of people who are useless she is way way beyond useless
If she did a favour for any of us it was sparing us BoJos eulogy…
Labour need 320+ seats - they used to get 50 in Scotland but are going to get about 4 max .
That means as a Tory voter you have 2 options at the next election - vote Tory for a hung Parliament or lend Labour your vote and ensure they get a decent majority that allows them to do something...
A lot of sane voters are going to be giving SKS the benefit of the doubt because the other option is complete and utter chaos...
Its ideal conditions for the Masters of the Universe to make an even more massive fortune at our expense.
Not so sure about Japan, they just accept another three lost decades and bumble along, not a panic economy.
Europe is the puppy, its collective is its weakness, countries being expected to go against what they want to protect the hive. Look at what was done to Greece. Its ripe for a ruining frankly. As are we I should add (as right now shows)
It was just a bit of fun re 'what if'.
Libertarian wierdos always seem to completely ignore this, which tells me that they’re not serious about their economic analysis - they’re just picking and choosing the bits they happen to like & pretending that the outcome will be the same.
Here we go, so any attacks on those regions will be attacks directly onto Russia, and the nukes come out...
Starmer will need to offer remedies. And he will have to be honest about spending cuts. Not easy for a prospective Labour PM
@thehistoryguy
That was the worst provincial campaign of any of our leaders since autumn 1216 when King John marched about dealing with a rebellion & two invasions, caught dysentery in Norfolk, lost the Crown Jewels in The Wash and died in Nottinghamshire
We need savings back with a return on them.
He was listened to with some scorn but it was a much calmer era.
@HSJEditor
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1h
WOAH!
BREAKING: Hospital admissions of covid positive patients in England up 48% in a week.
Fourth Covid wave of 2022 now in full effect
Found it! Knew I wasn't going crazy - at least not yet:
https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1574815174057496579
"Tory MPs may be penning new letters of no confidence in Liz Truss but, as we report on
@TheNewsDesk
tonight, there's a little known 1922 Committee rule (confirmed by Sir Graham Brady) that a new leader can't be challenged during their first 12 months. So she's safe for a year."
Such schemes involved an IMF bailout for Ireland's government to take over its banking system, including its NI assets...
I must be in the minority by now ?
Putin will now “legally” threaten Ukraine/NATO with nukes unless they stop the war “inside Russia”. Ukraine probably won’t stop
Putin will be forced to follow through - by his own logic - and will drop a tactical nuke somewhere. This is now more likely than not
If he reinstates Sunak as his Chancellor (perhaps with a quiet private assurance that he really doesn't want to be PM for very long and would happily endorse Rishi as his successor), then it is not so clear cut.
The Doomcasting for the Conservatives is predicated on Truss staying in place to the election. A Wallace-Sunak ticket for 18 months might well shoot most of Labour's foxes.
That’s like blaming the Greek crisis on Goldman Sachs. Yes, they bullshitted the reporting (at the er… suggestion if I the Greek Government and the EU), but ultimately, the Greek government borrowed more money than they could repay.
What is happening is that, since 2008, we have been running an emergency economy, worldwide. Quantative Easing was supposed to be a bridge. To get us to a place where we could fix the problems, rather than heading off the cliff. The problem was that QA became the new normal.
Bit like Greece using the Euro to finance lots of debt, rather than fixing the economy.
Truss & Co. triggered the comedy. The IMF and US reactions were about recognising they are not far off the same sequence of events.
Setting your hair on fire when you are swimming in petrol is not a good idea. The ultimate problem is the petrol, though.
If only HS2 was coming to Leeds it would be 3.
No info on how many were admitted to hospital with or because of Covid.
No info on who is vaccinated or the demographics of people admitted.
Crucially, no info on what the actual numbers were before and after.
The dashboard shows admissions/people in hospital is just off a 3 month low.
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/
Not saying there's no reason to be concerned, but that tweet seems deliberately vague to try and get the iSAGE lot to start calling for masks and lockdowns.
I’m not “blaming” anyone. Just parsing the logical progression. The brutal questioning of debt will not stop with the UK
Somehow the 1922 committee needs to manoeuvre things otherwise Truss is safely in place until September next year...
Sabine Fischer
@SabFis3
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18m
It’s official.
Tomorrow at 15.00 (Moscow time) 🇷🇺 will annex #Donetsk, #Luhansk, #Zaporizhzhia + #Kherson. They will „sign treaties“ at the Kremlin.
#Putin will give #annexation speech after the ceremony (time TBC).
Подписание состоится 30 сентября https://ria.ru/20220929/rossiya-1820292553.html
2. I never said the "Singapore" comparison made sense. But that is what they use
3. Protests and riots nailed on. Sadly.
The ERM was about an exchange rate that was wrong.
Greece was about borrowing so much that repayment was in doubt.
The current fuckup is about the actions of the government breaking confidence in the long term stability of the pound.
As ever, the markets are reacting.
The real blame lies with the MPs. They decide who the membership gets to vote on. If they only presented competent, sane politicians then the members would not be able to elect activist nutters like Truss and Corbyn.
The MPs did this. They ran a popularity contest and then presented a mediocre politician and a raving nut job to a selectorate renowned for helping themselves to other peoples' money / work / sweat.
It was a exercise in indulgence, not in leadership
To take a more recent example, Hilary Clinton didn't get elected but her uncharismatic style would have been perfectly fine for US gov't.
Truss' media performance is by far the least of our worries. It's the rest of it that's the platform.
I'm in the same category.
I guess the 22 could quietly change the rules though, say if Brady got an overwhelming number of letters they might consider that (although perhaps more likely he'd have a quiet word with Truss first to suggest a resignation). Either way, the odds look attractive.
Scrapping state pension triple lock ‘under consideration’, warns minister
Chris Philp did not rule out backing down from the 2019 manifesto commitment
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/pensions-retirement/news/state-pension-triple-lock-consideration-says-minister/
I think I’m one of the 5% - but it’s likely many of us had it and never knew
https://twitter.com/dinosofos/status/1575389891453648901?s=46&t=X7ZReq-sz1AMESs65gey8A
Also of note - these local journos are not pulling their punches; something about not needing access in the future / not going to the same Spectator parties mean they're happy to gut the PM in a way no "big media" person has?
As it is, I really hope (although don't expect) the Tories manage to eject Truss and put someone sensible in charge.
I'm not joking when I say if people get sick and die, they get sick and die. We've spent years locked down, we've rolled out is four or five rounds of vaccines now. Seriously, get over it already.
The grandees will simply go to her and say "its over". Not sure whether we even need cabinet resignations or not - all the wazzocks in her team saying "this is fine" are all Dorries-level finished as soon as she departs.
It is going to be overtaken by another even bigger crisis.
Perhaps the electorate is more volatile now, but I struggle to see the Tories falling below 30% in almost any circumstances. If anything, thanks to the Brexit and Corbyn years, I'd expect the electorate to be more polarised than before, and so the floor for Tory support likely higher. Anything below one-third is inconceivable.
Because it cements escalation in place. Putin is annexing a vast chunk of Ukraine (half of it he doesn’t even occupy). No way Kyiv can accept this, and Putin knows it
Kyiv will now be fighting “in Russia”. That legally allows Putin to threaten and use nukes. But it doesn’t just allow this, he will be obliged to wield nukes as otherwise he is just “letting Russia be attacked” and he will be toppled and a proper dictator will take over, who will actually defend Mother Russia. With nukes
I’m afraid to say all signs point to the use of nuclear weapons. Or something horribly close
Still haven't had it!
I’d agree with you had we’d just come out of a general election and she had won a stonking majority. She may be acting like it..
I’m so over Covid. Unfortunately, we have vastly bigger problems