This isn’t going to be doing Penny any harm with her own party.
Truss placed Penny in an impossible position and Penny has performed very well under the circumstances and it is shameful, utterly shameful, Truss put her in this position
Truss is a disgrace to the office of Prime Minister and in a few short weeks has established herself as the worst PM in my lifetime
That is really saying something. Especially as BGNW has observed (I think) every PM in action since Lord North!
Calling it now. Truss is going to be resigning in next couple of days. Penny is going to be the compromise candidate, leading a government drawn from all wings of the party.
So are they making up some national security reason for the Truss absence . Are we all about to be nuked. Where is Leon ?
Nope there would have been a briefing to Labour Party if it was that serious. That said I would have thought they would also have shared her being ill.
A sick note is her only reasonably graceful exit from this point onwards.
We will hear from the prime minister *in the next 24 hours*, says Mordaunt. This is sounding… bad.
If its health related and she is going it would be poor form not to have informed SKS before he went in 2 footed I would expect him to have been informed by back channels even if not by Number 10 direct
Tory MPs are being told Truss will get Hunt to answer Starmer’s urgent question. If she sits mute next to him, that will be her vote of confidence in her Chancellor...but it may also fuel calls for a vote of no confidence in herself.
If Hunt answers the question surely it just confirms he is the PM in all but name.
And it confirms that Truss needs to go asap.
Equally Hunt hasn't been selected by anyone except Truss so that isn't exactly representing any version of democracy when the new DeFacto leader came last in the last leadership contest.
If Hunt is now made PM by coronation there would be civil war in the party, he knows that which is why he is happy staying Chancellor with Truss his puppet PM.
The ERG would also nominate a candidate against him unless the 1922 cttee put an absurd figure of say 150 Tory MPs required to nominate a leadership candidate
If the polls and the £ and the FTSE go up, I am sure they could cope with it.
Everyone knows that the hard Brexit is going to have to be undone; while the grown-ups are in charge they may as well start on that, too.
Rejoin the single market and restore free movement and that is it for the Tories, they not only lose by a landslide but Farage's party replaces them as the main opposition
It would not happen. Brexit is no longer a salient issue.
If the Tories rejoin the single market and add all EU regulations and EU free movement again, then most Leave voters will move en masse from Tory to Farage exactly as they did in Spring 2019. Anyone who says otherwise is clueless
It won't be Farage. He is a spent force. The movement you describe may well happen but it will be to whoever can pick up Farage's mantel. I have no idea who is even leading Reform these days. Or it could be Fox with Reclaim.
In the end it will still make no difference in terms of who forms the next government. It will only affect the size of the magnitude of the Tory defeat. Neiter Reform or Reclaim will get more than a couple of seats - if that.
Richard Tice runs Reform UK, Hamilton has the pitiful Kipper remnants
I quite like Tice on a personal level. But he is a lost cause as far as getting any significant numbers of seats in Parliament.
Needs something new. Tice has made no impression at all in by elections or at local level. A red wall focussed effort and perhaps heavily concentrated in the Essex, East Greater London and Kent seats could pay dividends
comes across as too much of a public school smoothie to appeal to the red wall i think
Farage? Exactly where he was strongest in 2015 and 2019.
You seem to be assuming nothing much has changed since Farage was polling well. We are now experiencing Brexit and people are not exactly dancing in the streets.
A small anecdote - I have had numerous friendly chats over the years with the guy mows our lawns. He strongly backed Brexit and voted for UKIP on numerous occasions. Last week he told me that if Farage was standing in front of him right now he would punch his lights out.
We will hear from the prime minister *in the next 24 hours*, says Mordaunt. This is sounding… bad.
If its health related and she is going it would be poor form not to have informed SKS before he went in 2 footed I would expect him to have been informed by back channels even if not by Number 10 durect
Something deeply serious that doesn't impact on any other world leaders whose itineraries seem to be uninterrupted, and permits her to be smiling happily back on the front bench when the danger of having to speak is over.
We will hear from the prime minister *in the next 24 hours*, says Mordaunt. This is sounding… bad.
If its health related and she is going it would be poor form not to have informed SKS before he went in 2 footed I would expect him to have been informed by back channels even if not by Number 10 direct
Anger boiling over now.. Cabinet Minister tells me:
“Team Rishi’s efforts are fuelling the destabilisation of the government. This in turn is fuelling market volatility. They should stop being bad losers and desist... 1/2
...and Rishi seems to have forgotten that he was the author of all this over-spending. No one wants to give the matches back to the arsonist.”
This isn’t going to be doing Penny any harm with her own party.
Truss placed Penny in an impossible position and Penny has performed very well under the circumstances and it is shameful, utterly shameful, Truss put her in this position
Truss is a disgrace to the office of Prime Minister and in a few short weeks has established herself as the worst PM in my lifetime
That is really saying something. Especially as BGNW has observed (I think) every PM in action since Lord North!
Tory MPs are being told Truss will get Hunt to answer Starmer’s urgent question. If she sits mute next to him, that will be her vote of confidence in her Chancellor...but it may also fuel calls for a vote of no confidence in herself.
If Hunt answers the question surely it just confirms he is the PM in all but name.
And it confirms that Truss needs to go asap.
Equally Hunt hasn't been selected by anyone except Truss so that isn't exactly representing any version of democracy when the new DeFacto leader came last in the last leadership contest.
If Hunt is now made PM by coronation there would be civil war in the party, he knows that which is why he is happy staying Chancellor with Truss his puppet PM.
The ERG would also nominate a candidate against him unless the 1922 cttee put an absurd figure of say 150 Tory MPs required to nominate a leadership candidate
If the polls and the £ and the FTSE go up, I am sure they could cope with it.
Everyone knows that the hard Brexit is going to have to be undone; while the grown-ups are in charge they may as well start on that, too.
Rejoin the single market and restore free movement and that is it for the Tories, they not only lose by a landslide but Farage's party replaces them as the main opposition
It would not happen. Brexit is no longer a salient issue.
If the Tories rejoin the single market and add all EU regulations and EU free movement again, then most Leave voters will move en masse from Tory to Farage exactly as they did in Spring 2019. Anyone who says otherwise is clueless
It won't be Farage. He is a spent force. The movement you describe may well happen but it will be to whoever can pick up Farage's mantel. I have no idea who is even leading Reform these days. Or it could be Fox with Reclaim.
In the end it will still make no difference in terms of who forms the next government. It will only affect the size of the magnitude of the Tory defeat. Neiter Reform or Reclaim will get more than a couple of seats - if that.
Richard Tice runs Reform UK, Hamilton has the pitiful Kipper remnants
I quite like Tice on a personal level. But he is a lost cause as far as getting any significant numbers of seats in Parliament.
Needs something new. Tice has made no impression at all in by elections or at local level. A red wall focussed effort and perhaps heavily concentrated in the Essex, East Greater London and Kent seats could pay dividends
comes across as too much of a public school smoothie to appeal to the red wall i think
Farage? Exactly where he was strongest in 2015 and 2019.
You seem to be assuming nothing much has changed since Farage was polling well. We are now experiencing Brexit and people are not exactly dancing in the streets.
A small anecdote - I have had numerous friendly chats over the years with the guy mows our lawns. He strongly backed Brexit and voted for UKIP on numerous occasions. Last week he told me that if Farage was standing in front of him right now he would punch his lights out.
Rejoin 'might' be in the lead now, yes, but there is significant minority support for Brexit still.
Labour quite right to say she should just stand up and explain why. Truss had the opportunity to show leadership. She chose not to. Tory MPs will have noticed.
Labour quite right to say she should just stand up and explain why. Truss had the opportunity to show leadership. She chose not to. Tory MPs will have noticed.
If it is a legitimate matter of national or international security, something related to the war perhaps, it would not be necessarily appropriate to just blurt it out.
If its not, then they're not going to blurt it out either.
Early in 2016, with the approach of the European Union referendum, Boris Johnson was wavering between Leave and Remain, and Wallace advised him strongly to support Remain, as taking the Leave side would mean being allied with "clowns".
Labour quite right to say she should just stand up and explain why. Truss had the opportunity to show leadership. She chose not to. Tory MPs will have noticed.
If it is a legitimate matter of national or international security, something related to the war perhaps, it would not be necessarily appropriate to just blurt it out.
If its not, then they're not going to blurt it out either.
The point is, you could say there was an urgent matter of N/IS without giving details.
True, people might not believe it but it would be better than this ambiguity.
Labour quite right to say she should just stand up and explain why. Truss had the opportunity to show leadership. She chose not to. Tory MPs will have noticed.
If it is a legitimate matter of national or international security, something related to the war perhaps, it would not be necessarily appropriate to just blurt it out.
If its not, then they're not going to blurt it out either.
That is true. She needed to do something though. Just sitting saying nothing is not good enough, if just for her own chances of survival. Tory MPs will have noticed that she is there but not leading.
This Tory hustings is great. The acerbic Mordaunt or the smooth Hunt. Hmmm.
They should've just done this in the Summer and saved weeks of hustings. Either would be better. I think Mordaunt is a bit more charismatic and would save more Tory seats.
If I had any doubt that she was on her way out in the next week, I haven’t now.
That situation with Penny Mordaunt was utterly ridiculous. Tory MPs will have noticed Truss didn’t bother to defend herself, and they will have noticed Penny mucked in and acquitted herself well (or as well as she could in the circumstances).
Penny looks incredibly serious every time she explains why Truss isn't there. It doesn't look made up. One really hopes it is not something serious.
I'm not watching, so...
"every time"? How many opposition MPs have wasted their question by repeating a question someone else has asked?
About eleven of them.
Which was doubly stupid because that gave Mordaunt an easy answer. When there were different questions, like Johnson's superb 'will the PM not take further part in economic decision making' she found it far, far tougher.
The National Grid CEO has warned British households to prepare for blackouts between 4pm and 7pm on “really, really cold” weekdays in January and February
Paul Waugh @paulwaugh · 10m . @trussliz has arrived, conveniently just as Hunt arrives. That national security reason very mysteriously ended just in time for Truss to arrive exactly as its time for Hunt to speak.
If Truss isn’t mentally fit to cope with the job then she should just resign . People will be sympathetic if this is effecting her mental health but the brutal reality is you’re either upto the job or not .
Comments
(Although @Roger's "No" probably tops it
I really cannot see it
Hope he’s got plenty of popcorn in the larder.
Sam Coates Sky
@SamCoatesSky
Penny Mordaunt unable to say why the PM isn't in the Chamber (tho she is on the Parliamentary estate)
Suggests there's a very good, non economic reason for absence
"There are very serious matters as well as economic matters .... She will be here tomorrow"
I would expect him to have been informed by back channels even if not by Number 10 direct
A small anecdote - I have had numerous friendly chats over the years with the guy mows our lawns. He strongly backed Brexit and voted for UKIP on numerous occasions. Last week he told me that if Farage was standing in front of him right now he would punch his lights out.
Bryant raising the point of order. Quite rightly.
“Team Rishi’s efforts are fuelling the destabilisation of the government. This in turn is fuelling market volatility. They should stop being bad losers and desist... 1/2
...and Rishi seems to have forgotten that he was the author of all this over-spending. No one wants to give the matches back to the arsonist.”
https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1582027871627116544
Unrelenting, rapid drama. Different vibe to the "boom" of the exit poll or the slow burn of Johnson's collapse
She is sat there nodding her head while Hunt, right next to her, undoes her entire agenda.
Can they seriously now not upgrade benefits by actual inflation.
If its not, then they're not going to blurt it out either.
True, people might not believe it but it would be better than this ambiguity.
"every time"? How many opposition MPs have wasted their question by repeating a question someone else has asked?
Wowsa
That situation with Penny Mordaunt was utterly ridiculous. Tory MPs will have noticed Truss didn’t bother to defend herself, and they will have noticed Penny mucked in and acquitted herself well (or as well as she could in the circumstances).
And who can blame her, frankly.
Which was doubly stupid because that gave Mordaunt an easy answer. When there were different questions, like Johnson's superb 'will the PM not take further part in economic decision making' she found it far, far tougher.
https://www.ft.com/content/d31fbbd6-8325-43b7-94e4-29101cfe6045
@paulwaugh
·
10m
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@trussliz
has arrived, conveniently just as Hunt arrives. That national security reason very mysteriously ended just in time for Truss to arrive exactly as its time for Hunt to speak.