Sunak remains favourite to succeed Truss as PM – politicalbetting.com
I find this one hard to call as, judging by the betting, so do punters. Sunak has been favourite for so long but would he fail again in a leadership contest?
I have laid him. He is conspicuously awol today (but then people said last time round, Truss had ruled herself out by being in the far East when it all kicked off). And truly stellar performances drom PM and JH this afternoon can't have helped him.
A gorgeous autumn afternoon backing losers at Windsor may not be Colorado but it's a world away from the machinations of Westminster.
I wonder the extent to which Conservative MPs now have buyers' remorse. Would a PM Mordaunt be in the same position as the current incumbent? It seems implausible - she came out swinging for her Prime Minister today and that display of "loyalty" won't go unnoticed.
Hunt did what we needed to do over the weekend and this morning (in concert with other factors) to stabilise and steady the markets but economically we seem in a different place from three weeks ago. As I said last evening, the Magic Money tree has been cut up and the stump burned - Prudence is back in the Presidential Suite and it seem the "compassionate Conservative" (a phrase I first heard used by George W Bush) is now in favour.
Whether the electorate will consider it compassionate or self-serving is another matter and the tone of Hunt's ominous warnings suggest prudence will dictate compassion is in short supply. This may not just be the reckoning for Kwarteng's absurdity but for the whole Covid response and post-Covid response.
Truss's behaviour today has been extraordinary - I cannot imagine any other Prime Minister who wouldn't have tried to come out swinging but to use Mordaunt as a human shield suggests a diminution in extremis. After just six weeks, her meteoric descent will likely end more in the manner of Chicxulub but whether the Conservative Party itself can survive the impact is the longer-term question.
StillWaters said: » show previous quotes From 1936 : Vote Hogg to save your bacon
SSI - Believe the year was 1938, and the slogan referred to Hogg's support for the Munich Agreement just "negotiated" by Neville Chamberlain
from Hogg's wiki page:
In 1938, Hogg was chosen as a candidate for Parliament in the Oxford by-election. This election took place shortly after the Munich Agreement and the Labour candidate Patrick Gordon Walker was persuaded to step down to allow a unified challenge to the Conservatives; A. D. Lindsay, the Master of Balliol College fought as an 'Independent Progressive' candidate. Hogg narrowly defeated Lindsay, who was said to be horrified by the popular slogan of "Hitler wants Hogg".
Hogg voted against Neville Chamberlain in the Norway Debate of May 1940, and supported Winston Churchill. . . .
I have laid him. He is conspicuously awol today (but then people said last time round, Truss had ruled herself out by being in the far East when it all kicked off). And truly stellar performances drom PM and JH this afternoon can't have helped him.
Farage called what has happened the last few weeks a globalist coup tonite
The Chancellor and the PM announced policies that led to the deficit skyrocketing. Investors took fright, because bad shit often happens to countries where debt levels rise in perpetuity (see Greece, Japan, and even Italy).
Investors are neither legally nor morally obligated to bankroll the government.
What does Farage suggest? Laws that require people to buy British government bonds?
I have laid him. He is conspicuously awol today (but then people said last time round, Truss had ruled herself out by being in the far East when it all kicked off). And truly stellar performances drom PM and JH this afternoon can't have helped him.
"truly stellar" ? - you're easily pleased.
Compared to anything we have seen from anyone since Cameron stood down.
Any PM candidate is going to have to be a team player because Hunt isn’t going to be moveable from the Treasury now and has a clear grip on fiscal policy. So their role as PM is going to be presentational and tone-setting.
For that reason I think Penny is the best fit for them. Has the best chance of giving them a 200-240 seat result IMHO.
The DUP replaced their elected leader with the loser of the contest, but they agreed on the candidate. And the party was not tearing itself apart so spectacularly and at extinction level in the polls.
Farage called what has happened the last few weeks a globalist coup tonite
The Chancellor and the PM announced policies that led to the deficit skyrocketing. Investors took fright, because bad shit often happens to countries where debt levels rise in perpetuity (see Greece, Japan, and even Italy).
Investors are neither legally nor morally obligated to bankroll the government.
What does Farage suggest? Laws that require people to buy British government bonds?
Probably. How else is a nation going to take back control?
A friend of Truss summed up her plight: “She stood on a platform, the platform has been kicked away, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s gone by Wednesday.”
Another, who backed Truss for the leadership, said: “It would be mad if she doesn’t go.”
Any PM candidate is going to have to be a team player because Hunt isn’t going to be moveable from the Treasury now and has a clear grip on fiscal policy. So their role as PM is going to be presentational and tone-setting.
For that reason I think Penny is the best fit for them. Has the best chance of giving them a 200-240 seat result IMHO.
What does the 2024 manifesto say? Where's the vision for Britain? If it's all managerial with a token figurehead PR PM balancing an uneasy truce, that is unlikely to work.
In my view the hack doesn't work, the Tories have to choose which way they want to go and deal with the consequences.
Sunak, has brought down one PM already. Will the Tories let him have the top job if he brings down another?
Are you able to dress yourself in the morning and carry on the other activities of everyday living, without professional carers? If you think Sunak "brought down" Johnson you should certainly not be trusted with sharp objects, or the vote.
Any PM candidate is going to have to be a team player because Hunt isn’t going to be moveable from the Treasury now and has a clear grip on fiscal policy. So their role as PM is going to be presentational and tone-setting.
For that reason I think Penny is the best fit for them. Has the best chance of giving them a 200-240 seat result IMHO.
Hunt will stay as CoE. Anything else would set off the markets again.
The PM needs to communicate and speak well. It is hard to see past Mordaunt.
I have laid him. He is conspicuously awol today (but then people said last time round, Truss had ruled herself out by being in the far East when it all kicked off). And truly stellar performances drom PM and JH this afternoon can't have helped him.
"truly stellar" ? - you're easily pleased.
Compared to anything we have seen from anyone since Cameron stood down.
To be fair, Boris Johnson put up the odd bravura performance in the Commons.
I wasn't that impressed with Mordaunt but she won loyalty points and may yet emerge from this debacle with her status enhanced within the Conservative Party.
As for Hunt, he demolished his predecessor's proposals and has offered almost nothing - he's not making hostages to fortune admittedly but he will have to stand at the Despatch Box and say which taxes are going up and where the £40 billion (or whatever) of spending cuts are going to fall and I suspect the leaves of his new-found popularity will begin to be eaten away by the caterpillars of reality.
Any PM candidate is going to have to be a team player because Hunt isn’t going to be moveable from the Treasury now and has a clear grip on fiscal policy. So their role as PM is going to be presentational and tone-setting.
For that reason I think Penny is the best fit for them. Has the best chance of giving them a 200-240 seat result IMHO.
What does the 2024 manifesto say? Where's the vision for Britain? If it's all managerial with a token figurehead PR PM balancing an uneasy truce, that is unlikely to work.
In my view the hack doesn't work, the Tories have to choose which way they want to go and deal with the consequences.
Given that Hunt's original leadership platform was not a million miles away from Truss's, we might end up with Trussism by the back door, but with collegiate decision making and competent execution.
But, back in the real world, what is actually left of the Truss premiership, apart from the woman herself?
She wasn’t elected for her empathy, or her communication skills. It was to boldly cut taxes and usher in a new era of growth. That’s all gone.
The grown ups in the Tory party need to take back control and come up with a clear strategy for steering themselves — and us — through the hard months ahead.
I have laid him. He is conspicuously awol today (but then people said last time round, Truss had ruled herself out by being in the far East when it all kicked off). And truly stellar performances drom PM and JH this afternoon can't have helped him.
"truly stellar" ? - you're easily pleased.
Compared to anything we have seen from anyone since Cameron stood down.
Dunno, I reckon there was a fair bit of stella around during the Boris years.
A friend of Truss summed up her plight: “She stood on a platform, the platform has been kicked away, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s gone by Wednesday.”
Another, who backed Truss for the leadership, said: “It would be mad if she doesn’t go.”
It is curious that there isn't more 'feedback' from tory MP's after todays events. It seems possible that there is a silencing operation going on. I think that something must be up.
Sunak, has brought down one PM already. Will the Tories let him have the top job if he brings down another?
Are you able to dress yourself in the morning and carry on the other activities of everyday living, without professional carers? If you think Sunak "brought down" Johnson you should certainly not be trusted with sharp objects, or the vote.
True, but a fair few Conservatives do think that way, or that Rishi was deliberately stalling the economy. Or both.
The first great tragedy here is that the party wasted the Summer, when they had the opportunity to work out what they felt about Boris and the future. The second is that the rapid collapse of Truss means that they now have roughly zero time to work out the answers to the questions they ducked last time.
Any PM candidate is going to have to be a team player because Hunt isn’t going to be moveable from the Treasury now and has a clear grip on fiscal policy. So their role as PM is going to be presentational and tone-setting.
For that reason I think Penny is the best fit for them. Has the best chance of giving them a 200-240 seat result IMHO.
What does the 2024 manifesto say? Where's the vision for Britain? If it's all managerial with a token figurehead PR PM balancing an uneasy truce, that is unlikely to work.
In my view the hack doesn't work, the Tories have to choose which way they want to go and deal with the consequences.
Given that Hunt's original leadership platform was not a million miles away from Truss's, we might end up with Trussism by the back door, but with collegiate decision making and competent execution.
Any PM candidate is going to have to be a team player because Hunt isn’t going to be moveable from the Treasury now and has a clear grip on fiscal policy. So their role as PM is going to be presentational and tone-setting.
For that reason I think Penny is the best fit for them. Has the best chance of giving them a 200-240 seat result IMHO.
What does the 2024 manifesto say? Where's the vision for Britain? If it's all managerial with a token figurehead PR PM balancing an uneasy truce, that is unlikely to work.
In my view the hack doesn't work, the Tories have to choose which way they want to go and deal with the consequences.
On your latter point if the Tories need to get behind a decisive direction setting leader then they will need to get behind Hunt because economic policy is now controlled by him and will be until the next GE.
But when I say managerial there will be some control over direction whoever leads - but hands will be tied somewhat and it will probably be a matter of what the emphasis is. It is going to have to be someone who believes in sound money (and can sell themselves that way) and who can sell a vision.
"Final two": the one way the conservative party can convert this from a decade out of power to total annihilation, is by letting the members decide on the next PM.
"Final two": the one way the conservative party can convert this from a decade out of power to total annihilation, is by letting the members decide on the next PM.
Exactly. The final two needs to become the final one, when one withdraws in return for a senior cabinet post.
Any PM candidate is going to have to be a team player because Hunt isn’t going to be moveable from the Treasury now and has a clear grip on fiscal policy. So their role as PM is going to be presentational and tone-setting.
For that reason I think Penny is the best fit for them. Has the best chance of giving them a 200-240 seat result IMHO.
What does the 2024 manifesto say? Where's the vision for Britain? If it's all managerial with a token figurehead PR PM balancing an uneasy truce, that is unlikely to work.
In my view the hack doesn't work, the Tories have to choose which way they want to go and deal with the consequences.
Given that Hunt's original leadership platform was not a million miles away from Truss's, we might end up with Trussism by the back door, but with collegiate decision making and competent execution.
Will the Tories seriously ask the country to give Truss five more years?
No.
So she IS going to go before the GE. The only question is when. The obvious answer to that question is 'now'.
Farage called what has happened the last few weeks a globalist coup tonite
The Chancellor and the PM announced policies that led to the deficit skyrocketing. Investors took fright, because bad shit often happens to countries where debt levels rise in perpetuity (see Greece, Japan, and even Italy).
Investors are neither legally nor morally obligated to bankroll the government.
What does Farage suggest? Laws that require people to buy British government bonds?
Any PM candidate is going to have to be a team player because Hunt isn’t going to be moveable from the Treasury now and has a clear grip on fiscal policy. So their role as PM is going to be presentational and tone-setting.
For that reason I think Penny is the best fit for them. Has the best chance of giving them a 200-240 seat result IMHO.
What does the 2024 manifesto say? Where's the vision for Britain? If it's all managerial with a token figurehead PR PM balancing an uneasy truce, that is unlikely to work.
In my view the hack doesn't work, the Tories have to choose which way they want to go and deal with the consequences.
2024? Keep the people who backed Corbyn in 2019 out of power. Honestly if the Tories are only barely competent that's enough for me. The Labour Party is still full of people who would support Corbyn, and in 2022 we have seen just how dangerous that would have been.
God, are the tories really going to do pretend keeping Truss in post is “sensible”?
It's going to be really funny when she does PMQ's really haltingly and only speaks after glancing at Hunt who does the subtlest of nods in affirmation.
Farage called what has happened the last few weeks a globalist coup tonite
The Chancellor and the PM announced policies that led to the deficit skyrocketing. Investors took fright, because bad shit often happens to countries where debt levels rise in perpetuity (see Greece, Japan, and even Italy).
Investors are neither legally nor morally obligated to bankroll the government.
What does Farage suggest? Laws that require people to buy British government bonds?
Of course, if you don't run a deficit, you don't need to rely on the kindness of strangers.
On topic. No. Penny Mourdant would be yet another big mistake?
Firstly, What does Penny believe in?
Penny had so much wind in her sails going into the leadership contest, but she sank very early on once the whistle started the hustings, not just because she lacks charisma and presentation skills, but because she was a policy vacuum whilst those around her came for a proper fight over the soul of the party. Can you recall her launch event, in the debates what were her positions on issues defining and dividing the Conservative Party today, the main points of her sales pitch?
Truss won, because she at least had a platform, and the (party) electorate like it. Planning laws and other structural rigidities keep Britain poorer than it should be, our merchant banks made us great once and the City can again, our advantage lies in professional services, ease of doing business and a capital city on which all the world converges.
For example, does Penny Mourdant believe in levelling up, or does she see it is just pretend the ancient mismatch in scale and wealth between London and the secondary cities their regions, can ever be levelled?
Secondly, todays smug and irritating performance from Penny Mourdant, made up from just party political bullshit and spin, will wear thin very quickly if that’s her usual modus operandi from the very top of a governing party. From her Willy Speech, her bizarre Speech in the US, through the leadership contest to today, Penny has never shown Primeministerial vision or gravitas.
The prospect of Penny as PM won’t frighten the opposition one bit. But more importantly, can she steer the Tory party out of its factional infighting and unite them around an ethos?
Any PM candidate is going to have to be a team player because Hunt isn’t going to be moveable from the Treasury now and has a clear grip on fiscal policy. So their role as PM is going to be presentational and tone-setting.
For that reason I think Penny is the best fit for them. Has the best chance of giving them a 200-240 seat result IMHO.
What does the 2024 manifesto say? Where's the vision for Britain? If it's all managerial with a token figurehead PR PM balancing an uneasy truce, that is unlikely to work.
In my view the hack doesn't work, the Tories have to choose which way they want to go and deal with the consequences.
Honestly if the Tories are only barely competent that's enough for me.
God, are the tories really going to do pretend keeping Truss in post is “sensible”?
Hopefully. Today was worse than I thought possible for it to be. Going frit and putting Mordaunt in was bad, then waltzing in 5 minutes from the end was insane. Then she sat there looking like she's on valium before flouncing back out.
Madness piled on madness. And Tories say "nothing to see here" as the poll deficit tunnels its way through the earth towards Java.
Any PM candidate is going to have to be a team player because Hunt isn’t going to be moveable from the Treasury now and has a clear grip on fiscal policy. So their role as PM is going to be presentational and tone-setting.
For that reason I think Penny is the best fit for them. Has the best chance of giving them a 200-240 seat result IMHO.
What does the 2024 manifesto say? Where's the vision for Britain? If it's all managerial with a token figurehead PR PM balancing an uneasy truce, that is unlikely to work.
In my view the hack doesn't work, the Tories have to choose which way they want to go and deal with the consequences.
in 2022 we have seen just how dangerous that would have been.
No. This year we saw how dangerous a Conservative vote can be.
I'm no Tory but if you look at the markets it's a 75% chance of a sane person being the next Tory PM. Rejoice!
Farage should be ashamed. I'm not one of those who thinks everything he says is nonsense but he must know what he's saying is absurd. Debt to GDP is high, debt interest is quite high and you can't show plans that have debt to GDP % falling in the medium term. There's no mystery here.
Any PM candidate is going to have to be a team player because Hunt isn’t going to be moveable from the Treasury now and has a clear grip on fiscal policy. So their role as PM is going to be presentational and tone-setting.
For that reason I think Penny is the best fit for them. Has the best chance of giving them a 200-240 seat result IMHO.
What does the 2024 manifesto say? Where's the vision for Britain? If it's all managerial with a token figurehead PR PM balancing an uneasy truce, that is unlikely to work.
In my view the hack doesn't work, the Tories have to choose which way they want to go and deal with the consequences.
Given that Hunt's original leadership platform was not a million miles away from Truss's, we might end up with Trussism by the back door, but with collegiate decision making and competent execution.
Will the Tories seriously ask the country to give Truss five more years?
No.
So she IS going to go before the GE. The only question is when. The obvious answer to that question is 'now'.
Yes, what I mean is that if Hunt takes over or remains chancellor under Mordaunt, we might go in the same kind of direction she wanted, but more competently.
Any PM candidate is going to have to be a team player because Hunt isn’t going to be moveable from the Treasury now and has a clear grip on fiscal policy. So their role as PM is going to be presentational and tone-setting.
For that reason I think Penny is the best fit for them. Has the best chance of giving them a 200-240 seat result IMHO.
What does the 2024 manifesto say? Where's the vision for Britain? If it's all managerial with a token figurehead PR PM balancing an uneasy truce, that is unlikely to work.
In my view the hack doesn't work, the Tories have to choose which way they want to go and deal with the consequences.
Honestly if the Tories are only barely competent that's enough for me.
Oh dear.
We'd be saying a lot more than "Oh dear" if Labour had won in 2019.
It seems Hancock and JRM have come out to bat for Truss this evening.
They will know their expectation of advancement will be zero under any other leader - I imagine the public dismissal of Jacob Rees-Mogg will probably be a 5% Labour to Conservative swing on its own.
It's rock versus hard place though. One option is to leave Truss in charge, let her become the symbol for everything that goes wrong and then, scapegoat-like, she is sent into the wilderness in the hope the rest of the party will be absolved of the sins and can continue.
Politics doesn't work like that, though. Dodging the bullet won't work - one day the electorate will want the opportunity to send the Conservatives publicly and comprehensively into Opposition and it's something the Tories will just have to accept rather than try to squirm and avoid.
Changing Prime Ministers again looks bad on so many levels - of course, Rome went through four Emperors in 68 AD and still went on to conquer large parts of Europe but that's probably not the best analogy. To lose a Prime Minister through ill-health (Eden, MacMillan) is one thing, for one to retire (Wilson) is one thing but to defenestrate yet another Prime Minister after Thatcher, May and Johnson just looks sloppy.
I was just coming down from the Isle of Skye when poor Mordaunt was answering the same question 30 times or more. Signal was happily extremely patchy at that point. I was nearer to Perth when Hunt gave his statement and got nearly all of it.
He was good , I thought. After the pantomime of the last couple of weeks it was nice to hear an adult again. Reeves wasn’t great. It was almost as if she was befuddled by the number of points she wanted to make and she ended up somewhat scatter gun and incoherent.
If the markets remain calm tomorrow it might be a good day to move Truss on and put together a real team.
Any PM candidate is going to have to be a team player because Hunt isn’t going to be moveable from the Treasury now and has a clear grip on fiscal policy. So their role as PM is going to be presentational and tone-setting.
For that reason I think Penny is the best fit for them. Has the best chance of giving them a 200-240 seat result IMHO.
What does the 2024 manifesto say? Where's the vision for Britain? If it's all managerial with a token figurehead PR PM balancing an uneasy truce, that is unlikely to work.
In my view the hack doesn't work, the Tories have to choose which way they want to go and deal with the consequences.
2024? Keep the people who backed Corbyn in 2019 out of power. Honestly if the Tories are only barely competent that's enough for me. The Labour Party is still full of people who would support Corbyn, and in 2022 we have seen just how dangerous that would have been.
And what has happened since 2019 shows how safe the alternative was? Look around you. How much worse could it have been?
Any PM candidate is going to have to be a team player because Hunt isn’t going to be moveable from the Treasury now and has a clear grip on fiscal policy. So their role as PM is going to be presentational and tone-setting.
For that reason I think Penny is the best fit for them. Has the best chance of giving them a 200-240 seat result IMHO.
What does the 2024 manifesto say? Where's the vision for Britain? If it's all managerial with a token figurehead PR PM balancing an uneasy truce, that is unlikely to work.
In my view the hack doesn't work, the Tories have to choose which way they want to go and deal with the consequences.
in 2022 we have seen just how dangerous that would have been.
No. This year we saw how dangerous a Conservative vote can be.
Ask yourself a very simple question. What would Corbyn have done with regards to Ukraine?
It is easy to blame Tory members for the collapse. However, Tory MPs presented them with two weak candidates in the final two. Clearly Truss was a very weak candidate. The other candidate, Sunak, could not beat her which suggests that he too was a weak candidate.
Tory MPs also elimated Hunt in the first round of the contest, a strong candidate for the job. Hence, I think that the MPs should take a substantial part of the blame. It is said that plane crashes rarely happen due to a single cause, but due to a combination of several factors. The same thing has happened here. The candidates, the MPs, the party membership, the outgoing PM, and the current political situation (Brexit, COVID, Ukraine, 12 years in power) all contributed to this disaster.
Any PM candidate is going to have to be a team player because Hunt isn’t going to be moveable from the Treasury now and has a clear grip on fiscal policy. So their role as PM is going to be presentational and tone-setting.
For that reason I think Penny is the best fit for them. Has the best chance of giving them a 200-240 seat result IMHO.
What does the 2024 manifesto say? Where's the vision for Britain? If it's all managerial with a token figurehead PR PM balancing an uneasy truce, that is unlikely to work.
In my view the hack doesn't work, the Tories have to choose which way they want to go and deal with the consequences.
Honestly if the Tories are only barely competent that's enough for me.
Oh dear.
We'd be saying a lot more than "Oh dear" if Labour had won in 2019.
The Tories have completely screwed up and you are talking about a hypothetical Labour government. Wake up old chap. The Tories broke the country on their watch. Not Labour. The Conservatives. You can blame Corbyn for many things, but this one, today, is on the blues and no-one will forget it.
On topic. No. Penny Mourdant would be yet another big mistake?
Firstly, What does Penny believe in?
Penny had so much wind in her sails going into the leadership contest, but she sank very early on once the whistle started the hustings, not just because she lacks charisma and presentation skills, but because she was a policy vacuum whilst those around her came for a proper fight over the soul of the party. Can you recall her launch event, in the debates what were her positions on issues defining and dividing the Conservative Party today, the main points of her sales pitch?
Truss won, because she at least had a platform, and the (party) electorate like it. Planning laws and other structural rigidities keep Britain poorer than it should be, our merchant banks made us great once and the City can again, our advantage lies in professional services, ease of doing business and a capital city on which all the world converges.
For example, does Penny Mourdant believe in levelling up, or does she see it is just pretend the ancient mismatch in scale and wealth between London and the secondary cities their regions, can ever be levelled?
Secondly, todays smug and irritating performance from Penny Mourdant, made up from just party political bullshit and spin, will wear thin very quickly if that’s her usual modus operandi from the very top of a governing party. From her Willy Speech, her bizarre Speech in the US, through the leadership contest to today, Penny has never shown Primeministerial vision or gravitas.
The prospect of Penny as PM won’t frighten the opposition one bit. But more importantly, can she steer the Tory party out of its factional infighting and unite them around an ethos?
Imo the answer is a clear and rather obvious no.
Mordaunt.
Her performance today was rockstar stuff. Note perfect on the stickiest wicket since the Somme, hush ma big metaphor. Only attack line is the "hiding under a desk" line, and that's from people who have just read the quote and don't realise she was rebutting someone else's suggestion.
Nobody con or lab is doing beliefy stuff for the foreseeable few years after the object lesson thoughtfully provided by Kwaz n Liz in where beliefiness gets you. Boring administrative competence is the order of the day.
Any PM candidate is going to have to be a team player because Hunt isn’t going to be moveable from the Treasury now and has a clear grip on fiscal policy. So their role as PM is going to be presentational and tone-setting.
For that reason I think Penny is the best fit for them. Has the best chance of giving them a 200-240 seat result IMHO.
What does the 2024 manifesto say? Where's the vision for Britain? If it's all managerial with a token figurehead PR PM balancing an uneasy truce, that is unlikely to work.
In my view the hack doesn't work, the Tories have to choose which way they want to go and deal with the consequences.
2024? Keep the people who backed Corbyn in 2019 out of power. Honestly if the Tories are only barely competent that's enough for me. The Labour Party is still full of people who would support Corbyn, and in 2022 we have seen just how dangerous that would have been.
And what has happened since 2019 shows how safe the alternative was? Look around you. How much worse could it have been?
A huge amount worse. Having some far-left conspiratorial nutter as PM during a pandemic and a major European war would have been a total fucking disaster. And believe me I have little good to say about Johnson and Truss, but I also feel we dodged a bullet in 2019. The Labour Party is still stuffed full of people who would have Corbyn or someone of his ilk lead the party and country.
Any PM candidate is going to have to be a team player because Hunt isn’t going to be moveable from the Treasury now and has a clear grip on fiscal policy. So their role as PM is going to be presentational and tone-setting.
For that reason I think Penny is the best fit for them. Has the best chance of giving them a 200-240 seat result IMHO.
What does the 2024 manifesto say? Where's the vision for Britain? If it's all managerial with a token figurehead PR PM balancing an uneasy truce, that is unlikely to work.
In my view the hack doesn't work, the Tories have to choose which way they want to go and deal with the consequences.
Given that Hunt's original leadership platform was not a million miles away from Truss's, we might end up with Trussism by the back door, but with collegiate decision making and competent execution.
He came 8th out of 8
Which was, frankly, ridiculous. He has gone from the back benches to Chancellor in a time of genuine crisis and not even broken sweat. Not sure any of the other 7 could have done that. Maybe Rishi.
Any PM candidate is going to have to be a team player because Hunt isn’t going to be moveable from the Treasury now and has a clear grip on fiscal policy. So their role as PM is going to be presentational and tone-setting.
For that reason I think Penny is the best fit for them. Has the best chance of giving them a 200-240 seat result IMHO.
What does the 2024 manifesto say? Where's the vision for Britain? If it's all managerial with a token figurehead PR PM balancing an uneasy truce, that is unlikely to work.
In my view the hack doesn't work, the Tories have to choose which way they want to go and deal with the consequences.
2024? Keep the people who backed Corbyn in 2019 out of power. Honestly if the Tories are only barely competent that's enough for me. The Labour Party is still full of people who would support Corbyn, and in 2022 we have seen just how dangerous that would have been.
Yes the recent Corbyn/ McDonnell mini-budget spooked the markets.
Any PM candidate is going to have to be a team player because Hunt isn’t going to be moveable from the Treasury now and has a clear grip on fiscal policy. So their role as PM is going to be presentational and tone-setting.
For that reason I think Penny is the best fit for them. Has the best chance of giving them a 200-240 seat result IMHO.
What does the 2024 manifesto say? Where's the vision for Britain? If it's all managerial with a token figurehead PR PM balancing an uneasy truce, that is unlikely to work.
In my view the hack doesn't work, the Tories have to choose which way they want to go and deal with the consequences.
in 2022 we have seen just how dangerous that would have been.
No. This year we saw how dangerous a Conservative vote can be.
Ask yourself a very simple question. What would Corbyn have done with regards to Ukraine?
It’s a hypothetical that will never be answered. However, we have the cold hard reality surrounding us of the absolute farce the Tory Party has presented us with. Even now they’re all plotting like this is the Oxford Union or an episode of House of Cards with no concern beyond personal ambition. I get the sense that the Labour Party, for all it’s many faults, generally gives a shit about what happens outside the Labour Party.
I have laid him. He is conspicuously awol today (but then people said last time round, Truss had ruled herself out by being in the far East when it all kicked off). And truly stellar performances drom PM and JH this afternoon can't have helped him.
"truly stellar" ? - you're easily pleased.
No. Some posters, Z, MexiPete for example, are just mischief makers, disrupters, probably in the pay of the management like what happened on Big Brother - some other posters (like us) try to offer some thoughtful analysis, explain the why behind the what and how policy battles fit into the larger political context, that mostly boils down to money and control.
Any PM candidate is going to have to be a team player because Hunt isn’t going to be moveable from the Treasury now and has a clear grip on fiscal policy. So their role as PM is going to be presentational and tone-setting.
For that reason I think Penny is the best fit for them. Has the best chance of giving them a 200-240 seat result IMHO.
What does the 2024 manifesto say? Where's the vision for Britain? If it's all managerial with a token figurehead PR PM balancing an uneasy truce, that is unlikely to work.
In my view the hack doesn't work, the Tories have to choose which way they want to go and deal with the consequences.
in 2022 we have seen just how dangerous that would have been.
No. This year we saw how dangerous a Conservative vote can be.
Ask yourself a very simple question. What would Corbyn have done with regards to Ukraine?
Nobody cares. Why not have a go at dealing with reality rather than made up questions?
I was just coming down from the Isle of Skye when poor Mordaunt was answering the same question 30 times or more. Signal was happily extremely patchy at that point. I was nearer to Perth when Hunt gave his statement and got nearly all of it.
He was good , I thought. After the pantomime of the last couple of weeks it was nice to hear an adult again. Reeves wasn’t great. It was almost as if she was befuddled by the number of points she wanted to make and she ended up somewhat scatter gun and incoherent.
If the markets remain calm tomorrow it might be a good day to move Truss on and put together a real team.
You just might prove to be a prophet. Albeit with only a smidgen of honor in your own (PB) parish!
On topic. No. Penny Mourdant would be yet another big mistake?
Firstly, What does Penny believe in?
Penny had so much wind in her sails going into the leadership contest, but she sank very early on once the whistle started the hustings, not just because she lacks charisma and presentation skills, but because she was a policy vacuum whilst those around her came for a proper fight over the soul of the party. Can you recall her launch event, in the debates what were her positions on issues defining and dividing the Conservative Party today, the main points of her sales pitch?
Truss won, because she at least had a platform, and the (party) electorate like it. Planning laws and other structural rigidities keep Britain poorer than it should be, our merchant banks made us great once and the City can again, our advantage lies in professional services, ease of doing business and a capital city on which all the world converges.
For example, does Penny Mourdant believe in levelling up, or does she see it is just pretend the ancient mismatch in scale and wealth between London and the secondary cities their regions, can ever be levelled?
Secondly, todays smug and irritating performance from Penny Mourdant, made up from just party political bullshit and spin, will wear thin very quickly if that’s her usual modus operandi from the very top of a governing party. From her Willy Speech, her bizarre Speech in the US, through the leadership contest to today, Penny has never shown Primeministerial vision or gravitas.
The prospect of Penny as PM won’t frighten the opposition one bit. But more importantly, can she steer the Tory party out of its factional infighting and unite them around an ethos?
Imo the answer is a clear and rather obvious no.
The prospect of Penny as PM will frighten the opposition far more than Truss staying in place.....
On topic. No. Penny Mourdant would be yet another big mistake?
Firstly, What does Penny believe in?
Penny had so much wind in her sails going into the leadership contest, but she sank very early on once the whistle started the hustings, not just because she lacks charisma and presentation skills, but because she was a policy vacuum whilst those around her came for a proper fight over the soul of the party. Can you recall her launch event, in the debates what were her positions on issues defining and dividing the Conservative Party today, the main points of her sales pitch?
Truss won, because she at least had a platform, and the (party) electorate like it. Planning laws and other structural rigidities keep Britain poorer than it should be, our merchant banks made us great once and the City can again, our advantage lies in professional services, ease of doing business and a capital city on which all the world converges.
For example, does Penny Mourdant believe in levelling up, or does she see it is just pretend the ancient mismatch in scale and wealth between London and the secondary cities their regions, can ever be levelled?
Secondly, todays smug and irritating performance from Penny Mourdant, made up from just party political bullshit and spin, will wear thin very quickly if that’s her usual modus operandi from the very top of a governing party. From her Willy Speech, her bizarre Speech in the US, through the leadership contest to today, Penny has never shown Primeministerial vision or gravitas.
The prospect of Penny as PM won’t frighten the opposition one bit. But more importantly, can she steer the Tory party out of its factional infighting and unite them around an ethos?
Imo the answer is a clear and rather obvious no.
Mordaunt.
Her performance today was rockstar stuff. Note perfect on the stickiest wicket since the Somme, hush ma big metaphor. Only attack line is the "hiding under a desk" line, and that's from people who have just read the quote and don't realise she was rebutting someone else's suggestion.
Nobody con or lab is doing beliefy stuff for the foreseeable few years after the object lesson thoughtfully provided by Kwaz n Liz in where beliefiness gets you. Boring administrative competence is the order of the day.
Not sure if I would go that far. But she sure didn’t miss the Speaker for allowing an urgent question before Hunt’s statement. Ridiculous decision.
Any PM candidate is going to have to be a team player because Hunt isn’t going to be moveable from the Treasury now and has a clear grip on fiscal policy. So their role as PM is going to be presentational and tone-setting.
For that reason I think Penny is the best fit for them. Has the best chance of giving them a 200-240 seat result IMHO.
What does the 2024 manifesto say? Where's the vision for Britain? If it's all managerial with a token figurehead PR PM balancing an uneasy truce, that is unlikely to work.
In my view the hack doesn't work, the Tories have to choose which way they want to go and deal with the consequences.
2024? Keep the people who backed Corbyn in 2019 out of power. Honestly if the Tories are only barely competent that's enough for me. The Labour Party is still full of people who would support Corbyn, and in 2022 we have seen just how dangerous that would have been.
And what has happened since 2019 shows how safe the alternative was? Look around you. How much worse could it have been?
A huge amount worse. Having some far-left conspiratorial nutter as PM during a pandemic and a major European war would have been a total fucking disaster. And believe me I have little good to say about Johnson and Truss, but I also feel we dodged a bullet in 2019. The Labour Party is still stuffed full of people who would have Corbyn or someone of his ilk lead the party and country.
And yet you’re sanguine about a party that placed Liz Truss in Number 10? An insane ideologue who has actually and factually trashed the economy? The Tory Party is full of people who elected this walking catastrophe less than 6 weeks ago! She’s done more damage than any PM in the last 100 years and yet you go “could be worse!”. You are mad.
The UK’s National Grid has warned British households to prepare for blackouts between 4pm and 7pm on ‘really, really cold’ weekdays in January and February | FT
The Tories have completely screwed up and you are talking about a hypothetical Labour government. Wake up old chap. The Tories broke the country on their watch. Not Labour. The Conservatives. You can blame Corbyn for many things, but this one, today, is on the blues and no-one will forget it.
Of course it's hypothetical, because thank God we didn't have Corbyn in charge. And yes Truss and the Tories own the current debacle. I'm not excusing that at all. But there are good reason to vote Tory even if it is a negative don't let Labour back in reason.
The trouble with Labour is it doesn't matter how good Starmer is, who I personally like quite a lot, the party is full of people who fundamentally had no problem putting Corbyn in charge. That is as unpalatable to me as it would be voting for a hypothetical good GOP candidate knowing that everyone around him was wearing a stupid red cap a year or so earlier.
On topic. No. Penny Mourdant would be yet another big mistake?
Firstly, What does Penny believe in?
Penny had so much wind in her sails going into the leadership contest, but she sank very early on once the whistle started the hustings, not just because she lacks charisma and presentation skills, but because she was a policy vacuum whilst those around her came for a proper fight over the soul of the party. Can you recall her launch event, in the debates what were her positions on issues defining and dividing the Conservative Party today, the main points of her sales pitch?
Truss won, because she at least had a platform, and the (party) electorate like it. Planning laws and other structural rigidities keep Britain poorer than it should be, our merchant banks made us great once and the City can again, our advantage lies in professional services, ease of doing business and a capital city on which all the world converges.
For example, does Penny Mourdant believe in levelling up, or does she see it is just pretend the ancient mismatch in scale and wealth between London and the secondary cities their regions, can ever be levelled?
Secondly, todays smug and irritating performance from Penny Mourdant, made up from just party political bullshit and spin, will wear thin very quickly if that’s her usual modus operandi from the very top of a governing party. From her Willy Speech, her bizarre Speech in the US, through the leadership contest to today, Penny has never shown Primeministerial vision or gravitas.
The prospect of Penny as PM won’t frighten the opposition one bit. But more importantly, can she steer the Tory party out of its factional infighting and unite them around an ethos?
Imo the answer is a clear and rather obvious no.
The prospect of Penny as PM will frighten the opposition far more than Truss staying in place.....
Truss is pretty scary. Imagine having to clean up two years of her mess rather than just a month. Penny is not remotely scary. Two years of public relations veneer can not cover up the abyss at the heart of the Conservatives.
On topic. No. Penny Mourdant would be yet another big mistake?
Firstly, What does Penny believe in?
Penny had so much wind in her sails going into the leadership contest, but she sank very early on once the whistle started the hustings, not just because she lacks charisma and presentation skills, but because she was a policy vacuum whilst those around her came for a proper fight over the soul of the party. Can you recall her launch event, in the debates what were her positions on issues defining and dividing the Conservative Party today, the main points of her sales pitch?
Truss won, because she at least had a platform, and the (party) electorate like it. Planning laws and other structural rigidities keep Britain poorer than it should be, our merchant banks made us great once and the City can again, our advantage lies in professional services, ease of doing business and a capital city on which all the world converges.
For example, does Penny Mourdant believe in levelling up, or does she see it is just pretend the ancient mismatch in scale and wealth between London and the secondary cities their regions, can ever be levelled?
Secondly, todays smug and irritating performance from Penny Mourdant, made up from just party political bullshit and spin, will wear thin very quickly if that’s her usual modus operandi from the very top of a governing party. From her Willy Speech, her bizarre Speech in the US, through the leadership contest to today, Penny has never shown Primeministerial vision or gravitas.
The prospect of Penny as PM won’t frighten the opposition one bit. But more importantly, can she steer the Tory party out of its factional infighting and unite them around an ethos?
Imo the answer is a clear and rather obvious no.
Mordaunt.
Her performance today was rockstar stuff. Note perfect on the stickiest wicket since the Somme, hush ma big metaphor. Only attack line is the "hiding under a desk" line, and that's from people who have just read the quote and don't realise she was rebutting someone else's suggestion.
Nobody con or lab is doing beliefy stuff for the foreseeable few years after the object lesson thoughtfully provided by Kwaz n Liz in where beliefiness gets you. Boring administrative competence is the order of the day.
You don’t really believe all that rubbish you’ve just posted do you?
The country realising its up a cul de sac and lost, and the governing party tearing itself in multiple directions over which ethos gets the country out of this mess?
On topic. No. Penny Mourdant would be yet another big mistake?
Firstly, What does Penny believe in?
Penny had so much wind in her sails going into the leadership contest, but she sank very early on once the whistle started the hustings, not just because she lacks charisma and presentation skills, but because she was a policy vacuum whilst those around her came for a proper fight over the soul of the party. Can you recall her launch event, in the debates what were her positions on issues defining and dividing the Conservative Party today, the main points of her sales pitch?
Truss won, because she at least had a platform, and the (party) electorate like it. Planning laws and other structural rigidities keep Britain poorer than it should be, our merchant banks made us great once and the City can again, our advantage lies in professional services, ease of doing business and a capital city on which all the world converges.
For example, does Penny Mourdant believe in levelling up, or does she see it is just pretend the ancient mismatch in scale and wealth between London and the secondary cities their regions, can ever be levelled?
Secondly, todays smug and irritating performance from Penny Mourdant, made up from just party political bullshit and spin, will wear thin very quickly if that’s her usual modus operandi from the very top of a governing party. From her Willy Speech, her bizarre Speech in the US, through the leadership contest to today, Penny has never shown Primeministerial vision or gravitas.
The prospect of Penny as PM won’t frighten the opposition one bit. But more importantly, can she steer the Tory party out of its factional infighting and unite them around an ethos?
Imo the answer is a clear and rather obvious no.
Mordaunt.
Her performance today was rockstar stuff. Note perfect on the stickiest wicket since the Somme, hush ma big metaphor. Only attack line is the "hiding under a desk" line, and that's from people who have just read the quote and don't realise she was rebutting someone else's suggestion.
Nobody con or lab is doing beliefy stuff for the foreseeable few years after the object lesson thoughtfully provided by Kwaz n Liz in where beliefiness gets you. Boring administrative competence is the order of the day.
I watched for about 20 minutes and thought she was giving a really good performance. Then there was a strange answer to Sammy Wilson, "lovely though I am" [you want to hear from Jeremy] and I thought, if answering for Liz is going to go to your head like that, I'm not sure you won't eventually be consumed by such bizarreness as PM.
I was just coming down from the Isle of Skye when poor Mordaunt was answering the same question 30 times or more. Signal was happily extremely patchy at that point. I was nearer to Perth when Hunt gave his statement and got nearly all of it.
He was good , I thought. After the pantomime of the last couple of weeks it was nice to hear an adult again. Reeves wasn’t great. It was almost as if she was befuddled by the number of points she wanted to make and she ended up somewhat scatter gun and incoherent.
If the markets remain calm tomorrow it might be a good day to move Truss on and put together a real team.
You just might prove to be a prophet. Albeit with only a smidgen of honor in your own (PB) parish!
People never seem to forgive me for getting the odd English batsman out. Weird. 😉
Farage called what has happened the last few weeks a globalist coup tonite
The Chancellor and the PM announced policies that led to the deficit skyrocketing. Investors took fright, because bad shit often happens to countries where debt levels rise in perpetuity (see Greece, Japan, and even Italy).
Investors are neither legally nor morally obligated to bankroll the government.
What does Farage suggest? Laws that require people to buy British government bonds?
It is easy to blame Tory members for the collapse. However, Tory MPs presented them with two weak candidates in the final two. Clearly Truss was a very weak candidate. The other candidate, Sunak, could not beat her which suggests that he too was a weak candidate.
Tory MPs also elimated Hunt in the first round of the contest, a strong candidate for the job. Hence, I think that the MPs should take a substantial part of the blame. It is said that plane crashes rarely happen due to a single cause, but due to a combination of several factors. The same thing has happened here. The candidates, the MPs, the party membership, the outgoing PM, and the current political situation (Brexit, COVID, Ukraine, 12 years in power) all contributed to this disaster.
Farage called what has happened the last few weeks a globalist coup tonite
The Chancellor and the PM announced policies that led to the deficit skyrocketing. Investors took fright, because bad shit often happens to countries where debt levels rise in perpetuity (see Greece, Japan, and even Italy).
Investors are neither legally nor morally obligated to bankroll the government.
What does Farage suggest? Laws that require people to buy British government bonds?
Who cares what Farage thinks ?
Historically, Donald Trump, Conservative leaders who see their votes leaving to UKIP and of course Nigel Farage care about what Nigel Farage thinks.
Nobody cares. Why not have a go at dealing with reality rather than made up questions?
No. Go on tell me what you think Corbyn would have been like from 2019 to 2022. I think you know damn well he'd have been a disaster.
Nobody cares. I would rather think about how we can undo the current mess. Truss and Boris were actual disasters.
You genuinely can't admit it can you? It's actually pathetic that on the one hand we are told we should believe "Labour has changed, Labour is better", but the very same people won't even admit how close they came to do something every bit as nuts as the GOP letting Trump get elected. Fundamentally you haven't changed at all, most of you would vote for Corbyn today if that was the option.
The Tories have completely screwed up and you are talking about a hypothetical Labour government. Wake up old chap. The Tories broke the country on their watch. Not Labour. The Conservatives. You can blame Corbyn for many things, but this one, today, is on the blues and no-one will forget it.
Of course it's hypothetical, because thank God we didn't have Corbyn in charge. And yes Truss and the Tories own the current debacle. I'm not excusing that at all. But there are good reason to vote Tory even if it is a negative don't let Labour back in reason.
The trouble with Labour is it doesn't matter how good Starmer is, who I personally like quite a lot, the party is full of people who fundamentally had no problem putting Corbyn in charge. That is as unpalatable to me as it would be voting for a hypothetical good GOP candidate knowing that everyone around him was wearing a stupid red cap a year or so earlier.
Whereas in reality, the Conservatives are full of people who fundamentally had no problem putting Truss in charge.
Farage called what has happened the last few weeks a globalist coup tonite
The Chancellor and the PM announced policies that led to the deficit skyrocketing. Investors took fright, because bad shit often happens to countries where debt levels rise in perpetuity (see Greece, Japan, and even Italy).
Investors are neither legally nor morally obligated to bankroll the government.
What does Farage suggest? Laws that require people to buy British government bonds?
Of course, if you don't run a deficit, you don't need to rely on the kindness of strangers.
Well you do if you already owe them more than £1trn.
The Tories have completely screwed up and you are talking about a hypothetical Labour government. Wake up old chap. The Tories broke the country on their watch. Not Labour. The Conservatives. You can blame Corbyn for many things, but this one, today, is on the blues and no-one will forget it.
Of course it's hypothetical, because thank God we didn't have Corbyn in charge. And yes Truss and the Tories own the current debacle. I'm not excusing that at all. But there are good reason to vote Tory even if it is a negative don't let Labour back in reason.
The trouble with Labour is it doesn't matter how good Starmer is, who I personally like quite a lot, the party is full of people who fundamentally had no problem putting Corbyn in charge. That is as unpalatable to me as it would be voting for a hypothetical good GOP candidate knowing that everyone around him was wearing a stupid red cap a year or so earlier.
Whereas in reality, the Conservatives are full of people who fundamentally had no problem putting Truss in charge.
Truss is a terrible PM. Corbyn would be worse. It's really not complicated.
I have laid him. He is conspicuously awol today (but then people said last time round, Truss had ruled herself out by being in the far East when it all kicked off). And truly stellar performances drom PM and JH this afternoon can't have helped him.
"truly stellar" ? - you're easily pleased.
No. Some posters, Z, MexiPete for example, are just mischief makers, disrupters, probably in the pay of the management like what happened on Big Brother - some other posters (like us) try to offer some thoughtful analysis, explain the why behind the what and how policy battles fit into the larger political context, that mostly boils down to money and control.
Quite but objectivity is an elusive beast and the "mood" here seems to lurch from panic to euphoria with any and every poll, rumour or twitter thread.
I'm not objective - I don't pretend to be. I'm not a supporter of the Conservative Party. However, when they do something right, it's only right to note that. As the Government, they should be held to account and to proper scrutiny. The last 6 weeks have been wasted in terms of moving the country forward.
Hunt will be painfully aware of the gap in the finances and if he wants to be the only adult in the room, fine. Nobody in the Conservative Party thanked Ken Clarke for giving Labour a good economic start in 1997 - nobody will thank Jeremy Hunt if the heavy lifting in terms of restoring the public finances is accomplished before Starmer and Reeves take over.
I have laid him. He is conspicuously awol today (but then people said last time round, Truss had ruled herself out by being in the far East when it all kicked off). And truly stellar performances drom PM and JH this afternoon can't have helped him.
"truly stellar" ? - you're easily pleased.
No. Some posters, Z, MexiPete for example, are just mischief makers, disrupters, probably in the pay of the management like what happened on Big Brother - some other posters (like us) try to offer some thoughtful analysis, explain the why behind the what and how policy battles fit into the larger political context, that mostly boils down to money and control.
Your analysis flip flops from Johnson to Corbyn and back again. Mind you for a Centre Left Remainer I was taken by the sultry Mordaunt earlier. Ding dong!
Nobody cares. Why not have a go at dealing with reality rather than made up questions?
No. Go on tell me what you think Corbyn would have been like from 2019 to 2022. I think you know damn well he'd have been a disaster.
Nobody cares. I would rather think about how we can undo the current mess. Truss and Boris were actual disasters.
You genuinely can't admit it can you? It's actually pathetic that on the one hand we are told we should believe "Labour has changed, Labour is better", but the very same people won't even admit how close they came to do something every bit as nuts as the GOP letting Trump get elected. Fundamentally you haven't changed at all, most of you would vote for Corbyn today if that was the option.
I invited you to have a go at dealing with reality. You said 'No'.
Nobody cares. Why not have a go at dealing with reality rather than made up questions?
No. Go on tell me what you think Corbyn would have been like from 2019 to 2022. I think you know damn well he'd have been a disaster.
Nobody cares. I would rather think about how we can undo the current mess. Truss and Boris were actual disasters.
You genuinely can't admit it can you? It's actually pathetic that on the one hand we are told we should believe "Labour has changed, Labour is better", but the very same people won't even admit how close they came to do something every bit as nuts as the GOP letting Trump get elected. Fundamentally you haven't changed at all, most of you would vote for Corbyn today if that was the option.
I invited you to have a go at dealing with reality. You said 'No'.
On topic. No. Penny Mourdant would be yet another big mistake?
Firstly, What does Penny believe in?
Penny had so much wind in her sails going into the leadership contest, but she sank very early on once the whistle started the hustings, not just because she lacks charisma and presentation skills, but because she was a policy vacuum whilst those around her came for a proper fight over the soul of the party. Can you recall her launch event, in the debates what were her positions on issues defining and dividing the Conservative Party today, the main points of her sales pitch?
Truss won, because she at least had a platform, and the (party) electorate like it. Planning laws and other structural rigidities keep Britain poorer than it should be, our merchant banks made us great once and the City can again, our advantage lies in professional services, ease of doing business and a capital city on which all the world converges.
For example, does Penny Mourdant believe in levelling up, or does she see it is just pretend the ancient mismatch in scale and wealth between London and the secondary cities their regions, can ever be levelled?
Secondly, todays smug and irritating performance from Penny Mourdant, made up from just party political bullshit and spin, will wear thin very quickly if that’s her usual modus operandi from the very top of a governing party. From her Willy Speech, her bizarre Speech in the US, through the leadership contest to today, Penny has never shown Primeministerial vision or gravitas.
The prospect of Penny as PM won’t frighten the opposition one bit. But more importantly, can she steer the Tory party out of its factional infighting and unite them around an ethos?
Imo the answer is a clear and rather obvious no.
The prospect of Penny as PM will frighten the opposition far more than Truss staying in place.....
True. But does that actually mean or prove anything?
for all the reasons I listed, Penny won’t really frighten opposition all that much.
But you are missing the point Mark - as I posted in the last thread and in the post above, the definition here isn’t what frightens Labour going into the next election, but what ethos unites the Conservative Party and steers it in the right direction. That’s the more important measurement for the replacement of Truss. It wasn’t just craziness that drove the Truss government to attack and trash the Tory governments since 2010, including that of Boris, it was a search for answers to the UKs underlying problems, search for realistic and achievable policies, not just vacuous slogans like “levelling up”.
A push for growth isn’t such a bad idea right now, is it?
Nobody cares. Why not have a go at dealing with reality rather than made up questions?
No. Go on tell me what you think Corbyn would have been like from 2019 to 2022. I think you know damn well he'd have been a disaster.
Nobody cares. I would rather think about how we can undo the current mess. Truss and Boris were actual disasters.
You genuinely can't admit it can you? It's actually pathetic that on the one hand we are told we should believe "Labour has changed, Labour is better", but the very same people won't even admit how close they came to do something every bit as nuts as the GOP letting Trump get elected. Fundamentally you haven't changed at all, most of you would vote for Corbyn today if that was the option.
I invited you to have a go at dealing with reality. You said 'No'.
i think this is what Farage means when he talks about a globalist coup
Lots of chatter around in Tory circles speculating about the degree to which Sunakites with City links may have deliberately stoked the market run against Truss/Kwarteng.
The UK’s National Grid has warned British households to prepare for blackouts between 4pm and 7pm on ‘really, really cold’ weekdays in January and February | FT
A sensible government would accept there isn't enough generating capacity if it gets cold and would be encouraging consumers to consider their energy usage.
Politically that won't be much fun. But less fun will be blackouts when people are trying to cook tea for their kids.
I was just coming down from the Isle of Skye when poor Mordaunt was answering the same question 30 times or more. Signal was happily extremely patchy at that point. I was nearer to Perth when Hunt gave his statement and got nearly all of it.
He was good , I thought. After the pantomime of the last couple of weeks it was nice to hear an adult again. Reeves wasn’t great. It was almost as if she was befuddled by the number of points she wanted to make and she ended up somewhat scatter gun and incoherent.
If the markets remain calm tomorrow it might be a good day to move Truss on and put together a real team.
I thought this was a truly outstanding performance by Jeremy Hunt. He has mastered his brief over the course of a few days. Managed to project an image of economic competence from a near impossible starting point. If the tories had the will to win again they would make him PM. It is no good just having a 'good communicator', you need a good leader and he is it.
On topic. No. Penny Mourdant would be yet another big mistake?
Firstly, What does Penny believe in?
Penny had so much wind in her sails going into the leadership contest, but she sank very early on once the whistle started the hustings, not just because she lacks charisma and presentation skills, but because she was a policy vacuum whilst those around her came for a proper fight over the soul of the party. Can you recall her launch event, in the debates what were her positions on issues defining and dividing the Conservative Party today, the main points of her sales pitch?
Truss won, because she at least had a platform, and the (party) electorate like it. Planning laws and other structural rigidities keep Britain poorer than it should be, our merchant banks made us great once and the City can again, our advantage lies in professional services, ease of doing business and a capital city on which all the world converges.
For example, does Penny Mourdant believe in levelling up, or does she see it is just pretend the ancient mismatch in scale and wealth between London and the secondary cities their regions, can ever be levelled?
Secondly, todays smug and irritating performance from Penny Mourdant, made up from just party political bullshit and spin, will wear thin very quickly if that’s her usual modus operandi from the very top of a governing party. From her Willy Speech, her bizarre Speech in the US, through the leadership contest to today, Penny has never shown Primeministerial vision or gravitas.
The prospect of Penny as PM won’t frighten the opposition one bit. But more importantly, can she steer the Tory party out of its factional infighting and unite them around an ethos?
Imo the answer is a clear and rather obvious no.
The prospect of Penny as PM will frighten the opposition far more than Truss staying in place.....
True. But does that actually mean or prove anything?
for all the reasons I listed, Penny won’t really frighten opposition all that much.
But you are missing the point Mark - as I posted in the last thread and in the post above, the definition here isn’t what frightens Labour going into the next election, but what ethos unites the Conservative Party and steers it in the right direction. That’s the more important measurement for the replacement of Truss. It wasn’t just craziness that drove the Truss government to attack and trash the Tory governments since 2010, including that of Boris, it was a search for answers to the UKs underlying problems, search for realistic and achievable policies, not just vacuous slogans like “levelling up”.
The Tory party should forget about ethos for now. They have one job to do for the country - be boring but competent. For their party their job is to limit their losses at the next General Election. Best if they can get someone who can achieve both. In my view, Mordaunt as PM with Hunt as CotE gives the best balance.
On topic. No. Penny Mourdant would be yet another big mistake?
Firstly, What does Penny believe in?
Penny had so much wind in her sails going into the leadership contest, but she sank very early on once the whistle started the hustings, not just because she lacks charisma and presentation skills, but because she was a policy vacuum whilst those around her came for a proper fight over the soul of the party. Can you recall her launch event, in the debates what were her positions on issues defining and dividing the Conservative Party today, the main points of her sales pitch?
Truss won, because she at least had a platform, and the (party) electorate like it. Planning laws and other structural rigidities keep Britain poorer than it should be, our merchant banks made us great once and the City can again, our advantage lies in professional services, ease of doing business and a capital city on which all the world converges.
For example, does Penny Mourdant believe in levelling up, or does she see it is just pretend the ancient mismatch in scale and wealth between London and the secondary cities their regions, can ever be levelled?
Secondly, todays smug and irritating performance from Penny Mourdant, made up from just party political bullshit and spin, will wear thin very quickly if that’s her usual modus operandi from the very top of a governing party. From her Willy Speech, her bizarre Speech in the US, through the leadership contest to today, Penny has never shown Primeministerial vision or gravitas.
The prospect of Penny as PM won’t frighten the opposition one bit. But more importantly, can she steer the Tory party out of its factional infighting and unite them around an ethos?
Imo the answer is a clear and rather obvious no.
The prospect of Penny as PM will frighten the opposition far more than Truss staying in place.....
Truss is pretty scary. Imagine having to clean up two years of her mess rather than just a month. Penny is not remotely scary. Two years of public relations veneer can not cover up the abyss at the heart of the Conservatives.
There is to an abyss at the heart of Starmer's Labour.
Penny can do human, and as third place behind the defeated Sunak and discredited Truss is in a strong position, and she has ambition.
Nobody cares. Why not have a go at dealing with reality rather than made up questions?
No. Go on tell me what you think Corbyn would have been like from 2019 to 2022. I think you know damn well he'd have been a disaster.
Nobody cares. I would rather think about how we can undo the current mess. Truss and Boris were actual disasters.
You genuinely can't admit it can you? It's actually pathetic that on the one hand we are told we should believe "Labour has changed, Labour is better", but the very same people won't even admit how close they came to do something every bit as nuts as the GOP letting Trump get elected. Fundamentally you haven't changed at all, most of you would vote for Corbyn today if that was the option.
I'm not a fan of Corbyn, but he's nothing like Trump.
Corbyn was clearly a reluctant leader, and in many ways the Labour offer was much more conservative than his personal views. John McDonnell was clearly the brains of the operation, and was much more pragmatic - if anything desperate to be seen as unlikely to rock the boat too much.
Trump was an absolute megalomaniac - and nearly everyone who worked closely with him, has at some point suggested he was a dangerous, unpredictable lunatic.
i think this is what Farage means when he talks about a globalist coup
Lots of chatter around in Tory circles speculating about the degree to which Sunakites with City links may have deliberately stoked the market run against Truss/Kwarteng.
Not a little chat around Tory fringes about the WEF and Klaus Schwab and 'globalists'. We're maybe two weeks away from the 'great replacement theory' being wheeled out regarding No 10.
The vast majority of Con supporters want nothing to do with such trash but they are out there - just like Lab has the Corbynites
Comments
Evening all
A gorgeous autumn afternoon backing losers at Windsor may not be Colorado but it's a world away from the machinations of Westminster.
I wonder the extent to which Conservative MPs now have buyers' remorse. Would a PM Mordaunt be in the same position as the current incumbent? It seems implausible - she came out swinging for her Prime Minister today and that display of "loyalty" won't go unnoticed.
Hunt did what we needed to do over the weekend and this morning (in concert with other factors) to stabilise and steady the markets but economically we seem in a different place from three weeks ago. As I said last evening, the Magic Money tree has been cut up and the stump burned - Prudence is back in the Presidential Suite and it seem the "compassionate Conservative" (a phrase I first heard used by George W Bush) is now in favour.
Whether the electorate will consider it compassionate or self-serving is another matter and the tone of Hunt's ominous warnings suggest prudence will dictate compassion is in short supply. This may not just be the reckoning for Kwarteng's absurdity but for the whole Covid response and post-Covid response.
Truss's behaviour today has been extraordinary - I cannot imagine any other Prime Minister who wouldn't have tried to come out swinging but to use Mordaunt as a human shield suggests a diminution in extremis. After just six weeks, her meteoric descent will likely end more in the manner of Chicxulub but whether the Conservative Party itself can survive the impact is the longer-term question.
StillWaters said:
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From 1936 : Vote Hogg to save your bacon
SSI - Believe the year was 1938, and the slogan referred to Hogg's support for the Munich Agreement just "negotiated" by Neville Chamberlain
from Hogg's wiki page:
In 1938, Hogg was chosen as a candidate for Parliament in the Oxford by-election. This election took place shortly after the Munich Agreement and the Labour candidate Patrick Gordon Walker was persuaded to step down to allow a unified challenge to the Conservatives; A. D. Lindsay, the Master of Balliol College fought as an 'Independent Progressive' candidate. Hogg narrowly defeated Lindsay, who was said to be horrified by the popular slogan of "Hitler wants Hogg".
Hogg voted against Neville Chamberlain in the Norway Debate of May 1940, and supported Winston Churchill. . . .
Not laying Hunt at the moment.
https://twitter.com/dizzy_thinks/status/1582084551270338561
Investors are neither legally nor morally obligated to bankroll the government.
What does Farage suggest? Laws that require people to buy British government bonds?
For that reason I think Penny is the best fit for them. Has the best chance of giving them a 200-240 seat result IMHO.
Another, who backed Truss for the leadership, said: “It would be mad if she doesn’t go.”
https://www.ft.com/content/5c4827ab-9882-4cbb-a2ba-049dc5f363bb
In my view the hack doesn't work, the Tories have to choose which way they want to go and deal with the consequences.
The PM needs to communicate and speak well. It is hard to see past Mordaunt.
Sunak gets FS.
https://twitter.com/michael66880048/status/1582050778360950784/photo/1
I wasn't that impressed with Mordaunt but she won loyalty points and may yet emerge from this debacle with her status enhanced within the Conservative Party.
As for Hunt, he demolished his predecessor's proposals and has offered almost nothing - he's not making hostages to fortune admittedly but he will have to stand at the Despatch Box and say which taxes are going up and where the £40 billion (or whatever) of spending cuts are going to fall and I suspect the leaves of his new-found popularity will begin to be eaten away by the caterpillars of reality.
But, back in the real world, what is actually left of the Truss premiership, apart from the woman herself?
She wasn’t elected for her empathy, or her communication skills. It was to boldly cut taxes and usher in a new era of growth. That’s all gone.
The grown ups in the Tory party need to take back control and come up with a clear strategy for steering themselves — and us — through the hard months ahead.
It seems possible that there is a silencing operation going on.
I think that something must be up.
The first great tragedy here is that the party wasted the Summer, when they had the opportunity to work out what they felt about Boris and the future. The second is that the rapid collapse of Truss means that they now have roughly zero time to work out the answers to the questions they ducked last time.
But when I say managerial there will be some control over direction whoever leads - but hands will be tied somewhat and it will probably be a matter of what the emphasis is. It is going to have to be someone who believes in sound money (and can sell themselves that way) and who can sell a vision.
No.
So she IS going to go before the GE. The only question is when. The obvious answer to that question is 'now'.
Firstly, What does Penny believe in?
Penny had so much wind in her sails going into the leadership contest, but she sank very early on once the whistle started the hustings, not just because she lacks charisma and presentation skills, but because she was a policy vacuum whilst those around her came for a proper fight over the soul of the party. Can you recall her launch event, in the debates what were her positions on issues defining and dividing the Conservative Party today, the main points of her sales pitch?
Truss won, because she at least had a platform, and the (party) electorate like it. Planning laws and other structural rigidities keep Britain poorer than it should be, our merchant banks made us great once and the City can again, our advantage lies in professional services, ease of doing business and a capital city on which all the world converges.
For example, does Penny Mourdant believe in levelling up, or does she see it is just pretend the ancient mismatch in scale and wealth between London and the secondary cities their regions, can ever be levelled?
Secondly, todays smug and irritating performance from Penny Mourdant, made up from just party political bullshit and spin, will wear thin very quickly if that’s her usual modus operandi from the very top of a governing party. From her Willy Speech, her bizarre Speech in the US, through the leadership contest to today, Penny has never shown Primeministerial vision or gravitas.
The prospect of Penny as PM won’t frighten the opposition one bit. But more importantly, can she steer the Tory party out of its factional infighting and unite them around an ethos?
Imo the answer is a clear and rather obvious no.
Madness piled on madness. And Tories say "nothing to see here" as the poll deficit tunnels its way through the earth towards Java.
Farage should be ashamed. I'm not one of those who thinks everything he says is nonsense but he must know what he's saying is absurd. Debt to GDP is high, debt interest is quite high and you can't show plans that have debt to GDP % falling in the medium term. There's no mystery here.
They will know their expectation of advancement will be zero under any other leader - I imagine the public dismissal of Jacob Rees-Mogg will probably be a 5% Labour to Conservative swing on its own.
It's rock versus hard place though. One option is to leave Truss in charge, let her become the symbol for everything that goes wrong and then, scapegoat-like, she is sent into the wilderness in the hope the rest of the party will be absolved of the sins and can continue.
Politics doesn't work like that, though. Dodging the bullet won't work - one day the electorate will want the opportunity to send the Conservatives publicly and comprehensively into Opposition and it's something the Tories will just have to accept rather than try to squirm and avoid.
Changing Prime Ministers again looks bad on so many levels - of course, Rome went through four Emperors in 68 AD and still went on to conquer large parts of Europe but that's probably not the best analogy. To lose a Prime Minister through ill-health (Eden, MacMillan) is one thing, for one to retire (Wilson) is one thing but to defenestrate yet another Prime Minister after Thatcher, May and Johnson just looks sloppy.
I was nearer to Perth when Hunt gave his statement and got nearly all of it.
He was good , I thought. After the pantomime of the last couple of weeks it was nice to hear an adult again. Reeves wasn’t great. It was almost as if she was befuddled by the number of points she wanted to make and she ended up somewhat scatter gun and incoherent.
If the markets remain calm tomorrow it might be a good day to move Truss on and put together a real team.
Tory MPs also elimated Hunt in the first round of the contest, a strong candidate for the job. Hence, I think that the MPs should take a substantial part of the blame. It is said that plane crashes rarely happen due to a single cause, but due to a combination of several factors. The same thing has happened here. The candidates, the MPs, the party membership, the outgoing PM, and the current political situation (Brexit, COVID, Ukraine, 12 years in power) all contributed to this disaster.
Her performance today was rockstar stuff. Note perfect on the stickiest wicket since the Somme, hush ma big metaphor. Only attack line is the "hiding under a desk" line, and that's from people who have just read the quote and don't realise she was rebutting someone else's suggestion.
Nobody con or lab is doing beliefy stuff for the foreseeable few years after the object lesson thoughtfully provided by Kwaz n Liz in where beliefiness gets you. Boring administrative competence is the order of the day.
https://twitter.com/WarMonitors/status/1582098068354519040?s=20&t=pAaHO2IC7bBRXlBMb8-fcQ
The trouble with Labour is it doesn't matter how good Starmer is, who I personally like quite a lot, the party is full of people who fundamentally had no problem putting Corbyn in charge. That is as unpalatable to me as it would be voting for a hypothetical good GOP candidate knowing that everyone around him was wearing a stupid red cap a year or so earlier.
The country realising its up a cul de sac and lost, and the governing party tearing itself in multiple directions over which ethos gets the country out of this mess?
The job spec for the next prime minister is
sane.
Interesting to see if Hunt sacks him before Truss is out
Whereas in reality, the Conservatives are full of people who fundamentally had no problem putting Truss in charge.
I'm not objective - I don't pretend to be. I'm not a supporter of the Conservative Party. However, when they do something right, it's only right to note that. As the Government, they should be held to account and to proper scrutiny. The last 6 weeks have been wasted in terms of moving the country forward.
Hunt will be painfully aware of the gap in the finances and if he wants to be the only adult in the room, fine. Nobody in the Conservative Party thanked Ken Clarke for giving Labour a good economic start in 1997 - nobody will thank Jeremy Hunt if the heavy lifting in terms of restoring the public finances is accomplished before Starmer and Reeves take over.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1582044513274822656.html
for all the reasons I listed, Penny won’t really frighten opposition all that much.
But you are missing the point Mark - as I posted in the last thread and in the post above, the definition here isn’t what frightens Labour going into the next election, but what ethos unites the Conservative Party and steers it in the right direction. That’s the more important measurement for the replacement of Truss. It wasn’t just craziness that drove the Truss government to attack and trash the Tory governments since 2010, including that of Boris, it was a search for answers to the UKs underlying problems, search for realistic and achievable policies, not just vacuous slogans like “levelling up”.
A push for growth isn’t such a bad idea right now, is it?
Lots of chatter around in Tory circles speculating about the degree to which Sunakites with City links may have deliberately stoked the market run against Truss/Kwarteng.
https://twitter.com/oflynnsocial/status/1582095411107414016?s=20&t=pAaHO2IC7bBRXlBMb8-fcQ
Politically that won't be much fun. But less fun will be blackouts when people are trying to cook tea for their kids.
Funny old world.
Penny can do human, and as third place behind the defeated Sunak and discredited Truss is in a strong position, and she has ambition.
Corbyn was clearly a reluctant leader, and in many ways the Labour offer was much more conservative than his personal views. John McDonnell was clearly the brains of the operation, and was much more pragmatic - if anything desperate to be seen as unlikely to rock the boat too much.
Trump was an absolute megalomaniac - and nearly everyone who worked closely with him, has at some point suggested he was a dangerous, unpredictable lunatic.
The vast majority of Con supporters want nothing to do with such trash but they are out there - just like Lab has the Corbynites