A sad day, for both the country and the Conservative party.
The opportunity of the UK being a uniquely dynamic and innovative country, passed up by the MPs over the heads of the party membership, in favour of tax-rising, big-spending, globalist, authoritarian manegerialism, run by someone with no empathy for the average person.
It received little attention at the time because of Ukraine but it is as clear headed, coherent and intelligent analysis of both the weaknesses of the UK economy and the way to fix them as I have read from any politician ever. Capital, people, ideas. The need to save and invest, the need for governments to be facilitative rather than leading the way, the importance of research and taking advantage of our great Universities.
If these are his targets as PM and if he does not get blown off course by the costs of the gas subsidy program I think that is as good a policy for government as we have seen for a long, long time.
That’s an interesting speech. Not least, because of his criticism of tax cuts paid for by borrowing. That seems oddly precise in terms of what happened next.
I wonder if Truss had been arguing for those in cabinet and he had been resisting even while she was FS?
Quite possibly. I have little doubt that both Truss and KK were genuine and sincere in their analysis that more growth was the only way to square the circle between ever higher demand for public services and the level of taxation. This was his answer to that and it is a much, much better one than Truss and KK came up with.
On one hand, so blah, of course economic growth is the answer. Unfortunately, British/human nature being what it is, we'd much rather find that growth in a get-rich-quick scheme. Borrow money to cut taxes to unleash growth. Pursue fantasies of hydrocarbon extraction. Import rich people whose crumbs we can feast on. Don't send billions to Brussels.
Whereas the things that have a better chance of working- efficient transport, good skills, thoughtful expansion of places where the demand and potential are- don't happen. And that's before considering the elephant that entered the room six years ago.
Agree. But there is a fascinating question, only to be guessed about at this moment.
In 1992 the Tories lost their reputation and nothing from 1992-1997 stopped them being thrown out in a landslide, despite having a fairly decent team trying to repair things.
Do things happen faster now? It it thinkable that in two years the Tories do the impossible and prevent a Labour victory. The 1990s feel like a vanished age now.
Rishi could, and should, construct a team, centrist and moderate, that appears more capable than Labour's. In particular the shadow CoE is not formidable in the sense that Brown or Darling were. This is a weakness.
Results other than a Labour led government next time could become thinkable. Bet accordingly.
If I had bet on a Labour government I’d take profit at this point. It’s unlikely to get b tree for them
But you are a right-wing tory and, forgive me for saying, unable therefore to be objective.
No party comes back from this polling debacle. Never has. Never will. Period.
They blew it. Lost the confidence of the British people.
If you want to bet on a Conservative Party victory of any sort you need to wait 15 years.
The polling move was so fast and violent that it strikes me as shallow.
Black Wednesday. 1992-7. It happens. Fast, violent, visceral, palpable, real, and long-lasting.
The tories are in for a shellacking next time and will then be out of power for at least a decade.
We can but hope. But @StillWaters has a point. In many ways the current polling swing is very different from and much more dramatic than 1992-7:
"Look at the share not the lead"
Looking at Tory share, 2019 look much more comparable.
Not saying there'll be a recovery for the Tories like that, I doubt there will be personally, but it's absolutely possible and has happened before.
True, but 2019 was a pretty unique set of circumstances. In particular, there was one thing wrong for the Conservatives - a lack of Brexit. That made it obvious where the missing Conservative voters were (Brexit Party) and how to win them back (Get Brexit Done).
That's not really the case now. Having a leader who is both honest and sane will help. But the big thing wrong for the government is that lots of voters are objectively broke and many more feel broke. And there's not a lot that can be done to win them back.
Circumstances are always unique, which is why we should learn from history but not assume it will repeat. But the premise was that No party comes back from this polling debacle. Never has. Never will. Period.
Well that Period. is wrong. Looking at share not lead as is advisable, 2019 was a comparable polling debacle and the Tories came back from that to increase their majority.
Will that happen again? No, probably not. Is there precedent though? Yes, there is.
I agree with this. Have we not learned time and again that everything is possible in politics?
The situation would be very different if Russia was under attack in some way.
That is a very Western European way of looking at it.
As far as the Russian Federation is concerned Russia is under attack and has been for decades. The perception is that Ukraine is part of Russia and it's being pulled away and dismembered by the US/NATO/EU/Strictly Come Dancing judges.
You can argue that's all paranoid delusion and anti-democratic revanchism. And you might be right but that's reality of how things are viewed in Russian politics and society.
True - it's a view of the world steeped in Russian history, and reinforced by years of state propaganda.
People go on from time to time about the persistence of Britain's imperial delusions, but if they exist, they are the merest shadow of the Russian equivalent.
I think Sunak may be forced to spend more on defence whether he likes it or not.
His selection of Foreign Secretary will be a very important choice.
The reality is that if he abandons Ukraine then that is his authority in the party completely gone.
It's Biden's war. He is he one that is pouring $2bn/month into it. Anything Sunak does or doesn't do about it is of marginal moment.
Does Ukraine policy move votes much one war or the other? Dunno.
No, it's Putin's war.
It is of course obvious that the US aid effort is much greater than that of any other country (unless you look at it in relative terms, in which case that would Poland and the Baltic states), but to cast it as "Biden's war" is pitiful stuff.
Sadly, that’s the prevailing attitude of a number of Americans in politics and political commentary, to whom everything is looked at through a very insular lens.
To them, it’s very much Biden’s war, and if Russia is going to threaten nuclear Armageddon, then the West should just roll over and let Ukraine be Russian territory.
The interesting question that the Tories need to answer is not how they they will win the next general election, but why they want to win the next general election. After 12 years they are looking pretty exhausted and confused about what they want to do.
Stopping Labour is a tired old trope they will roll out. It might unify them for a bit as MPS look to save their seats. However, as we have seen there is no consensus in the Tory party today. They can not agree about what they are there for and where they want to take the country. Indeed some ideas are polar opposites. It is unlikely that these fundamentals will be resolved in the next two years and a heathy period in opposition would be good for everyone.
A sad day, for both the country and the Conservative party.
The opportunity of the UK being a uniquely dynamic and innovative country, passed up by the MPs over the heads of the party membership, in favour of tax-rising, big-spending, globalist, authoritarian manegerialism, run by someone with no empathy for the average person.
So how should the UK have gone on selling its debt, when the people buying its debt said "you're nuts" and refused to buy?
You're calling the world's bankers, financiers, investors "globalist" - you missed off the inevitable word "elite". Its classic pig-headed English exceptionalism. Essentially, "don't you know who we are?"
They do know who we are. And that's why Truss lasted 50 days in office. "Over the heads of the party membership" - yes, we should have gone back to the market and the IMF and said "look here, you need to do what we say because the Tory Party membership demand it."
One of your more bonkers posts, unless it was hugely high sarcasm which flew over my head...
I fear he's not being sarcastic. I did a job in Dubai which kept me there three weeks and if you are not part of the slave labour there and are part of a large ex pat community I can understand why you could be impressed. For those who don't live there as part of the wealthy elite it is quite a different place.
@Sandpit is beyond satire imo. Railing against globalism whilst enjoying a tax-free lifestyle in the Gulf. Telling us all how the Government shouldn't be spending the taxes he's not paying.
And supported by low paid workers with no more rights than slaves? Proper, old fashioned Toryism innit?
Boris Johnson was begging for votes over the weekend in a “demeaning” attempt to return to Downing Street, according to Sir Iain Duncan Smith.
He said that Johnson had returned from his Caribbean holiday expecting at least 150 MPs to back him. “Boris was completely unexpectedly having to do this. He made no plans. He had no team,” said Duncan Smith.
He told LBC that Johnson found himself “struggling and begging people for votes. That was demeaning, really.”
The demise of Boris Johnson through this has been wonderful.
He has been made to look a complete fool.
For all who care for justice, or think there's something in karma, it has been glorious to behold.
Yet he did have the votes, bizarrely.
I think Penny has been the bigger fool - yes she'll get a good job, but she could have got 'the' job, by co-opting Boris and giving him something.
I think it was Boris who was looking to do the co-opting but her judgment was, once again, poor and somewhat delusional. She has talent on her feet, no question, but she needs to get a department, buckle down with it for an extended haul and learn a lot more about how government actually works.
What's the point? It's over. There is no way PM4PM is going to get a third season.
The weather will have a huge impact on the UK politics this winter.
Right now we have mostly full European gas storage, still trending upwards, and extremely mild weather. The longer that continues, the further gas supply will last over winter without necessitating a spike in spot prices.
A very mild winter with lower prices and consumption would dramatically reduce the cost of the price cap to the government. That would create more fiscal freedom elsewhere.
For consumers the impact will be more limited to needing to use less energy and so spending less, as prices are extremely unlikely to fall below the cap.
Censure by the Privileges Committee, a massive recall petition, and then either he slinks away, or goes down in a historic by-election defeat and is expunged from our politics for ever more.
There is a myth developing among the grassroots that Rishi deposed BoZo to seize the crown for himself.
BoZo has done nothing to dispel it thus far.
Bit like Trump and Pence.
It’s worse than that, in that he did the same to Liz Truss.
Some of us speculated over the summer, that the hyperbolic language coming from the Sunak camp gave the suggestion that they would not want to work with Truss, and so it came to pass. What we didn’t expect, was the speed at which the Sunak supporters, in the Parliamentary party and the media, sabotaged the Truss government, in order to steal that crown for themselves. The average member will be furious today, at the way these events played out.
Truss & Co were ejected from office because they were incompetent. Nobody had to do anything except wait because every time she was required to perform it was like watching a rabbit in the headlights of an oncoming truck.
As for the "membership" and their rumours - a large proportion of them are either greedy or suffering from age-related problems or they would have realised that Truss was incapable of doing the job. She never should been made PM
@Sandpit's neoliberal dream turned out to be a crock of shit in less than a month. We should probably have a bit of sympathy for him but...
Agree. But there is a fascinating question, only to be guessed about at this moment.
In 1992 the Tories lost their reputation and nothing from 1992-1997 stopped them being thrown out in a landslide, despite having a fairly decent team trying to repair things.
Do things happen faster now? It it thinkable that in two years the Tories do the impossible and prevent a Labour victory. The 1990s feel like a vanished age now.
Rishi could, and should, construct a team, centrist and moderate, that appears more capable than Labour's. In particular the shadow CoE is not formidable in the sense that Brown or Darling were. This is a weakness.
Results other than a Labour led government next time could become thinkable. Bet accordingly.
The biggest imponderable is whether the Party will unite behind him or continue its fractious ways.
I'd have thought it would be unity, but Boris's ungracious withdrawal suggests maybe not. If he gets unity, then I think he can hope for a small defeat at the next election. Otherwise, it will be a shitshow.
I rather like the odds of 2.4 a Labour Majority, but I wouldn't go big on it and I'd watch developments closely.
I don’t believe Sunak is at all likely to win the next election for the Tories but there is a narrow, plausible route there, essentially:
1. Ukraine crisis/COL over, giving him ability to say he fixed it (rightly or wrongly); coupled with 2. His narrative from this leadership contest essentially being “I told you so” will net him kudos; 3. Starmer fails to seal the deal/runs a bad campaign; 4. The Tories run a tight ship and there’s no further resignations, cabinet dramas or significant revolts (this is the one that seems very difficult to imagine).
The key difference between now and 1997 is that I and I’m sure many others see Labour as our only alternative because they seem decent and competent and ready to lead a stable government that will make fairer decisions - but there is not a groundswell of enthusiasm for a Labour government. They lead partly by default because the Tory government has been so shockingly bad. Now it may continue to be bad and hand them the keys to Number 10 easily, but it is at least plausible that they get some of their act together, events help them, and they present more of a challenge. The question then is where those voters eventually fall.
Agree. he would also need: Luck Energy price falls Resolve the mortgage interest rate crisis fairly quickly.
Which crisis? The one where they've been very low for a very long time so the economy is over-leveraged, or the one where they are rising too far too fast?
Both need resolving and even Solomon might be unnerved at the challenge of getting this right without causing a great deal of pain.
The weather will have a huge impact on the UK politics this winter.
Right now we have mostly full European gas storage, still trending upwards, and extremely mild weather. The longer that continues, the further gas supply will last over winter without necessitating a spike in spot prices.
A very mild winter with lower prices and consumption would dramatically reduce the cost of the price cap to the government. That would create more fiscal freedom elsewhere.
For consumers the impact will be more limited to needing to use less energy and so spending less, as prices are extremely unlikely to fall below the cap.
A sad day, for both the country and the Conservative party.
The opportunity of the UK being a uniquely dynamic and innovative country, passed up by the MPs over the heads of the party membership, in favour of tax-rising, big-spending, globalist, authoritarian manegerialism, run by someone with no empathy for the average person.
It received little attention at the time because of Ukraine but it is as clear headed, coherent and intelligent analysis of both the weaknesses of the UK economy and the way to fix them as I have read from any politician ever. Capital, people, ideas. The need to save and invest, the need for governments to be facilitative rather than leading the way, the importance of research and taking advantage of our great Universities.
If these are his targets as PM and if he does not get blown off course by the costs of the gas subsidy program I think that is as good a policy for government as we have seen for a long, long time.
A good speech. I think this is the key extract:
The only way we can make a difference to the most stubborn and difficult problems is to focus; to decide where our efforts can have the biggest impact and relentlessly pursue those few chosen goals with all the energy and resources at our disposal. By trying to deliver everything we achieve nothing.
So in accelerating growth, I have three priorities. Priorities that I believe will foster a new culture of enterprise and deliver a higher growth rate. The first is to encourage greater levels of capital investment by our businesses. Second, we need to improve the technical skills of the tens of millions of people already in work. And third, we want to make this the most innovative economy in the world by driving up business investment in research and development.
Yes, I think that is spot on. Investment, training and innovation. Address our productivity problem head on in the hope and expectation that it improves competitiveness and reduces our balance of payments deficit. I am hopeful that he and Hunt can do some good work on this in the next 2 years, even if I am sanguine about the prospects of them remaining in office thereafter.
And yet he supported Brexit, which has made our growth problem both worse and harder to solve. Suggesting either a lack of understanding or a lack of seriousness on this issue.
Boris Johnson was begging for votes over the weekend in a “demeaning” attempt to return to Downing Street, according to Sir Iain Duncan Smith.
He said that Johnson had returned from his Caribbean holiday expecting at least 150 MPs to back him. “Boris was completely unexpectedly having to do this. He made no plans. He had no team,” said Duncan Smith.
He told LBC that Johnson found himself “struggling and begging people for votes. That was demeaning, really.”
The demise of Boris Johnson through this has been wonderful.
He has been made to look a complete fool.
For all who care for justice, or think there's something in karma, it has been glorious to behold.
Yet he did have the votes, bizarrely.
I think Penny has been the bigger fool - yes she'll get a good job, but she could have got 'the' job, by co-opting Boris and giving him something.
I think it was Boris who was looking to do the co-opting but her judgment was, once again, poor and somewhat delusional. She has talent on her feet, no question, but she needs to get a department, buckle down with it for an extended haul and learn a lot more about how government actually works.
What's the point? It's over. There is no way PM4PM is going to get a third season.
The situation would be very different if Russia was under attack in some way.
That is a very Western European way of looking at it.
As far as the Russian Federation is concerned Russia is under attack and has been for decades. The perception is that Ukraine is part of Russia and it's being pulled away and dismembered by the US/NATO/EU/Strictly Come Dancing judges.
You can argue that's all paranoid delusion and anti-democratic revanchism. And you might be right but that's reality of how things are viewed in Russian politics and society.
That sort of delusion is untreatable. It is the Russians with their genocidal rants, and undisciplined looting, raping and torturing that has turned Ukraine from a friendly neighbour into an implacable enemy. Just as they did to Poland a century ago.
I am quite a Russophile. It is a great country that I am keen to visit again, but boy is its dark side very dark. Until they come to terms with the evils that they have done, it will be hard to appreciate the glories. Russia needs to begin to decolonise its mind. Revisionist history and decolonisation of its curriculum is way overdue.
The Nazi like bile that was being broadcast on National, state sponsored TV the other day which suggested Ukranian children who did not consider themselves Russian should be thrown in the river and drowned was really quite jaw dropping as is the large number of fantasists who keep insisting that Russia needs to stop pulling its punches.
The situation would be very different if Russia was under attack in some way.
That is a very Western European way of looking at it.
As far as the Russian Federation is concerned Russia is under attack and has been for decades. The perception is that Ukraine is part of Russia and it's being pulled away and dismembered by the US/NATO/EU/Strictly Come Dancing judges.
You can argue that's all paranoid delusion and anti-democratic revanchism. And you might be right but that's reality of how things are viewed in Russian politics and society.
True - it's a view of the world steeped in Russian history, and reinforced by years of state propaganda.
People go on from time to time about the persistence of Britain's imperial delusions, but if they exist, they are the merest shadow of the Russian equivalent.
@Dura_Ace is Far-Left and an admirer of Russia on the simple basis that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Just like Corbyn.
The only difference between them is that Corbyn is motivated by communist idealism and @Dura_Ace is motivated by destructive anarchy.
Agree. But there is a fascinating question, only to be guessed about at this moment.
In 1992 the Tories lost their reputation and nothing from 1992-1997 stopped them being thrown out in a landslide, despite having a fairly decent team trying to repair things.
Do things happen faster now? It it thinkable that in two years the Tories do the impossible and prevent a Labour victory. The 1990s feel like a vanished age now.
Rishi could, and should, construct a team, centrist and moderate, that appears more capable than Labour's. In particular the shadow CoE is not formidable in the sense that Brown or Darling were. This is a weakness.
Results other than a Labour led government next time could become thinkable. Bet accordingly.
If I had bet on a Labour government I’d take profit at this point. It’s unlikely to get b tree for them
But you are a right-wing tory and, forgive me for saying, unable therefore to be objective.
No party comes back from this polling debacle. Never has. Never will. Period.
They blew it. Lost the confidence of the British people.
If you want to bet on a Conservative Party victory of any sort you need to wait 15 years.
The polling move was so fast and violent that it strikes me as shallow.
Black Wednesday. 1992-7. It happens. Fast, violent, visceral, palpable, real, and long-lasting.
The tories are in for a shellacking next time and will then be out of power for at least a decade.
We can but hope. But @StillWaters has a point. In many ways the current polling swing is very different from and much more dramatic than 1992-7:
"Look at the share not the lead"
Looking at Tory share, 2019 look much more comparable.
Not saying there'll be a recovery for the Tories like that, I doubt there will be personally, but it's absolutely possible and has happened before.
True, but 2019 was a pretty unique set of circumstances. In particular, there was one thing wrong for the Conservatives - a lack of Brexit. That made it obvious where the missing Conservative voters were (Brexit Party) and how to win them back (Get Brexit Done).
That's not really the case now. Having a leader who is both honest and sane will help. But the big thing wrong for the government is that lots of voters are objectively broke and many more feel broke. And there's not a lot that can be done to win them back.
Circumstances are always unique, which is why we should learn from history but not assume it will repeat. But the premise was that No party comes back from this polling debacle. Never has. Never will. Period.
Well that Period. is wrong. Looking at share not lead as is advisable, 2019 was a comparable polling debacle and the Tories came back from that to increase their majority.
Will that happen again? No, probably not. Is there precedent though? Yes, there is.
I agree with this. Have we not learned time and again that everything is possible in politics?
A very few weeks ago the word was no party had won a majority from where Labour are now. Period.
Agree. But there is a fascinating question, only to be guessed about at this moment.
In 1992 the Tories lost their reputation and nothing from 1992-1997 stopped them being thrown out in a landslide, despite having a fairly decent team trying to repair things.
Do things happen faster now? It it thinkable that in two years the Tories do the impossible and prevent a Labour victory. The 1990s feel like a vanished age now.
Rishi could, and should, construct a team, centrist and moderate, that appears more capable than Labour's. In particular the shadow CoE is not formidable in the sense that Brown or Darling were. This is a weakness.
Results other than a Labour led government next time could become thinkable. Bet accordingly.
If I had bet on a Labour government I’d take profit at this point. It’s unlikely to get b tree for them
But you are a right-wing tory and, forgive me for saying, unable therefore to be objective.
No party comes back from this polling debacle. Never has. Never will. Period.
They blew it. Lost the confidence of the British people.
If you want to bet on a Conservative Party victory of any sort you need to wait 15 years.
The polling move was so fast and violent that it strikes me as shallow.
Black Wednesday. 1992-7. It happens. Fast, violent, visceral, palpable, real, and long-lasting.
The tories are in for a shellacking next time and will then be out of power for at least a decade.
We can but hope. But @StillWaters has a point. In many ways the current polling swing is very different from and much more dramatic than 1992-7:
"Look at the share not the lead"
Looking at Tory share, 2019 look much more comparable.
Not saying there'll be a recovery for the Tories like that, I doubt there will be personally, but it's absolutely possible and has happened before.
True, but 2019 was a pretty unique set of circumstances. In particular, there was one thing wrong for the Conservatives - a lack of Brexit. That made it obvious where the missing Conservative voters were (Brexit Party) and how to win them back (Get Brexit Done).
That's not really the case now. Having a leader who is both honest and sane will help. But the big thing wrong for the government is that lots of voters are objectively broke and many more feel broke. And there's not a lot that can be done to win them back.
Circumstances are always unique, which is why we should learn from history but not assume it will repeat. But the premise was that No party comes back from this polling debacle. Never has. Never will. Period.
Well that Period. is wrong. Looking at share not lead as is advisable, 2019 was a comparable polling debacle and the Tories came back from that to increase their majority.
Will that happen again? No, probably not. Is there precedent though? Yes, there is.
Many of us older ones remember the Thatcher years, when her governments plumbed the depths of unpopularity only to be re-elected each time when the election came and voters turned to look at the alternative on offer. The only real lesson from those days is that voters aren't passing any sort of judgement on the opposition platform when they respond to polls in the mid-term.
The question is whether the opposition will look like a preferable alternative when the election comes.
Maybe there's furious work inside Labour going on to put together a convincing platform on which to fight the election, kept secret lest the Tories steal it beforehand? Certainly possible, although there's little sign of it, and in a party awash with 'internal democracy' like Labour, it's usually pretty hard to keep secrets.
The weather will have a huge impact on the UK politics this winter.
Right now we have mostly full European gas storage, still trending upwards, and extremely mild weather. The longer that continues, the further gas supply will last over winter without necessitating a spike in spot prices.
A very mild winter with lower prices and consumption would dramatically reduce the cost of the price cap to the government. That would create more fiscal freedom elsewhere.
For consumers the impact will be more limited to needing to use less energy and so spending less, as prices are extremely unlikely to fall below the cap.
I see the new Boris Johnson 2.0 (copyright N. Zahawi), who is no longer self-centred, ungracious or grudging, but has changed and learned... is demonstrating this by not congratulating Rishi Sunak on his election as leader. https://twitter.com/PeterMannionMP/status/1584809877683113985
I think Sunak may be forced to spend more on defence whether he likes it or not.
His selection of Foreign Secretary will be a very important choice.
The reality is that if he abandons Ukraine then that is his authority in the party completely gone. Boris will also try and cast himself as Winston Churchill, waiting in the wings about to ride to the rescue. It will be one of the constraints that Sunak is operating under, and he will be well aware of that.
All this Sunak anti-Ukraine nonsense is simply because he asked Wallace to justify his proposed increase run the defence budget allocation in 2030
Exactly the sort of scrutiny that a CoE should do.
If we need to expand the Defence budget (not that I am convinced that we do) there needs to be a careful review of what capabilities that we need. What has worked well in Ukraine, and what hasn't? What naval and air capability is needed? Where will our next war be?
Baldy Ben should be moved on and replaced with somebody that can do pivot tables in Excel. There are several highly expensive programs that are drifting into disaster and consuming shitloads of money while their incipient failure is seriously degrading important defence capabilities. MFTS, Ajax and MRSS for starters.
The MoD needs flint eyed and decisive management not a chubby, thick as fuck, ex-Jock Guard who has gone native.
Agreed. We should bin AJAX and get a licence to build something like the Korean AS21 - which would save a huge amount of money, and might also teach us something about manufacturing. It's a better concept than the much bigger AJAX, too.
Haven't a clue about MRSS. It's an interesting idea, but smells of design by committee - and what are the chances of our building it at anything like a reasonable price ?
I don’t believe Sunak is at all likely to win the next election for the Tories but there is a narrow, plausible route there, essentially:
1. Ukraine crisis/COL over, giving him ability to say he fixed it (rightly or wrongly); coupled with 2. His narrative from this leadership contest essentially being “I told you so” will net him kudos; 3. Starmer fails to seal the deal/runs a bad campaign; 4. The Tories run a tight ship and there’s no further resignations, cabinet dramas or significant revolts (this is the one that seems very difficult to imagine).
The key difference between now and 1997 is that I and I’m sure many others see Labour as our only alternative because they seem decent and competent and ready to lead a stable government that will make fairer decisions - but there is not a groundswell of enthusiasm for a Labour government. They lead partly by default because the Tory government has been so shockingly bad. Now it may continue to be bad and hand them the keys to Number 10 easily, but it is at least plausible that they get some of their act together, events help them, and they present more of a challenge. The question then is where those voters eventually fall.
Agree. he would also need: Luck Energy price falls Resolve the mortgage interest rate crisis fairly quickly.
In the short-term it's not impossible he could be lucky - Ukraine could continue going well, lower fuel prices could stablilise, inflation is eating away at the absolute level of debt, market stability is taking the edge off the cost of borrowing, and the frozen tax allowances will bring in a lot of extra money with inflation as it is. He might have more short-term headroom than we are imagining, particularly if Hunt bites the bullet and shoves up some taxes now, while the election is still two years away?
It has been interesting to see the reaction from red wall Conservatives.
I hadn't fully appreciated their love for Boris and their sense of embittered rage at what has happened. For some reason, probably partly racist, they have it in for Rishi as the architect of Boris Johnson's downfall.
Of course, the real architect of Boris Johnson's downfall was Boris Johnson. A deeply, painfully, flawed individual who has got his comeuppance.
But I don't see the red wall warming to Rishi I'm afraid. They won't come back to vote for him.
So I think Labour leads in the 20%+ range to start with, perhaps possibly a 15%. And then as things start to bite through the winter, Labour will regularly be back up to 25%+
They are going to win a landslide. Nothing now will change it.
Johnson has skewed everything. The middle ground has always been where elections were won or lost except for the last one. A dispiriting repulsive narcissist (or populist as they call them) turned up trumpeting himself and a pack of lies and persuaded the uneducated and the feeble minded to follow him.
He then effectively took over the Tory Party. He and his disciples have now been dumped and we should be back to a reasonably level playing field. Who now convinces the public that they are the centre ground should win. Starmer's Labour have the advantage by virtue of not having the Johnson legacy to wash away having got rid of their own Svengali two years earlier.
Censure by the Privileges Committee, a massive recall petition, and then either he slinks away, or goes down in a historic by-election defeat and is expunged from our politics for ever more.
There is a myth developing among the grassroots that Rishi deposed BoZo to seize the crown for himself.
BoZo has done nothing to dispel it thus far.
Bit like Trump and Pence.
It’s worse than that, in that he did the same to Liz Truss.
Some of us speculated over the summer, that the hyperbolic language coming from the Sunak camp gave the suggestion that they would not want to work with Truss, and so it came to pass. What we didn’t expect, was the speed at which the Sunak supporters, in the Parliamentary party and the media, sabotaged the Truss government, in order to steal that crown for themselves. The average member will be furious today, at the way these events played out.
This is nonsense. Truss collapsed because the markets took fright. They proposed selling a shit ton of debt to pay for inflationary tax cuts and the markets refused to buy. What you are saying is that the global money markets should have respected Tory party members and just bought our debt because This Is England.
Its laughable. You and I both know the correct price of any item is what someone is willing to pay for it. We can't just say "you will buy our debt at the price we say" and they go "yes sir".
The largest two holders of gilts at the start of the year were the Bank of England and the UK pensions sector. The Bank of England’s MPC signalled it was to follow the Fed’s lead and unwind QE and the day before the fiscal statement formalised it. Amidst the global climate of rising yields, the over leveraged Uk pensions had already begun selling gilts to meet margin calls against their debt.
The UK fiscal statement was somewhere between throwing a match or petrol on an already raging fire but none of us can know for sure which it was. What happened was a doom loop of falling gilt prices necessitating further sales of gilts by over leveraged pension funds and more price falls. Speculative credit traders instinctively knew they had a one way bet but it took time for the LDI story to emerge and for most of the market to understand exactly why they had a one way bet.
What is close to certain is that the Bank of England erred most, with a long term failure in their prudential responsibility to stop the pensions sector threatening financial stability, and then the MPC coming in with the double whammy of failing to match Fed rate rises which slammed sterling, and announcing it was dumping gilts into the market when yields were already rising and it knew the Uk govt was running a counter cyclical fiscal policy.
During the brief period where the Bank of England was providing a backstop to deleveraging pension funds, gilts stabilised. Funnily enough this was almost the entire post funeral period of Truss’s govt. You don’t bet against the central bank and yet you don’t pile in either until you see how that systemic risk plays out. So we saw stability with very little capital employed by the Bank.
Truss’s mistake was she blinked on the very last day of the BoE backstop and fired her chancellor on the Friday. By the Monday Hunt overturned her whole tax agenda and we saw gilts rally. But again that’s not necessarily causation. Because it coincided with the first trading day where there were no more forced sellers in the pension sector and it was safe for investors to take long positions in gilts again.
I understand why the media and partial political observers wish to blame the entire phenomenon of rising yields on two Tory personalities. But the truth is far more complex and the real villain of the acute episode still sits atop his leather wingbacked throne in Threadneedle.
Agree. But there is a fascinating question, only to be guessed about at this moment.
In 1992 the Tories lost their reputation and nothing from 1992-1997 stopped them being thrown out in a landslide, despite having a fairly decent team trying to repair things.
Do things happen faster now? It it thinkable that in two years the Tories do the impossible and prevent a Labour victory. The 1990s feel like a vanished age now.
Rishi could, and should, construct a team, centrist and moderate, that appears more capable than Labour's. In particular the shadow CoE is not formidable in the sense that Brown or Darling were. This is a weakness.
Results other than a Labour led government next time could become thinkable. Bet accordingly.
If I had bet on a Labour government I’d take profit at this point. It’s unlikely to get b tree for them
But you are a right-wing tory and, forgive me for saying, unable therefore to be objective.
No party comes back from this polling debacle. Never has. Never will. Period.
They blew it. Lost the confidence of the British people.
If you want to bet on a Conservative Party victory of any sort you need to wait 15 years.
I’m centre right but not a Tory. I engage with politicians in my own terms. (Although even if I was it doesn’t make me unable to be objective - as @Casino_Royale has proved time and again).
I disagree with your assessment. The polling move was so fast and violent that it strikes me as shallow. A lot of it was Tories moving to don’t know although there was an unusual level of direct Tory to Labour switching which I would interpret as a desire to kick the Tories where it hurts.
My guess is as things stabilise then politics will normalise and people will return to the Tories. That doesn’t mean the Tories will win - I think that’s unlikely - but in my view the polls are more likely to return to a sustainable 10-15% Labour lead and then close further as the election sharpens the focus. Overall result between Labour largest party and small majority, but most likely a Labour government from mid 2024 onwards.
Of course this assumes that the Tories manage to deliver a drama free couple of years of vaguely competent government
My view is that current Labour leads are unsustainable simply became not that large a proportion of the electorate are left-wing.
I don’t believe Sunak is at all likely to win the next election for the Tories but there is a narrow, plausible route there, essentially:
1. Ukraine crisis/COL over, giving him ability to say he fixed it (rightly or wrongly); coupled with 2. His narrative from this leadership contest essentially being “I told you so” will net him kudos; 3. Starmer fails to seal the deal/runs a bad campaign; 4. The Tories run a tight ship and there’s no further resignations, cabinet dramas or significant revolts (this is the one that seems very difficult to imagine).
The key difference between now and 1997 is that I and I’m sure many others see Labour as our only alternative because they seem decent and competent and ready to lead a stable government that will make fairer decisions - but there is not a groundswell of enthusiasm for a Labour government. They lead partly by default because the Tory government has been so shockingly bad. Now it may continue to be bad and hand them the keys to Number 10 easily, but it is at least plausible that they get some of their act together, events help them, and they present more of a challenge. The question then is where those voters eventually fall.
I think that some of the memories of the groundswell of enthusiasm for Labour in 1997 is misremembered. My memory of the time was that there was a lot of uncertainty about the Labour front bench, almost all of whom had never been in government before. There was a lot of enthusiasm among Labour supporters, as there is now, but I think the dominant desire among voters in the middle was simply to eject the Tories. I think if Labour do win big this time we will again misremember that the public were yearning for a Labour government, especially if Starmer enjoys a honeymoon in office like Blair did.
Agree. But there is a fascinating question, only to be guessed about at this moment.
In 1992 the Tories lost their reputation and nothing from 1992-1997 stopped them being thrown out in a landslide, despite having a fairly decent team trying to repair things.
Do things happen faster now? It it thinkable that in two years the Tories do the impossible and prevent a Labour victory. The 1990s feel like a vanished age now.
Rishi could, and should, construct a team, centrist and moderate, that appears more capable than Labour's. In particular the shadow CoE is not formidable in the sense that Brown or Darling were. This is a weakness.
Results other than a Labour led government next time could become thinkable. Bet accordingly.
I'm 90% convinced the next election will deliver a hung parliament, which will probably mean a Lab/LD coalition.
Agree. But there is a fascinating question, only to be guessed about at this moment.
In 1992 the Tories lost their reputation and nothing from 1992-1997 stopped them being thrown out in a landslide, despite having a fairly decent team trying to repair things.
Do things happen faster now? It it thinkable that in two years the Tories do the impossible and prevent a Labour victory. The 1990s feel like a vanished age now.
Rishi could, and should, construct a team, centrist and moderate, that appears more capable than Labour's. In particular the shadow CoE is not formidable in the sense that Brown or Darling were. This is a weakness.
Results other than a Labour led government next time could become thinkable. Bet accordingly.
If I had bet on a Labour government I’d take profit at this point. It’s unlikely to get b tree for them
But you are a right-wing tory and, forgive me for saying, unable therefore to be objective.
No party comes back from this polling debacle. Never has. Never will. Period.
They blew it. Lost the confidence of the British people.
If you want to bet on a Conservative Party victory of any sort you need to wait 15 years.
The polling move was so fast and violent that it strikes me as shallow.
Black Wednesday. 1992-7. It happens. Fast, violent, visceral, palpable, real, and long-lasting.
The tories are in for a shellacking next time and will then be out of power for at least a decade.
We can but hope. But @StillWaters has a point. In many ways the current polling swing is very different from and much more dramatic than 1992-7:
"Look at the share not the lead"
Looking at Tory share, 2019 look much more comparable.
Not saying there'll be a recovery for the Tories like that, I doubt there will be personally, but it's absolutely possible and has happened before.
True, but 2019 was a pretty unique set of circumstances. In particular, there was one thing wrong for the Conservatives - a lack of Brexit. That made it obvious where the missing Conservative voters were (Brexit Party) and how to win them back (Get Brexit Done).
That's not really the case now. Having a leader who is both honest and sane will help. But the big thing wrong for the government is that lots of voters are objectively broke and many more feel broke. And there's not a lot that can be done to win them back.
Circumstances are always unique, which is why we should learn from history but not assume it will repeat. But the premise was that No party comes back from this polling debacle. Never has. Never will. Period.
Well that Period. is wrong. Looking at share not lead as is advisable, 2019 was a comparable polling debacle and the Tories came back from that to increase their majority.
Will that happen again? No, probably not. Is there precedent though? Yes, there is.
I agree with this. Have we not learned time and again that everything is possible in politics?
A very few weeks ago the word was no party had won a majority from where Labour are now. Period.
Labour did in 1945, but the circumstances were unusual.
Heath overturned a bigger majority in 1970 but he wasn't starting from so far back - I think there were only twelve non-Lab/Tory seats at the 1966 election.
Otherwise, we're talking 1906 and before that, 1880. So even before universal manhood suffrage.
1929 might perhaps be the best Labour could realistically hope for. They overturned a majority of nearly 200 to become the largest party and governed with the support of the 59 Liberals.
Agree. But there is a fascinating question, only to be guessed about at this moment.
In 1992 the Tories lost their reputation and nothing from 1992-1997 stopped them being thrown out in a landslide, despite having a fairly decent team trying to repair things.
Do things happen faster now? It it thinkable that in two years the Tories do the impossible and prevent a Labour victory. The 1990s feel like a vanished age now.
Rishi could, and should, construct a team, centrist and moderate, that appears more capable than Labour's. In particular the shadow CoE is not formidable in the sense that Brown or Darling were. This is a weakness.
Results other than a Labour led government next time could become thinkable. Bet accordingly.
If I had bet on a Labour government I’d take profit at this point. It’s unlikely to get b tree for them
But you are a right-wing tory and, forgive me for saying, unable therefore to be objective.
No party comes back from this polling debacle. Never has. Never will. Period.
They blew it. Lost the confidence of the British people.
If you want to bet on a Conservative Party victory of any sort you need to wait 15 years.
I’m centre right but not a Tory. I engage with politicians in my own terms. (Although even if I was it doesn’t make me unable to be objective - as @Casino_Royale has proved time and again).
I disagree with your assessment. The polling move was so fast and violent that it strikes me as shallow. A lot of it was Tories moving to don’t know although there was an unusual level of direct Tory to Labour switching which I would interpret as a desire to kick the Tories where it hurts.
My guess is as things stabilise then politics will normalise and people will return to the Tories. That doesn’t mean the Tories will win - I think that’s unlikely - but in my view the polls are more likely to return to a sustainable 10-15% Labour lead and then close further as the election sharpens the focus. Overall result between Labour largest party and small majority, but most likely a Labour government from mid 2024 onwards.
Of course this assumes that the Tories manage to deliver a drama free couple of years of vaguely competent government
My view is that current Labour leads are unsustainable simply became not that large a proportion of the electorate are left-wing.
I'm sure that nobody thinks current leads will be sustained. They were specific to the Truss debacle. I would expect a significant narrowing initially and stabilisation at Labour leads of 10-15pp.
I think Sunak may be forced to spend more on defence whether he likes it or not.
His selection of Foreign Secretary will be a very important choice.
The reality is that if he abandons Ukraine then that is his authority in the party completely gone. Boris will also try and cast himself as Winston Churchill, waiting in the wings about to ride to the rescue. It will be one of the constraints that Sunak is operating under, and he will be well aware of that.
All this Sunak anti-Ukraine nonsense is simply because he asked Wallace to justify his proposed increase run the defence budget allocation in 2030
Exactly the sort of scrutiny that a CoE should do.
If we need to expand the Defence budget (not that I am convinced that we do) there needs to be a careful review of what capabilities that we need. What has worked well in Ukraine, and what hasn't? What naval and air capability is needed? Where will our next war be?
Baldy Ben should be moved on and replaced with somebody that can do pivot tables in Excel. There are several highly expensive programs that are drifting into disaster and consuming shitloads of money while their incipient failure is seriously degrading important defence capabilities. MFTS, Ajax and MRSS for starters.
The MoD needs flint eyed and decisive management not a chubby, thick as fuck, ex-Jock Guard who has gone native.
Agreed. We should bin AJAX and get a licence to build something like the Korean AS21 - which would save a huge amount of money, and might also teach us something about manufacturing. It's a better concept than the much bigger AJAX, too.
Haven't a clue about MRSS. It's an interesting idea, but smells of design by committee - and what are the chances of our building it at anything like a reasonable price ?
No fucking clue about the AS21 but something needs to happen with Ajax. Since Warrior got binned we've ended up with a force concept where the recon element weighs 40 odd tons, can only be moved on a HET and is significantly less mobile than the Boxer mounted infantry it's supposed to be ahead of.
Agree. But there is a fascinating question, only to be guessed about at this moment.
In 1992 the Tories lost their reputation and nothing from 1992-1997 stopped them being thrown out in a landslide, despite having a fairly decent team trying to repair things.
Do things happen faster now? It it thinkable that in two years the Tories do the impossible and prevent a Labour victory. The 1990s feel like a vanished age now.
Rishi could, and should, construct a team, centrist and moderate, that appears more capable than Labour's. In particular the shadow CoE is not formidable in the sense that Brown or Darling were. This is a weakness.
Results other than a Labour led government next time could become thinkable. Bet accordingly.
The biggest imponderable is whether the Party will unite behind him or continue its fractious ways.
I'd have thought it would be unity, but Boris's ungracious withdrawal suggests maybe not. If he gets unity, then I think he can hope for a small defeat at the next election. Otherwise, it will be a shitshow.
I rather like the odds of 2.4 a Labour Majority, but I wouldn't go big on it and I'd watch developments closely.
I agree. The same ferrets are still in the same sack and half of them are rabid...
Agree. But there is a fascinating question, only to be guessed about at this moment.
In 1992 the Tories lost their reputation and nothing from 1992-1997 stopped them being thrown out in a landslide, despite having a fairly decent team trying to repair things.
Do things happen faster now? It it thinkable that in two years the Tories do the impossible and prevent a Labour victory. The 1990s feel like a vanished age now.
Rishi could, and should, construct a team, centrist and moderate, that appears more capable than Labour's. In particular the shadow CoE is not formidable in the sense that Brown or Darling were. This is a weakness.
Results other than a Labour led government next time could become thinkable. Bet accordingly.
If I had bet on a Labour government I’d take profit at this point. It’s unlikely to get b tree for them
But you are a right-wing tory and, forgive me for saying, unable therefore to be objective.
No party comes back from this polling debacle. Never has. Never will. Period.
They blew it. Lost the confidence of the British people.
If you want to bet on a Conservative Party victory of any sort you need to wait 15 years.
The polling move was so fast and violent that it strikes me as shallow.
Black Wednesday. 1992-7. It happens. Fast, violent, visceral, palpable, real, and long-lasting.
The tories are in for a shellacking next time and will then be out of power for at least a decade.
We can but hope. But @StillWaters has a point. In many ways the current polling swing is very different from and much more dramatic than 1992-7:
"Look at the share not the lead"
Looking at Tory share, 2019 look much more comparable.
Not saying there'll be a recovery for the Tories like that, I doubt there will be personally, but it's absolutely possible and has happened before.
True, but 2019 was a pretty unique set of circumstances. In particular, there was one thing wrong for the Conservatives - a lack of Brexit. That made it obvious where the missing Conservative voters were (Brexit Party) and how to win them back (Get Brexit Done).
That's not really the case now. Having a leader who is both honest and sane will help. But the big thing wrong for the government is that lots of voters are objectively broke and many more feel broke. And there's not a lot that can be done to win them back.
Circumstances are always unique, which is why we should learn from history but not assume it will repeat. But the premise was that No party comes back from this polling debacle. Never has. Never will. Period.
Well that Period. is wrong. Looking at share not lead as is advisable, 2019 was a comparable polling debacle and the Tories came back from that to increase their majority.
Will that happen again? No, probably not. Is there precedent though? Yes, there is.
I agree with this. Have we not learned time and again that everything is possible in politics?
I would caution 2019 as precedent.
Yes, the Tory VI dropped below 20% in some polls, but that did not translate into a strong Labour lead.
Indeed, in every single month of 2019 the Conservatives led in at least one published poll (* including in May when the best polls had them tied for the lead).
What party in government does have regular poll leads after more than 10 years in power? We are now about 12 and a half years into a Conservative led government, ie 2009 in the New Labour years or late 1991 in the years of the last Tory government when Kinnock still led in most polls even though Major scraped home against the odds.
If Sunak can now get a Major 1992 result or even Brown 2010 result at the next general election from the dire situation Truss left him and the party with that would be a significant achievement
Agree. But there is a fascinating question, only to be guessed about at this moment.
In 1992 the Tories lost their reputation and nothing from 1992-1997 stopped them being thrown out in a landslide, despite having a fairly decent team trying to repair things.
Do things happen faster now? It it thinkable that in two years the Tories do the impossible and prevent a Labour victory. The 1990s feel like a vanished age now.
Rishi could, and should, construct a team, centrist and moderate, that appears more capable than Labour's. In particular the shadow CoE is not formidable in the sense that Brown or Darling were. This is a weakness.
Results other than a Labour led government next time could become thinkable. Bet accordingly.
I'm 90% convinced the next election will deliver a hung parliament, which will probably mean a Lab/LD coalition.
Yes, my betting is evenly split at the moment between a hung parliament and Labour majority.
It has been interesting to see the reaction from red wall Conservatives.
I hadn't fully appreciated their love for Boris and their sense of embittered rage at what has happened. For some reason, probably partly racist, they have it in for Rishi as the architect of Boris Johnson's downfall.
Of course, the real architect of Boris Johnson's downfall was Boris Johnson. A deeply, painfully, flawed individual who has got his comeuppance.
But I don't see the red wall warming to Rishi I'm afraid. They won't come back to vote for him.
So I think Labour leads in the 20%+ range to start with, perhaps possibly a 15%. And then as things start to bite through the winter, Labour will regularly be back up to 25%+
They are going to win a landslide. Nothing now will change it.
Johnson has skewed everything. The middle ground has always been where elections were won or lost except for the last one. A dispiriting repulsive narcissist (or populist as they call them) turned up trumpeting himself and a pack of lies and persuaded the uneducated and the feeble minded to follow him.
He then effectively took over the Tory Party. He and his disciples have now been dumped and we should be back to a reasonably level playing field. Who now convinces the public that they are the centre ground should win. Starmer's Labour have the advantage by virtue of not having the Johnson legacy to wash away having got rid of their own Svengali two years earlier.
Which is why a ritual and highly visible sacrifice of Johnson at and after the Privileges Committee really would be the Tories' best path.
He's not coming back, now, and he won't do any work as part of the team. So he's of no further use to them.
A sad day, for both the country and the Conservative party.
The opportunity of the UK being a uniquely dynamic and innovative country, passed up by the MPs over the heads of the party membership, in favour of tax-rising, big-spending, globalist, authoritarian manegerialism, run by someone with no empathy for the average person.
So how should the UK have gone on selling its debt, when the people buying its debt said "you're nuts" and refused to buy?
You're calling the world's bankers, financiers, investors "globalist" - you missed off the inevitable word "elite". Its classic pig-headed English exceptionalism. Essentially, "don't you know who we are?"
They do know who we are. And that's why Truss lasted 50 days in office. "Over the heads of the party membership" - yes, we should have gone back to the market and the IMF and said "look here, you need to do what we say because the Tory Party membership demand it."
One of your more bonkers posts, unless it was hugely high sarcasm which flew over my head...
I fear he's not being sarcastic. I did a job in Dubai which kept me there three weeks and if you are not part of the slave labour there and are part of a large ex pat community I can understand why you could be impressed. For those who don't live there as part of the wealthy elite it is quite a different place.
@Sandpit is beyond satire imo. Railing against globalism whilst enjoying a tax-free lifestyle in the Gulf. Telling us all how the Government shouldn't be spending the taxes he's not paying.
And supported by low paid workers with no more rights than slaves? Proper, old fashioned Toryism innit?
I'm going to defend @Sandpit even though I don't agree with him. It is a logical philosophy; Singapore on Thames. It is also the logical direction following Brexit. It does not make sense to go back to the status quo with Brexit. I disagree because I wanted the status quo and no Brexit. It should be one or the other (Sandpit or me). Half of one and half of the other makes no sense in my opinion.
Agree. But there is a fascinating question, only to be guessed about at this moment.
In 1992 the Tories lost their reputation and nothing from 1992-1997 stopped them being thrown out in a landslide, despite having a fairly decent team trying to repair things.
Do things happen faster now? It it thinkable that in two years the Tories do the impossible and prevent a Labour victory. The 1990s feel like a vanished age now.
Rishi could, and should, construct a team, centrist and moderate, that appears more capable than Labour's. In particular the shadow CoE is not formidable in the sense that Brown or Darling were. This is a weakness.
Results other than a Labour led government next time could become thinkable. Bet accordingly.
If I had bet on a Labour government I’d take profit at this point. It’s unlikely to get b tree for them
But you are a right-wing tory and, forgive me for saying, unable therefore to be objective.
No party comes back from this polling debacle. Never has. Never will. Period.
They blew it. Lost the confidence of the British people.
If you want to bet on a Conservative Party victory of any sort you need to wait 15 years.
I’m centre right but not a Tory. I engage with politicians in my own terms. (Although even if I was it doesn’t make me unable to be objective - as @Casino_Royale has proved time and again).
I disagree with your assessment. The polling move was so fast and violent that it strikes me as shallow. A lot of it was Tories moving to don’t know although there was an unusual level of direct Tory to Labour switching which I would interpret as a desire to kick the Tories where it hurts.
My guess is as things stabilise then politics will normalise and people will return to the Tories. That doesn’t mean the Tories will win - I think that’s unlikely - but in my view the polls are more likely to return to a sustainable 10-15% Labour lead and then close further as the election sharpens the focus. Overall result between Labour largest party and small majority, but most likely a Labour government from mid 2024 onwards.
Of course this assumes that the Tories manage to deliver a drama free couple of years of vaguely competent government
My view is that current Labour leads are unsustainable simply became not that large a proportion of the electorate are left-wing.
I reckon we'll be back to 40%:30% - which was HY's benchmark of a truly bad result, before things got a whole lot worse - pretty quickly. Thereafter, we'll have to see - but don't Labour need a 7% lead for a workable majority, if I'm remembering right?
Boris Johnson was begging for votes over the weekend in a “demeaning” attempt to return to Downing Street, according to Sir Iain Duncan Smith.
He said that Johnson had returned from his Caribbean holiday expecting at least 150 MPs to back him. “Boris was completely unexpectedly having to do this. He made no plans. He had no team,” said Duncan Smith.
He told LBC that Johnson found himself “struggling and begging people for votes. That was demeaning, really.”
The demise of Boris Johnson through this has been wonderful.
He has been made to look a complete fool.
For all who care for justice, or think there's something in karma, it has been glorious to behold.
Yet he did have the votes, bizarrely.
I think Penny has been the bigger fool - yes she'll get a good job, but she could have got 'the' job, by co-opting Boris and giving him something.
I think it was Boris who was looking to do the co-opting but her judgment was, once again, poor and somewhat delusional. She has talent on her feet, no question, but she needs to get a department, buckle down with it for an extended haul and learn a lot more about how government actually works.
What's the point? It's over. There is no way PM4PM is going to get a third season.
‘I name this bulk carrier..’
Firstly, I have no idea who that photo is meant to be of. Presumably PM? Secondly, whilst not a flattering photo, neither is she particularly fat. Let alone a 'bulk carrier'. Thirdly, let's see a photo of you, so we can 'admire' your svelte figure.
Agree. But there is a fascinating question, only to be guessed about at this moment.
In 1992 the Tories lost their reputation and nothing from 1992-1997 stopped them being thrown out in a landslide, despite having a fairly decent team trying to repair things.
Do things happen faster now? It it thinkable that in two years the Tories do the impossible and prevent a Labour victory. The 1990s feel like a vanished age now.
Rishi could, and should, construct a team, centrist and moderate, that appears more capable than Labour's. In particular the shadow CoE is not formidable in the sense that Brown or Darling were. This is a weakness.
Results other than a Labour led government next time could become thinkable. Bet accordingly.
If I had bet on a Labour government I’d take profit at this point. It’s unlikely to get b tree for them
But you are a right-wing tory and, forgive me for saying, unable therefore to be objective.
No party comes back from this polling debacle. Never has. Never will. Period.
They blew it. Lost the confidence of the British people.
If you want to bet on a Conservative Party victory of any sort you need to wait 15 years.
I’m centre right but not a Tory. I engage with politicians in my own terms. (Although even if I was it doesn’t make me unable to be objective - as @Casino_Royale has proved time and again).
I disagree with your assessment. The polling move was so fast and violent that it strikes me as shallow. A lot of it was Tories moving to don’t know although there was an unusual level of direct Tory to Labour switching which I would interpret as a desire to kick the Tories where it hurts.
My guess is as things stabilise then politics will normalise and people will return to the Tories. That doesn’t mean the Tories will win - I think that’s unlikely - but in my view the polls are more likely to return to a sustainable 10-15% Labour lead and then close further as the election sharpens the focus. Overall result between Labour largest party and small majority, but most likely a Labour government from mid 2024 onwards.
Of course this assumes that the Tories manage to deliver a drama free couple of years of vaguely competent government
My view is that current Labour leads are unsustainable simply became not that large a proportion of the electorate are left-wing.
I reckon we'll be back to 40%:30% - which was HY's benchmark of a truly bad result, before things got a whole lot worse - pretty quickly. Thereafter, we'll have to see - but don't Labour need a 7% lead for a workable majority, if I'm remembering right?
I would take a truly bad result now, rather than the extinction level event Truss was heading for
In positive news, Ukraine is doing well in Kherson, as the Russians there evacuate themselves. The enemy also appears to have stopped with the khamikhazi drones, having run out of them.
Hopefully, the new PM can be a lot more unequivocal in his support, than he was over the summer.
Careful - if you mention positive Ukrainian news or want strong language against the actions of the Russian state you are being a childlike russophobe. Read that on PB so it must be true - if you think unprovoked aggression is, as wars go, pretty straightforward, well that's just anti russian racism apparently.
I think Sunak may be forced to spend more on defence whether he likes it or not.
His selection of Foreign Secretary will be a very important choice.
The reality is that if he abandons Ukraine then that is his authority in the party completely gone. Boris will also try and cast himself as Winston Churchill, waiting in the wings about to ride to the rescue. It will be one of the constraints that Sunak is operating under, and he will be well aware of that.
All this Sunak anti-Ukraine nonsense is simply because he asked Wallace to justify his proposed increase run the defence budget allocation in 2030
Exactly the sort of scrutiny that a CoE should do.
If we need to expand the Defence budget (not that I am convinced that we do) there needs to be a careful review of what capabilities that we need. What has worked well in Ukraine, and what hasn't? What naval and air capability is needed? Where will our next war be?
Baldy Ben should be moved on and replaced with somebody that can do pivot tables in Excel. There are several highly expensive programs that are drifting into disaster and consuming shitloads of money while their incipient failure is seriously degrading important defence capabilities. MFTS, Ajax and MRSS for starters.
The MoD needs flint eyed and decisive management not a chubby, thick as fuck, ex-Jock Guard who has gone native.
Agreed. We should bin AJAX and get a licence to build something like the Korean AS21 - which would save a huge amount of money, and might also teach us something about manufacturing. It's a better concept than the much bigger AJAX, too.
Haven't a clue about MRSS. It's an interesting idea, but smells of design by committee - and what are the chances of our building it at anything like a reasonable price ?
No fucking clue about the AS21 but something needs to happen with Ajax. Since Warrior got binned we've ended up with a force concept where the recon element weighs 40 odd tons, can only be moved on a HET and is significantly less mobile than the Boxer mounted infantry it's supposed to be ahead of.
It's way lighter, it's relatively cheap, and the base platform (the K21, which weighs around 25t) is already built and operational. And it's Korean, so probably comes with a decent warranty.
Tory polling deficit to the SNP in last 5 polls (proper Scottish polls):
26 points 30 points 33 points 31 points 29 points
(Tory deficit to the SNP at UK GE 2019 = 19.9%)
When was the last of those polls?
7-11 October, Panelbase/Alba Party
(Personally, I don’t think polls commissioned by political parties or organisations like Scotland in Union should be listed. In Sweden, we don’t even list polls where there is no client, which would omit eg Redfield & Wilton, Deltapoll and Omnisis. Polls by political parties are so universally ignored that I cannot recall ever seeing one published or listed.)
That's a shame. Though I see a lorry owner is complaining about not being able to drive his lorries over daily. The bridge was designed for stagecoaches ... and even with strengthening I am not surprised ...
Tory polling deficit to the SNP in last 5 polls (proper Scottish polls):
26 points 30 points 33 points 31 points 29 points
(Tory deficit to the SNP at UK GE 2019 = 19.9%)
When was the last of those polls?
7-11 October, Panelbase/Alba Party
(Personally, I don’t think polls commissioned by political parties or organisations like Scotland in Union should be listed. In Sweden, we don’t even list polls where there is no client, which would omit eg Redfield & Wilton, Deltapoll and Omnisis. Polls by political parties are so universally ignored that I cannot recall ever seeing one published or listed.)
Thanks. That'd be difficult to implement in the UK, given the nature of the DT and DM ... anyway, we will have to see what the Sunak effect is - and not least in the interactions between the parties. Especially after the winter.
Do things happen faster now? It it thinkable that in two years the Tories do the impossible and prevent a Labour victory. .
No and no it isn't.
It's fantasy pure and simple.
The Conservatives will lose the next General Election heavily. You don't come back from a polling sea-change like this, compounded by a dire economic outlook compared to the aforementioned 1992-7.
Anyone taking your advice and betting accordingly is throwing away their money.
I think that's right. Can the damage be lessened if Sunak does well? Sure.
But you have the defining moment of the last few weeks, the economic problems, the continued issues with services in many areas, the diminishing returns of playing the Brexit argument greatest hits, sheer fatigue at the length of the government, the wounds from the internal battles of the last few months.
I wish no physical ill on him and wish him decades of life to come, but when Boris goes we can have a little smile that there will be no shortage of imaginary bridges after which to name his absence of a state funeral.
I don’t believe Sunak is at all likely to win the next election for the Tories but there is a narrow, plausible route there, essentially:
1. Ukraine crisis/COL over, giving him ability to say he fixed it (rightly or wrongly); coupled with 2. His narrative from this leadership contest essentially being “I told you so” will net him kudos; 3. Starmer fails to seal the deal/runs a bad campaign; 4. The Tories run a tight ship and there’s no further resignations, cabinet dramas or significant revolts (this is the one that seems very difficult to imagine).
The key difference between now and 1997 is that I and I’m sure many others see Labour as our only alternative because they seem decent and competent and ready to lead a stable government that will make fairer decisions - but there is not a groundswell of enthusiasm for a Labour government. They lead partly by default because the Tory government has been so shockingly bad. Now it may continue to be bad and hand them the keys to Number 10 easily, but it is at least plausible that they get some of their act together, events help them, and they present more of a challenge. The question then is where those voters eventually fall.
Agree. he would also need: Luck Energy price falls Resolve the mortgage interest rate crisis fairly quickly.
Which crisis? The one where they've been very low for a very long time so the economy is over-leveraged, or the one where they are rising too far too fast?
Both need resolving and even Solomon might be unnerved at the challenge of getting this right without causing a great deal of pain.
Agree.
That's why he needs a lot of luck. It is obvious to many that we should never have had 14 years of artificially managed interest rates, but we did.
But I don't think the Tories can win if by 2024 we have millions of people in one or more of these groups: negative equity, struggling to pay the impossible or locked out of the market altogether.
Boris Johnson was begging for votes over the weekend in a “demeaning” attempt to return to Downing Street, according to Sir Iain Duncan Smith.
He said that Johnson had returned from his Caribbean holiday expecting at least 150 MPs to back him. “Boris was completely unexpectedly having to do this. He made no plans. He had no team,” said Duncan Smith.
He told LBC that Johnson found himself “struggling and begging people for votes. That was demeaning, really.”
The demise of Boris Johnson through this has been wonderful.
He has been made to look a complete fool.
For all who care for justice, or think there's something in karma, it has been glorious to behold.
Yet he did have the votes, bizarrely.
I think Penny has been the bigger fool - yes she'll get a good job, but she could have got 'the' job, by co-opting Boris and giving him something.
I think it was Boris who was looking to do the co-opting but her judgment was, once again, poor and somewhat delusional. She has talent on her feet, no question, but she needs to get a department, buckle down with it for an extended haul and learn a lot more about how government actually works.
What's the point? It's over. There is no way PM4PM is going to get a third season.
‘I name this bulk carrier..’
Firstly, I have no idea who that photo is meant to be of. Presumably PM? Secondly, whilst not a flattering photo, neither is she particularly fat. Let alone a 'bulk carrier'. Thirdly, let's see a photo of you, so we can 'admire' your svelte figure.
No?
Ah, the the Right Reverend Josias Jessopious has signed in.
Attention seeker dons swimsuit on terrestrial tv, slings and arrows follow, them’s the rules rev.
I think Sunak may be forced to spend more on defence whether he likes it or not.
His selection of Foreign Secretary will be a very important choice.
The reality is that if he abandons Ukraine then that is his authority in the party completely gone. Boris will also try and cast himself as Winston Churchill, waiting in the wings about to ride to the rescue. It will be one of the constraints that Sunak is operating under, and he will be well aware of that.
All this Sunak anti-Ukraine nonsense is simply because he asked Wallace to justify his proposed increase run the defence budget allocation in 2030
Given how much we appear to waste it doesnt seen untoward to scrutinise what would be actually done with an increase - and then expect delivery on like half of it.
It has been interesting to see the reaction from red wall Conservatives.
I hadn't fully appreciated their love for Boris and their sense of embittered rage at what has happened. For some reason, probably partly racist, they have it in for Rishi as the architect of Boris Johnson's downfall.
Of course, the real architect of Boris Johnson's downfall was Boris Johnson. A deeply, painfully, flawed individual who has got his comeuppance.
But I don't see the red wall warming to Rishi I'm afraid. They won't come back to vote for him.
So I think Labour leads in the 20%+ range to start with, perhaps possibly a 15%. And then as things start to bite through the winter, Labour will regularly be back up to 25%+
They are going to win a landslide. Nothing now will change it.
Johnson has skewed everything. The middle ground has always been where elections were won or lost except for the last one. A dispiriting repulsive narcissist (or populist as they call them) turned up trumpeting himself and a pack of lies and persuaded the uneducated and the feeble minded to follow him.
He then effectively took over the Tory Party. He and his disciples have now been dumped and we should be back to a reasonably level playing field. Who now convinces the public that they are the centre ground should win. Starmer's Labour have the advantage by virtue of not having the Johnson legacy to wash away having got rid of their own Svengali two years earlier.
Which is why a ritual and highly visible sacrifice of Johnson at and after the Privileges Committee really would be the Tories' best path.
He's not coming back, now, and he won't do any work as part of the team. So he's of no further use to them.
I agree. Nothing like a ritual sacrifice to reset the clock. The complete humiliation of Johnson would do the country a power of good. It might even start to heal the wounds of Brexit.
I think Sunak may be forced to spend more on defence whether he likes it or not.
His selection of Foreign Secretary will be a very important choice.
The reality is that if he abandons Ukraine then that is his authority in the party completely gone.
It's Biden's war. He is he one that is pouring $2bn/month into it. Anything Sunak does or doesn't do about it is of marginal moment.
Does Ukraine policy move votes much one war or the other? Dunno.
I think a Corbyn type position would, over time, move votes. But being accused of not doing quite as much as before, which would be disputed, not so much, since the position would still be about providing support, just arguing on the details.
I agree. Nothing like a ritual sacrifice to reset the clock. The complete humiliation of Johnson would do the country a power of good. It might even start to heal the wounds of Brexit.
A sad day, for both the country and the Conservative party.
The opportunity of the UK being a uniquely dynamic and innovative country, passed up by the MPs over the heads of the party membership, in favour of tax-rising, big-spending, globalist, authoritarian manegerialism, run by someone with no empathy for the average person.
We tried Liz Truss and she almost bankrupted the nation in less than a month.
That's a shame. Though I see a lorry owner is complaining about not being able to drive his lorries over daily. The bridge was designed for stagecoaches ... and even with strengthening I am not surprised ...
The original wooden deck (or at least, the original design of wooden decking - I am assuming it had none of the original timber left in it) was replaced with a steel deck, new chains and new hangers in 1921 under the auspices of the Transport Commission.
I don't think it's actually been touched since, even though until 1980 it was the only road crossing into Anglesey.
So if it's only now coming to the end of its life, it's done pretty well. When you consider the Forth Road Bridge only made about half that and the old Severn Bridge barely a third of it.
Really, they urgently need a new suspension bridge with a dual carriageway and proper wind damping measures to replace both bridges. Keep the Menai Bridge for cyclists and pedestrians and the Britannia Bridge for rail traffic, as it's going to be a bastard to electrify it with the road deck in the way.
I'm not just sure the Welsh Government can pay for it.
The Times of India made a cheeky little comment stating that the Times estimate that the combined wealth of the Sunaks is about double that of King Charles and Queen Camilla.
Rishi Sunak, Akshata Murty's combined fortune double of King Charles III The Times of London estimated the couple's combined wealth was worth double that of King Charles III and Queen Consort Camilla. They are also among the 250 wealthiest British people or families. Now, Sunak will be one of the wealthiest people ever to occupy No. 10 Downing St. The two are together worth more than $800 million. By comparison, King Charles III and Queen Consort Camilla has an estimated combined wealth of $340-$395 million.
Comments
Whereas the things that have a better chance of working- efficient transport, good skills, thoughtful expansion of places where the demand and potential are- don't happen. And that's before considering the elephant that entered the room six years ago.
How seriously do we want to be rich?
People go on from time to time about the persistence of Britain's imperial delusions, but if they exist, they are the merest shadow of the Russian equivalent.
To them, it’s very much Biden’s war, and if Russia is going to threaten nuclear Armageddon, then the West should just roll over and let Ukraine be Russian territory.
Stopping Labour is a tired old trope they will roll out. It might unify them for a bit as MPS look to save their seats. However, as we have seen there is no consensus in the Tory party today. They can not agree about what they are there for and where they want to take the country. Indeed some ideas are polar opposites. It is unlikely that these fundamentals will be resolved in the next two years and a heathy period in opposition would be good for everyone.
Their ludicrosity has cheered me up no end. How the Tory headbangers are hurting this morning!
Right now we have mostly full European gas storage, still trending upwards, and extremely mild weather. The longer that continues, the further gas supply will last over winter without necessitating a spike in spot prices.
A very mild winter with lower prices and consumption would dramatically reduce the cost of the price cap to the government. That would create more fiscal freedom elsewhere.
For consumers the impact will be more limited to needing to use less energy and so spending less, as prices are extremely unlikely to fall below the cap.
https://gas.kyos.com/gas/eu
Hahahaha!
I'd have thought it would be unity, but Boris's ungracious withdrawal suggests maybe not. If he gets unity, then I think he can hope for a small defeat at the next election. Otherwise, it will be a shitshow.
I rather like the odds of 2.4 a Labour Majority, but I wouldn't go big on it and I'd watch developments closely.
Both need resolving and even Solomon might be unnerved at the challenge of getting this right without causing a great deal of pain.
https://conservativehome.com/2022/10/25/david-willetts-back-to-thatcherism-under-sunak-after-reaganomics-under-truss/
Ummm, isn't it called Autumn?
The only difference between them is that Corbyn is motivated by communist idealism and @Dura_Ace is motivated by destructive anarchy.
The question is whether the opposition will look like a preferable alternative when the election comes.
Maybe there's furious work inside Labour going on to put together a convincing platform on which to fight the election, kept secret lest the Tories steal it beforehand? Certainly possible, although there's little sign of it, and in a party awash with 'internal democracy' like Labour, it's usually pretty hard to keep secrets.
https://twitter.com/PeterMannionMP/status/1584809877683113985
We should bin AJAX and get a licence to build something like the Korean AS21 - which would save a huge amount of money, and might also teach us something about manufacturing. It's a better concept than the much bigger AJAX, too.
Haven't a clue about MRSS. It's an interesting idea, but smells of design by committee - and what are the chances of our building it at anything like a reasonable price ?
https://twitter.com/parody_pm/status/1584805930096807936?s=46&t=hAoabQCRTuwLn-0mENidSw
Seriously awful.
He then effectively took over the Tory Party. He and his disciples have now been dumped and we should be back to a reasonably level playing field. Who now convinces the public that they are the centre ground should win. Starmer's Labour have the advantage by virtue of not having the Johnson legacy to wash away having got rid of their own Svengali two years earlier.
The UK fiscal statement was somewhere between throwing a match or petrol on an already raging fire but none of us can know for sure which it was. What happened was a doom loop of falling gilt prices necessitating further sales of gilts by over leveraged pension funds and more price falls. Speculative credit traders instinctively knew they had a one way bet but it took time for the LDI story to emerge and for most of the market to understand exactly why they had a one way bet.
What is close to certain is that the Bank of England erred most, with a long term failure in their prudential responsibility to stop the pensions sector threatening financial stability, and then the MPC coming in with the double whammy of failing to match Fed rate rises which slammed sterling, and announcing it was dumping gilts into the market when yields were already rising and it knew the Uk govt was running a counter cyclical fiscal policy.
During the brief period where the Bank of England was providing a backstop to deleveraging pension funds, gilts stabilised. Funnily enough this was almost the entire post funeral period of Truss’s govt. You don’t bet against the central bank and yet you don’t pile in either until you see how that systemic risk plays out. So we saw stability with very little capital employed by the Bank.
Truss’s mistake was she blinked on the very last day of the BoE backstop and fired her chancellor on the Friday. By the Monday Hunt overturned her whole tax agenda and we saw gilts rally. But again that’s not necessarily causation. Because it coincided with the first trading day where there were no more forced sellers in the pension sector and it was safe for investors to take long positions in gilts again.
I understand why the media and partial political observers wish to blame the entire phenomenon of rising yields on two Tory personalities. But the truth is far more complex and the real villain of the acute episode still sits atop his leather wingbacked throne in Threadneedle.
"That was demeaning."
https://twitter.com/matt_dathan/status/1584606297676210177?s=46&t=hAoabQCRTuwLn-0mENidSw
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Heath overturned a bigger majority in 1970 but he wasn't starting from so far back - I think there were only twelve non-Lab/Tory seats at the 1966 election.
Otherwise, we're talking 1906 and before that, 1880. So even before universal manhood suffrage.
1929 might perhaps be the best Labour could realistically hope for. They overturned a majority of nearly 200 to become the largest party and governed with the support of the 59 Liberals.
26 points
30 points
33 points
31 points
29 points
(Tory deficit to the SNP at UK GE 2019 = 19.9%)
She wouldn't though.
Would she?
She couldn't...
Or do we now prepare for Menai Bridge as well?
(Speaking of which, the Menai Bridge is in such a dangerous state it has been shut:
Menai Bridge: Immediate closure for Anglesey crossing
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-63348053 )
Yes, the Tory VI dropped below 20% in some polls, but that did not translate into a strong Labour lead.
Indeed, in every single month of 2019 the Conservatives led in at least one published poll (* including in May when the best polls had them tied for the lead).
That cannot be said to be analogous.
If Sunak can now get a Major 1992 result or even Brown 2010 result at the next general election from the dire situation Truss left him and the party with that would be a significant achievement
I think the former more likely.
He's not coming back, now, and he won't do any work as part of the team. So he's of no further use to them.
If they continue to fall at the current rate they could hit 8 month lows towards Election Day .
There are far more important issues to discuss
Secondly, whilst not a flattering photo, neither is she particularly fat. Let alone a 'bulk carrier'.
Thirdly, let's see a photo of you, so we can 'admire' your svelte figure.
No?
Starmer wins 389 seats, Sunak 127 seats. 116 still too close to call between them
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1584584547156766720?s=20&t=uUu-HKpc10Cpm2dQcClk5w
That's an achievement most of us would enjoy.
And it's Korean, so probably comes with a decent warranty.
(Personally, I don’t think polls commissioned by political parties or organisations like Scotland in Union should be listed. In Sweden, we don’t even list polls where there is no client, which would omit eg Redfield & Wilton, Deltapoll and Omnisis. Polls by political parties are so universally ignored that I cannot recall ever seeing one published or listed.)
Apparently each PM gets their own different version.
With apologies to @TheScreamingEagles ...
https://twitter.com/George_Osborne/status/1567475157815500802
I suspect after that PMQs it’s starting to dawn on Labour that they’ve made a mistake in underestimating @trussliz
Seems to be very supportive on all the comments he has been making.
But you have the defining moment of the last few weeks, the economic problems, the continued issues with services in many areas, the diminishing returns of playing the Brexit argument greatest hits, sheer fatigue at the length of the government, the wounds from the internal battles of the last few months.
It adds up.
I'd say Sunak/TCTC go Tory and Starmer loses 35 seats to SNP on current numbers.
So that points to something like 240 Tory seats and 350 Labour, or similar, atm.
That's why he needs a lot of luck. It is obvious to many that we should never have had 14 years of artificially managed interest rates, but we did.
But I don't think the Tories can win if by 2024 we have millions of people in one or more of these groups: negative equity, struggling to pay the impossible or locked out of the market altogether.
Attention seeker dons swimsuit on terrestrial tv, slings and arrows follow, them’s the rules rev.
And not too close to call. 116 where "not sure" wins
I hope the jenga lectern is rehomed to a museum where for decades to come parents will have to explain to their kids who Liz Truss was….
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Heroic_Failures
I don't think it's actually been touched since, even though until 1980 it was the only road crossing into Anglesey.
So if it's only now coming to the end of its life, it's done pretty well. When you consider the Forth Road Bridge only made about half that and the old Severn Bridge barely a third of it.
Really, they urgently need a new suspension bridge with a dual carriageway and proper wind damping measures to replace both bridges. Keep the Menai Bridge for cyclists and pedestrians and the Britannia Bridge for rail traffic, as it's going to be a bastard to electrify it with the road deck in the way.
I'm not just sure the Welsh Government can pay for it.
Rishi Sunak, Akshata Murty's combined fortune double of King Charles III
The Times of London estimated the couple's combined wealth was worth double that of King Charles III and Queen Consort Camilla. They are also among the 250 wealthiest British people or families. Now, Sunak will be one of the wealthiest people ever to occupy No. 10 Downing St. The two are together worth more than $800 million. By comparison, King Charles III and Queen Consort Camilla has an estimated combined wealth of $340-$395 million.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/uk/800-million-rishi-sunak-and-wifes-combined-wealth-double-of-king-charles-iii/articleshow/95075109.cms