All the markets needed, all we needed was a "costed" plan which explained where the money would come from. It might have strained credibility but at least we would have seen her workings. And, given the subject of his PhD I cannot believe that Kwasi didn't have some workings somewhere.
We practically saw Liz Truss's workings every time she tried to speak in front of a camera.
I can't think of any American worse suited to appeal to the Unionists.
Slight problem there. The Unionists don't appeal to anyone at all in GB. Apart from a few Tories. And not many of them either, vide that poll posted in the last thread. Well worth a look if you missed it - it was quite a surprise.
That poll was hilarious, and (one would like to think) a wake up call for some of the posturing politicians in NI. Because I expect a similar poll taken in the Republic would come up with something similar.
It was the near-symmetry between Labour and Tory which startled me most of all.
I can't think of any American worse suited to appeal to the Unionists.
Slight problem there. The Unionists don't appeal to anyone at all in GB. Apart from a few Tories. And not many of them either, vide that poll posted in the last thread. Well worth a look if you missed it - it was quite a surprise.
It wasn't a surprise.
Back in 2019 there was a poll of Tories/Brexiteers/Tory members which showed a majority were prepared to see Northern Ireland leave the UK if they could get their Brexit.
The one Wings over Scotland commissioned? He certainly commissioned a very similar poll as I recall.
I'm a little worried about Wings - I think he might do himself an injury reining in what he wants to say by strictly talking about 'making no speculation' on answers to various questions about SNP finances and the like.
Truss states "You can't expect economic growth and prosperity when companies are more focused on meeting meaningless diversity quotas and complying with radical climate change standards, rather than engaging in competition and generating money for their employees and the country." It is clearly nonsense. Companies do no such thing. Which is more likely, she doesn't know how business works, or she is trying to fool people?
Of course she doesn't know how business works. Most politicians don't for the very obvious reason that they don't work in business. Nor do most business leaders know how politics works (and they become very irritating when they try to pretend they do). Let politicians do politics, let businesspeople do business.
It's all just part of her coping mechanism I suppose. But the picture she paints of British business is surely a grotesque caricature. I've worked in the private sector for twenty-five years and have never encountered anything like the wacky woke practices she claims are now the norm. That sort of irresponsible rhetoric might actually deter investment if anyone is silly enough to give it credence. And that, along with Brexit, is the last thing we need. Reckless, unpatriotic, damaging and facile is my take.
They need to decide whether it's reality 1 or 2.
Reality 1: business is hopelessly woke and part of the new elite (TM Matt Goodwin) holding back Britain. Or
Reality 2: the private sector is always right, unlike those woke lazy public sector layabouts who are holding back Britain.
or actually they don't, because they're very comfortable with doublethink when it suits them.
Yes, the Right is now in the bizarre situation of claiming that intervention from professional politicians is now required to save business from itself and set it back on the path of righteousness. There's a weird whiff of evangelism in all this. But when you consider how American conservatism has gone in recent decades that's not unexpected. It's odd though that British politicians, who would presumably claim to be Maggie's heirs, are proclaiming that free enterprise should adhere to moral strictures laid down by the government.
It's all just part of her coping mechanism I suppose. But the picture she paints of British business is surely a grotesque caricature. I've worked in the private sector for twenty-five years and have never encountered anything like the wacky woke practices she claims are now the norm. That sort of irresponsible rhetoric might actually deter investment if anyone is silly enough to give it credence. And that, along with Brexit, is the last thing we need. Reckless, unpatriotic, damaging and facile is my take.
They need to decide whether it's reality 1 or 2.
Reality 1: business is hopelessly woke and part of the new elite (TM Matt Goodwin) holding back Britain. Or
Reality 2: the private sector is always right, unlike those woke lazy public sector layabouts who are holding back Britain.
or actually they don't, because they're very comfortable with doublethink when it suits them.
Neither of those positions are remotely contradictory.
And I fear your oeuvre on this issue is doing little except exposing your deeply limited understanding of the economic forces at play during Truss's time as PM.
Can we just take everyone's tedious sarcasm in response to this snippet as read?
Yes. Not required. A tiny number of people get to be PM of this great country. Liz Truss is one of them. I have no doubt that she has/had great vision and ideas, though the straw men of the snippet doesn't display them well.
It is hard to exaggerate the extent to which, having been given this golden ticket of being PM, she blew it by hubris, incompetence and disdain.
To get to be PM and overlook the fact that implementation of radical change in a parliamentary democracy is difficult political art is as big a fail, if not bigger, than Cameron's failure to prepare a plan for Brexit.
Yes, it's worth noting that she wasn't wrong about absolutely everything- and we do have a growth and productivity problem.
It's just that (unfunded) shock & awe tax cuts - seemingly alone - were a pretty crazy way to do it, unless she could demonstrate it would be self-funding in fairly short order to the satisfaction of the markets lending the money.
The rest is dogma.
Truss is like Trump. Batcrap crazy but also - perhaps because of that - able to think outside the box and identify issues, truths, solutions, problems, that others - more orthodox - are unwilling or unable to address. Causes too much cognitive dissonance
Trump was clearly right on Lab Leak: it's an extremely plausible theory (a theory we weren't even allowed to DISCUSS)
He's just blurted the truth about Nordstream, of course it wasn't the fucking Russians, get a grip
He may have had a point about going after the Mexican cartels with the US military. What's the point in being the strongest country on earth and spending 8 squillion on guns and missiles if you can't stop a bunch of hick gangsters flooding your cities with a Chinese made drug which pushes your life expectancy below that of Panama? BOMB THE GANGSTERS
Truss is a BDSM British version of Trump, in a necklace. Discuss
Truss states "You can't expect economic growth and prosperity when companies are more focused on meeting meaningless diversity quotas and complying with radical climate change standards, rather than engaging in competition and generating money for their employees and the country." It is clearly nonsense. Companies do no such thing. Which is more likely, she doesn't know how business works, or she is trying to fool people?
She’s telling her paying hosts what they want to hear. Supply and demand - all capitalists understand how that works.
that budget though. best day of popcorn market watching i can recall since 2011
It's all just part of her coping mechanism I suppose. But the picture she paints of British business is surely a grotesque caricature. I've worked in the private sector for twenty-five years and have never encountered anything like the wacky woke practices she claims are now the norm. That sort of irresponsible rhetoric might actually deter investment if anyone is silly enough to give it credence. And that, along with Brexit, is the last thing we need. Reckless, unpatriotic, damaging and facile is my take.
They need to decide whether it's reality 1 or 2.
Reality 1: business is hopelessly woke and part of the new elite (TM Matt Goodwin) holding back Britain. Or
Reality 2: the private sector is always right, unlike those woke lazy public sector layabouts who are holding back Britain.
or actually they don't, because they're very comfortable with doublethink when it suits them.
Neither of those positions are remotely contradictory.
And I fear your oeuvre on this issue is doing little except exposing your deeply limited understanding of the economic forces at play during Truss's time as PM.
The "economic forces at play" during her tenure in office were well known to anyone, particularly those working in fiscal policy. They were no secret:
- commodity price Inflation following the bounceback from Covid and your mates' adventures in Ukraine - a severe public sector deficit as a result of government support during the Covid pandemic and sluggish growth over multiple years - downward pressure on the pound following Brexit and the 2 above factors - upward pressure on global interest rates and gilt spreads in the higher risk economies
In other words the UK was not in an exceptionally good or bad situation. It was one of a number of fragile economies and markets - not Germany or Switzerland or the US, but not Italy or Portugal either. Truss did what lefties love to do: decided that orthodox economics could be ignored because she didn't like it. So she went for a combo of big government spending (energy support) with small government tax policy.
I was having to comment on this clusterfuck daily - that's my job. It was frankly embarrassing, particularly on the US networks.
Can we just take everyone's tedious sarcasm in response to this snippet as read?
Yes. Not required. A tiny number of people get to be PM of this great country. Liz Truss is one of them. I have no doubt that she has/had great vision and ideas, though the straw men of the snippet doesn't display them well.
It is hard to exaggerate the extent to which, having been given this golden ticket of being PM, she blew it by hubris, incompetence and disdain.
To get to be PM and overlook the fact that implementation of radical change in a parliamentary democracy is difficult political art is as big a fail, if not bigger, than Cameron's failure to prepare a plan for Brexit.
Yes, it's worth noting that she wasn't wrong about absolutely everything- and we do have a growth and productivity problem.
It's just that (unfunded) shock & awe tax cuts - seemingly alone - were a pretty crazy way to do it, unless she could demonstrate it would be self-funding in fairly short order to the satisfaction of the markets lending the money.
The rest is dogma.
Truss is like Trump. Batcrap crazy but also - perhaps because of that - able to think outside the box and identify issues, truths, solutions, problems, that others - more orthodox - are unwilling or unable to address. Causes too much cognitive dissonance
Trump was clearly right on Lab Leak: it's an extremely plausible theory (a theory we weren't even allowed to DISCUSS)
He's just blurted the truth about Nordstream, of course it wasn't the fucking Russians, get a grip
He may have had a point about going after the Mexican cartels with the US military. What's the point in being the strongest country on earth and spending 8 squillion on guns and missiles if you can't stop a bunch of hick gangsters flooding your cities with a Chinese made drug which pushes your life expectancy below that of Panama? BOMB THE GANGSTERS
Truss is a BDSM British version of Trump, in a necklace. Discuss
Can we just take everyone's tedious sarcasm in response to this snippet as read?
Yes. Not required. A tiny number of people get to be PM of this great country. Liz Truss is one of them. I have no doubt that she has/had great vision and ideas, though the straw men of the snippet doesn't display them well.
It is hard to exaggerate the extent to which, having been given this golden ticket of being PM, she blew it by hubris, incompetence and disdain.
To get to be PM and overlook the fact that implementation of radical change in a parliamentary democracy is difficult political art is as big a fail, if not bigger, than Cameron's failure to prepare a plan for Brexit.
Yes, it's worth noting that she wasn't wrong about absolutely everything- and we do have a growth and productivity problem.
It's just that (unfunded) shock & awe tax cuts - seemingly alone - were a pretty crazy way to do it, unless she could demonstrate it would be self-funding in fairly short order to the satisfaction of the markets lending the money.
The rest is dogma.
Truss is like Trump. Batcrap crazy but also - perhaps because of that - able to think outside the box and identify issues, truths, solutions, problems, that others - more orthodox - are unwilling or unable to address. Causes too much cognitive dissonance
Trump was clearly right on Lab Leak: it's an extremely plausible theory (a theory we weren't even allowed to DISCUSS)
He's just blurted the truth about Nordstream, of course it wasn't the fucking Russians, get a grip
He may have had a point about going after the Mexican cartels with the US military. What's the point in being the strongest country on earth and spending 8 squillion on guns and missiles if you can't stop a bunch of hick gangsters flooding your cities with a Chinese made drug which pushes your life expectancy below that of Panama? BOMB THE GANGSTERS
Truss is a BDSM British version of Trump, in a necklace. Discuss
No, I think Truss is quite different - she's driven by ideology and sincere belief, and is largely indifferent to personal esteem. I do think better of her for resolutely plugging on with her opinions. Trump is driven by personal esteem, and will adopt any old idea that stirs things up in his favo(u)r. It's a more successful strategy, though has probably reached beyond its limits.
It's all just part of her coping mechanism I suppose. But the picture she paints of British business is surely a grotesque caricature. I've worked in the private sector for twenty-five years and have never encountered anything like the wacky woke practices she claims are now the norm. That sort of irresponsible rhetoric might actually deter investment if anyone is silly enough to give it credence. And that, along with Brexit, is the last thing we need. Reckless, unpatriotic, damaging and facile is my take.
They need to decide whether it's reality 1 or 2.
Reality 1: business is hopelessly woke and part of the new elite (TM Matt Goodwin) holding back Britain. Or
Reality 2: the private sector is always right, unlike those woke lazy public sector layabouts who are holding back Britain.
or actually they don't, because they're very comfortable with doublethink when it suits them.
Neither of those positions are remotely contradictory.
And I fear your oeuvre on this issue is doing little except exposing your deeply limited understanding of the economic forces at play during Truss's time as PM.
The "economic forces at play" during her tenure in office were well known to anyone, particularly those working in fiscal policy. They were no secret:
- commodity price Inflation following the bounceback from Covid and your mates' adventures in Ukraine - a severe public sector deficit as a result of government support during the Covid pandemic and sluggish growth over multiple years - downward pressure on the pound following Brexit and the 2 above factors - upward pressure on global interest rates and gilt spreads in the higher risk economies
In other words the UK was not in an exceptionally good or bad situation. It was one of a number of fragile economies and markets - not Germany or Switzerland or the US, but not Italy or Portugal either. Truss did what lefties love to do: decided that orthodox economics could be ignored because she didn't like it. So she went for a combo of big government spending (energy support) with small government tax policy.
I was having to comment on this clusterfuck daily - that's my job. It was frankly embarrassing, particularly on the US networks.
I am sure we’re all very grateful that we get the benefit of such priceless pearls for nothing.
It's all just part of her coping mechanism I suppose. But the picture she paints of British business is surely a grotesque caricature. I've worked in the private sector for twenty-five years and have never encountered anything like the wacky woke practices she claims are now the norm. That sort of irresponsible rhetoric might actually deter investment if anyone is silly enough to give it credence. And that, along with Brexit, is the last thing we need. Reckless, unpatriotic, damaging and facile is my take.
They need to decide whether it's reality 1 or 2.
Reality 1: business is hopelessly woke and part of the new elite (TM Matt Goodwin) holding back Britain. Or
Reality 2: the private sector is always right, unlike those woke lazy public sector layabouts who are holding back Britain.
or actually they don't, because they're very comfortable with doublethink when it suits them.
Neither of those positions are remotely contradictory.
And I fear your oeuvre on this issue is doing little except exposing your deeply limited understanding of the economic forces at play during Truss's time as PM.
The "economic forces at play" during her tenure in office were well known to anyone, particularly those working in fiscal policy. They were no secret:
- commodity price Inflation following the bounceback from Covid and your mates' adventures in Ukraine - a severe public sector deficit as a result of government support during the Covid pandemic and sluggish growth over multiple years - downward pressure on the pound following Brexit and the 2 above factors - upward pressure on global interest rates and gilt spreads in the higher risk economies
In other words the UK was not in an exceptionally good or bad situation. It was one of a number of fragile economies and markets - not Germany or Switzerland or the US, but not Italy or Portugal either. Truss did what lefties love to do: decided that orthodox economics could be ignored because she didn't like it. So she went for a combo of big government spending (energy support) with small government tax policy.
I was having to comment on this clusterfuck daily - that's my job. It was frankly embarrassing, particularly on the US networks.
I am sure we’re all very grateful that we get the benefit of such priceless pearls for nothing.
Look, I admire your contrarianism and all that, but your contributions to this thread have consisted entirely in huffing and puffing at other posters' criticisms of Truss without venturing the tiniest arguments for why you think her combination of big spending and deep tax cuts could ever work, even in a country like the USA with a reserve currency. Being cross isn't going to be enough to shut people up about Truss and her mistakes.
Can we just take everyone's tedious sarcasm in response to this snippet as read?
Yes. Not required. A tiny number of people get to be PM of this great country. Liz Truss is one of them. I have no doubt that she has/had great vision and ideas, though the straw men of the snippet doesn't display them well.
It is hard to exaggerate the extent to which, having been given this golden ticket of being PM, she blew it by hubris, incompetence and disdain.
To get to be PM and overlook the fact that implementation of radical change in a parliamentary democracy is difficult political art is as big a fail, if not bigger, than Cameron's failure to prepare a plan for Brexit.
Yes, it's worth noting that she wasn't wrong about absolutely everything- and we do have a growth and productivity problem.
It's just that (unfunded) shock & awe tax cuts - seemingly alone - were a pretty crazy way to do it, unless she could demonstrate it would be self-funding in fairly short order to the satisfaction of the markets lending the money.
The rest is dogma.
Truss is like Trump. Batcrap crazy but also - perhaps because of that - able to think outside the box and identify issues, truths, solutions, problems, that others - more orthodox - are unwilling or unable to address. Causes too much cognitive dissonance
Trump was clearly right on Lab Leak: it's an extremely plausible theory (a theory we weren't even allowed to DISCUSS)
He's just blurted the truth about Nordstream, of course it wasn't the fucking Russians, get a grip
He may have had a point about going after the Mexican cartels with the US military. What's the point in being the strongest country on earth and spending 8 squillion on guns and missiles if you can't stop a bunch of hick gangsters flooding your cities with a Chinese made drug which pushes your life expectancy below that of Panama? BOMB THE GANGSTERS
Truss is a BDSM British version of Trump, in a necklace. Discuss
Could Liz Truss made the cut on The Apprentice (UK or US)?
Not (just) to NOT get fired. BUT to get cast in the first place?
Can we just take everyone's tedious sarcasm in response to this snippet as read?
Yes. Not required. A tiny number of people get to be PM of this great country. Liz Truss is one of them. I have no doubt that she has/had great vision and ideas, though the straw men of the snippet doesn't display them well.
It is hard to exaggerate the extent to which, having been given this golden ticket of being PM, she blew it by hubris, incompetence and disdain.
To get to be PM and overlook the fact that implementation of radical change in a parliamentary democracy is difficult political art is as big a fail, if not bigger, than Cameron's failure to prepare a plan for Brexit.
Yes, it's worth noting that she wasn't wrong about absolutely everything- and we do have a growth and productivity problem.
It's just that (unfunded) shock & awe tax cuts - seemingly alone - were a pretty crazy way to do it, unless she could demonstrate it would be self-funding in fairly short order to the satisfaction of the markets lending the money.
The rest is dogma.
Truss is like Trump. Batcrap crazy but also - perhaps because of that - able to think outside the box and identify issues, truths, solutions, problems, that others - more orthodox - are unwilling or unable to address. Causes too much cognitive dissonance
Trump was clearly right on Lab Leak: it's an extremely plausible theory (a theory we weren't even allowed to DISCUSS)
He's just blurted the truth about Nordstream, of course it wasn't the fucking Russians, get a grip
He may have had a point about going after the Mexican cartels with the US military. What's the point in being the strongest country on earth and spending 8 squillion on guns and missiles if you can't stop a bunch of hick gangsters flooding your cities with a Chinese made drug which pushes your life expectancy below that of Panama? BOMB THE GANGSTERS
Truss is a BDSM British version of Trump, in a necklace. Discuss
No, I think Truss is quite different - she's driven by ideology and sincere belief, and is largely indifferent to personal esteem. I do think better of her for resolutely plugging on with her opinions. Trump is driven by personal esteem, and will adopt any old idea that stirs things up in his favo(u)r. It's a more successful strategy, though has probably reached beyond its limits.
Trump is cunning and intelligent. But also awful. And prepared to say the unsayable, sometimes taboo but true, sometimes outrageous lies
I agree that their personalities and motivations are entirely different. My point is they are both prepared to cross lines
It's all just part of her coping mechanism I suppose. But the picture she paints of British business is surely a grotesque caricature. I've worked in the private sector for twenty-five years and have never encountered anything like the wacky woke practices she claims are now the norm. That sort of irresponsible rhetoric might actually deter investment if anyone is silly enough to give it credence. And that, along with Brexit, is the last thing we need. Reckless, unpatriotic, damaging and facile is my take.
They need to decide whether it's reality 1 or 2.
Reality 1: business is hopelessly woke and part of the new elite (TM Matt Goodwin) holding back Britain. Or
Reality 2: the private sector is always right, unlike those woke lazy public sector layabouts who are holding back Britain.
or actually they don't, because they're very comfortable with doublethink when it suits them.
Neither of those positions are remotely contradictory.
And I fear your oeuvre on this issue is doing little except exposing your deeply limited understanding of the economic forces at play during Truss's time as PM.
The "economic forces at play" during her tenure in office were well known to anyone, particularly those working in fiscal policy. They were no secret:
- commodity price Inflation following the bounceback from Covid and your mates' adventures in Ukraine - a severe public sector deficit as a result of government support during the Covid pandemic and sluggish growth over multiple years - downward pressure on the pound following Brexit and the 2 above factors - upward pressure on global interest rates and gilt spreads in the higher risk economies
In other words the UK was not in an exceptionally good or bad situation. It was one of a number of fragile economies and markets - not Germany or Switzerland or the US, but not Italy or Portugal either. Truss did what lefties love to do: decided that orthodox economics could be ignored because she didn't like it. So she went for a combo of big government spending (energy support) with small government tax policy.
I was having to comment on this clusterfuck daily - that's my job. It was frankly embarrassing, particularly on the US networks.
I am sure we’re all very grateful that we get the benefit of such priceless pearls for nothing.
Look, I admire your contrarianism and all that, but your contributions to this thread have consisted entirely in huffing and puffing at other posters' criticisms of Truss without venturing the tiniest arguments for why you think her combination of big spending and deep tax cuts could ever work, even in a country like the USA with a reserve currency. Being cross isn't going to be enough to shut people up about Truss and her mistakes.
If she hadn’t been bullied into a moral panic of we are all going to freeze to death by that consumer rights prat she might have got away with it. It was the combination of blank cheques and cutting the tax base at the same time that caused the panic.
She couldn’t cost the blank cheque for energy because no one had any idea how bad it was going to get and many of the forecasts were wildly pessimistic. She also got caught by the inflation bubble added to by BoE incompetence and consequential interest rate rises.
The latest fantasy money theory in the markets by which pension funds were supposedly reducing their risks by reducing their liquidity really didn’t help either.
On one view she was extremely unlucky but on the other she was extremely inept in failing to recognise these various restrictions on her freedom of manoeuvre. I tend to the latter myself.
I appreciate that you all seem to be invested around Succession, but I need to point out that we are close to Star Trek Picard series 3 episode 9 of 10. Leaked screenshots of the last episodes are available online and they give away crucial plot points including who the main villain is. If you want links to same please let me know.
[evil grin]
Please tell me it's the Tribbles.
No Picard spoilers.
Anyone spoiling Picard for me will see me a deliver a righteous anger that you would mistake me for Jules Winnfield.
It's all just part of her coping mechanism I suppose. But the picture she paints of British business is surely a grotesque caricature. I've worked in the private sector for twenty-five years and have never encountered anything like the wacky woke practices she claims are now the norm. That sort of irresponsible rhetoric might actually deter investment if anyone is silly enough to give it credence. And that, along with Brexit, is the last thing we need. Reckless, unpatriotic, damaging and facile is my take.
The people I work for are hard nosed capitalists, but are also quite keen on diversity and their green credentials, for what they see as good business reasons.
As incidentally was Elon Musk until he went bonkers and decided to trash his brand.
Prediction: referendum on proportional representation for Westminster on Thursday 1st May 2025.
Anyone think it's likely?
Frankly, no. Are you trying to imagine this as the price for LD support of a minority Labour Government because if Starmer wins a majority PR won’t get a look in though I do think it conceivable some of the Conservative changes to the electoral system - voter ID and FPTP for elections previously conducted under PR such as the London Mayoral election - will be repealed?
Can we just take everyone's tedious sarcasm in response to this snippet as read?
Yes. Not required. A tiny number of people get to be PM of this great country. Liz Truss is one of them. I have no doubt that she has/had great vision and ideas, though the straw men of the snippet doesn't display them well.
It is hard to exaggerate the extent to which, having been given this golden ticket of being PM, she blew it by hubris, incompetence and disdain.
To get to be PM and overlook the fact that implementation of radical change in a parliamentary democracy is difficult political art is as big a fail, if not bigger, than Cameron's failure to prepare a plan for Brexit.
Yes, it's worth noting that she wasn't wrong about absolutely everything- and we do have a growth and productivity problem.
It's just that (unfunded) shock & awe tax cuts - seemingly alone - were a pretty crazy way to do it, unless she could demonstrate it would be self-funding in fairly short order to the satisfaction of the markets lending the money.
The rest is dogma.
Truss is like Trump. Batcrap crazy but also - perhaps because of that - able to think outside the box and identify issues, truths, solutions, problems, that others - more orthodox - are unwilling or unable to address. Causes too much cognitive dissonance
Trump was clearly right on Lab Leak: it's an extremely plausible theory (a theory we weren't even allowed to DISCUSS)
He's just blurted the truth about Nordstream, of course it wasn't the fucking Russians, get a grip
He may have had a point about going after the Mexican cartels with the US military. What's the point in being the strongest country on earth and spending 8 squillion on guns and missiles if you can't stop a bunch of hick gangsters flooding your cities with a Chinese made drug which pushes your life expectancy below that of Panama? BOMB THE GANGSTERS
Truss is a BDSM British version of Trump, in a necklace. Discuss
Could Liz Truss made the cut on The Apprentice (UK or US)?
Not (just) to NOT get fired. BUT to get cast in the first place?
Absolutely not. She has near zero charisma and TV skill. But this is not my point. I am saying she is an intellectual outsider - divorced from the consensus - and she doesn't care about this (see the necklace, she doesn't care) thus she may happen upon truths, and say them, which more mainstream politicos shy away from, or don't even comprehend. Likewise, as with Trump, she will spout total bollocks
It's all just part of her coping mechanism I suppose. But the picture she paints of British business is surely a grotesque caricature. I've worked in the private sector for twenty-five years and have never encountered anything like the wacky woke practices she claims are now the norm. That sort of irresponsible rhetoric might actually deter investment if anyone is silly enough to give it credence. And that, along with Brexit, is the last thing we need. Reckless, unpatriotic, damaging and facile is my take.
They need to decide whether it's reality 1 or 2.
Reality 1: business is hopelessly woke and part of the new elite (TM Matt Goodwin) holding back Britain. Or
Reality 2: the private sector is always right, unlike those woke lazy public sector layabouts who are holding back Britain.
or actually they don't, because they're very comfortable with doublethink when it suits them.
Neither of those positions are remotely contradictory.
And I fear your oeuvre on this issue is doing little except exposing your deeply limited understanding of the economic forces at play during Truss's time as PM.
The "economic forces at play" during her tenure in office were well known to anyone, particularly those working in fiscal policy. They were no secret:
- commodity price Inflation following the bounceback from Covid and your mates' adventures in Ukraine - a severe public sector deficit as a result of government support during the Covid pandemic and sluggish growth over multiple years - downward pressure on the pound following Brexit and the 2 above factors - upward pressure on global interest rates and gilt spreads in the higher risk economies
In other words the UK was not in an exceptionally good or bad situation. It was one of a number of fragile economies and markets - not Germany or Switzerland or the US, but not Italy or Portugal either. Truss did what lefties love to do: decided that orthodox economics could be ignored because she didn't like it. So she went for a combo of big government spending (energy support) with small government tax policy.
I was having to comment on this clusterfuck daily - that's my job. It was frankly embarrassing, particularly on the US networks.
I am sure we’re all very grateful that we get the benefit of such priceless pearls for nothing.
Look, I admire your contrarianism and all that, but your contributions to this thread have consisted entirely in huffing and puffing at other posters' criticisms of Truss without venturing the tiniest arguments for why you think her combination of big spending and deep tax cuts could ever work, even in a country like the USA with a reserve currency. Being cross isn't going to be enough to shut people up about Truss and her mistakes.
If she hadn’t been bullied into a moral panic of we are all going to freeze to death by that consumer rights prat she might have got away with it. It was the combination of blank cheques and cutting the tax base at the same time that caused the panic.
She couldn’t cost the blank cheque for energy because no one had any idea how bad it was going to get and many of the forecasts were wildly pessimistic. She also got caught by the inflation bubble added to by BoE incompetence and consequential interest rate rises.
The latest fantasy money theory in the markets by which pension funds were supposedly reducing their risks by reducing their liquidity really didn’t help either.
On one view she was extremely unlucky but on the other she was extremely inept in failing to recognise these various restrictions on her freedom of manoeuvre. I tend to the latter myself.
Liz Truss was only unlucky in that she didn't outlast the lettuce. She was always going to be a disaster, but she had a reasonable chance of spinning it out until the election, given a normal reluctance in the Conservative Party to replace her with someone better.
I can't think of any American worse suited to appeal to the Unionists.
To be fair, the Unionists don't identify with the Black and Tans. Nor would any sane person, for that matter.
Ones here on PB quite often appear to identify with the Auxiliaries = officers if not gentlemen, Bullingtonians of a slightly-lesser breed.
I once encountered a group of Bullingdon Club members at the Kingston Blount Point to Point where they “sponsored” a race run in the Club’s name. They weren’t properly attired for a cold and bleak March afternoon but what was much more entertaining was watching three of them try to put up a gazebo.
I was reminded of a comment made to me by a former teacher - “if you’re meant to be the cream of England, God help the milk”.
Delay is Trump’s other great skill, but this it utter horseshit.
… In prior rulings, Senior U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan has repeatedly skewered what he’s described as delay tactics by Trump’s legal team.
In a scathing ruling from March 2022, Judge Kaplan found that Trump’s “litigation tactics have had a dilatory effect and, indeed, strongly suggest that he is acting out of a strong desire to delay any opportunity [that Carroll] may have to present her case against him.” The judge noted that Carroll was 78 years old at the time of his ruling, adding that the relevance of her age is “obvious.”..
It's all just part of her coping mechanism I suppose. But the picture she paints of British business is surely a grotesque caricature. I've worked in the private sector for twenty-five years and have never encountered anything like the wacky woke practices she claims are now the norm. That sort of irresponsible rhetoric might actually deter investment if anyone is silly enough to give it credence. And that, along with Brexit, is the last thing we need. Reckless, unpatriotic, damaging and facile is my take.
They need to decide whether it's reality 1 or 2.
Reality 1: business is hopelessly woke and part of the new elite (TM Matt Goodwin) holding back Britain. Or
Reality 2: the private sector is always right, unlike those woke lazy public sector layabouts who are holding back Britain.
or actually they don't, because they're very comfortable with doublethink when it suits them.
Neither of those positions are remotely contradictory.
And I fear your oeuvre on this issue is doing little except exposing your deeply limited understanding of the economic forces at play during Truss's time as PM.
The "economic forces at play" during her tenure in office were well known to anyone, particularly those working in fiscal policy. They were no secret:
- commodity price Inflation following the bounceback from Covid and your mates' adventures in Ukraine - a severe public sector deficit as a result of government support during the Covid pandemic and sluggish growth over multiple years - downward pressure on the pound following Brexit and the 2 above factors - upward pressure on global interest rates and gilt spreads in the higher risk economies
In other words the UK was not in an exceptionally good or bad situation. It was one of a number of fragile economies and markets - not Germany or Switzerland or the US, but not Italy or Portugal either. Truss did what lefties love to do: decided that orthodox economics could be ignored because she didn't like it. So she went for a combo of big government spending (energy support) with small government tax policy.
I was having to comment on this clusterfuck daily - that's my job. It was frankly embarrassing, particularly on the US networks.
I am sure we’re all very grateful that we get the benefit of such priceless pearls for nothing.
Look, I admire your contrarianism and all that, but your contributions to this thread have consisted entirely in huffing and puffing at other posters' criticisms of Truss without venturing the tiniest arguments for why you think her combination of big spending and deep tax cuts could ever work, even in a country like the USA with a reserve currency. Being cross isn't going to be enough to shut people up about Truss and her mistakes.
If she hadn’t been bullied into a moral panic of we are all going to freeze to death by that consumer rights prat she might have got away with it. It was the combination of blank cheques and cutting the tax base at the same time that caused the panic.
She couldn’t cost the blank cheque for energy because no one had any idea how bad it was going to get and many of the forecasts were wildly pessimistic. She also got caught by the inflation bubble added to by BoE incompetence and consequential interest rate rises.
The latest fantasy money theory in the markets by which pension funds were supposedly reducing their risks by reducing their liquidity really didn’t help either.
On one view she was extremely unlucky but on the other she was extremely inept in failing to recognise these various restrictions on her freedom of manoeuvre. I tend to the latter myself.
Yes, I agree with that. She could probably have got away with it if she'd matched deep tax cuts with deep spending cuts (or even a freeze on spending and refusing to support energy bills). I say got away with it in the financial markets sense, she would have been murdered at the polls. It was the full spectrum blank cheque that did it, and predictably so.
Question was asked previous thread, how do ex-Presidents of the US make money?
Historically, most made significant if not spectacular amount of moolah BEFORE they entered the White House. Often through inheritance, other via their own efforts, some with combination of both.
For example, every POTUS before Andrew Jackson benefited from inherited wealth and privileged education. As did (most notably) both Roosevelts, Taft, Hoover, Kennedy and both Bushes.
Jackson was born poor, but was a successful planter. Lincoln was a poor boy who made it as a railroad attorney. Others also had successful legal practices or other professional endeavors.
The poorest ex-president in modern times (or maybe ever when inflation over two centuries is factored in) was Harry Truman. An semi-successful businessman (ups and downs) and honest politico before that fateful day exactly 78 years ago.
Truman was impetus for providing some forms of what might be called deferred compensation for ex-POTUS, which have of course expanded greatly since his day.
It's all just part of her coping mechanism I suppose. But the picture she paints of British business is surely a grotesque caricature. I've worked in the private sector for twenty-five years and have never encountered anything like the wacky woke practices she claims are now the norm. That sort of irresponsible rhetoric might actually deter investment if anyone is silly enough to give it credence. And that, along with Brexit, is the last thing we need. Reckless, unpatriotic, damaging and facile is my take.
They need to decide whether it's reality 1 or 2.
Reality 1: business is hopelessly woke and part of the new elite (TM Matt Goodwin) holding back Britain. Or
Reality 2: the private sector is always right, unlike those woke lazy public sector layabouts who are holding back Britain.
or actually they don't, because they're very comfortable with doublethink when it suits them.
Neither of those positions are remotely contradictory.
And I fear your oeuvre on this issue is doing little except exposing your deeply limited understanding of the economic forces at play during Truss's time as PM.
The "economic forces at play" during her tenure in office were well known to anyone, particularly those working in fiscal policy. They were no secret:
- commodity price Inflation following the bounceback from Covid and your mates' adventures in Ukraine - a severe public sector deficit as a result of government support during the Covid pandemic and sluggish growth over multiple years - downward pressure on the pound following Brexit and the 2 above factors - upward pressure on global interest rates and gilt spreads in the higher risk economies
In other words the UK was not in an exceptionally good or bad situation. It was one of a number of fragile economies and markets - not Germany or Switzerland or the US, but not Italy or Portugal either. Truss did what lefties love to do: decided that orthodox economics could be ignored because she didn't like it. So she went for a combo of big government spending (energy support) with small government tax policy.
I was having to comment on this clusterfuck daily - that's my job. It was frankly embarrassing, particularly on the US networks.
I am sure we’re all very grateful that we get the benefit of such priceless pearls for nothing.
Look, I admire your contrarianism and all that, but your contributions to this thread have consisted entirely in huffing and puffing at other posters' criticisms of Truss without venturing the tiniest arguments for why you think her combination of big spending and deep tax cuts could ever work, even in a country like the USA with a reserve currency. Being cross isn't going to be enough to shut people up about Truss and her mistakes.
I don't think they were particularly deep tax cuts - infact I think they were fairly insignificant, especially within the broader context of the energy package. I also don't think that they would, in and of themselves, have turned the economy around, though they may have had what I think was the desired effect, a strong statement of intent that bounced us out of recession. There were a lot of other, deeper growth measures in the pipeline - those plans were later published on Conhome.
I also think it is nonsense that monetary policy is taken completely out of the equation when discussing the failure of the mini-budget announcement, given that the BOE was flogging off bonds at a loss - hardly puzzling that nobody else wanted them. Indeed, it was the BOE that stabilised the bond market by reversing their programme. If stopping it stopped the problem, is it not logical that starting it at least contributed to it?
Can we just take everyone's tedious sarcasm in response to this snippet as read?
Yes. Not required. A tiny number of people get to be PM of this great country. Liz Truss is one of them. I have no doubt that she has/had great vision and ideas, though the straw men of the snippet doesn't display them well.
It is hard to exaggerate the extent to which, having been given this golden ticket of being PM, she blew it by hubris, incompetence and disdain.
To get to be PM and overlook the fact that implementation of radical change in a parliamentary democracy is difficult political art is as big a fail, if not bigger, than Cameron's failure to prepare a plan for Brexit.
Yes, it's worth noting that she wasn't wrong about absolutely everything- and we do have a growth and productivity problem.
It's just that (unfunded) shock & awe tax cuts - seemingly alone - were a pretty crazy way to do it, unless she could demonstrate it would be self-funding in fairly short order to the satisfaction of the markets lending the money.
The rest is dogma.
Truss is like Trump. Batcrap crazy but also - perhaps because of that - able to think outside the box and identify issues, truths, solutions, problems, that others - more orthodox - are unwilling or unable to address. Causes too much cognitive dissonance
Trump was clearly right on Lab Leak: it's an extremely plausible theory (a theory we weren't even allowed to DISCUSS)
He's just blurted the truth about Nordstream, of course it wasn't the fucking Russians, get a grip
He may have had a point about going after the Mexican cartels with the US military. What's the point in being the strongest country on earth and spending 8 squillion on guns and missiles if you can't stop a bunch of hick gangsters flooding your cities with a Chinese made drug which pushes your life expectancy below that of Panama? BOMB THE GANGSTERS
Truss is a BDSM British version of Trump, in a necklace. Discuss
Could Liz Truss made the cut on The Apprentice (UK or US)?
Not (just) to NOT get fired. BUT to get cast in the first place?
Absolutely not. She has near zero charisma and TV skill. But this is not my point. I am saying she is an intellectual outsider - divorced from the consensus - and she doesn't care about this (see the necklace, she doesn't care) thus she may happen upon truths, and say them, which more mainstream politicos shy away from, or don't even comprehend. Likewise, as with Trump, she will spout total bollocks
Doesn't care, or just doesn't quite realise that what she says or does is crossing any lines because she inhabits a somewhat parallel world.
On an almost completely unrelated topic this morning I finished re-reading Charles Nichol's The Fruit Palace, prompted by a comment you had made a few weeks ago on here and remembering that not only was he my old school friend's dad but it was a very entertaining read in its own right. And it surely is - a rare combination of crime thriller and travelogue. A mix of Donal Mackintyre and Louis Theroux with a touch of Louis' father thrown in. But there were a handful of scenes that were truly shocking to read and point to the author's probably lack of a filter when writing. He was oversharing, in a way that makes for compelling reading but also makes the reader feel uncomfortable and somehow complicit.
Jeez and Tatties, Wings Over Scotland is brutal on the Nats corruption
One of their problems is that the sums are so small, and relatable. When a journalist alleges that the government wasted £790 million on PPE the eyes glaze over, despite the huge amounts, it is too much to really grasp, so it slips by. This is wrong, but it is human nature
A fake husband of a devalued First Minister buying a super-luxe campervan for £110,000 (a large chunk of the SNP's entire money) parking it at his mum's house, then apparently never using it, cause it simply couldn't be a "battlebus" (as they now claim is the purpose) is something anyone can grasp. That's basic fraud - allegedly. It certainly looks really bad, and we all know dodgy people that do this shit
Off Topic. The SNP's decision to challenge the Section 35 Order seems an obvious squirrel moment. They don't have any choice because the Greens will walk out if they don't. What a mess. Can the Supreme Court make any comments about misuse of public funds by the Scottish Government in pursuing this appeal?
Can we just take everyone's tedious sarcasm in response to this snippet as read?
Yes. Not required. A tiny number of people get to be PM of this great country. Liz Truss is one of them. I have no doubt that she has/had great vision and ideas, though the straw men of the snippet doesn't display them well.
It is hard to exaggerate the extent to which, having been given this golden ticket of being PM, she blew it by hubris, incompetence and disdain.
To get to be PM and overlook the fact that implementation of radical change in a parliamentary democracy is difficult political art is as big a fail, if not bigger, than Cameron's failure to prepare a plan for Brexit.
Yes, it's worth noting that she wasn't wrong about absolutely everything- and we do have a growth and productivity problem.
It's just that (unfunded) shock & awe tax cuts - seemingly alone - were a pretty crazy way to do it, unless she could demonstrate it would be self-funding in fairly short order to the satisfaction of the markets lending the money.
The rest is dogma.
Truss is like Trump. Batcrap crazy but also - perhaps because of that - able to think outside the box and identify issues, truths, solutions, problems, that others - more orthodox - are unwilling or unable to address. Causes too much cognitive dissonance
Trump was clearly right on Lab Leak: it's an extremely plausible theory (a theory we weren't even allowed to DISCUSS)
He's just blurted the truth about Nordstream, of course it wasn't the fucking Russians, get a grip
He may have had a point about going after the Mexican cartels with the US military. What's the point in being the strongest country on earth and spending 8 squillion on guns and missiles if you can't stop a bunch of hick gangsters flooding your cities with a Chinese made drug which pushes your life expectancy below that of Panama? BOMB THE GANGSTERS
Truss is a BDSM British version of Trump, in a necklace. Discuss
Could Liz Truss made the cut on The Apprentice (UK or US)?
Not (just) to NOT get fired. BUT to get cast in the first place?
Absolutely not. She has near zero charisma and TV skill. But this is not my point. I am saying she is an intellectual outsider - divorced from the consensus - and she doesn't care about this (see the necklace, she doesn't care) thus she may happen upon truths, and say them, which more mainstream politicos shy away from, or don't even comprehend. Likewise, as with Trump, she will spout total bollocks
Doesn't care, or just doesn't quite realise that what she says or does is crossing any lines because she inhabits a somewhat parallel world.
On an almost completely unrelated topic this morning I finished re-reading Charles Nichol's The Fruit Palace, prompted by a comment you had made a few weeks ago on here and remembering that not only was he my old school friend's dad but it was a very entertaining read in its own right. And it surely is - a rare combination of crime thriller and travelogue. A mix of Donal Mackintyre and Louis Theroux with a touch of Louis' father thrown in. But there were a handful of scenes that were truly shocking to read and point to the author's probably lack of a filter when writing. He was oversharing, in a way that makes for compelling reading but also makes the reader feel uncomfortable and somehow complicit.
Haven't read it in decades, but I remember it as being great (I almost never reread books, life is too short)
I wonder if he exhausted himself with that one book. He possibly overshared, as you say, and then was spent. As I understand, he didn't do much of note afterwards (in literary terms, he may have become a world class perry maker, dunno)
Jeez and Tatties, Wings Over Scotland is brutal on the Nats corruption
One of their problems is that the sums are so small, and relatable. When a journalist alleges that the government wasted £790 million on PPE the eyes glaze over, despite the huge amounts, it is too much to really grasp, so it slips by. This is wrong, but it is human nature
A fake husband of a devalued First Minister buying a super-luxe campervan for £110,000 (a large chunk of the SNP's entire money) parking it at his mum's house, then apparently never using it, cause it simply couldn't be a "battlebus" (as they now claim is the purpose) is something anyone can grasp. That's basic fraud - allegedly. It certainly looks really bad, and we all know dodgy people that do this shit
Tsk, and hahahahah
There is something in that - you see a similar effect in many council budgets where a great deal of attention is paid to this or that £10k, whilst millions gets nary a mention - too big and too hard to do anything with.
Maybe a credible explanation will emerge through the investigation, but it is hard to imagine why a party asset was being stored in such a way in the first place. That it was not being used for her benefit simply adds to the confusion - it'd make more sense (though be more obviously wrong) that way.
Jeez and Tatties, Wings Over Scotland is brutal on the Nats corruption
One of their problems is that the sums are so small, and relatable. When a journalist alleges that the government wasted £790 million on PPE the eyes glaze over, despite the huge amounts, it is too much to really grasp, so it slips by. This is wrong, but it is human nature
A fake husband of a devalued First Minister buying a super-luxe campervan for £110,000 (a large chunk of the SNP's entire money) parking it at his mum's house, then apparently never using it, cause it simply couldn't be a "battlebus" (as they now claim is the purpose) is something anyone can grasp. That's basic fraud - allegedly. It certainly looks really bad, and we all know dodgy people that do this shit
Tsk, and hahahahah
Wonder IF we could get the SNP camper-van cheap and turn it into the much-needed PB Bottle Bus?
Perhaps OGH could delegate a suitable PBer to enter into negotiations? HYUFD? Malc?
Off Topic. The SNP's decision to challenge the Section 35 Order seems an obvious squirrel moment. They don't have any choice because the Greens will walk out if they don't. What a mess. Can the Supreme Court make any comments about misuse of public funds by the Scottish Government in pursuing this appeal?
Well, who knows they might succeed!
But if not then some good legal snark in the decision would seem reasonable - judges can be pretty funny when politely unravelling an argument put to them.
It's all just part of her coping mechanism I suppose. But the picture she paints of British business is surely a grotesque caricature. I've worked in the private sector for twenty-five years and have never encountered anything like the wacky woke practices she claims are now the norm. That sort of irresponsible rhetoric might actually deter investment if anyone is silly enough to give it credence. And that, along with Brexit, is the last thing we need. Reckless, unpatriotic, damaging and facile is my take.
They need to decide whether it's reality 1 or 2.
Reality 1: business is hopelessly woke and part of the new elite (TM Matt Goodwin) holding back Britain. Or
Reality 2: the private sector is always right, unlike those woke lazy public sector layabouts who are holding back Britain.
or actually they don't, because they're very comfortable with doublethink when it suits them.
Neither of those positions are remotely contradictory.
And I fear your oeuvre on this issue is doing little except exposing your deeply limited understanding of the economic forces at play during Truss's time as PM.
The "economic forces at play" during her tenure in office were well known to anyone, particularly those working in fiscal policy. They were no secret:
- commodity price Inflation following the bounceback from Covid and your mates' adventures in Ukraine - a severe public sector deficit as a result of government support during the Covid pandemic and sluggish growth over multiple years - downward pressure on the pound following Brexit and the 2 above factors - upward pressure on global interest rates and gilt spreads in the higher risk economies
In other words the UK was not in an exceptionally good or bad situation. It was one of a number of fragile economies and markets - not Germany or Switzerland or the US, but not Italy or Portugal either. Truss did what lefties love to do: decided that orthodox economics could be ignored because she didn't like it. So she went for a combo of big government spending (energy support) with small government tax policy.
I was having to comment on this clusterfuck daily - that's my job. It was frankly embarrassing, particularly on the US networks.
I am sure we’re all very grateful that we get the benefit of such priceless pearls for nothing.
Look, I admire your contrarianism and all that, but your contributions to this thread have consisted entirely in huffing and puffing at other posters' criticisms of Truss without venturing the tiniest arguments for why you think her combination of big spending and deep tax cuts could ever work, even in a country like the USA with a reserve currency. Being cross isn't going to be enough to shut people up about Truss and her mistakes.
I don't think they were particularly deep tax cuts - infact I think they were fairly insignificant, especially within the broader context of the energy package. I also don't think that they would, in and of themselves, have turned the economy around, though they may have had what I think was the desired effect, a strong statement of intent that bounced us out of recession. There were a lot of other, deeper growth measures in the pipeline - those plans were later published on Conhome.
I also think it is nonsense that monetary policy is taken completely out of the equation when discussing the failure of the mini-budget announcement, given that the BOE was flogging off bonds at a loss - hardly puzzling that nobody else wanted them. Indeed, it was the BOE that stabilised the bond market by reversing their programme. If stopping it stopped the problem, is it not logical that starting it at least contributed to it?
That's more like it.
The tax cuts were significant not so much compared with what went before but with what had been promised to the markets already in terms of tax rises to pay for the pipeline of very large spending increases. On the table when Truss came to power were the CT rate rise to 25% and the new health and social care levy. The two added together amounted to tens of billions, added to which the open ended commitment on energy price was unnecessary given the opposition hadn't promised it and few had actually asked for it. But to compound this Kwarteng then refused to brief the OBR or release any meaningful deficit forecasts. So everyone was in the dark. And they introduced a bunch of random measures like the ill conceived reversal of the IR35 reforms which businesses had spent years getting ready for, none of which instilled confidence.
The issue was therefore the blank cheque. It was a very loose budget but the markets didn't know exactly how loose, and the Bank or England had been kept in the dark about what was planned for fear they would have a downer on it. So there was no coordination, no pre-planning, no real strategy. It wasn't even badged as a proper budget, it was a "fiscal event". If you're going to do something and announce it as being a radical change then you have to get everything lined up. I think Kwazi now understands this but clearly Liz doesn't (or pretends she doesn't for her audience)..
The fact Hunt has recently announced a budget with significant fiscal loosening (though nothing like the blank cheque of last autumn) last month and the markets barely registered just shows how important how you do it is.
Jeez and Tatties, Wings Over Scotland is brutal on the Nats corruption
One of their problems is that the sums are so small, and relatable. When a journalist alleges that the government wasted £790 million on PPE the eyes glaze over, despite the huge amounts, it is too much to really grasp, so it slips by. This is wrong, but it is human nature
A fake husband of a devalued First Minister buying a super-luxe campervan for £110,000 (a large chunk of the SNP's entire money) parking it at his mum's house, then apparently never using it, cause it simply couldn't be a "battlebus" (as they now claim is the purpose) is something anyone can grasp. That's basic fraud - allegedly. It certainly looks really bad, and we all know dodgy people that do this shit
Tsk, and hahahahah
There is something in that - you see a similar effect in many council budgets where a great deal of attention is paid to this or that £10k, whilst millions gets nary a mention - too big and too hard to do anything with.
Maybe a credible explanation will emerge through the investigation, but it is hard to imagine why a party asset was being stored in such a way in the first place. That it was not being used for her benefit simply adds to the confusion - it'd make more sense (though be more obviously wrong) that way.
It's Stalin's Dictum at work
“The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of a million is a statistic."
Unfortunately for the SNP, the campervan is the death of one man. We all understand that, and feel it. If they'd wasted six trillion groats on corrupt PPE contracts (as the Tories plausibly did) they'd be in LESS trouble
Jeez and Tatties, Wings Over Scotland is brutal on the Nats corruption
One of their problems is that the sums are so small, and relatable. When a journalist alleges that the government wasted £790 million on PPE the eyes glaze over, despite the huge amounts, it is too much to really grasp, so it slips by. This is wrong, but it is human nature
A fake husband of a devalued First Minister buying a super-luxe campervan for £110,000 (a large chunk of the SNP's entire money) parking it at his mum's house, then apparently never using it, cause it simply couldn't be a "battlebus" (as they now claim is the purpose) is something anyone can grasp. That's basic fraud - allegedly. It certainly looks really bad, and we all know dodgy people that do this shit
Tsk, and hahahahah
There is something in that - you see a similar effect in many council budgets where a great deal of attention is paid to this or that £10k, whilst millions gets nary a mention - too big and too hard to do anything with.
Maybe a credible explanation will emerge through the investigation, but it is hard to imagine why a party asset was being stored in such a way in the first place. That it was not being used for her benefit simply adds to the confusion - it'd make more sense (though be more obviously wrong) that way.
If it couldn't be used for the claimed purpose, the "battlebus" should have been sold. Simples.
I can't think of any American worse suited to appeal to the Unionists.
Slight problem there. The Unionists don't appeal to anyone at all in GB. Apart from a few Tories. And not many of them either, vide that poll posted in the last thread. Well worth a look if you missed it - it was quite a surprise.
It wasn't a surprise.
Back in 2019 there was a poll of Tory members which showed a majority were prepared to see Northern Ireland leave the UK if they could get their Brexit.
Jeez and Tatties, Wings Over Scotland is brutal on the Nats corruption
One of their problems is that the sums are so small, and relatable. When a journalist alleges that the government wasted £790 million on PPE the eyes glaze over, despite the huge amounts, it is too much to really grasp, so it slips by. This is wrong, but it is human nature
A fake husband of a devalued First Minister buying a super-luxe campervan for £110,000 (a large chunk of the SNP's entire money) parking it at his mum's house, then apparently never using it, cause it simply couldn't be a "battlebus" (as they now claim is the purpose) is something anyone can grasp. That's basic fraud - allegedly. It certainly looks really bad, and we all know dodgy people that do this shit
Tsk, and hahahahah
There is something in that - you see a similar effect in many council budgets where a great deal of attention is paid to this or that £10k, whilst millions gets nary a mention - too big and too hard to do anything with.
Maybe a credible explanation will emerge through the investigation, but it is hard to imagine why a party asset was being stored in such a way in the first place. That it was not being used for her benefit simply adds to the confusion - it'd make more sense (though be more obviously wrong) that way.
It's Stalin's Dictum at work
“The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of a million is a statistic."
Unfortunately for the SNP, the campervan is the death of one man. We all understand that, and feel it. If they'd wasted six trillion groats on corrupt PPE contracts (as the Tories plausibly did) they'd be in LESS trouble
The Tories at least ensured there was no lack of PPE.
Prediction: referendum on proportional representation for Westminster on Thursday 1st May 2025.
Anyone think it's likely?
Frankly, no. Are you trying to imagine this as the price for LD support of a minority Labour Government because if Starmer wins a majority PR won’t get a look in though I do think it conceivable some of the Conservative changes to the electoral system - voter ID and FPTP for elections previously conducted under PR such as the London Mayoral election - will be repealed?
Even with a minority Labour government many Labour backbenchers newly elected under FPTP won't want to sacrifice their seats to the LDs and Greens with PR.
It's all just part of her coping mechanism I suppose. But the picture she paints of British business is surely a grotesque caricature. I've worked in the private sector for twenty-five years and have never encountered anything like the wacky woke practices she claims are now the norm. That sort of irresponsible rhetoric might actually deter investment if anyone is silly enough to give it credence. And that, along with Brexit, is the last thing we need. Reckless, unpatriotic, damaging and facile is my take.
They need to decide whether it's reality 1 or 2.
Reality 1: business is hopelessly woke and part of the new elite (TM Matt Goodwin) holding back Britain. Or
Reality 2: the private sector is always right, unlike those woke lazy public sector layabouts who are holding back Britain.
or actually they don't, because they're very comfortable with doublethink when it suits them.
Neither of those positions are remotely contradictory.
And I fear your oeuvre on this issue is doing little except exposing your deeply limited understanding of the economic forces at play during Truss's time as PM.
The "economic forces at play" during her tenure in office were well known to anyone, particularly those working in fiscal policy. They were no secret:
- commodity price Inflation following the bounceback from Covid and your mates' adventures in Ukraine - a severe public sector deficit as a result of government support during the Covid pandemic and sluggish growth over multiple years - downward pressure on the pound following Brexit and the 2 above factors - upward pressure on global interest rates and gilt spreads in the higher risk economies
In other words the UK was not in an exceptionally good or bad situation. It was one of a number of fragile economies and markets - not Germany or Switzerland or the US, but not Italy or Portugal either. Truss did what lefties love to do: decided that orthodox economics could be ignored because she didn't like it. So she went for a combo of big government spending (energy support) with small government tax policy.
I was having to comment on this clusterfuck daily - that's my job. It was frankly embarrassing, particularly on the US networks.
I am sure we’re all very grateful that we get the benefit of such priceless pearls for nothing.
Look, I admire your contrarianism and all that, but your contributions to this thread have consisted entirely in huffing and puffing at other posters' criticisms of Truss without venturing the tiniest arguments for why you think her combination of big spending and deep tax cuts could ever work, even in a country like the USA with a reserve currency. Being cross isn't going to be enough to shut people up about Truss and her mistakes.
I don't think they were particularly deep tax cuts - infact I think they were fairly insignificant, especially within the broader context of the energy package. I also don't think that they would, in and of themselves, have turned the economy around, though they may have had what I think was the desired effect, a strong statement of intent that bounced us out of recession. There were a lot of other, deeper growth measures in the pipeline - those plans were later published on Conhome.
I also think it is nonsense that monetary policy is taken completely out of the equation when discussing the failure of the mini-budget announcement, given that the BOE was flogging off bonds at a loss - hardly puzzling that nobody else wanted them. Indeed, it was the BOE that stabilised the bond market by reversing their programme. If stopping it stopped the problem, is it not logical that starting it at least contributed to it?
The fact Hunt has recently announced a budget with significant fiscal loosening (though nothing like the blank cheque of last autumn) last month and the markets barely registered just shows how important how you do it is.
Whilst the situation matters a lot as well of course, it does perhaps show that for all we often deride all politicians as being largely the same, and dismiss the idea of top figures having political or communication skills, there is such a thing as political skill in these things and not all of them have it (and nor would we). Effective top politicians, even under constraints or (in some eyes) a flawed policy, can get stuff done in a way that 'anti-establishment' types (or at least the anti-establishment variation of the establishment) cannot.
Sometimes you need an outside disruptor. Sometimes you need someone who knows what the f*ck they are doing. Naturally we are all pretty bad at judging when we need either.
Can we just take everyone's tedious sarcasm in response to this snippet as read?
Yes. Not required. A tiny number of people get to be PM of this great country. Liz Truss is one of them. I have no doubt that she has/had great vision and ideas, though the straw men of the snippet doesn't display them well.
It is hard to exaggerate the extent to which, having been given this golden ticket of being PM, she blew it by hubris, incompetence and disdain.
To get to be PM and overlook the fact that implementation of radical change in a parliamentary democracy is difficult political art is as big a fail, if not bigger, than Cameron's failure to prepare a plan for Brexit.
Yes, it's worth noting that she wasn't wrong about absolutely everything- and we do have a growth and productivity problem.
It's just that (unfunded) shock & awe tax cuts - seemingly alone - were a pretty crazy way to do it, unless she could demonstrate it would be self-funding in fairly short order to the satisfaction of the markets lending the money.
The rest is dogma.
Truss is like Trump. Batcrap crazy but also - perhaps because of that - able to think outside the box and identify issues, truths, solutions, problems, that others - more orthodox - are unwilling or unable to address. Causes too much cognitive dissonance
Trump was clearly right on Lab Leak: it's an extremely plausible theory (a theory we weren't even allowed to DISCUSS)
He's just blurted the truth about Nordstream, of course it wasn't the fucking Russians, get a grip
He may have had a point about going after the Mexican cartels with the US military. What's the point in being the strongest country on earth and spending 8 squillion on guns and missiles if you can't stop a bunch of hick gangsters flooding your cities with a Chinese made drug which pushes your life expectancy below that of Panama? BOMB THE GANGSTERS
Truss is a BDSM British version of Trump, in a necklace. Discuss
Could Liz Truss made the cut on The Apprentice (UK or US)?
Not (just) to NOT get fired. BUT to get cast in the first place?
Absolutely not. She has near zero charisma and TV skill. But this is not my point. I am saying she is an intellectual outsider - divorced from the consensus - and she doesn't care about this (see the necklace, she doesn't care) thus she may happen upon truths, and say them, which more mainstream politicos shy away from, or don't even comprehend. Likewise, as with Trump, she will spout total bollocks
Doesn't care, or just doesn't quite realise that what she says or does is crossing any lines because she inhabits a somewhat parallel world.
On an almost completely unrelated topic this morning I finished re-reading Charles Nichol's The Fruit Palace, prompted by a comment you had made a few weeks ago on here and remembering that not only was he my old school friend's dad but it was a very entertaining read in its own right. And it surely is - a rare combination of crime thriller and travelogue. A mix of Donal Mackintyre and Louis Theroux with a touch of Louis' father thrown in. But there were a handful of scenes that were truly shocking to read and point to the author's probably lack of a filter when writing. He was oversharing, in a way that makes for compelling reading but also makes the reader feel uncomfortable and somehow complicit.
Haven't read it in decades, but I remember it as being great (I almost never reread books, life is too short)
I wonder if he exhausted himself with that one book. He possibly overshared, as you say, and then was spent. As I understand, he didn't do much of note afterwards (in literary terms, he may have become a world class perry maker, dunno)
That was pretty much his only major book. Everything else was non-fiction - biographies, history etc. I suspect he settled down and the lifestyle 0didn't work anymore.
I enjoy rereading - just a few books, ones that are essentially completely different when you read them at different ages. I know Anna Karenina is supposed to be one of those but I've not bothered with redoing that one because it's too long. To the Lighthouse, When I walked out one midsummer morning, Hoskins' Making of the English Countryside, Paul Theroux's The Kingdom by the Sea, Five on a Treasure Island . A couple of others.
It's all just part of her coping mechanism I suppose. But the picture she paints of British business is surely a grotesque caricature. I've worked in the private sector for twenty-five years and have never encountered anything like the wacky woke practices she claims are now the norm. That sort of irresponsible rhetoric might actually deter investment if anyone is silly enough to give it credence. And that, along with Brexit, is the last thing we need. Reckless, unpatriotic, damaging and facile is my take.
They need to decide whether it's reality 1 or 2.
Reality 1: business is hopelessly woke and part of the new elite (TM Matt Goodwin) holding back Britain. Or
Reality 2: the private sector is always right, unlike those woke lazy public sector layabouts who are holding back Britain.
or actually they don't, because they're very comfortable with doublethink when it suits them.
Neither of those positions are remotely contradictory.
And I fear your oeuvre on this issue is doing little except exposing your deeply limited understanding of the economic forces at play during Truss's time as PM.
The "economic forces at play" during her tenure in office were well known to anyone, particularly those working in fiscal policy. They were no secret:
- commodity price Inflation following the bounceback from Covid and your mates' adventures in Ukraine - a severe public sector deficit as a result of government support during the Covid pandemic and sluggish growth over multiple years - downward pressure on the pound following Brexit and the 2 above factors - upward pressure on global interest rates and gilt spreads in the higher risk economies
In other words the UK was not in an exceptionally good or bad situation. It was one of a number of fragile economies and markets - not Germany or Switzerland or the US, but not Italy or Portugal either. Truss did what lefties love to do: decided that orthodox economics could be ignored because she didn't like it. So she went for a combo of big government spending (energy support) with small government tax policy.
I was having to comment on this clusterfuck daily - that's my job. It was frankly embarrassing, particularly on the US networks.
I am sure we’re all very grateful that we get the benefit of such priceless pearls for nothing.
Look, I admire your contrarianism and all that, but your contributions to this thread have consisted entirely in huffing and puffing at other posters' criticisms of Truss without venturing the tiniest arguments for why you think her combination of big spending and deep tax cuts could ever work, even in a country like the USA with a reserve currency. Being cross isn't going to be enough to shut people up about Truss and her mistakes.
I don't think they were particularly deep tax cuts - infact I think they were fairly insignificant, especially within the broader context of the energy package. I also don't think that they would, in and of themselves, have turned the economy around, though they may have had what I think was the desired effect, a strong statement of intent that bounced us out of recession. There were a lot of other, deeper growth measures in the pipeline - those plans were later published on Conhome.
I also think it is nonsense that monetary policy is taken completely out of the equation when discussing the failure of the mini-budget announcement, given that the BOE was flogging off bonds at a loss - hardly puzzling that nobody else wanted them. Indeed, it was the BOE that stabilised the bond market by reversing their programme. If stopping it stopped the problem, is it not logical that starting it at least contributed to it?
The fact Hunt has recently announced a budget with significant fiscal loosening (though nothing like the blank cheque of last autumn) last month and the markets barely registered just shows how important how you do it is.
Whilst the situation matters a lot as well of course, it does perhaps show that for all we often deride all politicians as being largely the same, and dismiss the idea of top figures having political or communication skills, there is such a thing as political skill in these things and not all of them have it (and nor would we). Effective top politicians, even under constraints or (in some eyes) a flawed policy, can get stuff done in a way that 'anti-establishment' types (or at least the anti-establishment variation of the establishment) cannot.
Sometimes you need an outside disruptor. Sometimes you need someone who knows what the f*ck they are doing. Naturally we are all pretty bad at judging when we need either.
As I suspect we'll see with PM Starmer achieving things Corbyn couldn't have got away with.
Can we just take everyone's tedious sarcasm in response to this snippet as read?
Yes. Not required. A tiny number of people get to be PM of this great country. Liz Truss is one of them. I have no doubt that she has/had great vision and ideas, though the straw men of the snippet doesn't display them well.
It is hard to exaggerate the extent to which, having been given this golden ticket of being PM, she blew it by hubris, incompetence and disdain.
To get to be PM and overlook the fact that implementation of radical change in a parliamentary democracy is difficult political art is as big a fail, if not bigger, than Cameron's failure to prepare a plan for Brexit.
Yes, it's worth noting that she wasn't wrong about absolutely everything- and we do have a growth and productivity problem.
It's just that (unfunded) shock & awe tax cuts - seemingly alone - were a pretty crazy way to do it, unless she could demonstrate it would be self-funding in fairly short order to the satisfaction of the markets lending the money.
The rest is dogma.
Truss is like Trump. Batcrap crazy but also - perhaps because of that - able to think outside the box and identify issues, truths, solutions, problems, that others - more orthodox - are unwilling or unable to address. Causes too much cognitive dissonance
Trump was clearly right on Lab Leak: it's an extremely plausible theory (a theory we weren't even allowed to DISCUSS)
He's just blurted the truth about Nordstream, of course it wasn't the fucking Russians, get a grip
He may have had a point about going after the Mexican cartels with the US military. What's the point in being the strongest country on earth and spending 8 squillion on guns and missiles if you can't stop a bunch of hick gangsters flooding your cities with a Chinese made drug which pushes your life expectancy below that of Panama? BOMB THE GANGSTERS
Truss is a BDSM British version of Trump, in a necklace. Discuss
No. I've encountered her professionally. Mediocre
Her "thinking" is 100% "inside the box" (of trite drivel). I'm astonished anybody would take her seriously. DOES anybody take her seriously?
Can we just take everyone's tedious sarcasm in response to this snippet as read?
Yes. Not required. A tiny number of people get to be PM of this great country. Liz Truss is one of them. I have no doubt that she has/had great vision and ideas, though the straw men of the snippet doesn't display them well.
It is hard to exaggerate the extent to which, having been given this golden ticket of being PM, she blew it by hubris, incompetence and disdain.
To get to be PM and overlook the fact that implementation of radical change in a parliamentary democracy is difficult political art is as big a fail, if not bigger, than Cameron's failure to prepare a plan for Brexit.
Exactly. Liz is not competent to be PM. Sorry Liz you had a go and fucked up to a quite extraordinary degree. There are no second chances for total idiots.
Can we just take everyone's tedious sarcasm in response to this snippet as read?
Yes. Not required. A tiny number of people get to be PM of this great country. Liz Truss is one of them. I have no doubt that she has/had great vision and ideas, though the straw men of the snippet doesn't display them well.
It is hard to exaggerate the extent to which, having been given this golden ticket of being PM, she blew it by hubris, incompetence and disdain.
To get to be PM and overlook the fact that implementation of radical change in a parliamentary democracy is difficult political art is as big a fail, if not bigger, than Cameron's failure to prepare a plan for Brexit.
Yes, it's worth noting that she wasn't wrong about absolutely everything- and we do have a growth and productivity problem.
It's just that (unfunded) shock & awe tax cuts - seemingly alone - were a pretty crazy way to do it, unless she could demonstrate it would be self-funding in fairly short order to the satisfaction of the markets lending the money.
The rest is dogma.
Truss is like Trump. Batcrap crazy but also - perhaps because of that - able to think outside the box and identify issues, truths, solutions, problems, that others - more orthodox - are unwilling or unable to address. Causes too much cognitive dissonance
Trump was clearly right on Lab Leak: it's an extremely plausible theory (a theory we weren't even allowed to DISCUSS)
He's just blurted the truth about Nordstream, of course it wasn't the fucking Russians, get a grip
He may have had a point about going after the Mexican cartels with the US military. What's the point in being the strongest country on earth and spending 8 squillion on guns and missiles if you can't stop a bunch of hick gangsters flooding your cities with a Chinese made drug which pushes your life expectancy below that of Panama? BOMB THE GANGSTERS
Truss is a BDSM British version of Trump, in a necklace. Discuss
Could Liz Truss made the cut on The Apprentice (UK or US)?
Not (just) to NOT get fired. BUT to get cast in the first place?
Absolutely not. She has near zero charisma and TV skill. But this is not my point. I am saying she is an intellectual outsider - divorced from the consensus - and she doesn't care about this (see the necklace, she doesn't care) thus she may happen upon truths, and say them, which more mainstream politicos shy away from, or don't even comprehend. Likewise, as with Trump, she will spout total bollocks
Doesn't care, or just doesn't quite realise that what she says or does is crossing any lines because she inhabits a somewhat parallel world.
On an almost completely unrelated topic this morning I finished re-reading Charles Nichol's The Fruit Palace, prompted by a comment you had made a few weeks ago on here and remembering that not only was he my old school friend's dad but it was a very entertaining read in its own right. And it surely is - a rare combination of crime thriller and travelogue. A mix of Donal Mackintyre and Louis Theroux with a touch of Louis' father thrown in. But there were a handful of scenes that were truly shocking to read and point to the author's probably lack of a filter when writing. He was oversharing, in a way that makes for compelling reading but also makes the reader feel uncomfortable and somehow complicit.
Haven't read it in decades, but I remember it as being great (I almost never reread books, life is too short)
I wonder if he exhausted himself with that one book. He possibly overshared, as you say, and then was spent. As I understand, he didn't do much of note afterwards (in literary terms, he may have become a world class perry maker, dunno)
That was pretty much his only major book. Everything else was non-fiction - biographies, history etc. I suspect he settled down and the lifestyle 0didn't work anymore.
I enjoy rereading - just a few books, ones that are essentially completely different when you read them at different ages. I know Anna Karenina is supposed to be one of those but I've not bothered with redoing that one because it's too long. To the Lighthouse, When I walked out one midsummer morning, Hoskins' Making of the English Countryside, Paul Theroux's The Kingdom by the Sea, Five on a Treasure Island . A couple of others.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas?
Sudden inspiration - one among us would be ideal as writer & director of cutting-edge, Sundance-worthy documentary based on life, works & weirdness of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.
Back in 1988, had opportunity to go see HST live . . . for $30 a ticket. Too rich for my thin blood, passed it up . . . and still glad I did. Might have shattered, or at least warped, too many fond illusions.
The Heritage Foundation has been less influential than two biggies, Brookings Institution (center-left) and American Enterprise Institute (center-right), but has come up with some influential ideas.
For example, one of the key ideas in Obamacare came from Heritage, surprise, surprise. And was used by Mitt Romney in Massachusetts. (I think Heritage began going wrong, when Jim DeMint took over. As I recall, he once said he would rather have 40 pure conservative Senate Republicans than a majority that included moderates. No pragmatist, he.)
The Heritage Foundation has been less influential than two biggies, Brookings Institution (center-left) and American Enterprise Institute (center-right), but has come up with some influential ideas.
For example, one of the key ideas in Obamacare came from Heritage, surprise, surprise. And was used by Mitt Romney in Massachusetts. (I think Heritage began going wrong, when Jim DeMint took over. As I recall, he once said he would rather have 40 pure conservative Senate Republicans than a majority that included moderates. No pragmatist, he.)
Earlier, someone suggested that Kamala Harris might be "second rate". I don't know enough about the old Royal Navy ranking system to rank her, but that definitely seems to be too high to me.
Perhaps fourth rate?
(To his credit, Biden seems to be trying to teach her his trade, giving her opportunities to learn by doing. I haven't seen much evidence that she has learned much, so far. But it is good to see him making the effort.)
Can we just take everyone's tedious sarcasm in response to this snippet as read?
Yes. Not required. A tiny number of people get to be PM of this great country. Liz Truss is one of them. I have no doubt that she has/had great vision and ideas, though the straw men of the snippet doesn't display them well.
It is hard to exaggerate the extent to which, having been given this golden ticket of being PM, she blew it by hubris, incompetence and disdain.
To get to be PM and overlook the fact that implementation of radical change in a parliamentary democracy is difficult political art is as big a fail, if not bigger, than Cameron's failure to prepare a plan for Brexit.
Yes, it's worth noting that she wasn't wrong about absolutely everything- and we do have a growth and productivity problem.
It's just that (unfunded) shock & awe tax cuts - seemingly alone - were a pretty crazy way to do it, unless she could demonstrate it would be self-funding in fairly short order to the satisfaction of the markets lending the money.
The rest is dogma.
Truss is like Trump. Batcrap crazy but also - perhaps because of that - able to think outside the box and identify issues, truths, solutions, problems, that others - more orthodox - are unwilling or unable to address. Causes too much cognitive dissonance
Trump was clearly right on Lab Leak: it's an extremely plausible theory (a theory we weren't even allowed to DISCUSS)
He's just blurted the truth about Nordstream, of course it wasn't the fucking Russians, get a grip
He may have had a point about going after the Mexican cartels with the US military. What's the point in being the strongest country on earth and spending 8 squillion on guns and missiles if you can't stop a bunch of hick gangsters flooding your cities with a Chinese made drug which pushes your life expectancy below that of Panama? BOMB THE GANGSTERS
Truss is a BDSM British version of Trump, in a necklace. Discuss
It has always seemed to me that she hasn't ever got beyond her simplified neoliberal ideology. This is really out of date now except to a small group of largely retired people, ie those that support her in the conservative party. She hasn't got her head around how capitalism has also changed and the ESG stuff is not a new phenomenon, there have been social enterprises with multiple bottom lines for 25 years, this is all just an evolution of that. It is basically like just hearing an old relative who was once relevant but never moved with the times drone on about politics. Even her abysmal and historic failure at being PM has basically taught her nothing. I suppose at least she has had an interesting if rather tragic political career, which is more than most of us will, and all political careers end in failure anyway.
Can we just take everyone's tedious sarcasm in response to this snippet as read?
Yes. Not required. A tiny number of people get to be PM of this great country. Liz Truss is one of them. I have no doubt that she has/had great vision and ideas, though the straw men of the snippet doesn't display them well.
It is hard to exaggerate the extent to which, having been given this golden ticket of being PM, she blew it by hubris, incompetence and disdain.
To get to be PM and overlook the fact that implementation of radical change in a parliamentary democracy is difficult political art is as big a fail, if not bigger, than Cameron's failure to prepare a plan for Brexit.
Exactly. Liz is not competent to be PM. Sorry Liz you had a go and fucked up to a quite extraordinary degree. There are no second chances for total idiots.
Did not call that one to be honest. She had a rapid rise and didn't seem to have mucked up in a particularly obvious way, and it wasn't as though the other candidates outshone her massively.
It's all just part of her coping mechanism I suppose. But the picture she paints of British business is surely a grotesque caricature. I've worked in the private sector for twenty-five years and have never encountered anything like the wacky woke practices she claims are now the norm. That sort of irresponsible rhetoric might actually deter investment if anyone is silly enough to give it credence. And that, along with Brexit, is the last thing we need. Reckless, unpatriotic, damaging and facile is my take.
They need to decide whether it's reality 1 or 2.
Reality 1: business is hopelessly woke and part of the new elite (TM Matt Goodwin) holding back Britain. Or
Reality 2: the private sector is always right, unlike those woke lazy public sector layabouts who are holding back Britain.
or actually they don't, because they're very comfortable with doublethink when it suits them.
Neither of those positions are remotely contradictory.
And I fear your oeuvre on this issue is doing little except exposing your deeply limited understanding of the economic forces at play during Truss's time as PM.
The "economic forces at play" during her tenure in office were well known to anyone, particularly those working in fiscal policy. They were no secret:
- commodity price Inflation following the bounceback from Covid and your mates' adventures in Ukraine - a severe public sector deficit as a result of government support during the Covid pandemic and sluggish growth over multiple years - downward pressure on the pound following Brexit and the 2 above factors - upward pressure on global interest rates and gilt spreads in the higher risk economies
In other words the UK was not in an exceptionally good or bad situation. It was one of a number of fragile economies and markets - not Germany or Switzerland or the US, but not Italy or Portugal either. Truss did what lefties love to do: decided that orthodox economics could be ignored because she didn't like it. So she went for a combo of big government spending (energy support) with small government tax policy.
I was having to comment on this clusterfuck daily - that's my job. It was frankly embarrassing, particularly on the US networks.
I am sure we’re all very grateful that we get the benefit of such priceless pearls for nothing.
Look, I admire your contrarianism and all that, but your contributions to this thread have consisted entirely in huffing and puffing at other posters' criticisms of Truss without venturing the tiniest arguments for why you think her combination of big spending and deep tax cuts could ever work, even in a country like the USA with a reserve currency. Being cross isn't going to be enough to shut people up about Truss and her mistakes.
I don't think they were particularly deep tax cuts - infact I think they were fairly insignificant, especially within the broader context of the energy package. I also don't think that they would, in and of themselves, have turned the economy around, though they may have had what I think was the desired effect, a strong statement of intent that bounced us out of recession. There were a lot of other, deeper growth measures in the pipeline - those plans were later published on Conhome.
I also think it is nonsense that monetary policy is taken completely out of the equation when discussing the failure of the mini-budget announcement, given that the BOE was flogging off bonds at a loss - hardly puzzling that nobody else wanted them. Indeed, it was the BOE that stabilised the bond market by reversing their programme. If stopping it stopped the problem, is it not logical that starting it at least contributed to it?
The fact Hunt has recently announced a budget with significant fiscal loosening (though nothing like the blank cheque of last autumn) last month and the markets barely registered just shows how important how you do it is.
Whilst the situation matters a lot as well of course, it does perhaps show that for all we often deride all politicians as being largely the same, and dismiss the idea of top figures having political or communication skills, there is such a thing as political skill in these things and not all of them have it (and nor would we). Effective top politicians, even under constraints or (in some eyes) a flawed policy, can get stuff done in a way that 'anti-establishment' types (or at least the anti-establishment variation of the establishment) cannot.
Sometimes you need an outside disruptor. Sometimes you need someone who knows what the f*ck they are doing. Naturally we are all pretty bad at judging when we need either.
As I suspect we'll see with PM Starmer achieving things Corbyn couldn't have got away with.
Well obviously, Corbyn could never have gotten away with implementing the Tory manifesto in full.
The Heritage Foundation has been less influential than two biggies, Brookings Institution (center-left) and American Enterprise Institute (center-right), but has come up with some influential ideas.
For example, one of the key ideas in Obamacare came from Heritage, surprise, surprise. And was used by Mitt Romney in Massachusetts. (I think Heritage began going wrong, when Jim DeMint took over. As I recall, he once said he would rather have 40 pure conservative Senate Republicans than a majority that included moderates. No pragmatist, he.)
Prediction: referendum on proportional representation for Westminster on Thursday 1st May 2025.
Anyone think it's likely?
I don't think it's likely. If they decide they want to go for it they certainly won't want a referendum on it - if one happens it would be because the Lords forced them to have one. If the Lords force them into it then it would likely be a lot later, because it would follow various back-and-forths in Parliament.
Jeez and Tatties, Wings Over Scotland is brutal on the Nats corruption
One of their problems is that the sums are so small, and relatable. When a journalist alleges that the government wasted £790 million on PPE the eyes glaze over, despite the huge amounts, it is too much to really grasp, so it slips by. This is wrong, but it is human nature
A fake husband of a devalued First Minister buying a super-luxe campervan for £110,000 (a large chunk of the SNP's entire money) parking it at his mum's house, then apparently never using it, cause it simply couldn't be a "battlebus" (as they now claim is the purpose) is something anyone can grasp. That's basic fraud - allegedly. It certainly looks really bad, and we all know dodgy people that do this shit
Tsk, and hahahahah
There is something in that - you see a similar effect in many council budgets where a great deal of attention is paid to this or that £10k, whilst millions gets nary a mention - too big and too hard to do anything with.
Maybe a credible explanation will emerge through the investigation, but it is hard to imagine why a party asset was being stored in such a way in the first place. That it was not being used for her benefit simply adds to the confusion - it'd make more sense (though be more obviously wrong) that way.
It's Stalin's Dictum at work
“The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of a million is a statistic."
Unfortunately for the SNP, the campervan is the death of one man. We all understand that, and feel it. If they'd wasted six trillion groats on corrupt PPE contracts (as the Tories plausibly did) they'd be in LESS trouble
I know this is wrong, but I think people have a sort of grudging respect for someone who embezzles money and spends it on enjoying themselves. That's why films about that sort of person are made (like, say, Catch Me If You Can).
But buying a campervan (even a luxury one) and then parking it on your mother's driveway and not even using it? It's not fast cars, tropical holidays and a life of luxury is it?
If that is what has happened, then it's just so lame.
Prediction: referendum on proportional representation for Westminster on Thursday 1st May 2025.
Anyone think it's likely?
I don't think it's likely. If they decide they want to go for it they certainly won't want a referendum on it - if one happens it would be because the Lords forced them to have one. If the Lords force them into it then it would likely be a lot later, because it would follow various back-and-forths in Parliament.
STV for local government is more likely.
I can't see them changing the voting system without a referendum.
Prediction: referendum on proportional representation for Westminster on Thursday 1st May 2025.
Anyone think it's likely?
Frankly, no. Are you trying to imagine this as the price for LD support of a minority Labour Government because if Starmer wins a majority PR won’t get a look in though I do think it conceivable some of the Conservative changes to the electoral system - voter ID and FPTP for elections previously conducted under PR such as the London Mayoral election - will be repealed?
Yes, I think a Lab/LD coalition is the most likely outcome atm.
Prediction: referendum on proportional representation for Westminster on Thursday 1st May 2025.
Anyone think it's likely?
Starmer arranging a referendum in his first year of office?
In return for LD support in a coalition government. The LDs messed up last time with the ridiculous AV agreement with the Tories, they won't want to miss their chance again.
Can we just take everyone's tedious sarcasm in response to this snippet as read?
Yes. Not required. A tiny number of people get to be PM of this great country. Liz Truss is one of them. I have no doubt that she has/had great vision and ideas, though the straw men of the snippet doesn't display them well.
It is hard to exaggerate the extent to which, having been given this golden ticket of being PM, she blew it by hubris, incompetence and disdain.
To get to be PM and overlook the fact that implementation of radical change in a parliamentary democracy is difficult political art is as big a fail, if not bigger, than Cameron's failure to prepare a plan for Brexit.
Yes, it's worth noting that she wasn't wrong about absolutely everything- and we do have a growth and productivity problem.
It's just that (unfunded) shock & awe tax cuts - seemingly alone - were a pretty crazy way to do it, unless she could demonstrate it would be self-funding in fairly short order to the satisfaction of the markets lending the money.
The rest is dogma.
Truss is like Trump. Batcrap crazy but also - perhaps because of that - able to think outside the box and identify issues, truths, solutions, problems, that others - more orthodox - are unwilling or unable to address. Causes too much cognitive dissonance
Trump was clearly right on Lab Leak: it's an extremely plausible theory (a theory we weren't even allowed to DISCUSS)
He's just blurted the truth about Nordstream, of course it wasn't the fucking Russians, get a grip
He may have had a point about going after the Mexican cartels with the US military. What's the point in being the strongest country on earth and spending 8 squillion on guns and missiles if you can't stop a bunch of hick gangsters flooding your cities with a Chinese made drug which pushes your life expectancy below that of Panama? BOMB THE GANGSTERS
Truss is a BDSM British version of Trump, in a necklace. Discuss
It has always seemed to me that she hasn't ever got beyond her simplified neoliberal ideology. This is really out of date now except to a small group of largely retired people, ie those that support her in the conservative party. She hasn't got her head around how capitalism has also changed and the ESG stuff is not a new phenomenon, there have been social enterprises with multiple bottom lines for 25 years, this is all just an evolution of that. It is basically like just hearing an old relative who was once relevant but never moved with the times drone on about politics. Even her abysmal and historic failure at being PM has basically taught her nothing. I suppose at least she has had an interesting if rather tragic political career, which is more than most of us will, and all political careers end in failure anyway.
It's quite funny how you think 'simplified neoliberal ideology' is redundant because it is being abandoned by the Western economies. If you took your parochial blinkers off and looked at Dubai, India, China, you might come to realise that actually it's the Western economies that are becoming redundant precisely because they're abandoning 'simplified neoliberal ideology'.
Can we just take everyone's tedious sarcasm in response to this snippet as read?
Yes. Not required. A tiny number of people get to be PM of this great country. Liz Truss is one of them. I have no doubt that she has/had great vision and ideas, though the straw men of the snippet doesn't display them well.
It is hard to exaggerate the extent to which, having been given this golden ticket of being PM, she blew it by hubris, incompetence and disdain.
To get to be PM and overlook the fact that implementation of radical change in a parliamentary democracy is difficult political art is as big a fail, if not bigger, than Cameron's failure to prepare a plan for Brexit.
Yes, it's worth noting that she wasn't wrong about absolutely everything- and we do have a growth and productivity problem.
It's just that (unfunded) shock & awe tax cuts - seemingly alone - were a pretty crazy way to do it, unless she could demonstrate it would be self-funding in fairly short order to the satisfaction of the markets lending the money.
The rest is dogma.
Truss is like Trump. Batcrap crazy but also - perhaps because of that - able to think outside the box and identify issues, truths, solutions, problems, that others - more orthodox - are unwilling or unable to address. Causes too much cognitive dissonance
Trump was clearly right on Lab Leak: it's an extremely plausible theory (a theory we weren't even allowed to DISCUSS)
He's just blurted the truth about Nordstream, of course it wasn't the fucking Russians, get a grip
He may have had a point about going after the Mexican cartels with the US military. What's the point in being the strongest country on earth and spending 8 squillion on guns and missiles if you can't stop a bunch of hick gangsters flooding your cities with a Chinese made drug which pushes your life expectancy below that of Panama? BOMB THE GANGSTERS
Truss is a BDSM British version of Trump, in a necklace. Discuss
You really think the principle of the government using military resources to target civilians is one that you want to allow?
It's all just part of her coping mechanism I suppose. But the picture she paints of British business is surely a grotesque caricature. I've worked in the private sector for twenty-five years and have never encountered anything like the wacky woke practices she claims are now the norm. That sort of irresponsible rhetoric might actually deter investment if anyone is silly enough to give it credence. And that, along with Brexit, is the last thing we need. Reckless, unpatriotic, damaging and facile is my take.
They need to decide whether it's reality 1 or 2.
Reality 1: business is hopelessly woke and part of the new elite (TM Matt Goodwin) holding back Britain. Or
Reality 2: the private sector is always right, unlike those woke lazy public sector layabouts who are holding back Britain.
or actually they don't, because they're very comfortable with doublethink when it suits them.
Neither of those positions are remotely contradictory.
And I fear your oeuvre on this issue is doing little except exposing your deeply limited understanding of the economic forces at play during Truss's time as PM.
The "economic forces at play" during her tenure in office were well known to anyone, particularly those working in fiscal policy. They were no secret:
- commodity price Inflation following the bounceback from Covid and your mates' adventures in Ukraine - a severe public sector deficit as a result of government support during the Covid pandemic and sluggish growth over multiple years - downward pressure on the pound following Brexit and the 2 above factors - upward pressure on global interest rates and gilt spreads in the higher risk economies
In other words the UK was not in an exceptionally good or bad situation. It was one of a number of fragile economies and markets - not Germany or Switzerland or the US, but not Italy or Portugal either. Truss did what lefties love to do: decided that orthodox economics could be ignored because she didn't like it. So she went for a combo of big government spending (energy support) with small government tax policy.
I was having to comment on this clusterfuck daily - that's my job. It was frankly embarrassing, particularly on the US networks.
I am sure we’re all very grateful that we get the benefit of such priceless pearls for nothing.
Look, I admire your contrarianism and all that, but your contributions to this thread have consisted entirely in huffing and puffing at other posters' criticisms of Truss without venturing the tiniest arguments for why you think her combination of big spending and deep tax cuts could ever work, even in a country like the USA with a reserve currency. Being cross isn't going to be enough to shut people up about Truss and her mistakes.
I don't think they were particularly deep tax cuts - infact I think they were fairly insignificant, especially within the broader context of the energy package. I also don't think that they would, in and of themselves, have turned the economy around, though they may have had what I think was the desired effect, a strong statement of intent that bounced us out of recession. There were a lot of other, deeper growth measures in the pipeline - those plans were later published on Conhome.
I also think it is nonsense that monetary policy is taken completely out of the equation when discussing the failure of the mini-budget announcement, given that the BOE was flogging off bonds at a loss - hardly puzzling that nobody else wanted them. Indeed, it was the BOE that stabilised the bond market by reversing their programme. If stopping it stopped the problem, is it not logical that starting it at least contributed to it?
That's more like it.
The tax cuts were significant not so much compared with what went before but with what had been promised to the markets already in terms of tax rises to pay for the pipeline of very large spending increases. On the table when Truss came to power were the CT rate rise to 25% and the new health and social care levy. The two added together amounted to tens of billions, added to which the open ended commitment on energy price was unnecessary given the opposition hadn't promised it and few had actually asked for it. But to compound this Kwarteng then refused to brief the OBR or release any meaningful deficit forecasts. So everyone was in the dark. And they introduced a bunch of random measures like the ill conceived reversal of the IR35 reforms which businesses had spent years getting ready for, none of which instilled confidence.
The issue was therefore the blank cheque. It was a very loose budget but the markets didn't know exactly how loose, and the Bank or England had been kept in the dark about what was planned for fear they would have a downer on it. So there was no coordination, no pre-planning, no real strategy. It wasn't even badged as a proper budget, it was a "fiscal event". If you're going to do something and announce it as being a radical change then you have to get everything lined up. I think Kwazi now understands this but clearly Liz doesn't (or pretends she doesn't for her audience)..
The fact Hunt has recently announced a budget with significant fiscal loosening (though nothing like the blank cheque of last autumn) last month and the markets barely registered just shows how important how you do it is.
CT rate rises rarely result in greater CT tax receipts - the converse is true. I am not condoning the way Kwasi Kwarteng went about his budget, but anyone forecasting a hole left by abandoning a massive CT rise isn't doing very good forecasting.
Liz Truss is the Lady Jane Grey of Prime Ministerial history.
Lady Jane Grey was an innocent manipulated by others who had no real desire for the Crown. Truss was an over ambitious schemer without the capability to perform once she had secured the prize
The Biden admin is looking into a seemingly impossible task: how it could possibly legally or logistically track obscure corners of the internet like the Discord server where the 50+ leaked Top Secret documents were published earlier this year. https://twitter.com/kevincollier/status/1646264516563402754
The Biden admin is looking into a seemingly impossible task: how it could possibly legally or logistically track obscure corners of the internet like the Discord server where the 50+ leaked Top Secret documents were published earlier this year. https://twitter.com/kevincollier/status/1646264516563402754
I hope they succeed. Most people have had enough of the wild west nature of the internet, where scammers can do whatever they like.
Just had Eritrean food for the first time. At Mossab Gesana in Newcastle. Seriously lush. Like African and Arabic but somehow not quite. Decor like after Gordon Ramsay rearranged it. Beautiful. Up some dingy stairs above a dodgy shop in the gay street. Very competitively priced. Eritrean MTV is great too. Nice pop with Arabic singing influence but no hint of prudity. Basically lamb. Loadsaways. With pancakey thing loadsaways. Spicy but not too. If you like a doner when pissed... Delish. Recommended.
The Biden admin is looking into a seemingly impossible task: how it could possibly legally or logistically track obscure corners of the internet like the Discord server where the 50+ leaked Top Secret documents were published earlier this year. https://twitter.com/kevincollier/status/1646264516563402754
I hope they succeed. Most people have had enough of the wild west nature of the internet, where scammers can do whatever they like.
No, what they're talking about is being able to trace when someone uploads a photographed document that's classified. I don't think that's possible without massively restricting either privacy or what individuals can do on the internet. Not realistic.
It's all just part of her coping mechanism I suppose. But the picture she paints of British business is surely a grotesque caricature. I've worked in the private sector for twenty-five years and have never encountered anything like the wacky woke practices she claims are now the norm. That sort of irresponsible rhetoric might actually deter investment if anyone is silly enough to give it credence. And that, along with Brexit, is the last thing we need. Reckless, unpatriotic, damaging and facile is my take.
They need to decide whether it's reality 1 or 2.
Reality 1: business is hopelessly woke and part of the new elite (TM Matt Goodwin) holding back Britain. Or
Reality 2: the private sector is always right, unlike those woke lazy public sector layabouts who are holding back Britain.
or actually they don't, because they're very comfortable with doublethink when it suits them.
Neither of those positions are remotely contradictory.
And I fear your oeuvre on this issue is doing little except exposing your deeply limited understanding of the economic forces at play during Truss's time as PM.
The "economic forces at play" during her tenure in office were well known to anyone, particularly those working in fiscal policy. They were no secret:
- commodity price Inflation following the bounceback from Covid and your mates' adventures in Ukraine - a severe public sector deficit as a result of government support during the Covid pandemic and sluggish growth over multiple years - downward pressure on the pound following Brexit and the 2 above factors - upward pressure on global interest rates and gilt spreads in the higher risk economies
In other words the UK was not in an exceptionally good or bad situation. It was one of a number of fragile economies and markets - not Germany or Switzerland or the US, but not Italy or Portugal either. Truss did what lefties love to do: decided that orthodox economics could be ignored because she didn't like it. So she went for a combo of big government spending (energy support) with small government tax policy.
I was having to comment on this clusterfuck daily - that's my job. It was frankly embarrassing, particularly on the US networks.
I am sure we’re all very grateful that we get the benefit of such priceless pearls for nothing.
Look, I admire your contrarianism and all that, but your contributions to this thread have consisted entirely in huffing and puffing at other posters' criticisms of Truss without venturing the tiniest arguments for why you think her combination of big spending and deep tax cuts could ever work, even in a country like the USA with a reserve currency. Being cross isn't going to be enough to shut people up about Truss and her mistakes.
I don't think they were particularly deep tax cuts - infact I think they were fairly insignificant, especially within the broader context of the energy package. I also don't think that they would, in and of themselves, have turned the economy around, though they may have had what I think was the desired effect, a strong statement of intent that bounced us out of recession. There were a lot of other, deeper growth measures in the pipeline - those plans were later published on Conhome.
I also think it is nonsense that monetary policy is taken completely out of the equation when discussing the failure of the mini-budget announcement, given that the BOE was flogging off bonds at a loss - hardly puzzling that nobody else wanted them. Indeed, it was the BOE that stabilised the bond market by reversing their programme. If stopping it stopped the problem, is it not logical that starting it at least contributed to it?
That's more like it.
The tax cuts were significant not so much compared with what went before but with what had been promised to the markets already in terms of tax rises to pay for the pipeline of very large spending increases. On the table when Truss came to power were the CT rate rise to 25% and the new health and social care levy. The two added together amounted to tens of billions, added to which the open ended commitment on energy price was unnecessary given the opposition hadn't promised it and few had actually asked for it. But to compound this Kwarteng then refused to brief the OBR or release any meaningful deficit forecasts. So everyone was in the dark. And they introduced a bunch of random measures like the ill conceived reversal of the IR35 reforms which businesses had spent years getting ready for, none of which instilled confidence.
The issue was therefore the blank cheque. It was a very loose budget but the markets didn't know exactly how loose, and the Bank or England had been kept in the dark about what was planned for fear they would have a downer on it. So there was no coordination, no pre-planning, no real strategy. It wasn't even badged as a proper budget, it was a "fiscal event". If you're going to do something and announce it as being a radical change then you have to get everything lined up. I think Kwazi now understands this but clearly Liz doesn't (or pretends she doesn't for her audience)..
The fact Hunt has recently announced a budget with significant fiscal loosening (though nothing like the blank cheque of last autumn) last month and the markets barely registered just shows how important how you do it is.
CT rate rises rarely result in greater CT tax receipts - the converse is true. I am not condoning the way Kwasi Kwarteng went about his budget, but anyone forecasting a hole left by abandoning a massive CT rise isn't doing very good forecasting.
I am not sure what you're basing that on since the rise in the main rate of CT announced at Budget 2021, from 19% to 25%, applied from 2023-24, marks the first rise in the main rate of onshore CT since 1974.
Furthermore, that 1974 rise saw the CT receipts rise from just over 2% of GDP to nearly 3% of GDP.
I appreciate that this doesn't fit well with the neolib playbook but them's the facts.
It's all just part of her coping mechanism I suppose. But the picture she paints of British business is surely a grotesque caricature. I've worked in the private sector for twenty-five years and have never encountered anything like the wacky woke practices she claims are now the norm. That sort of irresponsible rhetoric might actually deter investment if anyone is silly enough to give it credence. And that, along with Brexit, is the last thing we need. Reckless, unpatriotic, damaging and facile is my take.
They need to decide whether it's reality 1 or 2.
Reality 1: business is hopelessly woke and part of the new elite (TM Matt Goodwin) holding back Britain. Or
Reality 2: the private sector is always right, unlike those woke lazy public sector layabouts who are holding back Britain.
or actually they don't, because they're very comfortable with doublethink when it suits them.
Neither of those positions are remotely contradictory.
And I fear your oeuvre on this issue is doing little except exposing your deeply limited understanding of the economic forces at play during Truss's time as PM.
The "economic forces at play" during her tenure in office were well known to anyone, particularly those working in fiscal policy. They were no secret:
- commodity price Inflation following the bounceback from Covid and your mates' adventures in Ukraine - a severe public sector deficit as a result of government support during the Covid pandemic and sluggish growth over multiple years - downward pressure on the pound following Brexit and the 2 above factors - upward pressure on global interest rates and gilt spreads in the higher risk economies
In other words the UK was not in an exceptionally good or bad situation. It was one of a number of fragile economies and markets - not Germany or Switzerland or the US, but not Italy or Portugal either. Truss did what lefties love to do: decided that orthodox economics could be ignored because she didn't like it. So she went for a combo of big government spending (energy support) with small government tax policy.
I was having to comment on this clusterfuck daily - that's my job. It was frankly embarrassing, particularly on the US networks.
I am sure we’re all very grateful that we get the benefit of such priceless pearls for nothing.
Look, I admire your contrarianism and all that, but your contributions to this thread have consisted entirely in huffing and puffing at other posters' criticisms of Truss without venturing the tiniest arguments for why you think her combination of big spending and deep tax cuts could ever work, even in a country like the USA with a reserve currency. Being cross isn't going to be enough to shut people up about Truss and her mistakes.
I don't think they were particularly deep tax cuts - infact I think they were fairly insignificant, especially within the broader context of the energy package. I also don't think that they would, in and of themselves, have turned the economy around, though they may have had what I think was the desired effect, a strong statement of intent that bounced us out of recession. There were a lot of other, deeper growth measures in the pipeline - those plans were later published on Conhome.
I also think it is nonsense that monetary policy is taken completely out of the equation when discussing the failure of the mini-budget announcement, given that the BOE was flogging off bonds at a loss - hardly puzzling that nobody else wanted them. Indeed, it was the BOE that stabilised the bond market by reversing their programme. If stopping it stopped the problem, is it not logical that starting it at least contributed to it?
That's more like it.
The tax cuts were significant not so much compared with what went before but with what had been promised to the markets already in terms of tax rises to pay for the pipeline of very large spending increases. On the table when Truss came to power were the CT rate rise to 25% and the new health and social care levy. The two added together amounted to tens of billions, added to which the open ended commitment on energy price was unnecessary given the opposition hadn't promised it and few had actually asked for it. But to compound this Kwarteng then refused to brief the OBR or release any meaningful deficit forecasts. So everyone was in the dark. And they introduced a bunch of random measures like the ill conceived reversal of the IR35 reforms which businesses had spent years getting ready for, none of which instilled confidence.
The issue was therefore the blank cheque. It was a very loose budget but the markets didn't know exactly how loose, and the Bank or England had been kept in the dark about what was planned for fear they would have a downer on it. So there was no coordination, no pre-planning, no real strategy. It wasn't even badged as a proper budget, it was a "fiscal event". If you're going to do something and announce it as being a radical change then you have to get everything lined up. I think Kwazi now understands this but clearly Liz doesn't (or pretends she doesn't for her audience)..
The fact Hunt has recently announced a budget with significant fiscal loosening (though nothing like the blank cheque of last autumn) last month and the markets barely registered just shows how important how you do it is.
CT rate rises rarely result in greater CT tax receipts - the converse is true. I am not condoning the way Kwasi Kwarteng went about his budget, but anyone forecasting a hole left by abandoning a massive CT rise isn't doing very good forecasting.
I am not sure what you're basing that on since the rise in the main rate of CT announced at Budget 2021, from 19% to 25%, applied from 2023-24, marks the first rise in the main rate of onshore CT since 1974.
Furthermore, that 1974 rise saw the CT receipts rise from just over 2% of GDP to nearly 3% of GDP.
I appreciate that this doesn't fit well with the neolib playbook but them's the facts.
I don't pretend to be an expert on the economy of the 1970's, but I note that GDP fell in the period that you mention, so we need to look at the receipts in real terms.
The Heritage Foundation has been less influential than two biggies, Brookings Institution (center-left) and American Enterprise Institute (center-right), but has come up with some influential ideas.
For example, one of the key ideas in Obamacare came from Heritage, surprise, surprise. And was used by Mitt Romney in Massachusetts. (I think Heritage began going wrong, when Jim DeMint took over. As I recall, he once said he would rather have 40 pure conservative Senate Republicans than a majority that included moderates. No pragmatist, he.)
Prediction: referendum on proportional representation for Westminster on Thursday 1st May 2025.
Anyone think it's likely?
Frankly, no. Are you trying to imagine this as the price for LD support of a minority Labour Government because if Starmer wins a majority PR won’t get a look in though I do think it conceivable some of the Conservative changes to the electoral system - voter ID and FPTP for elections previously conducted under PR such as the London Mayoral election - will be repealed?
Just checking in from Pedants’ Corner to note that the supplementary vote system previously used for mayoral elections is not proportional. See also: AV.
Quite an interesting story about Michael Schumacher's home village which is now virtually abandoned and scheduled for demolition to make way for an open cast mine.
The Times has a story about the Lacemaker who wrote to the FT claiming to be closing because of Brexit. Turns ouf the HMRC demand was just £10000, and they've been losing money for several years. And he's not closing the business, but restructuring it.
The Biden admin is looking into a seemingly impossible task: how it could possibly legally or logistically track obscure corners of the internet like the Discord server where the 50+ leaked Top Secret documents were published earlier this year. https://twitter.com/kevincollier/status/1646264516563402754
I hope they succeed. Most people have had enough of the wild west nature of the internet, where scammers can do whatever they like.
No, what they're talking about is being able to trace when someone uploads a photographed document that's classified. I don't think that's possible without massively restricting either privacy or what individuals can do on the internet. Not realistic.
What this comes back to is Maths vs Law.
“The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia,” said Turnbull.
There is simply no way, short of a Chinese style Great Firewall, to control the internet. And even that just simply promotes work arounds. My Chinese friends laugh about it, essentially.
There is a genuine philosophical clash here - between the legalistic mindset that everything must be discoverable to Courts (and the Government when armed with a suitable warrant). And the reality that increasingly, our communications are protected by "military grade encryption*".
What is changing the world, is that this protection is built in, without you even noticing it, or needing to do anything. Fire up Signal or WhatsApp and you get end to end encryption, key exchange etc. All without you needing to do anything. Hell, you are reading this via HTTPS, not HTTP.
*There is no such thing as military grade encryption. But it is often used to signify extremely well implemented, hard to crack algorithms.
The Heritage Foundation has been less influential than two biggies, Brookings Institution (center-left) and American Enterprise Institute (center-right), but has come up with some influential ideas.
For example, one of the key ideas in Obamacare came from Heritage, surprise, surprise. And was used by Mitt Romney in Massachusetts. (I think Heritage began going wrong, when Jim DeMint took over. As I recall, he once said he would rather have 40 pure conservative Senate Republicans than a majority that included moderates. No pragmatist, he.)
Liz Truss is the Lady Jane Grey of Prime Ministerial history.
Lady Jane Grey was an innocent manipulated by others who had no real desire for the Crown. Truss was an over ambitious schemer without the capability to perform once she had secured the prize
They couldn’t be more different
Well, I mostly thinking of their respective longevity in government
The Times has a story about the Lacemaker who wrote to the FT claiming to be closing because of Brexit. Turns ouf the HMRC demand was just £10000, and they've been losing money for several years. And he's not closing the business, but restructuring it.
Not quite the impression given by the letter.
It is always prudent to expect a story about a lacemaker to have a few holes in it.
Quite an interesting story about Michael Schumacher's home village which is now virtually abandoned and scheduled for demolition to make way for an open cast mine.
Quite an interesting story about Michael Schumacher's home village which is now virtually abandoned and scheduled for demolition to make way for an open cast mine.
The Times has a story about the Lacemaker who wrote to the FT claiming to be closing because of Brexit. Turns ouf the HMRC demand was just £10000, and they've been losing money for several years. And he's not closing the business, but restructuring it.
Not quite the impression given by the letter.
It is always prudent to expect a story about a lacemaker to have a few holes in it.
The Times has a story about the Lacemaker who wrote to the FT claiming to be closing because of Brexit. Turns ouf the HMRC demand was just £10000, and they've been losing money for several years. And he's not closing the business, but restructuring it.
Not quite the impression given by the letter.
It is always prudent to expect a story about a lacemaker to have a few holes in it.
The Times has a story about the Lacemaker who wrote to the FT claiming to be closing because of Brexit. Turns ouf the HMRC demand was just £10000, and they've been losing money for several years. And he's not closing the business, but restructuring it.
Not quite the impression given by the letter.
It is always prudent to expect a story about a lacemaker to have a few holes in it.
It’s a doily occurrence in certain newspapers
I always thought that story was utter bobbins.
Personally, as a card-carrying, carrot-eating wokeist, think both you & StillWater edit & Noneoftheabove are nuts.
The Times has a story about the Lacemaker who wrote to the FT claiming to be closing because of Brexit. Turns ouf the HMRC demand was just £10000, and they've been losing money for several years. And he's not closing the business, but restructuring it.
Not quite the impression given by the letter.
It is always prudent to expect a story about a lacemaker to have a few holes in it.
It’s a doily occurrence in certain newspapers
I always thought that story was utter bobbins.
Personally, as a card-carrying, carrot-eating wokeist, think both you & StillWater edit & Noneoftheabove are nuts.
However, I "like" your fiber!
We just want the truth. You can’t handle the truth.
Prediction: referendum on proportional representation for Westminster on Thursday 1st May 2025.
Anyone think it's likely?
Frankly, no. Are you trying to imagine this as the price for LD support of a minority Labour Government because if Starmer wins a majority PR won’t get a look in though I do think it conceivable some of the Conservative changes to the electoral system - voter ID and FPTP for elections previously conducted under PR such as the London Mayoral election - will be repealed?
Just checking in from Pedants’ Corner to note that the supplementary vote system previously used for mayoral elections is not proportional. See also: AV.
No, but it does consist of a single transferable vote. If there were multi-member constituencies, it would be a bit more proportional.
It cannot be proportional if there is only one person to be elected.
Comments
And I fear your oeuvre on this issue is doing little except exposing your deeply limited understanding of the economic forces at play during Truss's time as PM.
Trump was clearly right on Lab Leak: it's an extremely plausible theory (a theory we weren't even allowed to DISCUSS)
He's just blurted the truth about Nordstream, of course it wasn't the fucking Russians, get a grip
He may have had a point about going after the Mexican cartels with the US military. What's the point in being the strongest country on earth and spending 8 squillion on guns and missiles if you can't stop a bunch of hick gangsters flooding your cities with a Chinese made drug which pushes your life expectancy below that of Panama? BOMB THE GANGSTERS
Truss is a BDSM British version of Trump, in a necklace. Discuss
- commodity price Inflation following the bounceback from Covid and your mates' adventures in Ukraine
- a severe public sector deficit as a result of government support during the Covid pandemic and sluggish growth over multiple years
- downward pressure on the pound following Brexit and the 2 above factors
- upward pressure on global interest rates and gilt spreads in the higher risk economies
In other words the UK was not in an exceptionally good or bad situation. It was one of a number of fragile economies and markets - not Germany or Switzerland or the US, but not Italy or Portugal either. Truss did what lefties love to do: decided that orthodox economics could be ignored because she didn't like it. So she went for a combo of big government spending (energy support) with small government tax policy.
I was having to comment on this clusterfuck daily - that's my job. It was frankly embarrassing, particularly on the US networks.
Not (just) to NOT get fired. BUT to get cast in the first place?
I agree that their personalities and motivations are entirely different. My point is they are both prepared to cross lines
She couldn’t cost the blank cheque for energy because no one had any idea how bad it was going to get and many of the forecasts were wildly pessimistic. She also got caught by the inflation bubble added to by BoE incompetence and consequential interest rate rises.
The latest fantasy money theory in the markets by which pension funds were supposedly reducing their risks by reducing their liquidity really didn’t help either.
On one view she was extremely unlucky but on the other she was extremely inept in failing to recognise these various restrictions on her freedom of manoeuvre. I tend to the latter myself.
As incidentally was Elon Musk until he went bonkers and decided to trash his brand.
I was reminded of a comment made to me by a former teacher - “if you’re meant to be the cream of England, God help the milk”.
"Donald Trump asks to delay E. Jean Carroll trial one month, wants ‘cooling off’ from indictment"
His lawyers' letter is silent on whether he'll seek another 'cooling off' if other charges land from Georgia and DOJ, as is widely expected.
https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1646132897835876357
Delay is Trump’s other great skill, but this it utter horseshit.
… In prior rulings, Senior U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan has repeatedly skewered what he’s described as delay tactics by Trump’s legal team.
In a scathing ruling from March 2022, Judge Kaplan found that Trump’s “litigation tactics have had a dilatory effect and, indeed, strongly suggest that he is acting out of a strong desire to delay any opportunity [that Carroll] may have to present her case against him.” The judge noted that Carroll was 78 years old at the time of his ruling, adding that the relevance of her age is “obvious.”..
Historically, most made significant if not spectacular amount of moolah BEFORE they entered the White House. Often through inheritance, other via their own efforts, some with combination of both.
For example, every POTUS before Andrew Jackson benefited from inherited wealth and privileged education. As did (most notably) both Roosevelts, Taft, Hoover, Kennedy and both Bushes.
Jackson was born poor, but was a successful planter. Lincoln was a poor boy who made it as a railroad attorney. Others also had successful legal practices or other professional endeavors.
The poorest ex-president in modern times (or maybe ever when inflation over two centuries is factored in) was Harry Truman. An semi-successful businessman (ups and downs) and honest politico before that fateful day exactly 78 years ago.
Truman was impetus for providing some forms of what might be called deferred compensation for ex-POTUS, which have of course expanded greatly since his day.
I also think it is nonsense that monetary policy is taken completely out of the equation when discussing the failure of the mini-budget announcement, given that the BOE was flogging off bonds at a loss - hardly puzzling that nobody else wanted them. Indeed, it was the BOE that stabilised the bond market by reversing their programme. If stopping it stopped the problem, is it not logical that starting it at least contributed to it?
On an almost completely unrelated topic this morning I finished re-reading Charles Nichol's The Fruit Palace, prompted by a comment you had made a few weeks ago on here and remembering that not only was he my old school friend's dad but it was a very entertaining read in its own right. And it surely is - a rare combination of crime thriller and travelogue. A mix of Donal Mackintyre and Louis Theroux with a touch of Louis' father thrown in. But there were a handful of scenes that were truly shocking to read and point to the author's probably lack of a filter when writing. He was oversharing, in a way that makes for compelling reading but also makes the reader feel uncomfortable and somehow complicit.
One of their problems is that the sums are so small, and relatable. When a journalist alleges that the government wasted £790 million on PPE the eyes glaze over, despite the huge amounts, it is too much to really grasp, so it slips by. This is wrong, but it is human nature
A fake husband of a devalued First Minister buying a super-luxe campervan for £110,000 (a large chunk of the SNP's entire money) parking it at his mum's house, then apparently never using it, cause it simply couldn't be a "battlebus" (as they now claim is the purpose) is something anyone can grasp. That's basic fraud - allegedly. It certainly looks really bad, and we all know dodgy people that do this shit
Tsk, and hahahahah
I wonder if he exhausted himself with that one book. He possibly overshared, as you say, and then was spent. As I understand, he didn't do much of note afterwards (in literary terms, he may have become a world class perry maker, dunno)
Maybe a credible explanation will emerge through the investigation, but it is hard to imagine why a party asset was being stored in such a way in the first place. That it was not being used for her benefit simply adds to the confusion - it'd make more sense (though be more obviously wrong) that way.
But then, despite assurances to the contrary, he ran away from his fuck-up.
Perhaps OGH could delegate a suitable PBer to enter into negotiations? HYUFD? Malc?
But if not then some good legal snark in the decision would seem reasonable - judges can be pretty funny when politely unravelling an argument put to them.
The tax cuts were significant not so much compared with what went before but with what had been promised to the markets already in terms of tax rises to pay for the pipeline of very large spending increases. On the table when Truss came to power were the CT rate rise to 25% and the new health and social care levy. The two added together amounted to tens of billions, added to which the open ended commitment on energy price was unnecessary given the opposition hadn't promised it and few had actually asked for it. But to compound this Kwarteng then refused to brief the OBR or release any meaningful deficit forecasts. So everyone was in the dark. And they introduced a bunch of random measures like the ill conceived reversal of the IR35 reforms which businesses had spent years getting ready for, none of which instilled confidence.
The issue was therefore the blank cheque. It was a very loose budget but the markets didn't know exactly how loose, and the Bank or England had been kept in the dark about what was planned for fear they would have a downer on it. So there was no coordination, no pre-planning, no real strategy. It wasn't even badged as a proper budget, it was a "fiscal event". If you're going to do something and announce it as being a radical change then you have to get everything lined up. I think Kwazi now understands this but clearly Liz doesn't (or pretends she doesn't for her audience)..
The fact Hunt has recently announced a budget with significant fiscal loosening (though nothing like the blank cheque of last autumn) last month and the markets barely registered just shows how important how you do it is.
“The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of a million is a statistic."
Unfortunately for the SNP, the campervan is the death of one man. We all understand that, and feel it. If they'd wasted six trillion groats on corrupt PPE contracts (as the Tories plausibly did) they'd be in LESS trouble
The SNP didn't even deliver independence.
Sometimes you need an outside disruptor. Sometimes you need someone who knows what the f*ck they are doing. Naturally we are all pretty bad at judging when we need either.
I enjoy rereading - just a few books, ones that are essentially completely different when you read them at different ages. I know Anna Karenina is supposed to be one of those but I've not bothered with redoing that one because it's too long. To the Lighthouse, When I walked out one midsummer morning, Hoskins' Making of the English Countryside, Paul Theroux's The Kingdom by the Sea, Five on a Treasure Island . A couple of others.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-65258849
Sudden inspiration - one among us would be ideal as writer & director of cutting-edge, Sundance-worthy documentary based on life, works & weirdness of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.
Back in 1988, had opportunity to go see HST live . . . for $30 a ticket. Too rich for my thin blood, passed it up . . . and still glad I did. Might have shattered, or at least warped, too many fond illusions.
The next financial crisis will get ugly
Central bankers have stoked a populist revolt
By John Rapley"
https://unherd.com/2023/04/the-next-financial-crisis-will-get-ugly/
For example, one of the key ideas in Obamacare came from Heritage, surprise, surprise. And was used by Mitt Romney in Massachusetts. (I think Heritage began going wrong, when Jim DeMint took over. As I recall, he once said he would rather have 40 pure conservative Senate Republicans than a majority that included moderates. No pragmatist, he.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heritage_Foundation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brookings_Institution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Enterprise_Institute
(I wouldn't be surprised to learn that all three favor ESOPs, which would confuse most Marxists.)
Anyway, it’s bedtime in CET. A demain.
Re: influential US think tanks also include (ditto) Rand Corp., Hoover Institution and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_think_tanks_in_the_United_States
Perhaps fourth rate?
(To his credit, Biden seems to be trying to teach her his trade, giving her opportunities to learn by doing. I haven't seen much evidence that she has learned much, so far. But it is good to see him making the effort.)
30%, 30%, 26%, 30%, 27%, 28%, 29%, 29%, 30%.
https://pollingreport.uk/polls
STV for local government is more likely.
But buying a campervan (even a luxury one) and then parking it on your mother's driveway and not even using it? It's not fast cars, tropical holidays and a life of luxury is it?
If that is what has happened, then it's just so lame.
How very El Salvador of you
They couldn’t be more different
https://twitter.com/kevincollier/status/1646264516563402754
At Mossab Gesana in Newcastle.
Seriously lush. Like African and Arabic but somehow not quite. Decor like after Gordon Ramsay rearranged it. Beautiful.
Up some dingy stairs above a dodgy shop in the gay street.
Very competitively priced.
Eritrean MTV is great too. Nice pop with Arabic singing influence but no hint of prudity.
Basically lamb. Loadsaways. With pancakey thing loadsaways.
Spicy but not too. If you like a doner when pissed...
Delish.
Recommended.
I don't think that's possible without massively restricting either privacy or what individuals can do on the internet. Not realistic.
Furthermore, that 1974 rise saw the CT receipts rise from just over 2% of GDP to nearly 3% of GDP.
I appreciate that this doesn't fit well with the neolib playbook but them's the facts.
https://www.planetf1.com/news/michael-schumacher-kerpen-manheim-images/
Not quite the impression given by the letter.
“The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia,” said Turnbull.
There is simply no way, short of a Chinese style Great Firewall, to control the internet. And even that just simply promotes work arounds. My Chinese friends laugh about it, essentially.
There is a genuine philosophical clash here - between the legalistic mindset that everything must be discoverable to Courts (and the Government when armed with a suitable warrant). And the reality that increasingly, our communications are protected by "military grade encryption*".
What is changing the world, is that this protection is built in, without you even noticing it, or needing to do anything. Fire up Signal or WhatsApp and you get end to end encryption, key exchange etc. All without you needing to do anything. Hell, you are reading this via HTTPS, not HTTP.
*There is no such thing as military grade encryption. But it is often used to signify extremely well implemented, hard to crack algorithms.
Not a fan of their politics & ideology, but back in the day, was a fan of their studies of elections around the world.
Here we have Dogger Bank A coming online this year - https://doggerbank.com/construction/offshore/
There, they are carving up more countryside for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hambach_surface_mine - lignite coal, possibly the dirtiest form of coal.
Attack ads are fundamental to politics. But the smear campaign against Rishi Sunak is a strategic and moral error.
By Andrew Marr"
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-politics/2023/04/labour-lost-moral-high-ground-rishi-sunak-attack-ads
However, I "like" your fiber!
It cannot be proportional if there is only one person to be elected.