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Truss has managed to avoid a set piece interview throughout whole campaign – politicalbetting.com
Truss has managed to avoid a set piece interview throughout whole campaign – politicalbetting.com
The Conservative leadership candidate Liz Truss is very fond of describing things as a disgrace and one of her most watched YouTube video is of her using that term to describe UK cheese sales.
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Apparently.
If you had to have somebody to sit down with Putin to deliver an ultimatum, she would probably be bottom of my long list...
The current leader Ulf Kristersson has made a dreadful error of judgment by cosying up to the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats. Voters had been drifting away from the Moderates, but now it’s a flood.
Today it is clear: the Sweden Democrats have overtaken the once mighty Moderates to be the largest opposition party:
SD 20.6% (+3.1)
M 15.8% (-4.0)
Echos of the Tory hard-right completely routing the wet/one-nation wing.
While the Conservative Party membership is a small, select band it is by no means untypical of a large proportion of the electorate as a whole, both Cons and Lab, who want to hear a certain message delivered in a certain way and don't want to hear the obverse.
Which means that actually the problem is not with of the candidates, but with the electorate.
How bad would she have to be to lose?
It looks like cowardice, because it is. In that, she's quite akin to Boris Johnson.
But there will come a point, next week, when she is declared the winner and she will then need to get her message out and sustain proper scrutiny. It would be a mistake to duck that no matter how busy she is. She will only get one chance to make a first impression as PM.
And if she can do it without undergoing a set-piece interview, why do one? Even for a good media performer, the downsides might be greater than the upsides.
That should change when she's PM. But for the moment it appears to have worked for her.
(And I'd also add most media interviewers are hopeless; more concerned with generating headlines and gotchas than getting genuine insights into politicians or policies.)
Most new leaders get a few months where the public are open to their ideas, I don't think Liz Truss will get that. The manner in which both candidates have refused to put the country ahead of their own ambition has poisoned their well. Rishi, specifically, deserves a lot of ire for not being responsible and calling time on the race three weeks ago when it became clear he couldn't win.
The candidates have been trying to win a few thousand votes while the nation is sitting on a burning platform of drought, high energy prices and runaway inflation. They deserve to lose in 2024, and it's highly likely they will.
Why would she want to spend half an hour talking about the energy problem with an idiot like Robinson, when the complex, carefully-considered, multi-agency response that is required, is still a few weeks away?
The problem is mainstream media entitlement in a digital world.
That said, when she announces the plan, first to Parliament as these things should be, it will be reasonable for her to speak to the media about the plan.
And to extend the analogy of my previous post, plenty on the left see the media as a mouthpiece and tool of the right wing establishment and hence for a would be party leader to avoid it will likewise be seen as a sensible move.
Thousands of UK pubs ‘face closure’ without energy bills support
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/aug/30/thousands-of-uk-pubs-face-closure-without-energy-bills-support
Pubs will be far from the only small businesses facing closure this winter.
In the second volume of @sexliesballots I had a look at voters' attitudes to marriage across party lines. 2010 Labour voters were much more likely to be upset at the idea of a close relative marrying a Conservative than 2010 Tories were of a potential Labour in-law.
https://twitter.com/robfordmancs/status/1564202925068623874
Same phenomenon noted among Remain vs Leave voters.
No idea if that is a good thing or a bad thing but it is where we are.
The interesting thing of course is that the candidate who provided such support in previous circumstances is a 1/20 shot to win the contest.
That. Is. Pathetic.
1.05 Liz Truss 95%
17.5 Rishi Sunak 6%
Next Conservative leader
1.05 Liz Truss 95%
18.5 Rishi Sunak 5%
Didn't Boris beg to hang on as Prime Minister precisely so there would be someone's hand on the tiller during these choppy times.
But at the moment it isn't necessary.
And is further evidence she will be very bad at it.
Continuity BoZo...
1. Not having a final MPs vote between the last 2 candidates to see who had the most support.
2. Making the hustings last so long. 4 weeks maximum.
3. Sending out the ballots before the hustings had concluded.
Brady / 1922 committee. The second half (members part) of the contest was always far too long. Going over the announced price cap change was always forseeable.
Sunak - Should have bowed out when it was clear he didn't have the support needed from members. That also was a while ago.
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Boris - Didn't need to have all those holidays, but the reality is as an outgoing PM he shouldn't be making big decisions and doesn't have the authority to do so. He was a caretaker through the whole process and credit to him hasn't entertained the wilder fantasies of some of his more wacko support such as Cruddas that wished to see him as some sort of modern dictator.
Truss - Perhaps she could have given more concrete plans whilst running. My Gov't will do X, Y, Z on day one. But she needed to focus on becoming PM within the rules of the game - which she's done. She couldn't have forced Sunak to step down or Brady to announce a shorter contest.
It's a pointless pissing contest reason. All about his ego, hang the national interest. Very in keeping with Boris Johnson generally.
Remainers in deep Remainia might literally never knowingly encounter a Leaver or a Tory first hand. Potentially, their only exposure to them is via their chosen media, which will generally paint Leavers in a negative light.
Whereas Leavers in deep Leavistan - even if they personally do not know any Remainers (or Labour voters) will, if they watch any telly at all, be exposed to Remainy/Labour/Centrist Dad views on Remain's own terms. They may not agree with them, but Remain/Labour types will not be the distant and scary stereotypes that Leave/Tory types will be for those in deep Remainia.
And whilst I get the frustration with the length of this election at this time, expecting the likely loser to pull out early would be a lousy precedent for democracy. Besides, Sunak may be of the view that Truss will be such a bad PM that hanging on, even for a one percent chance of stopping her, is worth it. That's what candidates do, and well done them.
There is also the question of "events", and as this site knows, there is a major scandal already out there. So, I guess I need to order more popcorn (Microwave, obviously, the energy costs of using the stove versus the microwave are too large),
Truss needs to face up to reality, and hiding from the media will just infuriate them.
https://twitter.com/tompeck/status/1564518951639465984
If you're ahead, don't do interviews, because there's only downside. Everything else, including "she has to work out how she will run the country" is just noise.
Is it not that there’s a moral dimension to the way politics is viewed on the left - crudely the ‘left thinks right are bad people, right just thinks left are silly people’ thing?
https://twitter.com/JenWilliamsMEN/status/1564224961937608704
yep it’s the same guy https://twitter.com/PickardJE/status/1564367715053326337/photo/1
@PickardJE If I had predicted that the poll tax would be popular with the electorate I would simply stop predicting things https://twitter.com/hannahrosewoods/status/1564373676216164355/photo/1
Minority government:
Social Democrats 30% (+2)
Confidence & supply parties:
Left 9% (+1)
Centre 7% (-2)
Greens 4% (nc)
Government total: 51%
Rightwing opposition bloc:
Sweden Democrats 21% (+3)
Moderates 16% (-4)
Christian Democrats 6% (nc)
Liberals 5% (-1)
Opposition total: 48%
(Novus; 26-27 August; +/- change from last GE 2018)
Polling day is 11 September, but voting started last week. Not just postal voting, but physical voting in polling stations, usually libraries.
Threshold is 4%.
At this moment Mrs T is accountable to a tiny group of strange people, the Tory membership. Not the BBC, not PBers and not me.
Soon she will be accountable to parliament and the voters. Again, not the BBC.
BTW There is no such thing as a political interview anyone would actually watch where the interviewer wants the politician to do well.
He was right about the ERM for instance.
Unlike most in the economics profession.
The greatest irony is the person making that claim might well be BoZo the fridge...
‘Labour reject claims party will change constitution to ban coalitions with SNP’
https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/20828495.labour-reject-claims-party-will-change-constitution-ban-coalitions-snp/
The man doesn’t know his arse from his elbow. That daft policy lasted two days.
Sweden has PR not FPTP so the main thing is the strength of the block not each party
This was one reason for the very long run for New Labour - their apparent values were a 100% match for this. Until the Iraq War.
A starting assumption that those who voted for a party you oppose in the previous election are for this reason bad people who endorse a whole host of bad things doesn't seem like a good frame of mind for persuading them.
So if that starting assumption is more widespread among one party than the other, as it seems to be with Lab vs Con and Remain vs Leave, that might put one side at a significant disadvantage. Disliking the people you want to persuade is an obstacle to persuasion.
That seems like a problem for parties out of office, and seeking to regain it. Maybe being willing to judge voters with different views less, and listen to them more, might be a more effective strategy?
https://twitter.com/robfordmancs/status/1564296167944511489
Minford is a politically motivated hack who employs ludicrous modelling assumptions to generate his forecasts. Like a stopped clock he will be right occasionally, but as an economist I find him an embarrassment to the profession.
Swedish polls are very, very accurate historically, so they are probably spot-on this time too.
BUT, please note that both the Greens and the Liberals are very near the 4% threshold. If the Greens get kicked out of parliament then the Social Democrats are probably screwed. Same regarding Liberals on other side. If they both get kicked out then zero sum game.
The criticism, from those who would criticise her no matter what she did, is the lack of TV interviews - where yes, the culture is very much Blairite and Remain.
Truss will only become PM as Tory MPs gave Tory members a choice of her or Sunak
Given the number of Daily Mail staff who are first generation immigrants, it seems quite likely to me that there a number of hard core John Redwood fans on the staff at the Guardian.
But we have more more than 10% inflation already. No one is going to be shocked by rising prices. Given wages are not rising as fast there may be some reduction in demand but so far that has not manifested itself.
We need to adjust to this exogenous price shock. Cheap gas and relatively cheap fuel are not coming back anytime soon, if ever. We need to accept as a nation that more of our money will be spent that way and less on other things. We did this with the oil shock in the 1970s. It was deeply unpleasant but we survived. Expecting governments to somehow magic this change away is every bit as fairy tale as the idea that the producers, who are in general well beyond the reach of the Treasury, will somehow be paying a windfall tax to pay for it all.
A reminder that there will be a shortage over the winter, of 15-20% of gas requirements, whether that be for for direct gas supply or electricity generation.
No matter what the price, the demand needs to drop by that much otherwise there will be rationing.
Calls for government to reduce price, in order that customers don’t need to reduce demand, *will* result in fuel rationing this winter.
Most of the solutions are on the demand side - kicking off football matches at 1pm rather than 3pm, is a good example of this.
But whilst raiding our great grandchildren's piggy banks is a bad thing, it may be unavoidable.
The choice being whether to do it to anticipate and mitigate problems, or to clean up the mess afterwards.
Why? What is different about PB? Age?, Political awareness? Intelligence? What?
What is someone who still happily supports the Tories like?
By the end of the 80s, exchange-rates-by-fiat had gone out of fashion, even among the really loopy dictators.
When the ERM was proposed, I was WTF?
I genuinely feel sorry for her on a personal level. Events are likely to totally overcome her. She has a 1% chance of success.
"whistle while you work
whistle while you work
Mussolini is a wienie
Hitler is a jerk"