Considering well over half of Tory MPs didn't want Truss isn't there at least a reasonable chance that a move to instate Rishi might be underway? Like him or not he's a very slick operator. What's more everything he predicted and LOUDLY has happened. He said her plans were 'cloud cuckoo land' and would be a disaster and so it's proved. Cummings who is nobody's fool also knew it 'She's as close to probper crackers as anyone I've met in Parliament'
In my opinion ruling out a Tory putsch is a mistake
Rishi staying away from Conference might prove a mistake. A couple of well-received fringe speeches might have helped bring things to the boil.
Anyone else a little bit scared of what the effect of Truss interviews today might be? Seriously worried about the possibility that she might double down on comments about “not concerned with short term market movements, plan will be seen to be right in the long term etc etc”.
Surely that is exactly what she thinks. Reports late yesterday that they are not concerned inside No10 - this isn't a crisis, stop being wets etc
That’s my point. It is what she thinks, but the saying so publicly (and confirming what are still just rumours/hearsay/“suspicions”) will have an impact.
She has a crazy schedule. 8 radio interviews in an hour. Then 16 TV interviews. I assume that No10 think this is a whizzo plan to dodge round tough questions from the national media. I fear they are in error.
Local hacks can be very good and extremely direct. They have 5 minutes, they want to make a name for themselves. Whats more, the PM is appallingly brittle. She is about to get 24 different versions of the same question - why are you right and the world wrong? And she won't cope well. Expect her to be snappy and abrasive fairly quickly.
I can’t see Truss going this side of an election and there’ll be no election until 2024. But if I’m wrong, could the Tories manage to find anyone worse than her? Given their record over the last 12 years, you wouldn’t bet against it.
Ah, Damien McBride has turned up with his partisan attack lines this morning.
I’m afraid that the Conservative party deserves partisan attacks. It has made a complete mess of things. It watched the Labour party’s descent into intolerant, fact-free, exclusionary ideology and learned all the wrong lessons. The country is now paying the price.
If you want to put off soft Tories switching to Labour then you go right ahead.
Dipstick.
If you decide to vote Tory because people point out the Tories have made a total mess of this country, I am not sure you’re in much of a position to call anyone else a dipstick.
You are right. This could indeed be an extinction level event for the Conservative Party. Bets now boldly struck on a Labour Majority now may be looking distinctly overcautious by next week.
The final bit of the Canadian jigsaw is a competitor on the populist right getting traction. "Cut immigration- not the NHS", that sort of thing. Then the Conservatives really are in colourful simile territory.
Yep, Canada only becomes a possibility if Farage decides to wade in and starts getting 10% or so of the vote.
Considering well over half of Tory MPs didn't want Truss isn't there at least a reasonable chance that a move to instate Rishi might be underway? Like him or not he's a very slick operator. What's more everything he predicted and LOUDLY has happened. He said her plans were 'cloud cuckoo land' and would be a disaster and so it's proved. Cummings who is nobody's fool also knew it 'She's as close to probper crackers as anyone I've met in Parliament'
In my opinion ruling out a Tory putsch is a mistake
Yes. She cannot be as impervious to moral persuasion as Johnson; nobody could.
And given the utterly gobsmacking things we already know about her private life it seems probable that the whips or rather former whips know even more hair raising stuff which might be enough to lever her out.
If you think you're going to use lots of energy in October, relative to September, does it make sense to miss a meter reading now and apportion some of that energy use to September, thereby reducing your bill?
It's funny how many of the posters on here who screeched and wailed about the evils of Europe and desired Brexit above everything else, are now condemning the government that gave them exactly what you wanted.
Your desire for Brexit got us extremists into government. Each PM has been more 'extreme' than the last: but it did not matter, as long as you got Brexit.
Although I bet most of you are fairly well-off, and so won't suffer too much in the economic downturn *your* perverted dream has caused.
Never trust an activist. They always know they're correct, so facts are irrelevant. That applies to the right and left, and particularly to the Greens.
Nod wisely, murmur 'that's interesting,' but keep them away from the handles of power. Trump is an activist in his own way. So is Putin.
Though Truss wasn't that active a Lib Dem activist, if this titbit that a Sunday Times hack has unearthed is to be believed;
The thing to remember about Truss's Libdemmery is that she was a bonkers libertarian even then. Her views haven't really changed, she just chose a different vehicle.
Yep, Truss wasn’t a LibDem, she was an old school, 19th century, Liberal.
Anyone else a little bit scared of what the effect of Truss interviews today might be? Seriously worried about the possibility that she might double down on comments about “not concerned with short term market movements, plan will be seen to be right in the long term etc etc”.
Surely that is exactly what she thinks. Reports late yesterday that they are not concerned inside No10 - this isn't a crisis, stop being wets etc
That’s my point. It is what she thinks, but the saying so publicly (and confirming what are still just rumours/hearsay/“suspicions”) will have an impact.
She has a crazy schedule. 8 radio interviews in an hour. Then 16 TV interviews. I assume that No10 think this is a whizzo plan to dodge round tough questions from the national media. I fear they are in error.
Local hacks can be very good and extremely direct. They have 5 minutes, they want to make a name for themselves. Whats more, the PM is appallingly brittle. She is about to get 24 different versions of the same question - why are you right and the world wrong? And she won't cope well. Expect her to be snappy and abrasive fairly quickly.
Considering well over half of Tory MPs didn't want Truss isn't there at least a reasonable chance that a move to instate Rishi might be underway? Like him or not he's a very slick operator. What's more everything he predicted and LOUDLY has happened. He said her plans were 'cloud cuckoo land' and would be a disaster and so it's proved. Cummings who is nobody's fool also knew it 'She's as close to probper crackers as anyone I've met in Parliament'
In my opinion ruling out a Tory putsch is a mistake
Rishi staying away from Conference might prove a mistake. A couple of well-received fringe speeches might have helped bring things to the boil.
And if they’re poorly received? Best to let her face the full glare given the way things agre going.
If you think you're going to use lots of energy in October, relative to September, does it make sense to miss a meter reading now and apportion some of that energy use to September, thereby reducing your bill?
I assume that the energy companies will model this transition, and so then the question becomes whether you'd use more energy in October compared to September, relative to the average customer. Though I have done a very minor game of such transitions by taking a meter reading at the end of the last day of the month, and they've estimated me some use after that - presumably not making any judgement about what time of day I took the reading.
The Govt is preparing the way to linking the state pension to prices but working age benefits to earnings (a significantly smaller increase). Note that in April this year benefits went up 3.1% when inflation was around 9%, so people on benefits have already had a big squeeze. https://twitter.com/stevewebb1/status/1575376653177561089
Considering well over half of Tory MPs didn't want Truss isn't there at least a reasonable chance that a move to instate Rishi might be underway? Like him or not he's a very slick operator. What's more everything he predicted and LOUDLY has happened. He said her plans were 'cloud cuckoo land' and would be a disaster and so it's proved. Cummings who is nobody's fool also knew it 'She's as close to probper crackers as anyone I've met in Parliament'
In my opinion ruling out a Tory putsch is a mistake
Yes. She cannot be as impervious to moral persuasion as Johnson; nobody could.
And given the utterly gobsmacking things we already know about her private life it seems probable that the whips or rather former whips know even more hair raising stuff which might be enough to lever her out.
Anyone else a little bit scared of what the effect of Truss interviews today might be? Seriously worried about the possibility that she might double down on comments about “not concerned with short term market movements, plan will be seen to be right in the long term etc etc”.
Surely that is exactly what she thinks. Reports late yesterday that they are not concerned inside No10 - this isn't a crisis, stop being wets etc
That’s my point. It is what she thinks, but the saying so publicly (and confirming what are still just rumours/hearsay/“suspicions”) will have an impact.
She has a crazy schedule. 8 radio interviews in an hour. Then 16 TV interviews. I assume that No10 think this is a whizzo plan to dodge round tough questions from the national media. I fear they are in error.
Local hacks can be very good and extremely direct. They have 5 minutes, they want to make a name for themselves. Whats more, the PM is appallingly brittle. She is about to get 24 different versions of the same question - why are you right and the world wrong? And she won't cope well. Expect her to be snappy and abrasive fairly quickly.
Is it also local TV she is doing ?
Yes ma'am. 16 of them. Clips made available from 5pm, the interviews on every regional news show from 18:30. Some of these have the potential to be really funny...
It's funny how many of the posters on here who screeched and wailed about the evils of Europe and desired Brexit above everything else, are now condemning the government that gave them exactly what you wanted.
Your desire for Brexit got us extremists into government. Each PM has been more 'extreme' than the last: but it did not matter, as long as you got Brexit.
Although I bet most of you are fairly well-off, and so won't suffer too much in the economic downturn *your* perverted dream has caused.
Not sure about the causality here. I think this particular fuck up is discrete.
At the base of it is a concern about productivity, and that has been a problem ever since the Great Recession, not Brexit.
Daily Mail online has homed in on the derivative mechanics behind DB pensions, multiple articles this morning. Narrow escape. This is the angle the govt should try and argue from if they want to live to fight another day.
Incidentally, the big bank mortgage lenders are still advertising 5 year fixes some 300bps below swap curves. The likes of Lloyds, Barclays, Natwest. One would hope all the drama has encouraged people nearing the ends of their term to arrange an early remortgage. Of course in the final 3 mths it’s a simple login>click box>done. Earlier than that it’s an early repayment charge, which in the final year will be worth it in just about every case.
Let us see where base rates really peak at. It feels to me rather like economic reality is catching up with the world economy and the rates cycle will peak and turn far sooner than the Fed and markets expect. We’re having the recession that was supposed to happen before covid came along. Which of course caused a massive technical recession but because of the unprecedented global bail out, we didn’t see the economic adjustment mechanisms clicking into place to reset things.
I agree with an earlier poster, in the UK context Starmer will be coming to power at just the right time.
The Daily Mail thought this budget/statement was great "proper Tory budget" and wanted more, more, more.
It is not exactly an impartial reporter, but keep reading what you want to believe...
Yep, for months they and the Daily Express have been egging on Truss to be a 'proper' tory and bring about tax cuts.
Now that the disaster of this stupidity is unfolding they've spent the week headlining with other stories.
You can be right-of-centre and still be analytical and truthful. The Daily Telegraph today is particularly good (check out Jeremy Warner's piece).
The Daily Mail bears part of the blame for this crisis. Liz Truss was too weak or too stupid to stand up to them. She, and they, fed the membership what they wanted to hear. Something which bore no relation to the current economic or fiscal situation. A truthful tory campaign agenda would have promised tax cuts as soon as we can afford them, which isn't now.
Good morning
The conservative party has sealed its fate and will be out of office for a long time
However, there are two issues here that need to be recognised
Starmer has endorsed the 19% tax rate and the abolition of the NI rise at a total cost of 20 billion, all borrowed money, and he has already allocated the other 2 billion of money raised from the reduction in the 45% rate again borrowed money which contradicts his demand to cancel the mini budget
Labour will be the next government but will be facing large tax rises and cuts in the public sector, but not just due to the idiotic behaviour of Kwarteng and Truss, but the worldwide rout in the bond markets causing financial mayhem across the globe
The fact is Russia invading Ukraine in an act of war which seems to have no end is going to make the west very much poorer and the strains will show for years, even decades
Starmer and labour will inherit a poisoned chalice and they will have extremely difficult decisions to make
The basic rate tax cut to 19% isn't really a tax cut because of the freezing of thresholds. If inflation is over 5%, the tax take actually increases in real terms. It would have been more tax raising without the cut, but is still a revenue raiser.
Certainly Labour will inherit a poor financial position and have difficult decisions to make, but the 19% rate is not a particularly big problem.
It is still part of the borrowed unfunded tax cuts and the narrative
I think we all need to recognise that the next labour government will be having to increase taxes and cut public spending in something that will be very difficult for them
All and sundry were calling for the energy cap for the last 6 weeks and that was ny far the biggest giveaway in the mini budget. If the Government had not done that the £ would have surged.
The other strange comments is that the Government are only interested in benefitting the rich. I don't think there has ever been a Government that has given more money away to those on a lower income than this one.(since Dec 2019). Furlough benefitted the lower income the most, UC is a pretty generous benefit and this year those on UC will get over £1000 for help with their energy bills, if you take into account the energy cap this will mean that their energy costs will be less than last year.
And everyone has forgotten the £150 rebate from Council Tax.
Perhaps someone can guide me to a Government who gave more money to those on lower incomes
It's funny how many of the posters on here who screeched and wailed about the evils of Europe and desired Brexit above everything else, are now condemning the government that gave them exactly what you wanted.
Your desire for Brexit got us extremists into government. Each PM has been more 'extreme' than the last: but it did not matter, as long as you got Brexit.
Although I bet most of you are fairly well-off, and so won't suffer too much in the economic downturn *your* perverted dream has caused.
Not sure about the causality here. I think this particular fuck up is discrete.
At the base of it is a concern about productivity, and that has been a problem ever since the Great Recession, not Brexit.
(I think Brexit was also a cock up, fyi)
Also, @JosiasJessop, I'm very keen that we form a Grand Alliance of Remainers and Brexiteers to ensure a Labour majority. Let's not divide down Brexit lines at this time of opportunity.
.@trussliz explaining why she had to take action, and that action has been replacing a winter of high energy bills with five years of unaffordable mortgages and home repossessions. Don’t have to worry about heating your house if you haven’t got one anymore. https://twitter.com/tompeck/status/1575381208447520771
If you think you're going to use lots of energy in October, relative to September, does it make sense to miss a meter reading now and apportion some of that energy use to September, thereby reducing your bill?
I assume that the energy companies will model this transition, and so then the question becomes whether you'd use more energy in October compared to September, relative to the average customer. Though I have done a very minor game of such transitions by taking a meter reading at the end of the last day of the month, and they've estimated me some use after that - presumably not making any judgement about what time of day I took the reading.
Excellent point about it being relative to rest of the population. Hmmmm.
If the Mail's reports of massive welfare cuts to pay for this madness this morning are to be be believed, I hope there will be massive demonstrations. I will also be joining them, for the first time in a very, very long time.
Daily Mail online has homed in on the derivative mechanics behind DB pensions, multiple articles this morning. Narrow escape. This is the angle the govt should try and argue from if they want to live to fight another day.
Incidentally, the big bank mortgage lenders are still advertising 5 year fixes some 300bps below swap curves. The likes of Lloyds, Barclays, Natwest. One would hope all the drama has encouraged people nearing the ends of their term to arrange an early remortgage. Of course in the final 3 mths it’s a simple login>click box>done. Earlier than that it’s an early repayment charge, which in the final year will be worth it in just about every case.
Let us see where base rates really peak at. It feels to me rather like economic reality is catching up with the world economy and the rates cycle will peak and turn far sooner than the Fed and markets expect. We’re having the recession that was supposed to happen before covid came along. Which of course caused a massive technical recession but because of the unprecedented global bail out, we didn’t see the economic adjustment mechanisms clicking into place to reset things.
I agree with an earlier poster, in the UK context Starmer will be coming to power at just the right time.
The Daily Mail thought this budget/statement was great "proper Tory budget" and wanted more, more, more.
It is not exactly an impartial reporter, but keep reading what you want to believe...
Yep, for months they and the Daily Express have been egging on Truss to be a 'proper' tory and bring about tax cuts.
Now that the disaster of this stupidity is unfolding they've spent the week headlining with other stories.
You can be right-of-centre and still be analytical and truthful. The Daily Telegraph today is particularly good (check out Jeremy Warner's piece).
The Daily Mail bears part of the blame for this crisis. Liz Truss was too weak or too stupid to stand up to them. She, and they, fed the membership what they wanted to hear. Something which bore no relation to the current economic or fiscal situation. A truthful tory campaign agenda would have promised tax cuts as soon as we can afford them, which isn't now.
Good morning
The conservative party has sealed its fate and will be out of office for a long time
However, there are two issues here that need to be recognised
Starmer has endorsed the 19% tax rate and the abolition of the NI rise at a total cost of 20 billion, all borrowed money, and he has already allocated the other 2 billion of money raised from the reduction in the 45% rate again borrowed money which contradicts his demand to cancel the mini budget
Labour will be the next government but will be facing large tax rises and cuts in the public sector, but not just due to the idiotic behaviour of Kwarteng and Truss, but the worldwide rout in the bond markets causing financial mayhem across the globe
The fact is Russia invading Ukraine in an act of war which seems to have no end is going to make the west very much poorer and the strains will show for years, even decades
Starmer and labour will inherit a poisoned chalice and they will have extremely difficult decisions to make
The basic rate tax cut to 19% isn't really a tax cut because of the freezing of thresholds. If inflation is over 5%, the tax take actually increases in real terms. It would have been more tax raising without the cut, but is still a revenue raiser.
Certainly Labour will inherit a poor financial position and have difficult decisions to make, but the 19% rate is not a particularly big problem.
It is still part of the borrowed unfunded tax cuts and the narrative
I think we all need to recognise that the next labour government will be having to increase taxes and cut public spending in something that will be very difficult for them
All and sundry were calling for the energy cap for the last 6 weeks and that was ny far the biggest giveaway in the mini budget. If the Government had not done that the £ would have surged.
The other strange comments is that the Government are only interested in benefitting the rich. I don't think there has ever been a Government that has given more money away to those on a lower income than this one.(since Dec 2019). Furlough benefitted the lower income the most, UC is a pretty generous benefit and this year those on UC will get over £1000 for help with their energy bills, if you take into account the energy cap this will mean that their energy costs will be less than last year.
And everyone has forgotten the £150 rebate from Council Tax.
Perhaps someone can guide me to a Government who gave more money to those on lower incomes
You are right. Voters are wrong. Voters who look at their own circumstances in fear. Wrong. Voters who consider this budget to be massively unfair. Wrong. Markets are wrong. Traders who consider what she has done to be mad. Wrong. The IMF. Wrong. Those senior decades-long global economist experts. All wrong.
Happily YOU are right. Thanks for blessing us with your truth.
Despite myself I am listening to Liz Truss on BBC Leeds, and it’s like listening to a government employee pressing coloured buttons, each one of which triggers a recording of Liz Truss saying a sentence. https://twitter.com/rhodri/status/1575381952596779010
You are right. Voters are wrong. Voters who look at their own circumstances in fear. Wrong. Voters who consider this budget to be massively unfair. Wrong. Markets are wrong. Traders who consider what she has done to be mad. Wrong. The IMF. Wrong. Those senior decades-long global economist experts. All wrong.
Happily YOU are right. Thanks for blessing us with your truth.
We have had enough of experts, still thriving in the wild today...
What we don’t need right now: members of the unelected global elite -Mark Carney, IMF etc -sticking their oar in. See also: EU vested interests in the UK remaining a big state, high tax, low growth economy. https://twitter.com/IsabelOakeshott/status/1575381126306201601
According to Nick Robinson the Soaraway Sun has a damning double page spread on page 4 and 5 of her and Kwasi's incompetence so the news might EVEN breach the walls of Hartlepool.
Daily Mail online has homed in on the derivative mechanics behind DB pensions, multiple articles this morning. Narrow escape. This is the angle the govt should try and argue from if they want to live to fight another day.
Incidentally, the big bank mortgage lenders are still advertising 5 year fixes some 300bps below swap curves. The likes of Lloyds, Barclays, Natwest. One would hope all the drama has encouraged people nearing the ends of their term to arrange an early remortgage. Of course in the final 3 mths it’s a simple login>click box>done. Earlier than that it’s an early repayment charge, which in the final year will be worth it in just about every case.
Let us see where base rates really peak at. It feels to me rather like economic reality is catching up with the world economy and the rates cycle will peak and turn far sooner than the Fed and markets expect. We’re having the recession that was supposed to happen before covid came along. Which of course caused a massive technical recession but because of the unprecedented global bail out, we didn’t see the economic adjustment mechanisms clicking into place to reset things.
I agree with an earlier poster, in the UK context Starmer will be coming to power at just the right time.
The Daily Mail thought this budget/statement was great "proper Tory budget" and wanted more, more, more.
It is not exactly an impartial reporter, but keep reading what you want to believe...
Yep, for months they and the Daily Express have been egging on Truss to be a 'proper' tory and bring about tax cuts.
Now that the disaster of this stupidity is unfolding they've spent the week headlining with other stories.
You can be right-of-centre and still be analytical and truthful. The Daily Telegraph today is particularly good (check out Jeremy Warner's piece).
The Daily Mail bears part of the blame for this crisis. Liz Truss was too weak or too stupid to stand up to them. She, and they, fed the membership what they wanted to hear. Something which bore no relation to the current economic or fiscal situation. A truthful tory campaign agenda would have promised tax cuts as soon as we can afford them, which isn't now.
Good morning
The conservative party has sealed its fate and will be out of office for a long time
However, there are two issues here that need to be recognised
Starmer has endorsed the 19% tax rate and the abolition of the NI rise at a total cost of 20 billion, all borrowed money, and he has already allocated the other 2 billion of money raised from the reduction in the 45% rate again borrowed money which contradicts his demand to cancel the mini budget
Labour will be the next government but will be facing large tax rises and cuts in the public sector, but not just due to the idiotic behaviour of Kwarteng and Truss, but the worldwide rout in the bond markets causing financial mayhem across the globe
The fact is Russia invading Ukraine in an act of war which seems to have no end is going to make the west very much poorer and the strains will show for years, even decades
Starmer and labour will inherit a poisoned chalice and they will have extremely difficult decisions to make
The basic rate tax cut to 19% isn't really a tax cut because of the freezing of thresholds. If inflation is over 5%, the tax take actually increases in real terms. It would have been more tax raising without the cut, but is still a revenue raiser.
Certainly Labour will inherit a poor financial position and have difficult decisions to make, but the 19% rate is not a particularly big problem.
It is still part of the borrowed unfunded tax cuts and the narrative
I think we all need to recognise that the next labour government will be having to increase taxes and cut public spending in something that will be very difficult for them
All and sundry were calling for the energy cap for the last 6 weeks and that was ny far the biggest giveaway in the mini budget. If the Government had not done that the £ would have surged.
The other strange comments is that the Government are only interested in benefitting the rich. I don't think there has ever been a Government that has given more money away to those on a lower income than this one.(since Dec 2019). Furlough benefitted the lower income the most, UC is a pretty generous benefit and this year those on UC will get over £1000 for help with their energy bills, if you take into account the energy cap this will mean that their energy costs will be less than last year.
And everyone has forgotten the £150 rebate from Council Tax.
Perhaps someone can guide me to a Government who gave more money to those on lower incomes
Not sure about "pretty generous" for UC.
If they don't uprate it by inflation (already delayed due to the mechanism they use) then it will be even worse.
You are right. This could indeed be an extinction level event for the Conservative Party. Bets now boldly struck on a Labour Majority now may be looking distinctly overcautious by next week.
I would watch what they are doing on planning reform, which is their big 'supply side' measure to 'calm the markets'. The truss / IEA wing of the conservative party have a similar 'habit of thought' (as brilliantly described by @edmundintokyo) that if you 'sweep away' the rules about developing land, then growth will happen in consequence. They believe this blindly, despite everyone in the industry, including the entire housebuilding industry, knowing that this is complete nonsense. Yet they are so blindly encapsulated by this pseudo religious belief that they never, ever, learn that it isn't true, and that no economy has ever prospered in this way.
They even embarked on an experiment in early 2019 when policy exchange wrote a paper calling for this type of deregulation. The now head of the housebuilders foundation said at the time that it was 'intellectually incoherant'. Cummings was charged with taking it on and Robert Jenrick was the lemming that followed his orders. It ended up getting gradually watered down until it emerged in a white paper (Planning for the Future) which provoked a mass rebellion of tory MP's bringing the white paper down and Jenrick and (arguably) Cummings with it. Because it turns out that, rather than being an obscure technical activity, planning is quite important and has major consequences for the type of places we live in.
Truss, Kwarteng etc are such believers that they will embark on the same process again, but harder and faster, more mad, with less research and evidence . And of course, it will just fail again.
Tory MPs quickly realise May was a bad choice. Bad person. Bad policies. They remove May. Tory MPs and then members select Boris.
Within a few years Tory MPs realise Boris was a bad choice. Bad person. Bad policies. They remove Boris.
Tory MPs choose Rishi but not decisively and members choose Truss. Within a few days of actual policies being enacted, Tory MPs realise Truss is a bad choice. Bad person. Bad policies.
There is a common thread. The problem isn't May. Or Johnson. Or Truss. The problem is the Conservative Party. It can no longer be trussted to chose leaders and thus Prime Ministers. Because time after time after time they select from their narrow pool and they chose mental.
If there was ever a red flag that a party needed time out of office to rethink who it is and what it is supposed to be doing, it is this now.
The problem with the Conservative Party is that it has been taken over by ideologues of both Libertarianism and Brexit, with no place for One Nation Conservatives.
Truss ain't done yet. The next step is her "supply side reforms" which consist of ripping up environmental, social and planning protections to allow her rapacious spiv friends to externalise all the costs and consequences of their greed onto other people, while trousered the profits. She sees this as the solution to the countries problem.
Shortly the Tories will be polling at Scottish levels in England too.
I'd like to be able to rebut this but I think that's essentially the plan.
She thinks her ideology is absolutely correct and it's just people in the past haven't has the bollocks to see it through.
Truss will be out if there's an election next year. Given we'll be in a recession and cutting budgets as her plan for growth appears to be achieving the opposite, she'd be mad to go for one.
Anyone else a little bit scared of what the effect of Truss interviews today might be? Seriously worried about the possibility that she might double down on comments about “not concerned with short term market movements, plan will be seen to be right in the long term etc etc”.
Surely that is exactly what she thinks. Reports late yesterday that they are not concerned inside No10 - this isn't a crisis, stop being wets etc
That’s my point. It is what she thinks, but the saying so publicly (and confirming what are still just rumours/hearsay/“suspicions”) will have an impact.
She has a crazy schedule. 8 radio interviews in an hour. Then 16 TV interviews. I assume that No10 think this is a whizzo plan to dodge round tough questions from the national media. I fear they are in error.
Local hacks can be very good and extremely direct. They have 5 minutes, they want to make a name for themselves. Whats more, the PM is appallingly brittle. She is about to get 24 different versions of the same question - why are you right and the world wrong? And she won't cope well. Expect her to be snappy and abrasive fairly quickly.
The chances of being asked one killer question is way higher in 24 local interviews than in 3 national interviews. Any idiot should be able to realise that.
Considering well over half of Tory MPs didn't want Truss isn't there at least a reasonable chance that a move to instate Rishi might be underway? Like him or not he's a very slick operator. What's more everything he predicted and LOUDLY has happened. He said her plans were 'cloud cuckoo land' and would be a disaster and so it's proved. Cummings who is nobody's fool also knew it 'She's as close to probper crackers as anyone I've met in Parliament'
In my opinion ruling out a Tory putsch is a mistake
Yes. She cannot be as impervious to moral persuasion as Johnson; nobody could.
And given the utterly gobsmacking things we already know about her private life it seems probable that the whips or rather former whips know even more hair raising stuff which might be enough to lever her out.
I missed those. Care to share?
Um, not sure how much I should. She likes to do without lubrication in contexts where it is usually used. Coping with squeaky bicycle wheels and so on.
It's funny how many of the posters on here who screeched and wailed about the evils of Europe and desired Brexit above everything else, are now condemning the government that gave them exactly what you wanted.
Your desire for Brexit got us extremists into government. Each PM has been more 'extreme' than the last: but it did not matter, as long as you got Brexit.
Although I bet most of you are fairly well-off, and so won't suffer too much in the economic downturn *your* perverted dream has caused.
Not sure about the causality here. I think this particular fuck up is discrete.
At the base of it is a concern about productivity, and that has been a problem ever since the Great Recession, not Brexit.
(I think Brexit was also a cock up, fyi)
Also, @JosiasJessop, I'm very keen that we form a Grand Alliance of Remainers and Brexiteers to ensure a Labour majority. Let's not divide down Brexit lines at this time of opportunity.
Brexit is not the issue here. That remains fixable. The issue are the *causes* of Brexit. The Minford smash everything pirate capitalists, the mouth-foamers on Tory benches obsessed with the EU being evil. The media moguls looking for favour with their people at the very very top.
And the voters of this country, sick of being ignored. Sick of being told they don't understand. Sick of being out of control of their own lives.
We can fix the first block. Cull the Tory MPs and expel the lunatics to fringe nowhere as Starmer has done with Momentum and the cultists. But the second block is harder. They voted to make things better, for most things either stayed the same or got worse, and now things will get an awful lot worse.
For all that they complained they were ignored as too stupid to understand, this is reality. Most of us don't understand, its just that many of us here are smart enough to recognise and accept that. The Blair anecdote of the angry man saying "you think you know more about Europe than I do" to which Blair responded "well I do don't I", having done x,y,z etc
There remains a risk that someone comes along to distil this anger and disconnection down into something worse than Brexit. As the fascists have just done in Italy.
Come on you PB Tories. Come on Casino, come on HYUFD, come on Nabavi - get rid of her.
She has only just been elected, she isn't going anytime soon. Though if the unstable markets continue she might have to change Chancellor and perhaps swap Kwasi Kwarteng with Simon Clarke
Margaret T was a lucky politician. Although an activist, the Falkands war gave her the opportunity to make the right call. BoJo wasn't an activist, merely a lazy opportunist, but Ukraine nearly saved him. However, power did corrupt. He thought he deserved his luck and forgot that rubbing people's faces in it by disobeying rules you make is never a good look.
Jesus Christ was an activist, one fated to fail, but the message came through.
Old Testament: "Good news on the commandments, lads, I've got him down to ten, but there's bad news too. Adultery is still among 'em."
New Testament. The woman caught in adultery ... "Let him without sin cast the first stone."
Putin, the global economy, the liberal metropolitan elite, City traders, hedgies, Remainers, the wrong type of Brexiteers, the IMF, the Bank of England, the left-leaning right wing media, the judges. That’s the great thing about politics: there’s always someone else to blame. https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1575383472805498880
Considering well over half of Tory MPs didn't want Truss isn't there at least a reasonable chance that a move to instate Rishi might be underway? Like him or not he's a very slick operator. What's more everything he predicted and LOUDLY has happened. He said her plans were 'cloud cuckoo land' and would be a disaster and so it's proved. Cummings who is nobody's fool also knew it 'She's as close to probper crackers as anyone I've met in Parliament'
In my opinion ruling out a Tory putsch is a mistake
Cummings most definitely is a fool. He's a liar, a forger, a failure, a fantasist and a bully who has failed spectacularly at everything he's ever done because he has shocking judgment and a lazy intellect coupled, rather unfortunately, to a highly over-active imagination and a raging egomania.
That doesn't mean he's wrong about Truss, of course. In fact, if even somebody as bonkers as him thought she was a bit weird, that was probably a warning sign.
"who has failed spectacularly at everything he's ever done"
Exhibit 1: Brexit
You may hate Brexit, but delivering it was an historically spectacular achievement - the like of which few ever get to achieve.
The Channel 4 poll is quite significant. It replicates the 17% lead in the YouGov poll with the exact same Lab and Con vote shares. But it also does so based on a sample of 10,000. Together that shuts the door on any notion that the 17% Lab lead might have been down to an unusual sample. Furthermore, the fieldwork window dates from last Friday to Tuesday, so a lot of those sampled will have responded before the full scale of the market reaction and threat to mortgages and even pensions became apparent. It's not unreasonable to believe that voting intention might have shifted even further since Friday.
Nonetheless, those "Conservatives to have a polling lead by the end of September" bets are still, technically, live.
Hearing Liz Truss speaking on local radio saying the mini budget is going according to plan in the face of terrifying evidence is unsustainable. Blind to reality, which was the problem in the first place https://twitter.com/tobyhelm/status/1575384205747490817
It's funny how many of the posters on here who screeched and wailed about the evils of Europe and desired Brexit above everything else, are now condemning the government that gave them exactly what you wanted.
Your desire for Brexit got us extremists into government. Each PM has been more 'extreme' than the last: but it did not matter, as long as you got Brexit.
Although I bet most of you are fairly well-off, and so won't suffer too much in the economic downturn *your* perverted dream has caused.
Not sure about the causality here. I think this particular fuck up is discrete.
At the base of it is a concern about productivity, and that has been a problem ever since the Great Recession, not Brexit.
(I think Brexit was also a cock up, fyi)
Also, @JosiasJessop, I'm very keen that we form a Grand Alliance of Remainers and Brexiteers to ensure a Labour majority. Let's not divide down Brexit lines at this time of opportunity.
Brexit is not the issue here. That remains fixable. The issue are the *causes* of Brexit.
I'm fairly sure it was caused by people like you voting for it.
"This is scaremongering, this is project fear" No Liz, this is your reality.
The thing about scaremongering is sometimes people should be scared.
Indeed, Truss argues the same thing saying things are so bad we should be scared and accept her adolescent fantasy politics as the answer, and ignore the very clear and direct negative consequences that have arisen.
Margaret T was a lucky politician. Although an activist, the Falkands war gave her the opportunity to make the right call. BoJo wasn't an activist, merely a lazy opportunist, but Ukraine nearly saved him. However, power did corrupt. He thought he deserved his luck and forgot that rubbing people's faces in it by disobeying rules you make is never a good look.
Jesus Christ was an activist, one fated to fail, but the message came through.
Old Testament: "Good news on the commandments, lads, I've got him down to ten, but there's bad news too. Adultery is still among 'em."
New Testament. The woman caught in adultery ... "Let him without sin cast the first stone."
On the pipeline sabotage, Russia seems to be the obvious suspect.
- It pushes the price of natural gas higher without affecting current Russian exports as the pipelines weren't being used, which means more income for Russia, and more pain for Europe.
- It puts more pressure on Europeans worried about energy for the winter.
- It potentially puts western countries/companies in a difficult position if anyone wants to actually repair it ever - assuming that repairs would require some sanction-busting.
- Potentially acts as a warning/trial run for attacking other pipelines/critical infrastructure in Europe. They might even have some investigators conclude it was the Norwegians blowing up a Russian pipeline, so they have an excuse to blow up a Norwegian one in retaliation if they are really determined to escalate things.
- Maybe even gets Gazprom off the hook for failing to fulfil its contracts.
- It's exactly the kind of move Putin would make.
I don't buy the argument that Russia wouldn't do it because it gives up the "leverage" Nordstream gives them. What leverage? They've already turned the gas off. It didn't work. This is actually a kind of logical next step if you're Putin.
The alternatives: - It was the US "because it will bring Germany closer to the US" (as someone posted here) seems really far-fetched. Blowing up gas pipelines in Europe is generally really unlikely to bring Germany closer to the US, and sets a terrible precedent. - It was the US to help LNG exports. More logical, but also seems a bit implausible. Especially when the administration is surely most concerned with doing well in the midterms. Other LNG exporters - eg Qatar - even less likely, not sure they would be able to even if crazy enough to think it's a good idea. - Ukraine to make it less likely for the rest of Europe to agree some kind of compromise with Russia? Maybe has some logic (though could have the opposite effect - Europeans thinking shit we'd better end this war before all the pipelines get blown up), but could Ukraine do it? And if found out, a sure way to start losing friends.
Considering well over half of Tory MPs didn't want Truss isn't there at least a reasonable chance that a move to instate Rishi might be underway? Like him or not he's a very slick operator. What's more everything he predicted and LOUDLY has happened. He said her plans were 'cloud cuckoo land' and would be a disaster and so it's proved. Cummings who is nobody's fool also knew it 'She's as close to probper crackers as anyone I've met in Parliament'
In my opinion ruling out a Tory putsch is a mistake
Cummings most definitely is a fool. He's a liar, a forger, a failure, a fantasist and a bully who has failed spectacularly at everything he's ever done because he has shocking judgment and a lazy intellect coupled, rather unfortunately, to a highly over-active imagination and a raging egomania.
That doesn't mean he's wrong about Truss, of course. In fact, if even somebody as bonkers as him thought she was a bit weird, that was probably a warning sign.
"who has failed spectacularly at everything he's ever done"
Exhibit 1: Brexit
You may hate Brexit, but delivering it was an historically spectacular achievement - the like of which few ever get to achieve.
And he (a) was far less important in it than he likes to pretend and (b) it hasn't delivered what he said it would. Which makes it a failure.
Even if I concede your point - which as you can see, I don't - name me one other achievement. Any other. In his whole life.
The Channel 4 poll is quite significant. It replicates the 17% lead in the YouGov poll with the exact same Lab and Con vote shares. But it also does so based on a sample of 10,000. Together that shuts the door on any notion that the 17% Lab lead might have been down to an unusual sample. Furthermore, the fieldwork window dates from last Friday to Tuesday, so a lot of those sampled will have responded before the full scale of the market reaction and threat to mortgages and even pensions became apparent. It's not unreasonable to believe that voting intention might have shifted even further since Friday.
Nonetheless, those "Conservatives to have a polling lead by the end of September" bets are still, technically, live.
Thank you for giving me that straw. What’s left of the equity in my house is on that tip.*
Come on you PB Tories. Come on Casino, come on HYUFD, come on Nabavi - get rid of her.
She has only just been elected, she isn't going anytime soon. Though if the unstable markets continue she might have to change Chancellor and perhaps swap Kwasi Kwarteng with Simon Clarke
Thanks Hyufd. You are a better spokesman that the tosser on Radio 4 at the moment.
One good thing about this dire situation however is that we will never again have to suffer scare stories about dangerous Lefties like Corbyn threatening the economy and all our livelihoods.
You are right. Voters are wrong. Voters who look at their own circumstances in fear. Wrong. Voters who consider this budget to be massively unfair. Wrong. Markets are wrong. Traders who consider what she has done to be mad. Wrong. The IMF. Wrong. Those senior decades-long global economist experts. All wrong.
Happily YOU are right. Thanks for blessing us with your truth.
We have had enough of experts, still thriving in the wild today...
What we don’t need right now: members of the unelected global elite -Mark Carney, IMF etc -sticking their oar in. See also: EU vested interests in the UK remaining a big state, high tax, low growth economy. https://twitter.com/IsabelOakeshott/status/1575381126306201601
The big state part is curious, since I dont recall Truss promising to shrink the state. She wants it do more, I thought, she just claims to believe she can bring in the dosh to do so with lower taxes.
I don't buy the argument that Russia wouldn't do it because it gives up the "leverage" Nordstream gives them. What leverage? They've already turned the gas off. It didn't work. This is actually a kind of logical next step if you're Putin.
An additional point is that it weakens the anti-war party in Russia by taking away the option of trying to go back to some version of business as usual.
Come on you PB Tories. Come on Casino, come on HYUFD, come on Nabavi - get rid of her.
She has only just been elected, she isn't going anytime soon. Though if the unstable markets continue she might have to change Chancellor and perhaps swap Kwasi Kwarteng with Simon Clarke
It's obvious from his recent appearances that he's a complete idiot. So I guess that makes sense.
Considering well over half of Tory MPs didn't want Truss isn't there at least a reasonable chance that a move to instate Rishi might be underway? Like him or not he's a very slick operator. What's more everything he predicted and LOUDLY has happened. He said her plans were 'cloud cuckoo land' and would be a disaster and so it's proved. Cummings who is nobody's fool also knew it 'She's as close to probper crackers as anyone I've met in Parliament'
In my opinion ruling out a Tory putsch is a mistake
Cummings most definitely is a fool. He's a liar, a forger, a failure, a fantasist and a bully who has failed spectacularly at everything he's ever done because he has shocking judgment and a lazy intellect coupled, rather unfortunately, to a highly over-active imagination and a raging egomania.
That doesn't mean he's wrong about Truss, of course. In fact, if even somebody as bonkers as him thought she was a bit weird, that was probably a warning sign.
"who has failed spectacularly at everything he's ever done"
Exhibit 1: Brexit
You may hate Brexit, but delivering it was an historically spectacular achievement - the like of which few ever get to achieve.
Er, Mr C delivered the vote, not the exit itself. Not the same thing at all.
Anyone else a little bit scared of what the effect of Truss interviews today might be? Seriously worried about the possibility that she might double down on comments about “not concerned with short term market movements, plan will be seen to be right in the long term etc etc”.
Surely that is exactly what she thinks. Reports late yesterday that they are not concerned inside No10 - this isn't a crisis, stop being wets etc
That’s my point. It is what she thinks, but the saying so publicly (and confirming what are still just rumours/hearsay/“suspicions”) will have an impact.
She has a crazy schedule. 8 radio interviews in an hour. Then 16 TV interviews. I assume that No10 think this is a whizzo plan to dodge round tough questions from the national media. I fear they are in error.
Local hacks can be very good and extremely direct. They have 5 minutes, they want to make a name for themselves. Whats more, the PM is appallingly brittle. She is about to get 24 different versions of the same question - why are you right and the world wrong? And she won't cope well. Expect her to be snappy and abrasive fairly quickly.
The chances of being asked one killer question is way higher in 24 local interviews than in 3 national interviews. Any idiot should be able to realise that.
Also, doing a whistlestop tour of many interviews increases dramatically the possibility of a microphone left on by moistake comment a-la Bigotgate.
Well, yes, they have definitely taken action. The wrong action, sure, but it was definitely taken.
She's making it all worse. As we knew she would the minute they allowed her out to speak. Doesn't matter whether it is BBC Rutland or Today - it will be amplified across social media in minutes.
On the pipeline sabotage, Russia seems to be the obvious suspect.
- It pushes the price of natural gas higher without affecting current Russian exports as the pipelines weren't being used, which means more income for Russia, and more pain for Europe.
- It puts more pressure on Europeans worried about energy for the winter.
- It potentially puts western countries/companies in a difficult position if anyone wants to actually repair it ever - assuming that repairs would require some sanction-busting.
- Potentially acts as a warning/trial run for attacking other pipelines/critical infrastructure in Europe. They might even have some investigators conclude it was the Norwegians blowing up a Russian pipeline, so they have an excuse to blow up a Norwegian one in retaliation if they are really determined to escalate things.
- Maybe even gets Gazprom off the hook for failing to fulfil its contracts.
- It's exactly the kind of move Putin would make.
I don't buy the argument that Russia wouldn't do it because it gives up the "leverage" Nordstream gives them. What leverage? They've already turned the gas off. It didn't work. This is actually a kind of logical next step if you're Putin.
The alternatives: - It was the US "because it will bring Germany closer to the US" (as someone posted here) seems really far-fetched. Blowing up gas pipelines in Europe is generally really unlikely to bring Germany closer to the US, and sets a terrible precedent. - It was the US to help LNG exports. More logical, but also seems a bit implausible. Especially when the administration is surely most concerned with doing well in the midterms. Other LNG exporters - eg Qatar - even less likely, not sure they would be able to even if crazy enough to think it's a good idea. - Ukraine to make it less likely for the rest of Europe to agree some kind of compromise with Russia? Maybe has some logic (though could have the opposite effect - Europeans thinking shit we'd better end this war before all the pipelines get blown up), but could Ukraine do it? And if found out, a sure way to start losing friends.
I think Russia is definitely the number 1 suspect for the reasons you've given. But what about one of the Baltic states? They opposed the pipeline precisely because they said it would give Russia leverage. Germany selling out Ukraine (and subsequently themselves) is an existential threat for them, and they have a proper passionate hatred of Russia in a way that America doesn't.
I've been trying to get my head around the issue facing Pension Funds that required the BoE intervention yesterday. Is this kind of correct?
Pension funds buy bonds or lend the government money. But they worry that the value of the bonds could fall as a result of market volatility, resulting itself from eg anticipated need for or actual interest rate rises. So they buy insurance against rising interest rates, or hedge, to protect against the value of their investment/bond/gilt falling.
This insurance or hedge involves them buying something called gilt derivatives from Liability Driven Investment Funds. But the hedge/insurance costs money and the Pension Funds need to hold enough collateral/cash to pay for the insurance. If the value of the bond/gilt/investment moves rapidly down then the costs of the protection become eye watering and this could wipe out the collateral held and force the pension funds to sell all their bonds/investments at once at whatever price they can get in a fire sale. The bonds then fall even further in value etc.
So the hedge has backfired. It works if the value of the bond falls gradually but not if it falls rapidly. This sounds like a rubbish insurance policy to me. It’s like insuring your house where the policy covers you against a small burglary but not against the house burning down.
The Channel 4 poll is quite significant. It replicates the 17% lead in the YouGov poll with the exact same Lab and Con vote shares. But it also does so based on a sample of 10,000. Together that shuts the door on any notion that the 17% Lab lead might have been down to an unusual sample. Furthermore, the fieldwork window dates from last Friday to Tuesday, so a lot of those sampled will have responded before the full scale of the market reaction and threat to mortgages and even pensions became apparent. It's not unreasonable to believe that voting intention might have shifted even further since Friday.
Nonetheless, those "Conservatives to have a polling lead by the end of September" bets are still, technically, live.
Its probably a correct reflection of where the polls are, BUT, this is still conference season. Next week is the Troy conference. It could go either way. It could make things worse, but it might make it a bit better. Always beware polling during conferences.
Daily Mail online has homed in on the derivative mechanics behind DB pensions, multiple articles this morning. Narrow escape. This is the angle the govt should try and argue from if they want to live to fight another day.
Incidentally, the big bank mortgage lenders are still advertising 5 year fixes some 300bps below swap curves. The likes of Lloyds, Barclays, Natwest. One would hope all the drama has encouraged people nearing the ends of their term to arrange an early remortgage. Of course in the final 3 mths it’s a simple login>click box>done. Earlier than that it’s an early repayment charge, which in the final year will be worth it in just about every case.
Let us see where base rates really peak at. It feels to me rather like economic reality is catching up with the world economy and the rates cycle will peak and turn far sooner than the Fed and markets expect. We’re having the recession that was supposed to happen before covid came along. Which of course caused a massive technical recession but because of the unprecedented global bail out, we didn’t see the economic adjustment mechanisms clicking into place to reset things.
I agree with an earlier poster, in the UK context Starmer will be coming to power at just the right time.
The Daily Mail thought this budget/statement was great "proper Tory budget" and wanted more, more, more.
It is not exactly an impartial reporter, but keep reading what you want to believe...
Yep, for months they and the Daily Express have been egging on Truss to be a 'proper' tory and bring about tax cuts.
Now that the disaster of this stupidity is unfolding they've spent the week headlining with other stories.
You can be right-of-centre and still be analytical and truthful. The Daily Telegraph today is particularly good (check out Jeremy Warner's piece).
The Daily Mail bears part of the blame for this crisis. Liz Truss was too weak or too stupid to stand up to them. She, and they, fed the membership what they wanted to hear. Something which bore no relation to the current economic or fiscal situation. A truthful tory campaign agenda would have promised tax cuts as soon as we can afford them, which isn't now.
Good morning
The conservative party has sealed its fate and will be out of office for a long time
However, there are two issues here that need to be recognised
Starmer has endorsed the 19% tax rate and the abolition of the NI rise at a total cost of 20 billion, all borrowed money, and he has already allocated the other 2 billion of money raised from the reduction in the 45% rate again borrowed money which contradicts his demand to cancel the mini budget
Labour will be the next government but will be facing large tax rises and cuts in the public sector, but not just due to the idiotic behaviour of Kwarteng and Truss, but the worldwide rout in the bond markets causing financial mayhem across the globe
The fact is Russia invading Ukraine in an act of war which seems to have no end is going to make the west very much poorer and the strains will show for years, even decades
Starmer and labour will inherit a poisoned chalice and they will have extremely difficult decisions to make
The basic rate tax cut to 19% isn't really a tax cut because of the freezing of thresholds. If inflation is over 5%, the tax take actually increases in real terms. It would have been more tax raising without the cut, but is still a revenue raiser.
Certainly Labour will inherit a poor financial position and have difficult decisions to make, but the 19% rate is not a particularly big problem.
It is still part of the borrowed unfunded tax cuts and the narrative
I think we all need to recognise that the next labour government will be having to increase taxes and cut public spending in something that will be very difficult for them
All and sundry were calling for the energy cap for the last 6 weeks and that was ny far the biggest giveaway in the mini budget. If the Government had not done that the £ would have surged.
The other strange comments is that the Government are only interested in benefitting the rich. I don't think there has ever been a Government that has given more money away to those on a lower income than this one.(since Dec 2019). Furlough benefitted the lower income the most, UC is a pretty generous benefit and this year those on UC will get over £1000 for help with their energy bills, if you take into account the energy cap this will mean that their energy costs will be less than last year.
And everyone has forgotten the £150 rebate from Council Tax.
Perhaps someone can guide me to a Government who gave more money to those on lower incomes
Not sure about "pretty generous" for UC.
If they don't uprate it by inflation (already delayed due to the mechanism they use) then it will be even worse.
I have lots of friends on UC.
An example
Part time nurse with one child taking home £1300 Child maintenance £345 Child Benefit £90 ish UC £868.23
Total take home income per month £2603.23
Rent £750 Coucnil Tax £110.00
So after her rent and council tax she has £1,743.23 for her and her son
She has also has had the £600+ cost of living allowance from UC and will get the £400 off her energy bills.
I doubt there are many countries in the world that have such a generous benefit system.
Come on you PB Tories. Come on Casino, come on HYUFD, come on Nabavi - get rid of her.
She has only just been elected, she isn't going anytime soon. Though if the unstable markets continue she might have to change Chancellor and perhaps swap Kwasi Kwarteng with Simon Clarke
Thanks Hyufd. You are a better spokesman that the tosser on Radio 4 at the moment.
One good thing about this dire situation however is that we will never again have to suffer scare stories about dangerous Lefties like Corbyn threatening the economy and all our livelihoods.
Corbyn is looking like a moderate at the moment!
Corbyn is an ideological socialist, Truss an ideological libertarian. In economic terms they are on opposite ends of the spectrum yes
Hearing Liz Truss speaking on local radio saying the mini budget is going according to plan in the face of terrifying evidence is unsustainable. Blind to reality, which was the problem in the first place https://twitter.com/tobyhelm/status/1575384205747490817
I'm still very unclear on when we can expect the growth she is seeking to create (even if it had been working itd be awhile presumably), how much of it was needed to make her plans work, and how much more of it is needed to reverse the damage currently occurring? Since she seems to have had no inkling and thus no plan for the market reaction.
Considering well over half of Tory MPs didn't want Truss isn't there at least a reasonable chance that a move to instate Rishi might be underway? Like him or not he's a very slick operator. What's more everything he predicted and LOUDLY has happened. He said her plans were 'cloud cuckoo land' and would be a disaster and so it's proved. Cummings who is nobody's fool also knew it 'She's as close to probper crackers as anyone I've met in Parliament'
In my opinion ruling out a Tory putsch is a mistake
Cummings most definitely is a fool. He's a liar, a forger, a failure, a fantasist and a bully who has failed spectacularly at everything he's ever done because he has shocking judgment and a lazy intellect coupled, rather unfortunately, to a highly over-active imagination and a raging egomania.
That doesn't mean he's wrong about Truss, of course. In fact, if even somebody as bonkers as him thought she was a bit weird, that was probably a warning sign.
"who has failed spectacularly at everything he's ever done"
Exhibit 1: Brexit
You may hate Brexit, but delivering it was an historically spectacular achievement - the like of which few ever get to achieve.
Er, Mr C delivered the vote, not the exit itself. Not the same thing at all.
He helped deliver the vote.
And he has claimed responsibility for the shambolic exit which was much more on the EU's terms than May's deal while pretending to be a win for Britain.
Pretty tone deaf outing from Liz Truss so far this morning. Doubling down on the mini-budget that's crashed the pound and nearly brought down the pensions industry, while not addressing the huge unfunded tax cuts which have destroyed markey confidence in the UK. https://twitter.com/KevinASchofield/status/1575387147552669696
Comments
https://twitter.com/nadinebh_/status/1574891426860736514
Local hacks can be very good and extremely direct. They have 5 minutes, they want to make a name for themselves. Whats more, the PM is appallingly brittle. She is about to get 24 different versions of the same question - why are you right and the world wrong? And she won't cope well. Expect her to be snappy and abrasive fairly quickly.
And given the utterly gobsmacking things we already know about her private life it seems probable that the whips or rather former whips know even more hair raising stuff which might be enough to lever her out.
Your desire for Brexit got us extremists into government. Each PM has been more 'extreme' than the last: but it did not matter, as long as you got Brexit.
Although I bet most of you are fairly well-off, and so won't suffer too much in the economic downturn *your* perverted dream has caused.
Treasury minister Chris Philp says “I don’t accept the word crisis at all”
#LBC
https://twitter.com/kateferguson4/status/1575379258784063488
https://twitter.com/MattChorley/status/1575368832008454146
The Govt is preparing the way to linking the state pension to prices but working age benefits to earnings (a significantly smaller increase). Note that in April this year benefits went up 3.1% when inflation was around 9%, so people on benefits have already had a big squeeze.
https://twitter.com/stevewebb1/status/1575376653177561089
At the base of it is a concern about productivity, and that has been a problem ever since the Great Recession, not Brexit.
(I think Brexit was also a cock up, fyi)
The other strange comments is that the Government are only interested in benefitting the rich. I don't think there has ever been a Government that has given more money away to those on a lower income than this one.(since Dec 2019). Furlough benefitted the lower income the most, UC is a pretty generous benefit and this year those on UC will get over £1000 for help with their energy bills, if you take into account the energy cap this will mean that their energy costs will be less than last year.
And everyone has forgotten the £150 rebate from Council Tax.
Perhaps someone can guide me to a Government who gave more money to those on lower incomes
"This is scaremongering, this is project fear"
No Liz, this is your reality.
https://twitter.com/tompeck/status/1575381208447520771
‘We are getting the economy going. We are putting this country on a better trajectory for the longer term’
https://twitter.com/paul__johnson/status/1575381808278929408
I will also be joining them, for the first time in a very, very long time.
Voters are wrong. Voters who look at their own circumstances in fear. Wrong. Voters who consider this budget to be massively unfair. Wrong. Markets are wrong. Traders who consider what she has done to be mad. Wrong. The IMF. Wrong. Those senior decades-long global economist experts. All wrong.
Happily YOU are right. Thanks for blessing us with your truth.
https://twitter.com/rhodri/status/1575381952596779010
What we don’t need right now: members of the unelected global elite -Mark Carney, IMF etc -sticking their oar in. See also: EU vested interests in the UK remaining a big state, high tax, low growth economy.
https://twitter.com/IsabelOakeshott/status/1575381126306201601
If they don't uprate it by inflation (already delayed due to the mechanism they use) then it will be even worse.
Markets revolted against Liz Truss's fiscal policies, but the UK's self-inflicted financial crisis was years in the making ⬇️
https://trib.al/gsNUgxw https://twitter.com/BloombergUK/status/1575382747257995264/photo/1
They even embarked on an experiment in early 2019 when policy exchange wrote a paper calling for this type of deregulation. The now head of the housebuilders foundation said at the time that it was 'intellectually incoherant'. Cummings was charged with taking it on and Robert Jenrick was the lemming that followed his orders. It ended up getting gradually watered down until it emerged in a white paper (Planning for the Future) which provoked a mass rebellion of tory MP's bringing the white paper down and Jenrick and (arguably) Cummings with it. Because it turns out that, rather than being an obscure technical activity, planning is quite important and has major consequences for the type of places we live in.
Truss, Kwarteng etc are such believers that they will embark on the same process again, but harder and faster, more mad, with less research and evidence . And of course, it will just fail again.
She thinks her ideology is absolutely correct and it's just people in the past haven't has the bollocks to see it through.
Very Truss.
Come on you PB Tories. Come on Casino, come on HYUFD, come on Nabavi - get rid of her.
https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1575383415192444929
And the voters of this country, sick of being ignored. Sick of being told they don't understand. Sick of being out of control of their own lives.
We can fix the first block. Cull the Tory MPs and expel the lunatics to fringe nowhere as Starmer has done with Momentum and the cultists. But the second block is harder. They voted to make things better, for most things either stayed the same or got worse, and now things will get an awful lot worse.
For all that they complained they were ignored as too stupid to understand, this is reality. Most of us don't understand, its just that many of us here are smart enough to recognise and accept that. The Blair anecdote of the angry man saying "you think you know more about Europe than I do" to which Blair responded "well I do don't I", having done x,y,z etc
There remains a risk that someone comes along to distil this anger and disconnection down into something worse than Brexit. As the fascists have just done in Italy.
Why higher interest rates spell and special kind of trouble for the government, by @NewsAnnabelle and me
https://www.politico.eu/article/housing-crash-scares-crisis-hit-britain-truss-kwarteng-uk-economy/
This is down to the current government.
Margaret T was a lucky politician. Although an activist, the Falkands war gave her the opportunity to make the right call. BoJo wasn't an activist, merely a lazy opportunist, but Ukraine nearly saved him. However, power did corrupt. He thought he deserved his luck and forgot that rubbing people's faces in it by disobeying rules you make is never a good look.
Jesus Christ was an activist, one fated to fail, but the message came through.
Old Testament: "Good news on the commandments, lads, I've got him down to ten, but there's bad news too. Adultery is still among 'em."
New Testament. The woman caught in adultery ... "Let him without sin cast the first stone."
https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1575383472805498880
Exhibit 1: Brexit
You may hate Brexit, but delivering it was an historically spectacular achievement - the like of which few ever get to achieve.
Nonetheless, those "Conservatives to have a polling lead by the end of September" bets are still, technically, live.
https://twitter.com/tobyhelm/status/1575384205747490817
Indeed, Truss argues the same thing saying things are so bad we should be scared and accept her adolescent fantasy politics as the answer, and ignore the very clear and direct negative consequences that have arisen.
BBC Kent not pissing about this morning
https://twitter.com/MattChorley/status/1575384769793253377
- It pushes the price of natural gas higher without affecting current Russian exports as the pipelines weren't being used, which means more income for Russia, and more pain for Europe.
- It puts more pressure on Europeans worried about energy for the winter.
- It potentially puts western countries/companies in a difficult position if anyone wants to actually repair it ever - assuming that repairs would require some sanction-busting.
- Potentially acts as a warning/trial run for attacking other pipelines/critical infrastructure in Europe. They might even have some investigators conclude it was the Norwegians blowing up a Russian pipeline, so they have an excuse to blow up a Norwegian one in retaliation if they are really determined to escalate things.
- Maybe even gets Gazprom off the hook for failing to fulfil its contracts.
- It's exactly the kind of move Putin would make.
I don't buy the argument that Russia wouldn't do it because it gives up the "leverage" Nordstream gives them. What leverage? They've already turned the gas off. It didn't work. This is actually a kind of logical next step if you're Putin.
The alternatives:
- It was the US "because it will bring Germany closer to the US" (as someone posted here) seems really far-fetched. Blowing up gas pipelines in Europe is generally really unlikely to bring Germany closer to the US, and sets a terrible precedent.
- It was the US to help LNG exports. More logical, but also seems a bit implausible. Especially when the administration is surely most concerned with doing well in the midterms. Other LNG exporters - eg Qatar - even less likely, not sure they would be able to even if crazy enough to think it's a good idea.
- Ukraine to make it less likely for the rest of Europe to agree some kind of compromise with Russia? Maybe has some logic (though could have the opposite effect - Europeans thinking shit we'd better end this war before all the pipelines get blown up), but could Ukraine do it? And if found out, a sure way to start losing friends.
Even if I concede your point - which as you can see, I don't - name me one other achievement. Any other. In his whole life.
“Are you ashamed of what you’ve done?”
“I think we have to remember the situation this country was facing…”
“And you’ve made it worse!”
“What we’ve done is we’ve taken action…”
https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1575384967399587841
https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1575385181262909442
https://twitter.com/pkelso/status/1575385069815996417
***Buffs nails***
But if she doesn't, I'm imagining the new electoral habit of holding a leaders' QT special in Yorkshire could prove rather... feisty.
*£10
https://twitter.com/catherine_mayer/status/1575385596175990786
One good thing about this dire situation however is that we will never again have to suffer scare stories about dangerous Lefties like Corbyn threatening the economy and all our livelihoods.
Corbyn is looking like a moderate at the moment!
“I don’t accept the premise of the question.”
But recognises we face difficult economic times and “right we took action”.
@BBCRadioKent
https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1575385845057683457
So I guess that makes sense.
“Haven’t you been reading the news?”
“This is a crisis.”
One in the eye for anyone who thought local radio would be a walk in the park
https://twitter.com/MattChorley/status/1575385789382492161
"TBF I think Jesus had more than luck on his side."
So do I, But I was trying to look at it dispassionately.
Pension funds buy bonds or lend the government money. But they worry that the value of the bonds could fall as a result of market volatility, resulting itself from eg anticipated need for or actual interest rate rises. So they buy insurance against rising interest rates, or hedge, to protect against the value of their investment/bond/gilt falling.
This insurance or hedge involves them buying something called gilt derivatives from Liability Driven Investment Funds. But the hedge/insurance costs money and the Pension Funds need to hold enough collateral/cash to pay for the insurance. If the value of the bond/gilt/investment moves rapidly down then the costs of the protection become eye watering and this could wipe out the collateral held and force the pension funds to sell all their bonds/investments at once at whatever price they can get in a fire sale. The bonds then fall even further in value etc.
So the hedge has backfired. It works if the value of the bond falls gradually but not if it falls rapidly. This sounds like a rubbish insurance policy to me. It’s like insuring your house where the policy covers you against a small burglary but not against the house burning down.
The Russian scuba divers were just tourists visiting the word famous pipeline.
@DPJHodges
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Anna Cookson on BBC Radio Kent. I suspect we'll be hearing a lot more for her.
https://twitter.com/tobyhelm/status/1575386431048105986
An example
Part time nurse with one child taking home £1300
Child maintenance £345
Child Benefit £90 ish
UC £868.23
Total take home income per month £2603.23
Rent £750
Coucnil Tax £110.00
So after her rent and council tax she has £1,743.23 for her and her son
She has also has had the £600+ cost of living allowance from UC and will get the £400 off her energy bills.
I doubt there are many countries in the world that have such a generous benefit system.
Local radio timetable. Very easy to stalk her, search BBC radio Nottingham to catch her in 2 minutes
Reverse the whole thing, not just the top rate of income tax.
And he has claimed responsibility for the shambolic exit which was much more on the EU's terms than May's deal while pretending to be a win for Britain.
https://twitter.com/KevinASchofield/status/1575387147552669696
https://twitter.com/kitty_donaldson/status/1575387121766043650
https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1575387044595081218