Options
Rishi back as betting favourite for next PM – politicalbetting.com

Rishi Sunak, who was the long-term betting favourite for the Tory leadership last time but got beaten by Liz Truss, is now back in the favourites slot following the current turmoil in the Tory Party.
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Chris Bryant
@RhonddaBryant
·
55m
There isn’t a unity candidate for Tory leader. It’s not a united party. It can’t govern.
I have more chance of being PM than Captain Mordaunt, RNR and I'd be fucking terrible at it.
Act now and end this pair's tenure
Exhibit A - Liz Truss.
https://twitter.com/danbloom1/status/1580690575543500802
Going back to the last contest and choosing the two MPs backed other than Truss is very flawed. To start with they only have those positions if another contest run today has the same runners and riders. What if Wallace entered this time, would they end up with those numbers?
It also misses the point they started as hot favourites and under whelmed in the contest. In the first phase Mourdant didn’t shine as a communicator for the main reason she didn’t have a vision to communicate, she was an empty vessel. In the second phase Rishi made it easier for Truss by also not communicating very well, but also being all over the place on policy. If you remember he kept re launching his policy positions to look more like trusts to try and catch up.
A Penny Rish dream ticket is an utter fallacy not grounded in realpolitik.
https://twitter.com/benatipsos/status/1580847258110930945
The argument against members picking the leader is they fucked up.
The point of the leadership campaign is that the candidates can be vetted, tested, challenged.
The campaign revealed that Truss would be a fucking disaster. The members had a duty to reject her.
They did not.
Wallace doesn't want to run, I suspect, because it isn't a job he wants. Or probably, would be good at. Who would really want the current poison chalice?
They need someone who was defeated more heavily, preferably someone who was too much of a hopeless case to even run.
"It would mean she is politically finished as a project. What would be the point of a Truss government if it isn’t doing radical economic reform?”
Latest @FinancialTimes analysis https://www.ft.com/content/062bb647-14fa-4e8d-bb2f-397edada5dc2
Or disenfranchise the members entirely, but then why bother with membership at all, I guess?
The ONLY viable candidate is one who both most Tory MPs AND most Tory members can support. For me that remains Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, who is popular in Tory membership polls, backed Truss but is otherwise a competent and safe pair of hands. In a similar vein that was why IDS' Shadow Chancellor, Michael Howard, was the only viable candidate to replace IDS when he lost the VONC of his MPs in 2003, not Ken Clarke for instance.
It should also be noted that the reason most Tory members picked Truss and most Labour members picked Corbyn is if you join a political party you don't just want to win every general election, most members also want a leader who shifts the country in a more right or leftwing direction respectively. That does not mean members never pick electable leaders though, they do if out of power long enough and they want to win, as Tory members did when they picked Cameron in 2005 or Labour members did when they picked Starmer in 2020
Some think civil servants have taken control. “The U-turn has been briefed out before the policy was decided,” one said.
https://www.ft.com/content/062bb647-14fa-4e8d-bb2f-397edada5dc2
Another: "There’s inexperience and naivety in [Truss’s] team not realising what a mess they’ve created.”
https://www.ft.com/content/062bb647-14fa-4e8d-bb2f-397edada5dc2
Some Truss allies think Kwarteng is all but finished: "Her only options politically are binning much of the ‘mini’ Budget, sacking Kwarteng, blaming him.
https://www.ft.com/content/062bb647-14fa-4e8d-bb2f-397edada5dc2
She decided to shit her own bed on day one by junking anyone who wasn't a true believer.
Now, it's payback time.
Other than that, they're doing great.
If it is Ben Wallace somehow, does that mean he fights next election? I feel like a viable candidate maybe has to be someone who stands down before next general election?
Also, if you're a current Tory MP, looking at the polls, you either become PM now, or you never do. Cameron wasn't an MP in 1997. Chances are the next Tory PM the other side of a general election isn't an MP now either.
"The think tanks and forecasters who want taxes up tell us the deficit will otherwise be too big. If they have their way they will put us into a longer and deeper downturn which will mean a higher deficit, not a lower.
Over the last 2 years the OBR has massively over forecast the budget deficit and used these wrong forecasts to push a Chancellor into higher taxes. More accurate forecasting would conclude now that a lower business tax rate would be better for growth and for total tax revenue."
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2022/10/14/taxing-times-2/#:~:text=The think tanks,total tax revenue.
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2022/10/14/taxing-times-2/
To some extent the problems are a maxed out credit card with four hundred billion of Rishi’s covid policy on it and another two hundred billion to try and get added for the energy bill policy - to say Rishi would have no problem with the markets too isn’t keeping it real Nigel.
And to some extent I agree with you, flawed as they are, Penny and Rishi still be better for all of us than Truss and Kwarteng.
But then that just misses the whole point doesn’t it. A Gove Rishi dream ticket would be even better for the Conservatives - just shows this is fantasy game being played here not serious politics.
Cabinet ministers think Sajid Javid is the only credible alternative.
https://www.ft.com/content/062bb647-14fa-4e8d-bb2f-397edada5dc2
The Chancellor is flying back from Washington so the PM can discuss the bus he is about to be thrown under...
Unless a likely Starmer government faces economic disaster and mismanagement then the Tories will likely be out of power for at least a decade if not more after the next general election
He could be a Douglas Home figure, who let us not forget only lost to Wilson in 1964 very narrowly
The brutal reality is that our situation had deteriorated from bad to very bad during the long interregnum of the leadership campaign and the paralysis of the Johnson government which effectively ended when Sunak resigned but had been on life support for months before that.
It really should have been obvious to a child that these were times to tread carefully, to rebuild confidence in the government and the markets, not to rock the boat and to try to bring the party and the country together. Truss and Kwarteng decided to do the opposite and make a big splash emphasising their rejection of the defeatist consensus and a new direction. They were simply not in a place to do that, not even close. Very few of the problems we are facing are actually down to Truss but such a massive misjudgment indicated to everyone that she simply did not appreciate how bad things were and how vulnerable we are. There is therefore zero trust or confidence that she can address those problems.
Not that economics is anything like a science, it’s more like religion, different sects all arguing with each other. And when they lose faith they resort to socialism and sodomy.
Whoever is needed now cannot be another inexperienced Minister learning on the job. And why should Sunak who won the majority of MP votes give way to her anyway? Financial and economic expertise is needed now. Sunak is hardly ideal but he is a lot better than the alternatives.
Instead what do we have? They're still insisting there is no energy supply crisis. Or any need to even prepare people for conserving energy. That the doubling of bills vs last winter is problem solved. That any cash increase in wages / benefits is sufficient because its "more" regardless of the swamping of "more" by the real cost of living. Etc etc etc etc.
And worse still we have the way ministers deal with problems. With people. With institutions. Arrogance. Sneering. Belittling. These are not the people we need to work our way out of a wet paper bag, never mind the winter we face.
That era is over. Supply is constrained, inflation is back and the sums need to add up again.
But also that it is a minority even in the Conservative party, and it's only by accident of fate - and certainly not by choice of the wider electorate - that it's managed to end up in government.
In current conditions, that's not sustainable for very long at all.
https://twitter.com/CountBinface/status/1580665790956638208
I really don't know the answer to that one.
Javid again? Why not just stick all the names on the wheel of fortune and have Nicky Campbell invite Tory MPs to give it a spin. Why not a Lord Osborne? He isn't doing much these days and he knows how to manage an economy where there is a lack of cash.
https://twitter.com/DharshiniDavid/status/1580856555456860160
Liz Truss has the lowest level of satisfaction with the public *ever recorded* for a British Prime Minister with @IpsosUK
16% satisfied
67% dissatisfied
(John Major briefly dipped to 17% in August 1994)
https://twitter.com/KevinASchofield/status/1580857988599861250
https://twitter.com/paulbristow79/status/1580842967258267648
The last two decades has seen corporate tax rates slashed around the world. It has also seen the slowest GDP growth in the post WW2 era.
It is by no means clear that there is any correlation between corporate tax rates and growth.
Good to see you posting again.
Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng to announce mini-budget u-turn *today*
They are meeting shortly after chancellor flies back from Washington
Plans to freeze corporation tax will be reversed - it will rise next year
PM statement expected later
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/kwasi-kwarteng-flies-back-to-london-from-us-a-day-early-b2zcgtcd2
Unless there is a rethink by these MPs, then the Tory party is doomed no matter what.
Certainly from vox popping on news business segments, I get impression business would like to expand than contract, but have capital problem.
The opposition party’s already liaises faire in face of Truss labelling them anti growth, need to make clear they are pro growth, growth is only way out of the rut you pointed up in your post Robert, and the language has to be capital empowering ideas and ambition.
https://twitter.com/dim0kq/status/1580827171903635456
Very interesting statement from @elonmusk re Ukrainian StarLink and how damaging it is for @SpaceX economics.
Being Ukrainian actually in the topic of StarLinks, I want to tell you some based facts re starlinks in Ukraine...
... I admire the actions of SpaceX of enabling StarLink service in Ukraine. It is a true game changer for Ukrainian army in the open fields of no cellular, and long distances not suitable for radios, given the situation is changing quick on the battlefield.
It’s a game-changer....
...Despite that, I have not seen ANY StarLink which was bought by the governments, or by SpaceX. All the Starlinks I have seen / used - were bought either by volunteers like myself, or soldiers put their personal money in.
The subscription price is also paid out of the pocket...
While all of the above is probably true, it's likely that the current retail prices in Europe do not begin to reflect the actual cost of providing the service (and would do so only if the number of subscribers were an order of magnitude larger).
See for example:
Musk says may need $30 bln to keep Starlink in orbit
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/musk-sees-starlink-winning-500000-customers-next-12-months-2021-06-29/
The US government/DOD needs to step in and sort out this spat, as the service is absolutely vital to the Ukraine war effort.
They will screw up the messaging. "We know we were right, the markets / IMF / World Bank are idiots" etc. Markets won't be happy.