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The front pages after another crazy day – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited October 2022 in General
imageThe front pages after another crazy day – politicalbetting.com

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  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,275
    First
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,275
    Anyone else there?
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,081
    Second!
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,081

    Anyone else there?

    Everyone’s there, not here.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,065
    Another interesting place to add to my next tour of Belgium is this fascinating museum, recently revised and reopened:

    https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/01/when-museums-have-ugly-pasts/603133/
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    "Poppadom plot to out the PM: Rebel MPs gather around takeaway curries as they seek new leader to avert Tory 'wipeout' and discuss tactics

    It was after 9pm on Monday when a takeaway was delivered to Portcullis House
    The 20 or so senior MPs gathered to discuss more tactics than personalities
    Most of those present were supporters of the former chancellor Rishi Sunak"

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11317373/Rebel-MPs-gather-takeaway-curries-seek-new-leader-avert-Tory-wipeout.html
  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,741
    It looks as though the Mail is wavering leaving the Express alone in the ditch for Truss (as they were for Johnson). To be fair, even the tone of the Express header is defeated rather than defiant.

    Who's up next? Penny Mordaunt, Rishi Sunak, Larry the Cat?
  • MightyAlexMightyAlex Posts: 1,410
    I think Belarus will be joining the war soon. Seems they've started to mobilise/conscript.
  • Andy_JS said:

    "Poppadom plot to out the PM: Rebel MPs gather around takeaway curries as they seek new leader to avert Tory 'wipeout' and discuss tactics

    It was after 9pm on Monday when a takeaway was delivered to Portcullis House
    The 20 or so senior MPs gathered to discuss more tactics than personalities
    Most of those present were supporters of the former chancellor Rishi Sunak"

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11317373/Rebel-MPs-gather-takeaway-curries-seek-new-leader-avert-Tory-wipeout.html

    The Masala Mutiny
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    The Chope Point is a technical term for when a Government finds itself in such disarray that only Christopher Chope will go on TV to defend it. It has proved terminal in all previous cases.
    https://twitter.com/Samfr/status/1580678940850810880

    Chope is back on Newsnight but now criticising Truss. We are past the Chope Point where no one has ever ventured before. https://twitter.com/Samfr/status/1580678940850810880
  • MikeLMikeL Posts: 7,281
    FPT: What qualifications does Coffey have to suggest she has a better understanding of the public finances than the OBR?
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    Scott_xP said:

    Therese Coffey very downbeat at briefing with Truss loyalists this afternoon

    That loyalty is wearing thin - they told her they were embarrassed, called for overhaul of No 10 and said party discipline is totally gone

    Coffey said govt is determined to prove ‘flipping OBR’ wrong


    https://twitter.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1581036732543168512

    Still "the markets are wrong"...

    '...overhaul of No. 10...' Haven't we already had three of those this year?
    Overhaul of No 10 is obvious code for 'we want a different PM', as if that were not already clear.

    Changing economic course, at least to some degree, hives off some of the dissenters. Yes, a lot will still be worried about the utterly dreadful polling situation and Truss's ability to change that, but it prevents the discontented from forming a unified mass. She's bought herself some time, and the reaction to force things further tonight is the firmer opponents realising that the play for time may have worked and trying to prevent that.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,787

    The sudden appearance of Hunt, though perhaps better than other alternatives, does strike me as the last throw of the dice by desperate show-runners trying to avoid cancellation.

    The only thing left is to have all the regulars die in a horrific train crash.

    Nah. It's still 2016 and David Cameron has just woken up from a bad dream. He reaches for the phone and cancels the referendum...
    Imagine him telling Samantha about the dream: "Liz Truss being PM isn't even the weirdest part of it. I dreamt that Nick Clegg went to work for Facebook and ended up getting sued over promoting online porn... What could it mean?"
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    MikeL said:

    FPT: What qualifications does Coffey have to suggest she has a better understanding of the public finances than the OBR?

    I'm not one to suggest the OBR are flawless in their predictive abilities. But the government trying to avoid it entirely on their original plans was a canary no one in the coal mine could ignore, since it showed they knew it would likely be awful news, and they were not prepared to rebut that so sought to avoid it as long as they could.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    I think Belarus will be joining the war soon. Seems they've started to mobilise/conscript.

    I wonder if Lukashenko regrets he will likely no longer be the true dictator in his own dictatorship, but just Governor of Minsk.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,081
    Hyde:

    Hunt is now chancellor and Truss has given one of the worst press conferences in the entire history of the genre, shortly after sending Kwarteng a letter “deeply respect[ing]” his decision to get knifed by her.

    As for the people who got us here, I must say I think of them increasingly often – those 81,000 Conservative party members who voted for Truss, and who are out there somewhere, right now, keeping their little heads down. But they walk among us. Maybe one of them is at a water cooler or a Zoom meeting near you.

    The thought of things happening in the same way again, ever, is simply too much. Ideally, these triennially calamitous Conservative leadership contests will henceforth be run like one of those international elections in a fledgling democracy, when voters’ fingers are dipped in indelible ink. That way when you’re having drinks after work and Steve from HR is feebly going, “Yeah, what a mess” but not quite meeting your eye, you can look down at his stained forefinger and deal with him accordingly.
  • How many more threads while Trussticles is still PM?
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    IanB2 said:

    Freedland:

    Historians will look back and see a point of origin to the current madness, one that explains how a new prime minister could see her administration fall apart in a matter of weeks.. When the textbooks of the future come to the chapter we are living through, in the autumn of 2022, they will start with the summer of 2016: Brexit and the specific delusion that drove it.

    That self-inflicted [economic] contraction helps explain why Britain felt international shocks – surging inflation, for example – harder than most.

    Brexit [also] broke the link between governance and reason, between policy and evidence. Until Brexit, politicians only rarely got away with defying the empirical facts or elementary logic.

    But there is a less obvious way in which Brexit made the current great unravelling a political death foretold…call it the sovereignty delusion. The three weeks since Kwarteng delivered his mini-budget have seen the shattering of that delusion. For Truss and her now ex-chancellor were given the rudest of reminders that in our interdependent world there is no such thing as pure, untrammelled sovereignty.

    As several economists have noted, Truss was acting as if Britain were the US, issuer of the world’s reserve currency, with markets falling over themselves to lend it money. Like Anthony Eden before her, she could not accept that Britain’s place is not what it was: it can never be sovereign like a king in a fairytale, able to bend the world to his will. That kind of sovereignty was always a fantasy, one that both fed Brexit and was fed by it.

    She is finished, a hollow husk of a prime minister. But this is bigger than that. The Brexit bubble has burst. The country has seen that the Tory hallucination of an island able to command the tides was no more than a fever dream, and a dangerous one at that. We can pronounce Trussonomics dead. Bring on the day we can say the same of the delusion that spawned it.

    I don't agree with every part of the thesis, but I do think there is merit to the idea of a bubble bursting or breaking from a delusion - fairly or not what Truss and Kwarteng did broke a lot of people, too many in their own ranks simply could not claim to believe it in the face of the evidence. People have snapped awake, suddenly realising there are a lot of problems, and they are't going back to sleep.
  • DJ41DJ41 Posts: 792
    Andy_JS said:

    "Poppadom plot to out the PM: Rebel MPs gather around takeaway curries as they seek new leader to avert Tory 'wipeout' and discuss tactics

    It was after 9pm on Monday when a takeaway was delivered to Portcullis House
    The 20 or so senior MPs gathered to discuss more tactics than personalities
    Most of those present were supporters of the former chancellor Rishi Sunak"

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11317373/Rebel-MPs-gather-takeaway-curries-seek-new-leader-avert-Tory-wipeout.html

    Typical racist crap from the Heil.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958
    Scott_xP said:

    The Chope Point is a technical term for when a Government finds itself in such disarray that only Christopher Chope will go on TV to defend it. It has proved terminal in all previous cases.
    https://twitter.com/Samfr/status/1580678940850810880

    Chope is back on Newsnight but now criticising Truss. We are past the Chope Point where no one has ever ventured before. https://twitter.com/Samfr/status/1580678940850810880

    The Chope Point is midway between the Event Horizon and the centre of a black hole - it starts the Empty Quarter of the Truss Domain...
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    IanB2 said:

    Freedland:

    Historians will look back and see a point of origin to the current madness, one that explains how a new prime minister could see her administration fall apart in a matter of weeks.. When the textbooks of the future come to the chapter we are living through, in the autumn of 2022, they will start with the summer of 2016: Brexit and the specific delusion that drove it.

    That self-inflicted [economic] contraction helps explain why Britain felt international shocks – surging inflation, for example – harder than most.

    Brexit [also] broke the link between governance and reason, between policy and evidence. Until Brexit, politicians only rarely got away with defying the empirical facts or elementary logic.

    But there is a less obvious way in which Brexit made the current great unravelling a political death foretold…call it the sovereignty delusion. The three weeks since Kwarteng delivered his mini-budget have seen the shattering of that delusion. For Truss and her now ex-chancellor were given the rudest of reminders that in our interdependent world there is no such thing as pure, untrammelled sovereignty.

    As several economists have noted, Truss was acting as if Britain were the US, issuer of the world’s reserve currency, with markets falling over themselves to lend it money. Like Anthony Eden before her, she could not accept that Britain’s place is not what it was: it can never be sovereign like a king in a fairytale, able to bend the world to his will. That kind of sovereignty was always a fantasy, one that both fed Brexit and was fed by it.

    She is finished, a hollow husk of a prime minister. But this is bigger than that. The Brexit bubble has burst. The country has seen that the Tory hallucination of an island able to command the tides was no more than a fever dream, and a dangerous one at that. We can pronounce Trussonomics dead. Bring on the day we can say the same of the delusion that spawned it.

    Time to ignore the Brexit vote and re-join the EU, in other words.
  • DM_AndyDM_Andy Posts: 326
    My understanding is that 1922 rules mean a new leader can't be no-confidenced by the party's MPs in their first year in office. Has Graham Brady ever shown the slightest inclination to stray from the 1922 rulebook? I don't think he would get the Conservative Party out of a hole even if 200 letters arrived, if Tory MPs want Liz Truss out then they have to stage a Boris-style intervention. As I don't think they are quite ready for that my gut says 2023 for Trexit.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    At this rate Truss won't even get the opportunity for her first scandal when her husband insisted on some bloody awful wallpaper in No.10, then she got drunk and appointed Sir Reginard Groper III as Chief Whip.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,065

    I think Belarus will be joining the war soon. Seems they've started to mobilise/conscript.

    Yes, but which side will those Belarussians join?

    Belarus has been shipping material out into Russia these last weeks.

    https://twitter.com/MotolkoHelp/status/1580990412440731648?t=kOA-py48umoKRzfEkDiSHQ&s=19

    Mobilising in Belarus is likely to be the end of Lukashenko, and the beginning of free Belarus
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958
    DM_Andy said:

    My understanding is that 1922 rules mean a new leader can't be no-confidenced by the party's MPs in their first year in office. Has Graham Brady ever shown the slightest inclination to stray from the 1922 rulebook? I don't think he would get the Conservative Party out of a hole even if 200 letters arrived, if Tory MPs want Liz Truss out then they have to stage a Boris-style intervention. As I don't think they are quite ready for that my gut says 2023 for Trexit.

    '22 not fit for purpose.

    Tory MPs: form a new backbench Committe that is.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    edited October 2022
    DM_Andy said:

    My understanding is that 1922 rules mean a new leader can't be no-confidenced by the party's MPs in their first year in office. Has Graham Brady ever shown the slightest inclination to stray from the 1922 rulebook? I don't think he would get the Conservative Party out of a hole even if 200 letters arrived, if Tory MPs want Liz Truss out then they have to stage a Boris-style intervention. As I don't think they are quite ready for that my gut says 2023 for Trexit.

    Yes he has. He's cautious about it, and clearly not keen on the idea as some are, but he doesn't shut the door. Just one example (from Guardian as it is free)

    [Brady] said that after Theresa May won a no-confidence vote launched against her by a bigger margin, the committee did consider changing the rules but eventually decided against doing so.

    “I’ve reflected quite a lot on this because of the amount of speculation [there] has been in the media,” Brady continued. “Of course, it is technically possible that laws can be changed in the future. And it’s possible that rules can be changed in the future. But I think it’s important we say the rule that is in place, and is likely to remain in place is that there is a year’s period of grace following a confidence vote.”


    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jun/09/brady-wont-rule-out-another-no-confidence-vote-on-johnson-within-a-year

    There was a lot of talk about elections to the Board of the 1922 being critical as 'change' candidates could permit a further challenge to Boris.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958

    How many more threads while Trussticles is still PM?

    Put me down for 8....
  • DM_Andy said:

    My understanding is that 1922 rules mean a new leader can't be no-confidenced by the party's MPs in their first year in office. Has Graham Brady ever shown the slightest inclination to stray from the 1922 rulebook? I don't think he would get the Conservative Party out of a hole even if 200 letters arrived, if Tory MPs want Liz Truss out then they have to stage a Boris-style intervention. As I don't think they are quite ready for that my gut says 2023 for Trexit.

    Did you miss the events of May 2019 when Sir Graham was about the break the rules to force Theresa May out?
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038

    I think Belarus will be joining the war soon. Seems they've started to mobilise/conscript.

    The end game begins. Luskenko falls. Then the revolution spreads to Putin.

  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,081
    kle4 said:

    At this rate Truss won't even get the opportunity for her first scandal when her husband insisted on some bloody awful wallpaper in No.10, then she got drunk and appointed Sir Reginard Groper III as Chief Whip.

    The dungeon equipment for the bedroom is already on order; Jeremy Hunt’s going to be very surprised when that Hermes (Evri) delivery turns up….
  • FairlieredFairliered Posts: 3,869
    IanB2 said:

    Hyde:

    Hunt is now chancellor and Truss has given one of the worst press conferences in the entire history of the genre, shortly after sending Kwarteng a letter “deeply respect[ing]” his decision to get knifed by her.

    As for the people who got us here, I must say I think of them increasingly often – those 81,000 Conservative party members who voted for Truss, and who are out there somewhere, right now, keeping their little heads down. But they walk among us. Maybe one of them is at a water cooler or a Zoom meeting near you.

    The thought of things happening in the same way again, ever, is simply too much. Ideally, these triennially calamitous Conservative leadership contests will henceforth be run like one of those international elections in a fledgling democracy, when voters’ fingers are dipped in indelible ink. That way when you’re having drinks after work and Steve from HR is feebly going, “Yeah, what a mess” but not quite meeting your eye, you can look down at his stained forefinger and deal with him accordingly.

    I didn’t realise they had water coolers or Zoom meetings in care homes.
  • DJ41DJ41 Posts: 792

    DM_Andy said:

    My understanding is that 1922 rules mean a new leader can't be no-confidenced by the party's MPs in their first year in office. Has Graham Brady ever shown the slightest inclination to stray from the 1922 rulebook? I don't think he would get the Conservative Party out of a hole even if 200 letters arrived, if Tory MPs want Liz Truss out then they have to stage a Boris-style intervention. As I don't think they are quite ready for that my gut says 2023 for Trexit.

    '22 not fit for purpose.

    Tory MPs: form a new backbench Committe that is.
    And do it at the Carlton for resonance.
    Is it possible to blackball someone at the Carlton once he's already a member?
    Assuming here that Brady is a member.
    Surely some Tory MPs must have a sense of humour!
  • MightyAlexMightyAlex Posts: 1,410
    Foxy said:

    I think Belarus will be joining the war soon. Seems they've started to mobilise/conscript.

    Yes, but which side will those Belarussians join?

    Belarus has been shipping material out into Russia these last weeks.

    https://twitter.com/MotolkoHelp/status/1580990412440731648?t=kOA-py48umoKRzfEkDiSHQ&s=19

    Mobilising in Belarus is likely to be the end of Lukashenko, and the beginning of free Belarus
    We can hope, right?

    Some people seem to think its just to keep the Ukrainians looking north and hold down some military resources from the south. But maybe they'll try to push forward?
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    DM_Andy said:

    My understanding is that 1922 rules mean a new leader can't be no-confidenced by the party's MPs in their first year in office. Has Graham Brady ever shown the slightest inclination to stray from the 1922 rulebook? I don't think he would get the Conservative Party out of a hole even if 200 letters arrived, if Tory MPs want Liz Truss out then they have to stage a Boris-style intervention. As I don't think they are quite ready for that my gut says 2023 for Trexit.

    '22 not fit for purpose.

    Tory MPs: form a new backbench Committe that is.
    Quite right. The 2022 Committee, or '22 for short.

    I do like that it's not just a nickname, but that the party constitution defines the Conservative Private Members Committee to be referenced as the 1922 committee. Why even have it formally be called the former then?
  • DM_AndyDM_Andy Posts: 326

    DM_Andy said:

    My understanding is that 1922 rules mean a new leader can't be no-confidenced by the party's MPs in their first year in office. Has Graham Brady ever shown the slightest inclination to stray from the 1922 rulebook? I don't think he would get the Conservative Party out of a hole even if 200 letters arrived, if Tory MPs want Liz Truss out then they have to stage a Boris-style intervention. As I don't think they are quite ready for that my gut says 2023 for Trexit.

    Did you miss the events of May 2019 when Sir Graham was about the break the rules to force Theresa May out?
    As kle4 helpfully quoted, the committee considered changing the rules, whereupon Brady would have followed the new rules. What I mean is Brady's not going to go rogue and announce an internal VoNC as soon as he's back from holiday.

  • Beibheirli_CBeibheirli_C Posts: 7,981
    Andy_JS said:

    IanB2 said:

    Freedland:

    Historians will look back and see a point of origin to the current madness, one that explains how a new prime minister could see her administration fall apart in a matter of weeks.. When the textbooks of the future come to the chapter we are living through, in the autumn of 2022, they will start with the summer of 2016: Brexit and the specific delusion that drove it.

    That self-inflicted [economic] contraction helps explain why Britain felt international shocks – surging inflation, for example – harder than most.

    Brexit [also] broke the link between governance and reason, between policy and evidence. Until Brexit, politicians only rarely got away with defying the empirical facts or elementary logic.

    But there is a less obvious way in which Brexit made the current great unravelling a political death foretold…call it the sovereignty delusion. The three weeks since Kwarteng delivered his mini-budget have seen the shattering of that delusion. For Truss and her now ex-chancellor were given the rudest of reminders that in our interdependent world there is no such thing as pure, untrammelled sovereignty.

    As several economists have noted, Truss was acting as if Britain were the US, issuer of the world’s reserve currency, with markets falling over themselves to lend it money. Like Anthony Eden before her, she could not accept that Britain’s place is not what it was: it can never be sovereign like a king in a fairytale, able to bend the world to his will. That kind of sovereignty was always a fantasy, one that both fed Brexit and was fed by it.

    She is finished, a hollow husk of a prime minister. But this is bigger than that. The Brexit bubble has burst. The country has seen that the Tory hallucination of an island able to command the tides was no more than a fever dream, and a dangerous one at that. We can pronounce Trussonomics dead. Bring on the day we can say the same of the delusion that spawned it.

    Time to ignore the Brexit vote and re-join the EU, in other words.
    That is not what he said. He said that Britain's delusion about bigging itself up as a world colossus has finally started to crumble. Brexit was the final act of that delusion.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    “It feels like the end. I think she’ll be gone next week.”

    https://www.politico.eu/article/liz-truss-prime-minister-uk-conservative-party-finished/
  • Beibheirli_CBeibheirli_C Posts: 7,981
    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    IanB2 said:

    Freedland:

    Historians will look back and see a point of origin to the current madness, one that explains how a new prime minister could see her administration fall apart in a matter of weeks.. When the textbooks of the future come to the chapter we are living through, in the autumn of 2022, they will start with the summer of 2016: Brexit and the specific delusion that drove it.

    That self-inflicted [economic] contraction helps explain why Britain felt international shocks – surging inflation, for example – harder than most.

    Brexit [also] broke the link between governance and reason, between policy and evidence. Until Brexit, politicians only rarely got away with defying the empirical facts or elementary logic.

    But there is a less obvious way in which Brexit made the current great unravelling a political death foretold…call it the sovereignty delusion. The three weeks since Kwarteng delivered his mini-budget have seen the shattering of that delusion. For Truss and her now ex-chancellor were given the rudest of reminders that in our interdependent world there is no such thing as pure, untrammelled sovereignty.

    As several economists have noted, Truss was acting as if Britain were the US, issuer of the world’s reserve currency, with markets falling over themselves to lend it money. Like Anthony Eden before her, she could not accept that Britain’s place is not what it was: it can never be sovereign like a king in a fairytale, able to bend the world to his will. That kind of sovereignty was always a fantasy, one that both fed Brexit and was fed by it.

    She is finished, a hollow husk of a prime minister. But this is bigger than that. The Brexit bubble has burst. The country has seen that the Tory hallucination of an island able to command the tides was no more than a fever dream, and a dangerous one at that. We can pronounce Trussonomics dead. Bring on the day we can say the same of the delusion that spawned it.

    Time to ignore the Brexit vote and re-join the EU, in other words.
    Rejoining is not against the Brexit vote. It would be an exercise demonstrating our sovereignty.
    I like the way the Leavers assume that if their vigilance fails we would be back in the EU by the end of the month.

    As if the EU would have us back after the bad blood created by May, Boris and the Tory Party.....
  • Beibheirli_CBeibheirli_C Posts: 7,981

    DM_Andy said:

    My understanding is that 1922 rules mean a new leader can't be no-confidenced by the party's MPs in their first year in office. Has Graham Brady ever shown the slightest inclination to stray from the 1922 rulebook? I don't think he would get the Conservative Party out of a hole even if 200 letters arrived, if Tory MPs want Liz Truss out then they have to stage a Boris-style intervention. As I don't think they are quite ready for that my gut says 2023 for Trexit.

    '22 not fit for purpose.

    Tory MPs: form a new backbench Committe that is.
    The 2022 Committee?
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 9,005
    I think Freedland has got it badly wrong on sovereignty. Perhaps that's the left wing definition of sovereignty? Being able to borrow as much money as you want at favourable rates of interest?
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    ping said:
    That isn’t new news - anyone who knows anything about minis has known since 2019 that the next generation electric mini is coming from
    China because BMW doesn’t have a suitable electric platform for such a small car and Great Wall were happy to provide one
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,065

    Foxy said:

    I think Belarus will be joining the war soon. Seems they've started to mobilise/conscript.

    Yes, but which side will those Belarussians join?

    Belarus has been shipping material out into Russia these last weeks.

    https://twitter.com/MotolkoHelp/status/1580990412440731648?t=kOA-py48umoKRzfEkDiSHQ&s=19

    Mobilising in Belarus is likely to be the end of Lukashenko, and the beginning of free Belarus
    We can hope, right?

    Some people seem to think its just to keep the Ukrainians looking north and hold down some military resources from the south. But maybe they'll try to push forward?
    If Belarus mobilises, then expect protests back on the streets in favour of the real president, and for the army to side with the protestors. Lukashenko's days were numbered when he chained himself to the corpse of the Russian kleptocracy.
  • Scott_xP said:

    The Chope Point is a technical term for when a Government finds itself in such disarray that only Christopher Chope will go on TV to defend it. It has proved terminal in all previous cases.
    https://twitter.com/Samfr/status/1580678940850810880

    Chope is back on Newsnight but now criticising Truss. We are past the Chope Point where no one has ever ventured before. https://twitter.com/Samfr/status/1580678940850810880

    The Chope Point is midway between the Event Horizon and the centre of a black hole - it starts the Empty Quarter of the Truss Domain...
    ... off the shoulder of Orion where starships go to burn.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,398

    Andy_JS said:

    "Poppadom plot to out the PM: Rebel MPs gather around takeaway curries as they seek new leader to avert Tory 'wipeout' and discuss tactics

    It was after 9pm on Monday when a takeaway was delivered to Portcullis House
    The 20 or so senior MPs gathered to discuss more tactics than personalities
    Most of those present were supporters of the former chancellor Rishi Sunak"

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11317373/Rebel-MPs-gather-takeaway-curries-seek-new-leader-avert-Tory-wipeout.html

    The Masala Mutiny
    The Dansak Defenestration
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    edited October 2022

    Andy_JS said:

    IanB2 said:

    Freedland:

    Historians will look back and see a point of origin to the current madness, one that explains how a new prime minister could see her administration fall apart in a matter of weeks.. When the textbooks of the future come to the chapter we are living through, in the autumn of 2022, they will start with the summer of 2016: Brexit and the specific delusion that drove it.

    That self-inflicted [economic] contraction helps explain why Britain felt international shocks – surging inflation, for example – harder than most.

    Brexit [also] broke the link between governance and reason, between policy and evidence. Until Brexit, politicians only rarely got away with defying the empirical facts or elementary logic.

    But there is a less obvious way in which Brexit made the current great unravelling a political death foretold…call it the sovereignty delusion. The three weeks since Kwarteng delivered his mini-budget have seen the shattering of that delusion. For Truss and her now ex-chancellor were given the rudest of reminders that in our interdependent world there is no such thing as pure, untrammelled sovereignty.

    As several economists have noted, Truss was acting as if Britain were the US, issuer of the world’s reserve currency, with markets falling over themselves to lend it money. Like Anthony Eden before her, she could not accept that Britain’s place is not what it was: it can never be sovereign like a king in a fairytale, able to bend the world to his will. That kind of sovereignty was always a fantasy, one that both fed Brexit and was fed by it.

    She is finished, a hollow husk of a prime minister. But this is bigger than that. The Brexit bubble has burst. The country has seen that the Tory hallucination of an island able to command the tides was no more than a fever dream, and a dangerous one at that. We can pronounce Trussonomics dead. Bring on the day we can say the same of the delusion that spawned it.

    Time to ignore the Brexit vote and re-join the EU, in other words.
    That is not what he said. He said that Britain's delusion about bigging itself up as a world colossus has finally started to crumble. Brexit was the final act of that delusion.
    I genuinely don't think many people think Britain is a world class colossus, even most of those who strike a boostering, optimistic tone about being more influential and powerful as an independent state. I think more people are content with the idea of Britain as being a significant power, which it remains, even though it will never again be a superpower. Some think that is better achieved outside the EU, and right or wrong I think the aim is a reasonable and realistic one. We can be overly pessimistic about our position, even now.

    However, I do also think it is clear many of our institutions are rocking, our economy seems to be worse off than comparator nations too often for liking, and our government is increasingly unable to grasp what the problems are, or how to fix them, being prone to ideological distraction and self indulgence.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    Andy_JS said:

    "Poppadom plot to out the PM: Rebel MPs gather around takeaway curries as they seek new leader to avert Tory 'wipeout' and discuss tactics

    It was after 9pm on Monday when a takeaway was delivered to Portcullis House
    The 20 or so senior MPs gathered to discuss more tactics than personalities
    Most of those present were supporters of the former chancellor Rishi Sunak"

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11317373/Rebel-MPs-gather-takeaway-curries-seek-new-leader-avert-Tory-wipeout.html

    The Masala Mutiny
    The Dansak Defenestration
    The Rogan Josh Rebellion.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    My brother Erle used to insist, when Tory leadership clichés were trotted out on telly, that the original reference was not to "men in grey suits" but "grey men in suits". I've never tried to check, but his version is a more stylish phrase.

    https://twitter.com/carlgardner/status/1110988069300256768
  • I think everybody should have an AI art representation of who they are and what they do as their profile pic
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,065

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    IanB2 said:

    Freedland:

    Historians will look back and see a point of origin to the current madness, one that explains how a new prime minister could see her administration fall apart in a matter of weeks.. When the textbooks of the future come to the chapter we are living through, in the autumn of 2022, they will start with the summer of 2016: Brexit and the specific delusion that drove it.

    That self-inflicted [economic] contraction helps explain why Britain felt international shocks – surging inflation, for example – harder than most.

    Brexit [also] broke the link between governance and reason, between policy and evidence. Until Brexit, politicians only rarely got away with defying the empirical facts or elementary logic.

    But there is a less obvious way in which Brexit made the current great unravelling a political death foretold…call it the sovereignty delusion. The three weeks since Kwarteng delivered his mini-budget have seen the shattering of that delusion. For Truss and her now ex-chancellor were given the rudest of reminders that in our interdependent world there is no such thing as pure, untrammelled sovereignty.

    As several economists have noted, Truss was acting as if Britain were the US, issuer of the world’s reserve currency, with markets falling over themselves to lend it money. Like Anthony Eden before her, she could not accept that Britain’s place is not what it was: it can never be sovereign like a king in a fairytale, able to bend the world to his will. That kind of sovereignty was always a fantasy, one that both fed Brexit and was fed by it.

    She is finished, a hollow husk of a prime minister. But this is bigger than that. The Brexit bubble has burst. The country has seen that the Tory hallucination of an island able to command the tides was no more than a fever dream, and a dangerous one at that. We can pronounce Trussonomics dead. Bring on the day we can say the same of the delusion that spawned it.

    Time to ignore the Brexit vote and re-join the EU, in other words.
    Rejoining is not against the Brexit vote. It would be an exercise demonstrating our sovereignty.
    I like the way the Leavers assume that if their vigilance fails we would be back in the EU by the end of the month.

    As if the EU would have us back after the bad blood created by May, Boris and the Tory Party.....
    Once the Tories have been obliterated they may well regenerate as the centre right pro-business, pro-EU party that they were up to 2016.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,081

    Andy_JS said:

    "Poppadom plot to out the PM: Rebel MPs gather around takeaway curries as they seek new leader to avert Tory 'wipeout' and discuss tactics

    It was after 9pm on Monday when a takeaway was delivered to Portcullis House
    The 20 or so senior MPs gathered to discuss more tactics than personalities
    Most of those present were supporters of the former chancellor Rishi Sunak"

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11317373/Rebel-MPs-gather-takeaway-curries-seek-new-leader-avert-Tory-wipeout.html

    The Masala Mutiny
    The Dansak Defenestration
    The Pilau Plot
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    I think everybody should have an AI art representation of who they are and what they do as their profile pic

    Eh, mine's already pretty on point, and I think Truss doing a weird pose probably fits Scott_xP pretty close too.
  • DM_AndyDM_Andy Posts: 326

    DM_Andy said:

    My understanding is that 1922 rules mean a new leader can't be no-confidenced by the party's MPs in their first year in office. Has Graham Brady ever shown the slightest inclination to stray from the 1922 rulebook? I don't think he would get the Conservative Party out of a hole even if 200 letters arrived, if Tory MPs want Liz Truss out then they have to stage a Boris-style intervention. As I don't think they are quite ready for that my gut says 2023 for Trexit.

    '22 not fit for purpose.

    Tory MPs: form a new backbench Committe that is.
    This might be a bad omen.

  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    I can’t predict much right now. We are in totally uncharted waters. Happy to admit that I completely underestimated how incompetent certain people could be.

    https://twitter.com/IsabelOakeshott/status/1581047561019760640
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,065
    kle4 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    IanB2 said:

    Freedland:

    Historians will look back and see a point of origin to the current madness, one that explains how a new prime minister could see her administration fall apart in a matter of weeks.. When the textbooks of the future come to the chapter we are living through, in the autumn of 2022, they will start with the summer of 2016: Brexit and the specific delusion that drove it.

    That self-inflicted [economic] contraction helps explain why Britain felt international shocks – surging inflation, for example – harder than most.

    Brexit [also] broke the link between governance and reason, between policy and evidence. Until Brexit, politicians only rarely got away with defying the empirical facts or elementary logic.

    But there is a less obvious way in which Brexit made the current great unravelling a political death foretold…call it the sovereignty delusion. The three weeks since Kwarteng delivered his mini-budget have seen the shattering of that delusion. For Truss and her now ex-chancellor were given the rudest of reminders that in our interdependent world there is no such thing as pure, untrammelled sovereignty.

    As several economists have noted, Truss was acting as if Britain were the US, issuer of the world’s reserve currency, with markets falling over themselves to lend it money. Like Anthony Eden before her, she could not accept that Britain’s place is not what it was: it can never be sovereign like a king in a fairytale, able to bend the world to his will. That kind of sovereignty was always a fantasy, one that both fed Brexit and was fed by it.

    She is finished, a hollow husk of a prime minister. But this is bigger than that. The Brexit bubble has burst. The country has seen that the Tory hallucination of an island able to command the tides was no more than a fever dream, and a dangerous one at that. We can pronounce Trussonomics dead. Bring on the day we can say the same of the delusion that spawned it.

    Time to ignore the Brexit vote and re-join the EU, in other words.
    That is not what he said. He said that Britain's delusion about bigging itself up as a world colossus has finally started to crumble. Brexit was the final act of that delusion.
    I genuinely don't think many people think Britain is a world class colossus, even most of those who strike a boostering, optimistic tone about being more influential and powerful as an independent state. I think more people are content with the idea of Britain as being a significant power, which it remains, even though it will never again be a superpower. Some think that is better achieved outside the EU, and right or wrong I think the aim is reasonable and realistic one. We can be overly pessimistic about our position, even now.

    However, I do also think it is clear many of our institutions are rocking, our economy seems to be worse off than comparator nations too often for liking, and our government is increasingly unable to grasp what the problems are, or how to fix them, being prone to ideological distraction and self indulgence.
    Brexit is the Suez crisis of our time. A turning point in our history.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,081

    I think everybody should have an AI art representation of who they are and what they do as their profile pic

    I didn’t know you were a postie? How’s the strike going?
  • pingping Posts: 3,724
    edited October 2022
    Truss 2022 exit in to 4/6 on betfair
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,398
    IanB2 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Poppadom plot to out the PM: Rebel MPs gather around takeaway curries as they seek new leader to avert Tory 'wipeout' and discuss tactics

    It was after 9pm on Monday when a takeaway was delivered to Portcullis House
    The 20 or so senior MPs gathered to discuss more tactics than personalities
    Most of those present were supporters of the former chancellor Rishi Sunak"

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11317373/Rebel-MPs-gather-takeaway-curries-seek-new-leader-avert-Tory-wipeout.html

    The Masala Mutiny
    The Dansak Defenestration
    The Pilau Plot
    The Paratha Putsch
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    It’s been such a quiet news day that I’m sure you’re all well up to date with the latest news from Stockholm: 5 weeks after the general election, we have a government.

    Moderates + Christian Democrats + Liberals minority government,
    with C&S from the Sweden Democrats.

    Law n Order
    New nuclear power
    But no weakening of generous unemployment schemes

    It looks extremely shaky from Day One. The Liberals are the weakest link, in more ways than one.
  • Beibheirli_CBeibheirli_C Posts: 7,981
    Scott_xP said:

    I can’t predict much right now. We are in totally uncharted waters. Happy to admit that I completely underestimated how incompetent certain people could be.

    https://twitter.com/IsabelOakeshott/status/1581047561019760640

    I wonder if she has been looking in a mirror?
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,065
    IanB2 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Poppadom plot to out the PM: Rebel MPs gather around takeaway curries as they seek new leader to avert Tory 'wipeout' and discuss tactics

    It was after 9pm on Monday when a takeaway was delivered to Portcullis House
    The 20 or so senior MPs gathered to discuss more tactics than personalities
    Most of those present were supporters of the former chancellor Rishi Sunak"

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11317373/Rebel-MPs-gather-takeaway-curries-seek-new-leader-avert-Tory-wipeout.html

    The Masala Mutiny
    The Dansak Defenestration
    The Pilau Plot
    The rasmallai rebellion
  • RogerRoger Posts: 18,891
    edited October 2022
    Foxy said:

    Another interesting place to add to my next tour of Belgium is this fascinating museum, recently revised and reopened:

    https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/01/when-museums-have-ugly-pasts/603133/

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5804721/Mansion-belonging-Belgian-King-Leopold-II-sale-410-million.html

    A modest little pad on St-Jean-Cap- Ferrat once owned by Leopold the second.

    They lived well the Belgiums.
  • DM_Andy said:

    DM_Andy said:

    My understanding is that 1922 rules mean a new leader can't be no-confidenced by the party's MPs in their first year in office. Has Graham Brady ever shown the slightest inclination to stray from the 1922 rulebook? I don't think he would get the Conservative Party out of a hole even if 200 letters arrived, if Tory MPs want Liz Truss out then they have to stage a Boris-style intervention. As I don't think they are quite ready for that my gut says 2023 for Trexit.

    Did you miss the events of May 2019 when Sir Graham was about the break the rules to force Theresa May out?
    As kle4 helpfully quoted, the committee considered changing the rules, whereupon Brady would have followed the new rules. What I mean is Brady's not going to go rogue and announce an internal VoNC as soon as he's back from holiday.

    No but he might, as suggested with regard to Theresa May, say to Liz Truss that he's received elebenty letters and subtly remind her that, if necessary, the rules can be changed.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    I've gone back to Guido's spreadsheet of Sunak supporters to look for the potential big names:

    Andrew Mitchell
    Caroline Nokes
    Charles Walker
    Damian Green
    Damian Hinds
    David Davis
    Desmond Swayne
    Dominic Raab
    George Eustice
    George Freeman
    Grant Shapps
    Greg Hands
    Julian Smith
    Liam Fox
    Mark Harper
    Matt Hancock
    Mel Stride
    Michael Ellis
    Michael Gove
    Oliver Dowden
    Peter Bottomley
    Rob Halfon
    Robert Jenrick
    Stephen Crabb
    Stephen Hammond
    Steve Barclay
    Steve Brine
    Theresa Villiers

    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ffqemZ-YOi7AvAw8HbxmMd0vIbsOXLZ7KpAmNQPD2r8/edit#gid=1717238762
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,787
    Foxy said:

    IanB2 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Poppadom plot to out the PM: Rebel MPs gather around takeaway curries as they seek new leader to avert Tory 'wipeout' and discuss tactics

    It was after 9pm on Monday when a takeaway was delivered to Portcullis House
    The 20 or so senior MPs gathered to discuss more tactics than personalities
    Most of those present were supporters of the former chancellor Rishi Sunak"

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11317373/Rebel-MPs-gather-takeaway-curries-seek-new-leader-avert-Tory-wipeout.html

    The Masala Mutiny
    The Dansak Defenestration
    The Pilau Plot
    The rasmallai rebellion
    The Aloo Coup.
  • ping said:

    Truss 2022 exit in to 4/6 on betfair

    I won't lay more (unless the price shortens even more in which case I may consider it). But I won't exit my lays either and I continue to believe this is a fantastic lay.

    Quite simply because I see no credible exit plan. Other than a snap general election.
  • DumbosaurusDumbosaurus Posts: 137
    edited October 2022
    (But back Keir as next PM - that's an even better bet. Not only cover the credible exit plan, but you probably win anyway)
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    ping said:

    Truss 2022 exit in to 4/6 on betfair

    After taking far too long over Boris they're doing the opposite with Truss seemingly.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958

    Foxy said:

    IanB2 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Poppadom plot to out the PM: Rebel MPs gather around takeaway curries as they seek new leader to avert Tory 'wipeout' and discuss tactics

    It was after 9pm on Monday when a takeaway was delivered to Portcullis House
    The 20 or so senior MPs gathered to discuss more tactics than personalities
    Most of those present were supporters of the former chancellor Rishi Sunak"

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11317373/Rebel-MPs-gather-takeaway-curries-seek-new-leader-avert-Tory-wipeout.html

    The Masala Mutiny
    The Dansak Defenestration
    The Pilau Plot
    The rasmallai rebellion
    The Aloo Coup.
    With lots of Bhaji bargy....
  • Beibheirli_CBeibheirli_C Posts: 7,981
    Scott_xP said:

    “It feels like the end. I think she’ll be gone next week.”

    https://www.politico.eu/article/liz-truss-prime-minister-uk-conservative-party-finished/

    For me, the stand-out quote was: "For many MPs, it’s also a question of limiting the damage done to the Tory brand. “A bunch of libertarian entryists have taken over the Tory party,” one rebel MP said. “It’s our Corbyn problem. We now have a choice between landslide and annihilation. You can’t destroy the economy and our reputation for economic competence and expect anything less.” "
  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,160
    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    I think Belarus will be joining the war soon. Seems they've started to mobilise/conscript.

    Yes, but which side will those Belarussians join?

    Belarus has been shipping material out into Russia these last weeks.

    https://twitter.com/MotolkoHelp/status/1580990412440731648?t=kOA-py48umoKRzfEkDiSHQ&s=19

    Mobilising in Belarus is likely to be the end of Lukashenko, and the beginning of free Belarus
    We can hope, right?

    Some people seem to think its just to keep the Ukrainians looking north and hold down some military resources from the south. But maybe they'll try to push forward?
    If Belarus mobilises, then expect protests back on the streets in favour of the real president, and for the army to side with the protestors. Lukashenko's days were numbered when he chained himself to the corpse of the Russian kleptocracy.
    Come on people of Belarus, you can do it. First of many dominos to fall.

  • Scott_xP said:

    I can’t predict much right now. We are in totally uncharted waters. Happy to admit that I completely underestimated how incompetent certain people could be.

    https://twitter.com/IsabelOakeshott/status/1581047561019760640

    And she remains completely oblivious that a massive chunk of the population knew and said quite loudly that 'certain people' were very, very, very incompetent.
  • IanB2 said:

    I think everybody should have an AI art representation of who they are and what they do as their profile pic

    I didn’t know you were a postie? How’s the strike going?
    I've just started so they've given me my days off on strike days so far. I understand management are partly blaming the strikes for the coming redundancies, so maybe not great..

    I've already joined the union though, for the first time in my life. I've never had the opportunity before, well I'm sure I could have joined a union, but it wouldn't have had anything to do with my work or have helped me.

    I don't think I feel any more socialist
  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,160

    Foxy said:

    IanB2 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Poppadom plot to out the PM: Rebel MPs gather around takeaway curries as they seek new leader to avert Tory 'wipeout' and discuss tactics

    It was after 9pm on Monday when a takeaway was delivered to Portcullis House
    The 20 or so senior MPs gathered to discuss more tactics than personalities
    Most of those present were supporters of the former chancellor Rishi Sunak"

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11317373/Rebel-MPs-gather-takeaway-curries-seek-new-leader-avert-Tory-wipeout.html

    The Masala Mutiny
    The Dansak Defenestration
    The Pilau Plot
    The rasmallai rebellion
    The Aloo Coup.
    With lots of Bhaji bargy....
    The clock is tikkaing
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    edited October 2022

    Scott_xP said:

    “It feels like the end. I think she’ll be gone next week.”

    https://www.politico.eu/article/liz-truss-prime-minister-uk-conservative-party-finished/

    For me, the stand-out quote was: "For many MPs, it’s also a question of limiting the damage done to the Tory brand. “A bunch of libertarian entryists have taken over the Tory party,” one rebel MP said. “It’s our Corbyn problem. We now have a choice between landslide and annihilation. You can’t destroy the economy and our reputation for economic competence and expect anything less.” "
    I don't think the entryist comparison really works. Whilst the existing Labour members also voted for Corbyn, the new members seemed to provide much of the enthusiasm and drive, with plenty of traditionally non-Labour folk backing him more than longer standing ones, with an entire organisation dedicated to backing him against the party 'establishment'.

    Whilst Truss would I am sure love to point to her election by party members over any party establishment, has there been any influx of supporters? Or is it simply that her faction won?
  • Beibheirli_CBeibheirli_C Posts: 7,981
    edited October 2022
    DM_Andy said:

    DM_Andy said:

    My understanding is that 1922 rules mean a new leader can't be no-confidenced by the party's MPs in their first year in office. Has Graham Brady ever shown the slightest inclination to stray from the 1922 rulebook? I don't think he would get the Conservative Party out of a hole even if 200 letters arrived, if Tory MPs want Liz Truss out then they have to stage a Boris-style intervention. As I don't think they are quite ready for that my gut says 2023 for Trexit.

    Did you miss the events of May 2019 when Sir Graham was about the break the rules to force Theresa May out?
    As kle4 helpfully quoted, the committee considered changing the rules, whereupon Brady would have followed the new rules. What I mean is Brady's not going to go rogue and announce an internal VoNC as soon as he's back from holiday.

    Surely it matters little what the 1922 Committee and Brady want to do? The "remit" of the PM is that they command support enough to govern. It should be patently clear that Ms Truss no longer has the confidence to govern. By definition she cannot carry on and must be replaced.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709

    It’s been such a quiet news day that I’m sure you’re all well up to date with the latest news from Stockholm: 5 weeks after the general election, we have a government.

    Moderates + Christian Democrats + Liberals minority government,
    with C&S from the Sweden Democrats.

    Law n Order
    New nuclear power
    But no weakening of generous unemployment schemes

    It looks extremely shaky from Day One. The Liberals are the weakest link, in more ways than one.

    And cutting illegal immigration
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    kle4 said:

    Whilst Truss would I am sure love to point to her election by party members over any party establishment, has there been any influx of supporters? Or is it simply that her faction won?

    Perhaps the reverse. I think the nutters and swivel-eyed loons who were party members drove out the Conservative and Unionists leaving them as a larger percentage of what was left
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842

    DM_Andy said:

    DM_Andy said:

    My understanding is that 1922 rules mean a new leader can't be no-confidenced by the party's MPs in their first year in office. Has Graham Brady ever shown the slightest inclination to stray from the 1922 rulebook? I don't think he would get the Conservative Party out of a hole even if 200 letters arrived, if Tory MPs want Liz Truss out then they have to stage a Boris-style intervention. As I don't think they are quite ready for that my gut says 2023 for Trexit.

    Did you miss the events of May 2019 when Sir Graham was about the break the rules to force Theresa May out?
    As kle4 helpfully quoted, the committee considered changing the rules, whereupon Brady would have followed the new rules. What I mean is Brady's not going to go rogue and announce an internal VoNC as soon as he's back from holiday.

    Surely it matters little what the 1922 Committee and Brady want to do? The "remit" of the PM is that they command support enough to govern. It should be patently clear that Ms Truss no longer has the confidence to govern. By definition she cannot carry on and must be replaced.
    Starmer can test that in the Commons if he wants
  • UnpopularUnpopular Posts: 775
    kle4 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    IanB2 said:

    Freedland:

    Historians will look back and see a point of origin to the current madness, one that explains how a new prime minister could see her administration fall apart in a matter of weeks.. When the textbooks of the future come to the chapter we are living through, in the autumn of 2022, they will start with the summer of 2016: Brexit and the specific delusion that drove it.

    That self-inflicted [economic] contraction helps explain why Britain felt international shocks – surging inflation, for example – harder than most.

    Brexit [also] broke the link between governance and reason, between policy and evidence. Until Brexit, politicians only rarely got away with defying the empirical facts or elementary logic.

    But there is a less obvious way in which Brexit made the current great unravelling a political death foretold…call it the sovereignty delusion. The three weeks since Kwarteng delivered his mini-budget have seen the shattering of that delusion. For Truss and her now ex-chancellor were given the rudest of reminders that in our interdependent world there is no such thing as pure, untrammelled sovereignty.

    As several economists have noted, Truss was acting as if Britain were the US, issuer of the world’s reserve currency, with markets falling over themselves to lend it money. Like Anthony Eden before her, she could not accept that Britain’s place is not what it was: it can never be sovereign like a king in a fairytale, able to bend the world to his will. That kind of sovereignty was always a fantasy, one that both fed Brexit and was fed by it.

    She is finished, a hollow husk of a prime minister. But this is bigger than that. The Brexit bubble has burst. The country has seen that the Tory hallucination of an island able to command the tides was no more than a fever dream, and a dangerous one at that. We can pronounce Trussonomics dead. Bring on the day we can say the same of the delusion that spawned it.

    Time to ignore the Brexit vote and re-join the EU, in other words.
    That is not what he said. He said that Britain's delusion about bigging itself up as a world colossus has finally started to crumble. Brexit was the final act of that delusion.
    I genuinely don't think many people think Britain is a world class colossus, even most of those who strike a boostering, optimistic tone about being more influential and powerful as an independent state. I think more people are content with the idea of Britain as being a significant power, which it remains, even though it will never again be a superpower. Some think that is better achieved outside the EU, and right or wrong I think the aim is reasonable and realistic one. We can be overly pessimistic about our position, even now.

    However, I do also think it is clear many of our institutions are rocking, our economy seems to be worse off than comparator nations too often for liking, and our government is increasingly unable to grasp what the problems are, or how to fix them, being prone to ideological distraction and self indulgence.
    Blair apparently said to Campbell that, after Hong Kong, Britain should give up no more territory. Campbell was, reportedly, a bit bemused by this order. Nonetheless, at that time, it felt as though Britain, while not a superpower, was a power in the world. Foremost of the Second Tier of Nations, perhaps. In 2003, it could be argued we were the second most powerful nation in the world.

    What are we now? Our decline has been rapid, and even the Tories have forgotten Thatcher's words. They no longer believe that Britain has those sterling qualities. They no longer believe that this generation can match their grandfathers and great grandfathers in ability, in courage and in resolution.

    Instead we're treated to a Tory Party at the end of their tether and Tory supporters believing that, because their party has not come to a solution, there are no solutions to be had. They are resigned to a shit future, because their party is shit. I believe that there are alternatives and that the UK can, once again, find a role in the world.

    I actually think Starmer gets this and I think he can offer that alternative.

    Also, I'm pretty drunk.
  • El_CapitanoEl_Capitano Posts: 3,870

    Scott_xP said:

    I can’t predict much right now. We are in totally uncharted waters. Happy to admit that I completely underestimated how incompetent certain people could be.

    https://twitter.com/IsabelOakeshott/status/1581047561019760640

    And she remains completely oblivious that a massive chunk of the population knew and said quite loudly that 'certain people' were very, very, very incompetent.
    Including pretty much everyone else in the (LibDem-voting) town where Isabel lives.

    (I walked past her house a couple of times this evening. No lights on... guess she's in London or on the IoW.)
  • If Truss was LotO would she last as long as IDS

    If IDS had been PM, would he have lasted longer than Truss?
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    edited October 2022
    kle4 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    IanB2 said:

    Freedland:

    Historians will look back and see a point of origin to the current madness, one that explains how a new prime minister could see her administration fall apart in a matter of weeks.. When the textbooks of the future come to the chapter we are living through, in the autumn of 2022, they will start with the summer of 2016: Brexit and the specific delusion that drove it.

    That self-inflicted [economic] contraction helps explain why Britain felt international shocks – surging inflation, for example – harder than most.

    Brexit [also] broke the link between governance and reason, between policy and evidence. Until Brexit, politicians only rarely got away with defying the empirical facts or elementary logic.

    But there is a less obvious way in which Brexit made the current great unravelling a political death foretold…call it the sovereignty delusion. The three weeks since Kwarteng delivered his mini-budget have seen the shattering of that delusion. For Truss and her now ex-chancellor were given the rudest of reminders that in our interdependent world there is no such thing as pure, untrammelled sovereignty.

    As several economists have noted, Truss was acting as if Britain were the US, issuer of the world’s reserve currency, with markets falling over themselves to lend it money. Like Anthony Eden before her, she could not accept that Britain’s place is not what it was: it can never be sovereign like a king in a fairytale, able to bend the world to his will. That kind of sovereignty was always a fantasy, one that both fed Brexit and was fed by it.

    She is finished, a hollow husk of a prime minister. But this is bigger than that. The Brexit bubble has burst. The country has seen that the Tory hallucination of an island able to command the tides was no more than a fever dream, and a dangerous one at that. We can pronounce Trussonomics dead. Bring on the day we can say the same of the delusion that spawned it.

    Time to ignore the Brexit vote and re-join the EU, in other words.
    That is not what he said. He said that Britain's delusion about bigging itself up as a world colossus has finally started to crumble. Brexit was the final act of that delusion.
    I genuinely don't think many people think Britain is a world class colossus, even most of those who strike a boostering, optimistic tone about being more influential and powerful as an independent state. I think more people are content with the idea of Britain as being a significant power, which it remains, even though it will never again be a superpower. Some think that is better achieved outside the EU, and right or wrong I think the aim is a reasonable and realistic one. We can be overly pessimistic about our position, even now.

    However, I do also think it is clear many of our institutions are rocking, our economy seems to be worse off than comparator nations too often for liking, and our government is increasingly unable to grasp what the problems are, or how to fix them, being prone to ideological distraction and self indulgence.
    If you're the 5th biggest economy in the world you're pretty much automatically a first rate power regardless of what anyone thinks. [And of those five countries two of them aren't allowed to have unfettered military capabilities which puts you in the top 3 on that score].
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    edited October 2022
    Andy_JS said:

    kle4 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    IanB2 said:

    Freedland:

    Historians will look back and see a point of origin to the current madness, one that explains how a new prime minister could see her administration fall apart in a matter of weeks.. When the textbooks of the future come to the chapter we are living through, in the autumn of 2022, they will start with the summer of 2016: Brexit and the specific delusion that drove it.

    That self-inflicted [economic] contraction helps explain why Britain felt international shocks – surging inflation, for example – harder than most.

    Brexit [also] broke the link between governance and reason, between policy and evidence. Until Brexit, politicians only rarely got away with defying the empirical facts or elementary logic.

    But there is a less obvious way in which Brexit made the current great unravelling a political death foretold…call it the sovereignty delusion. The three weeks since Kwarteng delivered his mini-budget have seen the shattering of that delusion. For Truss and her now ex-chancellor were given the rudest of reminders that in our interdependent world there is no such thing as pure, untrammelled sovereignty.

    As several economists have noted, Truss was acting as if Britain were the US, issuer of the world’s reserve currency, with markets falling over themselves to lend it money. Like Anthony Eden before her, she could not accept that Britain’s place is not what it was: it can never be sovereign like a king in a fairytale, able to bend the world to his will. That kind of sovereignty was always a fantasy, one that both fed Brexit and was fed by it.

    She is finished, a hollow husk of a prime minister. But this is bigger than that. The Brexit bubble has burst. The country has seen that the Tory hallucination of an island able to command the tides was no more than a fever dream, and a dangerous one at that. We can pronounce Trussonomics dead. Bring on the day we can say the same of the delusion that spawned it.

    Time to ignore the Brexit vote and re-join the EU, in other words.
    That is not what he said. He said that Britain's delusion about bigging itself up as a world colossus has finally started to crumble. Brexit was the final act of that delusion.
    I genuinely don't think many people think Britain is a world class colossus, even most of those who strike a boostering, optimistic tone about being more influential and powerful as an independent state. I think more people are content with the idea of Britain as being a significant power, which it remains, even though it will never again be a superpower. Some think that is better achieved outside the EU, and right or wrong I think the aim is a reasonable and realistic one. We can be overly pessimistic about our position, even now.

    However, I do also think it is clear many of our institutions are rocking, our economy seems to be worse off than comparator nations too often for liking, and our government is increasingly unable to grasp what the problems are, or how to fix them, being prone to ideological distraction and self indulgence.
    If you're the 5th biggest economy in the world you're pretty much automatically a first rate power regardless of what anyone thinks.
    I think that somewhat misses the point. We're a relatively high population, highly developed nation, we are a power. But that doesn't mean we are still progressing as we should, or making good use of what we have in order to maximise our power to be competitive.

    At present I can forgive those who think we are neither progressing, or even managing our decline well.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,065
    Unpopular said:

    kle4 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    IanB2 said:

    Freedland:

    Historians will look back and see a point of origin to the current madness, one that explains how a new prime minister could see her administration fall apart in a matter of weeks.. When the textbooks of the future come to the chapter we are living through, in the autumn of 2022, they will start with the summer of 2016: Brexit and the specific delusion that drove it.

    That self-inflicted [economic] contraction helps explain why Britain felt international shocks – surging inflation, for example – harder than most.

    Brexit [also] broke the link between governance and reason, between policy and evidence. Until Brexit, politicians only rarely got away with defying the empirical facts or elementary logic.

    But there is a less obvious way in which Brexit made the current great unravelling a political death foretold…call it the sovereignty delusion. The three weeks since Kwarteng delivered his mini-budget have seen the shattering of that delusion. For Truss and her now ex-chancellor were given the rudest of reminders that in our interdependent world there is no such thing as pure, untrammelled sovereignty.

    As several economists have noted, Truss was acting as if Britain were the US, issuer of the world’s reserve currency, with markets falling over themselves to lend it money. Like Anthony Eden before her, she could not accept that Britain’s place is not what it was: it can never be sovereign like a king in a fairytale, able to bend the world to his will. That kind of sovereignty was always a fantasy, one that both fed Brexit and was fed by it.

    She is finished, a hollow husk of a prime minister. But this is bigger than that. The Brexit bubble has burst. The country has seen that the Tory hallucination of an island able to command the tides was no more than a fever dream, and a dangerous one at that. We can pronounce Trussonomics dead. Bring on the day we can say the same of the delusion that spawned it.

    Time to ignore the Brexit vote and re-join the EU, in other words.
    That is not what he said. He said that Britain's delusion about bigging itself up as a world colossus has finally started to crumble. Brexit was the final act of that delusion.
    I genuinely don't think many people think Britain is a world class colossus, even most of those who strike a boostering, optimistic tone about being more influential and powerful as an independent state. I think more people are content with the idea of Britain as being a significant power, which it remains, even though it will never again be a superpower. Some think that is better achieved outside the EU, and right or wrong I think the aim is reasonable and realistic one. We can be overly pessimistic about our position, even now.

    However, I do also think it is clear many of our institutions are rocking, our economy seems to be worse off than comparator nations too often for liking, and our government is increasingly unable to grasp what the problems are, or how to fix them, being prone to ideological distraction and self indulgence.
    Blair apparently said to Campbell that, after Hong Kong, Britain should give up no more territory. Campbell was, reportedly, a bit bemused by this order. Nonetheless, at that time, it felt as though Britain, while not a superpower, was a power in the world. Foremost of the Second Tier of Nations, perhaps. In 2003, it could be argued we were the second most powerful nation in the world.

    What are we now? Our decline has been rapid, and even the Tories have forgotten Thatcher's words. They no longer believe that Britain has those sterling qualities. They no longer believe that this generation can match their grandfathers and great grandfathers in ability, in courage and in resolution.

    Instead we're treated to a Tory Party at the end of their tether and Tory supporters believing that, because their party has not come to a solution, there are no solutions to be had. They are resigned to a shit future, because their party is shit. I believe that there are alternatives and that the UK can, once again, find a role in the world.

    I actually think Starmer gets this and I think he can offer that alternative.

    Also, I'm pretty drunk.
    I agree. Just because the Tories have crashed their clown car into the wall of reality doesn't mean the country is also a write off. There are options elsewhere, though not Labour for me.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited October 2022
    IanB2 said:

    Freedland:

    Historians will look back and see a point of origin to the current madness, one that explains how a new prime minister could see her administration fall apart in a matter of weeks.. When the textbooks of the future come to the chapter we are living through, in the autumn of 2022, they will start with the summer of 2016: Brexit and the specific delusion that drove it.

    That self-inflicted [economic] contraction helps explain why Britain felt international shocks – surging inflation, for example – harder than most.

    Brexit [also] broke the link between governance and reason, between policy and evidence. Until Brexit, politicians only rarely got away with defying the empirical facts or elementary logic.

    But there is a less obvious way in which Brexit made the current great unravelling a political death foretold…call it the sovereignty delusion. The three weeks since Kwarteng delivered his mini-budget have seen the shattering of that delusion. For Truss and her now ex-chancellor were given the rudest of reminders that in our interdependent world there is no such thing as pure, untrammelled sovereignty.

    As several economists have noted, Truss was acting as if Britain were the US, issuer of the world’s reserve currency, with markets falling over themselves to lend it money. Like Anthony Eden before her, she could not accept that Britain’s place is not what it was: it can never be sovereign like a king in a fairytale, able to bend the world to his will. That kind of sovereignty was always a fantasy, one that both fed Brexit and was fed by it.

    She is finished, a hollow husk of a prime minister. But this is bigger than that. The Brexit bubble has burst. The country has seen that the Tory hallucination of an island able to command the tides was no more than a fever dream, and a dangerous one at that. We can pronounce Trussonomics dead. Bring on the day we can say the same of the delusion that spawned it.

    Oh for goodness sake, Truss and Kwarteng cutting corporation tax to a rate still higher than Ireland and the top rate of income tax back to the level of the Blair years and still a higher rate than New Zealand and the US may not have been very responsible given the current economic situation but nor was it the next Suez. If the markets want to still behave like headless chickens even after a reversal of those tax cuts, let them!

    The UK is a top 10 global economy, a G7 and G20 economy and a permanent member of the UN Security Council. We may not have an Empire or be a superpower anymore but we are not an impoverished, tiny backwater either!!

    Freedland is a typical defeatist Remoaner of the worst kind
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    HYUFD said:

    IanB2 said:

    Freedland:

    Historians will look back and see a point of origin to the current madness, one that explains how a new prime minister could see her administration fall apart in a matter of weeks.. When the textbooks of the future come to the chapter we are living through, in the autumn of 2022, they will start with the summer of 2016: Brexit and the specific delusion that drove it.

    That self-inflicted [economic] contraction helps explain why Britain felt international shocks – surging inflation, for example – harder than most.

    Brexit [also] broke the link between governance and reason, between policy and evidence. Until Brexit, politicians only rarely got away with defying the empirical facts or elementary logic.

    But there is a less obvious way in which Brexit made the current great unravelling a political death foretold…call it the sovereignty delusion. The three weeks since Kwarteng delivered his mini-budget have seen the shattering of that delusion. For Truss and her now ex-chancellor were given the rudest of reminders that in our interdependent world there is no such thing as pure, untrammelled sovereignty.

    As several economists have noted, Truss was acting as if Britain were the US, issuer of the world’s reserve currency, with markets falling over themselves to lend it money. Like Anthony Eden before her, she could not accept that Britain’s place is not what it was: it can never be sovereign like a king in a fairytale, able to bend the world to his will. That kind of sovereignty was always a fantasy, one that both fed Brexit and was fed by it.

    She is finished, a hollow husk of a prime minister. But this is bigger than that. The Brexit bubble has burst. The country has seen that the Tory hallucination of an island able to command the tides was no more than a fever dream, and a dangerous one at that. We can pronounce Trussonomics dead. Bring on the day we can say the same of the delusion that spawned it.

    Oh for goodness sake, Truss and Kwarteng cutting corporation tax to a rate still higher than Ireland and the top rate of income tax back to the level of the Blair years and still a higher rate than New Zealand and the US may not have been very responsible given the current economic situation but nor was it the next Suez. If the markets want to still behave like headless chickens even after a reversal of those tax cuts, let them!

    The UK is a top 10 global economy, a G7 and G20 economy and a permanent member of the UN Security Council. We may not have an Empire or be a superpower anymore but we are not an impoverished, tiny backwater either!!

    Freedland is a typical defeatist Remoaner of the worst kind
    Remainers are definitely viewing this crisis as an opportunity for their cause.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    edited October 2022

    It’s been such a quiet news day that I’m sure you’re all well up to date with the latest news from Stockholm: 5 weeks after the general election, we have a government.

    Moderates + Christian Democrats + Liberals minority government,
    with C&S from the Sweden Democrats.

    Law n Order
    New nuclear power
    But no weakening of generous unemployment schemes

    It looks extremely shaky from Day One. The Liberals are the weakest link, in more ways than one.

    Thanks for the update. Do you know when the new PM take office?
  • kle4 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    “It feels like the end. I think she’ll be gone next week.”

    https://www.politico.eu/article/liz-truss-prime-minister-uk-conservative-party-finished/

    For me, the stand-out quote was: "For many MPs, it’s also a question of limiting the damage done to the Tory brand. “A bunch of libertarian entryists have taken over the Tory party,” one rebel MP said. “It’s our Corbyn problem. We now have a choice between landslide and annihilation. You can’t destroy the economy and our reputation for economic competence and expect anything less.” "
    I don't think the entryist comparison really works. Whilst the existing Labour members also voted for Corbyn, the new members seemed to provide much of the enthusiasm and drive, with plenty of traditionally non-Labour folk backing him more than longer standing ones, with an entire organisation dedicated to backing him against the party 'establishment'.

    Whilst Truss would I am sure love to point to her election by party members over any party establishment, has there been any influx of supporters? Or is it simply that her faction won?
    Membership of the Conservative Party shot up by a third around the time of Brexit. Where the comparison perhaps breaks down is that Labour's members supported Corbyn, whereas the Conservative ones supported Boris, and voted for Liz Truss only to destroy Sunak, whom they blamed for Boris's demise.
  • I call my mail route that I started two weeks ago the Himalayas

    I walk eleven to twelve miles and climb, according to my phone, between sixty-four and eighty-six flights of stairs a day

    There's a street called Kandahar (hence Himalayas) where every single house on the top side of the street has at least fifteen steps up to the front door. There's one house on the bottom side

    The street before it again has big staircases on one side, followed by long uphill pathways, about 50 metres, up to each house

    My legs should look great
  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,160
    Andy_JS said:

    HYUFD said:

    IanB2 said:

    Freedland:

    Historians will look back and see a point of origin to the current madness, one that explains how a new prime minister could see her administration fall apart in a matter of weeks.. When the textbooks of the future come to the chapter we are living through, in the autumn of 2022, they will start with the summer of 2016: Brexit and the specific delusion that drove it.

    That self-inflicted [economic] contraction helps explain why Britain felt international shocks – surging inflation, for example – harder than most.

    Brexit [also] broke the link between governance and reason, between policy and evidence. Until Brexit, politicians only rarely got away with defying the empirical facts or elementary logic.

    But there is a less obvious way in which Brexit made the current great unravelling a political death foretold…call it the sovereignty delusion. The three weeks since Kwarteng delivered his mini-budget have seen the shattering of that delusion. For Truss and her now ex-chancellor were given the rudest of reminders that in our interdependent world there is no such thing as pure, untrammelled sovereignty.

    As several economists have noted, Truss was acting as if Britain were the US, issuer of the world’s reserve currency, with markets falling over themselves to lend it money. Like Anthony Eden before her, she could not accept that Britain’s place is not what it was: it can never be sovereign like a king in a fairytale, able to bend the world to his will. That kind of sovereignty was always a fantasy, one that both fed Brexit and was fed by it.

    She is finished, a hollow husk of a prime minister. But this is bigger than that. The Brexit bubble has burst. The country has seen that the Tory hallucination of an island able to command the tides was no more than a fever dream, and a dangerous one at that. We can pronounce Trussonomics dead. Bring on the day we can say the same of the delusion that spawned it.

    Oh for goodness sake, Truss and Kwarteng cutting corporation tax to a rate still higher than Ireland and the top rate of income tax back to the level of the Blair years and still a higher rate than New Zealand and the US may not have been very responsible given the current economic situation but nor was it the next Suez. If the markets want to still behave like headless chickens even after a reversal of those tax cuts, let them!

    The UK is a top 10 global economy, a G7 and G20 economy and a permanent member of the UN Security Council. We may not have an Empire or be a superpower anymore but we are not an impoverished, tiny backwater either!!

    Freedland is a typical defeatist Remoaner of the worst kind
    Remainers are definitely viewing this crisis as an opportunity for their cause.
    Quite right too. If we were still in the EU and Britain’s economy was being mauled by some madcap policy making in Brussels do you think the ERG would be maintaining a studied and respectful silence?
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    Andy_JS said:

    HYUFD said:

    IanB2 said:

    Freedland:

    Historians will look back and see a point of origin to the current madness, one that explains how a new prime minister could see her administration fall apart in a matter of weeks.. When the textbooks of the future come to the chapter we are living through, in the autumn of 2022, they will start with the summer of 2016: Brexit and the specific delusion that drove it.

    That self-inflicted [economic] contraction helps explain why Britain felt international shocks – surging inflation, for example – harder than most.

    Brexit [also] broke the link between governance and reason, between policy and evidence. Until Brexit, politicians only rarely got away with defying the empirical facts or elementary logic.

    But there is a less obvious way in which Brexit made the current great unravelling a political death foretold…call it the sovereignty delusion. The three weeks since Kwarteng delivered his mini-budget have seen the shattering of that delusion. For Truss and her now ex-chancellor were given the rudest of reminders that in our interdependent world there is no such thing as pure, untrammelled sovereignty.

    As several economists have noted, Truss was acting as if Britain were the US, issuer of the world’s reserve currency, with markets falling over themselves to lend it money. Like Anthony Eden before her, she could not accept that Britain’s place is not what it was: it can never be sovereign like a king in a fairytale, able to bend the world to his will. That kind of sovereignty was always a fantasy, one that both fed Brexit and was fed by it.

    She is finished, a hollow husk of a prime minister. But this is bigger than that. The Brexit bubble has burst. The country has seen that the Tory hallucination of an island able to command the tides was no more than a fever dream, and a dangerous one at that. We can pronounce Trussonomics dead. Bring on the day we can say the same of the delusion that spawned it.

    Oh for goodness sake, Truss and Kwarteng cutting corporation tax to a rate still higher than Ireland and the top rate of income tax back to the level of the Blair years and still a higher rate than New Zealand and the US may not have been very responsible given the current economic situation but nor was it the next Suez. If the markets want to still behave like headless chickens even after a reversal of those tax cuts, let them!

    The UK is a top 10 global economy, a G7 and G20 economy and a permanent member of the UN Security Council. We may not have an Empire or be a superpower anymore but we are not an impoverished, tiny backwater either!!

    Freedland is a typical defeatist Remoaner of the worst kind
    Remainers are definitely viewing this crisis as an opportunity for their cause.
    Heaven forfend, people are responding to a political crisis?!
  • UnpopularUnpopular Posts: 775
    Foxy said:

    Unpopular said:

    kle4 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    IanB2 said:

    Freedland:

    Historians will look back and see a point of origin to the current madness, one that explains how a new prime minister could see her administration fall apart in a matter of weeks.. When the textbooks of the future come to the chapter we are living through, in the autumn of 2022, they will start with the summer of 2016: Brexit and the specific delusion that drove it.

    That self-inflicted [economic] contraction helps explain why Britain felt international shocks – surging inflation, for example – harder than most.

    Brexit [also] broke the link between governance and reason, between policy and evidence. Until Brexit, politicians only rarely got away with defying the empirical facts or elementary logic.

    But there is a less obvious way in which Brexit made the current great unravelling a political death foretold…call it the sovereignty delusion. The three weeks since Kwarteng delivered his mini-budget have seen the shattering of that delusion. For Truss and her now ex-chancellor were given the rudest of reminders that in our interdependent world there is no such thing as pure, untrammelled sovereignty.

    As several economists have noted, Truss was acting as if Britain were the US, issuer of the world’s reserve currency, with markets falling over themselves to lend it money. Like Anthony Eden before her, she could not accept that Britain’s place is not what it was: it can never be sovereign like a king in a fairytale, able to bend the world to his will. That kind of sovereignty was always a fantasy, one that both fed Brexit and was fed by it.

    She is finished, a hollow husk of a prime minister. But this is bigger than that. The Brexit bubble has burst. The country has seen that the Tory hallucination of an island able to command the tides was no more than a fever dream, and a dangerous one at that. We can pronounce Trussonomics dead. Bring on the day we can say the same of the delusion that spawned it.

    Time to ignore the Brexit vote and re-join the EU, in other words.
    That is not what he said. He said that Britain's delusion about bigging itself up as a world colossus has finally started to crumble. Brexit was the final act of that delusion.
    I genuinely don't think many people think Britain is a world class colossus, even most of those who strike a boostering, optimistic tone about being more influential and powerful as an independent state. I think more people are content with the idea of Britain as being a significant power, which it remains, even though it will never again be a superpower. Some think that is better achieved outside the EU, and right or wrong I think the aim is reasonable and realistic one. We can be overly pessimistic about our position, even now.

    However, I do also think it is clear many of our institutions are rocking, our economy seems to be worse off than comparator nations too often for liking, and our government is increasingly unable to grasp what the problems are, or how to fix them, being prone to ideological distraction and self indulgence.
    Blair apparently said to Campbell that, after Hong Kong, Britain should give up no more territory. Campbell was, reportedly, a bit bemused by this order. Nonetheless, at that time, it felt as though Britain, while not a superpower, was a power in the world. Foremost of the Second Tier of Nations, perhaps. In 2003, it could be argued we were the second most powerful nation in the world.

    What are we now? Our decline has been rapid, and even the Tories have forgotten Thatcher's words. They no longer believe that Britain has those sterling qualities. They no longer believe that this generation can match their grandfathers and great grandfathers in ability, in courage and in resolution.

    Instead we're treated to a Tory Party at the end of their tether and Tory supporters believing that, because their party has not come to a solution, there are no solutions to be had. They are resigned to a shit future, because their party is shit. I believe that there are alternatives and that the UK can, once again, find a role in the world.

    I actually think Starmer gets this and I think he can offer that alternative.

    Also, I'm pretty drunk.
    I agree. Just because the Tories have crashed their clown car into the wall of reality doesn't mean the country is also a write off. There are options elsewhere, though not Labour for me.
    I would be interested to hear of your alternative. I'm a natural LibDem, but i) I think Starmer is actually pretty good and ii) The Lib Dems haven't put up a strong case in my seat. While I don't trust the Labour Party as an institution, I think Starmer gets it.
This discussion has been closed.