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No. Prime Minister. – politicalbetting.com
No. Prime Minister. – politicalbetting.com
Britain has largely been ungoverned – and certainly not governed with even a basic level of competence – for the best part of a year now.
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Other government will discover their own particular bits of ruin in time, no doubt.
Where the new person went wrong was when she tried to do things. If she stops doing that the country will be fine.
https://mobile.twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1581114404544086018
When Russian military correspondents were stomping for the regime, I bet they never imagined it would turn on them. Head of RT Margarita Simonyan was swearing up and down that "according to her sources" this wasn't happening. Apparently, it is. ⤵️
Let's see how it develops, but taken together with Putin's apparent rowing back on his bellicose rhetoric yesterday, the plates might be shifting again.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1581026156983160832
Kwasi Kwarteng thinks Liz Truss has only brought herself a few weeks by sacking him and pledging to raise corporation tax
He believes the ‘wagons are circling’ on the end of her Premiership
https://mobile.twitter.com/HeartlandSignal/status/1580729957550272513
Moderators closed tonight's Wisconsin Senate debate by asking each candidate to say something they find admirable about the other.
Lt. Gov Mandela Barnes (D) said Sen. Ron Johnson (R) is a "family man."
Johnson said Barnes is "against America."
The audience booed Johnson.
But I agree with your second point. I remember my "O"-level history teacher (or one of them) telling us the biggest success of the 1923 Labour Government was that it "did nothing" (truth to tell, it would have struggled to, having only 191 MPs and so relying on Asquith's Liberals) -- a view confirmed by Wiki ("The main achievement of the Government was that it showed itself to be 'fit to govern'. Although this might not have meant much in terms of concrete policy-making, it did at least not alarm voters...").
I'd suggest an incoming new Tory leader in January 2023 could do far worse than to copy their predecessor from exactly a century ago.
But is that right? He got 43% last time. He would surely do better for two reasons:
1) The economic failure of the last few weeks and Sunak being proved right about what would happen.
2) The last few weeks would make members more risk averse - ie more inclined to choose whoever MPs put first and also more sceptical about anyone who doesn't obviously have the stature of a PM.
He only needs another 7% and I would have thought he would have every chance of getting it - certainly against someone like Braverman who would feel like a similar candidate to Truss.
Indeed the LDs provided a very good example of point 2) with Davey losing to Swinson but then beating Moran the following year - ie the first attempt went badly wrong so they then went for the safe option next time.
Hopeless. Embarrassing.
Doesn’t even attempt to answer the legitimate questions.
She has contempt for the British people, from whom she has no mandate.
Who the fuck foisted this woman on the country?
Aaron Bell and the like, you’re fucking fools.
Come on @Tissue_Price explain yourself.
https://www.ft.com/content/ac5e987b-1931-478d-8f1a-f4e0751c7760
Of course, the main cost is on government borrowing.
Austerity awaits.
As your new Chancellor, I shall endeavour to-
Bugger. Just been fired.
Truss has had one poor budget and she's suffered a heavy price for it losing her right hand man and bringing in someone who is from the other wing.
I watched the presser, all I can say is she's not as gifted at making up bullshit and lieing as Boris was.
Let's see what Hunt comes up with for Halloween as outside the fiscal the rest of her Premiership (Dealing with the Queens death and Ukraine mainly) has been spot on.
Hopefully we'll go back to that soon.
What is more, I would argue that the Conservative Party needs a general election. I cannot see a way back for them in power, as the bad news will just keep rolling in. The longer this goes on, the greater the damage to the party.
But the bigger problem for the Conservative Party is that too many people at the top will not - indeed, do not at the moment - see the reasons they are in the mire. Too many will not want to change.
Liz Truss has just one - and even that is at "the three wheels on my wagon" stage.
He didn't elaborate but short of assassination, to what was he referring? Pesto must know the leadership rules.
He also mentioned only two possible replacements. One is Ben Wallace (yuck). The other is Rishi Sunak who has the benefit of being proven totally right about what Liz Truss would mean for the markets and economy. I think Rishi would steady the ship sufficiently to limit tory losses to around 150-200 MPs after the GE, although closer to the lower end imho.
Never, ever assume that things can't get even worse.
There are still plenty of people on the right, a few of them on here, who still don't get it.
We are sick and tired of this right wing ideological crap that has driven this country into a cul-de-sac. The lack of basic common sense, extending into economic mismanagement, is breathtaking.
Whatever the anti-woke brigade like to think in their embittered old state, most people are more interested in their mortgage interest rate than whether someone wishes to identify female. The tory party have completely lost perspective and deserve a long, long, time in the political wilderness.
I'd like to, but I cant, because you've been rubbish and trashed the country, you idiot. And you've made me look an idiot while you were at it.
Idiot. Good riddance.
She needs to survive the next couple of weeks and, if she does, I think she makes it.
To say you find it admirable that your opponent is against America is in effect to admit to treason.
Part of the problem here is a disconnect between the ageing membership and most of the population. It's not helped by being egged on by the Daily Express and the Daily Mail.
A sea-change is coming to rival 1979 and 1997. In the wilderness years will the tories reinvent themselves again? The answer is 'yes' because there is ALWAYS the need for a sensible, pro-market, pro-money making, party of the right. But that's where the emphasis needs to be: prosperity. NOT on stupid cul-de-sac side shows that have bugger all to do with everyday life for ordinary people.
But sanity did not come immediately. Hague was a good man, but if anything the party became more extreme. They then elected IDS as leader (of all people!), and they only started the tack back towards sanity with Howard in 2003. Six years after their first loss. They did not get power for another seven.
I cannot see the Conservatives under Truss (or whoever replaces her) tacking towards sanity - they're too used to trying to con the public with pointless stuff like Brexit - and the public aren't in the mood now to be conned, by the Conservatives at least. And when they lose at the next GE, there is a great danger that many good Conservative MPs will lose their seats (or choose not to stand), whilst many of the nutters remain.
God alone knows where or when this ends. If the Tories can't agree on a unity candidate - or, failing that, at least change the rules to junk the membership ballot - then Truss will carry on until January 2025. Tory MPs know that they are cordially loathed by the bulk of the electorate and that a majority of them likely face the sack, so they're going to cling on by their fingernails until the last possible moment. It's very much like the mid-Nineties in that respect, though I hesitate to liken Truss and Kwarteng Hunt to Major and Clarke. It would be a dreadful insult to the latter duo.
Truss could plausibly be described as an Aethelred the Unready for our millennium. Except that's probably a gross insult to Aethelred, too.
Her cabinet probably won’t resign, as Hunt’s the only one who’s not a batshit diehard loyalist, and those who have ambitions of their own will be mindful of what happened to Sunak. The 22 won’t grant a vote. Tory MPs wouldn’t support a VONC in the Commons as it would precipitate an election.
I think she will survive at least until May. If the locals are a massacre then perhaps the Cabinet will move against her.
How much power she will actually have is a different question. I suspect her authority has taken a near-fatal blow, and we have already seen this cabinet thinks collective responsibility is something that happens to other people. Hunt, in particular, is in a position to do pretty much whatever he pleases (which may or may not be a good thing).
But that was always bullshit. Success or failure is dependent much more than membership of the EU; it lies in good governance. And Brexit has led the Conservative Party to have *terrible* governance outside the EU. And sadly the country also has to suffer that governance.
(A reminder; my position has always been that the UK could be a success outside or within the EU.)
He was just let down by a very stupid membership and more significantly a bunch of Tory MPs who are so self serving that they suddenly coalesced around Truss-knowing her to be hopeless-in the hope of personal advancement.
Those who wear I've never kissed a Tory badge should do so with pride. As Jessop says. We need to get rid of this tarnished Party before even more lasting damage is done
And the sooner all the Tory members who queued up to vote for Truss go into dementia care or simply shuffle off so that they can do no more harm, the better.
Tax rises and spending cuts looks to be the order of the day.
Trussonomics is well and truly over. Crashed and burnt.
https://twitter.com/skynews/status/1581173473485160448?s=61&t=ee2tq1SGEbCkoG5hiRPvVQ
Starmer is no Blair but, you know, after all this turbulence (4 chancellors in 4 months FFS!) a competent steady eddy may come to be greatly appreciated by the British public.
I'm thinking of an Angela Merkel type figure. Nothing outlandish. Just good, sound, management.*
* yep I know I know about the absolute howler on Russian gas
In a safe seat, it’s easier for the selection committee to indulge itself by choosing an ideologue, and they don’t have to worry so much about capability since they know they can win the seat without any organisation whatsoever.
And at the moment it looks like Starmer won’t give them that.
However, he has the priceless advantage that if he has more MPs than the Tories - which at the moment looks a safe assumption - it’s going to be nearly impossible for the government to continue. The SNP would only have to abstain and the King’s Speech would be defeated and Labour would go in.
And can anyone see the SNP voting *for* a Tory government? That would be a true scales falling from the eyes moment of their supporters. They wouldn’t dare.
As in 1997, it's perfectly possible for the LDs to lose vote share but still pick up quite a lot of seats, given the right circumstances.
What are the Tories now wanting? Bin Truss and then have another 2 months with no government whilst the party spends another period at best introspective and at worst tearing each other apart?
Enough. They do not wish to govern. They have proven repeatedly unfit to govern. General Election already - frankly looking at the polls I struggle to see how they justify not having one.
I've been around the block too many times to fail to see the writing on the wall. They would have to do something spectacularly stupid from here not to land an outright win.
I suspect we may see some more national polls with the tories below 20%. You don't come back from that in 2 years. They have trashed their reputation for economic competence. It will take at least 10 years and two election defeats before they are vying for power again.
You know how this works, Rochdale!
Personally I've always thought good Government needs a good Opposition. Poor Opposition allows the Government to get away with murder - witness Labour under Corbyn and the Conservatives under...well take your pick but I would certainly highlight their failure to take Blair to task over Iraq. However if the Conservatives cannot field a decent team to counter Labour and hold it to account, wouldn't we be better off with Ian Blackford as LOTO, and Sir Ed Davey as leader of England's second largest Party?
It could happen. Much more of this malarky and TSE will be collecting on his 15% bet and the Conservatives could be reduced to a couple of Scottish MPs. The Party would quite literally be over. The shape of politics would change radically.
Good thing? Not sure. Probably not.
Couldn't happen? Don't you believe it.
A big point in Sunak’s favour is that he did at least try to tell some home truths, at the beginning of his leadership campaign, even though they were small ones and he quickly backtracked when he saw how much better Loopy Liz was doing by peddling fantasy politics.
People who’ve thought hard about it, which takes in a fair few on here, know that big changes to our politics and economics are both desirable and becoming increasingly necessary. Stand back and many people can see that things like the triple lock have to go and the basis of taxation needs shifting away from income toward wealth, or at least to property or land.
But where is the grown up who will give us the necessary talk, and how will we all react to it?
Big changes are usually only possible after a big crisis; at least we can’t fault our politicians for getting that latter underway.
I wonder how many hours this will last before the next shifting of the nation's political tectonic plates? I'm struggling to keep up.
Eventually.
Freeland rightly points to the other elephant in the Tory room - the death of sovereignty. Brexit was all about Take Back Control. We could do what we like. We held all the cards. We are so important.
What KT vs the markets demonstrated was the stupidity of that argument. We have been humiliated on a global scale and our arrogant exceptionalism has been slapped down by a global community who refused to play along any longer.
I'm sure that Brexit will still keep popping its head above the Tory parapet, but politically it's now dead. People won't be in fear of voters who have had a very expensive demonstration of our lack of power over foreigners. We all work together or we know what happens
I get what you are saying but it's currently evens Labour to win an Outright. Personally I think that's a good bet. Should be more like two to one on [33%].
Says everything Truss didn't yesterday. Admits:
- mistake to cut tax for richest
- mistake to 'fly blind' without OBR
- spending can't go up as planned
Oh, and some taxes will go up.
The fantasy era of cakeism, started by Johnson and accelerated by Truss, seems over.
But is her premiership too?
https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1581178711512350720
Roger refers to Ethelred the Unready; I'm no scholar of Anglo-Saxon but I believe Unready in this context means badly advised, and certainly if anyone is advising our prime minister then they are not doing a very good job of it!
I'm gambling the process doesn't conclude until early 2023, so that's when she officially "exits" as Tory leader.
https://twitter.com/afneil/status/1581170205757407232
Conservative MPs are not generally subject to the same ideological delusions that many Labour MP's have, particularly as there is a sizeable contingent of labour MPs that arrived in the Corbyn era. The Labour party are also saddled by archaic procedural rules that make it difficult to sort out problems with the leadership, and the need to agree policy at 'conference'. I've seen the madness of the labour party as I was once a member and activist. I now vote Conservative and still probably will.
The idea that Starmer would be a better technocratic leader dealing with an economic crisis than someone like Sunak is for the birds. He presents this image in opposition. But he will be under fire from the unions, and from the activist base and their insane, unrealistic demands to raise benefits, raise pay, stop the latest strikes in light of the endless 'cost of living crisis' etc. The pressure will be far greater than that which may arise to a conservative leader from the self interested demands of ageing base who ultimately have few levers over the party whilst it is in power.
Starmer presents himself as a Blair like figure, but Blair did not come to power in the middle of an impossible economic crisis requiring very difficult decisions to be made.
That is why the bet of the day is on Crystal Palace to win at Leicester City. 3.0 at various bookies at present, though I would also tip CP to win, both teams to score at 5.50 with Bet 365. With Maddison, Barnes and Daka we are likely to score, but will ship loads.
I am only going so that I can boo the manager...
Sure, nobody wants austerity but if that's what it takes to calm the markets, so be it. After that he can inch his way forward. It's not going to be fun, but neither is living in La-La Land, where we have dwelt for too long.
https://twitter.com/TorstenBell/status/1581175015189274625
The central conundrum of British politics is now that the only way to afford the level of spending, on health, social protections, schools and everything else, that people expect and demand is through punishingly higher taxes, directed in particular at assets rather than earnings. But such a radical change of approach will entail a binning of the entire post-1979, property speculation model of economic development, and create an awful lot of losers (particularly amongst the homeowning grey vote, which is huge and has a high turnout rate.) Which raises serious doubts about the willingness of any Government actually to do it.
The NHS is already on the edge. Schools look set to be hit by a wave of rolling strikes. The situation in transport is - difficult.
And that's before any new austerity hits.
He may not have a choice, but it isn't going to be pretty at all.
Yes, the UTOARs will try and "Brexitise" Hunt but I don't think that will wash.
The mini Budget filleted again.
https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1581183318863011841