Something everyone seems to be conveniently forgetting: Hunt got only 18 votes in the first round of the contest, 5% of total votes.
What is the relevance? Nobody is trying to have him retrospectively declared winner of that contest. The fact he has virtually no faction behind him actually strengthens his value as a compromise caretaker.
Something everyone conveniently forgets iis that Boris decided not to even enter the 2016 contest, therefore he should really not have been allowed to enter the 2019 contest at all. Past performance is everything.
BTW we are currently producing a fairly remarkable 46% of our grid requirements from wind power. Not sure I have ever seen it that high. Gas is just under 20% and we are exporting more than 10% of our output. We need lots and lots more of that.
However the chill wind means that folk are cranking up their central heating, using more gas.
I've got the door to the sunroom open and the house is a balmy 20°C right now with no heating at all.
But I am treating every day from hereon in without cranking up the central heating or at least the stove as a bonus.
You’ve got a room with a sun inside? That’s cheating.
"Fusion power generation created in Welsh doctor's back room"
PB bragging rights. We’d never hear the last of it. 🤭
Watch a special edition of the #AndrewNeilShow asking Can Liz Truss Survive?
Joining @AfNeil, @EdBalls and @George_Osborne is former minister and Sunak backer @MattHanfock for his thoughts on the new Chancellor and Truss' chaotic first 40 days in office
I've got to say, while Hunt is obviously a far better person to be de facto PM than Truss, this feels kind of like a coup. Nobody elected him, not even the batshit crazies of the Tory membership. Let's have an election so the British people can decide who leads us.
It's a coup by elected MPs against unelected party members, which seems fine democratically.
Elected MPs did not appoint Hunt. If anything, it is a coup by Liz Truss against the unelected members who chose Liz Truss, so the coup metaphor does not really hold.
I do not believe that sacking KK or appointing Hunt were decisions made by LT. Do you?
Hunt's appointment does seem strange (although welcome). I was at first surprised he took it, but then I guess he thought 'why not give it one last fling before I get ejected in SWS'.
Electoral calculus says Con 34 lib 29 lab 29 next time, so hangs on iff zero tactical voting. I am guessing he imposed some conditions before accepting.
LDs have been within a few hundred in the past so I would expect tactical voting big time. I was involved in that campaign. Sadly the LD team then decided to go for internal warfare and suicide. I was involved in the expulsion of some members as a consequence, but I believe that is all way in the past now.
@NickPalmer of course is the local expert now. Although I don't live far away I haven't been involved for sometime.
Tactical voting is well-implanted here with an amicable LD-Lab relatioonship and Hunt will do well if he holds on. I spent the last election in Portsmouth South, where an altogether less scrupulous LibDem effort was being made to suggest that only they could beat the Tories, even though there was a Labour MP (he survived).
Portsmouth South was,of course, a big shock in 2017 with Labour coming from 3rd place to win the seat. Since Mike Hancock's by election win there in 1984 Labour's vote had been depressed by tactical anti-Tory voting on a massive scale. Following Hancock's defeat in 2015, the Labour vote returned home and the seat moved much further in Labour's direction in 2019 - against the national trend! I do wonder whether Labour has the potential to see similar progress in Carshalton & Wallington - which back in the 1970s had been a Tory/Labour marginal. The Alliance moved into 2nd place in 1983 and managed to hold on to that position - probably due to strength at Local Elections. Labour failed to recover sufficiently there - despite a stronger result in 1997 when Tom Brake won the seat for the LDs. He was defeated in 2019 and is not standing again , and it occurs to me that this might present Labour with an opportunity to make up lost ground.
BTW we are currently producing a fairly remarkable 46% of our grid requirements from wind power. Not sure I have ever seen it that high. Gas is just under 20% and we are exporting more than 10% of our output. We need lots and lots more of that.
All that investment in renewables is beginning to pay off, despite the naysayers. Britain has a tremendous advantage in wind (and, if we could be bothered) tidal reserves. We need to keep incentivising the exploitation of it.
I do wonder if in 20 years time there will be so much renewable energy around the world we won't be worrying about energy costs at all.
Not until we solve the storage part of the problem.
That said I roll my eyes whenever I hear anyone say "Britain's done nothing", we have changed our electricity generation by a huge amount in a relatively short time, and it's going to keep growing. This is one of those areas where for once I think we can say we are doing about as well or better than any similar country.
As an aside, we making a lot of progress with fibre broadband now. Multiple huge projects are under way, and we now have a very fast deployment programme.
Can someone explain how Truss actually stops being PM unless she resigns, isn't she safe for 1 year from VONC?
I think the only way to do it without a VONC in the Commons (ain't gonna happen) is for the 1922 Committee to change the rules.
Have they had time to celebrate their centenary BTW?
The 1922 committee only manages the selection of the leader of the Conservative Party. Under our system only the King can ask the Prime Minister to step down - and he has to act on advice from....his Prime Minister. Boris Johnson's last act was to advise the Queen that she should ask Liz Truss to form a government.
If Truss doesn't want to go, only a vote of no confidence in the HoC can force her out.
Technically true, but there are plenty of precedents where Tory PMs were eased out of Downing Street because they had lost the confidence of the parliamentary party. They may have been old (Churchill) or sick (Chamberlain, Eden, Macmillan) but the underlying reason was lack of support. Of course the system for replacing them was much more efficient in those halcyon days.
Pungent PB pundit alert - Neville Chamberlain was NOT sick (or known to be, by himself or others) in May 1940. And he had NOT lost the confidence of majority of "National" MPs, just a (as it turned out) decisive minority.
And do NOT think the notion of a groundswell of non-confidence by Tory parliamentary party explains the departures of Churchill, Eden or Macmillan. Much more top down than bottom up process. With personal decision to go by each being major factor.
Chamberlain died six months after resigning. Sounds a bit queasy to me.
Chamberlain died in November 1940 but did not become ill until July that year when an exploratory operation revealed stomach/bowel cancer.
No, he was ill at the time he resigned. He just didn't realise with what, or that it would be terminal. That wasn't found out until later.
The pain he was in was one reason that he mishandled the debate.
As with Eden 15 years later, whose severed bile duct was leading him to take something ridiculous like 15 aspirins a day at the height of the Suez crisis.
"The pain he was in was one reason that he mishandled the debate."
Can someone explain how Truss actually stops being PM unless she resigns, isn't she safe for 1 year from VONC?
I think the only way to do it without a VONC in the Commons (ain't gonna happen) is for the 1922 Committee to change the rules.
Have they had time to celebrate their centenary BTW?
The 1922 committee only manages the selection of the leader of the Conservative Party. Under our system only the King can ask the Prime Minister to step down - and he has to act on advice from....his Prime Minister. Boris Johnson's last act was to advise the Queen that she should ask Liz Truss to form a government.
If Truss doesn't want to go, only a vote of no confidence in the HoC can force her out.
Technically true, but there are plenty of precedents where Tory PMs were eased out of Downing Street because they had lost the confidence of the parliamentary party. They may have been old (Churchill) or sick (Chamberlain, Eden, Macmillan) but the underlying reason was lack of support. Of course the system for replacing them was much more efficient in those halcyon days.
Pungent PB pundit alert - Neville Chamberlain was NOT sick (or known to be, by himself or others) in May 1940. And he had NOT lost the confidence of majority of "National" MPs, just a (as it turned out) decisive minority.
And do NOT think the notion of a groundswell of non-confidence by Tory parliamentary party explains the departures of Churchill, Eden or Macmillan. Much more top down than bottom up process. With personal decision to go by each being major factor.
Chamberlain died six months after resigning. Sounds a bit queasy to me.
Chamberlain died in November 1940 but did not become ill until July that year when an exploratory operation revealed stomach/bowel cancer.
No, he was ill at the time he resigned. He just didn't realise with what, or that it would be terminal. That wasn't found out until later.
The pain he was in was one reason that he mishandled the debate.
As with Eden 15 years later, whose severed bile duct was leading him to take something ridiculous like 15 aspirins a day at the height of the Suez crisis.
"The pain he was in was one reason that he mishandled the debate."
Might be true, BUT do you have a source for this?
Not offhand. If you are interested I would advise you to check out David Dutton's biography.
BTW we are currently producing a fairly remarkable 46% of our grid requirements from wind power. Not sure I have ever seen it that high. Gas is just under 20% and we are exporting more than 10% of our output. We need lots and lots more of that.
All that investment in renewables is beginning to pay off, despite the naysayers. Britain has a tremendous advantage in wind (and, if we could be bothered) tidal reserves. We need to keep incentivising the exploitation of it.
I do wonder if in 20 years time there will be so much renewable energy around the world we won't be worrying about energy costs at all.
Not until we solve the storage part of the problem.
That said I roll my eyes whenever I hear anyone say "Britain's done nothing", we have changed our electricity generation by a huge amount in a relatively short time, and it's going to keep growing. This is one of those areas where for once I think we can say we are doing about as well or better than any similar country.
As an aside, we making a lot of progress with fibre broadband now. Multiple huge projects are under way, and we now have a very fast deployment programme.
Yes, we need to develop more storage solutions. But ultimately, if you put in enough wind and tidal around Britain, and couple it with good links to the continent, storage requirements would be minimal.
There is always somewhere around Britain where the wind is blowing. And tidal is of course continuous on a national scale.
BTW we are currently producing a fairly remarkable 46% of our grid requirements from wind power. Not sure I have ever seen it that high. Gas is just under 20% and we are exporting more than 10% of our output. We need lots and lots more of that.
All that investment in renewables is beginning to pay off, despite the naysayers. Britain has a tremendous advantage in wind (and, if we could be bothered) tidal reserves. We need to keep incentivising the exploitation of it.
I do wonder if in 20 years time there will be so much renewable energy around the world we won't be worrying about energy costs at all.
Not until we solve the storage part of the problem.
That said I roll my eyes whenever I hear anyone say "Britain's done nothing", we have changed our electricity generation by a huge amount in a relatively short time, and it's going to keep growing. This is one of those areas where for once I think we can say we are doing about as well or better than any similar country.
As an aside, we making a lot of progress with fibre broadband now. Multiple huge projects are under way, and we now have a very fast deployment programme.
Even if energy storage consisted of nothing other than keeping three months of gas stored in a few old gas fields, that would still be a significant increase in resilience.
From the snippets I've seen two poor articles from Jonathan Freedland and Charles Moore this weekend. Freedland seems to think sovereignty is all about being able to borrow lots of money at favourable rates of interest and Moore bemoans the generic 'blob' controlling everything, not realising that if you want to usurp the establishment there isn't much point unless you can display a basic amount of competence yourself.
BTW we are currently producing a fairly remarkable 46% of our grid requirements from wind power. Not sure I have ever seen it that high. Gas is just under 20% and we are exporting more than 10% of our output. We need lots and lots more of that.
All that investment in renewables is beginning to pay off, despite the naysayers. Britain has a tremendous advantage in wind (and, if we could be bothered) tidal reserves. We need to keep incentivising the exploitation of it.
I do wonder if in 20 years time there will be so much renewable energy around the world we won't be worrying about energy costs at all.
Electricity is relatively easy. Heat is the big challenge. To switch to renewables here requires either converting the gas network to green hydrogen or making everyone install a heat pump. Either way, we'll need vastly more renewable generation capacity and, for the heat pump option, seasonal storage of leccy.
That's the silver bullet fallacy. We don't need to do it all in one go, we need to do it little bit by little bit, month by month, and year by year.
BTW we are currently producing a fairly remarkable 46% of our grid requirements from wind power. Not sure I have ever seen it that high. Gas is just under 20% and we are exporting more than 10% of our output. We need lots and lots more of that.
All that investment in renewables is beginning to pay off, despite the naysayers. Britain has a tremendous advantage in wind (and, if we could be bothered) tidal reserves. We need to keep incentivising the exploitation of it.
I do wonder if in 20 years time there will be so much renewable energy around the world we won't be worrying about energy costs at all.
Not until we solve the storage part of the problem.
That said I roll my eyes whenever I hear anyone say "Britain's done nothing", we have changed our electricity generation by a huge amount in a relatively short time, and it's going to keep growing. This is one of those areas where for once I think we can say we are doing about as well or better than any similar country.
As an aside, we making a lot of progress with fibre broadband now. Multiple huge projects are under way, and we now have a very fast deployment programme.
Even if energy storage consisted of nothing other than keeping three months of gas stored in a few old gas fields, that would still be a significant increase in resilience.
That is true, but ideally we will one day have better options that don't require any fossil fuel generating capacity.
BTW we are currently producing a fairly remarkable 46% of our grid requirements from wind power. Not sure I have ever seen it that high. Gas is just under 20% and we are exporting more than 10% of our output. We need lots and lots more of that.
All that investment in renewables is beginning to pay off, despite the naysayers. Britain has a tremendous advantage in wind (and, if we could be bothered) tidal reserves. We need to keep incentivising the exploitation of it.
I do wonder if in 20 years time there will be so much renewable energy around the world we won't be worrying about energy costs at all.
Electricity is relatively easy. Heat is the big challenge. To switch to renewables here requires either converting the gas network to green hydrogen or making everyone install a heat pump. Either way, we'll need vastly more renewable generation capacity and, for the heat pump option, seasonal storage of leccy.
That's the silver bullet fallacy. We don't need to do it all in one go, we need to do it little bit by little bit, month by month, and year by year.
True. And we clearly are doing so. Hence my conjecture that in 20 years time we won't be worrying about energy costs at all.
BTW we are currently producing a fairly remarkable 46% of our grid requirements from wind power. Not sure I have ever seen it that high. Gas is just under 20% and we are exporting more than 10% of our output. We need lots and lots more of that.
It's been over 50% a few times in the last few days.
In more good news, Severn Trent's reservoirs were fuller last Sunday than the previous one for the first time since May. However, they are still critically low at just 43%.
And this before the 2 largest offshore windfarms get plugged in.
Rain, on the other hand, has certainly not been scarce up here this summer.
And to think some PBers see rain as a disadvantage to living in Scotland. Presumably the north of England is OK too?
It's not a lot of fun walking about in it but it has its uses. I think the problems with supply are mainly in the south.
Yorkshire has been very dry. Reservoirs about 50pc full I think with localised hosepipe bans.
BTW we are currently producing a fairly remarkable 46% of our grid requirements from wind power. Not sure I have ever seen it that high. Gas is just under 20% and we are exporting more than 10% of our output. We need lots and lots more of that.
All that investment in renewables is beginning to pay off, despite the naysayers. Britain has a tremendous advantage in wind (and, if we could be bothered) tidal reserves. We need to keep incentivising the exploitation of it.
I do wonder if in 20 years time there will be so much renewable energy around the world we won't be worrying about energy costs at all.
Electricity is relatively easy. Heat is the big challenge. To switch to renewables here requires either converting the gas network to green hydrogen or making everyone install a heat pump. Either way, we'll need vastly more renewable generation capacity and, for the heat pump option, seasonal storage of leccy.
That's the silver bullet fallacy. We don't need to do it all in one go, we need to do it little bit by little bit, month by month, and year by year.
True. And we clearly are doing so. Hence my conjecture that in 20 years time we won't be worrying about energy costs at all.
No, we'll be worrying about which Tory MP will take over for their mandatory 3 month period as PM, in the 33rd year of their government.
BTW we are currently producing a fairly remarkable 46% of our grid requirements from wind power. Not sure I have ever seen it that high. Gas is just under 20% and we are exporting more than 10% of our output. We need lots and lots more of that.
It's been over 50% a few times in the last few days.
In more good news, Severn Trent's reservoirs were fuller last Sunday than the previous one for the first time since May. However, they are still critically low at just 43%.
And this before the 2 largest offshore windfarms get plugged in.
Rain, on the other hand, has certainly not been scarce up here this summer.
And to think some PBers see rain as a disadvantage to living in Scotland. Presumably the north of England is OK too?
It's not a lot of fun walking about in it but it has its uses. I think the problems with supply are mainly in the south.
Yorkshire has been very dry. Reservoirs about 50pc full I think with localised hosepipe bans.
BTW we are currently producing a fairly remarkable 46% of our grid requirements from wind power. Not sure I have ever seen it that high. Gas is just under 20% and we are exporting more than 10% of our output. We need lots and lots more of that.
It's been over 50% a few times in the last few days.
In more good news, Severn Trent's reservoirs were fuller last Sunday than the previous one for the first time since May. However, they are still critically low at just 43%.
And this before the 2 largest offshore windfarms get plugged in.
Rain, on the other hand, has certainly not been scarce up here this summer.
And to think some PBers see rain as a disadvantage to living in Scotland. Presumably the north of England is OK too?
It's not a lot of fun walking about in it but it has its uses. I think the problems with supply are mainly in the south.
Yorkshire has been very dry. Reservoirs about 50pc full I think with localised hosepipe bans.
All of Yorkshire has a hosepipe gan, doesn't it?
It maybe does still. We have a first floor flat so haven't followed the details.
BTW we are currently producing a fairly remarkable 46% of our grid requirements from wind power. Not sure I have ever seen it that high. Gas is just under 20% and we are exporting more than 10% of our output. We need lots and lots more of that.
All that investment in renewables is beginning to pay off, despite the naysayers. Britain has a tremendous advantage in wind (and, if we could be bothered) tidal reserves. We need to keep incentivising the exploitation of it.
I do wonder if in 20 years time there will be so much renewable energy around the world we won't be worrying about energy costs at all.
Electricity is relatively easy. Heat is the big challenge. To switch to renewables here requires either converting the gas network to green hydrogen or making everyone install a heat pump. Either way, we'll need vastly more renewable generation capacity and, for the heat pump option, seasonal storage of leccy.
That's the silver bullet fallacy. We don't need to do it all in one go, we need to do it little bit by little bit, month by month, and year by year.
I'm not saying all in one go. For example, switching to hydrogen would be done one Local Distribution Zone at a time, switching to heat pumps can be a rolling programme.
But ultimately we need to have fully decarbonised heat, and ideally in a way that doesn't lock us in to energy imports, such as CCGT with CCS or Blue Hydrogen.
BTW we are currently producing a fairly remarkable 46% of our grid requirements from wind power. Not sure I have ever seen it that high. Gas is just under 20% and we are exporting more than 10% of our output. We need lots and lots more of that.
It's been over 50% a few times in the last few days.
In more good news, Severn Trent's reservoirs were fuller last Sunday than the previous one for the first time since May. However, they are still critically low at just 43%.
And this before the 2 largest offshore windfarms get plugged in.
Rain, on the other hand, has certainly not been scarce up here this summer.
And to think some PBers see rain as a disadvantage to living in Scotland. Presumably the north of England is OK too?
It's not a lot of fun walking about in it but it has its uses. I think the problems with supply are mainly in the south.
Yorkshire has been very dry. Reservoirs about 50pc full I think with localised hosepipe bans.
Most of the Flatlands supply comes from an aquifer but there's only so much you can pump out, and in any case they have to dilute the groundwater to keep the nitrate content below the required level.
Our water goes off pretty quickly if there is a power cut so winter might be fun...
BTW we are currently producing a fairly remarkable 46% of our grid requirements from wind power. Not sure I have ever seen it that high. Gas is just under 20% and we are exporting more than 10% of our output. We need lots and lots more of that.
It's been over 50% a few times in the last few days.
In more good news, Severn Trent's reservoirs were fuller last Sunday than the previous one for the first time since May. However, they are still critically low at just 43%.
And this before the 2 largest offshore windfarms get plugged in.
Rain, on the other hand, has certainly not been scarce up here this summer.
And to think some PBers see rain as a disadvantage to living in Scotland. Presumably the north of England is OK too?
It's not a lot of fun walking about in it but it has its uses. I think the problems with supply are mainly in the south.
Yorkshire has been very dry. Reservoirs about 50pc full I think with localised hosepipe bans.
From the snippets I've seen two poor articles from Jonathan Freedland and Charles Moore this weekend. Freedland seems to think sovereignty is all about being able to borrow lots of money at favourable rates of interest and Moore bemoans the generic 'blob' controlling everything, not realising that if you want to usurp the establishment there isn't much point unless you can display a basic amount of competence yourself.
I have no doubt that there'll be much lazy journalism written about this disaster and blaming establishment forces or some vast conspiracy as to why Lizzy crashed and burned.
The truth of the matter is that you can have a legitimate argument about building a low tax economy. The problem is that instituting new fiscal policy takes time and requires an understanding of the realities of the books and what you can hope to achieve. It's incremental. Thatcher believed in low taxes, but she also understood sound money. She raised taxes in her first term, because she realised the economic situation called for it.
The more I think about Liz and Kwasi's weird Special Fiscal Operation the more I despair at how they were actually able to get it out of the door without someone pulling some kind of intervention.
If Truss had been sensible she would have used the political capital she had to level with the public and the Tory Party and explain - look, I want to cut everyone's taxes, I've said it plenty of times on the campaign trail, but one of the other things I'm hearing is that people desperately need support with their energy bills, and that has to be my focus right now. That support needs to be paid for. So I'm not going to be able to cut taxes right now, but once we're out of this difficult winter we'll revisit things at the budget and we'll see if there's any way we can achieve this. That she didn't do that shows why she is a poor (nay, atrocious) Prime Minister.
Hunt by just looking sensible and working with rather than against the BOE will likely get some mercy from the markets . This alone will catapult him into prime position for PM but he needs the longer game for this . If Tory MPs pull the plug on Truss next week then he couldn’t jump from COE to PM that quickly.
I don't think it rules him out, but it probably forces him as the "Coronation candidate" to run on the basis that he is clear who his Chancellor would be, and that can only be Rishi IMHO.
Rishi's position as Chancellor was secure before he blew up the government. He's directly culpable for the current mess.
He may be a contributory factor, but to make him solely responsible for BJs lies and Truss's failings is absurd.
I mentioned last week that my boiler was bust. Had a new one installed this week at a cost of 2.5k. More than I was expecting. Of course there was an additional 20% VAT on top. Now I'm told that new boilers are 90%+ efficient whereas old ones are 50-60%. That's a big difference in terms of gas usage.
Now of course I am biased but wouldn't it have been worth the government considering a temporary removal on VAT for the installation of new boilers? Might that actually save money if they are then spending less subsidising peoples' bills? Funny how a right of centre government ends up resorting to the most statist policies.
BTW we are currently producing a fairly remarkable 46% of our grid requirements from wind power. Not sure I have ever seen it that high. Gas is just under 20% and we are exporting more than 10% of our output. We need lots and lots more of that.
All that investment in renewables is beginning to pay off, despite the naysayers. Britain has a tremendous advantage in wind (and, if we could be bothered) tidal reserves. We need to keep incentivising the exploitation of it.
I do wonder if in 20 years time there will be so much renewable energy around the world we won't be worrying about energy costs at all.
Electricity is relatively easy. Heat is the big challenge. To switch to renewables here requires either converting the gas network to green hydrogen or making everyone install a heat pump. Either way, we'll need vastly more renewable generation capacity and, for the heat pump option, seasonal storage of leccy.
That's the silver bullet fallacy. We don't need to do it all in one go, we need to do it little bit by little bit, month by month, and year by year.
Also, a lot of the heat question is really an insulation question.
We've had a fair bit of rain the last few weeks but I notice the Taff is still fairly low. Checking the forecast we appear to have 2 weeks non-stop rain on the way! Great time for my annual leave.
Hunt has calmed the markets, if he quits then it will be carnage, so Truss cannot afford to lose him, he will do whatever he wants.
What happens if Monday comes and the markets aren’t calmed?
The way this usually happens is there can be two weeks of calm - people say the markets have been calmed, but then it all erupts again.
Obviously you all know my theory - £400bn of Rishi splaffing (and wasting a lot) to get us through covid has maxxed out the credit - now they want to (unnecessarily, needlessly) try to get another £200bn more borrowing - the markets won’t calm till that plan is dead.
Or the £200bn becomes more like £20bn. Everything now turns on the future price of gas.
I don’t want to be really rude David, but you keep posting that “If gas falls sufficiently, the cost of the energy cap freeze drops” means don’t think you really understand it. That thinking is utter bollox.
1. We haven’t had an OBR how much Tories total promise is likely to cost. The Tories have promised to buck the UK energy market for two and a half years regardless what global energy price does. Some think tanks have had a go at pricing this and come to a quarter of a trillion pound. To be found by tax rises, borrowing or cuts or mixture thereof. Quarter of a trillion on that one policy alone. 2. Variable one. Energy prices can go down, yes, but also up, it’s a very fluid situation in supply and demand over this coming period - but at which point do energy companies need to commit to buying it in advance, so commit to passing on THAT price to both customers AND onto a government commitment to bucking the market? 3. Variable two. If global prices do come down, to what degree is the saving on the quarter of a trillion eaten into or obliterated by the more expensive borrowing costs? Out of these two variable’s, borrowing costs for this policy look certain to remain high now, the greater doubt is if energy prices will come down and stay down isn’t it?
You really think that whole £200bn comes down to £20bn? 🥹 We all know what’s really behind “but the bill freeze looks like turning out much cheaper because gas prices are coming down” argument we get spun from Tory’s on TV and on PB - they privately hate this lumbering Labour policy Tory party has adopted, they hate the ENORMOUS amount of borrowing maxing out UKs credit limit, and the regressive unConservative way the money is spewed out in indiscriminate handouts.
But. They are only fooling themselves spinning that comfort blanket, because, yes, there are variables, but the variables are very much against them.
Don’t be one of them.
There is no defence to this insane policy, Truss has been hiding behind all week.
I would agree we don't know what this policy is going to cost and I would agree that there are significant risks on the upside but there is also some reason for hope on the low side.
The government have committed to the average house bill being no more than £2500 a year. At the moment the price of gas futures are 263p/therm. It has been over 700p and has averaged around 400p of late. The cost of the UK subsidy is directly relational to that price against the price that fixes the £2500 pa average. I have been unable to work out exactly what that is because there are quite a number of other variables. Energy companies are bumping up their fixed charges as well. My best guess is that £2500 per household is going be equivalent to something like 200p/therm, roughly twice what it was last winter.
But I am not wrong is saying that there is a chance that the cost of the scheme will prove to be much lower than the worst estimates. It could also be higher of course. If it stays somewhere near our current price or goes even lower then the cost of the scheme will be less. If it goes back up again we are in trouble, no doubt about it.
Edit, and btw the OBR will have no better idea than the rest of us, it is simply unknowable.
You telling us It’s unknowable wasn’t the impression I got when you reduced it from £200bn to £20bn to spark my reply. 🙂
We know enough overall price can’t come down that much. Because the bit you seem to be avoiding is commodity price drop is to some extent offset by borrowing cost increase - goes back to the unknowable being very guessable in that the borrowing cost won’t be based on “maybe the commodity price drops and stays at x price”, who lends money on that basis?
You accept the part of the equation, political and economic, it is not necessary to provide help in this way, there other options such as sliding scale to target help where needed, not wasted where not needed, and virtually pays for itself?
I believe most UK government borrowing is fixed rate. So the increase only kicks in as new debt is issued.
Interesting the current (March) forecast it from debt interest this year to be c £83bn but to *fall* to £47bn next year… a cut in public spending baked in
Hunt has calmed the markets, if he quits then it will be carnage, so Truss cannot afford to lose him, he will do whatever he wants.
What happens if Monday comes and the markets aren’t calmed?
The way this usually happens is there can be two weeks of calm - people say the markets have been calmed, but then it all erupts again.
Obviously you all know my theory - £400bn of Rishi splaffing (and wasting a lot) to get us through covid has maxxed out the credit - now they want to (unnecessarily, needlessly) try to get another £200bn more borrowing - the markets won’t calm till that plan is dead.
Or the £200bn becomes more like £20bn. Everything now turns on the future price of gas.
I don’t want to be really rude David, but you keep posting that “If gas falls sufficiently, the cost of the energy cap freeze drops” means don’t think you really understand it. That thinking is utter bollox.
1. We haven’t had an OBR how much Tories total promise is likely to cost. The Tories have promised to buck the UK energy market for two and a half years regardless what global energy price does. Some think tanks have had a go at pricing this and come to a quarter of a trillion pound. To be found by tax rises, borrowing or cuts or mixture thereof. Quarter of a trillion on that one policy alone. 2. Variable one. Energy prices can go down, yes, but also up, it’s a very fluid situation in supply and demand over this coming period - but at which point do energy companies need to commit to buying it in advance, so commit to passing on THAT price to both customers AND onto a government commitment to bucking the market? 3. Variable two. If global prices do come down, to what degree is the saving on the quarter of a trillion eaten into or obliterated by the more expensive borrowing costs? Out of these two variable’s, borrowing costs for this policy look certain to remain high now, the greater doubt is if energy prices will come down and stay down isn’t it?
You really think that whole £200bn comes down to £20bn? 🥹 We all know what’s really behind “but the bill freeze looks like turning out much cheaper because gas prices are coming down” argument we get spun from Tory’s on TV and on PB - they privately hate this lumbering Labour policy Tory party has adopted, they hate the ENORMOUS amount of borrowing maxing out UKs credit limit, and the regressive unConservative way the money is spewed out in indiscriminate handouts.
But. They are only fooling themselves spinning that comfort blanket, because, yes, there are variables, but the variables are very much against them.
Don’t be one of them.
There is no defence to this insane policy, Truss has been hiding behind all week.
I would agree we don't know what this policy is going to cost and I would agree that there are significant risks on the upside but there is also some reason for hope on the low side.
The government have committed to the average house bill being no more than £2500 a year. At the moment the price of gas futures are 263p/therm. It has been over 700p and has averaged around 400p of late. The cost of the UK subsidy is directly relational to that price against the price that fixes the £2500 pa average. I have been unable to work out exactly what that is because there are quite a number of other variables. Energy companies are bumping up their fixed charges as well. My best guess is that £2500 per household is going be equivalent to something like 200p/therm, roughly twice what it was last winter.
But I am not wrong is saying that there is a chance that the cost of the scheme will prove to be much lower than the worst estimates. It could also be higher of course. If it stays somewhere near our current price or goes even lower then the cost of the scheme will be less. If it goes back up again we are in trouble, no doubt about it.
Edit, and btw the OBR will have no better idea than the rest of us, it is simply unknowable.
You telling us It’s unknowable wasn’t the impression I got when you reduced it from £200bn to £20bn to spark my reply. 🙂
We know enough overall price can’t come down that much. Because the bit you seem to be avoiding is commodity price drop is to some extent offset by borrowing cost increase - goes back to the unknowable being very guessable in that the borrowing cost won’t be based on “maybe the commodity price drops and stays at x price”, who lends money on that basis?
You accept the part of the equation, political and economic, it is not necessary to provide help in this way, there other options such as sliding scale to target help where needed, not wasted where not needed, and virtually pays for itself?
I believe most UK government borrowing is fixed rate. So the increase only kicks in as new debt is issued.
Interesting the current (March) forecast it from debt interest this year to be c £83bn but to *fall* to £47bn next year… a cut in public spending baked in
The more I think about Liz and Kwasi's weird Special Fiscal Operation the more I despair at how they were actually able to get it out of the door without someone pulling some kind of intervention.
From the outside it looks like everyone who tried to intervene was sacked for their troubles.
The Kwarteng chancellorship was a major Cambridge University fail. The crème brûlée and Great Court Run college in particular. Re-establish the monasteries and give them their assets back?
Creme Brulee is Caius, not arriviste Trinity Burnt Cream.
My apologies. What's the difference, or is it only the nomenclature?
Doesn't the idea come from Catalonia anyway?
Despite my possible faux pas, it's true that Kwasi Kwarteng was in the in crowd at both Eton and Trinity and he ballsed up the Chancellor job as nobody has ever ballsed it up before so fast. And he doesn't have the humility and charm of Eddie the Eagle. No way would he have been promoted so high if he'd gone to the school down the road or even a second division private boarding school somewhere, or if he'd gone to, well, probably any university apart from Oxford and Cambridge.
And we can't blame the Tory party's membership in this instance.
Top post. Eton and Cambridge must be deeply embarrassed to have turned out such a tone-deaf incompetent.
He was at Cambridge with Richard Burgon, I believe, who was in the next door college?
Do people now understand why so many Cambridge politicians have been passed over before now?
BTW we are currently producing a fairly remarkable 46% of our grid requirements from wind power. Not sure I have ever seen it that high. Gas is just under 20% and we are exporting more than 10% of our output. We need lots and lots more of that.
It's been over 50% a few times in the last few days.
In more good news, Severn Trent's reservoirs were fuller last Sunday than the previous one for the first time since May. However, they are still critically low at just 43%.
And this before the 2 largest offshore windfarms get plugged in.
Rain, on the other hand, has certainly not been scarce up here this summer.
And to think some PBers see rain as a disadvantage to living in Scotland. Presumably the north of England is OK too?
It's not a lot of fun walking about in it but it has its uses. I think the problems with supply are mainly in the south.
Yorkshire has been very dry. Reservoirs about 50pc full I think with localised hosepipe bans.
The Kwarteng chancellorship was a major Cambridge University fail. The crème brûlée and Great Court Run college in particular. Re-establish the monasteries and give them their assets back?
Creme Brulee is Caius, not arriviste Trinity Burnt Cream.
My apologies. What's the difference, or is it only the nomenclature?
Doesn't the idea come from Catalonia anyway?
Despite my possible faux pas, it's true that Kwasi Kwarteng was in the in crowd at both Eton and Trinity and he ballsed up the Chancellor job as nobody has ever ballsed it up before so fast. And he doesn't have the humility and charm of Eddie the Eagle. No way would he have been promoted so high if he'd gone to the school down the road or even a second division private boarding school somewhere, or if he'd gone to, well, probably any university apart from Oxford and Cambridge.
And we can't blame the Tory party's membership in this instance.
Top post. Eton and Cambridge must be deeply embarrassed to have turned out such a tone-deaf incompetent.
He was at Cambridge with Richard Burgon, I believe, who was in the next door college?
Do people now understand why so many Cambridge politicians have been passed over before now?
Which would be a valid argument if the Oxford ones who get in weren't just as useless.
I agree. The Truss being Figurehead Leader in Name Only just isn't going to hold up under the pressures of the next few weeks. The Tories might be able to indulge that fantasy for a little while, but all it takes is another PMQs or media round from Liz and it will all fall apart.
Let's have some stability now until the GE. Keep things as they are. Truss doing regular car-crash interviews and pressers, Hunt being the common sense technocrat calling the shots and applying Labour policies, preventing economic meltdown through a couple of bleak years of mild recession.
Then, when the polls have narrowed a bit or time has run out, the Tories can call a GE with a Truss-led campaign leading to electoral wipe-out.
Hunt takes over as LOTO and begins the long Tory Party rebuild process. If there's anything left to rebuild.
Sounds like the least worst outlook to me. Shit, but ultimately survivable.
The Tory Party won't allow that because Truss would have to run the next election on obtaining a mandate for... something.
We have seen what happens when Liz Truss tries to implement what she wants and it's not good. They have zero chance of persuading the electorate to listen to Liz. And they can hardly say "well she won't be the leader really, nice Mr. Hunt will sort it all out when she goes off the deep end, don't worry."
So one way or the other the Tories will be going into the next GE with a new leader. The question then comes are they doing it nearer the GE or are they doing it now. For what it's worth, I see no reason to delay matters given the damage Truss can do to their poll ratings every time she opens her mouth.
Also assumption of a mild recession is questionable given how heavily geared uk economy is to house prices. High interest rates and falling house prices will feed right through to the local plasterer in rotherham. Demand for tradesmen will fall off a cliff
Hunt by just looking sensible and working with rather than against the BOE will likely get some mercy from the markets . This alone will catapult him into prime position for PM but he needs the longer game for this . If Tory MPs pull the plug on Truss next week then he couldn’t jump from COE to PM that quickly.
I don't think it rules him out, but it probably forces him as the "Coronation candidate" to run on the basis that he is clear who his Chancellor would be, and that can only be Rishi IMHO.
Rishi's position as Chancellor was secure before he blew up the government. He's directly culpable for the current mess.
He may be a contributory factor, but to make him solely responsible for BJs lies and Truss's failings is absurd.
Indeed, it's not clear whether Johnson would have survived even if Rishi had not resigned. And he could not have known that Truss would win the leadership contest. Anyone who thinks they knew for sure that Truss would win is probably lying, because for a while it looked like the MPs wouldn't even let her into the final round.
I mentioned last week that my boiler was bust. Had a new one installed this week at a cost of 2.5k. More than I was expecting. Of course there was an additional 20% VAT on top. Now I'm told that new boilers are 90%+ efficient whereas old ones are 50-60%. That's a big difference in terms of gas usage.
Now of course I am biased but wouldn't it have been worth the government considering a temporary removal on VAT for the installation of new boilers? Might that actually save money if they are then spending less subsidising peoples' bills? Funny how a right of centre government ends up resorting to the most statist policies.
NB. They’re only 90+% efficient if you run the radiators at a low enough temperature so that the return flow to the boiler is cold enough to trigger the condensation process in the boiler outflow (hence, condensing boilers...).
The return flow needs to be < 54℃ for this process to work, with progressively greater gains with lower temps.
Many boiler installers just whack the flow temp up to 80℃ and leave it there so that they don’t get call-backs from their customers because “the radiators don’t feel very hot”. It’s understandable to an extent: educating customers is not always easy & people want the familiar, which in this case is to be able to walk into a cold house, whack the heating on & have the radiators start blasting out heat ASAP. (I’ve even heard of one bunch of heat pump installers doing this to the flow from their heat pump installations: Madness!)
But the consequence is that all these expensive new boiler installations are running at 70% efficiency instead of 90+%.
Hunt by just looking sensible and working with rather than against the BOE will likely get some mercy from the markets . This alone will catapult him into prime position for PM but he needs the longer game for this . If Tory MPs pull the plug on Truss next week then he couldn’t jump from COE to PM that quickly.
I don't think it rules him out, but it probably forces him as the "Coronation candidate" to run on the basis that he is clear who his Chancellor would be, and that can only be Rishi IMHO.
Rishi's position as Chancellor was secure before he blew up the government. He's directly culpable for the current mess.
He may be a contributory factor, but to make him solely responsible for BJs lies and Truss's failings is absurd.
Indeed, it's not clear whether Johnson would have survived even if Rishi had not resigned. And he could not have known that Truss would win the leadership contest. Anyone who thinks they knew for sure that Truss would win is probably lying, because for a while it looked like the MPs wouldn't even let her into the final round.
There was a belief her being stranded in Indonesia would be a fatal impediment.
Hunt has calmed the markets, if he quits then it will be carnage, so Truss cannot afford to lose him, he will do whatever he wants.
What happens if Monday comes and the markets aren’t calmed?
The way this usually happens is there can be two weeks of calm - people say the markets have been calmed, but then it all erupts again.
Obviously you all know my theory - £400bn of Rishi splaffing (and wasting a lot) to get us through covid has maxxed out the credit - now they want to (unnecessarily, needlessly) try to get another £200bn more borrowing - the markets won’t calm till that plan is dead.
Or the £200bn becomes more like £20bn. Everything now turns on the future price of gas.
I don’t want to be really rude David, but you keep posting that “If gas falls sufficiently, the cost of the energy cap freeze drops” means don’t think you really understand it. That thinking is utter bollox.
1. We haven’t had an OBR how much Tories total promise is likely to cost. The Tories have promised to buck the UK energy market for two and a half years regardless what global energy price does. Some think tanks have had a go at pricing this and come to a quarter of a trillion pound. To be found by tax rises, borrowing or cuts or mixture thereof. Quarter of a trillion on that one policy alone. 2. Variable one. Energy prices can go down, yes, but also up, it’s a very fluid situation in supply and demand over this coming period - but at which point do energy companies need to commit to buying it in advance, so commit to passing on THAT price to both customers AND onto a government commitment to bucking the market? 3. Variable two. If global prices do come down, to what degree is the saving on the quarter of a trillion eaten into or obliterated by the more expensive borrowing costs? Out of these two variable’s, borrowing costs for this policy look certain to remain high now, the greater doubt is if energy prices will come down and stay down isn’t it?
You really think that whole £200bn comes down to £20bn? 🥹 We all know what’s really behind “but the bill freeze looks like turning out much cheaper because gas prices are coming down” argument we get spun from Tory’s on TV and on PB - they privately hate this lumbering Labour policy Tory party has adopted, they hate the ENORMOUS amount of borrowing maxing out UKs credit limit, and the regressive unConservative way the money is spewed out in indiscriminate handouts.
But. They are only fooling themselves spinning that comfort blanket, because, yes, there are variables, but the variables are very much against them.
Don’t be one of them.
There is no defence to this insane policy, Truss has been hiding behind all week.
I would agree we don't know what this policy is going to cost and I would agree that there are significant risks on the upside but there is also some reason for hope on the low side.
The government have committed to the average house bill being no more than £2500 a year. At the moment the price of gas futures are 263p/therm. It has been over 700p and has averaged around 400p of late. The cost of the UK subsidy is directly relational to that price against the price that fixes the £2500 pa average. I have been unable to work out exactly what that is because there are quite a number of other variables. Energy companies are bumping up their fixed charges as well. My best guess is that £2500 per household is going be equivalent to something like 200p/therm, roughly twice what it was last winter.
But I am not wrong is saying that there is a chance that the cost of the scheme will prove to be much lower than the worst estimates. It could also be higher of course. If it stays somewhere near our current price or goes even lower then the cost of the scheme will be less. If it goes back up again we are in trouble, no doubt about it.
Edit, and btw the OBR will have no better idea than the rest of us, it is simply unknowable.
You telling us It’s unknowable wasn’t the impression I got when you reduced it from £200bn to £20bn to spark my reply. 🙂
We know enough overall price can’t come down that much. Because the bit you seem to be avoiding is commodity price drop is to some extent offset by borrowing cost increase - goes back to the unknowable being very guessable in that the borrowing cost won’t be based on “maybe the commodity price drops and stays at x price”, who lends money on that basis?
You accept the part of the equation, political and economic, it is not necessary to provide help in this way, there other options such as sliding scale to target help where needed, not wasted where not needed, and virtually pays for itself?
I believe most UK government borrowing is fixed rate. So the increase only kicks in as new debt is issued.
Interesting the current (March) forecast it from debt interest this year to be c £83bn but to *fall* to £47bn next year… a cut in public spending baked in
How? Are they assuming a default?
I assume it's at least in part due to the likely drop in RPI inflation and so lower payments on Linkers.
I agree. The Truss being Figurehead Leader in Name Only just isn't going to hold up under the pressures of the next few weeks. The Tories might be able to indulge that fantasy for a little while, but all it takes is another PMQs or media round from Liz and it will all fall apart.
Let's have some stability now until the GE. Keep things as they are. Truss doing regular car-crash interviews and pressers, Hunt being the common sense technocrat calling the shots and applying Labour policies, preventing economic meltdown through a couple of bleak years of mild recession.
Then, when the polls have narrowed a bit or time has run out, the Tories can call a GE with a Truss-led campaign leading to electoral wipe-out.
Hunt takes over as LOTO and begins the long Tory Party rebuild process. If there's anything left to rebuild.
Sounds like the least worst outlook to me. Shit, but ultimately survivable.
There is zero chance Tory members will elect Hunt as Leader of the Opposition. At present if Truss and Hunt lead the Tories to heavy defeat, the membership will likely conclude she was not rightwing enough and elect Braverman as Leader of the Opposition to PM Starmer's government.
At best Hunt can be Mandelson to Truss' Brown and steady the ship
I can seen the Tory bigwigs scrapping the membership vote sooner or later. If it means a dwindling membership gifting the Left by selecting increasingly mad and unelectable leaders then what really is the point?
Then the Tory membership will start deselecting Tory MPs until they get ones who will give them a voice.
At the end of the day the voluntary party is as much a part of the party as the parliamentary party.
If Labour MPs had tried to take the membership vote away during the Corbyn era then you can guarantee Labour members would have started to deselect Labour MPs too.
Trying to ignore what the Tory core vote wants will also only boost Farage.
Plus 'unelectable' leaders can sometimes win. People thought Thatcher unelectable in 1975. Even Corbyn got a hung parliament in 2017
Hunt by just looking sensible and working with rather than against the BOE will likely get some mercy from the markets . This alone will catapult him into prime position for PM but he needs the longer game for this . If Tory MPs pull the plug on Truss next week then he couldn’t jump from COE to PM that quickly.
I don't think it rules him out, but it probably forces him as the "Coronation candidate" to run on the basis that he is clear who his Chancellor would be, and that can only be Rishi IMHO.
Rishi's position as Chancellor was secure before he blew up the government. He's directly culpable for the current mess.
He may be a contributory factor, but to make him solely responsible for BJs lies and Truss's failings is absurd.
Indeed, it's not clear whether Johnson would have survived even if Rishi had not resigned. And he could not have known that Truss would win the leadership contest. Anyone who thinks they knew for sure that Truss would win is probably lying, because for a while it looked like the MPs wouldn't even let her into the final round.
There was a belief her being stranded in Indonesia would be a fatal impediment.
The Kwarteng chancellorship was a major Cambridge University fail. The crème brûlée and Great Court Run college in particular. Re-establish the monasteries and give them their assets back?
Creme Brulee is Caius, not arriviste Trinity Burnt Cream.
My apologies. What's the difference, or is it only the nomenclature?
Doesn't the idea come from Catalonia anyway?
Despite my possible faux pas, it's true that Kwasi Kwarteng was in the in crowd at both Eton and Trinity and he ballsed up the Chancellor job as nobody has ever ballsed it up before so fast. And he doesn't have the humility and charm of Eddie the Eagle. No way would he have been promoted so high if he'd gone to the school down the road or even a second division private boarding school somewhere, or if he'd gone to, well, probably any university apart from Oxford and Cambridge.
And we can't blame the Tory party's membership in this instance.
Top post. Eton and Cambridge must be deeply embarrassed to have turned out such a tone-deaf incompetent.
He was at Cambridge with Richard Burgon, I believe, who was in the next door college?
Do people now understand why so many Cambridge politicians have been passed over before now?
Which would be a valid argument if the Oxford ones who get in weren't just as useless.
Hunt by just looking sensible and working with rather than against the BOE will likely get some mercy from the markets . This alone will catapult him into prime position for PM but he needs the longer game for this . If Tory MPs pull the plug on Truss next week then he couldn’t jump from COE to PM that quickly.
I don't think it rules him out, but it probably forces him as the "Coronation candidate" to run on the basis that he is clear who his Chancellor would be, and that can only be Rishi IMHO.
Rishi's position as Chancellor was secure before he blew up the government. He's directly culpable for the current mess.
He may be a contributory factor, but to make him solely responsible for BJs lies and Truss's failings is absurd.
Yes, agreed on both points - the before and after - and in addition even after Sunak resigned that didn't mean that a third of the rest of the government had to resign or indeed do anything at all other than gossip about who Johnson might replace him with.
Besides, who else might Hunt appoint as ChEx? If it's Esther McVey he'd just be taking the piss.
I agree. The Truss being Figurehead Leader in Name Only just isn't going to hold up under the pressures of the next few weeks. The Tories might be able to indulge that fantasy for a little while, but all it takes is another PMQs or media round from Liz and it will all fall apart.
Let's have some stability now until the GE. Keep things as they are. Truss doing regular car-crash interviews and pressers, Hunt being the common sense technocrat calling the shots and applying Labour policies, preventing economic meltdown through a couple of bleak years of mild recession.
Then, when the polls have narrowed a bit or time has run out, the Tories can call a GE with a Truss-led campaign leading to electoral wipe-out.
Hunt takes over as LOTO and begins the long Tory Party rebuild process. If there's anything left to rebuild.
Sounds like the least worst outlook to me. Shit, but ultimately survivable.
There is zero chance Tory members will elect Hunt as Leader of the Opposition. At present if Truss and Hunt lead the Tories to heavy defeat, the membership will likely conclude she was not rightwing enough and elect Braverman as Leader of the Opposition to PM Starmer's government.
At best Hunt can be Mandelson to Truss' Brown and steady the ship
I fear you are right in your analysis of Conservative members, but Braverman would be an absolute disaster for your party, much as Corbyn was and remains a disaster for Labour.
After Corbyn there are still left leaning voters who don't trust the Party not to jettison Starmer and replace with Burgon or Pidcock, or some other moon howler.
Should Braverman ever become Leader her spectral legacy would be, one of we Centists can't vote for a one nation feudal Tory Party because they might replace a sensible leader with Mark Francois, or Phillip Davies.
The die would be cast, as it is for Labour. To be on the safe side, perhaps we should all vote LibDem.
I agree. The Truss being Figurehead Leader in Name Only just isn't going to hold up under the pressures of the next few weeks. The Tories might be able to indulge that fantasy for a little while, but all it takes is another PMQs or media round from Liz and it will all fall apart.
Let's have some stability now until the GE. Keep things as they are. Truss doing regular car-crash interviews and pressers, Hunt being the common sense technocrat calling the shots and applying Labour policies, preventing economic meltdown through a couple of bleak years of mild recession.
Then, when the polls have narrowed a bit or time has run out, the Tories can call a GE with a Truss-led campaign leading to electoral wipe-out.
Hunt takes over as LOTO and begins the long Tory Party rebuild process. If there's anything left to rebuild.
Sounds like the least worst outlook to me. Shit, but ultimately survivable.
There is zero chance Tory members will elect Hunt as Leader of the Opposition. At present if Truss and Hunt lead the Tories to heavy defeat, the membership will likely conclude she was not rightwing enough and elect Braverman as Leader of the Opposition to PM Starmer's government.
At best Hunt can be Mandelson to Truss' Brown and steady the ship
I can seen the Tory bigwigs scrapping the membership vote sooner or later. If it means a dwindling membership gifting the Left by selecting increasingly mad and unelectable leaders then what really is the point?
Then the Tory membership will start deselecting Tory MPs until they get ones who will give them a voice.
At the end of the day the voluntary party is as much a part of the party as the parliamentary party.
If Labour MPs had tried to take the membership vote away during the Corbyn era then you can guarantee Labour members would have started to deselect Labour MPs too.
Trying to ignore what the Tory core vote wants will also only boost Farage
You are seeking the destruction of the conservative party, while many of us are fighting against the likes of yourself, the ERG, and the appalling Farage to re- establish an electable centre ground conservative party
It is only a matter of time until you and your like are marginalised, just as the Corbyn faction have been
Hunt is the first positive for the party in months as is evident in the majority of posts on here
Hunt by just looking sensible and working with rather than against the BOE will likely get some mercy from the markets . This alone will catapult him into prime position for PM but he needs the longer game for this . If Tory MPs pull the plug on Truss next week then he couldn’t jump from COE to PM that quickly.
I don't think it rules him out, but it probably forces him as the "Coronation candidate" to run on the basis that he is clear who his Chancellor would be, and that can only be Rishi IMHO.
Rishi's position as Chancellor was secure before he blew up the government. He's directly culpable for the current mess.
He may be a contributory factor, but to make him solely responsible for BJs lies and Truss's failings is absurd.
I didn't say he was solely responsible, but he was a destabilising influence and put his personal ambition before the interests of the country and the party.
Hunt by just looking sensible and working with rather than against the BOE will likely get some mercy from the markets . This alone will catapult him into prime position for PM but he needs the longer game for this . If Tory MPs pull the plug on Truss next week then he couldn’t jump from COE to PM that quickly.
I don't think it rules him out, but it probably forces him as the "Coronation candidate" to run on the basis that he is clear who his Chancellor would be, and that can only be Rishi IMHO.
Rishi's position as Chancellor was secure before he blew up the government. He's directly culpable for the current mess.
He may be a contributory factor, but to make him solely responsible for BJs lies and Truss's failings is absurd.
Yes, agreed on both points - the before and after - and in addition even after Sunak resigned that didn't mean that a third of the rest of the government had to resign or indeed do anything at all other than gossip about who Johnson might replace him with.
Besides, who else might Hunt appoint as ChEx? If it's Esther McVey he'd just be taking the piss.
Hunt by just looking sensible and working with rather than against the BOE will likely get some mercy from the markets . This alone will catapult him into prime position for PM but he needs the longer game for this . If Tory MPs pull the plug on Truss next week then he couldn’t jump from COE to PM that quickly.
I don't think it rules him out, but it probably forces him as the "Coronation candidate" to run on the basis that he is clear who his Chancellor would be, and that can only be Rishi IMHO.
Rishi's position as Chancellor was secure before he blew up the government. He's directly culpable for the current mess.
He may be a contributory factor, but to make him solely responsible for BJs lies and Truss's failings is absurd.
I didn't say he was solely responsible, but he was a destabilising influence and put his personal ambition before the interests of the country and the party.
The Kwarteng chancellorship was a major Cambridge University fail. The crème brûlée and Great Court Run college in particular. Re-establish the monasteries and give them their assets back?
Creme Brulee is Caius, not arriviste Trinity Burnt Cream.
My apologies. What's the difference, or is it only the nomenclature?
Doesn't the idea come from Catalonia anyway?
Despite my possible faux pas, it's true that Kwasi Kwarteng was in the in crowd at both Eton and Trinity and he ballsed up the Chancellor job as nobody has ever ballsed it up before so fast. And he doesn't have the humility and charm of Eddie the Eagle. No way would he have been promoted so high if he'd gone to the school down the road or even a second division private boarding school somewhere, or if he'd gone to, well, probably any university apart from Oxford and Cambridge.
And we can't blame the Tory party's membership in this instance.
Top post. Eton and Cambridge must be deeply embarrassed to have turned out such a tone-deaf incompetent.
He was at Cambridge with Richard Burgon, I believe, who was in the next door college?
Do people now understand why so many Cambridge politicians have been passed over before now?
Which would be a valid argument if the Oxford ones who get in weren't just as useless.
The real apex of entitled and ignorant cretinism in the education system is neither Oxford nor Cambridge, but Eton College. The first action of an incoming Labour Government should be to whistle up a squadron of RAF Typhoons armed with precision guided bombs and reduce the whole place to a pile of smouldering rubble.
If Labour MPs had tried to take the membership vote away during the Corbyn era then you can guarantee Labour members would have started to deselect Labour MPs too.
I'm not sure this is the zinger you think it is...
I see, despite being an international laughing stock, we continue to live rent free in the Kremlin’s head:
Update: TASS: Lukashenko: A solution to the conflict in Ukraine is possible within a week and depends on the position of the United States and Britain.
For the first time in a long time I believe we have a grown up in what is now the most powerful political position in the country
I wish Hunt all the best not just for the conservative party but for the country
Truss is over, it is just the question of when but it won't be long
But he is in favour of fox hunting don't forget.
Good. So am I.
With or without dogs?
Is this a trick question?
No. Fox hunting is still legal isn't it? As long as you don't use dogs. I was against the ban. But there are deer living near us and the local oiks try hunting them with their pitbull-type dogs. And I hate that.
So I decided I shouldn't support toffs hunting foxes with dogs either.
For the first time in a long time I believe we have a grown up in what is now the most powerful political position in the country
I wish Hunt all the best not just for the conservative party but for the country
Truss is over, it is just the question of when but it won't be long
But he is in favour of fox hunting don't forget.
Good. So am I.
But BigG definitely isn't. During the Johnson/Hunt leadership contest it was a deal breaker for his vote.
Fox hunting is a long way outside the Chncellors remit though
I somehow doubt that Jeremy Hunt is much interested in mucking about with foxhunting right now. Though FWIW I think that the new Chancellor's remit extends to anything he says it does.
The Kwarteng chancellorship was a major Cambridge University fail. The crème brûlée and Great Court Run college in particular. Re-establish the monasteries and give them their assets back?
Creme Brulee is Caius, not arriviste Trinity Burnt Cream.
My apologies. What's the difference, or is it only the nomenclature?
Doesn't the idea come from Catalonia anyway?
Despite my possible faux pas, it's true that Kwasi Kwarteng was in the in crowd at both Eton and Trinity and he ballsed up the Chancellor job as nobody has ever ballsed it up before so fast. And he doesn't have the humility and charm of Eddie the Eagle. No way would he have been promoted so high if he'd gone to the school down the road or even a second division private boarding school somewhere, or if he'd gone to, well, probably any university apart from Oxford and Cambridge.
And we can't blame the Tory party's membership in this instance.
Top post. Eton and Cambridge must be deeply embarrassed to have turned out such a tone-deaf incompetent.
He was at Cambridge with Richard Burgon, I believe, who was in the next door college?
Do people now understand why so many Cambridge politicians have been passed over before now?
Which would be a valid argument if the Oxford ones who get in weren't just as useless.
The real apex of entitled and ignorant cretinism in the education system is neither Oxford nor Cambridge, but Eton College. The first action of an incoming Labour Government should be to whistle up a squadron of RAF Typhoons armed with precision guided bombs and reduce the whole place to a pile of smouldering rubble.
Revoke its charitable status and start taxing it. That will hurt more than the Typhoons...
The Kwarteng chancellorship was a major Cambridge University fail. The crème brûlée and Great Court Run college in particular. Re-establish the monasteries and give them their assets back?
Creme Brulee is Caius, not arriviste Trinity Burnt Cream.
My apologies. What's the difference, or is it only the nomenclature?
Doesn't the idea come from Catalonia anyway?
Despite my possible faux pas, it's true that Kwasi Kwarteng was in the in crowd at both Eton and Trinity and he ballsed up the Chancellor job as nobody has ever ballsed it up before so fast. And he doesn't have the humility and charm of Eddie the Eagle. No way would he have been promoted so high if he'd gone to the school down the road or even a second division private boarding school somewhere, or if he'd gone to, well, probably any university apart from Oxford and Cambridge.
And we can't blame the Tory party's membership in this instance.
Top post. Eton and Cambridge must be deeply embarrassed to have turned out such a tone-deaf incompetent.
He was at Cambridge with Richard Burgon, I believe, who was in the next door college?
Do people now understand why so many Cambridge politicians have been passed over before now?
Which would be a valid argument if the Oxford ones who get in weren't just as useless.
The real apex of entitled and ignorant cretinism in the education system is neither Oxford nor Cambridge, but Eton College. The first action of an incoming Labour Government should be to whistle up a squadron of RAF Typhoons armed with precision guided bombs and reduce the whole place to a pile of smouldering rubble.
Questions should be asked though as to why every pm since 1945 with a degree went to oxford with the exception of gordon brown. Clearly i imagine its something to do with contacts as oxford graduates arent that much better
Hunt has calmed the markets, if he quits then it will be carnage, so Truss cannot afford to lose him, he will do whatever he wants.
What happens if Monday comes and the markets aren’t calmed?
The way this usually happens is there can be two weeks of calm - people say the markets have been calmed, but then it all erupts again.
Obviously you all know my theory - £400bn of Rishi splaffing (and wasting a lot) to get us through covid has maxxed out the credit - now they want to (unnecessarily, needlessly) try to get another £200bn more borrowing - the markets won’t calm till that plan is dead.
Or the £200bn becomes more like £20bn. Everything now turns on the future price of gas.
I don’t want to be really rude David, but you keep posting that “If gas falls sufficiently, the cost of the energy cap freeze drops” means don’t think you really understand it. That thinking is utter bollox.
1. We haven’t had an OBR how much Tories total promise is likely to cost. The Tories have promised to buck the UK energy market for two and a half years regardless what global energy price does. Some think tanks have had a go at pricing this and come to a quarter of a trillion pound. To be found by tax rises, borrowing or cuts or mixture thereof. Quarter of a trillion on that one policy alone. 2. Variable one. Energy prices can go down, yes, but also up, it’s a very fluid situation in supply and demand over this coming period - but at which point do energy companies need to commit to buying it in advance, so commit to passing on THAT price to both customers AND onto a government commitment to bucking the market? 3. Variable two. If global prices do come down, to what degree is the saving on the quarter of a trillion eaten into or obliterated by the more expensive borrowing costs? Out of these two variable’s, borrowing costs for this policy look certain to remain high now, the greater doubt is if energy prices will come down and stay down isn’t it?
You really think that whole £200bn comes down to £20bn? 🥹 We all know what’s really behind “but the bill freeze looks like turning out much cheaper because gas prices are coming down” argument we get spun from Tory’s on TV and on PB - they privately hate this lumbering Labour policy Tory party has adopted, they hate the ENORMOUS amount of borrowing maxing out UKs credit limit, and the regressive unConservative way the money is spewed out in indiscriminate handouts.
But. They are only fooling themselves spinning that comfort blanket, because, yes, there are variables, but the variables are very much against them.
Don’t be one of them.
There is no defence to this insane policy, Truss has been hiding behind all week.
I would agree we don't know what this policy is going to cost and I would agree that there are significant risks on the upside but there is also some reason for hope on the low side.
The government have committed to the average house bill being no more than £2500 a year. At the moment the price of gas futures are 263p/therm. It has been over 700p and has averaged around 400p of late. The cost of the UK subsidy is directly relational to that price against the price that fixes the £2500 pa average. I have been unable to work out exactly what that is because there are quite a number of other variables. Energy companies are bumping up their fixed charges as well. My best guess is that £2500 per household is going be equivalent to something like 200p/therm, roughly twice what it was last winter.
But I am not wrong is saying that there is a chance that the cost of the scheme will prove to be much lower than the worst estimates. It could also be higher of course. If it stays somewhere near our current price or goes even lower then the cost of the scheme will be less. If it goes back up again we are in trouble, no doubt about it.
Edit, and btw the OBR will have no better idea than the rest of us, it is simply unknowable.
You telling us It’s unknowable wasn’t the impression I got when you reduced it from £200bn to £20bn to spark my reply. 🙂
We know enough overall price can’t come down that much. Because the bit you seem to be avoiding is commodity price drop is to some extent offset by borrowing cost increase - goes back to the unknowable being very guessable in that the borrowing cost won’t be based on “maybe the commodity price drops and stays at x price”, who lends money on that basis?
You accept the part of the equation, political and economic, it is not necessary to provide help in this way, there other options such as sliding scale to target help where needed, not wasted where not needed, and virtually pays for itself?
I believe most UK government borrowing is fixed rate. So the increase only kicks in as new debt is issued.
Interesting the current (March) forecast it from debt interest this year to be c £83bn but to *fall* to £47bn next year… a cut in public spending baked in
If you listened to what the mini budget said - the Energy Price Freeze (a quarter of a trillion pounds) will be paid for by new borrowing, no new taxes no new cuts.
If you listed to what Liz Truss said Wednesday, public spending overall total will not show any cuts under her, simply because the quarter of a trillion Energy Price Freeze is being added to the public spending total.
What I am arguing in this thread, we don’t have to fund a quarter of a trillion pound scheme when other realistic options are available better targeted and virtually paying for themselves, I’m also arguing against those saying commodity price coming down proves the end bill will definitely be cheaper, because even with cuts even with more tax, this scheme will always need a huge amount of new borrowing at the new higher borrowing rates.
Correct me where wrong.
But I am now adding a third facet to my argument - anyone who claims Kwarteng and Truss mini budget crashed the markets I am calling an idiot peddling a myth. And I can prove it. That spiking gilt market graph they use over and over in media, expand it to see the previous 12 months and see the trajectory is up up up long before Truss got anywhere near number 10 - my argument is the budget exacerbated an already underlying problem.
Anyone want to own the claim if the mini budget is reversed, annulled, reset, the trajectory on the borrowings chart graph would be down when it hasn’t been all year?
For the first time in a long time I believe we have a grown up in what is now the most powerful political position in the country
I wish Hunt all the best not just for the conservative party but for the country
Truss is over, it is just the question of when but it won't be long
But he is in favour of fox hunting don't forget.
Good. So am I.
With or without dogs?
Is this a trick question?
No. Fox hunting is still legal isn't it? As long as you don't use dogs. I was against the ban. But there are deer living near us and the local oiks try hunting them with their pitbull-type dogs. And I hate that.
So I decided I shouldn't support toffs hunting foxes with dogs either.
Well, in non American English hunting means, with dogs. Using rifles is called shooting. It kills 10x the foxes hunting ever did, with the availability of military grade night sight equipment, and because foxes have never learned to lick their wounds those which are shot but not killed die very slowly and horribly of gangrene. And foxhunting unlike say pheasant shooting was never the preserve of rich toffs.
The Kwarteng chancellorship was a major Cambridge University fail. The crème brûlée and Great Court Run college in particular. Re-establish the monasteries and give them their assets back?
Creme Brulee is Caius, not arriviste Trinity Burnt Cream.
My apologies. What's the difference, or is it only the nomenclature?
Doesn't the idea come from Catalonia anyway?
Despite my possible faux pas, it's true that Kwasi Kwarteng was in the in crowd at both Eton and Trinity and he ballsed up the Chancellor job as nobody has ever ballsed it up before so fast. And he doesn't have the humility and charm of Eddie the Eagle. No way would he have been promoted so high if he'd gone to the school down the road or even a second division private boarding school somewhere, or if he'd gone to, well, probably any university apart from Oxford and Cambridge.
And we can't blame the Tory party's membership in this instance.
Top post. Eton and Cambridge must be deeply embarrassed to have turned out such a tone-deaf incompetent.
He was at Cambridge with Richard Burgon, I believe, who was in the next door college?
Do people now understand why so many Cambridge politicians have been passed over before now?
Which would be a valid argument if the Oxford ones who get in weren't just as useless.
The real apex of entitled and ignorant cretinism in the education system is neither Oxford nor Cambridge, but Eton College. The first action of an incoming Labour Government should be to whistle up a squadron of RAF Typhoons armed with precision guided bombs and reduce the whole place to a pile of smouldering rubble.
Questions should be asked though as to why every pm since 1945 with a degree went to oxford with the exception of gordon brown. Clearly i imagine its something to do with contacts as oxford graduates arent that much better
Memo: add the Oxford Union to the list of bombing targets.
The Kwarteng chancellorship was a major Cambridge University fail. The crème brûlée and Great Court Run college in particular. Re-establish the monasteries and give them their assets back?
Creme Brulee is Caius, not arriviste Trinity Burnt Cream.
My apologies. What's the difference, or is it only the nomenclature?
Doesn't the idea come from Catalonia anyway?
Despite my possible faux pas, it's true that Kwasi Kwarteng was in the in crowd at both Eton and Trinity and he ballsed up the Chancellor job as nobody has ever ballsed it up before so fast. And he doesn't have the humility and charm of Eddie the Eagle. No way would he have been promoted so high if he'd gone to the school down the road or even a second division private boarding school somewhere, or if he'd gone to, well, probably any university apart from Oxford and Cambridge.
And we can't blame the Tory party's membership in this instance.
Top post. Eton and Cambridge must be deeply embarrassed to have turned out such a tone-deaf incompetent.
He was at Cambridge with Richard Burgon, I believe, who was in the next door college?
Do people now understand why so many Cambridge politicians have been passed over before now?
Which would be a valid argument if the Oxford ones who get in weren't just as useless.
The real apex of entitled and ignorant cretinism in the education system is neither Oxford nor Cambridge, but Eton College. The first action of an incoming Labour Government should be to whistle up a squadron of RAF Typhoons armed with precision guided bombs and reduce the whole place to a pile of smouldering rubble.
Revoke its charitable status and start taxing it. That will hurt more than the Typhoons...
That's reasonable. There's no reason why the private schooling sector should benefit from charitable tax breaks. It contributes nothing of value to wider society.
OT. Just listened to Lisa Nandy being interviewed in depth by Nick Robinson. I have to say she's a very impressive person and politician and not at all belonging in the box I'd put her in with Rayner and Long Bailey. An object lesson in not judging someone by the number of letters they drop. On the basis of that interview I reckon she'd make a formidable leader.
Quite possible we’ll see an interesting divergence in the polls in the coming week(s)
Truss rating remains abysmal, but Tory VI recovers somewhat….
I expect it’ll fall again fairly soon after the tax rises/spending cuts are officially revealed, though.
Interesting times.
We might get an Opinium tonight, to see if the Tory recovery in most recent polls is reflected in that one, I predict an especially big leap for the Tories if the previous lowness was caused by a huge don’t know pool now coming back home to the Tories the Opinium methodology has been splashing about in over recent days.
Comments
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCzElCx_LK8
Joining @AfNeil, @EdBalls and @George_Osborne is former minister and Sunak backer @MattHanfock for his thoughts on the new Chancellor and Truss' chaotic first 40 days in office
Channel 4, 6.15pm https://twitter.com/Channel4/status/1581309319131197440/photo/1
I do wonder whether Labour has the potential to see similar progress in Carshalton & Wallington - which back in the 1970s had been a Tory/Labour marginal. The Alliance moved into 2nd place in 1983 and managed to hold on to that position - probably due to strength at Local Elections. Labour failed to recover sufficiently there - despite a stronger result in 1997 when Tom Brake won the seat for the LDs. He was defeated in 2019 and is not standing again , and it occurs to me that this might present Labour with an opportunity to make up lost ground.
That said I roll my eyes whenever I hear anyone say "Britain's done nothing", we have changed our electricity generation by a huge amount in a relatively short time, and it's going to keep growing. This is one of those areas where for once I think we can say we are doing about as well or better than any similar country.
As an aside, we making a lot of progress with fibre broadband now. Multiple huge projects are under way, and we now have a very fast deployment programme.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tories-look-like-libertarian-jihadists-we-must-be-the-party-of-compassion-kvlnqz0vs
Prosecutors said the charges all related to the same complainant.
The 21-year-old footballer will face his first court appearance at Greater Manchester Magistrates' Court on 17 October, the CPS added.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-63272019
Might be true, BUT do you have a source for this?
There is always somewhere around Britain where the wind is blowing. And tidal is of course continuous on a national scale.
Probably best avoided.
https://twitter.com/JeremyHunt_MP/status/1581202418712203265
But ultimately we need to have fully decarbonised heat, and ideally in a way that doesn't lock us in to energy imports, such as CCGT with CCS or Blue Hydrogen.
https://www.yorkshirewater.com/your-water/is-there-a-hosepipe-ban/
Many Pennine reservoirs are very low.
Most of the Flatlands supply comes from an aquifer but there's only so much you can pump out, and in any case they have to dilute the groundwater to keep the nitrate content below the required level.
Our water goes off pretty quickly if there is a power cut so winter might be fun...
https://www.yorkshirewater.com/about-us/open-data/watsit-report/
56% refers to the amount of precipitation compared to the long term average.
Edit - I love the punning title there. A 'watsit' report is just brilliant.
The truth of the matter is that you can have a legitimate argument about building a low tax economy. The problem is that instituting new fiscal policy takes time and requires an understanding of the realities of the books and what you can hope to achieve. It's incremental. Thatcher believed in low taxes, but she also understood sound money. She raised taxes in her first term, because she realised the economic situation called for it.
The more I think about Liz and Kwasi's weird Special Fiscal Operation the more I despair at how they were actually able to get it out of the door without someone pulling some kind of intervention.
If Truss had been sensible she would have used the political capital she had to level with the public and the Tory Party and explain - look, I want to cut everyone's taxes, I've said it plenty of times on the campaign trail, but one of the other things I'm hearing is that people desperately need support with their energy bills, and that has to be my focus right now. That support needs to be paid for. So I'm not going to be able to cut taxes right now, but once we're out of this difficult winter we'll revisit things at the budget and we'll see if there's any way we can achieve this. That she didn't do that shows why she is a poor (nay, atrocious) Prime Minister.
https://twitter.com/rebelsanimal/status/1581238423196958723?s=61&t=1jGBHQMIST81uJnYyJgD5A
Although I can understand why they feel plants should be prized above other life forms.
Now of course I am biased but wouldn't it have been worth the government considering a temporary removal on VAT for the installation of new boilers? Might that actually save money if they are then spending less subsidising peoples' bills? Funny how a right of centre government ends up resorting to the most statist policies.
Interesting the current (March) forecast it from debt interest this year to be c £83bn but to *fall* to £47bn next year… a cut in public spending baked in
The two combined mean we've actually had a net loss this year.
I guess he is plugging a book or something?
The return flow needs to be < 54℃ for this process to work, with progressively greater gains with lower temps.
Many boiler installers just whack the flow temp up to 80℃ and leave it there so that they don’t get call-backs from their customers because “the radiators don’t feel very hot”. It’s understandable to an extent: educating customers is not always easy & people want the familiar, which in this case is to be able to walk into a cold house, whack the heating on & have the radiators start blasting out heat ASAP. (I’ve even heard of one bunch of heat pump installers doing this to the flow from their heat pump installations: Madness!)
But the consequence is that all these expensive new boiler installations are running at 70% efficiency instead of 90+%.
To enter you just need to answer one simple question “If Matt Hancock was PM what economic policy would win your vote?”
At the end of the day the voluntary party is as much a part of the party as the parliamentary party.
If Labour MPs had tried to take the membership vote away during the Corbyn era then you can guarantee Labour members would have started to deselect Labour MPs too.
Trying to ignore what the Tory core vote wants will also only boost Farage.
Plus 'unelectable' leaders can sometimes win. People thought Thatcher unelectable in 1975. Even Corbyn got a hung parliament in 2017
Besides, who else might Hunt appoint as ChEx? If it's Esther McVey he'd just be taking the piss.
After Corbyn there are still left leaning voters who don't trust the Party not to jettison Starmer and replace with Burgon or Pidcock, or some other moon howler.
Should Braverman ever become Leader her spectral legacy would be, one of we Centists can't vote for a one nation feudal Tory Party because they might replace a sensible leader with Mark Francois, or Phillip Davies.
The die would be cast, as it is for Labour. To be on the safe side, perhaps we should all vote LibDem.
Long live President Truss!
It is only a matter of time until you and your like are marginalised, just as the Corbyn faction have been
Hunt is the first positive for the party in months as is evident in the majority of posts on here
It is almost as if the Leave / ERG brigade do not like anyone with talent or ability.
Update: TASS: Lukashenko: A solution to the conflict in Ukraine is possible within a week and depends on the position of the United States and Britain.
https://twitter.com/EndGameWW3/status/1581324308215103488
Apparently Kate Bingham is utterly damning about him in her book.
So I decided I shouldn't support toffs hunting foxes with dogs either.
Truss rating remains abysmal, but Tory VI recovers somewhat….
I expect it’ll fall again fairly soon after the tax rises/spending cuts are officially revealed, though.
Interesting times.
https://www.mailplus.co.uk/edition/news/politics/229979/truss-bounced-kwasi-into-tax-cut
If you listed to what Liz Truss said Wednesday, public spending overall total will not show any cuts under her, simply because the quarter of a trillion Energy Price Freeze is being added to the public spending total.
What I am arguing in this thread, we don’t have to fund a quarter of a trillion pound scheme when other realistic options are available better targeted and virtually paying for themselves, I’m also arguing against those saying commodity price coming down proves the end bill will definitely be cheaper, because even with cuts even with more tax, this scheme will always need a huge amount of new borrowing at the new higher borrowing rates.
Correct me where wrong.
But I am now adding a third facet to my argument - anyone who claims Kwarteng and Truss mini budget crashed the markets I am calling an idiot peddling a myth. And I can prove it. That spiking gilt market graph they use over and over in media, expand it to see the previous 12 months and see the trajectory is up up up long before Truss got anywhere near number 10 - my argument is the budget exacerbated an already underlying problem.
Anyone want to own the claim if the mini budget is reversed, annulled, reset, the trajectory on the borrowings chart graph would be down when it hasn’t been all year?
Very bad for Truss.
https://www.mailplus.co.uk/edition/news/politics/229979/truss-bounced-kwasi-into-tax-cut
Agree about the pitbull types though.