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Blow for Truss as Rishi becomes the members’ favourite – politicalbetting.com
Blow for Truss as Rishi becomes the members’ favourite – politicalbetting.com
In a new Tory members poll reported by the Telegraph Sunak is beating Truss by 60-40% amongst those of the 500 Tory members polled who had a view.
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https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-63293582
I hope parliament acts immediately.
ETA tbh my first reaction was similar to yours, that this is deplorable.
I wonder how he'd poll against one of the people the parliamentary Truss backers would run against him.
The ERG has clearly given up on Truss; I expect they are readying to push for Badenoch or Braverman if there’s a move to install Hunt or Mordaunt.
If they had any sense (yes, well…) they’d get behind Mordaunt, as the last Leaver with any credibility (Rishi is a leave, of course, but somehow not leaver enough)
They have wrecked their party. They have wrecked this country. The public will not forgive or forget for a long, long, time.
Those being complacent about the west's military superiority ("all their weapons are basically similar to Russia's") are much misguided, IMO.
China has an economic capacity, and electronics industry, that Putin could only dream of.
And, as this evidences, they are considerably more organised in their military buildup.
Baker was doing the media rounds yesterday arguing that she must stay in post.
There are a few on here for whom the penny has still not yet dropped. The Conservatives are going to lose the next General Election very heavily. You simply don't come back from 30% poll deficits.
Even in 1992-7 when the economy was in stellar state, Labour still won with a lead of 12.5%.
There's a really good article on this, which starts by quoting @MikeSmithson
https://www.markpack.org.uk/4875/why-wasnt-it-the-economy-stupid-in-1997/
What trashed the Conservatives in 1997 was what happened 4.5 years before on Black Wednesday. I remember that day and it was (until now) unprecedented. It wasn't just what actually happened in economic terms, it was the sense of a Government which was totally out of control. It was completely chaotic. The pound crashed, the BoE burned £10bn trying to save it, and interest rates rose twice, then fell and we ejected from the ERM. It was chaos.
What happened that day trashed the tory's reputation for economic competence.
Roll on quarter of a century and they've done it again, only this time far worse. The utter chaos. The total shambles. The zillion U-turns. The now-unprecedented sense of a Government in office but not in power. It is gobsmacking.
But what is FAR FAR worse for the Conservatives this time around is that unlike 1997, the fiscal economic outlook is very grim. We are heading INTO recession, with high inflation, higher interest rates, public sector borrowing out of control, public services already on their knees now coming under further constraints, and a terrible cost of living crisis.
Quite simply, anyone who even entertains for one second the notion that the tories can win the next election is living in cloud cuckoo land.
The only question now is: how big a defeat will they suffer?
When we look back a few years from now, and shudder, will the public come to lump together the present chaos with leaving the EU? It's the elephant in the room.
Starmer will do everything he can to avoid answering that question and it will hardly be his priority for the first few years. But it may well be that we have a referendum about rejoining, in some form or other, a decade from now.
The ERG have so over reached themselves that they've damaged the credibility of the very thing they most stood for. I'm inclined to say that this nearly always happens with zealots and fanatics of whatever persuasion. The Hard Left always do it.
It's back to centrism for this country. Thank God.
Gas: informed advisors say next winter will be worse than this, as this year european reserves were filled using Russian gas in the summer. Not so next year. And it will be too soon for alternative supply to make up the difference.
Well done Hunt for realising we must let the pricing signal moderate demand, if we’re to avoid years of centralised rationing.
https://twitter.com/ChuckPfarrer/status/1582139126228271104
(Not sure he was “in charge” of the whole thing.)
But for some in the Party her views on for example trans rights are more important than whether we are outside the EU, or whether they win a General Election.
This loss of perspective is quite staggering. Straining at gnats whilst swallowing camels.
At least people can see a sensible, if a little dull, way out of the chaos.
https://twitter.com/TadeuszGiczan/status/1582044513274822656
I'd argue he'd have been hopeless on Covid: he hasn't even had the gumption to say whether he's been vaccinated. On the Ukraine war, I cannot see him having us help Ukraine in any way ("war is bad, m'kay?"), and I've no idea what he'd try to do with the energy crisis - then again, neither has this government. Probably reopen all the coal mines...
Even if it went to the members (which it probably won't), Mordaunt only needs to gain five of Truss's 113 votes to eliminate them (assuming they get all the rest who voted for Truss last time).
It's simply not going to happen.
And if somehow it did, the members will play it safe anyway.
And last but not least. The Belarusian-Ukrainian border is almost entirely covered by the impassable Polesie marshes, the largest wetlands in Europe. The few sections along the roads where the Russians attacked in February have been turned by Ukrainians into the Maginot Line. 15/
https://twitter.com/TadeuszGiczan/status/1582044592232202249
On Ukraine he’d have asked us to “see Russia’s point of view” and much like his disgraceful Salisbury response would have demanded we see both sides of the argument. Let’s not forget it was a bit of misguided political game playing by Ed Miliband that stayed the West’s hand in Syria and helped embolden Putin’s adventurism.
On the energy crisis he might actually have argued for more effective targeting than the current initial blanket approach - but the fault for that lies with the zombie Johnson government who didn’t do the groundwork.
Tricky things political coronations.
Prices in post above were for next Con leader so shorter as include possibility of becoming Leader of opposition.
They really do have a miniscule chance of replacing Truss as PM.
In reality, it's impossible to police it because our hypothetical lardy ex-CrabAir mate could be spilling his ample guts over Zoom to the Chicoms and nobody would ever know.
These are dramatic days with huge uncertainty for many but at least yesterday we saw a confident Jeremy Hunt take back control from the hapless Truss and with the measures announced he has stabilised the markets and completely reset the government
Despite Truss apologies she has to be removed and the sooner the better and I endorse everything that has been said about the appalling ERG who need to be marginalised completely
I do understand the near certain belief that Starmer will win in 2024 but that remains 2 years away and the issue that concerns me more is the period in between where the conservative party have to regain their focus on compassion and concentrate help on the least well of and let the millionaires pay their way without energy subsidies or tax payers help
Listening to Hunt yesterday there was a clear hint that a windfall tax is on its way to energy companies but also banks and it could well turn out that there is little difference between the parties on the way forward
What this crisis has done is make the OBR and IMF cental to any proposals for future governments to ensure that when they say their plans are tully costed they are endorsed by these bodies and that ultimately it is the money markets that control many aspects of tax and spending going forward..
It is for these reasons that I am entirely relaxed about a labour government but frankly I am looking to the next two years for the conservative party to start acting in the country's interest and Hunt has made an excellent atart in this respect
If you wish to make it against the law, you need to pass the law.
However the vultures surely now circling. The membership poll is devastating news for her and all those in the party that oppose Sunak.
Football: a tale of red ink, most recent results (not good at all).
https://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2022/10/results-roundup-18-october.html
My inkling yesterday was that Truss would resign on the 18th. Let's see if that happens.
As well as OBR scrutiny, everything that has happened is going to make Starmer much more nervous about doing anything where there is any risk that markets will react adversely.
If for some reason the Tories want to take a gamble on someone else that’s their lookout. If they can’t even, in these circumstances, see that Sunak is the man they need, there really is no hope for them.
I don't think the modern Russian and Belarussian armies are capable of that.
It really feels like we are in the mid 1970s, Labour will get a few years to really destroy the economy, and then we finally get the necessary structural reform after that.
But you’ve put all your chips on one factor.
Two other considerations are, firstly, the stronger position of Labour in 1997, with a popular charismatic leader besting the government in parliament, and a prepared policy programme which was both costed to reassure the markets and packaged into the five pledges to sell to the public.
Starmer has some heavy lifting to do to achieve the same, and is hard to see his personality ever generating the same enthusiasm as there was for Blair.
And, secondly, it’s an established fact that voters feel more able to invest in a centre-left government when things are improving and there’s money to spend on better services. Whereas in hard and worsening times, voters typically look to the right. Pack ignores this factor which worked against the improving economy reviving the Tories - it was the improving economy that made Labour’s promises of better schools and hospitals credible.
As I say, I accept your conclusion, but still feel the Tories have the ability to run Labour closer than in 1997, if they get their act together (a big IF). And we’re still not seeing Labour walking by-election victories, nationally or locally, in the way that they did in the 1990s.
The next election is to elect a government to sort out the most tremendous mess, which has never been Labour’s role. A huge challenge for Starmer’s team.
Hunt is making good steps in that direction. It's also in the national interest and the interest of the Tory party if they want a chance of a respectable 200 seat showing next time around, albeit a change of leader at some point will be needed for that too.
If you are thinking of voting labour, then you need to look past Starmer - You need to look carefully in to their MPs and what they say and believe.
That forms the basis of my betting, for now.
https://mobile.twitter.com/maria_avdv/status/1582259557434527744
I’m seeing nothing of the professionalism and ruthless focus that we saw from Labour in the 1990s.
Talking of Labour’s team, I haven’t seen Streeting on their front bench for any of the big occasions in parliament recently, which no-one in active in top-level politics would want to miss. I hope he’s not ill again?
Mr. Royale, hmm. I would have Sunak as favourite. But time will tell.
The longer Truss stays as PM with him as Chancellor the more apparent that will become.
Unless she produces a performance the likes of which we haven't seen in decades. it will be her last.
I don't think there's much to choose between them, except the commentariat are fixated on Sunak.
Goodbye, PB. I won't be posting here any more. ScottXP was calling Nadhim Zahawi a coon. If you don't know why that's racist, I'd suggest you ask someone what racism is. Get a clue.
The Tories have proven themselves utterly unfit and there is no party capable of forming a government other than Labour. It is a bad way of choosing, but it is the system we have.
Incredible. Have they any idea of the state of the care system at the moment?
Why are we putting up with this? In any self respecting country the revolution would already have started
By "the Tories", I assume you mean the members. The voters either love him enough to vote for him, or they don't.
But before anyone calls Starmer the new Blair, his actions and words on Covid should be remembered. He took misstep after misstep; for example, he would have had us locked down for much longer than was necessary (even without hindsight).
Blair and his team worked like the devil to undermine Major's government, whilst also presenting a plausible and attractive alternative. Starmer has not, and his lead is all down to the government's collapse over the last eighteen months. Which was one reason he was behind in the polls for so long.
I do not expect Starmer's government to be very good, and especially not to try to tackle the long-term issues facing the country. If he gets a massive majority, it will be a terrible government.
But perhaps not as terrible as Truss's.
Labour will want to spend more money. So, they will need to borrow more (which the markets may not let them do) or raise taxation even higher.
The point is that there decisions will be no easier in office than for the Tories and the breadth and depth of their team is no more impressive.
Social care while expensive is a lot cheaper* than a hospital bed
* there are some minor exceptions here in home care in very rural settings but not many and even then, it's a close run.
Source: https://twitter.com/MattChorley/status/1579391689361616896
that, when the original mini-budget was revealed to cabinet, not a single person thought there would be any problems as a result of it or raised any concerns. That is quite the notion.
https://mobile.twitter.com/StigAbell/status/1582260533688139777
Presumably after it was announced publicly, as they weren't fully consulted in advance ?
Similarly it has been rare in US politics too. Trump, Bush Sr and Carter being the only ones post war.
Given the list is
IDS
Cameron (against Davis so not exactly a difficult choice)
Bozo
Truss
And on the Labour side
Corbyn
SKS (against RLB and Nandy so again not a difficult choice)
Hunt has many flaws, but he does actually understand the NHS, as shown in his recent book "Zero".
I'd suggest you ask someone what a Chief Operating Officer is before inventing racism where none was.