I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
It's not clear to me that Labour would be able to restore all of these proposed cuts even were it to adopt a wealth tax. Repairing the public finances could be at least decade long endeavour, not just the fag end of this Parliament plus the next one.
We could be here in a year's time speculating about how many letters Graham Brady has received about Liz Truss.
I think she gets to May if she makes it through the week. MPs are moaning but we're no closer to a unity candidate. Heck, that Rishi is only 60/40 with members at this moment shows thty must be pretty reluctant.
The appointment MUST bypass the membership, not just because of who they might pick but also as evidence the parliamentary party is serious about getting them permanently out of the loop.
Yet the MPs are at least as culpable. We saw two confident Commons performances yesterday, yet Tory MPs put neither of those parliamentarians through to the members.
It is for these reasons that I am entirely relaxed about a labour government
Yes, the last two weeks have certainly made it less likely that a Labour Government will do anything too reckless.
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 react adversely.
I don't buy this at all. Starmer is skillfully holding in check all the usual instincts to spray money at every politically favoured cause amongst its ranks of deluded and deranged activist MPs, who have largely arrived on the scene against the backdrop of 'tory austerity'. It is almost as inevitable, like a phenomenon in the natural world. Starmer cannot do anything to stop it. All the public sector workers will be demanding 15% more pay etc, their unions and MPs will go along with it, and the Labour government will just agree to the requests. Can you imagine Angela Rayner etc saying no to the baying masses of aggrieved healthcare workers wanting £1 per hour more?
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.
How would you describe the last couple of years, and particularly the last couple of months, if not "destroying the economy?"
There is a difference between 'destroying the economy' and 'really destroying the economy'. The discussion in parliament yesterday was quite revealing, in this respect. Labour have no answers other than to spray money at every politically fashionable and favourable cause that grabs their attention. They have also had the strategy of going along with tax cuts supported by the tories which has worked out ok for them when we had a clown as PM, but when up against someone like Jeremy Hunt they suddenly don't look so clever.
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.
It does not matter.
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.
Indeed.
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.
The clip on the radio last night was so wooden it was incredible (where he said “hah!” as an exposition of disbelief and mockery). Completely failed to get any impact from it - sounded like he was reading a script with no understanding of it
It is for these reasons that I am entirely relaxed about a labour government
Yes, the last two weeks have certainly made it less likely that a Labour Government will do anything too reckless.
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 react adversely.
I don't buy this at all. Starmer is skillfully holding in check all the usual instincts to spray money at every politically favoured cause amongst its ranks of deluded and deranged activist MPs, who have largely arrived on the scene against the backdrop of 'tory austerity'. It is almost as inevitable, like a phenomenon in the natural world. Starmer cannot do anything to stop it. All the public sector workers will be demanding 15% more pay etc, their unions and MPs will go along with it, and the Labour government will just agree to the requests. Can you imagine Angela Rayner etc saying no to the baying masses of aggrieved healthcare workers wanting £1 per hour more?
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.
How would you describe the last couple of years, and particularly the last couple of months, if not "destroying the economy?"
There is a difference between 'destroying the economy' and 'really destroying the economy'. The discussion in parliament yesterday was quite revealing, in this respect. Labour have no answers other than to spray money at every politically fashionable and favourable cause that grabs their attention. They have also had the strategy of going along with tax cuts supported by the tories which has worked out ok for them when we had a clown as PM, but when up against someone like Jeremy Hunt they suddenly don't look so clever.
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.
Same with the Conservative Party though. The Tory Party foisted this catastrophe on us and you are saying we should only look behind Starmer? The living, breathing embodiment of the will of the ruling party is in Number 10, and you’re saying that we should give them a pass because the danger lies across the aisles? Really? The extremist party is on the Treasury benches at the moment.
This is a fair point but I would suggest that the last 48 hours is evidence of the ancient wisdom that the Conservative party has an ability to quickly reinvent itself in the face of changing circumstances. The labour party cannot do this and gets rapidly caught off guard when something like this happens. The language used by Jeremy Hunt about 'paying our way' will be well received by ordinary voters.
Only if that wisdom follows through to sorting out the leadership, and thereafter the wider party accepting the new settlement. It may well, but hasn’t yet.
I think the political history of this crisis really needs to focus on (and begin with) the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader. The tories reacted by ditching sensible and pursuing various incarnations of fantasy and nutty in the belief they could get away with it and take the voters with them, ever since.
It ended in what is basically a solvency crisis, having drained the treasury.
So Ben Wallace becomes PM but in a Chairman of the Board type of way (but focussing on Ukraine) but having strong CEO, COO, and CFO.
So Sunak, Mordaunt, and Hunt.
But Zahawi is the COO...
Stop giggling at the back
^^^ Did the mods not see this racist post?
How is it racist ?
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.
It's weird how your mind jumped straight to that word. I don't think I've heard or seen its use in the UK.
I have recently come acxross the four-letter word in the UK, outside historical context and American literature: but in reference to a breed of cat. Or, in the three-letter form, a cow in Northumberland and Scotland. Which brought me to a halt momentarily, till I realised the meaning was clear from the capitalisation and the preceding sentence.
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
A bunch of six year olds would be a better job than everything since 2016 and probably 2010 (the impact of the destruction of SureStart is only really starting to be noticed now).
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
A bunch of six year olds would be a better job than everything since 2016 and probably 2010 (the impact of the destruction of SureStart is only really starting to be noticed now).
Nice to see someone recalling what happened to SureStart.
They chose Johnson knowing him to be a sociopath. Johnson chose a cabinet exclusively from his cult. Johnson soiled himself so they chose his most loyal lieutenant.........
Why are we putting up with this? In any self respecting country the revolution would already have started
Brits are surely tutting over their Cornflakes from Tottenham to Truro…
We could be here in a year's time speculating about how many letters Graham Brady has received about Liz Truss.
I think she gets to May if she makes it through the week. MPs are moaning but we're no closer to a unity candidate. Heck, that Rishi is only 60/40 with members at this moment shows thty must be pretty reluctant.
The appointment MUST bypass the membership, not just because of who they might pick but also as evidence the parliamentary party is serious about getting them permanently out of the loop.
For a party to permanently exclude its members from such decision-making is to acknowledge the impossible: that the people who most want you elected cannot be trusted. If we can’t trust them to pick a leader, why should we trust their choices for would-be MPs?
If Conservative MPs can’t trust their party members, they should leave the party. The solution is not for the party to hide its shame in its own members, it’s for everyone to recognise that this is what the Conservative Party is. MPs can leave the party, funders can stop sending donations, and voters can stop voting for them. The last is already happening, of course.
"If the Tories lurch from the one extreme of a giveaway budget to the other extreme of Austerity 2.0, they will be slaughtered in the next general election, and rightly so."
Mr. B, sad to hear of more attacks on infrastructure in Ukraine.
Mr. Royale, hmm. I would have Sunak as favourite. But time will tell.
Sunak isn't at the table and Mordaunt gave an impressive performance yesterday, and we know she's on manoeuvres.
I don't think there's much to choose between them, except the commentariat are fixated on Sunak.
Well, one is an occasional fantasist who seems very happy making stuff up if it suits her argument who is already in her most senior post and the other is a by no means perfect former Chancellor of the Exchequer who, for example, managed to get out the furlough scheme and deliver it in record time (query whether this was actually a brilliant idea rather than very expensive consequence of excessive lockdowns).
To me, it does not seem even remotely close. I don't see Sunak and Hunt having any problems working together, after all yesterday was very largely Sunak's platform for the leadership. Mordaunt does human well and is an effective performer in a party not exactly blessed with them. She has earned a promotion, I would like her as Home Sec instead of the current incumbent but then I would also prefer my daughter's hamster in the role.
We could be here in a year's time speculating about how many letters Graham Brady has received about Liz Truss.
I think she gets to May if she makes it through the week. MPs are moaning but we're no closer to a unity candidate. Heck, that Rishi is only 60/40 with members at this moment shows thty must be pretty reluctant.
The appointment MUST bypass the membership, not just because of who they might pick but also as evidence the parliamentary party is serious about getting them permanently out of the loop.
For a party to permanently exclude its members from such decision-making is to acknowledge the impossible: that the people who most want you elected cannot be trusted. If we can’t trust them to pick a leader, why should we trust their choices for would-be MPs?
If Conservative MPs can’t trust their party members, they should leave the party. The solution is not for the party to hide its shame in its own members, it’s for everyone to recognise that this is what the Conservative Party is. MPs can leave the party, funders can stop sending donations, and voters can stop voting for them. The last is already happening, of course.
Labour do it the same way. Membership when in opposition, MPs when in government. Seems sensible.
We could be here in a year's time speculating about how many letters Graham Brady has received about Liz Truss.
I think she gets to May if she makes it through the week. MPs are moaning but we're no closer to a unity candidate. Heck, that Rishi is only 60/40 with members at this moment shows thty must be pretty reluctant.
The appointment MUST bypass the membership, not just because of who they might pick but also as evidence the parliamentary party is serious about getting them permanently out of the loop.
Yet the MPs are at least as culpable. We saw two confident Commons performances yesterday, yet Tory MPs put neither of those parliamentarians through to the members.
So, back to pre 1950 or whenever it was, when a leader emerged on the say so of half a dozen grandees.
We could be here in a year's time speculating about how many letters Graham Brady has received about Liz Truss.
I think she gets to May if she makes it through the week. MPs are moaning but we're no closer to a unity candidate. Heck, that Rishi is only 60/40 with members at this moment shows thty must be pretty reluctant.
The week? She has to make it through PMQs first.
Unless she produces a performance the likes of which we haven't seen in decades. it will be her last.
Yes. It’s now known, I believe, that her important engagement yesterday was upstairs with Brady. It’s fairly obvious what that would have been about; anything trivial and she’d have met him later.
So Ben Wallace becomes PM but in a Chairman of the Board type of way (but focussing on Ukraine) but having strong CEO, COO, and CFO.
So Sunak, Mordaunt, and Hunt.
But Zahawi is the COO...
Stop giggling at the back
^^^ Did the mods not see this racist post?
How is it racist ?
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.
It's weird how your mind jumped straight to that word. I don't think I've heard or seen its use in the UK.
I have recently come acxross the four-letter word in the UK, outside historical context and American literature: but in reference to a breed of cat. Or, in the three-letter form, a cow in Northumberland and Scotland. Which brought me to a halt momentarily, till I realised the meaning was clear from the capitalisation and the preceding sentence.
In The UK it was quite common in the 70s and persisted a bit into the 80s although by then it was certainy only used to be deliberately offensive. I had a girlfriend who moved to Bristol in the early 90's, more exactly to St. Pauls a predominantly black area of Bristol. her uncle organised the move and hired a van from a company called cxxx's. Girlfriend was not amused and she suspected her uncle of choosing that company deliberately.
Oddly in Australia it is not offensive at all, it is a brand of very cheap cheese.
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
A bunch of six year olds would be a better job than everything since 2016 and probably 2010 (the impact of the destruction of SureStart is only really starting to be noticed now).
Nice to see someone recalling what happened to SureStart.
Yep - it's a prime example of the Tory party applying their stupid ideas over actual evidence.
LTCOL Roman Malyk, placed in charge of Putin's botched mobilization effort, has been found dead at his residence at Primorsky, in RU’s far east. A police investigation has been launched, and a verdict of “suicide" has not been ruled out. https://twitter.com/ChuckPfarrer/status/1582139126228271104
We could be here in a year's time speculating about how many letters Graham Brady has received about Liz Truss.
I think she gets to May if she makes it through the week. MPs are moaning but we're no closer to a unity candidate. Heck, that Rishi is only 60/40 with members at this moment shows thty must be pretty reluctant.
The week? She has to make it through PMQs first.
Unless she produces a performance the likes of which we haven't seen in decades. it will be her last.
Yes. It’s now known, I believe, that her important engagement yesterday was upstairs with Brady. It’s fairly obvious what that would have been about; anything trivial and she’d have met him later.
Has the Truss/Brady meeting been confirmed? There were various reports of Brady being in the chamber when Truss was not.
I think the political history of this crisis really needs to focus on (and begin with) the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader. The tories reacted by ditching sensible and pursuing various incarnations of fantasy and nutty in the belief they could get away with it and take the voters with them, ever since.
It ended in what is basically a solvency crisis, having drained the treasury.
Probably better for the Tories to look at their values, campaigns and dog whistles than try to rig election to get someone sensible in. The Tory membership and nearly half the MPs wanted Truss. If the Tories had spent the last few years promoting conservative values and respect that would not have happened.
Interesting story re the Chinese poaching ex RAF pilots... although shocking at first when you dig a little bit deeper the UK MOD has long had a history of selling its training.... the largest number of overseas students at Sandhurst in the late 1980s was SH's Iraqis.. not to mention that Chinese Army students attended Sandhurst as recently as 4 or 5 years ago.
Someone was asking about the number of people impacted by IR35 yesterday. Once again I don't have the figures but I found 1 old detail last night.
Between 2017 and 2019 140,000 lorry drivers were using limited companies.
As I said before the real issue HMRC and the Government has,
How do you, with UK employment law as it is, separate out highly skilled workers needed for short term projects from people who really should be treated as employees?
Especially when a lot of those people are close to retirement and can simply retire or move abroad.
@izakaminska THREAD: I still can’t believe that what has happened to gilts has been framed so brazenly by the mainstream UK press as being a function of Brexit. Whatever your position on Brexit, if you endorse this framing you are an absolute disinfo agent.
Having had the op to engage with a lot of European cbankers recently most of them expressed disbelief that this was really the framing by the UK press.
By all means blame actual Brexit issues on Brexit. But suggesting the current situation is 1) unique to britain or 2) a function of Brexit is one of the most politicized and disingenuous media disinfo campaigns of all time.
It was interesting following both BBC & ITV News last night because both sets of commentators described the state of shell-shock among Conservative MPs.
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%.
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?
Nothing in your post is wrong, including the conclusion.
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.
Also, the markets have now closed off the ability to borrow to fund their manifesto. This is going to be raising the questions of which taxes are you going to raise to pay for it, Labour? On Newsnight last night, James Murray, Shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury, was utterly woeful on economic policy. If he is indicative of what Labour are offering up, those opinion poll leads are going to look very transient....
In a two man race it doesn’t matter if you’re using a walking stick when your opponent has fallen over, broken both his legs, insulted the crowd, and, it emerges, was on the piss for several weeks beforehand.
No, but it means Labour could be a one-term administration.
Prognostications that far ahead are pointless.
And yet, we are daily hearing that the Tories are going to need two, three election cycles to return to power, if they even survive as one party. I take those as being pointless too.
There is the calculus about Nobody has ever overturned such a large majority since Bonar Law in 1903 type bollocks. Sometimes that ceases to apply which is why you could get 5/1 on lab maj in living memory,,usually it does - huge first time incumbency bonus next time round, recent memory of previous party's fuck up when it power, likely cats in a sack meltdown in pp after losing office, etc.
Mel Stride predicting cuts to social care as part of Hunt's Austerity 2.0.
Incredible. Have they any idea of the state of the care system at the moment?
Yes but they don't grasp a simple point.
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.
Yes, but the other side of that coin is that social care is set up to charge by the bed (or placement), whereas that NHS bed is surrounded by a load of mostly fixed costs that are impossible to flex in the short term and not easy in the medium term.
So while it is undeniably both more desirable and more economic to deal with much of the demand through social care, you want to avoid incurring a lot of extra social care costs without getting a handle on the compensating saving.
Nick Robinson monstering James Heappey with the simple tactic of quoting what he previously said.
"You said when you backed her 'Liz would slash taxes'. Was that a mistake? You went on to say there isn't part of Liz's body, as far as I can tell, that agreed with raising taxes'."
Massive attack on energy infrastructure facilities this morning. Kyiv - three strikes on an energy supply facility in Desnyansky district. Dnipro, 2 strikes at energy infrastructure facility. “Serious damage”. Zhytomyr - no electricity and water supply. Ph from Dnipro. https://mobile.twitter.com/maria_avdv/status/1582259557434527744
Strange. I thought Russia had ran out of missiles.
"If the Tories lurch from the one extreme of a giveaway budget to the other extreme of Austerity 2.0, they will be slaughtered in the next general election, and rightly so."
Hunt yesterday made several interesting comments about this in the context of responding to questions. Firstly, he rejected the suggestion that this was going to be anything like as severe as 2010. Secondly, he said that he expected cash budgets to continue to increase (impliedly accepting that they will fall in real terms). Thirdly, he was clearly open to yet more taxes to close some of the gap including a potential windfall tax. But fourthly, he unequivocally promised that debt would be falling as a share of GDP almost immediately.
That last one is going to be very hard to deliver when we have the cost of 6 months of the energy scheme to accommodate. I think a VAT increase is almost inevitable now. I just don't see where else sufficient money comes from. I think it would be sensible to eliminate VAT on fuel and possibly hot food to reduce the regressive elements but with the interest rate bill growing substantially in real terms as well I do not see any other way to square the circle in the short term.
We could be here in a year's time speculating about how many letters Graham Brady has received about Liz Truss.
I think she gets to May if she makes it through the week. MPs are moaning but we're no closer to a unity candidate. Heck, that Rishi is only 60/40 with members at this moment shows thty must be pretty reluctant.
The appointment MUST bypass the membership, not just because of who they might pick but also as evidence the parliamentary party is serious about getting them permanently out of the loop.
For a party to permanently exclude its members from such decision-making is to acknowledge the impossible: that the people who most want you elected cannot be trusted. If we can’t trust them to pick a leader, why should we trust their choices for would-be MPs?
If Conservative MPs can’t trust their party members, they should leave the party. The solution is not for the party to hide its shame in its own members, it’s for everyone to recognise that this is what the Conservative Party is. MPs can leave the party, funders can stop sending donations, and voters can stop voting for them. The last is already happening, of course.
Labour do it the same way. Membership when in opposition, MPs when in government. Seems sensible.
Why? What do LOsTO aspire to be and sometimes become? If lab members had plumped for Corbyn in 1993 he would have become PM in 1997. Batshit proposal.
I think the political history of this crisis really needs to focus on (and begin with) the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader. The tories reacted by ditching sensible and pursuing various incarnations of fantasy and nutty in the belief they could get away with it and take the voters with them, ever since.
It ended in what is basically a solvency crisis, having drained the treasury.
They got drunk on power.
This time, there really is no money left.
Yes, this crisis is all Labour's fault. LoL
Nope. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m not taking any agency away from the tories at all.
Indeed, idiots like Toby Young and Guido were encouraging fellow right wingers to pay their £3 to get Corbyn elected.
I was just pointing out how the Tory party behaved in that particular context. I think it says a lot about the party. None of it, good.
They’re utterly unmoored from principles and have no binding ideology. This was exposed in the absence of meaningful opposition. Eventually they were left with the Laffer curve as pretty much the only thing they could agree on.
I was looking at my local Tory MP’s Twitter feed since 2015.
There’s no coherent ideology or principles there, at all.
I think the political history of this crisis really needs to focus on (and begin with) the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader. The tories reacted by ditching sensible and pursuing various incarnations of fantasy and nutty in the belief they could get away with it and take the voters with them, ever since.
It ended in what is basically a solvency crisis, having drained the treasury.
They got drunk on power.
This time, there really is no money left.
Yes, this crisis is all Labour's fault. LoL
Margaret Beckett’s fault, to be specific.
The trail of damage that she has caused puts her up there with…well, you can imagine.
Mel Stride predicting cuts to social care as part of Hunt's Austerity 2.0.
Incredible. Have they any idea of the state of the care system at the moment?
Yes but they don't grasp a simple point.
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.
Yes, but the other side of that coin is that social care is set up to charge by the bed (or placement), whereas that NHS bed is surrounded by a load of mostly fixed costs that are impossible to flex in the short term and not easy in the medium term.
So while it is undeniably both more desirable and more economic to deal with much of the demand through social care, you want to avoid incurring a lot of extra social care costs without getting a handle on the compensating saving.
In which case you find a simply way of doing it and encourage businesses or the NHS to create a set of lower cost convalescent homes because the current system isn't working and needs to be fixed.
If that means that social care needs to be transferred from councils to NHS trusts or NHS trust governorship needs to be transferred to local councils then so be it.
"If the Tories lurch from the one extreme of a giveaway budget to the other extreme of Austerity 2.0, they will be slaughtered in the next general election, and rightly so."
What worried me about Hunt's performance so far is his setting up yet another advisory board, this time with obvious conflicts of interest as members keep their day jobs in the City, which smacks of following Osborne's playbook (he set up the OBR in 2010-ish, presumably not realising it would blow up his own party rather than Labour 12 years later) in which case ruinous austerity might follow. Let's hope Hunt is cleverer than that. Truss was right about one thing: growth is key.
"If the Tories lurch from the one extreme of a giveaway budget to the other extreme of Austerity 2.0, they will be slaughtered in the next general election, and rightly so."
Hunt yesterday made several interesting comments about this in the context of responding to questions. Firstly, he rejected the suggestion that this was going to be anything like as severe as 2010. Secondly, he said that he expected cash budgets to continue to increase (impliedly accepting that they will fall in real terms). Thirdly, he was clearly open to yet more taxes to close some of the gap including a potential windfall tax. But fourthly, he unequivocally promised that debt would be falling as a share of GDP almost immediately.
That last one is going to be very hard to deliver when we have the cost of 6 months of the energy scheme to accommodate. I think a VAT increase is almost inevitable now. I just don't see where else sufficient money comes from. I think it would be sensible to eliminate VAT on fuel and possibly hot food to reduce the regressive elements but with the interest rate bill growing substantially in real terms as well I do not see any other way to square the circle in the short term.
Inflation is the killer here. VAT will drive inflation even further. At 10% inflation will turn flat cash budgets into major cuts.
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
To a large degree it doesn't really matter what the labour party policy is. Of course Starmer is doing a really good job, that is not in doubt. But to understand the labour party and how they would govern, you need to look at their membership and their MPs. To me it seems Starmer does not have the same grip and dominance that Blair did. It is fine to say yes, they are going to invest in infrastructure. But how do they respond to the demands for pay increases from the public sector and manage the 'crises' in all areas of public services; whilst acting within the constraints on financial spending imposed by the markets?
I am not absolutely sure that I will vote Conservative in the next election. I always see these decisions in the context of choosing between 'least worst options'. But this is what I am looking at, in the labour party, and I imagine others will too when genuinely confronted with the choice. If the tories get rid of Truss and put in a competent successor and stay on track, then I would say the next election will be closer than you think.
I think the political history of this crisis really needs to focus on (and begin with) the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader. The tories reacted by ditching sensible and pursuing various incarnations of fantasy and nutty in the belief they could get away with it and take the voters with them, ever since.
It ended in what is basically a solvency crisis, having drained the treasury.
They got drunk on power.
This time, there really is no money left.
Yes, this crisis is all Labour's fault. LoL
Margaret Beckett’s fault, to be specific.
The trail of damage that she has caused puts her up there with…well, you can imagine.
It was Margaret's fault - one of the things the left wing always had was a leadership candidate.
The problem for Labour was the expected winner - Yvette Cooper was beyond useless during the campaign and that and the £3 voting membership completely screwed things up. Heck, I paid my £3 and voted for Liz Kendall because the other options were so woeful.
"If the Tories lurch from the one extreme of a giveaway budget to the other extreme of Austerity 2.0, they will be slaughtered in the next general election, and rightly so."
Hunt yesterday made several interesting comments about this in the context of responding to questions. Firstly, he rejected the suggestion that this was going to be anything like as severe as 2010. Secondly, he said that he expected cash budgets to continue to increase (impliedly accepting that they will fall in real terms). Thirdly, he was clearly open to yet more taxes to close some of the gap including a potential windfall tax. But fourthly, he unequivocally promised that debt would be falling as a share of GDP almost immediately.
That last one is going to be very hard to deliver when we have the cost of 6 months of the energy scheme to accommodate. I think a VAT increase is almost inevitable now. I just don't see where else sufficient money comes from. I think it would be sensible to eliminate VAT on fuel and possibly hot food to reduce the regressive elements but with the interest rate bill growing substantially in real terms as well I do not see any other way to square the circle in the short term.
Inflation is the killer here. VAT will drive inflation even further. At 10% inflation will turn flat cash budgets into major cuts.
Yes, but the energy scheme, for all its many faults and extreme cost, is supposed to be clipping 5% off inflation. I suspect that was for a full year of the scheme and 6 months will have a smaller effect but inflation has probably already peaked, at least in the short term. The other effect of inflation is of course fiscal drag. Many more people are going to be paying more income tax on wages that have probably fallen in real terms. They are not going to be happy.
I was looking at my local Tory MP’s Twitter feed since 2015.
There’s no coherent ideology or principles there, at all. Just after the budget he was boasting that we’re spending 6.5% of our GDP subsidising energy bills - MORE THAN ANY OTHER COUNTRY IN EUROPE!
And now he’s back to going on about fiscal discipline, like the last six and a half years never happened.
4 in 10 Tory members still think they made the right choice. They can never be allowed to pick again.
Nobody in cabinet objected to the Special Fiscal Operation before KamiKwasi announced it. They all need to go along with Truss.
The problem for Tory MPS is not that they don't know how to get rid of her, they don't know how to ensure her successor is the right one...
Labour members chose Corbyn. Twice.
Fortunately, there are other choices available if you are unimpressed by both Con and Lab. There are 8 other parties represented in the Commons other than Con or Lab (albeit some geographically limited). On current polling, the LibDems or SNP could be the official opposition.
Massive attack on energy infrastructure facilities this morning. Kyiv - three strikes on an energy supply facility in Desnyansky district. Dnipro, 2 strikes at energy infrastructure facility. “Serious damage”. Zhytomyr - no electricity and water supply. Ph from Dnipro. https://mobile.twitter.com/maria_avdv/status/1582259557434527744
Strange. I thought Russia had ran out of missiles.
Russia has been reportedly buying new missiles from Iran, but in any case, since power stations and the like are neither mobile nor hidden, the latest guidance systems are hardly needed.
Mr. B, sad to hear of more attacks on infrastructure in Ukraine.
Mr. Royale, hmm. I would have Sunak as favourite. But time will tell.
Sunak isn't at the table and Mordaunt gave an impressive performance yesterday, and we know she's on manoeuvres.
I don't think there's much to choose between them, except the commentariat are fixated on Sunak.
Well, one is an occasional fantasist who seems very happy making stuff up if it suits her argument who is already in her most senior post and the other is a by no means perfect former Chancellor of the Exchequer who, for example, managed to get out the furlough scheme and deliver it in record time (query whether this was actually a brilliant idea rather than very expensive consequence of excessive lockdowns).
To me, it does not seem even remotely close. I don't see Sunak and Hunt having any problems working together, after all yesterday was very largely Sunak's platform for the leadership. Mordaunt does human well and is an effective performer in a party not exactly blessed with them. She has earned a promotion, I would like her as Home Sec instead of the current incumbent but then I would also prefer my daughter's hamster in the role.
Careful - your daughter’s hamster might suggest a migrant-operated wheel as the solution to our energy crisis…
"If the Tories lurch from the one extreme of a giveaway budget to the other extreme of Austerity 2.0, they will be slaughtered in the next general election, and rightly so."
What worried me about Hunt's performance so far is his setting up yet another advisory board, this time with obvious conflicts of interest as members keep their day jobs in the City, which smacks of following Osborne's playbook (he set up the OBR in 2010-ish, presumably not realising it would blow up his own party rather than Labour 12 years later) in which case ruinous austerity might follow. Let's hope Hunt is cleverer than that. Truss was right about one thing: growth is key.
And yet growth requires a flexible labour market - which the IR35 reversal damaged yesterday.
Remember the point I highlighted yesterday - with the rules as they are I have no incentive to work more than 6 months a year.
Cool interview with the counter intelligence chiefs in the Baltic. Some deep and very dark views about Russia. The contempt for human life and the only way they interact is either slave or enemy. Balts prefer to be enemies than slaves.
Massive attack on energy infrastructure facilities this morning. Kyiv - three strikes on an energy supply facility in Desnyansky district. Dnipro, 2 strikes at energy infrastructure facility. “Serious damage”. Zhytomyr - no electricity and water supply. Ph from Dnipro. https://mobile.twitter.com/maria_avdv/status/1582259557434527744
Strange. I thought Russia had ran out of missiles.
That's why they're using the Iranian pastiche of the V1. Crude, but effective. And cheap.
Mr. B, sad to hear of more attacks on infrastructure in Ukraine.
Mr. Royale, hmm. I would have Sunak as favourite. But time will tell.
Sunak isn't at the table and Mordaunt gave an impressive performance yesterday, and we know she's on manoeuvres.
I don't think there's much to choose between them, except the commentariat are fixated on Sunak.
Well, one is an occasional fantasist who seems very happy making stuff up if it suits her argument who is already in her most senior post and the other is a by no means perfect former Chancellor of the Exchequer who, for example, managed to get out the furlough scheme and deliver it in record time (query whether this was actually a brilliant idea rather than very expensive consequence of excessive lockdowns).
To me, it does not seem even remotely close. I don't see Sunak and Hunt having any problems working together, after all yesterday was very largely Sunak's platform for the leadership. Mordaunt does human well and is an effective performer in a party not exactly blessed with them. She has earned a promotion, I would like her as Home Sec instead of the current incumbent but then I would also prefer my daughter's hamster in the role.
Careful - your daughter’s hamster might suggest a migrant-operated wheel as the solution to our energy crisis…
He is more likely to want serious investment in pumpkin seeds since that seems to be his favourite answer to everything.
I was looking at my local Tory MP’s Twitter feed since 2015.
There’s no coherent ideology or principles there, at all. Just after the budget he was boasting that we’re spending 6.5% of our GDP subsidising energy bills - MORE THAN ANY OTHER COUNTRY IN EUROPE!
And now he’s back to going on about fiscal discipline, like the last six and a half years never happened.
I think the political history of this crisis really needs to focus on (and begin with) the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader. The tories reacted by ditching sensible and pursuing various incarnations of fantasy and nutty in the belief they could get away with it and take the voters with them, ever since.
It ended in what is basically a solvency crisis, having drained the treasury.
They got drunk on power.
This time, there really is no money left.
Yes, this crisis is all Labour's fault. LoL
Margaret Beckett’s fault, to be specific.
The trail of damage that she has caused puts her up there with…well, you can imagine.
It was Margaret's fault - one of the things the left wing always had was a leadership candidate.
The problem for Labour was the expected winner - Yvette Cooper was beyond useless during the campaign and that and the £3 voting membership completely screwed things up. Heck, I paid my £3 and voted for Liz Kendall because the other options were so woeful.
Beckett can’t escape the blame for putting Corbyn into the ballot, even if others had done it before! Brexit, Johnson, even Trump, may not have happened otherwise!! Beckett is truly the butterfly of political history…
Mr. B, sad to hear of more attacks on infrastructure in Ukraine.
Mr. Royale, hmm. I would have Sunak as favourite. But time will tell.
Sunak isn't at the table and Mordaunt gave an impressive performance yesterday, and we know she's on manoeuvres.
I don't think there's much to choose between them, except the commentariat are fixated on Sunak.
Well, one is an occasional fantasist who seems very happy making stuff up if it suits her argument who is already in her most senior post and the other is a by no means perfect former Chancellor of the Exchequer who, for example, managed to get out the furlough scheme and deliver it in record time (query whether this was actually a brilliant idea rather than very expensive consequence of excessive lockdowns).
To me, it does not seem even remotely close. I don't see Sunak and Hunt having any problems working together, after all yesterday was very largely Sunak's platform for the leadership. Mordaunt does human well and is an effective performer in a party not exactly blessed with them. She has earned a promotion, I would like her as Home Sec instead of the current incumbent but then I would also prefer my daughter's hamster in the role.
Careful - your daughter’s hamster might suggest a migrant-operated wheel as the solution to our energy crisis…
Betfair suggests Ben Wallace is no longer a runner; there is nothing on the lay side. As a general observation, the Betfair market is quite thin and if you fancy a cheeky tenner on the next Prime Minister, the books might well have better prices.
He ruled himself out yesterday. Credit to the man for recognising his limitations; he’s guaranteed respect and an important job in the cabinet.
The ERG has clearly given up on Truss...
Not entirely. Baker was doing the media rounds yesterday arguing that she must stay in post.
I guess he’s the one clever enough to realise that they’re going to get Hunt or Mordaunt and the ERG batting for a true nutter is both doomed and will make things even worse than hanging onto Loopy.
The other bizarre thing about this is that Penny Mordaunt was, and is, the true Brexiteer.
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.
There is a lot of projection on Mordaunt in exactly the same way as there was on Truss on this forum. She can speak without falling over but that is the lowest of bars. She lies as easily as she speaks - over Turkey, over social issues, over her record. She has no accomplishments to speak of in her Ministerial career and seems to have annoyed those she worked with - so the basis for her claim that she would lead a good team seems to be based on nothing. She sucked up to Truss to get in the Cabinet and as recently as the Tory conference was saying that the policies were great. Why the great love for her is a mystery.
A serious figure is needed as PM not a lightweight whose main claim to fame is great hair and making speeches with double entendres in them.
Hunt would have a better claim or Sunak. Apart from Wallace and Sharma pretty much all those associated with the Johnson and Truss cabinets need to go. They have shown appalling judgment and/or cowardice. Their time should be past.
Massive attack on energy infrastructure facilities this morning. Kyiv - three strikes on an energy supply facility in Desnyansky district. Dnipro, 2 strikes at energy infrastructure facility. “Serious damage”. Zhytomyr - no electricity and water supply. Ph from Dnipro. https://mobile.twitter.com/maria_avdv/status/1582259557434527744
Strange. I thought Russia had ran out of missiles.
The latest attacks seem to be almost exclusively comprised of Iranian drones. The fall of that evil regime (the story about the poor school girl beaten to death should be shocking but isn't) would be a particularly welcome development right now.
Cool interview with the counter intelligence chiefs in the Baltic. Some deep and very dark views about Russia. The contempt for human life and the only way they interact is either slave or enemy. Balts prefer to be enemies than slaves.
Massive attack on energy infrastructure facilities this morning. Kyiv - three strikes on an energy supply facility in Desnyansky district. Dnipro, 2 strikes at energy infrastructure facility. “Serious damage”. Zhytomyr - no electricity and water supply. Ph from Dnipro. https://mobile.twitter.com/maria_avdv/status/1582259557434527744
Strange. I thought Russia had ran out of missiles.
The latest attacks are mainly Geran' (lit. geranium lol) drones from Iran. There is an amazing video of Kiev cops blazing away at one with Avtomats like they were at an Iraqi wedding. They have next to zero chance of hitting it but there would have been spent 5.45mm rounds raining down all over the city.
It's entirely possible that the COO comment was just honestly mistaken (particularly given the ...?) as being racist when it was not.
People make mistakes and it's very easy to misread intent or tone over the internet.
There's a great principle in the rules for editing wiki: Assume good faith, and a breach of it here. He could have asked what the point was (which I didn't know either).
"If the Tories lurch from the one extreme of a giveaway budget to the other extreme of Austerity 2.0, they will be slaughtered in the next general election, and rightly so."
Hunt yesterday made several interesting comments about this in the context of responding to questions. Firstly, he rejected the suggestion that this was going to be anything like as severe as 2010. Secondly, he said that he expected cash budgets to continue to increase (impliedly accepting that they will fall in real terms). Thirdly, he was clearly open to yet more taxes to close some of the gap including a potential windfall tax. But fourthly, he unequivocally promised that debt would be falling as a share of GDP almost immediately.
That last one is going to be very hard to deliver when we have the cost of 6 months of the energy scheme to accommodate. I think a VAT increase is almost inevitable now. I just don't see where else sufficient money comes from. I think it would be sensible to eliminate VAT on fuel and possibly hot food to reduce the regressive elements but with the interest rate bill growing substantially in real terms as well I do not see any other way to square the circle in the short term.
GDP rises with inflation, while debt does not. That will go a long way.
Interesting story re the Chinese poaching ex RAF pilots... although shocking at first when you dig a little bit deeper the UK MOD has long had a history of selling its training.... the largest number of overseas students at Sandhurst in the late 1980s was SH's Iraqis.. not to mention that Chinese Army students attended Sandhurst as recently as 4 or 5 years ago.
It's one of those things where, if events go well, it was engagement that helped to spread our values, and build personal connections that develop trust and a friendly relationship, but if they go badly it looks horribly naive and self-defeating.
I've actually just laid Truss 2022 exit (well, backed the other options as odds were more favourable). I don't see the Cons pulling themselves together and organising a coup, they can't go to the members and they won't manage to orangise a coronation without some loons putting forward another candidate. Hunt as CoE has/will stabilise things a bit and the urgency will go (polls remain terrible, but they will hope something turns up before the GE/a unity candidate will emerge).
Truss may well still go this year (if several cabinet resignations happen) but I think the value in the betting is now against that. If she survives the week then I think the odds on early exits will lengthen a bit and I may well trade out at that point.
I've actually just laid Truss 2022 exit (well, backed the other options as odds were more favourable). I don't see the Cons pulling themselves together and organising a coup, they can't go to the members and they won't manage to orangise a coronation without some loons putting forward another candidate. Hunt as CoE has/will stabilise things a bit and the urgency will go (polls remain terrible, but they will hope something turns up before the GE/a unity candidate will emerge).
Truss may well still go this year (if several cabinet resignations happen) but I think the value in the betting is now against that. If she survives the week then I think the odds on early exits will lengthen a bit and I may well trade out at that point.
'Orangise' very appropriate in at least two ways ...
It was interesting following both BBC & ITV News last night because both sets of commentators described the state of shell-shock among Conservative MPs.
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%.
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?
Nothing in your post is wrong, including the conclusion.
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.
Also, the markets have now closed off the ability to borrow to fund their manifesto. This is going to be raising the questions of which taxes are you going to raise to pay for it, Labour? On Newsnight last night, James Murray, Shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury, was utterly woeful on economic policy. If he is indicative of what Labour are offering up, those opinion poll leads are going to look very transient....
In a two man race it doesn’t matter if you’re using a walking stick when your opponent has fallen over, broken both his legs, insulted the crowd, and, it emerges, was on the piss for several weeks beforehand.
No, but it means Labour could be a one-term administration.
Prognostications that far ahead are pointless.
Was Ted Heath's government a half century ago the last time we had a 1 term government?
Similarly it has been rare in US politics too. Trump, Bush Sr and Carter being the only ones post war.
Bush Snr wasn't really a one term government in UK terms as his party had already been in the White House 12 years by 1992.
The Wilson and Callagan government of 1974 to 1979 was close to it, just it technically won 2 elections in 1974, one to be a minority government, one with a small majority
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
To a large degree it doesn't really matter what the labour party policy is. Of course Starmer is doing a really good job, that is not in doubt. But to understand the labour party and how they would govern, you need to look at their membership and their MPs. To me it seems Starmer does not have the same grip and dominance that Blair did. It is fine to say yes, they are going to invest in infrastructure. But how do they respond to the demands for pay increases from the public sector and manage the 'crises' in all areas of public services; whilst acting within the constraints on financial spending imposed by the markets?
I am not absolutely sure that I will vote Conservative in the next election. I always see these decisions in the context of choosing between 'least worst options'. But this is what I am looking at, in the labour party, and I imagine others will too when genuinely confronted with the choice. If the tories get rid of Truss and put in a competent successor and stay on track, then I would say the next election will be closer than you think.
The Labour Party will continue to be the Party of the Public Sector. They will probably improve the public sector marginally, but the return on investment will be poor as it was under the last Labour administration. Expect to see and even bigger gap between private sector pensions and public sector ones, with public "servants" gloating about their ability to retire in their 50s and some of them at the top end retiring on monthly pensions that many working people can only dream of having as salary.
Betfair suggests Ben Wallace is no longer a runner; there is nothing on the lay side. As a general observation, the Betfair market is quite thin and if you fancy a cheeky tenner on the next Prime Minister, the books might well have better prices.
He ruled himself out yesterday. Credit to the man for recognising his limitations; he’s guaranteed respect and an important job in the cabinet.
The ERG has clearly given up on Truss...
Not entirely. Baker was doing the media rounds yesterday arguing that she must stay in post.
I guess he’s the one clever enough to realise that they’re going to get Hunt or Mordaunt and the ERG batting for a true nutter is both doomed and will make things even worse than hanging onto Loopy.
The other bizarre thing about this is that Penny Mordaunt was, and is, the true Brexiteer.
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.
There is a lot of projection on Mordaunt in exactly the same way as there was on Truss on this forum. She can speak without falling over but that is the lowest of bars. She lies as easily as she speaks - over Turkey, over social issues, over her record. She has no accomplishments to speak of in her Ministerial career and seems to have annoyed those she worked with - so the basis for her claim that she would lead a good team seems to be based on nothing. She sucked up to Truss to get in the Cabinet and as recently as the Tory conference was saying that the policies were great. Why the great love for her is a mystery.
A serious figure is needed as PM not a lightweight whose main claim to fame is great hair and making speeches with double entendres in them.
Hunt would have a better claim or Sunak. Apart from Wallace and Sharma pretty much all those associated with the Johnson and Truss cabinets need to go. They have shown appalling judgment and/or cowardice. Their time should be past.
Agree, though her performance yesterday was star.
Sunak also comes with the same flaws he had 3 months ago - too rich, nondom wife, rubbish budget, money spaffer by inclination and in the eyes of the Faithful (MPs as well as members) a Judas.
The bridge needs to be reopened, there's 2 bods up there with professional climbing equipment. Meanwhile the poor sods living in Greenhithe, Grays and Dartford might well have an ambulance not show up in time.
Seriously the balance of risk is way way way toward the bridge being reopened (At a reduced speed obvs) compared to it being closed indefinitely due to the protesters. I wouldn't particularly make an effort to get them down either, just leave them up there with a reopened bridge.
I've actually just laid Truss 2022 exit (well, backed the other options as odds were more favourable). I don't see the Cons pulling themselves together and organising a coup, they can't go to the members and they won't manage to orangise a coronation without some loons putting forward another candidate. Hunt as CoE has/will stabilise things a bit and the urgency will go (polls remain terrible, but they will hope something turns up before the GE/a unity candidate will emerge).
Truss may well still go this year (if several cabinet resignations happen) but I think the value in the betting is now against that. If she survives the week then I think the odds on early exits will lengthen a bit and I may well trade out at that point.
It is also possible Truss is forced out this year but the 1922 Committee runs the election of a new leader over the Christmas recess, so that for betting purposes, handover is in January 2023.
I’ve spend time with both Labour and the Treasury on tax and regulation policy in recent months and there is a clear credibility gap between what Labour is starting to develop and the incoherent mess that HMT have had to deal with from this government.
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
To a large degree it doesn't really matter what the labour party policy is. Of course Starmer is doing a really good job, that is not in doubt. But to understand the labour party and how they would govern, you need to look at their membership and their MPs. To me it seems Starmer does not have the same grip and dominance that Blair did. It is fine to say yes, they are going to invest in infrastructure. But how do they respond to the demands for pay increases from the public sector and manage the 'crises' in all areas of public services; whilst acting within the constraints on financial spending imposed by the markets?
I am not absolutely sure that I will vote Conservative in the next election. I always see these decisions in the context of choosing between 'least worst options'. But this is what I am looking at, in the labour party, and I imagine others will too when genuinely confronted with the choice. If the tories get rid of Truss and put in a competent successor and stay on track, then I would say the next election will be closer than you think.
The Labour Party will continue to be the Party of the Public Sector. They will probably improve the public sector marginally, but the return on investment will be poor as it was under the last Labour administration. Expect to see and even bigger gap between private sector pensions and public sector ones, with public "servants" gloating about their ability to retire in their 50s and some of them at the top end retiring on monthly pensions that many working people can only dream of having as salary.
You really don't understand how most public sector pensions work nowadays do you?
Nor do you grasp that public sector pay after 12 years of Government is now in many cases dire. HMRC are giving their workers 3% and wondering why the vaguely good ones are leaving to go to the private sector (the good ones left years ago by the way when the Government merged offices and any good in a closed office went to the private sector)
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/
With preparation armoured warfare there is possible. Indeed log roads through swamps thought impassable by the Germans were part of Operation Bagration in the summer of 1944.
I don't think the modern Russian and Belarussian armies are capable of that.
Not sure that the Maginot Line is the benchmark for defensive impregnability.
I've actually just laid Truss 2022 exit (well, backed the other options as odds were more favourable). I don't see the Cons pulling themselves together and organising a coup, they can't go to the members and they won't manage to orangise a coronation without some loons putting forward another candidate. Hunt as CoE has/will stabilise things a bit and the urgency will go (polls remain terrible, but they will hope something turns up before the GE/a unity candidate will emerge).
Truss may well still go this year (if several cabinet resignations happen) but I think the value in the betting is now against that. If she survives the week then I think the odds on early exits will lengthen a bit and I may well trade out at that point.
I think she'd like to be around for the coronation of Charles (not of Sunak/Hunt/Mordaunt). And not be the shortest serving PM ever.
On the fiscal U-turn, have Labour said much on how they had originally said they would keep much of the KK plan?
Betfair suggests Ben Wallace is no longer a runner; there is nothing on the lay side. As a general observation, the Betfair market is quite thin and if you fancy a cheeky tenner on the next Prime Minister, the books might well have better prices.
He ruled himself out yesterday. Credit to the man for recognising his limitations; he’s guaranteed respect and an important job in the cabinet.
The ERG has clearly given up on Truss...
Not entirely. Baker was doing the media rounds yesterday arguing that she must stay in post.
I guess he’s the one clever enough to realise that they’re going to get Hunt or Mordaunt and the ERG batting for a true nutter is both doomed and will make things even worse than hanging onto Loopy.
The other bizarre thing about this is that Penny Mordaunt was, and is, the true Brexiteer.
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.
There is a lot of projection on Mordaunt in exactly the same way as there was on Truss on this forum. She can speak without falling over but that is the lowest of bars. She lies as easily as she speaks - over Turkey, over social issues, over her record. She has no accomplishments to speak of in her Ministerial career and seems to have annoyed those she worked with - so the basis for her claim that she would lead a good team seems to be based on nothing. She sucked up to Truss to get in the Cabinet and as recently as the Tory conference was saying that the policies were great. Why the great love for her is a mystery.
A serious figure is needed as PM not a lightweight whose main claim to fame is great hair and making speeches with double entendres in them.
Hunt would have a better claim or Sunak. Apart from Wallace and Sharma pretty much all those associated with the Johnson and Truss cabinets need to go. They have shown appalling judgment and/or cowardice. Their time should be past.
Agree, though her performance yesterday was star.
Sunak also comes with the same flaws he had 3 months ago - too rich, nondom wife, rubbish budget, money spaffer by inclination and in the eyes of the Faithful (MPs as well as members) a Judas.
Read the header: Sunak is suddenly more acceptable to "the Faithful".
It was interesting following both BBC & ITV News last night because both sets of commentators described the state of shell-shock among Conservative MPs.
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%.
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?
Nothing in your post is wrong, including the conclusion.
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.
Also, the markets have now closed off the ability to borrow to fund their manifesto. This is going to be raising the questions of which taxes are you going to raise to pay for it, Labour? On Newsnight last night, James Murray, Shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury, was utterly woeful on economic policy. If he is indicative of what Labour are offering up, those opinion poll leads are going to look very transient....
In a two man race it doesn’t matter if you’re using a walking stick when your opponent has fallen over, broken both his legs, insulted the crowd, and, it emerges, was on the piss for several weeks beforehand.
No, but it means Labour could be a one-term administration.
Prognostications that far ahead are pointless.
Was Ted Heath's government a half century ago the last time we had a 1 term government?
Similarly it has been rare in US politics too. Trump, Bush Sr and Carter being the only ones post war.
Bush Snr wasn't really a one term government in UK terms as his party had already been in the White House 12 years by 1992.
The Wilson and Callagan government of 1974 to 1979 was close to it, just it technically won 2 elections in 1974, one to be a minority government, one with a small majority
Indeed the only post-war one term government. All the Labour governments that feel like one term duration from looking at the years involved two election wins.
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/
With preparation armoured warfare there is possible. Indeed log roads through swamps thought impassable by the Germans were part of Operation Bagration in the summer of 1944.
I don't think the modern Russian and Belarussian armies are capable of that.
Not sure that the Maginot Line is the benchmark for defensive impregnability.
The Germans went round the Line - they didn't attack through it but went for the gaps. Clever chappies.
Though IIRC there was some action on the line itself - whether distraction or mopping up I can't remember. But I've seen photos of huge 42cm Czech siege guns being used to reduce fortifications.
I've actually just laid Truss 2022 exit (well, backed the other options as odds were more favourable). I don't see the Cons pulling themselves together and organising a coup, they can't go to the members and they won't manage to orangise a coronation without some loons putting forward another candidate. Hunt as CoE has/will stabilise things a bit and the urgency will go (polls remain terrible, but they will hope something turns up before the GE/a unity candidate will emerge).
Truss may well still go this year (if several cabinet resignations happen) but I think the value in the betting is now against that. If she survives the week then I think the odds on early exits will lengthen a bit and I may well trade out at that point.
It is also possible Truss is forced out this year but the 1922 Committee runs the election of a new leader over the Christmas recess, so that for betting purposes, handover is in January 2023.
Comments
The country badly needs infrastructure investment, a coherent policy on public services (including meaningful spending increases) that avoids us descending into a spiral of ill health and further educational apartheid, and a corporate tax system that targets capital spending. Labour shadow ministers are having grown up conversations about this stuff. All we’ve heard from Tory ministers since 2019 is pure sound bites.
I think, noting the comments above, that we are seeing where the floor of Tory support is. No matter how badly they actually govern, despite actual provable damage to livelihoods and public services, some will always have the reflexive instinct that a hypothetical Labour government would always be worse despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary from 1997 to 2010 even during a global financial crisis.
I say this as a Lib Dem member with no innate love of Labour, who have a history of bullying and ridiculing us as a party. The fact is it’s time for a change, and Starmer’s party will do a better job than the clown show of the last 6 years. The bar is pretty low.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Car_Abrahams/status/1582134991785717760
It's not clear to me that Labour would be able to restore all of these proposed cuts even were it to adopt a wealth tax.
Repairing the public finances could be at least decade long endeavour, not just the fag end of this Parliament plus the next one.
It ended in what is basically a solvency crisis, having drained the treasury.
They got drunk on power.
This time, there really is no money left.
It may be ludicrous but that’s at the root of a lot of the problems with hospital to social care transition.
I was told over the weekend that in Germany they still have state owned convalescent homes which strikes me as eminently sensible
and that was the straw that broke the camel's back.
If Conservative MPs can’t trust their party members, they should leave the party. The solution is not for the party to hide its shame in its own members, it’s for everyone to recognise that this is what the Conservative Party is. MPs can leave the party, funders can stop sending donations, and voters can stop voting for them. The last is already happening, of course.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/10/17/jeremy-hunt-has-saved-day-must-not-lurch-austerity-overkill/
Well, one is an occasional fantasist who seems very happy making stuff up if it suits her argument who is already in her most senior post and the other is a by no means perfect former Chancellor of the Exchequer who, for example, managed to get out the furlough scheme and deliver it in record time (query whether this was actually a brilliant idea rather than very expensive consequence of excessive lockdowns).
To me, it does not seem even remotely close. I don't see Sunak and Hunt having any problems working together, after all yesterday was very largely Sunak's platform for the leadership. Mordaunt does human well and is an effective performer in a party not exactly blessed with them. She has earned a promotion, I would like her as Home Sec instead of the current incumbent but then I would also prefer my daughter's hamster in the role.
And thanks to others who also pointed out your monumental stupidity.
Oddly in Australia it is not offensive at all, it is a brand of very cheap cheese.
ETA I see StillWaters has also raised this.
You reap what you sow.
4 in 10 Tory members still think they made the right choice. They can never be allowed to pick again.
Nobody in cabinet objected to the Special Fiscal Operation before KamiKwasi announced it. They all need to go along with Truss.
The problem for Tory MPS is not that they don't know how to get rid of her, they don't know how to ensure her successor is the right one...
Between 2017 and 2019 140,000 lorry drivers were using limited companies.
As I said before the real issue HMRC and the Government has,
How do you, with UK employment law as it is, separate out highly skilled workers needed for short term projects from people who really should be treated as employees?
Especially when a lot of those people are close to retirement and can simply retire or move abroad.
THREAD: I still can’t believe that what has happened to gilts has been framed so brazenly by the mainstream UK press as being a function of Brexit. Whatever your position on Brexit, if you endorse this framing you are an absolute disinfo agent.
Having had the op to engage with a lot of European cbankers recently most of them expressed disbelief that this was really the framing by the UK press.
By all means blame actual Brexit issues on Brexit. But suggesting the current situation is 1) unique to britain or 2) a function of Brexit is one of the most politicized and disingenuous media disinfo campaigns of all time.
https://twitter.com/izakaminska/status/1582253011145216000
So while it is undeniably both more desirable and more economic to deal with much of the demand through social care, you want to avoid incurring a lot of extra social care costs without getting a handle on the compensating saving.
"You said when you backed her 'Liz would slash taxes'. Was that a mistake? You went on to say there isn't part of Liz's body, as far as I can tell, that agreed with raising taxes'."
https://twitter.com/KevinASchofield/status/1582271728050327552
That last one is going to be very hard to deliver when we have the cost of 6 months of the energy scheme to accommodate. I think a VAT increase is almost inevitable now. I just don't see where else sufficient money comes from. I think it would be sensible to eliminate VAT on fuel and possibly hot food to reduce the regressive elements but with the interest rate bill growing substantially in real terms as well I do not see any other way to square the circle in the short term.
https://twitter.com/EditorBTB/status/1582265215827132417
NEW: Govt details on the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme.
Will "compel those acting for a foreign power or entity to declare political influencing activity – and criminalise those who do not."
🗣️ Security Minister @TomTugendhat
🗣️ MI5's Director General Ken McCallum https://twitter.com/EditorBTB/status/1582265215827132417/photo/1
Fresh protests ignited around Iran by 16-year-old Asra Panahi’s death after schoolgirls assaulted in raid on high school in Ardabil
https://twitter.com/DalrympleWill/status/1582247104642052098
You know he wasn’t. @Scott_xP is no fan of the Tories but he is no racist.
Indeed, idiots like Toby Young and Guido were encouraging fellow right wingers to pay their £3 to get Corbyn elected.
I was just pointing out how the Tory party behaved in that particular context. I think it says a lot about the party. None of it, good.
They’re utterly unmoored from principles and have no binding ideology. This was exposed in the absence of meaningful opposition. Eventually they were left with the Laffer curve as pretty much the only thing they could agree on.
I was looking at my local Tory MP’s Twitter feed since 2015.
There’s no coherent ideology or principles there, at all.
The trail of damage that she has caused puts her up there with…well, you can imagine.
If that means that social care needs to be transferred from councils to NHS trusts or NHS trust governorship needs to be transferred to local councils then so be it.
The one that got me is the four out of ten dribbling idiots that still support Truss.
I am not absolutely sure that I will vote Conservative in the next election. I always see these decisions in the context of choosing between 'least worst options'. But this is what I am looking at, in the labour party, and I imagine others will too when genuinely confronted with the choice. If the tories get rid of Truss and put in a competent successor and stay on track, then I would say the next election will be closer than you think.
The problem for Labour was the expected winner - Yvette Cooper was beyond useless during the campaign and that and the £3 voting membership completely screwed things up. Heck, I paid my £3 and voted for Liz Kendall because the other options were so woeful.
There’s no coherent ideology or principles there, at all. Just after the budget he was boasting that we’re spending 6.5% of our GDP subsidising energy bills - MORE THAN ANY OTHER COUNTRY IN EUROPE!
And now he’s back to going on about fiscal discipline, like the last six and a half years never happened.
It’s absurd.
Remember the point I highlighted yesterday - with the rules as they are I have no incentive to work more than 6 months a year.
https://ekspress.delfi.ee/artikkel/120083694/human-life-has-no-value-there-baltic-counterintelligence-officers-speak-candidly-about-russian-cruelty
Crude, but effective. And cheap.
https://blog.nature.org/science/2020/01/29/wild-hamster-the-intriguing-story-behind-the-household-pet/
People make mistakes and it's very easy to misread intent or tone over the internet.
A serious figure is needed as PM not a lightweight whose main claim to fame is great hair and making speeches with double entendres in them.
Hunt would have a better claim or Sunak. Apart from Wallace and Sharma pretty much all those associated with the Johnson and Truss cabinets need to go. They have shown appalling judgment and/or cowardice. Their time should be past.
And given the sentence was x,y,z the CEO, COO and CFO of ...
to me it did feel like the complainer was searching for something to complain about when absolutely nothing existed.
Truss may well still go this year (if several cabinet resignations happen) but I think the value in the betting is now against that. If she survives the week then I think the odds on early exits will lengthen a bit and I may well trade out at that point.
The Wilson and Callagan government of 1974 to 1979 was close to it, just it technically won 2 elections in 1974, one to be a minority government, one with a small majority
Sunak also comes with the same flaws he had 3 months ago - too rich, nondom wife, rubbish budget, money spaffer by inclination and in the eyes of the Faithful (MPs as well as members) a Judas.
Seriously the balance of risk is way way way toward the bridge being reopened (At a reduced speed obvs) compared to it being closed indefinitely due to the protesters. I wouldn't particularly make an effort to get them down either, just leave them up there with a reopened bridge.
Nor do you grasp that public sector pay after 12 years of Government is now in many cases dire. HMRC are giving their workers 3% and wondering why the vaguely good ones are leaving to go to the private sector (the good ones left years ago by the way when the Government merged offices and any good in a closed office went to the private sector)
On the fiscal U-turn, have Labour said much on how they had originally said they would keep much of the KK plan?
e.g. https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/no-need-for-fourteen-billion-energy-saving-campaign-says-nadhim-zahawi-after-liz-truss-battle-with-rees-mogg-1901839
Though IIRC there was some action on the line itself - whether distraction or mopping up I can't remember. But I've seen photos of huge 42cm Czech siege guns being used to reduce fortifications.
http://www.landships.info/landships/artillery_articles/42cm_autohaubitze_m16_17.html
Russian SU-25 ground attack aircraft shot down on the Kherson frontline.
https://twitter.com/WarMonitor3/status/1582272355937624066