"The EU's new border system has nearly tripled the time it's taking for Brits to get through passport control even after improvements have been made, a boss at Rome's main airport has said."
I went through it on Friday 10th July at Palma airport in Mallorca, and there was no queue.
There were 8 contracted members of Mitie near the new machines, and it took seconds to register the fingerprints.
Like much media, it's exaggerated.
Went into Faro mid-late April. Held back on plane for 1/2 hour for safety reasons due to excessive congestion in airport. Once off, queued for 1/2 hour for the new machines before they all failed and went off-line. Joined the queue of 500+ people crammed in like sardines while one man stamped the passports. After an hour, 3 others came off their lunch break and joined in. 1 1/2 hours to get to the front of the queue. Missed our transfer, still had to pay for it. Got an uber at half the price.
I've been resistant to go back into Europe since, next two holidays are now in the UK. May see later in the year.
England to win the cricket. Spain to win the WC.
Really surprised at Faro / Portugal. Huge reliance on tourism, and their handling of post-Brexit fun and games was very sensibly done. I have been there a I think 3 times in the past year and they just turned all the machines off and shrugged they don't work and f##k it. I presume somebody much higher up the chain has demanded they no longer do such things and chaos as been the result.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Who to believe, eh, for 'the true history of the Truss PM period' - some random anonymous poster on the internet or the virtually unanimous opinion of political and finance commentators across the political spectrum?
It's a tough one.
Given the shear awfulness of most of the latter who are consistency wrong about everything, the rando on the internet might edge it.
It's an amusing comment but not at all true is it?
What have the main media political commentators and correspondents been consistently wrong about recently? The GE outcome? Starmer's demise? Burnham's rise?
I mean, they are not psychic but generally they get things right because all that's needed is common sense rather than a sixth sense.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Elements of this are true but the fact remains Truss won the ballot of Conservative members 57-43 so she clearly had some support in the party (along with 113 MPs).
She was second in the MP's ballot and we can only speculate as to what would have happened if Mordaunt had finished second and presumably beaten Sunak in the Members' vote.
Budgets are often reported inaccurately and as we know the first response is usually predicated on that mis or disinformation. It was a febrile time with concern over energy prices and as we know throwing petrol onto a perfectly good fire is never a good idea.
I think Truss herself has to take a lot of the responsibility - the sacking of Kwarteng and the disowning of his Budget in early and mid October left the piranhas (or vultures or whatever analogy works for you) scenting blood.
The fracking vote debacle and the sacking of Braverman contributed to an atmosphere of panic and a sense she (Truss) was not in controlof events or indeed her Cabinet. Graham Brady's account of all this in his book is well worth reading.
Truss made many fatal miscalculations, that she's admitted. I think the biggest was that in all her Ministerial setbacks where she'd seen the blob at work frustrating her plans, she assumed that all she needed to do was get to the level of PM, where she believed the real power resided. Once she'd achieved that she could set the agenda, and other PMs had been unwilling (May) or too lazy (Boris) to do so. This wasn't the case. Even the PM (as acknowledged by Starmer) is seriously weakened in the post-Blair constitutional settlement. If she'd been more curious intellectually, she might have been more ready.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Who to believe, eh, for 'the true history of the Truss PM period' - some random anonymous poster on the internet or the virtually unanimous opinion of political and finance commentators across the political spectrum?
It's a tough one.
Given the shear awfulness of most of the latter who are consistency wrong about everything, the rando on the internet might edge it.
It's an amusing comment but not at all true is it?
What have the main media political commentators and correspondents been consistently wrong about recently? The GE outcome? Starmer's demise? Burnham's rise?
I mean, they are not psychic but generally they get things right because all that's needed is common sense rather than a sixth sense.
Putting aside the awfulness of Truss. Any topic I actually know about in detail, they are invariably absolutely wrong or operating at a very low level. Westminister gossip and the soap opera of the falling outs of the characters in frontline politics I will give you, they live and breath that stuff.
You seem to forget the COVID era, the tide went out and they were exposed. Simple stats were too difficult for them. It was embarassing hearing the "data people" in the media get it wrong time and time again. There is something wrong when the Daily Mail are writing the best report on new COVID related academic papers.
The "randos" on the internet on here were miles ahead in analysis. Were on things like Brexit vote night as well.
Anyway, back to my Sunday School lesson - humanity and nature are inextricably linked is the heading, and all major global religions share some similar stuff in interconnectedness of all living things. To start off with, all types of farming, clean water and breathable air depend entirely on biodiversity. When pollinator populations collapse, global food security is directly threatened. this is based on biological, ecological, and chemical facts no organism exists in a vacuum, every living thing is linked to others through sharing resources - what mystics call energy transfers - as well evolutionary history. Energy from the sun flows through plants to herbivores and predators, the waste and death of those then feed fungi and bacteria which enrich the earth to grow more plants and underneath the earth - where all the plants talk to each other - vast fungal networks physically connect the roots of different trees and plants. They use this network to share nutrients, water and warning signals about pests. Every breath you take for every move you make contains oxygen produced by marine phytoplankton and the terrestrial forests, and the carbon dioxide you exhale is used by plants for photosynthesis. So our human bodies are not single organisms; we are ecosystems. Trillions of microbes living in our gut dictate our digestion, immune response, and even our mental health, proving that our boundaries as individuals are blurred.
But all this occurred via evolution, not "creation".
And can you have the former without first the latter?
I never mentioned creation, the way in is how all religion share inter connectivity on these things. Yes, the history of God may had started with Sun God, and fertility playing a key role throughout. But that no organism exists in a vacuum is not a mystery, or indeed, mystical. It’s a consciousness to shape our lives.
I lectured in evolution for several years and I have no idea what this means. No organism exists in a vacuum? A literal vacuum? Yeah, that's not a mystery. Or is it no organism exists on its own? What does that mean? We're a few million years too late to see the first but we have simplistic archaea that only 'eat' non-organic material.
Can we have a creator without another creator? If yes, then you admit creation does not need a creator. If no, it's turtles all the way down.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Elements of this are true but the fact remains Truss won the ballot of Conservative members 57-43 so she clearly had some support in the party (along with 113 MPs).
She was second in the MP's ballot and we can only speculate as to what would have happened if Mordaunt had finished second and presumably beaten Sunak in the Members' vote.
Budgets are often reported inaccurately and as we know the first response is usually predicated on that mis or disinformation. It was a febrile time with concern over energy prices and as we know throwing petrol onto a perfectly good fire is never a good idea.
I think Truss herself has to take a lot of the responsibility - the sacking of Kwarteng and the disowning of his Budget in early and mid October left the piranhas (or vultures or whatever analogy works for you) scenting blood.
The fracking vote debacle and the sacking of Braverman contributed to an atmosphere of panic and a sense she (Truss) was not in controlof events or indeed her Cabinet. Graham Brady's account of all this in his book is well worth reading.
Truss made many fatal miscalculations, that she's admitted. I think the biggest was that in all her Ministerial setbacks where she'd seen the blob at work frustrating her plans, she assumed that all she needed to do was get to the level of PM, where she believed the real power resided. Once she'd achieved that she could set the agenda, and other PMs had been unwilling (May) or too lazy (Boris) to do so. This wasn't the case. Even the PM (as acknowledged by Starmer) is seriously weakened in the post-Blair constitutional settlement. If she'd been more curious intellectually, she might have been more ready.
You only had to look at her to know she would blow up. Perfectly obvious to me, at least. I still don't really understand how someone so obviously unfit could have made it to No 10.
I felt the same in the run up. I said so clearly here. However, once she came in, I was very pleasantly surprised by her resolve to revive the economy.
A Prime Minister is really a team. Margaret Thatcher was a massively more talented poltician and thinker than Liz Truss, but also look at her team. Airey Neave. William Whitelaw. Norman Tebbit. Who did Truss have? Seems to be her most trusted political confidant was Therese Coffey. And taking nothing away from her, but she was not Airey Neave.
Don't forget that when Truss left office, both gilt yields and polling levels gradually returned to the worst they'd been under her, and worse. Yes, she went about her plan like a bull in a china shop, but doing nothing wasn't an option either, and that became clear in the event.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Who to believe, eh, for 'the true history of the Truss PM period' - some random anonymous poster on the internet or the virtually unanimous opinion of political and finance commentators across the political spectrum?
It's a tough one.
Given the shear awfulness of most of the latter who are consistency wrong about everything, the rando on the internet might edge it.
It's an amusing comment but not at all true is it?
What have the main media political commentators and correspondents been consistently wrong about recently? The GE outcome? Starmer's demise? Burnham's rise?
I mean, they are not psychic but generally they get things right because all that's needed is common sense rather than a sixth sense.
Putting aside the awfulness of Truss. Any topic I actually know about in detail, they are invariably absolutely wrong or operating at a very low level. Westminister gossip and the soap opera of the falling outs of the characters in frontline politics I will give you, they live and breath that stuff. You seem to forget the COVID era, where simple stats were too difficult for them. It was embarassing hearing the "data people" in the media get it wrong time and time again.
We started with Moonrabbit's "There was no Liz Truss financial calamity" and further claim to be providing "the true history of the Truss PM period". Much as I enjoy Moonrabbit's posts, I'll stick my neck out and say any broadcaster's or national newspaper's political correspondent is going to be closer to the truth than MR on those two points at least.
"The EU's new border system has nearly tripled the time it's taking for Brits to get through passport control even after improvements have been made, a boss at Rome's main airport has said."
I went through it on Friday 10th July at Palma airport in Mallorca, and there was no queue.
There were 8 contracted members of Mitie near the new machines, and it took seconds to register the fingerprints.
Like much media, it's exaggerated.
Went into Faro mid-late April. Held back on plane for 1/2 hour for safety reasons due to excessive congestion in airport. Once off, queued for 1/2 hour for the new machines before they all failed and went off-line. Joined the queue of 500+ people crammed in like sardines while one man stamped the passports. After an hour, 3 others came off their lunch break and joined in. 1 1/2 hours to get to the front of the queue. Missed our transfer, still had to pay for it. Got an uber at half the price.
I've been resistant to go back into Europe since, next two holidays are now in the UK. May see later in the year.
England to win the cricket. Spain to win the WC.
Really surprised at Faro / Portugal. Huge reliance on tourism, and their handling of post-Brexit fun and games was very sensibly done. I have been there a I think 3 times in the past year and they just turned all the machines off and shrugged they don't work and f##k it. I presume somebody much higher up the chain has demanded they no longer do such things and chaos as been the result.
The airport has failed to grow in proportion to the growth in tourism on the Algarve. It gives small regional airport vibes while handling 10 million people. Inevitable bottle neck issues.
On the way back all the machines were off again, so we avoided a pointless wait there at least.
It's a shame as I love Portugal, but I'm not sure I can put up with hassle.
The big problem England have in ODI and now in tests. Ever since Plunkett retired and Wood is permanently buggered we don't have a bowler to come on in the middle overs that takes wickets, Same in tests, it was Ben Stokes golden arm that we relied on time and time in tests.
Curran's pick and mix bowling might be fine for a few overs in T20, but you can't having him bowling 10. He is too slow.
He's bowling really well. England are getting some cheap overs here and they are much needed.
Sam Curran now 3-60 off 9/2 overs. Not bad for someone supposedly not fast enough. He has probably won the match.
The big problem England have in ODI and now in tests. Ever since Plunkett retired and Wood is permanently buggered we don't have a bowler to come on in the middle overs that takes wickets, Same in tests, it was Ben Stokes golden arm that we relied on time and time in tests.
Curran's pick and mix bowling might be fine for a few overs in T20, but you can't having him bowling 10. He is too slow.
He's bowling really well. England are getting some cheap overs here and they are much needed.
Sam Curran now 3-60 off 9/2 overs. Not bad for someone supposedly not fast enough. He has probably won the match.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Who to believe, eh, for 'the true history of the Truss PM period' - some random anonymous poster on the internet or the virtually unanimous opinion of political and finance commentators across the political spectrum?
It's a tough one.
Given the shear awfulness of most of the latter who are consistency wrong about everything, the rando on the internet might edge it.
It's an amusing comment but not at all true is it?
What have the main media political commentators and correspondents been consistently wrong about recently? The GE outcome? Starmer's demise? Burnham's rise?
I mean, they are not psychic but generally they get things right because all that's needed is common sense rather than a sixth sense.
Putting aside the awfulness of Truss. Any topic I actually know about in detail, they are invariably absolutely wrong or operating at a very low level. Westminister gossip and the soap opera of the falling outs of the characters in frontline politics I will give you, they live and breath that stuff. You seem to forget the COVID era, where simple stats were too difficult for them. It was embarassing hearing the "data people" in the media get it wrong time and time again.
We started with Moonrabbit's "There was no Liz Truss financial calamity" and further claim to be providing "the true history of the Truss PM period". Much as I enjoy Moonrabbit's posts, I'll stick my neck out and say any broadcaster's or national newspaper's political correspondent is going to be closer to the truth than MR on those two points at least.
But why are you so determined to believe Robert Peston and Led by donkeys, rather than actually gather your own information and make your own mind up? It is wilful ignorance.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Who to believe, eh, for 'the true history of the Truss PM period' - some random anonymous poster on the internet or the virtually unanimous opinion of political and finance commentators across the political spectrum?
It's a tough one.
Given the shear awfulness of most of the latter who are consistency wrong about everything, the rando on the internet might edge it.
It's an amusing comment but not at all true is it?
What have the main media political commentators and correspondents been consistently wrong about recently? The GE outcome? Starmer's demise? Burnham's rise?
I mean, they are not psychic but generally they get things right because all that's needed is common sense rather than a sixth sense.
Ben - are you saying Liz Truss did crash the economy? Then I ask you a very simple question. Please point to the observable dents, structural deformations, shattered glass that needed replacing, and things not working the same ever again being some of the evidence of something that was crashed.
There was never any evidence to prove it. You have nothing at all to point to.
The myth came about when such a solid portion of Conservative MPs and party members who wanted Truss out, sided with opposition parties in talking up the idea Truss economic policies and ideological budget was crashing the economy.
But where was the observable, measurable, lingering damage, of something being visibly repaired, of a crashed economy? There was none. You have zero evidence to support your myth.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Who to believe, eh, for 'the true history of the Truss PM period' - some random anonymous poster on the internet or the virtually unanimous opinion of political and finance commentators across the political spectrum?
It's a tough one.
Given the shear awfulness of most of the latter who are consistency wrong about everything, the rando on the internet might edge it.
It's an amusing comment but not at all true is it?
What have the main media political commentators and correspondents been consistently wrong about recently? The GE outcome? Starmer's demise? Burnham's rise?
I mean, they are not psychic but generally they get things right because all that's needed is common sense rather than a sixth sense.
Putting aside the awfulness of Truss. Any topic I actually know about in detail, they are invariably absolutely wrong or operating at a very low level. Westminister gossip and the soap opera of the falling outs of the characters in frontline politics I will give you, they live and breath that stuff.
You seem to forget the COVID era, the tide went out and they were exposed. Simple stats were too difficult for them. It was embarassing hearing the "data people" in the media get it wrong time and time again. There is something wrong when the Daily Mail are writing the best report on new COVID related academic papers.
The "randos" on the internet on here were miles ahead in analysis. Were on things like Brexit vote night as well.
Er... the Daily Mail is part of the media.
And as for Brexit, opinion on here was pretty evenly split, based on a lot of wishcasting and some fearcasting*. PB Leavers got it right of course, PB Remainers didn't, but there was no magic insight.
(* By which I mean predicting the thing we fear, like the occasional 'imminent WW3' predictions that pop up, based on 'oh shit this could happen' rather than any objective analysis.)
The big problem England have in ODI and now in tests. Ever since Plunkett retired and Wood is permanently buggered we don't have a bowler to come on in the middle overs that takes wickets, Same in tests, it was Ben Stokes golden arm that we relied on time and time in tests.
Curran's pick and mix bowling might be fine for a few overs in T20, but you can't having him bowling 10. He is too slow.
He's bowling really well. England are getting some cheap overs here and they are much needed.
Sam Curran now 3-60 off 9/2 overs. Not bad for someone supposedly not fast enough. He has probably won the match.
Some talk about the test captaincy on the TMS.
Have you seen his test stats....there is a reason he isn't even near the squads. He also hasn't exactly been ripping up in County Championship with the bat and doesn't actually bowl very much.
I sound like I am really down on Curran. I am not, in T20, destructive batter and the pick n mix stuff works really well, see Benny Howell, Narine, etc. He has played his way back in and become a much better player than when he was first selected.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Who to believe, eh, for 'the true history of the Truss PM period' - some random anonymous poster on the internet or the virtually unanimous opinion of political and finance commentators across the political spectrum?
It's a tough one.
Given the shear awfulness of most of the latter who are consistency wrong about everything, the rando on the internet might edge it.
It's an amusing comment but not at all true is it?
What have the main media political commentators and correspondents been consistently wrong about recently? The GE outcome? Starmer's demise? Burnham's rise?
I mean, they are not psychic but generally they get things right because all that's needed is common sense rather than a sixth sense.
Putting aside the awfulness of Truss. Any topic I actually know about in detail, they are invariably absolutely wrong or operating at a very low level. Westminister gossip and the soap opera of the falling outs of the characters in frontline politics I will give you, they live and breath that stuff.
You seem to forget the COVID era, the tide went out and they were exposed. Simple stats were too difficult for them. It was embarassing hearing the "data people" in the media get it wrong time and time again. There is something wrong when the Daily Mail are writing the best report on new COVID related academic papers.
The "randos" on the internet on here were miles ahead in analysis. Were on things like Brexit vote night as well.
Er... the Daily Mail is part of the media.
And as for Brexit, opinion on here was pretty evenly split, based on a lot of wishcasting and some fearcasting*. PB Leavers got it right of course, PB Remainers didn't, but there was no magic insight.
(* By which I mean predicting the thing we fear, like the occasional 'imminent WW3' predictions that pop up, based on 'oh shit this could happen' rather than any objective analysis.)
I didn't say the articles were great from the Daily Mail, I said they were the best of a very bad lot. COVID overall, the media were embarassing, wrong day in, wrong day out. The BBC and Sky in particular was the blind leading the blind.
As for Brexit, no, a load of us made a tonne of money because PB was miles ahead of the media. The great spreadsheet paid for a fantastic Christmas at Chez Urquhart. Before that Rod Crosby got it right 2-3 GE in a row and again made some of us very good money (shame about his other specialist subject). I spoke to him at length about mathematical modelling of election and he was way ahead of the curve at the time.
The big problem England have in ODI and now in tests. Ever since Plunkett retired and Wood is permanently buggered we don't have a bowler to come on in the middle overs that takes wickets, Same in tests, it was Ben Stokes golden arm that we relied on time and time in tests.
Curran's pick and mix bowling might be fine for a few overs in T20, but you can't having him bowling 10. He is too slow.
He's bowling really well. England are getting some cheap overs here and they are much needed.
Sam Curran now 3-60 off 9/2 overs. Not bad for someone supposedly not fast enough. He has probably won the match.
Some talk about the test captaincy on the TMS.
I said that a couple of days ago. He is a good tactician and a good leader but he needs to be more thoroughly tested in test match conditions yet. He is not a Stokes (but then, who is?)
Anyway, back to my Sunday School lesson - humanity and nature are inextricably linked is the heading, and all major global religions share some similar stuff in interconnectedness of all living things. To start off with, all types of farming, clean water and breathable air depend entirely on biodiversity. When pollinator populations collapse, global food security is directly threatened. this is based on biological, ecological, and chemical facts no organism exists in a vacuum, every living thing is linked to others through sharing resources - what mystics call energy transfers - as well evolutionary history. Energy from the sun flows through plants to herbivores and predators, the waste and death of those then feed fungi and bacteria which enrich the earth to grow more plants and underneath the earth - where all the plants talk to each other - vast fungal networks physically connect the roots of different trees and plants. They use this network to share nutrients, water and warning signals about pests. Every breath you take for every move you make contains oxygen produced by marine phytoplankton and the terrestrial forests, and the carbon dioxide you exhale is used by plants for photosynthesis. So our human bodies are not single organisms; we are ecosystems. Trillions of microbes living in our gut dictate our digestion, immune response, and even our mental health, proving that our boundaries as individuals are blurred.
But all this occurred via evolution, not "creation".
And can you have the former without first the latter?
I never mentioned creation, the way in is how all religion share inter connectivity on these things. Yes, the history of God may had started with Sun God, and fertility playing a key role throughout. But that no organism exists in a vacuum is not a mystery, or indeed, mystical. It’s a consciousness to shape our lives.
I lectured in evolution for several years and I have no idea what this means. No organism exists in a vacuum? A literal vacuum? Yeah, that's not a mystery. Or is it no organism exists on its own? What does that mean? We're a few million years too late to see the first but we have simplistic archaea that only 'eat' non-organic material.
Can we have a creator without another creator? If yes, then you admit creation does not need a creator. If no, it's turtles all the way down.
Many thanks for your 239th post. Don’t ever hesitate to come back on, let it all out and unburden yourself, you know you have evolved into something which will feel so much better for doing so.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Who to believe, eh, for 'the true history of the Truss PM period' - some random anonymous poster on the internet or the virtually unanimous opinion of political and finance commentators across the political spectrum?
It's a tough one.
Given the shear awfulness of most of the latter who are consistency wrong about everything, the rando on the internet might edge it.
It's an amusing comment but not at all true is it?
What have the main media political commentators and correspondents been consistently wrong about recently? The GE outcome? Starmer's demise? Burnham's rise?
I mean, they are not psychic but generally they get things right because all that's needed is common sense rather than a sixth sense.
Ben - are you saying Liz Truss did crash the economy? Then I ask you a very simple question. Please point to the observable dents, structural deformations, shattered glass that needed replacing, and things not working the same ever again being some of the evidence of something that was crashed.
There was never any evidence to prove it. You have nothing at all to point to.
The myth came about when such a solid portion of Conservative MPs and party members who wanted Truss out, sided with opposition parties in talking up the idea Truss economic policies and ideological budget was crashing the economy.
But where was the observable, measurable, lingering damage, of something being visibly repaired, of a crashed economy? There was none. You have zero evidence to support your myth.
I didn't say she crashed the economy - she was thankfully removed before she could do that.
But there was a Liz Truss financial calamity, contrary to your contention: Pension funds were forced into a fire sale of gilts, necessitating a £65bn emergency bond-buying program by the BoE. Mortgage rates increased by half virtually overnight, causing a lot of real hardship for many. GBP hit an all time low against the USD. The IMF issued a stinging condemnation...
Truss absolutely had to go but even so, her brief premiership left a legacy of higher borrowing costs for the UK.
Conditions are in place on Whitehall tomorrow (Monday, 20 July).
Anyone assembling near the Downing Street gates to observe events linked to the new Prime Minister must not use any amplified noise equipment and must stay within the shaded area. These conditions are in place between 10:30 – 13:30.
Conditions are in place on Whitehall tomorrow (Monday, 20 July).
Anyone assembling near the Downing Street gates to observe events linked to the new Prime Minister must not use any amplified noise equipment and must stay within the shaded area. These conditions are in place between 10:30 – 13:30.
I thought the massive bell end that is Steve Bray won a court case when the police stopped him a few years ago under the existing legilisation and hence why he has been allowed to continue?
Also begs the question why they didn't do it when Starmer and Sunak made their announcements.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Elements of this are true but the fact remains Truss won the ballot of Conservative members 57-43 so she clearly had some support in the party (along with 113 MPs).
She was second in the MP's ballot and we can only speculate as to what would have happened if Mordaunt had finished second and presumably beaten Sunak in the Members' vote.
Budgets are often reported inaccurately and as we know the first response is usually predicated on that mis or disinformation. It was a febrile time with concern over energy prices and as we know throwing petrol onto a perfectly good fire is never a good idea.
I think Truss herself has to take a lot of the responsibility - the sacking of Kwarteng and the disowning of his Budget in early and mid October left the piranhas (or vultures or whatever analogy works for you) scenting blood.
The fracking vote debacle and the sacking of Braverman contributed to an atmosphere of panic and a sense she (Truss) was not in controlof events or indeed her Cabinet. Graham Brady's account of all this in his book is well worth reading.
Truss made many fatal miscalculations, that she's admitted. I think the biggest was that in all her Ministerial setbacks where she'd seen the blob at work frustrating her plans, she assumed that all she needed to do was get to the level of PM, where she believed the real power resided. Once she'd achieved that she could set the agenda, and other PMs had been unwilling (May) or too lazy (Boris) to do so. This wasn't the case. Even the PM (as acknowledged by Starmer) is seriously weakened in the post-Blair constitutional settlement. If she'd been more curious intellectually, she might have been more ready.
You only had to look at her to know she would blow up. Perfectly obvious to me, at least. I still don't really understand how someone so obviously unfit could have made it to No 10.
I felt the same in the run up. I said so clearly here. However, once she came in, I was very pleasantly surprised by her resolve to revive the economy.
A Prime Minister is really a team. Margaret Thatcher was a massively more talented poltician and thinker than Liz Truss, but also look at her team. Airey Neave. William Whitelaw. Norman Tebbit. Who did Truss have? Seems to be her most trusted political confidant was Therese Coffey. And taking nothing away from her, but she was not Airey Neave.
Don't forget that when Truss left office, both gilt yields and polling levels gradually returned to the worst they'd been under her, and worse. Yes, she went about her plan like a bull in a china shop, but doing nothing wasn't an option either, and that became clear in the event.
I knew Therese Coffey at university. Nice, but to a political mover and shaker.
Being able to assemble a top notch team is skill 1 for being a PM.
Conditions are in place on Whitehall tomorrow (Monday, 20 July).
Anyone assembling near the Downing Street gates to observe events linked to the new Prime Minister must not use any amplified noise equipment and must stay within the shaded area. These conditions are in place between 10:30 – 13:30.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Who to believe, eh, for 'the true history of the Truss PM period' - some random anonymous poster on the internet or the virtually unanimous opinion of political and finance commentators across the political spectrum?
It's a tough one.
Given the shear awfulness of most of the latter who are consistency wrong about everything, the rando on the internet might edge it.
It's an amusing comment but not at all true is it?
What have the main media political commentators and correspondents been consistently wrong about recently? The GE outcome? Starmer's demise? Burnham's rise?
I mean, they are not psychic but generally they get things right because all that's needed is common sense rather than a sixth sense.
Putting aside the awfulness of Truss. Any topic I actually know about in detail, they are invariably absolutely wrong or operating at a very low level. Westminister gossip and the soap opera of the falling outs of the characters in frontline politics I will give you, they live and breath that stuff.
You seem to forget the COVID era, the tide went out and they were exposed. Simple stats were too difficult for them. It was embarassing hearing the "data people" in the media get it wrong time and time again. There is something wrong when the Daily Mail are writing the best report on new COVID related academic papers.
The "randos" on the internet on here were miles ahead in analysis. Were on things like Brexit vote night as well.
Er... the Daily Mail is part of the media.
And as for Brexit, opinion on here was pretty evenly split, based on a lot of wishcasting and some fearcasting*. PB Leavers got it right of course, PB Remainers didn't, but there was no magic insight.
(* By which I mean predicting the thing we fear, like the occasional 'imminent WW3' predictions that pop up, based on 'oh shit this could happen' rather than any objective analysis.)
Someone I know as a minor journalist during COVID. The "science specialist" journalists were deprecated from the story. Because It was a Top Story, which needed to be handled by Proper Journalists. AKA people who were in The Top Social Group.
Conditions are in place on Whitehall tomorrow (Monday, 20 July).
Anyone assembling near the Downing Street gates to observe events linked to the new Prime Minister must not use any amplified noise equipment and must stay within the shaded area. These conditions are in place between 10:30 – 13:30.
I think we need to resurrect the previous procedures of having the Americans pick up problematic individuals and taking them to black site in Eastern Europe only finally be found in Guantanamo Bay years later.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Who to believe, eh, for 'the true history of the Truss PM period' - some random anonymous poster on the internet or the virtually unanimous opinion of political and finance commentators across the political spectrum?
It's a tough one.
Given the shear awfulness of most of the latter who are consistency wrong about everything, the rando on the internet might edge it.
It's an amusing comment but not at all true is it?
What have the main media political commentators and correspondents been consistently wrong about recently? The GE outcome? Starmer's demise? Burnham's rise?
I mean, they are not psychic but generally they get things right because all that's needed is common sense rather than a sixth sense.
Putting aside the awfulness of Truss. Any topic I actually know about in detail, they are invariably absolutely wrong or operating at a very low level. Westminister gossip and the soap opera of the falling outs of the characters in frontline politics I will give you, they live and breath that stuff.
You seem to forget the COVID era, the tide went out and they were exposed. Simple stats were too difficult for them. It was embarassing hearing the "data people" in the media get it wrong time and time again. There is something wrong when the Daily Mail are writing the best report on new COVID related academic papers.
The "randos" on the internet on here were miles ahead in analysis. Were on things like Brexit vote night as well.
Er... the Daily Mail is part of the media.
And as for Brexit, opinion on here was pretty evenly split, based on a lot of wishcasting and some fearcasting*. PB Leavers got it right of course, PB Remainers didn't, but there was no magic insight.
(* By which I mean predicting the thing we fear, like the occasional 'imminent WW3' predictions that pop up, based on 'oh shit this could happen' rather than any objective analysis.)
I didn't say the articles were great from the Daily Mail, I said they were the best of a very bad lot. COVID overall, the media were embarassing, wrong day in, wrong day out. The BBC and Sky in particular was the blind leading the blind.
As for Brexit, no, a load of us made a tonne of money because PB was miles ahead of the media. The great spreadsheet paid for a fantastic Christmas at Chez Urquhart. Before that Rod Crosby got it right 2-3 GE in a row and again made some of us very good money (shame about his other specialist subject). I spoke to him at length about mathematical modelling of election and he was way ahead of the curve at the time.
After the first couple of months of Murder Tuesday....
The big problem England have in ODI and now in tests. Ever since Plunkett retired and Wood is permanently buggered we don't have a bowler to come on in the middle overs that takes wickets, Same in tests, it was Ben Stokes golden arm that we relied on time and time in tests.
Curran's pick and mix bowling might be fine for a few overs in T20, but you can't having him bowling 10. He is too slow.
He's bowling really well. England are getting some cheap overs here and they are much needed.
Sam Curran now 3-60 off 9/2 overs. Not bad for someone supposedly not fast enough. He has probably won the match.
Some talk about the test captaincy on the TMS.
I said that a couple of days ago. He is a good tactician and a good leader but he needs to be more thoroughly tested in test match conditions yet. He is not a Stokes (but then, who is?)
The danger when a great all rounder goes is you lose decades looking for the next X all rounder. I've been through next Botham, next Flintoff and now it will be hanging over every all rounder - next Stokes. Curran could do a job. 4th change bowler, bats at 7 and a good thinker about the game.
And if not him, who? Brook seems to think he's playing hit and giggle ALL the time and is in danger of not getting to most of his prodigious talent. No one is calling for Ducket and Bethel is probably too callow.
The big problem England have in ODI and now in tests. Ever since Plunkett retired and Wood is permanently buggered we don't have a bowler to come on in the middle overs that takes wickets, Same in tests, it was Ben Stokes golden arm that we relied on time and time in tests.
Curran's pick and mix bowling might be fine for a few overs in T20, but you can't having him bowling 10. He is too slow.
He's bowling really well. England are getting some cheap overs here and they are much needed.
Sam Curran now 3-60 off 9/2 overs. Not bad for someone supposedly not fast enough. He has probably won the match.
Some talk about the test captaincy on the TMS.
I said that a couple of days ago. He is a good tactician and a good leader but he needs to be more thoroughly tested in test match conditions yet. He is not a Stokes (but then, who is?)
The danger when a great all rounder goes is you lose decades looking for the next X all rounder. I've been through next Botham, next Flintoff and now it will be hanging over every all rounder - next Stokes. Curran could do a job. 4th change bowler, bats at 7 and a good thinker about the game.
And if not him, who? Brook seems to think he's playing hit and giggle ALL the time and is in danger of not getting to most of his prodigious talent. No one is calling for Duckettvand Bethel is probably too callow.
Feels like Brook needs a rest and somebody having a chat with him.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Who to believe, eh, for 'the true history of the Truss PM period' - some random anonymous poster on the internet or the virtually unanimous opinion of political and finance commentators across the political spectrum?
It's a tough one.
Given the shear awfulness of most of the latter who are consistency wrong about everything, the rando on the internet might edge it.
It's an amusing comment but not at all true is it?
What have the main media political commentators and correspondents been consistently wrong about recently? The GE outcome? Starmer's demise? Burnham's rise?
I mean, they are not psychic but generally they get things right because all that's needed is common sense rather than a sixth sense.
Putting aside the awfulness of Truss. Any topic I actually know about in detail, they are invariably absolutely wrong or operating at a very low level. Westminister gossip and the soap opera of the falling outs of the characters in frontline politics I will give you, they live and breath that stuff.
You seem to forget the COVID era, the tide went out and they were exposed. Simple stats were too difficult for them. It was embarassing hearing the "data people" in the media get it wrong time and time again. There is something wrong when the Daily Mail are writing the best report on new COVID related academic papers.
The "randos" on the internet on here were miles ahead in analysis. Were on things like Brexit vote night as well.
Er... the Daily Mail is part of the media.
And as for Brexit, opinion on here was pretty evenly split, based on a lot of wishcasting and some fearcasting*. PB Leavers got it right of course, PB Remainers didn't, but there was no magic insight.
(* By which I mean predicting the thing we fear, like the occasional 'imminent WW3' predictions that pop up, based on 'oh shit this could happen' rather than any objective analysis.)
Someone I know as a minor journalist during COVID. The "science specialist" journalists were deprecated from the story. Because It was a Top Story, which needed to be handled by Proper Journalists. AKA people who were in The Top Social Group.
It was embarassing when we had the eggheads giving the press conferences with the technical details, the (dodgy) modelling, still the media sent your Pestons, Rigby, etc, to then ask numpty questions, not even the science or health correspondents.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Who to believe, eh, for 'the true history of the Truss PM period' - some random anonymous poster on the internet or the virtually unanimous opinion of political and finance commentators across the political spectrum?
It's a tough one.
Given the shear awfulness of most of the latter who are consistency wrong about everything, the rando on the internet might edge it.
It's an amusing comment but not at all true is it?
What have the main media political commentators and correspondents been consistently wrong about recently? The GE outcome? Starmer's demise? Burnham's rise?
I mean, they are not psychic but generally they get things right because all that's needed is common sense rather than a sixth sense.
Putting aside the awfulness of Truss. Any topic I actually know about in detail, they are invariably absolutely wrong or operating at a very low level. Westminister gossip and the soap opera of the falling outs of the characters in frontline politics I will give you, they live and breath that stuff.
You seem to forget the COVID era, the tide went out and they were exposed. Simple stats were too difficult for them. It was embarassing hearing the "data people" in the media get it wrong time and time again. There is something wrong when the Daily Mail are writing the best report on new COVID related academic papers.
The "randos" on the internet on here were miles ahead in analysis. Were on things like Brexit vote night as well.
Er... the Daily Mail is part of the media.
And as for Brexit, opinion on here was pretty evenly split, based on a lot of wishcasting and some fearcasting*. PB Leavers got it right of course, PB Remainers didn't, but there was no magic insight.
(* By which I mean predicting the thing we fear, like the occasional 'imminent WW3' predictions that pop up, based on 'oh shit this could happen' rather than any objective analysis.)
I didn't say the articles were great from the Daily Mail, I said they were the best of a very bad lot. COVID overall, the media were embarassing, wrong day in, wrong day out. The BBC and Sky in particular was the blind leading the blind.
As for Brexit, no, a load of us made a tonne of money because PB was miles ahead of the media. The great spreadsheet paid for a fantastic Christmas at Chez Urquhart. Before that Rod Crosby got it right 2-3 GE in a row and again made some of us very good money (shame about his other specialist subject). I spoke to him at length about mathematical modelling of election and he was way ahead of the curve at the time.
Fair enough on the betting angles around Brexit, I'll concede that one.
PB not doing quite so well in the 2026 political predictions though - precisely no one predicted Burnham being PM by the year end and only 7.5% of us predicted he'd be an MP.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Who to believe, eh, for 'the true history of the Truss PM period' - some random anonymous poster on the internet or the virtually unanimous opinion of political and finance commentators across the political spectrum?
It's a tough one.
Given the shear awfulness of most of the latter who are consistency wrong about everything, the rando on the internet might edge it.
It's an amusing comment but not at all true is it?
What have the main media political commentators and correspondents been consistently wrong about recently? The GE outcome? Starmer's demise? Burnham's rise?
I mean, they are not psychic but generally they get things right because all that's needed is common sense rather than a sixth sense.
Putting aside the awfulness of Truss. Any topic I actually know about in detail, they are invariably absolutely wrong or operating at a very low level. Westminister gossip and the soap opera of the falling outs of the characters in frontline politics I will give you, they live and breath that stuff.
You seem to forget the COVID era, the tide went out and they were exposed. Simple stats were too difficult for them. It was embarassing hearing the "data people" in the media get it wrong time and time again. There is something wrong when the Daily Mail are writing the best report on new COVID related academic papers.
The "randos" on the internet on here were miles ahead in analysis. Were on things like Brexit vote night as well.
Er... the Daily Mail is part of the media.
And as for Brexit, opinion on here was pretty evenly split, based on a lot of wishcasting and some fearcasting*. PB Leavers got it right of course, PB Remainers didn't, but there was no magic insight.
(* By which I mean predicting the thing we fear, like the occasional 'imminent WW3' predictions that pop up, based on 'oh shit this could happen' rather than any objective analysis.)
Or, indeed, the posts about cricket during the bulk of the run chase today, when England were always favourites.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Who to believe, eh, for 'the true history of the Truss PM period' - some random anonymous poster on the internet or the virtually unanimous opinion of political and finance commentators across the political spectrum?
It's a tough one.
Given the shear awfulness of most of the latter who are consistency wrong about everything, the rando on the internet might edge it.
It's an amusing comment but not at all true is it?
What have the main media political commentators and correspondents been consistently wrong about recently? The GE outcome? Starmer's demise? Burnham's rise?
I mean, they are not psychic but generally they get things right because all that's needed is common sense rather than a sixth sense.
Ben - are you saying Liz Truss did crash the economy? Then I ask you a very simple question. Please point to the observable dents, structural deformations, shattered glass that needed replacing, and things not working the same ever again being some of the evidence of something that was crashed.
There was never any evidence to prove it. You have nothing at all to point to.
The myth came about when such a solid portion of Conservative MPs and party members who wanted Truss out, sided with opposition parties in talking up the idea Truss economic policies and ideological budget was crashing the economy.
But where was the observable, measurable, lingering damage, of something being visibly repaired, of a crashed economy? There was none. You have zero evidence to support your myth.
Yes I agree. The economy didn't even enter recession under Truss, unlike Brown for instance. It contracted for one quarter, though you can argue that was more energy prices than Truss.
In fairness, though, it's very difficult to crash a modern economy in 38 days.
One can argue that the economy would have crashed had she remained in office. Alternatively one can argue that it was all a storm in a teacup and it would have righted itself, with or without the U-turns of her final days in office.
In the nature of things, we will never know.
I don't want to let Truss off the hook entirely, or even mostly. She may have known where she wanted to get to, but undoubtedly had little idea of how to get there, either politically or economically. But the idea that she led us unambiguously to disaster is just wrong.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Who to believe, eh, for 'the true history of the Truss PM period' - some random anonymous poster on the internet or the virtually unanimous opinion of political and finance commentators across the political spectrum?
It's a tough one.
Given the shear awfulness of most of the latter who are consistency wrong about everything, the rando on the internet might edge it.
It's an amusing comment but not at all true is it?
What have the main media political commentators and correspondents been consistently wrong about recently? The GE outcome? Starmer's demise? Burnham's rise?
I mean, they are not psychic but generally they get things right because all that's needed is common sense rather than a sixth sense.
Ben - are you saying Liz Truss did crash the economy? Then I ask you a very simple question. Please point to the observable dents, structural deformations, shattered glass that needed replacing, and things not working the same ever again being some of the evidence of something that was crashed.
There was never any evidence to prove it. You have nothing at all to point to.
The myth came about when such a solid portion of Conservative MPs and party members who wanted Truss out, sided with opposition parties in talking up the idea Truss economic policies and ideological budget was crashing the economy.
But where was the observable, measurable, lingering damage, of something being visibly repaired, of a crashed economy? There was none. You have zero evidence to support your myth.
I didn't say she crashed the economy - she was thankfully removed before she could do that.
But there was a Liz Truss financial calamity, contrary to your contention: Pension funds were forced into a fire sale of gilts, necessitating a £65bn emergency bond-buying program by the BoE. Mortgage rates increased by half virtually overnight, causing a lot of real hardship for many. GBP hit an all time low against the USD. The IMF issued a stinging condemnation...
Truss absolutely had to go but even so, her brief premiership left a legacy of higher borrowing costs for the UK.
Looking at the data the mortgage rates were climbing well before her mini budget.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Who to believe, eh, for 'the true history of the Truss PM period' - some random anonymous poster on the internet or the virtually unanimous opinion of political and finance commentators across the political spectrum?
It's a tough one.
Given the shear awfulness of most of the latter who are consistency wrong about everything, the rando on the internet might edge it.
It's an amusing comment but not at all true is it?
What have the main media political commentators and correspondents been consistently wrong about recently? The GE outcome? Starmer's demise? Burnham's rise?
I mean, they are not psychic but generally they get things right because all that's needed is common sense rather than a sixth sense.
Putting aside the awfulness of Truss. Any topic I actually know about in detail, they are invariably absolutely wrong or operating at a very low level. Westminister gossip and the soap opera of the falling outs of the characters in frontline politics I will give you, they live and breath that stuff.
You seem to forget the COVID era, the tide went out and they were exposed. Simple stats were too difficult for them. It was embarassing hearing the "data people" in the media get it wrong time and time again. There is something wrong when the Daily Mail are writing the best report on new COVID related academic papers.
The "randos" on the internet on here were miles ahead in analysis. Were on things like Brexit vote night as well.
Er... the Daily Mail is part of the media.
And as for Brexit, opinion on here was pretty evenly split, based on a lot of wishcasting and some fearcasting*. PB Leavers got it right of course, PB Remainers didn't, but there was no magic insight.
(* By which I mean predicting the thing we fear, like the occasional 'imminent WW3' predictions that pop up, based on 'oh shit this could happen' rather than any objective analysis.)
Or, indeed, the posts about cricket during the bulk of the run chase today, when England were always favourites.
Its the in joke on here about always been deliberately negative about England. FYI, a good chunk of my income used to come from betting cricket.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Who to believe, eh, for 'the true history of the Truss PM period' - some random anonymous poster on the internet or the virtually unanimous opinion of political and finance commentators across the political spectrum?
It's a tough one.
Given the shear awfulness of most of the latter who are consistency wrong about everything, the rando on the internet might edge it.
It's an amusing comment but not at all true is it?
What have the main media political commentators and correspondents been consistently wrong about recently? The GE outcome? Starmer's demise? Burnham's rise?
I mean, they are not psychic but generally they get things right because all that's needed is common sense rather than a sixth sense.
Putting aside the awfulness of Truss. Any topic I actually know about in detail, they are invariably absolutely wrong or operating at a very low level. Westminister gossip and the soap opera of the falling outs of the characters in frontline politics I will give you, they live and breath that stuff.
You seem to forget the COVID era, the tide went out and they were exposed. Simple stats were too difficult for them. It was embarassing hearing the "data people" in the media get it wrong time and time again. There is something wrong when the Daily Mail are writing the best report on new COVID related academic papers.
The "randos" on the internet on here were miles ahead in analysis. Were on things like Brexit vote night as well.
Er... the Daily Mail is part of the media.
And as for Brexit, opinion on here was pretty evenly split, based on a lot of wishcasting and some fearcasting*. PB Leavers got it right of course, PB Remainers didn't, but there was no magic insight.
(* By which I mean predicting the thing we fear, like the occasional 'imminent WW3' predictions that pop up, based on 'oh shit this could happen' rather than any objective analysis.)
Someone I know as a minor journalist during COVID. The "science specialist" journalists were deprecated from the story. Because It was a Top Story, which needed to be handled by Proper Journalists. AKA people who were in The Top Social Group.
It was embarassing when we had the eggheads giving the press conferences with the technical details, the (dodgy) modelling, still the media sent your Pestons, Rigby, etc, to then ask numpty questions, not even the science or health correspondents.
Pesto was especially bad. He seems to believe that if he doesn't understand something, that means that the qualified people are wrong.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Who to believe, eh, for 'the true history of the Truss PM period' - some random anonymous poster on the internet or the virtually unanimous opinion of political and finance commentators across the political spectrum?
It's a tough one.
Given the shear awfulness of most of the latter who are consistency wrong about everything, the rando on the internet might edge it.
It's an amusing comment but not at all true is it?
What have the main media political commentators and correspondents been consistently wrong about recently? The GE outcome? Starmer's demise? Burnham's rise?
I mean, they are not psychic but generally they get things right because all that's needed is common sense rather than a sixth sense.
Putting aside the awfulness of Truss. Any topic I actually know about in detail, they are invariably absolutely wrong or operating at a very low level. Westminister gossip and the soap opera of the falling outs of the characters in frontline politics I will give you, they live and breath that stuff.
You seem to forget the COVID era, the tide went out and they were exposed. Simple stats were too difficult for them. It was embarassing hearing the "data people" in the media get it wrong time and time again. There is something wrong when the Daily Mail are writing the best report on new COVID related academic papers.
The "randos" on the internet on here were miles ahead in analysis. Were on things like Brexit vote night as well.
Er... the Daily Mail is part of the media.
And as for Brexit, opinion on here was pretty evenly split, based on a lot of wishcasting and some fearcasting*. PB Leavers got it right of course, PB Remainers didn't, but there was no magic insight.
(* By which I mean predicting the thing we fear, like the occasional 'imminent WW3' predictions that pop up, based on 'oh shit this could happen' rather than any objective analysis.)
Someone I know as a minor journalist during COVID. The "science specialist" journalists were deprecated from the story. Because It was a Top Story, which needed to be handled by Proper Journalists. AKA people who were in The Top Social Group.
It was embarassing when we had the eggheads giving the press conferences with the technical details, the (dodgy) modelling, still the media sent your Pestons, Rigby, etc, to then ask numpty questions, not even the science or health correspondents.
Pesto was especially bad. He seems to believe that if he doesn't understand something, that means that the qualified people are wrong.
How the man is still in his job, in fact has kinda of got promoted, multiple podcasts etc. JVT went on his show not once, but twice, and told him to shut the f##k up and still he argued because he had googled that it wasn't very hard to make such and such chemical.....not realising you need the precursors from China and its very different to make massive industrial quantities compared to some samples in a lab.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Who to believe, eh, for 'the true history of the Truss PM period' - some random anonymous poster on the internet or the virtually unanimous opinion of political and finance commentators across the political spectrum?
It's a tough one.
Given the shear awfulness of most of the latter who are consistency wrong about everything, the rando on the internet might edge it.
It's an amusing comment but not at all true is it?
What have the main media political commentators and correspondents been consistently wrong about recently? The GE outcome? Starmer's demise? Burnham's rise?
I mean, they are not psychic but generally they get things right because all that's needed is common sense rather than a sixth sense.
Putting aside the awfulness of Truss. Any topic I actually know about in detail, they are invariably absolutely wrong or operating at a very low level. Westminister gossip and the soap opera of the falling outs of the characters in frontline politics I will give you, they live and breath that stuff.
You seem to forget the COVID era, the tide went out and they were exposed. Simple stats were too difficult for them. It was embarassing hearing the "data people" in the media get it wrong time and time again. There is something wrong when the Daily Mail are writing the best report on new COVID related academic papers.
The "randos" on the internet on here were miles ahead in analysis. Were on things like Brexit vote night as well.
Er... the Daily Mail is part of the media.
And as for Brexit, opinion on here was pretty evenly split, based on a lot of wishcasting and some fearcasting*. PB Leavers got it right of course, PB Remainers didn't, but there was no magic insight.
(* By which I mean predicting the thing we fear, like the occasional 'imminent WW3' predictions that pop up, based on 'oh shit this could happen' rather than any objective analysis.)
Or, indeed, the posts about cricket during the bulk of the run chase today, when England were always favourites.
Butlers massive uptick of the rate in the last few overs was always the trump card. Being comparable after 40 overs meant someone had to do a Butler. And as soon as the wickets start to fall it's over. Add in the pitch getting harder and it shouldn't be a surprise. But 45 years of watching England makes one fear the worst in every situation.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Who to believe, eh, for 'the true history of the Truss PM period' - some random anonymous poster on the internet or the virtually unanimous opinion of political and finance commentators across the political spectrum?
It's a tough one.
Given the shear awfulness of most of the latter who are consistency wrong about everything, the rando on the internet might edge it.
It's an amusing comment but not at all true is it?
What have the main media political commentators and correspondents been consistently wrong about recently? The GE outcome? Starmer's demise? Burnham's rise?
I mean, they are not psychic but generally they get things right because all that's needed is common sense rather than a sixth sense.
Ben - are you saying Liz Truss did crash the economy? Then I ask you a very simple question. Please point to the observable dents, structural deformations, shattered glass that needed replacing, and things not working the same ever again being some of the evidence of something that was crashed.
There was never any evidence to prove it. You have nothing at all to point to.
The myth came about when such a solid portion of Conservative MPs and party members who wanted Truss out, sided with opposition parties in talking up the idea Truss economic policies and ideological budget was crashing the economy.
But where was the observable, measurable, lingering damage, of something being visibly repaired, of a crashed economy? There was none. You have zero evidence to support your myth.
I didn't say she crashed the economy - she was thankfully removed before she could do that.
But there was a Liz Truss financial calamity, contrary to your contention: Pension funds were forced into a fire sale of gilts, necessitating a £65bn emergency bond-buying program by the BoE. Mortgage rates increased by half virtually overnight, causing a lot of real hardship for many. GBP hit an all time low against the USD. The IMF issued a stinging condemnation...
Truss absolutely had to go but even so, her brief premiership left a legacy of higher borrowing costs for the UK.
Exactly right. The Gilts strike was pushing the entire UK pension system towards collapse, and within hours not weeks. It was the single most acute and acutely dangerous financial crisis in over 300 years, and can be laid entirely at the feet of Truss and to a lesser extent Johnson.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Elements of this are true but the fact remains Truss won the ballot of Conservative members 57-43 so she clearly had some support in the party (along with 113 MPs).
She was second in the MP's ballot and we can only speculate as to what would have happened if Mordaunt had finished second and presumably beaten Sunak in the Members' vote.
Budgets are often reported inaccurately and as we know the first response is usually predicated on that mis or disinformation. It was a febrile time with concern over energy prices and as we know throwing petrol onto a perfectly good fire is never a good idea.
I think Truss herself has to take a lot of the responsibility - the sacking of Kwarteng and the disowning of his Budget in early and mid October left the piranhas (or vultures or whatever analogy works for you) scenting blood.
The fracking vote debacle and the sacking of Braverman contributed to an atmosphere of panic and a sense she (Truss) was not in controlof events or indeed her Cabinet. Graham Brady's account of all this in his book is well worth reading.
Truss made many fatal miscalculations, that she's admitted. I think the biggest was that in all her Ministerial setbacks where she'd seen the blob at work frustrating her plans, she assumed that all she needed to do was get to the level of PM, where she believed the real power resided. Once she'd achieved that she could set the agenda, and other PMs had been unwilling (May) or too lazy (Boris) to do so. This wasn't the case. Even the PM (as acknowledged by Starmer) is seriously weakened in the post-Blair constitutional settlement. If she'd been more curious intellectually, she might have been more ready.
In a mostly successful career involving change management, the most common reason for projects failing in my experience is untested assumptions not panning out. I have never known a project to fail because of the 'blob'. The nearest I suppose is a lack of buy-in from stakeholders. But, Liz, your principal job as a politician is to manage those stakeholders.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Who to believe, eh, for 'the true history of the Truss PM period' - some random anonymous poster on the internet or the virtually unanimous opinion of political and finance commentators across the political spectrum?
It's a tough one.
Given the shear awfulness of most of the latter who are consistency wrong about everything, the rando on the internet might edge it.
It's an amusing comment but not at all true is it?
What have the main media political commentators and correspondents been consistently wrong about recently? The GE outcome? Starmer's demise? Burnham's rise?
I mean, they are not psychic but generally they get things right because all that's needed is common sense rather than a sixth sense.
Putting aside the awfulness of Truss. Any topic I actually know about in detail, they are invariably absolutely wrong or operating at a very low level. Westminister gossip and the soap opera of the falling outs of the characters in frontline politics I will give you, they live and breath that stuff.
You seem to forget the COVID era, the tide went out and they were exposed. Simple stats were too difficult for them. It was embarassing hearing the "data people" in the media get it wrong time and time again. There is something wrong when the Daily Mail are writing the best report on new COVID related academic papers.
The "randos" on the internet on here were miles ahead in analysis. Were on things like Brexit vote night as well.
Er... the Daily Mail is part of the media.
And as for Brexit, opinion on here was pretty evenly split, based on a lot of wishcasting and some fearcasting*. PB Leavers got it right of course, PB Remainers didn't, but there was no magic insight.
(* By which I mean predicting the thing we fear, like the occasional 'imminent WW3' predictions that pop up, based on 'oh shit this could happen' rather than any objective analysis.)
Someone I know as a minor journalist during COVID. The "science specialist" journalists were deprecated from the story. Because It was a Top Story, which needed to be handled by Proper Journalists. AKA people who were in The Top Social Group.
As Dickie Attenborough (with his Channel 4 hat on) said to the editor of Channel 4 News just after appointing him, said:
"Don't forget, darling, we are all in showbusiness."
There's always been a tension between telling people what they need to know and presenting what they want to know. For a while, the BBC/ITV duopoly favoured people and programmes doing both. For a while.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Who to believe, eh, for 'the true history of the Truss PM period' - some random anonymous poster on the internet or the virtually unanimous opinion of political and finance commentators across the political spectrum?
It's a tough one.
Given the shear awfulness of most of the latter who are consistency wrong about everything, the rando on the internet might edge it.
It's an amusing comment but not at all true is it?
What have the main media political commentators and correspondents been consistently wrong about recently? The GE outcome? Starmer's demise? Burnham's rise?
I mean, they are not psychic but generally they get things right because all that's needed is common sense rather than a sixth sense.
Putting aside the awfulness of Truss. Any topic I actually know about in detail, they are invariably absolutely wrong or operating at a very low level. Westminister gossip and the soap opera of the falling outs of the characters in frontline politics I will give you, they live and breath that stuff.
You seem to forget the COVID era, the tide went out and they were exposed. Simple stats were too difficult for them. It was embarassing hearing the "data people" in the media get it wrong time and time again. There is something wrong when the Daily Mail are writing the best report on new COVID related academic papers.
The "randos" on the internet on here were miles ahead in analysis. Were on things like Brexit vote night as well.
Er... the Daily Mail is part of the media.
And as for Brexit, opinion on here was pretty evenly split, based on a lot of wishcasting and some fearcasting*. PB Leavers got it right of course, PB Remainers didn't, but there was no magic insight.
(* By which I mean predicting the thing we fear, like the occasional 'imminent WW3' predictions that pop up, based on 'oh shit this could happen' rather than any objective analysis.)
Someone I know as a minor journalist during COVID. The "science specialist" journalists were deprecated from the story. Because It was a Top Story, which needed to be handled by Proper Journalists. AKA people who were in The Top Social Group.
It was embarassing when we had the eggheads giving the press conferences with the technical details, the (dodgy) modelling, still the media sent your Pestons, Rigby, etc, to then ask numpty questions, not even the science or health correspondents.
Pesto was especially bad. He seems to believe that if he doesn't understand something, that means that the qualified people are wrong.
How the man is still in his job, in fact has kinda of got promoted, multiple podcasts etc. JVT went on his show not once, but twice, and told him to shut the f##k up and still he argued because he had googled that it wasn't very hard to make such and such chemical.....not realising you need the precursors from China and its very different to make massive industrial quantities compared to some samples in a lab.
It's also a fact that Chinese "chemical companies" claim to be able to deliver vas quantities of anything, according to their websites. Such as Hangzhou Sage Chemical Company - which promised to deliver metric tons of FOOF.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Elements of this are true but the fact remains Truss won the ballot of Conservative members 57-43 so she clearly had some support in the party (along with 113 MPs).
She was second in the MP's ballot and we can only speculate as to what would have happened if Mordaunt had finished second and presumably beaten Sunak in the Members' vote.
Budgets are often reported inaccurately and as we know the first response is usually predicated on that mis or disinformation. It was a febrile time with concern over energy prices and as we know throwing petrol onto a perfectly good fire is never a good idea.
I think Truss herself has to take a lot of the responsibility - the sacking of Kwarteng and the disowning of his Budget in early and mid October left the piranhas (or vultures or whatever analogy works for you) scenting blood.
The fracking vote debacle and the sacking of Braverman contributed to an atmosphere of panic and a sense she (Truss) was not in controlof events or indeed her Cabinet. Graham Brady's account of all this in his book is well worth reading.
Truss made many fatal miscalculations, that she's admitted. I think the biggest was that in all her Ministerial setbacks where she'd seen the blob at work frustrating her plans, she assumed that all she needed to do was get to the level of PM, where she believed the real power resided. Once she'd achieved that she could set the agenda, and other PMs had been unwilling (May) or too lazy (Boris) to do so. This wasn't the case. Even the PM (as acknowledged by Starmer) is seriously weakened in the post-Blair constitutional settlement. If she'd been more curious intellectually, she might have been more ready.
"...But the biggest ticket – the name that got enough people into the main hall that it didn’t look ghostly – was Nigel Farage...The audience lapped it up. But I couldn’t help but think of Harriet Jones, another ill-fated former Prime Minister. Didn’t he look tired?..."
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Who to believe, eh, for 'the true history of the Truss PM period' - some random anonymous poster on the internet or the virtually unanimous opinion of political and finance commentators across the political spectrum?
It's a tough one.
Given the shear awfulness of most of the latter who are consistency wrong about everything, the rando on the internet might edge it.
It's an amusing comment but not at all true is it?
What have the main media political commentators and correspondents been consistently wrong about recently? The GE outcome? Starmer's demise? Burnham's rise?
I mean, they are not psychic but generally they get things right because all that's needed is common sense rather than a sixth sense.
Ben - are you saying Liz Truss did crash the economy? Then I ask you a very simple question. Please point to the observable dents, structural deformations, shattered glass that needed replacing, and things not working the same ever again being some of the evidence of something that was crashed.
There was never any evidence to prove it. You have nothing at all to point to.
The myth came about when such a solid portion of Conservative MPs and party members who wanted Truss out, sided with opposition parties in talking up the idea Truss economic policies and ideological budget was crashing the economy.
But where was the observable, measurable, lingering damage, of something being visibly repaired, of a crashed economy? There was none. You have zero evidence to support your myth.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Who to believe, eh, for 'the true history of the Truss PM period' - some random anonymous poster on the internet or the virtually unanimous opinion of political and finance commentators across the political spectrum?
It's a tough one.
Given the shear awfulness of most of the latter who are consistency wrong about everything, the rando on the internet might edge it.
It's an amusing comment but not at all true is it?
What have the main media political commentators and correspondents been consistently wrong about recently? The GE outcome? Starmer's demise? Burnham's rise?
I mean, they are not psychic but generally they get things right because all that's needed is common sense rather than a sixth sense.
Putting aside the awfulness of Truss. Any topic I actually know about in detail, they are invariably absolutely wrong or operating at a very low level. Westminister gossip and the soap opera of the falling outs of the characters in frontline politics I will give you, they live and breath that stuff.
You seem to forget the COVID era, the tide went out and they were exposed. Simple stats were too difficult for them. It was embarassing hearing the "data people" in the media get it wrong time and time again. There is something wrong when the Daily Mail are writing the best report on new COVID related academic papers.
The "randos" on the internet on here were miles ahead in analysis. Were on things like Brexit vote night as well.
Er... the Daily Mail is part of the media.
And as for Brexit, opinion on here was pretty evenly split, based on a lot of wishcasting and some fearcasting*. PB Leavers got it right of course, PB Remainers didn't, but there was no magic insight.
(* By which I mean predicting the thing we fear, like the occasional 'imminent WW3' predictions that pop up, based on 'oh shit this could happen' rather than any objective analysis.)
Someone I know as a minor journalist during COVID. The "science specialist" journalists were deprecated from the story. Because It was a Top Story, which needed to be handled by Proper Journalists. AKA people who were in The Top Social Group.
As Dickie Attenborough (with his Channel 4 hat on) said to the editor of Channel 4 News just after appointing him, said:
"Don't forget, darling, we are all in showbusiness."
There's always been a tension between telling people what they need to know and presenting what they want to know. For a while, the BBC/ITV duopoly favoured people and programmes doing both. For a while.
There was, according to my acquaintance, more than one editor upset with the science journalists "fucking stories". That is, saying there wasn't actually a story, because of X and Y. Which reduces the whole thing to a factual paragraph. Instead of a banner headline on the front page.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Elements of this are true but the fact remains Truss won the ballot of Conservative members 57-43 so she clearly had some support in the party (along with 113 MPs).
She was second in the MP's ballot and we can only speculate as to what would have happened if Mordaunt had finished second and presumably beaten Sunak in the Members' vote.
Budgets are often reported inaccurately and as we know the first response is usually predicated on that mis or disinformation. It was a febrile time with concern over energy prices and as we know throwing petrol onto a perfectly good fire is never a good idea.
I think Truss herself has to take a lot of the responsibility - the sacking of Kwarteng and the disowning of his Budget in early and mid October left the piranhas (or vultures or whatever analogy works for you) scenting blood.
The fracking vote debacle and the sacking of Braverman contributed to an atmosphere of panic and a sense she (Truss) was not in controlof events or indeed her Cabinet. Graham Brady's account of all this in his book is well worth reading.
Truss made many fatal miscalculations, that she's admitted. I think the biggest was that in all her Ministerial setbacks where she'd seen the blob at work frustrating her plans, she assumed that all she needed to do was get to the level of PM, where she believed the real power resided. Once she'd achieved that she could set the agenda, and other PMs had been unwilling (May) or too lazy (Boris) to do so. This wasn't the case. Even the PM (as acknowledged by Starmer) is seriously weakened in the post-Blair constitutional settlement. If she'd been more curious intellectually, she might have been more ready.
"...But the biggest ticket – the name that got enough people into the main hall that it didn’t look ghostly – was Nigel Farage...The audience lapped it up. But I couldn’t help but think of Harriet Jones, another ill-fated former Prime Minister. Didn’t he look tired?..."
It's one of those "ignore the weather, look at the climate" things.
It's a bit of a stretch (but a manageable one) to imagine Farage doing an energetic campaign in 2029. But as an application for being PM for a term until 2034?
By the way, the Insight Team at the Sunday Times have really got Farage over a barrel.
Those donations alleged to be from Cottrell's Mother clearly aren't and the implication if they do come from nameless third parties is not just a slap on the wrist, but serious criminal charges where money laundering may only be the start of the rap sheet.
This is going to get explosive, and it seems that there is indeed still more to come...
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Who to believe, eh, for 'the true history of the Truss PM period' - some random anonymous poster on the internet or the virtually unanimous opinion of political and finance commentators across the political spectrum?
It's a tough one.
Given the shear awfulness of most of the latter who are consistency wrong about everything, the rando on the internet might edge it.
It's an amusing comment but not at all true is it?
What have the main media political commentators and correspondents been consistently wrong about recently? The GE outcome? Starmer's demise? Burnham's rise?
I mean, they are not psychic but generally they get things right because all that's needed is common sense rather than a sixth sense.
Ben - are you saying Liz Truss did crash the economy? Then I ask you a very simple question. Please point to the observable dents, structural deformations, shattered glass that needed replacing, and things not working the same ever again being some of the evidence of something that was crashed.
There was never any evidence to prove it. You have nothing at all to point to.
The myth came about when such a solid portion of Conservative MPs and party members who wanted Truss out, sided with opposition parties in talking up the idea Truss economic policies and ideological budget was crashing the economy.
But where was the observable, measurable, lingering damage, of something being visibly repaired, of a crashed economy? There was none. You have zero evidence to support your myth.
I didn't say she crashed the economy - she was thankfully removed before she could do that.
But there was a Liz Truss financial calamity, contrary to your contention: Pension funds were forced into a fire sale of gilts, necessitating a £65bn emergency bond-buying program by the BoE. Mortgage rates increased by half virtually overnight, causing a lot of real hardship for many. GBP hit an all time low against the USD. The IMF issued a stinging condemnation...
Truss absolutely had to go but even so, her brief premiership left a legacy of higher borrowing costs for the UK.
That you have helped everyone out by downgrading “crashed economy” to having only to find evidence to support much lesser charge of “financial calamity” is duly noted.
You have supplied some information to try and support there was a “financial calamity directly caused by Liz Truss.”
I shall now succinctly dismantle your evidence.
“Pension funds were forced into a fire sale of gilts, necessitating a £65bn emergency bond-buying program by the BoE.” This happened. But its cause was actually misbehaviour by fund managers, encouraged by regulatory negligence of previous chancellors and Prime Ministers. The fund managers didn’t get away with the naughty way of doing things because you are correct “ GBP hit an all time low against the USD and Gilts hit all time highs” revealing those problems in pension management. But The GBP and gilt movements that smoked out problems in funds were result of strong dollar against just about every currency on earth, which you can’t simply link to Truss budget if it’s happening globally can you? Nor blame the long stewing problem in pensions that needed BOE intervention on Truss, its 100% happened under previous chancellors, like Sunak and their PMs.
‘IMF issued a stinging condemnation...” you mean of the budget? Overall it was just a £12B giveaway budget, it cut a top rate of tax, so yes, cutting top rates of tax and handing out money rather than clawing more in does sound like what IMF would typically whinge about, but are they always right to do do? Britain needed growth. It needed to send out growth making vibes. The truth of that tax Truss abolished was it only appeared in 2010 when Brown salted the earth for incoming Conservatives. And half of it Osborne had already slashed in 2012. For so many Conservatives to make a fuss about it to undermine Truss, ultimately resulted in a Labour Landslide and the Rise of reform.
“Mortgage rates increased by half virtually overnight, causing a lot of real hardship for many.” That happened Under Truss and lasting result of the Truss budget? Really? 🤣
By the way, the Insight Team at the Sunday Times have really got Farage over a barrel.
Those donations alleged to be from Cottrell's Mother clearly aren't and the implication if they do come from nameless third parties is not just a slap on the wrist, but serious criminal charges where money laundering may only be the start of the rap sheet.
This is going to get explosive, and it seems that there is indeed still more to come...
yeah mr andy burnham let some bloke in Widnes buy him a pint and pie one time, so everyone's at it
Why do you do this to me? Every single time -oh, let's start a new thread because Stodge is on. Why?
Anyway, this from the previous thread:
I was musing on a comment from @Richard_Tyndall saying he was in favour of free speech.
Nothing wrong with that in theory but of course speech is like tea, coffee or social care - it's a commodity. You can have as much as you want or are willing to pay for.
If you have time and money, you can have all the speech you want. If you are very wealthy, you can hire people to do the speaking for you, advance your arguments and if you are wealthier still, you can own the platforms on which speech occurs so you can regulate who can say what and shut down those who disagree with you.
Speech therefore isn't "free" - it's expensive though the cost of speech has fallen in recent times in some respects. It's easier to be able to have speech and have your say - all you basically need is a device connected to the Internet - whereas in former times you had to take your chance at Speakers' Corner and that could be a bearpit (as can forums like this).
The other side is the impact of your speech - let's be honest, this forum might have some reach but not much whereas an article on X or perhaps the Daily Mail has more likelihood of being more widely read so those who control the speech on well-read sites have a lot of speech they can throw around.
The truth is very many voices aren't heard - there are older people who don't have Internet connections and for whom a world increasingly dominated by online and app-based activity is isolating. There are people who don't have the time to speak and there are doubtless a myriad of other reasons.
We won't have free speech until and unless everyone has an equal opportunity to express their view - we have a thing called elections which does that pretty well in truth - and all views (within the law to a point though the current legal status is unsatisfactory) can be heard equally.
Forcing the Daily Mail to say something nice about Labour might be considered a tad coercive - it's a thought. Much though I would like to see all media contain a diversity and plurality of opinion, this can't be ordained by central Government diktat.
You can't force speech to be free any more than you can force people to be tolerant. You can be intolerant towards intolerance but you have to accept people have a right to be intolerant within the law.
Needless to say I disagree (and good moring of course )
This is not about some over-arching, all encompassing, right to be heard. That is both impractical and unwarranted.
It is simply about the right to say what you want, to openly speak your mind, without fear of prosecution except under very specific, very limited situations (direct incitement to violence and endangerment)
Indeed the wealthy and those with access to media or well paid spokesmen already had that right. They have the ability to ensure they are heard without ever risking prosecution. It is the unrepresented and common people who have lacked that for so long and who now have it through the internet. They are the exact reason why we should fight harder for freedom of speech. Because they can now be heard and it is way too easy for those who don't want those voices to be heard to use spurious laws and regulation to stop them.
Note that those being prosecuted are not the wealthy and the well connected. It is the normal person, a housewife, a retired policeman or an Aberdeen college worker. It is the voices and the messages that those in power would much rather were never heard. I may not agree with anything they are saying but it is vital for all of us that they have the right to say what they want, even if some of us hope that they will be ignored.
So I think your argument is spurious. What matters is the right to say what you want without fear of prosecution, whether that is in a pub, on the internet or at Speaker's Corner. Taking away that right won't stop people thinking those things and it will only result in you having a false sense of security and then being surprised when those thoughts and opinions turn into sudden, violent action.
Well said, though it really shouldn't need saying, I mean for goodness sake.
I mostly agree with Richard, but the issue is when some speech is amplified and some is drowned out.
That could be Musk tweaking the algorithms, or an overly cautious media refusing to contemplate some of the potential negatives around COVID vaccines for fear of putting people off getting vaccinated. There are many other examples.
Those of us committed to free speech should be equally committed to judicious regulation of those who have their hands on the amplifier controls. Getting this regulation right in the face of partisanship from all sides is difficult, but essential for democracy in my view.
I think this is another matter entirely, away from freedom of speech and I am generally in agreement with you.
I recognise that algorithms can distort public discourse, and it will be interesting to see what can be done, but it must be on the basis of the fundamental algorithms. It cannot be illegal to fill people with exaggerated fear about immigration or vaccines if it is still OK to fill them with exaggerated fear about State-endorsed cause celebres like Net Zero or racism in the police force. That isn't looking after the public, it is propaganda.
Free speech is an important value. However, truth also has value. Societies where people have a better grasp of truth and reality do better than those without such. You get a better economy with the truth. You get better democracy with truth.
Truth is given a special status. It’s the main defence against defamation claims. You can say nasty things about someone if they are true. But truth needs to be part of the equation more generally, beyond libel and slander law.
Of course, what is true isn’t always clear. Truth is contested. But that shouldn’t stop us trying to promote truth and discourage disinformation.
Except when the disinformation comes from the police, like after Henry Nowak. Or from the Lancet, during Covid.
Every State that has ever taken away the right of its people to speak freely has done so on the basis that they were protecting the truth, and the speech they were banning consisted of damaging and dangerous lies. So yes, that should absolutely give us pause when we try to 'promote truth'.
The Lancet is a private business, not the State.
It is damaging to our society, our country, ourselves, if people believe AI slop propaganda disinformation on social media, produced by people in Russia or Iran trying to destabilise us, or just by people in India trying to make a quick buck. It would not be akin to Stalinist Russia to try to do something about that.
It depends what you are doing.
If you are preventing those who say things you dislike from speaking then that is absolutely akin to Stalinist Russia. Or Putin's Russia where people who say the truth about the war are prosecuted.
If you are countering with the truth in a debate of free ideas then that is liberal and free speech.
Free speech does not mandate the truth is believed, but it gives it a better chance than any other system whereby a lie can become mandated as the official Truth.
It is naive to imagine that a debate of free ideas is sufficient to hold back the wave of online disinformation we're seeing. It's clearly not worked so far!
By the way, the Insight Team at the Sunday Times have really got Farage over a barrel.
Those donations alleged to be from Cottrell's Mother clearly aren't and the implication if they do come from nameless third parties is not just a slap on the wrist, but serious criminal charges where money laundering may only be the start of the rap sheet.
This is going to get explosive, and it seems that there is indeed still more to come...
Oh dear...how sad...never mind.
As it's Reform's finances, it could bring the whole ediface down.
By the way, the Insight Team at the Sunday Times have really got Farage over a barrel.
Those donations alleged to be from Cottrell's Mother clearly aren't and the implication if they do come from nameless third parties is not just a slap on the wrist, but serious criminal charges where money laundering may only be the start of the rap sheet.
This is going to get explosive, and it seems that there is indeed still more to come...
Oh dear...how sad...never mind.
As it's Reform's finances, it could bring the whole ediface down.
By the way, the Insight Team at the Sunday Times have really got Farage over a barrel.
Those donations alleged to be from Cottrell's Mother clearly aren't and the implication if they do come from nameless third parties is not just a slap on the wrist, but serious criminal charges where money laundering may only be the start of the rap sheet.
This is going to get explosive, and it seems that there is indeed still more to come...
Oh dear...how sad...never mind.
As it's Reform's finances, it could bring the whole ediface down.
Oh dear...how sad...never mind.
Agreed, though we should all be careful what we wish for.
The expenses scandal ended up not being confined to one party.
Conditions are in place on Whitehall tomorrow (Monday, 20 July).
Anyone assembling near the Downing Street gates to observe events linked to the new Prime Minister must not use any amplified noise equipment and must stay within the shaded area. These conditions are in place between 10:30 – 13:30.
By the way, the Insight Team at the Sunday Times have really got Farage over a barrel.
Those donations alleged to be from Cottrell's Mother clearly aren't and the implication if they do come from nameless third parties is not just a slap on the wrist, but serious criminal charges where money laundering may only be the start of the rap sheet.
This is going to get explosive, and it seems that there is indeed still more to come...
Oh dear...how sad...never mind.
As it's Reform's finances, it could bring the whole ediface down.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Who to believe, eh, for 'the true history of the Truss PM period' - some random anonymous poster on the internet or the virtually unanimous opinion of political and finance commentators across the political spectrum?
It's a tough one.
Given the shear awfulness of most of the latter who are consistency wrong about everything, the rando on the internet might edge it.
It's an amusing comment but not at all true is it?
What have the main media political commentators and correspondents been consistently wrong about recently? The GE outcome? Starmer's demise? Burnham's rise?
I mean, they are not psychic but generally they get things right because all that's needed is common sense rather than a sixth sense.
Ben - are you saying Liz Truss did crash the economy? Then I ask you a very simple question. Please point to the observable dents, structural deformations, shattered glass that needed replacing, and things not working the same ever again being some of the evidence of something that was crashed.
There was never any evidence to prove it. You have nothing at all to point to.
The myth came about when such a solid portion of Conservative MPs and party members who wanted Truss out, sided with opposition parties in talking up the idea Truss economic policies and ideological budget was crashing the economy.
But where was the observable, measurable, lingering damage, of something being visibly repaired, of a crashed economy? There was none. You have zero evidence to support your myth.
I didn't say she crashed the economy - she was thankfully removed before she could do that.
But there was a Liz Truss financial calamity, contrary to your contention: Pension funds were forced into a fire sale of gilts, necessitating a £65bn emergency bond-buying program by the BoE. Mortgage rates increased by half virtually overnight, causing a lot of real hardship for many. GBP hit an all time low against the USD. The IMF issued a stinging condemnation...
Truss absolutely had to go but even so, her brief premiership left a legacy of higher borrowing costs for the UK.
That you have helped everyone out by downgrading “crashed economy” to having only to find evidence to support much lesser charge of “financial calamity” is duly noted.
You have supplied some information to try and support there was a “financial calamity directly caused by Liz Truss.”
I shall now succinctly dismantle your evidence.
“Pension funds were forced into a fire sale of gilts, necessitating a £65bn emergency bond-buying program by the BoE.” This happened. But its cause was actually misbehaviour by fund managers, encouraged by regulatory negligence of previous chancellors and Prime Ministers. The fund managers didn’t get away with the naughty way of doing things because you are correct “ GBP hit an all time low against the USD and Gilts hit all time highs” revealing those problems in pension management. But The GBP and gilt movements that smoked out problems in funds were result of strong dollar against just about every currency on earth, which you can’t simply link to Truss budget if it’s happening globally can you? Nor blame the long stewing problem in pensions that needed BOE intervention on Truss, its 100% happened under previous chancellors, like Sunak and their PMs.
‘IMF issued a stinging condemnation...” you mean of the budget? Overall it was just a £12B giveaway budget, it cut a top rate of tax, so yes, cutting top rates of tax and handing out money rather than clawing more in does sound like what IMF would typically whinge about, but are they always right to do do? Britain needed growth. It needed to send out growth making vibes. The truth of that tax Truss abolished was it only appeared in 2010 when Brown salted the earth for incoming Conservatives. And half of it Osborne had already slashed in 2012. For so many Conservatives to make a fuss about it to undermine Truss, ultimately resulted in a Labour Landslide and the Rise of reform.
“Mortgage rates increased by half virtually overnight, causing a lot of real hardship for many.” That happened Under Truss and lasting result of the Truss budget? Really? 🤣
Got any other evidence?
Truss’s budget removed IR35, one of the foundation stones of employer NI which generates £80bn or so a year
Politicians on the left and right are busy tweeting about Tate brothers arrest and what should happen to them. I thought we were told that we shouldn't be commenting on ongoing high profile cases, all that about possibly of buggering the trial?
The concept of sub judice does appear to depend on the identify of the people concerned, in the hands of many.
These two guys have already had one case against them fail for procedural reasons, in Romania, and since then they’ve been travelling the world trying to avoid the Brits finding out their whereabouts to have them picked up.
Let justice now take its course.
I don't think it can be sub judice until charges have been laid, up to that point there is no trial to prejudice
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Who to believe, eh, for 'the true history of the Truss PM period' - some random anonymous poster on the internet or the virtually unanimous opinion of political and finance commentators across the political spectrum?
It's a tough one.
Given the shear awfulness of most of the latter who are consistency wrong about everything, the rando on the internet might edge it.
It's an amusing comment but not at all true is it?
What have the main media political commentators and correspondents been consistently wrong about recently? The GE outcome? Starmer's demise? Burnham's rise?
I mean, they are not psychic but generally they get things right because all that's needed is common sense rather than a sixth sense.
Putting aside the awfulness of Truss. Any topic I actually know about in detail, they are invariably absolutely wrong or operating at a very low level. Westminister gossip and the soap opera of the falling outs of the characters in frontline politics I will give you, they live and breath that stuff.
You seem to forget the COVID era, the tide went out and they were exposed. Simple stats were too difficult for them. It was embarassing hearing the "data people" in the media get it wrong time and time again. There is something wrong when the Daily Mail are writing the best report on new COVID related academic papers.
The "randos" on the internet on here were miles ahead in analysis. Were on things like Brexit vote night as well.
Er... the Daily Mail is part of the media.
And as for Brexit, opinion on here was pretty evenly split, based on a lot of wishcasting and some fearcasting*. PB Leavers got it right of course, PB Remainers didn't, but there was no magic insight.
(* By which I mean predicting the thing we fear, like the occasional 'imminent WW3' predictions that pop up, based on 'oh shit this could happen' rather than any objective analysis.)
I didn't say the articles were great from the Daily Mail, I said they were the best of a very bad lot. COVID overall, the media were embarassing, wrong day in, wrong day out. The BBC and Sky in particular was the blind leading the blind.
As for Brexit, no, a load of us made a tonne of money because PB was miles ahead of the media. The great spreadsheet paid for a fantastic Christmas at Chez Urquhart. Before that Rod Crosby got it right 2-3 GE in a row and again made some of us very good money (shame about his other specialist subject). I spoke to him at length about mathematical modelling of election and he was way ahead of the curve at the time.
Fair enough on the betting angles around Brexit, I'll concede that one.
PB not doing quite so well in the 2026 political predictions though - precisely no one predicted Burnham being PM by the year end and only 7.5% of us predicted he'd be an MP.
Yes, I think some humility is called for. This forum was largely wrong about Boris becoming Tory leader and likewise for Burnham.
My suspicion is that profitable political betting generally has gotten tougher, the odds are closer to the truth and there is less edge to be had.
I remember making money in 2020 on Hilary winning popular vote because California hadn't yet been counted, no such easy opportunity in subsequent elections.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Who to believe, eh, for 'the true history of the Truss PM period' - some random anonymous poster on the internet or the virtually unanimous opinion of political and finance commentators across the political spectrum?
It's a tough one.
Given the shear awfulness of most of the latter who are consistency wrong about everything, the rando on the internet might edge it.
It's an amusing comment but not at all true is it?
What have the main media political commentators and correspondents been consistently wrong about recently? The GE outcome? Starmer's demise? Burnham's rise?
I mean, they are not psychic but generally they get things right because all that's needed is common sense rather than a sixth sense.
Putting aside the awfulness of Truss. Any topic I actually know about in detail, they are invariably absolutely wrong or operating at a very low level. Westminister gossip and the soap opera of the falling outs of the characters in frontline politics I will give you, they live and breath that stuff.
You seem to forget the COVID era, the tide went out and they were exposed. Simple stats were too difficult for them. It was embarassing hearing the "data people" in the media get it wrong time and time again. There is something wrong when the Daily Mail are writing the best report on new COVID related academic papers.
The "randos" on the internet on here were miles ahead in analysis. Were on things like Brexit vote night as well.
Er... the Daily Mail is part of the media.
And as for Brexit, opinion on here was pretty evenly split, based on a lot of wishcasting and some fearcasting*. PB Leavers got it right of course, PB Remainers didn't, but there was no magic insight.
(* By which I mean predicting the thing we fear, like the occasional 'imminent WW3' predictions that pop up, based on 'oh shit this could happen' rather than any objective analysis.)
Someone I know as a minor journalist during COVID. The "science specialist" journalists were deprecated from the story. Because It was a Top Story, which needed to be handled by Proper Journalists. AKA people who were in The Top Social Group.
As Dickie Attenborough (with his Channel 4 hat on) said to the editor of Channel 4 News just after appointing him, said:
"Don't forget, darling, we are all in showbusiness."
There's always been a tension between telling people what they need to know and presenting what they want to know. For a while, the BBC/ITV duopoly favoured people and programmes doing both. For a while.
There was, according to my acquaintance, more than one editor upset with the science journalists "fucking stories". That is, saying there wasn't actually a story, because of X and Y. Which reduces the whole thing to a factual paragraph. Instead of a banner headline on the front page.
Thing is, journalists are journalists because they are good at writing prose. And, at least in traditional journalism, good at hunting down a story. They’re not in the job because they’re subject matter experts. Those who can develop a bit of semi-expertise are superstars.
I’m a subject matter expert who gets to write newspaper articles, and I can tell you from that experience that there’s a reason professional journalists usually do the job (because they’re better at it than me) and a reason subject matter experts don’t generally write for newspapers (because most of them are either worse at it, or more reluctant do do it, than I am).
Conditions are in place on Whitehall tomorrow (Monday, 20 July).
Anyone assembling near the Downing Street gates to observe events linked to the new Prime Minister must not use any amplified noise equipment and must stay within the shaded area. These conditions are in place between 10:30 – 13:30.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Who to believe, eh, for 'the true history of the Truss PM period' - some random anonymous poster on the internet or the virtually unanimous opinion of political and finance commentators across the political spectrum?
It's a tough one.
Given the shear awfulness of most of the latter who are consistency wrong about everything, the rando on the internet might edge it.
It's an amusing comment but not at all true is it?
What have the main media political commentators and correspondents been consistently wrong about recently? The GE outcome? Starmer's demise? Burnham's rise?
I mean, they are not psychic but generally they get things right because all that's needed is common sense rather than a sixth sense.
Putting aside the awfulness of Truss. Any topic I actually know about in detail, they are invariably absolutely wrong or operating at a very low level. Westminister gossip and the soap opera of the falling outs of the characters in frontline politics I will give you, they live and breath that stuff.
You seem to forget the COVID era, the tide went out and they were exposed. Simple stats were too difficult for them. It was embarassing hearing the "data people" in the media get it wrong time and time again. There is something wrong when the Daily Mail are writing the best report on new COVID related academic papers.
The "randos" on the internet on here were miles ahead in analysis. Were on things like Brexit vote night as well.
Er... the Daily Mail is part of the media.
And as for Brexit, opinion on here was pretty evenly split, based on a lot of wishcasting and some fearcasting*. PB Leavers got it right of course, PB Remainers didn't, but there was no magic insight.
(* By which I mean predicting the thing we fear, like the occasional 'imminent WW3' predictions that pop up, based on 'oh shit this could happen' rather than any objective analysis.)
Someone I know as a minor journalist during COVID. The "science specialist" journalists were deprecated from the story. Because It was a Top Story, which needed to be handled by Proper Journalists. AKA people who were in The Top Social Group.
As Dickie Attenborough (with his Channel 4 hat on) said to the editor of Channel 4 News just after appointing him, said:
"Don't forget, darling, we are all in showbusiness."
There's always been a tension between telling people what they need to know and presenting what they want to know. For a while, the BBC/ITV duopoly favoured people and programmes doing both. For a while.
There was, according to my acquaintance, more than one editor upset with the science journalists "fucking stories". That is, saying there wasn't actually a story, because of X and Y. Which reduces the whole thing to a factual paragraph. Instead of a banner headline on the front page.
Thing is, journalists are journalists because they are good at writing prose. And, at least in traditional journalism, good at hunting down a story. They’re not in the job because they’re subject matter experts. Those who can develop a bit of semi-expertise are superstars.
I’m a subject matter expert who gets to write newspaper articles, and I can tell you from that experience that there’s a reason professional journalists usually do the job (because they’re better at it than me) and a reason subject matter experts don’t generally write for newspapers (because most of them are either worse at it, or more reluctant do do it, than I am).
Now we have AI, expert knowledge is still required to validate, but AI can write the prose with the best of them. The equation has flipped now. I fear we get the opposite though, journalists asking AI and moulding the responses as given expert knowledge.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Who to believe, eh, for 'the true history of the Truss PM period' - some random anonymous poster on the internet or the virtually unanimous opinion of political and finance commentators across the political spectrum?
It's a tough one.
Given the shear awfulness of most of the latter who are consistency wrong about everything, the rando on the internet might edge it.
It's an amusing comment but not at all true is it?
What have the main media political commentators and correspondents been consistently wrong about recently? The GE outcome? Starmer's demise? Burnham's rise?
I mean, they are not psychic but generally they get things right because all that's needed is common sense rather than a sixth sense.
Ben - are you saying Liz Truss did crash the economy? Then I ask you a very simple question. Please point to the observable dents, structural deformations, shattered glass that needed replacing, and things not working the same ever again being some of the evidence of something that was crashed.
There was never any evidence to prove it. You have nothing at all to point to.
The myth came about when such a solid portion of Conservative MPs and party members who wanted Truss out, sided with opposition parties in talking up the idea Truss economic policies and ideological budget was crashing the economy.
But where was the observable, measurable, lingering damage, of something being visibly repaired, of a crashed economy? There was none. You have zero evidence to support your myth.
I didn't say she crashed the economy - she was thankfully removed before she could do that.
But there was a Liz Truss financial calamity, contrary to your contention: Pension funds were forced into a fire sale of gilts, necessitating a £65bn emergency bond-buying program by the BoE. Mortgage rates increased by half virtually overnight, causing a lot of real hardship for many. GBP hit an all time low against the USD. The IMF issued a stinging condemnation...
Truss absolutely had to go but even so, her brief premiership left a legacy of higher borrowing costs for the UK.
I think use of ChatGPT here probably tells its own story.
It's very easy to believe that Burnham will become unpopular pretty rapidly. But the question then is whether any other possible Labour leader would be more popular?
IIRC, Burnham was the only alternative who improved Labour polling when the hypothetical question was asked - Miliband, Rayner, etc, were no improvement on Starmer. So the impetus for change is missing.
If there is a Truss-style financial calamity then the situation is different, and Burnham has made some worrying statements in that regard. But he seems to be more willing to bend in the wind than Truss (e.g. over the ULEZ for Greater Manchester) and so that would make him less likely to drive the country over a fiscal cliff.
49 days from Monday is the 7th September.
“If there is a Truss-style financial calamity”
There was no Liz Truss financial calamity, it’s a myth and rewriting of true history. Firstly it was a budget poorly reported by the media at the time, a mere £12B giveaway budget wrongly called the biggest tax giveaway and most wrongly balanced budget of all time. What happened to UK in the markets was happening to EVERYBODY outside of US at exactly the same time, it was due to temporary strengthening of US dollar.
The actual historical truth, It was actually a political crisis, driven by a sizeable chunk of the Conservative Party, including most MPs and Grandee’s, flatly refusing to accept Liz Truss as leader when they could have Rishi Sunak instead, and they were the ones joining opponents in media that the budget was a financial calamity and the economy crashing.
The key driver of the crisis and ousting was belief of Conservative MPs Sunak would be better bet on economics and voter appeal than Truss. The economy was not fundamentally crashed in that short period.
PB's Truss defenders never explain if things were going so swimmingly why did she fire Kwasi Kwarteng?
I’m not a Truss defender, i’m not saying it would have turned out particular good if Tory’s didn’t oust her. I’m defending true history of what happened, being so much Conservative Party and MPs not accepting her as leader that made her reign so short, the economic calamity from that budget was massively spun by everyone from Farage to the Morning Star.
For a true history of politics, so often politics gets in the way - a most famous example of this for historians: the three people at the meeting that made Winston’s Churchill Prime Minister each told a different story of what happened. Being the nature of politics to spin things. But the true history of the Truss PM period gives us some very interesting lessons.
Firstly, to set out the lay of the land it all happened on, ousting of Truss was built on the politics in a Conservative Party divide between members and MPs. MPs and large portion of members, very radically didn’t want Truss or give her a chance at all.
Secondly, the budget, that anti truss Conservative group absolutely hated her budget and the vibes it sent out. The budget was ideological, for example, cutting of top rate of tax to inspire aspiration, no introduction of windfall tax etc - so many MPs and party members could not row in behind that. Was it a huge giveaway splurge though? Absolutely not. When properly analysed, with all the stealthy taxes from threshold changes built in, it was only a £12B giveaway budget, quite nothing in the bigger scheme of things. So why did so much media present it as a huge tax cutting giveaway budget? All those front pages and Sky headlines told us it was, a few weeks later when it clearly wasn’t, only a few tiny footnotes corrected all misleading splash of headlines.
Thirdly, mistakes Truss regime made that played into opponents hands. Not putting the budget through the OBR didn’t help with the markets quickly digesting it. And promising Fuel Bill giveaway bonanza to absolutely everyone for a full two and a half years was independently assessed as costing unaffordable £200 - £300 billion, and that was the financial measure that made the markets a bit volcanic. But not a crashed economy though, as in his first day Hunt said this giveaway is now just 6 months, and just like when people get thrown into volcano and it works to stop eruption, the volcanic activity instantly stopped. By instantly I do mean instantly, the speed of change should point historians to how the £200B commitment without any indication how to fund it from ideological tax cutting budget, played in the markets those weeks.
Fourthly, a huge lesson to take away how this period of Conservative in fighting helped their opponents to extent Conservatives never recovered from. The spin the economy was crashed by Tory incompetence sent Labour polling into stratospheres, and also Reform polling and voting, just a little twig in a pot less than 3% - started to spurt into a bush based on this myth of Tory economic incompetence.
Who to believe, eh, for 'the true history of the Truss PM period' - some random anonymous poster on the internet or the virtually unanimous opinion of political and finance commentators across the political spectrum?
It's a tough one.
Given the shear awfulness of most of the latter who are consistency wrong about everything, the rando on the internet might edge it.
It's an amusing comment but not at all true is it?
What have the main media political commentators and correspondents been consistently wrong about recently? The GE outcome? Starmer's demise? Burnham's rise?
I mean, they are not psychic but generally they get things right because all that's needed is common sense rather than a sixth sense.
Ben - are you saying Liz Truss did crash the economy? Then I ask you a very simple question. Please point to the observable dents, structural deformations, shattered glass that needed replacing, and things not working the same ever again being some of the evidence of something that was crashed.
There was never any evidence to prove it. You have nothing at all to point to.
The myth came about when such a solid portion of Conservative MPs and party members who wanted Truss out, sided with opposition parties in talking up the idea Truss economic policies and ideological budget was crashing the economy.
But where was the observable, measurable, lingering damage, of something being visibly repaired, of a crashed economy? There was none. You have zero evidence to support your myth.
I didn't say she crashed the economy - she was thankfully removed before she could do that.
But there was a Liz Truss financial calamity, contrary to your contention: Pension funds were forced into a fire sale of gilts, necessitating a £65bn emergency bond-buying program by the BoE. Mortgage rates increased by half virtually overnight, causing a lot of real hardship for many. GBP hit an all time low against the USD. The IMF issued a stinging condemnation...
Truss absolutely had to go but even so, her brief premiership left a legacy of higher borrowing costs for the UK.
That you have helped everyone out by downgrading “crashed economy” to having only to find evidence to support much lesser charge of “financial calamity” is duly noted.
You have supplied some information to try and support there was a “financial calamity directly caused by Liz Truss.”
I shall now succinctly dismantle your evidence.
“Pension funds were forced into a fire sale of gilts, necessitating a £65bn emergency bond-buying program by the BoE.” This happened. But its cause was actually misbehaviour by fund managers, encouraged by regulatory negligence of previous chancellors and Prime Ministers. The fund managers didn’t get away with the naughty way of doing things because you are correct “ GBP hit an all time low against the USD and Gilts hit all time highs” revealing those problems in pension management. But The GBP and gilt movements that smoked out problems in funds were result of strong dollar against just about every currency on earth, which you can’t simply link to Truss budget if it’s happening globally can you? Nor blame the long stewing problem in pensions that needed BOE intervention on Truss, its 100% happened under previous chancellors, like Sunak and their PMs.
‘IMF issued a stinging condemnation...” you mean of the budget? Overall it was just a £12B giveaway budget, it cut a top rate of tax, so yes, cutting top rates of tax and handing out money rather than clawing more in does sound like what IMF would typically whinge about, but are they always right to do do? Britain needed growth. It needed to send out growth making vibes. The truth of that tax Truss abolished was it only appeared in 2010 when Brown salted the earth for incoming Conservatives. And half of it Osborne had already slashed in 2012. For so many Conservatives to make a fuss about it to undermine Truss, ultimately resulted in a Labour Landslide and the Rise of reform.
“Mortgage rates increased by half virtually overnight, causing a lot of real hardship for many.” That happened Under Truss and lasting result of the Truss budget? Really? 🤣
Got any other evidence?
You're right that UK pension funds were particularly stressed by Truss' shenanigans due to the way they operate. But it's deeply irresponsible to ignore the actual setup you have. And that's the adjective I would use for Liz Truss. She was by far the most irresponsible prime minister we have had in living memory and absolutely deserved to be booted after 49 days.
Who. I mean who in their right mind involved in political comms puts out Starmer's final video and X tweet summarising his 'journey' to greatness literally five minutes before the world cup final kicks off?
Him and his half brother must be worth an insane amount of money. There is no event they won't belt out their catchphrases at (provided they are being paid the appropriate fee).
Who. I mean who in their right mind involved in political comms puts out Starmer's final video and X tweet summarising his 'journey' to greatness literally five minutes before the world cup final kicks off?
By the way, the Insight Team at the Sunday Times have really got Farage over a barrel.
Those donations alleged to be from Cottrell's Mother clearly aren't and the implication if they do come from nameless third parties is not just a slap on the wrist, but serious criminal charges where money laundering may only be the start of the rap sheet.
This is going to get explosive, and it seems that there is indeed still more to come...
Oh dear...how sad...never mind.
As it's Reform's finances, it could bring the whole ediface down.
Oh dear...how sad...never mind.
Agreed, though we should all be careful what we wish for.
The expenses scandal ended up not being confined to one party.
I wish for any party funding scandal to take in any parties whose funding is a scandal.
When you start wish casting that only people you don't like are corrupt - well, that how you get corruption.
Him and his half brother must be worth an insane amount of money. There is no event they won't belt out their catchphrases at (provided they are being paid the appropriate fee).
He used to turn up to WCW main events, first class fights, first class hotel rooms, a large fee, all for a few minutes to introduce the latest Hulk Hogan v Ric Flair match.
A lot of the wrestlers resented him for the easy coin and lavish travel arrangements
Maidstone & Malling Conservative MP Helen Grant says she will stand down at next election - first MP of any party in this parliament to announce their retirement.
Maidstone & Malling Conservative MP Helen Grant says she will stand down at next election - first MP of any party in this parliament to announce their retirement.
Who. I mean who in their right mind involved in political comms puts out Starmer's final video and X tweet summarising his 'journey' to greatness literally five minutes before the world cup final kicks off?
Comments
What have the main media political commentators and correspondents been consistently wrong about recently? The GE outcome? Starmer's demise? Burnham's rise?
I mean, they are not psychic but generally they get things right because all that's needed is common sense rather than a sixth sense.
You seem to forget the COVID era, the tide went out and they were exposed. Simple stats were too difficult for them. It was embarassing hearing the "data people" in the media get it wrong time and time again. There is something wrong when the Daily Mail are writing the best report on new COVID related academic papers.
The "randos" on the internet on here were miles ahead in analysis. Were on things like Brexit vote night as well.
Can we have a creator without another creator? If yes, then you admit creation does not need a creator. If no, it's turtles all the way down.
A Prime Minister is really a team. Margaret Thatcher was a massively more talented poltician and thinker than Liz Truss, but also look at her team. Airey Neave. William Whitelaw. Norman Tebbit. Who did Truss have? Seems to be her most trusted political confidant was Therese Coffey. And taking nothing away from her, but she was not Airey Neave.
Don't forget that when Truss left office, both gilt yields and polling levels gradually returned to the worst they'd been under her, and worse. Yes, she went about her plan like a bull in a china shop, but doing nothing wasn't an option either, and that became clear in the event.
Again
On the way back all the machines were off again, so we avoided a pointless wait there at least.
It's a shame as I love Portugal, but I'm not sure I can put up with hassle.
There was never any evidence to prove it. You have nothing at all to point to.
The myth came about when such a solid portion of Conservative MPs and party members who wanted Truss out, sided with opposition parties in talking up the idea Truss economic policies and ideological budget was crashing the economy.
But where was the observable, measurable, lingering damage, of something being visibly repaired, of a crashed economy? There was none. You have zero evidence to support your myth.
And as for Brexit, opinion on here was pretty evenly split, based on a lot of wishcasting and some fearcasting*. PB Leavers got it right of course, PB Remainers didn't, but there was no magic insight.
(* By which I mean predicting the thing we fear, like the occasional 'imminent WW3' predictions that pop up, based on 'oh shit this could happen' rather than any objective analysis.)
I sound like I am really down on Curran. I am not, in T20, destructive batter and the pick n mix stuff works really well, see Benny Howell, Narine, etc. He has played his way back in and become a much better player than when he was first selected.
As for Brexit, no, a load of us made a tonne of money because PB was miles ahead of the media. The great spreadsheet paid for a fantastic Christmas at Chez Urquhart. Before that Rod Crosby got it right 2-3 GE in a row and again made some of us very good money (shame about his other specialist subject). I spoke to him at length about mathematical modelling of election and he was way ahead of the curve at the time.
https://x.com/I_amMukhtar/status/2078862051808526611
But there was a Liz Truss financial calamity, contrary to your contention: Pension funds were forced into a fire sale of gilts, necessitating a £65bn emergency bond-buying program by the BoE. Mortgage rates increased by half virtually overnight, causing a lot of real hardship for many. GBP hit an all time low against the USD. The IMF issued a stinging condemnation...
Truss absolutely had to go but even so, her brief premiership left a legacy of higher borrowing costs for the UK.
Conditions are in place on Whitehall tomorrow (Monday, 20 July).
Anyone assembling near the Downing Street gates to observe events linked to the new Prime Minister must not use any amplified noise equipment and must stay within the shaded area. These conditions are in place between 10:30 – 13:30.
https://x.com/metpoliceuk/status/2078887136271507546
Also begs the question why they didn't do it when Starmer and Sunak made their announcements.
Being able to assemble a top notch team is skill 1 for being a PM.
@metpoliceuk
Conditions are in place on Whitehall tomorrow (Monday, 20 July).
Anyone assembling near the Downing Street gates to observe events linked to the new Prime Minister must not use any amplified noise equipment and must stay within the shaded area. These conditions are in place between 10:30 – 13:30.
https://x.com/metpoliceuk/status/2078887136271507546
Bray to be arrested tomorrow?
Curran could do a job. 4th change bowler, bats at 7 and a good thinker about the game.
And if not him, who? Brook seems to think he's playing hit and giggle ALL the time and is in danger of not getting to most of his prodigious talent. No one is calling for Ducket and Bethel is probably too callow.
PB not doing quite so well in the 2026 political predictions though - precisely no one predicted Burnham being PM by the year end and only 7.5% of us predicted he'd be an MP.
In fairness, though, it's very difficult to crash a modern economy in 38 days.
One can argue that the economy would have crashed had she remained in office. Alternatively one can argue that it was all a storm in a teacup and it would have righted itself, with or without the U-turns of her final days in office.
In the nature of things, we will never know.
I don't want to let Truss off the hook entirely, or even mostly. She may have known where she wanted to get to, but undoubtedly had little idea of how to get there, either politically or economically. But the idea that she led us unambiguously to disaster is just wrong.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gzv41kw3jo
"Don't forget, darling, we are all in showbusiness."
There's always been a tension between telling people what they need to know and presenting what they want to know. For a while, the BBC/ITV duopoly favoured people and programmes doing both. For a while.
It's a bit of a stretch (but a manageable one) to imagine Farage doing an energetic campaign in 2029. But as an application for being PM for a term until 2034?
Really?
Those donations alleged to be from Cottrell's Mother clearly aren't and the implication if they do come from nameless third parties is not just a slap on the wrist, but serious criminal charges where money laundering may only be the start of the rap sheet.
This is going to get explosive, and it seems that there is indeed still more to come...
You have supplied some information to try and support there was a “financial calamity directly caused by Liz Truss.”
I shall now succinctly dismantle your evidence.
“Pension funds were forced into a fire sale of gilts, necessitating a £65bn emergency bond-buying program by the BoE.” This happened. But its cause was actually misbehaviour by fund managers, encouraged by regulatory negligence of previous chancellors and Prime Ministers. The fund managers didn’t get away with the naughty way of doing things because you are correct “ GBP hit an all time low against the USD and Gilts hit all time highs” revealing those problems in pension management. But The GBP and gilt movements that smoked out problems in funds were result of strong dollar against just about every currency on earth, which you can’t simply link to Truss budget if it’s happening globally can you? Nor blame the long stewing problem in pensions that needed BOE intervention on Truss, its 100% happened under previous chancellors, like Sunak and their PMs.
‘IMF issued a stinging condemnation...” you mean of the budget? Overall it was just a £12B giveaway budget, it cut a top rate of tax, so yes, cutting top rates of tax and handing out money rather than clawing more in does sound like what IMF would typically whinge about, but are they always right to do do? Britain needed growth. It needed to send out growth making vibes. The truth of that tax Truss abolished was it only appeared in 2010 when Brown salted the earth for incoming Conservatives. And half of it Osborne had already slashed in 2012. For so many Conservatives to make a fuss about it to undermine Truss, ultimately resulted in a Labour Landslide and the Rise of reform.
“Mortgage rates increased by half virtually overnight, causing a lot of real hardship for many.” That happened Under Truss and lasting result of the Truss budget? Really? 🤣
Got any other evidence?
As it's Reform's finances, it could bring the whole ediface down.
Oh dear...how sad...never mind.
The expenses scandal ended up not being confined to one party.
For starters.
This forum was largely wrong about Boris becoming Tory leader and likewise for Burnham.
My suspicion is that profitable political betting generally has gotten tougher, the odds are closer to the truth and there is less edge to be had.
I remember making money in 2020 on Hilary winning popular vote because California hadn't yet been counted, no such easy opportunity in subsequent elections.
2-2 after extra time then penalties
I’m a subject matter expert who gets to write newspaper articles, and I can tell you from that experience that there’s a reason professional journalists usually do the job (because they’re better at it than me) and a reason subject matter experts don’t generally write for newspapers (because most of them are either worse at it, or more reluctant do do it, than I am).
I think turning off Bray's bloody speakers counts as a reset.
Mikey Smith
@mikeysmith
Fascinated to learn what the safety or security justification for this is
https://x.com/mikeysmith/status/2078895728361902405
==
Narrator: Everyone is f*cking sick of him ruining national events and speeches with his bloody hifi.
He's made his point. Now shut up.
Explainers for those interested:
https://www.chicagofed.org/publications/chicago-fed-letter/2023/480
https://www.jpmorgan.com/content/dam/jpm/cib/complex/content/securities-services/uk-gilt-crisis/JPMorgan-Lessons-Learned-from-UK-Gilt-Crisis.pdf
To be honest it sums it all up.
7.55pm...
Keir Starmer
@Keir_Starmer
The test of any Prime Minister is: do you leave your country in a better place than you found it?
I’m proud that the answer is yes.
https://x.com/Keir_Starmer/status/2078916610157326723
When you start wish casting that only people you don't like are corrupt - well, that how you get corruption.
A lot of the wrestlers resented him for the easy coin and lavish travel arrangements
Maidstone & Malling Conservative MP Helen Grant says she will stand down at next election - first MP of any party in this parliament to announce their retirement.
When was the last time we came to blows with Spain?*
(* not counting the Civil War (1936-39), as the UK govt. was officially neutral)
https://www.thenational.scot/news/national/uk-today/26292332.calls-argentina-disqualified-2026-world-cup/#:~:text=A petition hosted on a,favouritism towards Argentina and Messi.