Two questions to start with:
- Are the 1922 Committee's rules essentially plastic? - as seems to be the case
- Is there anyone in the parliamentary Conservative Party who could form a government right now? (OK, you might say: someone already has. Alright - anyone else?)
If there is such a person, there's a solution. Make Truss accept that her role as 'elected leader of the Party' is essentially a glorified Party Chairman position. She may continue to open garden parties and speak to an empty hall at Conference. Then, have the parliamentary party lock themselves into a room, anoint whomever it is, and get word to the King that he should invite this person to form a government, having the support of an absolute majority in the House. Oh dear, oh dear - back again, Ms Truss? What's that you say? Oh, very well.
PS: if the answer to 2 is 'nope', then there's no hope. Starmer it is.
ND
25 comments:
2. No.
The Tory party is like a bunch of ferrets fighting in a sack. You have the wets who are convinced they have to be BluLabour to win over the centre and the ERG who want to get back to something like Thatcherism (actually about as Left as Labour of the early 80s).
Be better if the party split into a Centre-Left (LimpDem/BluLabour) and Centre-Right party any be done with it.
Goldman Downgrades UK Growth Outlook After Government Tax U-Turn
Analysts at US bank lower their forecasts for BOE rate hikes
A ‘more significant recession’ now expected, analysts say
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-16/goldman-downgrades-uk-growth-outlook-after-government-tax-u-turn
At this stage lets just get Starmer in.
Tory party can take some time to attempt some introspection and self reflection and maybe a party worthy (and capable) of power may come through the ashes.
What Tory party? Come a general election,there will be nothing left.
The tory party has not been one for some years.
There is a minority of the mps and clearly a large number of party members who support truss and her policies.
I am not sure what proportion of the country would agree with the consequences of a truely low tax system.
I personally would prefer to live in a country where the sick are treated, the homeless are housed and those without work do not go hungry.
... and the main argument is on how good the treatment, the housing and the food should be and how much to pay for it.
If the Cons had shown any semblance of competence then we wouldn't be in such a mess in the first place.
'Cometh the hour, cometh the man'.
Well that man was Boris, and it turned out he was the blustering fool that most reckoned him to be. We always knew he wasn't the serious type, but some of us hoped that him and his intellect would rise to the occasion. Sadly the only thing that rose up was Princess Nut Nuts influence on the whole ship of state, which has led us up the creek, where we now sit, sans paddle.
As Doms twitter feed says rather coyly - "NB.this is our chance to plough the Tories into the earth with salt so they never recover & are REPLACED"
I have to say that I mirror his views.
The Tories have had their chance. If we had a proper opposition party, they would have been toast a long time ago. We need new parties that actually align with the wishes of the voters. The Conservatives are demonstrably no longer conservative, and Labour no longer represents the working (wo)man.
Would it be too much to ask of future Ministers, or Prime Ministers, that they don't actively hate their own electorate, and don't enact policies which do them harm?
UKIP reaching out to Reform and Reclaim today. And they want Farage involved too.
Preparing for a GE? Looks a lot like it.
Fascinating, just think back to Lizzy's selection. Cons Associations do not exist in isolation, you can be sure a lot of lobbying and arm twisting and persuasion went on to get Liz selected. By whom? The ERG et al. Liz is their creature.
Then they gave her a inexperienced eager knob-head for a Chancellor and some lightly warmed up Minford economics. The whole idea was radical - crash those old inefficient long tail companies, force the idle into work - for very little money and raise interest rates to squeeze the house market some more. All while Putin was playing energy games and the world headed into recession and a big bung for the gas bill.
Radical but half baked and idiotic. The markets saw through it all. But the ERG is still circling and their backers still hoping to chew on the carcase of GB. Ably assisted by NHS detractors - its the only thing that still works idiots!
So where now? An election, Labour gets in with a thin majority and the Plank has no better idea how to run things? Sort out the mess (sort of) then back with the Tories. Repeat the last 30 years. Or let the Tories stew in their own juice for a while, let Minford and the ERG exhaust themselves and us and collapse the economy. Then round about 2027 get Angela in as PM with massive nationalisation, seizure of Ducal and Royal lands and a love-fest with China. Maybe?
Yes. There are people who could form a Government in the Conservative Party but not a CONSERVATIVE government.
Effectively Conservatism has been banned.
£500bn unfunded Covid bill OK. £90bn unfunded energy cap OK. £45bn unfunded tax cuts.... all hell breaks loose.
The BofE is well political !
I was shocked to read that the difference between Corbyn taxation levels and present Tory taxation levels is a mere 1 % .
---------
Q: What caused this mini budget tax cutting measure by Truss ?
A: Inflation caused by an energy crisis.
Q: What caused the energy crisis ?
A: Our economic war with Putin. (So that Ukraine has the right to join the EU while we're not allowed to leave it.)
Starmer it is but looking at the Tory tax take we're not going to feel any worse off for it. If you care about Red Team vs Blue Team shit then a Putin win is going to make you feel a bit sore.
Psephology is my word for the day.
"£500bn unfunded Covid bill OK. £90bn unfunded energy cap OK. £45bn unfunded tax cuts.... all hell breaks loose. The BofE is well political !"
Exactly. The governor of the BoE now decides what government policy can happen and what can't. It was pretty obvious from Bailey's actions and words over the last 2 weeks he was aiming to torpedo Truss and Kwarteng's dash for growth, and he succeeded. He could have come out with the usual 'The BoE will do what ever is necessary to maintain financial stability' guff, instead he set a deadline of last Friday for his pension fund support, and just to make sure the markets knew what the score was told everyone a few days before: 'Fridays it boys, get it while its good, after that you're on your own'. That has to rank as one of the most irresponsible (and nakedly political) central bank governor speeches ever.
The rules can be bent, as necessary. But even if there was a candidate for PM that the parliamentary party could all get behind --- there isn't! --- it won't reduce the size of the defeat in the coming GE. Liz Truss has poisoned the well for a generation. May as well have the election sooner rather than later, and let Starmer own the problems.
DJK for next chancellor.
Don't worry you won't need much time off
I would hope the cons have worked out that it a good idea to not be in the room when the shit hits the fan. Let lab tidy it up.
Properly decide if you are centre-right or right-libertarian.
Truss' problem was she advertised herself Thatcherite, but acted Reaganite.
Which you can do if you're the USA, you can't if you're the UK.
Both the Treasury and BoE were not bad targets, the former locked into its own tunnel visioned view, the latter having been horribly slow to react to inflation.
Picking on the OBR was a front too far.
There was no sense in how to sell the tax changes - want to remove the 45p band? Move it to a 50p band at 250k instead. Want to reverse the corp tax? Set it to expire after 12 months time, not when businesses have already accommodated for it.
So, lower tax attitudes are done for a generation - remember this wasn't a low tax mini budget, it was near enough reverting to 12 months ago - because they were a couple of badly advised idiots.
In the context of a gaming meme, they screamed "Leroy Jenkins!" and ran into a battle they were not only ill prepared for, but didn't understand the terrain or all the forces involved.
So, Truss, first in rank, somewhere near the end of the queue in power.
andrew said: "DJK for next chancellor."
Thanks, I'm flattered. That particular poisoned chalice is not for me though. Time to let Labour try and sort out the economy. It goes without saying that there will be a lot of unpleasant baggage that comes with a Labour government, but it is just the penance we have to bear.
Hunt hasn't bothered tipp-exing out parts of the mini-budget, he's just poured it over from a height, like a Jackson Pollock painting.
Jackson Pollock. Could be rhyming slang for what the Tories have made of the last few weeks.
The IR35 reversal-reversal has given my vote to Labour for the first time ever, not because I like Labour, or Starmer, I just want to do my bit to kick the Tories so hard, even BLM will take the knee for them in sympathy.
"We need new parties that actually align with the wishes of the voters."
I'm afraid stopping vast numbers of people coming into the UK is racist.
Very fortunately for global capital, allowing them in raises property values AND reduces wages - supply and demand. It also lowers social solidarity, the kind of thing those nasty unions used to go in for.
So when there was such a party, the entire media (owned by who?) said they were racist, left wingers physically attacked their rallies and members, and when they actually got some MEPs, an MI5 mole leaked their entire membership list, leading to various pensioners getting their windows put in.
I suppose you could go back even further, to J.Enoch Powell speaking out and being sacked by Ted Heath. Of even further than that, to that same Powell as Health Minister recruiting nurses from the Caribbean.
"There is nothing more expensive than cheap labour"
Despite being an utterly dreadful government, IR35 rollback secured the Tories my vote at the next election.
But they've binned that off, citing a £2bn cost. I'm not so sure about that, because since IR35, I've seen a trend for offshoring work that would previously have definitely been done by someone in London, to the likes of Poland. My gut is that IR35 has cost the exchequer money, despite tax take from individuals rising.
So, I'm now definitely at the Peter Hitchens stage. The party has to die. If that takes 5 years of Starmer, fine. It's a price worth paying, if it comes with a price at all.
Jim said "Ably assisted by NHS detractors - its the only thing that still works idiots!"
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
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Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
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LMFAO - That's a top drawer comedic statement.
"I'm afraid stopping vast numbers of people coming into the UK is racist."
Not if they're Albanians, who are the same race as the English.
And unless you are a splitter, who divides a species into as many races as possible, so are the Syrians.
Don
"Ably assisted by NHS detractors - its the only thing that still works idiots!"
In what sense? They damned near killed my sister last week. Unless you think "works" includes ridding us of useless eaters.
proposition: have a PM in the Lords and tell the Commons that it's necessary because they, the backbenchers, are all entirely useless.
I think the pressing questions is: where is Truss?
Have the Parliamentary Party got her cling-filmed in some remote storage unit? Being water-boarded in Weston Super Mare?
She's not about, apparently for a very good reason we're told, at a guess she's had a total meltdown and she's going to step down for health reasons.
If that is the case, you have to feel some sympathy. She got her Big Moment to be PM, and it all went horribly wrong, horribly quickly.
I also feel sorry for Truss personally. But I would also like to see the Tory party brought to utter ruin and destruction. It should have happened decades ago, in hindsight. Go on Nigel, stand in all 650 seats. Finish them.
@ dearieme
Sorry to hear that your sister was almost killed by the wondrous NHS.
Wasn't in for a pregnancy was she? They specialise in killing 100s of mums & babies across many years and lots of different hospitals. The only lesson they learn from these tragedies appears to be how not to stop it happening again.
Latest in a series of NHS cock-ups in maternity:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63298087
And some of the previous:
https://www.leighday.co.uk/latest-updates/blog/2021-blogs/maternity-safety-scandals-across-the-nhs-have-any-lessons-been-learned/
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