UK General Discussion: Rishecession

[Cassius]

Apparently Kwarteng didn't want to cut the 45p rate this year but was told by Team Truss to stick it in the mini-budget anyway.

Hmmmmmm.

[Cassius]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/16/liz-truss-hasnt-saved-own-skin-sacking-kwasi-kwarteng

Today’s Andrew Rawnsley column is functionally a massive ‘OI OI’.

[Cassius]

Team Truss scraping the bottom of barrel by accusing those out to oust her of being ‘former public schoolboys who can’t get over being beaten by a woman’, before proceeding to name six ringleaders, of whom not one attended public school.

Can’t even sledge properly.

[Cassius]

Hitler levels of delusion.

[Cassius]

It’s funnily enough actually too early for Boris to return- has only been over a month since he actually lost office and he needs a bit more time to launder his reputation.

The weird thing will be watching Mordaunt or Sunak becoming PM- there will be a lot of write ups about how professional they and how good they are (Mordaunt is for some reason beloved by some Tories for rather indignant commons performances that are a tad self righteous) but equally they’ll be facing the same economic headwinds, the same rebellious party and the same declining state of the public realm.

Whilst all of these are true it would still be better to have a leader whose face doesn’t look like a loading screen before answering simple questions.

Mordaunt’s rise still baffles me though, given that she was apparently completely idle and useless in her ministerial roles in addition to having an ego the size of Gorbachev’s (without the accomplishments). Mind you, neither of those have recently been a barrier to elevation to high office within the Conservative party.

[Cassius]

Here they come with the excuses for bottling it (delaying the inevitable and prolonging the agony as with Johnson).

[Cassius]

Dan Hodges suggesting that Brady told Truss to sling her hook in their meeting earlier.

On the other hand, the meeting with the “One Nation” group appears to have gone smoothly. Arch creep Haremcock looking to worm his way back into power. I think a plausible outcome is that Truss is kept on as a puppet by the legacy Cameroon faction (CEO of this group being Jeremy Hunt) of the party as some sort of lobotomised meat puppet:

[Cassius]

Dan Hodges suggesting that Brady told Truss to sling her hook in their meeting earlier.

On the other hand, the meeting with the “One Nation” group appears to have gone smoothly. Arch creep Haremcock looking to worm his way back into power. I think a plausible outcome is that Truss is kept on as a puppet by the legacy Cameroon faction (CEO of this group being Jeremy Hunt) of the party as some sort of lobotomised meat puppet:

Nothing says legitimacy like shadow rulers!

I can’t think of an alternative explanation for why they would say that she should stay on, even if the idea is, to my way of thinking, insane. Something that should be born in mind is that the Cameroons weren’t very good at politics either.

[Cassius]

A large part of the parliamentary party seems to have a mental block on the idea of changing the PM twice within the space of one parliament (which, to be fair, hasn’t happened since… 1940). Obviously there are others jockeying for their favoured candidate (Sunak, Mordaunt, Wallace etc) to get the job, but no one seems to be an overwhelming front runner who could have a coronation. Then you have Hunt, who doesn’t appear to be interested in being PM anymore, but also occupies an awkward position as he doesn’t really have much of a relationship with any of the aforementioned replacements for Truss, so his position of Chancellor (a job he evidently does want), wouldn’t be secure if she was replaced. So we seem to be in limbo.

It’s not sustainable, in my view, if only because Truss is now so unpopular and just so bad at everything that one more airing of her to the general public could easily finish her off. I can see this week’s PMQ’s being the straw that breaks the camels back if she puts in another catastrophic performance (and, personally I’d think the odds are firmly in favour of that). If you have a PM that can’t fulfil the basic functions of PM’ing (doing PMQ’s, holding press conferences… setting policy direction) then eventually something has to give… surely.

Either that or the Tory MP’s calling her a good PM and saying that the party needs to rally round are just genuinely dim.

[Cassius]

The problem with the Tezza and Jezza rose tinted nostalgia is that people forget what happened when they were in government.

[Cassius]

Was she sacked or what? Not a good move in my opinion if so.

[Cassius]

So sacked over a technicality, will be putting the boot in from the outside.

Hunt as puppet master is not going to work.

[Cassius]

Oh - man. It’s not even a done deal.
https://mobile.twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1582764561840869376
Shapps might have the entire Truss premiership in the palm of his hand.

Of course Shapps is one of those she was briefing against furiously over the weekend, was a key Sunak backer and is not really a member of the Cameroon set.

The problem is that some people seem to think Hunt is some master strategist - literally Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor. There is in fact no evidence from his career to date to suggest that this is the case and I am very confident that his operation will unravel in the coming hours/days.

[Cassius]

There are rumors that Shapps may also be bringing three new ministers into the Home Office with him; Michael Green, Corinne Stockheath and Sebastian Fox.

For a minute there I did actually think these might be random Tory MP’s of whom I’d never heard.

[Cassius]

https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1582776253152518145

I almost wonder how many Tories would be okay with surrendering power at this point. They are pretty much assured of losing the next election, so you might as well start the timer to when they return to power now as opposed to starting the timer in 2024. There could also be some more moderate Conservatives that might see an election loss as an opportunity to reboot the party and that they should just get along with that process now.

Problem with that is that if you want to reboot the party you really need to, you know, have some MPs left standing after the election.

[Cassius]

[Cassius]

So how’s grown-up management by Jeremy Hunt, CEO going then?

[Cassius]

In honour of our new status as Wet Italy after last night’s shenanigans.

[Cassius]

I get the feeling that we're approaching the...

[Cassius]

It's official. She's resigning.

Don't forget this all started with Pippa Crerar unearthing Partygate.

Arguably it all started with Charles Moore’s boozy brunch with Jonners.

[Cassius]

For all the Italy comparisons, note that Truss’ tenure was considerably shorter than that of the average Italian PM.

[Cassius]

Sam Allardyce in as caretaker to avoid relegation?

He's a Labour man which would make that problematic. Maybe Lampard could be persuaded to leave Everton?

This is the perfect opportunity to put a stop to any more Andrew Strauss High Performance Reviews.

[Cassius]

2:15 on.

[Cassius]

Well - it could be worse. At least we’ve disavowed Trussonomics as a country. Some people want to give it another try…
https://mobile.twitter.com/WSJopinion/status/1582551879703302145

A massive unfunded energy subsidy is restrained spending, news to me!

Trussonomics is somewhere in between zombie-Reaganite voodoo economics and Peronism.

(key word being "zombie". Reaganomics can work very well when tax rates are high to begin with, like they were 40-50 years ago. It doesn't work when tax rates are low!)

As I have said repeatedly, she saw that one significant concession to public opinion (which is, lest we forget, *massively* hostile to right wing libertarianism) as a green light to go full Britannia Unchained everywhere else. This was never likely to work, even if the speed of its implosion still surprised.

I do hope you aren't doing the "*real* libertarianism has never been tried" schtick

Indeed, worth noting that in fact the measures on corporation tax and the National Insurance cut were actually the most costly parts of the budget. Not the energy measures. So if you're looking for something that was "not funded", it was the massive bung that she had proposed to give to the wealthiest.

Source for this? As far as I’ve read, all of the estimates for the energy price guarantee (in its initial form, as opposed to the truncated version announced by Hunt) had it costing more in the next year than all the tax cuts and cancelled tax rises put together. Not saying you’re wrong but would be interested to see the data.

[Cassius]

Those that know, know.

Why are you always like this?

What, correct?

No. See if you knew, you would know, but you don't know what you don't know. I know that you don't know, and I know that you know that I know.  You're not in the know, so you cannot know what is known, which is that you don't know what I know.

Know what I mean?

Truly an unknown unknown, I know.