UK General Discussion: Rishecession

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Guessing the Tory conference will be make or break for Truss-Kwarteng. But unless she absolutely bullheadedly refuses to reverse (entirely possible with her Thatcher cosplay personality) I think rebels would be satisfied with dumping Kwarteng and doing a U-turn on the mini budget. 3 PMs in a year would be a bit much.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Truss's cabinet is full of the overambitious grifter clowns too, so they'd probably begin to jump ship at some point within the next few weeks if this continues.

Many of these people wouldn’t get in another leader’s cabinet so not much point jumping ship (though that was said about Boris’ cabinet as well…).

Truss received the support of only 113 Conservative MPs in the leadership contest and was the first choice of 50 of them in the first ballot. Her support base has been narrow from the start.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Worth noting this is very much the first proper political view normal people have had of Truss- she was a complete unknown among the public and she will be known for her fleeting appearance around the demise of HM and then for crashing the economy because she tried to do tax cuts for the ultra rich.

This last point was toxic- people knew she was helping bankers and cutting taxes for the rich and then they saw it destroy the economy.

It has been a disaster and shows why Boris never bought into this stupid ‘Singapore on the Thames’.

Her only way imho to turn around is to sack KK and appoint Coffey as Chancellor.

Agree with all of this. The really damaging thing for Truss is how bad a first impression the public have got from her.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

One final point. While financial bills and King’s Speeches are defacto confidence motions, any bill can be turned into an official confidence motion, as a nuclear option to get it passed. John Major famously turned the Maastricht Treaty bill into a confidence motion to force his MPs to vote for it. If Truss bundled the measures into a single bill, with a confidence rider added, she would get enough votes to pass it by default (see Xahar’s comment about turkeys voting for Christmas), but sacrifice a ton of political capital, and the final shreds of political goodwill left.

Though it's worth noting that a confidence motion failing brings down the government, but doesn't necessarily precipitate an election, if an alternate government that does command the confidence of the House could be formed. When the parliamentary constituency decides that enough is enough, if Truss tries to fight it then it's one of the less likely routes by which she could be dispatched (the more likely one being via the 1922.)

How would this work though in forming a new government? Truss would still be leader of the party that constitutes a majority in the Commons. So unless I'm mistaken the only way to avoid an election and form an alternate government would be 1) the Conservative parliamentary party deposes Truss and appoints a new leader within days - plainly impossible, or 2) enough Conservative MPs resign the whip to give the opposition a majority - never happening in a million years.

Of course there's almost zero chance the budget is voted down anyway. Both the government and any rebels will do everything to avoid that.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Curious- why do people think that the poll collapse has been so large?

Bernard castle, the 2008 financial crash and other such events didn’t cause such a huge and sudden shift- is it the 45p/bankers bonus angle? The impact on pensions/mortgage rates?

I think there's a reasonably significant section of the electorate whose default position is that the Tories are not very likeable but that they are good at running the economy.  Black Wednesday in 1992 damaged the Tories' standing a lot with these people, and I suspect that's part of it again.

Truss also seems to be a remarkably poor media performer.

Yeah this. The Conservative Party brand is "bastards who look out for their rich mates, but are competent to keep the economy ticking over." The mini budget was a double whammy that played into the former and cut against the latter. And the main worry swing voters have about Labour is that they'd spend too much and wreck the economy - if it looks like a Conservative government is doing that then suddenly the opposition aren't as scary.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Seems like Truss will need to dump Kwarteng to save herself, but if she does it's shredding her agenda anyway.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Getting a bad feeling about the next few days...

The BofE is telling the government they're on their own. It's ensured liquidity in the banks to avoid contagion if pension funds fail and, now that's done, isn't going to put its credibility at risk by further propping up bad fiscal policy. Crunch time is coming for Trussonomics.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Ironically the Bank has u-turned.

They're apparently assuring markets off the record but it's a game of chicken between the BofE trying to avoid fiscal dominance and the government. If they intervene again it will be the minimum necessary to avoid market failure but they will be loath to shield the govt's policy.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Seems like Truss will need to dump Kwarteng to save herself, but if she does it's shredding her agenda anyway.

Well it looks like she's done it out of desperation, but I don't see what the point is in her premiership now.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Yeah Truss is gone within days or even hours. No coming back from this level of parliamentary management.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Guarantee this takes a big cut into Labour at the next GE.

Labour is favored but I’d say around 340-350 seats. Nowhere near the landslides

Oh no, not 340-350 seats! I think everyone in Labour would bite your hand off for a guaranteed majority of 30+ right now.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Issue polling in general is highly unreliable because a) voters are hazy on policy matters so when you ask them about policy X a large chunk will say "sure whatever, that sounds nice" (i.e. acquiescence bias), and b) most issue polling is done by advocacy groups trying to get media attention and convince politicians to support their pet issue, so have little incentive to test rigorously.

I think Labour's core mistake in 2019 was failing to understand this: let's chuck free broadband into the manifesto because it does well in abstract issue polling, not thinking how badly it could come across under scrutiny in the heat of an election campaign.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

If I was the Conservatives I would honestly call an election for October and give up.

There cannot be much joy to be had over the next 12 months especially when it’s clear they don’t actually want to do any last minute changes (see New Labour passing the biggest legislative achievement, the Equality Act 2010) and they just seem rather well clapped out.

When people argue this is what the govt should do I always think of this story:

The story is told of a man who was caught stealing in a far-off kingdom.  As he was brought before the king, he was informed that the penalty for stealing is death.  Despite the stress of the inevitable, the man seemed relatively calm.  He knew that the king had a beloved, prized horse that was treated like a member of the family.  And the thief planned on playing a hunch.

When the man was brought before the king to be judged and sent to his execution, the thief asked if he could say a few words.  The king agreed.

“Your majesty, I know you have a wonderful horse.  If you will give me one year to work with him, I will teach your horse to talk.  If I am successful, you will spare my life.”  The king thought over the man’s offer for a moment and agreed.

On the way out of the king’s chamber, one of the man’s friends said, “Are you crazy?  You can’t teach the horse to talk!  You’ll be dead in a year.”  To which the temporarily reprieved man replied, “You may be right.  But you know what?  A lot can happen in a year.  I may die of natural causes, the king may die, or …….the horse may talk.”

Why call an election now which you're certain to lose when in the space of 12 months anything could happen?

[Statilius the Epicurean]

No comment

https://twitter.com/staylorish/status/1783863816045937078

[Statilius the Epicurean]

It remains astonishing how badly Humza played an admittedly not great hand.

I think you have to say Yousaf was given a hospital pass by Sturgeon. What did him in was the unreliability of the Greens as coalition partners, an agreement he inherited from her. Yes Humza did seem to suffer from foot-in-mouth disease, but what was important for his ministry was the long term strategic problems the SNP faced, that couldn't be solved by the best tactician in the world.

From one perspective the Greens ousting their ally First Minister in a fit of pique over some impossible policy demands and handing the Scottish government over to the SNP right is insane, but they seem to be calculating that by undermining the SNP left they can seize the progressive indy mantle and reap the electoral benefits. And the issue that kept the Greens and SNP together, independence, appears foreclosed for the foreseeable anyway.