UK General Discussion: Rishecession

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

In light of recent events...

[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’.

[TheTide]

Bingo card tip for everyone: Look out for the phrases "Graham Brady", "Liz Truss" and "Wise Counsel" in the same line over the next 24-48 hours.

[CumbrianLefty]

Halfon is basically right, that's the thing. The "libertarian right" claque have always been big on the "shock doctrine" idea (ie make your outrageous actions a fait accompli before opposition has had the chance to properly organise) and they thought the concession over energy bills gave them a "carte blanche" to do this. Yes it has catastrophically backfired, but let's not lose sight of the plan.

[YL]

I suppose it's excessively optimistic to hope that this whole debacle means we might not hear so much from the "Tufton Street" think tanks for some time.

[CumbrianLefty]

I suppose it's excessively optimistic to hope that this whole debacle means we might not hear so much from the "Tufton Street" think tanks for some time.

In particular, the supposedly "left-liberal" BBC giving them vast amounts of free (and usually totally uncritical) publicity. Ex-employees have acknowledged this is a problem.

[Torrain]

Intervention from the Sunday Times:
The PM must go. Sunak has to step up — then call an election

Liz Truss is barely still in office and certainly not in power. It has taken less than 40 days for her radical tax-cutting agenda to unravel, plunging the economy into crisis and toppling her chancellor. Truss has wrecked the Conservative Party’s reputation for fiscal competence and humiliated Britain on the international stage. Senior Tories must now act in the national interest and remove her from Downing Street as quickly as possible.

In these exceptional circumstances the 1922 Committee of backbench MPs must approach Truss and demand her resignation, with the threat that it will change the rules if she refuses. Her successor must then be crowned unopposed rather than subjected to another lengthy leadership election.

The one person who could limit the damage to the UK’s credibility as Truss’s successor is Rishi Sunak. The former chancellor correctly warned during the leadership hustings about the dangers of tipping unfunded tax cuts onto the blaze of inflation.

After the immediate crisis has passed, the Tories must call an election. Britain cannot tolerate a further two years of instability, and it would be more strategically astute for the Conservatives to let Labour confront the economic challenges of the next few years if they are to stand a chance of returning to power in the near future.

As things stand, the party should expect to be punished severely when the next election comes, whether that is in six weeks or six months. The Tories look like a government that has lost all sense of discipline and purpose.The economic situation is serious but recoverable. The political outlook for the Tories is grim. Only by moving decisively can they hope to salvage either.

[MR DARK BRANDON]

Personally, I don’t support calls to remove her as PM. I want truss to stay so she can lose to Keir Starmer

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Personally, I don’t support calls to remove her as PM. I want truss to stay so she can lose to Keir Starmer

I want her to beat Canning for shortest-serving PM ever. If there’s a GE called soon enough we can get both!

[Torrain]

Personally, I don’t support calls to remove her as PM. I want truss to stay so she can lose to Keir Starmer

It's not really feasible that Truss sticks around, the party is too determined to survive to do that.

But the Times editorial (from the paper's senior writers, no less) is a bit of a watershed. The Times papers tend to endorse the Tories, only backing Labour in 1945 (which was a unique election), and Blair's second and third terms (2001, 2005), where it was clear Labour was going to win convincingly, and most papers were vying for influence.

It suggests Murdoch is considering cutting the Tories lose, like he did in the run up to 1997, and letting his papers wash their hands of this government to save what remains of their influence and readership figures. And without a sympathetic press, things could get rather worse for the Tories - especially during this winter.

The Sunday Times line is still basically, "let Labour take control so they get the blame for this winter", but that's willfully ignorant of the fact that once a fresh party is in, it's hard to dislodge them, and they gleefully spend their first term blaming the last government for their troubles.

[Torrain]

https://twitter.com/HugoGye/status/1581628814593241088

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Well that would be a bit gamble from Wallace.

[Blair]

I see we’re entering the Australia pol tradition of having several parliamentarians whose only function is to tell journalists how important and good they are at deposing leaders…

[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.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

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.

Meanwhile she's just replaced a Chancellor who went to Eton with one who went to Charterhouse!

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Are the ‘anonymous Tory MPs’ just Boris?

[Torrain]

Side note on Crispin Blunt (who’s the first MP to openly call for Truss’ resignation): wasn’t he also the first MP to call for IDS to go in 2003?

[brucejoel99]

https://twitter.com/peston/status/1581641970203906048

[Pouring Rain and Blairing Music]

Bingo card tip for everyone: Look out for the phrases "Graham Brady", "Liz Truss" and "Wise Counsel" in the same line over the next 24-48 hours.

I think it’s just a matter of time before the men in gray suits tell her that she looks tired.

[Blair]

Still remarkable that in a line up of ex PMs Boris Johnson will not be the most disgraced and mocked out  of all of them.

[Mike88]

Seriously, if Truss is already a joke, this whole Tory Mexican soap opera is even more ridiculous. Starting a whole new leadership race, or something similar, is just another nail in their coffin in terms of credibility and seriousness.

With the current state of things, the only way forward is a snap election, with all the consequences it will have to the Conservatives.

[DINGO Joe]

Nobody gives a quote like "anonymous Tory MP" does.

https://twitter.com/MrMichaelSpicer/status/1581028189979041792

OK, technically this is a parody, but at this point........

[MaxQue]

Are the ‘anonymous Tory MPs’ just Boris?

Rumours are that he is quite happy with making speeches in USA at the moment (they pay really well).

[Torrain]

Shipman's weekly column has some interesting tid-bits.

This bit of melodrama from someone in No.10 is quite something:

A Downing Street source said: “The people who plotted against one PM are now trying to get rid of another. They do not care about our economic prosperity or the markets or the situation in Ukraine. They know who they are. The world should know who they are: Julian Smith, Gavin Williamson, Simon Hoare, Mel Stride. This is a vendetta-driven plot to re-run the leadership election because they don’t like the fact that they lost to a woman. It’s a public-school takedown. They don’t care about anything except their own careers. It is time the plotters thought about who they work for: it is the British people.”

Team Truss have some wild ideas about ways to how to steady the ship:

Truss and her aides had discussed bringing George Osborne back as a “break glass in case of emergency” candidate, an echo of Gordon Brown bringing Peter Mandelson into his cabinet. Sources say Truss contemplated giving Osborne the job “for about a second” before dismissing the idea.
But asked how she would have found him a parliamentary seat, she replied: “We could have created a vacancy in central Devon” — (Mel) Stride’s seat since 2010.

And Shipman pours cold water on the Sunak-Mordaunt ticket:

The plan seems to be a non-starter, however, not least because neither Sunak nor Mordaunt is prepared to defer to the other. “Penny is busy meeting lots of MPs and thinks she can do the job,” a former cabinet minister said.

[Cassius]

Hitler levels of delusion.