UK General Discussion: Rishecession

[Earthling]

Yes, but a competent PM could slow the spread of the poison just enough to make the Tories' path back to power easier. There is a difference between 250 seats at a general and 300.

I don't know, but at least Liz Truss can claim some kind of mandate, having been elected by the party members. 
A new PM has no mandate what so ever. Not from the party and not from the country.

The economy will be bad for the next year or so, maybe even longer. That will be on the Tories.

For the moment I can not see them getting anything close to 250 seats, let alone 300.

[omar04]

https://twitter.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1581032339635044352

Collapse your government speed run

[LabourJersey]

Yes, but a competent PM could slow the spread of the poison just enough to make the Tories' path back to power easier. There is a difference between 250 seats at a general and 300.

Yeah I have to agree with that. Also, even though the Tories have done an awful lot of damage these past two years, there is still a long time between now and the latest general election. 2 years is a long time in politics and it's not completely out of the question that a competent PM could stop the bleeding (or at least position them in a place where it's very likely they can come back in 2029 or whenever the following GE happens).

[icc]

Yes, but a competent PM could slow the spread of the poison just enough to make the Tories' path back to power easier. There is a difference between 250 seats at a general and 300.

At the moment a recovery in the polls would get them nowhere near 250. Maybe 150. There is an odd cognitive dissonance at the moment where people are at once recognising the hole the Tories are in, but not at all realising the reality of what that would mean electorally under FPTP in a pretty unpartisan polity.

If there was an election tomorrow the Conservatives could quite credibly end up with 0 seats. Certainly there is a well above 50% chance they would come out behind both the Lib Dems and the SNP.

[jojoju1998]

Yes, but a competent PM could slow the spread of the poison just enough to make the Tories' path back to power easier. There is a difference between 250 seats at a general and 300.

At the moment a recovery in the polls would get them nowhere near 250. Maybe 150. There is an odd cognitive dissonance at the moment where people are at once recognising the hole the Tories are in, but not at all realising the reality of what that would mean electorally under FPTP in a pretty unpartisan polity.

If there was an election tomorrow the Conservatives could quite credibly end up with 0 seats. Certainly there is a well above 50% chance they would come out behind both the Lib Dems and the SNP.

So basically Liz Truss killed the Queen, the UK Economy, and her party.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Yes, but a competent PM could slow the spread of the poison just enough to make the Tories' path back to power easier. There is a difference between 250 seats at a general and 300.

At the moment a recovery in the polls would get them nowhere near 250. Maybe 150. There is an odd cognitive dissonance at the moment where people are at once recognising the hole the Tories are in, but not at all realising the reality of what that would mean electorally under FPTP in a pretty unpartisan polity.

If there was an election tomorrow the Conservatives could quite credibly end up with 0 seats. Certainly there is a well above 50% chance they would come out behind both the Lib Dems and the SNP.

So basically Liz Truss killed the Queen, the UK Economy, and her party.

I wonder if many people think she killed the Queen. Her ratings are truly something.

[Logical]

[soundchaser]

At what point is it reasonable to declare someone the worst PM in modern British history? Asking for a friend.

[DINGO Joe]

At what point is it reasonable to declare someone the worst PM in modern British history? Asking for a friend.

Well, it was probably reasonable about 10 days ago.  Now it's a virtual lock.  Since, I really couldn't name a PM between Churchill and Thatcher, I did a little googling about PM rankings and amusingly, the latest organization that periodically does an academic survey to rank Postwar PMs is--The University of Leeds.  Leeds of course being the town that Truss was so traumatized growing up in during the Thatcher-Major years and the University where her father (who in no way supports her being PM) is an emeritus professor.

[TheTide]

Wild or maybe not wild prediction of what (some of) the cabinet will be not that long from now:

PM: Sunak
Deputy PM and Foreign Secretary: Mourdant
Chancellor: Hunt
Home Secretary: Gove
Leader of the House: JRM (a job he likely enjoys and would keep the ERG on board to some extent)
Culture Secretary: Badenoch (again, keeping the right on board)
Health Secretary: Zahawi (I think he oversaw the vaccine rollout so why not)

[DINGO Joe]

https://twitter.com/ed_miliband/status/1580931307185401856?s=46&t=YHSGup5mOz...

Took a fair amount of restraint to hold off playing that card til now. 

[afleitch]

At what point is it reasonable to declare someone the worst PM in modern British history? Asking for a friend.

Well, it was probably reasonable about 10 days ago.  Now it's a virtual lock.  Since, I really couldn't name a PM between Churchill and Thatcher, I did a little googling about PM rankings and amusingly, the latest organization that periodically does an academic survey to rank Postwar PMs is--The University of Leeds.  Leeds of course being the town that Truss was so traumatized growing up in during the Thatcher-Major years and the University where her father (who in no way supports her being PM) is an emeritus professor.

There isn't one significant positive quality in an; 'oh she handled that well' way.

I can pick out dozens for PMs I despised. But nothing for her. The energy bill freeze was a bare minimum that would have under any circumstance.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

And she was resistant to doing that until the last possible moment.

[Torrain]

https://twitter.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1581032339635044352
Collapse your government speed run

Coffey’s quote in the article “we’re going to prove the flipping OBR wrong” makes me worry that some in the cabinet have learnt nothing from the chaos of the past week.

 Thinking you had a better grasp of the UK economy than *checks notes* employed government economists (with backgrounds in mathematics rather than classics) is how we got into this mess in the first place.

They have the democratic right to make policy, but ignoring every warning along the way (see Tom Scholar, Rishi Sunak, and every economist other than Minford) is just political malpractice.

[Torrain]

Hunt's first media round as chancellor is very on-brand. He's said all departments will be forced to make efficiency statements, and just repeated "all departments" when asked if Dept. of Health funding would be ring-fenced. Potentially quite a fight on his hand getting that past the Commons, especially given the current funding issues with the NHS, and the waiting time crisis.

He also implied that the UK would draw back from it's target to spend 3% of GDP on defence by the end of the decade - which Ben Wallace has previously briefed to the press is a red line for his resignation. Will be interesting to see who blinks first - given that losing either minister would likely start a resignation spiral that could see Truss out in days rather than weeks or months.

The FT has a good overview: https://www.ft.com/content/e4c1191e-b085-4929-87e8-ae8c4f1d33d9

Defence spending debate covered in the Telegraph live-blog: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/10/15/liz-truss-appoints-jeremy-hunt-new-chancellor-corporation-tax/

[politicallefty]

If there's one thing I've noticed about the Conservatives, it's that they're unappreciative backstabbers through and through. They really seem to be truly nasty people.

[JimJamUK]

Genuinely shocked it wasn’t the C-word given previous ‘accidental’ utterances.

https://twitter.com/jimwaterson/status/1581187861776257024?s=61&t=IP5Jovym4m...

[CumbrianLefty]

The butterfly effect from eating a bacon sandwich was really something wasn't it.

One wonders how sooner all of this could've come to an end if the guy who Red Ed told to run for Leader in 2015, one Sir Keith, had taken his advice.

A nice thought, but that is all it is. There are times *even now* when Starmer's relative lack of front line political experience is very noticeable, so there's no way he would have hacked it in 2015.

It does show that people recognised his potential from the off, though.

[Torrain]

The Times: Chemists to prescribe antibiotics under Coffey health plan

Please, make it stop.

Coffey's literally admitted today that she's handed over half-finished antibiotic prescriptions to family to treat colds. That's literally the worst, and most mis-informed thing you can do with antibiotics. It's almost impressively bad.

I'm all for giving pharmacists more power (to reduce pressure on GPs) - but antibiotics require clear diagnosis of a bacterial infection - and education to prevent their usage for viral infections (where they do precisely nothing). Having worked in a chemist during my undergrad, there are some very quick and imprecise decisions made at rush hours, and there are a concerning number of people badgering you for antibiotics, (which they don't know you can't give them) for their tickly throats etc.

Given the current antibiotic-resistant bacterial epidemic in India, a result of lax antibiotic prescription law over there, it's simply malpractise to repeat that mistake here.

[brucejoel99]

But anyway, they don't have a consensus choice waiting in the wings to save them, so this is all moot.

PM Sunak, Chancellor Hunt, Dep. PM/Foreign Sec. Mordaunt looking rather like a forming consensus at this rate…

Speaking of:

https://twitter.com/IsabelOakeshott/status/1581217402737393664

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There's an obvious flaw with that plan, and that's the need to ensure an unopposed return.

[CumbrianLefty]

One thing the Tories need to do is stop imagining that there is One Magic Trick that will solve all their problems - to a significant degree the current "British Crisis" *is* the Conservative Party.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Hunt's first media round as chancellor is very on-brand. He's said all departments will be forced to make efficiency statements, and just repeated "all departments" when asked if Dept. of Health funding would be ring-fenced. Potentially quite a fight on his hand getting that past the Commons, especially given the current funding issues with the NHS, and the waiting time crisis.

He also implied that the UK would draw back from it's target to spend 3% of GDP on defence by the end of the decade - which Ben Wallace has previously briefed to the press is a red line for his resignation. Will be interesting to see who blinks first - given that losing either minister would likely start a resignation spiral that could see Truss out in days rather than weeks or months.

The FT has a good overview: https://www.ft.com/content/e4c1191e-b085-4929-87e8-ae8c4f1d33d9

Defence spending debate covered in the Telegraph live-blog: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/10/15/liz-truss-appoints-jeremy-hunt-new-chancellor-corporation-tax/

Name a more iconic duo than Jeremy Hunt and barebacking the NHS. I'll wait.

[CumbrianLefty]

Even about a week ago, when things weren't *quite* as bad as they are now, one right wing pundit thought he could see one thing that might save the Tories - "if Putin launches a nuclear weapon".

That's basically where we are now, folks.

[Torrain]

There's an obvious flaw with that plan, and that's the need to ensure an unopposed return.

Isn't the easiest way for the grey-suited types to do that just to set an unreasonably high nomination threshold?

I'm not talking a majority of MPs (that would be way too inflammatory), but surely Brady is tempted to set it at either 100 MPs (max 3 possible candidates) or 150 MPs (max two candidates), which a Sunak-Mordaunt team should be able to clear (and potentially secure enough nominations to cut anyone else off from running...), unlike almost any other candidate.

I guess the risk for the party is that either Boris coralls the anti-Sunak vote, or a Braverman-type becomes the defacto candidate of the Right, with one just making the threshold, forcing a membership ballot.

It all goes back to the fact that its nigh-impossible to get 200, let alone 300 Tory MPs to agree on anything other than their opposition to a snap-election these days...