UK General Discussion: Rishecession

[YL]

Even more hilarious when you consider what her views on Europe actually were…

what were they?

I don't think we know.  There was a story in the Sun claiming she made a pro-Leave remark, but I think it's treated with a fair degree of scepticism given that she was generally pretty good at not letting on what she thought about things.

(For the same reason I don't think the "European flag" hat was significant either.)

[YL]

Government getting really hammered over fracking by Conservative MPs in Parliament.

The first intervention from Mark Menzies was extremely hostile especially for a new Government.

What an absolutely barmy idea but this is what happens if you let you let the IEA run the Government.

Now being reported they might use some way of completely by-passing any local opposition- lol.

Menzies on local TV tonight telling Rees-Mogg to frack in his own constituency:
https://twitter.com/RogerJ_01/status/1572985697224605700

[YL]

What happens if a Tory MP votes against budget or parts of it.  I've heard scrapping the additional rate is unpopular with some Tory MPs.  Probably not enough to stop it but if one voted it down, do they get booted out of party.

Almost certainly they get booted out, yes.

[YL]

Some conservation charities are really not happy with the Government
https://twitter.com/RSPBEngland/status/1573366815568580613

(NB the RSPB has over a million members.)

[YL]

Rishi Sunak's leadership prospects are greatly strengthened by Truss' policy platform being discredited, not just her political skills. He still has many liabilities so I'd say a Cabinet Minister is a better bet. Tory MPs should seriously look at having a coronation like in 2003, the membership can't be trusted with another vote and that process would further discredit the party. It is obviously pretty hard to see MPs being united enough to make that work though.

If I were a Tory MP <shudders> I'd be trying to push for a change in the rules to remove the membership vote, at least when the party is in power.  Even when not in power it gave them IDS.

[YL]

https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1575894055636160515?s=20&t=E-Yan0OF...

Would this constitute loss of supply or is this too minor an issue to meet that standard?

The Callaghan government was defeated on two amendments to its Finance Bill in May 1978. So there is precedent for it not being a confidence matter, or even a resigning matter for the Chancellor.

[YL]

So that's what's left of Truss and Kwarteng's authority gone, then.  Though the Commons defeat which was looking increasingly likely would have been even more humiliating.

[YL]

I don't think Truss had a choice.  It was either reverse it or get it voted down by parliament and risk a possible election that party would lose badly.

I don't think an election would have ensued: as I said the other day there is precedent for defeat on a Finance Bill amendment not being regarded as a confidence matter.  But the optics of a Government with a working majority of 79 [1] being defeated on something like that would be truly awful, and probably even worse than a U turn.

I think someone commented upthread on it being a mistake for Truss to only appoint loyalists to her Cabinet.  I think this affair makes that point well: there were several "big beasts" (by the standards of the modern Tory Party anyway; we're including Grant Shapps here...) who she seems to have made enemies of and who were among those threatening to rebel.

[1] I'm counting the four MPs elected as Tories but currently whipless with the Government here, but it doesn't make very much difference.

[YL]

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.

[YL]

💀

https://twitter.com/christopherhope/status/1576941908806418432

How could the parliamentary Tories appoint a PM though? Wouldn't have to totally reform the Party bylaws? Or is that easier than I'm thinking it is?

Currently, they can't, as the requirement that (at least) the top-2 candidates go through to a rank-&-file membership vote is a provision of the Tory constitution, which is hard af to amend (1/3rd of senior party activists & 1/3rd of MPs each hold a de-facto veto), so the only way rn for a leadership contest to not go through to the membership will be if it's uncontested.

The 1922 Committee were able to set a nomination threshold, though, so perhaps they just set it so high that they think exactly one candidate will be able to make it.

If the system were the same as in July, I fear that you know who would be favoured to make a comeback.  However, at the moment Sunak is second favourite (after Starmer) to be next PM with the bookies.

[YL]

The very funny thing is that the wheels keep falling off- Nadine Dorries calling for an election, Kwasi u-turning on his budget date again after u-turning and the cabinet in open revolt over the welfare cuts.

This is mental and would have been weird even for the last few months of Boris… I don’t think 1994-97 was this bad??

Kwarteng has pointed to the death of the Queen as the reason for why his budget was so bad. They're actively trying to implode aren't they?

Also:
https://twitter.com/BestForBritain/status/1577228767491395584

I think the word is "omnishambles".  Or is that not strong enough?

[YL]

This is a petty point. But Truss is making a big deal about how she was the first PM to go to a comprehensive school, and made it into big applause line.

As someone who grew up very near Gordon Brown, I can assure you that his alma mater, Kirkcaldy High School, is a mid-level performing state school, and definitely a comprehensive, not a grammar school, as there are none up here.

The Wikipedia article on the school (not, I suspect, the most reliable source) says it had entrance exams (whatever that meant) until 1970, and Brown himself was part of some strange fast stream experiment which he disliked.  So that's not entirely clear-cut.

May's school was a grammar when she started, and became a comprehensive while she was there.

Of course in most of the UK it was basically impossible to have attended a comprehensive in the modern sense from the start of secondary education if you were born before about 1958, which as far as UK PMs goes means either Truss or someone who went to Eton.  Previous PMs such as MacDonald, Lloyd George and Callaghan seem to have had something roughly equivalent to a comprehensive for their time, as well.

[YL]

There's a much simpler explanation. She is a Lib Dem, but she's not a sleeper agent, this is just what a lot of early 90s Lib Dems were like in terms of both ideology and competence.

The IEA's Mark Littlewood was o/c a senior LibDem apparatchik until 2009.

Is it known where Truss was on the Lib Dem spectrum in her Oxford days?  (Other than "mad"...)

[YL]

BTW West Dorset is a mistake on the Election Maps UNS projection from that "Blue Wall" poll: it got swapped with Wimbledon.  Totnes and Tunbridge Wells are real though.  (Well, as real as UNS projections based on polls in a weird selection of seats get.)

[YL]

Stephen Hammond (the MP for the ultra marginal Tory-Lib Dem seat of Wimbledon, not to be confused with Philip Hammond, May’s former Chancellor), has broken cover as the first Tory MP to openly call for Trussonomics to be scrapped:

Hammond is one of a handful of survivors from the 21 MPs who had the whip removed by Johnson in September 2019, so does have some history as a rebel.

[YL]

Is Boris Johnson likely to stay on as MP until election or possibly step down triggering a by-election?  His seat was already a marginal even before poll tanking and Labour would almost certainly pick it up so wondering if will stay on.

I think he'd probably have already quit if that was his plan, and of course there are suggestions that he's hoping to make a comeback as PM.  I suppose there's always a chance that some job offer might tempt him out, though, and there's also still the possibility of a recall petition.

There was a rumour that he was going to try to move seats by standing in the Mid Bedfordshire by-election caused by Nadine Dorries's rumoured move to the Lords.  But that would always have been a bizarre and risky thing to do, and on current polling it would just be a question of which of Labour and the Lib Dems would take the seat.

[YL]

On a lighter note, a former Deputy Prime Minister has been accused of taking bribes from OnlyFans.

I've had some embarrassing MPs, haven't I?

[YL]

The Times is reporting discussions of a Sunak/Mordaunt “joint ticket” to replace Truss.

The Tories have actually gained a seat in a council by-election tonight, in Waltham Abbey, Essex, but it was a very odd by-election where the only other candidate was the Green ex-councillor whose disqualification for non-attendance caused the by-election.

[YL]

The Times is reporting discussions of a Sunak/Mordaunt “joint ticket” to replace Truss.

The Tories have actually gained a seat in a council by-election tonight, in Waltham Abbey, Essex, but it was a very odd by-election where the only other candidate was the Green ex-councillor whose disqualification for non-attendance caused the by-election.

They've gained another one in Leicester East, which is even odder because it's Leicester East.

Well, yes: it appears that the Labour candidate (who came third, with the Greens surging past them into second) was an open supporter of the BJP.  If I didn’t already have the impression that Leicester East CLP was a complete basket case and that Claudia Webbe’s sentence being downgraded below the recall threshold avoided a very awkward by-election, I do now.

[YL]

Bus drivers in Staines should watch out in case anybody attempts to throw someone under one of their vehicles today.

[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.

[YL]

No.3 over the top: Jamie Wallis - full letter sent to Truss can be found here.

It’s not exactly the most impressive collection of Tory MPs going public so far, is it?

[YL]

Chris Bryant claimed that MPs were manhandled into the No lobby.

[YL]

https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1583073322845163520

44 days, like Brian Clough at Leeds in 1974.

[YL]

New thread for the leadership election