[Politics] Liz Truss **RESIGNS 20/10/2022**

[The Clamp]

Merkel wasn't cruel. I don't think May was either. Perhaps cruelty is so expected of men and less so women that it's more noticeable.

Do you know, I totally forgot about May. Didn’t she have a hatred of foreigners? to the point of vans driving around telling them to **** off home?

 

[Super Steve Earle]

Miss Cathcart speaks.


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Good on Maria.

Shambles. She should either have thought through what she was doing with the higher rate, or you would like to assume that she did in which case she should have stuck to her guns.

Not great.

The positive is it shows they are listening, but hard to believe they didn't expect this backlash so one would assume they were ready to ride it. Clearly not!

How could she think through what she was doing. From her own mouth yesterday it was Kwasi's idea. Nothing to do with Prime Minister Truss.

 

[Audax]

It doesn't show that they're listening. It just shows that they're counting vote numbers. A humilating climb down now is better than a conference week of public slanging, followed by a humiliating loss in parliament. They tried threatening to withdraw the whip from those who didn't support them, but presumably realised that the numbers against were so substantial that they risked their parliamentary majority if they threw out all of them. The outcome is that they are a government already broken by their backbenchers. Its a relief to know that, without the Brexit jeopardy, the whole of the tory party is not in thrall to the band of extremist over-promoted fantasists who have been voted in by the membership. My guess is that nobody in the tory party will want to clean up their mess and that they will do a bit more sabre rattling and then time serve until they lose the next election, scuttling off to unearned six figure consultancies in the private sector.

Yup. We're right back where we were with Boris. Government is actually being run by the backbench, not by the PM / cabinet / ministers. Any new policy will only survive as long as the Tory backbench approves it. It is an utter embarrassment that we have a government that can be forced into so many u-turns on announced policy positions when they have such a large majority. It shows us very clearly that we don't have a unified party in charge - we're being governed by a fractured party, and there are multiple factions within the MP base they have that are large enough they can (threaten to) overturn the majority if they dislike something enough.

 

[Bakero]

I'm starting to think [MENTION=599]beorhthelm[/MENTION] may be right about Hanlon's Razor.

 

[Giraffe]

Listening to who, though? And are they genuinely "listening" or are they simply doing the bare minimum they think they need to do to save their backsides from being roasted by their own MPs?

Just *yesterday* Truss and Kwarteng were doubling down, adamant that they were going to stick to all of their announced plans. What's changed since then? It wasn't public opinion - they had plenty of poll results out on Friday telling them what the public thought. It wasn't the markets - they've had that information available for a full week, including a BoE intervention.

So - what's changed? What's changed is that yesterday they had big names in the Tory party standing up and making it clear that Truss and Kwarteng were not going to have an easy time of it forcing their changes through. What changed is the very real prospect of enough Tory MPs voting with Labour, SNP, LibDems, etc that they would be defeated in Parliament.

They're not listening. They're acting out of self interest.

To their own MPs who clearly realised it was a mistake politically. It really does make you wonder who was advising them though.

 

[rogersix]

You mean Teresa “Hostile Environment “ May?

apologies for my ignorance, hostile environment?

 

[A1X]

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The above coupled with today's news would all suggest to me this is very much a last minute decision before the proper speeches get underway at the Conference this week (think KamiKwasi is up today off the top of my head). That plus the polling has utterly spooked the conference (the big Labour leads continuing over the weekend in particular, it didn't die back).

 

[lawros left foot]

why bother to do that, just involve the professionals, the OBR?

It’s like my betting history, I used to bet on what I wanted to happen, not what in all probability would happen.

I don’t bet much anymore.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

apologies for my ignorance, hostile environment?

Theresa May was Home Secretary under David Cameron and introduced the hostile environment for 'foreigners'. The Windrush scandal happened under her watch but she managed to get Amber Rudd to take the can for that, while she became PM.

She had vans going round with placards like Go Home. The Home Office broke the Equalities Law with this policy.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...alities-law-with-hostile-environment-measures

People were being deported illegally. Sitting in Limbo was a tv drama based on a true story of one Jamaican man, Anthony Bryan. I cried throughout, it was so powerful.

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

Yup. We're right back where we were with Boris. Government is actually being run by the backbench, not by the PM / cabinet / ministers. Any new policy will only survive as long as the Tory backbench approves it. It is an utter embarrassment that we have a government that can be forced into so many u-turns on announced policy positions when they have such a large majority. It shows us very clearly that we don't have a unified party in charge - we're being governed by a fractured party, and there are multiple factions within the MP base they have that are large enough they can (threaten to) overturn the majority if they dislike something enough.

I think this is true. This faction seems to be being run by Gove and Sunak. In effect Truss is now running a minority government. The majority of MP's who didn't want her seem to be listening to someone else

 

[Randy McNob]

apologies for my ignorance, hostile environment?

The start of Tory party policy post Cameron, where they were a centre right party, decided to lurch far right by denigrating foreigners in order to make Brexit work

 

[Thunder Bolt]

How could she think through what she was doing. From her own mouth yesterday it was Kwasi's idea. Nothing to do with Prime Minister Truss.

They are now both blaming Chris Philp Treasury Secretary. The one who said if you can't afford your energy bills, get a better paid job.
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That U turn is welcome but cost the Bank of England £65billion.

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[Stato]

Yup. We're right back where we were with Boris. Government is actually being run by the backbench, not by the PM / cabinet / ministers. Any new policy will only survive as long as the Tory backbench approves it. It is an utter embarrassment that we have a government that can be forced into so many u-turns on announced policy positions when they have such a large majority. It shows us very clearly that we don't have a unified party in charge - we're being governed by a fractured party, and there are multiple factions within the MP base they have that are large enough they can (threaten to) overturn the majority if they dislike something enough.

Yes and the Labour Party has been suffering the same fractures. Party memberships vote for populist leaders who can sing to the choir, but are not adult enough to admit that, outside of the party, their views are in the minority. There is one potential solution and the Labour Conference voted for it last week. Introduce PR and the resulting coaltion governments could mean that the country will have to be run by those who can make comprimises with each other. It won't ever be perfect, but it won't be the loggerhead stagnation of the US Senate, which is where we are headed with the current system.

 

[nickbrighton]

My take on this is that the damage has been done,but not necessarily just in the markets and interest rates etc.

The real problem for the Tory party here is that the Truss government has shown its true colours and that genie is out of the bottle. Whether or not this policy is reversed people are now aware that at the first opportunity Truss chose to give massive tax cuts to the wealthy at the same time as increasing borrowing to a massive extent and was prepared to prioritise that over the resulting chaos

If she truly believed that cutting that tax rate would improve the economy in the medium to long term then she should have stuck with it. If she has decided it was wrong and wouldn't help it shows she is incompetent, if she believes it was right, but has abandoned it as it was going to cost her votes/Mps she has just proved she is putting herself above the well being of the nation. Whatever the scenario it proves she and her chancellor shouldn't be anywhere near being in charge of the economy

I can not see how the chancellor can continue given that as far as I can see every expert on the planet, including the Bank of England, IMF, major financial institutions etc came out and said it was totally the wrong thing to do.

As others have said, you get one chance to make a first impression, and she blew it.

 

[clapham_gull]

They are now both blaming Chris Philp Treasury Secretary. The one who said if you can't afford your energy bills, get a better paid job.

I think that was party chairman Jake Berry, not that it actually matters.

 

[JBizzle]

It'll be interesting to see if this U-Turn gives them the chance to reverse Johnson's commitment on benefits rising with inflation.

Truss has already outsourced (distanced herself from) this decision yesterday, saying that it's the decision of the Department of Work and Pensions to decide if the promise sticks or not... Heaven forbid she takes any responsibility at all.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

The start of Tory party policy post Cameron, where they were a centre right party, decided to lurch far right by denigrating foreigners in order to make Brexit work

It started in 2012 which was under Cameron's watch. The article I linked in my previous post 1669 states that. Theresa May was the instigator of it as Home Office minister.

 

[clapham_gull]

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[Easy 10]

So the Bank of England spunked £65bn of our money to stabilise the markets and prop up the £ - then a week later, Kwanker and the Bint change their minds. I mean christ.

I bet Sunak is absolutely laughing his tits off at this utter shitstorm.

 

[Giraffe]

If I was a conservative MP I would be fuming that the repeated lack of cohesion in whichever leader is leading the party since May. All over the place. I can only assume it's the advisers that are the problem. No single MP, cabinet minister or even PM can know everything, but their advisers should be doing better than this. Maybe it's a reflection of being in power for so long but yet having four different leaders in that time. I guess each time they bring in new advisers who have to get to know their role so mistakes like this happen. Must drive people mad though, and cannot be good for the country.

I'm gradually moving to the view that the best Government we had was the hung parliament one with Dave and Nick, but then of course that ended with DC walking away from the problem he created.

Another hung parliament with the Lib Dems acting as sensible brakes to Labour might not be a bad thing for 5 years.