It's all falling apart alarmingly fast for Boris Johnson across the water. How long you reckon he has left as British Prime Minister? Hours surely?
How many parties are they talking about now? I've lost count.
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Packrat
Monopoli
Was the Brexit vote the start of all the mess?
At a time like this, it would be easy to say, "rub it up 'em, they brought all this on themselves", but there are such strong links between their economy and ours. We sell a lot of stuff to them, a lot of British visit ireland amd spend money here, so if they get into real trouble, we will feel pain too.
How did they balls it up so much in a matter of days?
Simple: back of a beermat calculated neo-Thatcherite dogma.
Paying the price now, just as they did back then.
The year is flying, only 4 more PM's till Xmas.
The PM may change, but the childish posters stay the same.
Our neighbours seem to have gotten themselves in to a total mess.
Their recent budget which included a range of un-costed tax cuts for the rich has sparked a sell-off of British assets of all kinds.
There are two worrying signs in particular - the fall in the value of sterling and the rise is the interest rates the UK has to pay to borrow money in recent days. Today they pay more than Greece or Italy for every £ they borrow which tells you all you need to know about how far the country's credibility has crashed under the Tories. Nobody believes them.
They seem to be plunging in to a self fulfilling debt crisis and the analysis is this could escalate very, very quickly.
Now the Bank of England is going to try and manage the situation with savage rate rises which will put a lot of mortgage payers at risk and call in to question the balance sheets of the banks too.
Looks like a perfect storm.
When she goes can we change to "Liz Truss is imported cheese on toast" 🤭
because...
Google Liz Truss pork Markets speech for context.
Why? FFS.
Pork markets.
THAT. IS. A. DISGRACE.
Everyone's book is different the UK is one of the world's biggest economies so will have one of the bigger figures but it's all relative to the rest of the economy.
Yes, and there is also this: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/sep/14/kwasi-kwarteng-sacking-tom-scholar-marks-shift-away-from-impartial-advice
Sacking well-regarded Treasury officials is almost as bad as the Trump show.
what I am hearing as well, is that Kwarteng and Truss are yet to build up any sort of confidence with the markets as well, so at a time when currency markets in general are pretty much living on their nerves, the last thing they want is some newbie coming along and playing billy big bollocks with a major currency.
It may be that the numbers will add up and it all makes sense, but so far no workings have been shared and he simply does not have the gravitas in the market to inspire any confidence.
I wonder whether truss is even beginning to be concerned about all of this, or whether she is so invested in her infallibility that it hasn’t occurred to her that she perhaps should be.
I've no idea what the wording of the rules are, but going by this she is immune... "although she could not be removed under the current leadership rules for another 12 months" and "They added because Truss is immune from a no confidence vote until September 2023, she was certain to lead the party into the next election"
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/sep/26/kwasi-kwarteng-refuses-to-comment-as-pound-hits-all-time-low-against-dollar
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn02815/
In 2021, the UK’s exports of goods and services totalled £625 billion and imports totalled £654 billion. The EU accounted for 42% of UK exports of goods and services and 45% of imports in 2021.
The UK generally imports more than it exports meaning that it runs a trade deficit. A deficit of £156 billion on trade in goods was offset by a surplus of £127 billion on trade in services in 2021. The overall trade deficit was £29 billion in 2021.
The UK had a trade deficit with the EU of £32 billion in 2021 and a trade surplus of £3 billion with non-EU countries.
The trade deficit with all countries was £28.3 billion in the three months to July 2022 compared with a £30.7 billion deficit in the previous three months. Exports increased by 5% in cash terms over this period while imports increased by 3.1%.
Kwarteng's budget was allegedly to promote growth, largely by cutting taxes. Of course this gives a boost to GDP, and thus "growth" in a sense. But real growth is all about a sustained increase in the trend GDP growth rate, not some sort of short-run "sugar-rush" doe to tax cuts.
What makes it even worse is that there might be a case for tax cuts if the economy were in recession. But it's not - unemployment is low and employers have been crying out for workers. In these circumstances the "sugar-rusk" will be largely more inflation. And, I nearly forgot, there is already an inflation crisis.
If you want growth you need sustained investment in public infrastructure, private business, education and training, and also reform of planning and competition laws.
The economic incompetence is truly staggering. I would have failed any student who wrote an essay advocating anything as barmy.
Don't think it's at all clear how the rules work for a new PM.
She hasn't faced a VONC as PM so perhaps she's eligible despite the fact that there has been one already this year.
They can't under the current rules, but those those rules could be changed. Threatening to change them was enough to get rid May.
services would also include things like the Premier League, British TV programmes, Sam Smith's latest single....
that isn't my point though. you said the UK does not export much, but clearly it exports an awful lot.
it is a net importer of goods, but not services.
but that isn't what I was saying though. Woody said the UK does not export much, but even if you just look at manufactured goods, it exports over $400Bn a year, which is a lot in anyone's books.
About half and half. Some of the figures look a bit dated though.
I thought that party rules meant they couldn’t have a tilt at her for a year?
Current, and future. No matter what happens, after she's PM she'll be on various corporate boards and think tanks and raking in money for herself for no work, being too stupid to actually provide value to these organizations. Her children likely won't have to look hard for jobs, either and probably grandchildren. Definitely pulling the brass ring for being an artful liar and prevaricator.
No different than the rest of them, tbf. BoJo might spaff out an article once in awhile to keep his name in the press.
you can’t look at it like that.
1) goods are the important component of that and the trade deficit in goods in 2021 was around $150bn.
2) services make up around 30% (if I recall correctly) of exports and these are relatively currency proof. A weaker pound will make relatively less difference than for goods. This would include things like the fees that a foreign company will pay to be listed on the London stock exchange, or fees for an international bank to access an exchange or trading platform in London.
Everyone bashes investment banks, but it’s good job that London exists because the trade surplus in services that it provides offsets some (by no means all) of the goods deficit. Otherwise the UK would be royally screwed
She appointed her own advisors. I honestly think truss main interest is the expense account at her disposal. She has a strong track record of absolute profligacy in this regard
It's still a net importer especially of goods which are what's important in this situation.
For instance the UK imports 2/3rds of its cheese 😂
What's the proportion of Goods to Services?
Nate
the UK is the world's fifth largest exporter of goods and services,=at around $770Bn in 2020.
that's a lot of exports.
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