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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The UK since 2016 has been like a post-modern experiment where they pick the craziest thing they can do, then watch the results with horror/amusement. And when you think they can't go any further, they go and outdo themselves. It's almost past Trump-bizarro-world at this stage, the constant implosions and self-flagellation.
Sam Coates talking about an inquiry in to this. The first thing kwasi kwarteng did was fire Tom Scholar Secretary to the Treasury of United Kingdom . He said there will be those who warned them to not go ahead with this but the message sent to them after toms firing was we don’t want to hear it. A summary of his words.
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The firing of Scholar , in light of recent developments does increasingly look like it was specifically intended to remove a respected voice that would have spoken up against the actions in the mini-budget.
The Tories have been methodically replacing anyone with knowledge,experience or the ability for independent thought throughout their party following Brexit so it's hardly surprising that they are now doing the same among the professional civil service ranks as well.
The only thing that is valued it seems is blind loyalty and supine servility.
Sky political correspondent Ali Fortescue is in Westminster and has been hearing more from the backbenchers of the Conservative Party.
One MP from a northern constituency - and a former minister - said: "The party has been possessed by some sort of evangelical zeal.
"It defies all scientific and economic logic, it is utterly humiliating the UK's central bank has had to step in.
"They knew this would happen, and reports the PM didn't want to intervene confirms everything I and colleagues feared about her not being fit for the job. How they are going to explain this to people whose mortgage payments could go up by hundreds of pounds?"
Another backbencher said: "I'm shell shocked".
A second senior backbench MP said: "I thought Boris's cabinet was the worst in history, this one's just beaten it. The argument on growth is sensible, but they need to explain it more robustly.
"The government needs to be far more open. They need to get a grip and explain how they are going to grip this because frankly, I don't understand some of it."
And another backbench MP said: "I think Kwasi Kwarteng is going to have to clarify the position very quickly indeed. He didn't immediately ease any of my concerns in yesterday's call.
"I'm waiting for a policy statement, my two big concerns are mortgage interest rates and business interest rates.
"Constituents are rightly worried."
The closest to a defence came from a senior backbencher, who said: "Colleagues don't understand economics, we need to hold our nerve."
Well the Tory playbook for the last few years has been to seek refuge in, using David McWilliams' phrase, "Brexiternity". You start banging the brinkmanship drum about the NI Protocol, create a narrative of 'with us or against us' — whereby those against us are Brussels lackeys who are belittling Britain — and you somehow get people to buy into the narrative that this current fiasco is all part of the neverending story of plucky Britain weathering the onslaught of foreign enemies and if we all just Believe in Britain more we will overcome. Whatever the problem: (i) identify Europe and the traitors within as the enemy; (ii) promote us and them mentality; (iii) bask in the support of those who will always forego reason in favour of Eurobashing. Establishing the relevance of this to the current problem is unfortunately not something which has appeared to be a pre-requisite to the successful deployment of this playbook over the past number of years.
The problem here of course is that Labour have proven themselves, so far, incapable of unseating that narrative.
Doesn't that just wholly encapsulate the Tory mindset right now?
"You're just not clever enough to understand the master plan , now just sit there and be quiet and trust your betters"
Their arrogance is staggering and utterly unsupported by reality.
Rumours abound that Rishi Sunak, David Davis, Sajid Javid will all be missing from next week's Tory conference.
Just wondering, would a few hundred thousand protestors showing up and making enough noise that the conventioneers can't hear themselves think, make a difference?
Lucky for the Tories they banned unauthorized protest.
I'de say they are regretting holding the conference in a well connected working class city of 4 m people though. The numbers are certainly there for a protest.
Not at all - They'd blame it on the Unions etc. and claim that the "hard working Brits" are fully behind them..
It’s almost like Brexit was a….. bad idea.
The BoE said a couple of days ago they are not going to act till November, could that be brought forward?
2 million households in the UK are on variable rate mortgages, I wonder how much extra a month a 1% increase in interest would cost a mortgage holder on a £300k mortgage. A 1% increase would seem at the lower end of what the Bank of England would likely implement to stabilise the pound.
There are also a similar number of fixed rate mortgages coming to an end over the next 12 months so they'd likely get hit with an even larger jump and given the rate of change in the rates, Banks aren't going to be offering anything particularly great in terms of updated fixed terms either.
Well , Yes.
But Brexit doesn't make them do stuff like this though.
The thought processes that brought the world Brexit do though however.
Sounds like it could be carnage, what use is a tax cut if you then get walloped with several extra thousand a year in mortgage repayments from higher interest rates. Id imagine a 1.5% increase rate will hit people hard and its into the territory of some homeowners defaulting on their mortgages.
Reports on the radio there that Kwarteng met investment bankers this morning to ask them not to bet against the pound. Its bizarre stuff, I dont think he knows how currency markets work.
I was/am struggling to understand why the markets reacted so overwhelmingly negatively to this mini budget, as I find economics on a large scale difficult to understand fully. I found this article very useful:
Truss is borrowing £27bn to fund the tax cuts, and £60bn for the energy price cap. These, plus other items mean the government is borrowing £127bn more than last year, or 75% more, pushing total borrowing for the year up to £299bn. Apparently, before the pandemic, it was £50bn. These numbers are truly staggering.
Is it the tax cuts that have the markets panicked? Or the price cap borrowing? Or all of it? Or the fact that she's funding all of it by borrowing? How is it Conservative to borrow nearly a third of a trillion pounds in one year?! It's mental. And that they refused to let the Office for Budget Responsibility get involved at all...
I would appreciate it if anyone could explain this stuff to me like I'm a child, to be honest! :D
I'm guessing that even if Truss did a complete U-turn now, and pulled all of this, the markets would still regard UK as an unpredictable basket case, careening out of control...
What would a sensible mini budget have looked like?
I think it's all of it, as the collective actions show a complete lack of understanding about how economies work and how the markets work.
Bond Traders and Fund managers have looked at what Truss/Kwarteng have said and done since they came into office and have have almost universally reacted with a collective "Sh!t, that's really not going to end well" and have updated their portfolios accordingly either by getting out of anything Sterling/ UK Government related or simply by betting against it.
Markets live and die on confidence and right now they have absolutely zero confidence that Truss and Kwarteng have the 1st clue about what they are doing.
And perhaps even more importantly, they are showing no indication they have any interest in learning either.
Big tax cuts and state borrowing at a time when inflation is rampant will only exacerbate currency inflation. This ontop of the fact that the BoE has clearly outlined their policy of tackling inflation through rate rises, means the only outcome from Trussonomics will be to strangle the life out of the British economy.
Gets nuttier by the minute
Bets on Johnson returning as Tory leader on the rise. The number of people betting that Boris Johnson will be the next Tory leader has risen.
Mr Johnson, who resigned as PM earlier this month to make way for Liz Truss, is now only behind Rishi Sunak when looking at the odds for the next person leading the Conservatives.
Mr Sunak lost out to Ms Truss in the Tory leadership contest sparked by Mr Johnson's decision to stand down this summer.
It comes as more money is being put on Ms Truss being ousted by the end of the year - with Ladbrokes cutting the odd for a 2022 exit for the PM from 40/1 to 11/1.
Spokesperson Alex Apati said: "The latest odds suggest Liz Truss' Downing Street stint could be over in a matter of weeks, with Boris Johnson among the frontrunners to replace her."
According to Ladbrokes, Sir Keir is 2/5 favourite to be the next prime minister, a slight shortening following the turmoil for Ms Truss.
Can she actually get pushed out though?
I mean I guess they can just change the rules to suit them as they have done it before, but from what I have seen lately she currently has some degree of protection for a good while yet.
Tories MP's aren't going to vote to cause a GE, no matter how much they want her gone.
I had this thought myself earlier. The membership would re-elect him in a heartbeat but I couldn't see him making it through the first section of the vote where only the MPs have a say.
I don’t think they have a clue what they’re doing, or what to do next. Look at the cretin they’ve just installed as PM, despite severe warnings that her planned tax cuts would be inflationary. And while lots of the blame lies with the membership who voted for her, they wouldn’t have been able to if she had not been put forward as one of the final two by the party.
Well, I also blame the wider population for voting for Brexit, then Johnson. Now economic meltdown is happening.
Johnson has been PM ticked that box. I don't think he would want to go through the effort again seeing as he is famously work shy.
Oh but he loves the notoriety. He'd be all over this like white on rice. Farcical as it might seem, remember 'them's the breaks.'
Sure Trump was the same. Neither of the them actually wanted to do the actual work that the top job entails.
They just want to have it and all of the pomp that comes with it. Trump is almost certainly running again. I wouldn't write off Johnson going again either.
Johnson's idol made a comeback as PM, albeit he didn't ever resign the leadership. He still thinks he is Churchill in some ways, so probably wants to do that.
Trump needs it to save his skin.
I honestly think Johnson just needed to do it once to fulfill his Eton destiny and won't be back. He is also smart enough to know he can't fix this.
And unlike Trump with the US PAC fund-raising system/scam , Johnson can make far more money outside of Politics than inside.
He'll sell the rights to his memoirs for a fortune and get money from all sorts as an "advisor" from now on.
Joking aside unless she is en-route to Ukraine there is really no excuse for her not to be making an appearance somewhere.
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