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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As Anne Widdecombe explained, Liz Truss' mistake was not to lay the foundation and rationale for her policies - that it came in haste and as a shock to markets. Apart from that, Truss' budget had many laudable elements.
That said, what's done is done, and the damage is irreparable.
My money is on HS2 getting scrapped completely
There was no rationale to her policy which could be seen by anyone rational.
I'm surprised it hasn't been already. It's everything people like Truss despise - state intervention, taxpayers' money, growth and NIMBY wailing.
The old school Tory distinction between those on welfare and those working (the former perceived by many tories as being people who don’t open their curtains all day and wear day pyjamas) no longer exists, and the Tories have not copped on to that. They can’t just take a scalpel to the former, and get public support for doing so
many people on welfare now are working. It’s a much more blurred boundary now between the waster and the professional.
same applies to Ireland of course
That would be her 2nd massive blunder
Why? People hate HS2.
Anything starting with "As Anne Widdecome explained" is off to a terrible start no matter what else was said.
Truss and Kwartengs mistake was pretty much everything they have done since the took office.
The basic premise of "Trickle-down economics" is a flat out lie , it doesn't work, it has never worked and it never will.
The actual budget has virtually no "laudable elements" , it's a hodge-podge of knee-jerk reactions and badly planned ,unfunded nonsense.
All of that was compounded by their basic lack of understanding of how politics and the modern media work.
They had no mandate to make the changes they tried , they made no effort to establish a mandate or build support for what they were trying but they went ahead and did it anyway and were somehow surprised at the reaction.
They failed miserably at the very basics of Political leadership at their very 1st attempt.
This "budget" has terminally wounded Liz Truss - She is beyond "lame duck" after only a few weeks in Office.
She might well limp along until a General Election , but that will only be because the rest of the Tory parliamentary party are cowards and don't want to have to face the electorate.
Nah her 2nd big one was cancelling the ban on fracking, and this will be the next big U-turn. Too many Tory backbenchers getting grief from constituents about it for them to ignore it, fully expect her to announce that fracking will not go ahead for the foreseeable future while "studies" are done.
It hasn’t been scrapped as to scrap it entails additional huge costs (eg compensation for breaking massive contracts and putting many companies in trouble), plus what’s already been sunk. it was considered in 2020, but was determined that was best to push through to conclusion given cost and complexity of stopping it
What is the rationale behind it? They had 9 days to explain it, even if one was to accept that the groundwork wasn't done.
They couldn't even explain it to their own party, they didn't even include their own cabinet.
This isn't a failure in communication, this is just a failure. Their idealogy ran head first into reality, and reality won.
The UK is having to borrow more, facing inflation and an energy crisis. They are on the edge of a trade war with the EU and the idea was that given the huge amounts of money needed during Covid, the issues with the NHS etc, the best way to deal with that was to give the richest 1% a massive tax cut?
All without any backup evidence of independent review?
And now that they've wreaked the UK's borrowing costs , all the extra money that they are now planning to borrow to fund all of their "ideas" will now cost substantially more to pay back so they are going to have to cut spending across the board.
So while they might say "oh look , a price cap on Energy" or whatever the reality is that that will have to be paid for through cuts to the NHS , Public Services , Education etc. etc.
The whole idea that Conservatives are "fiscally responsible" is just a complete nonsense.
Their entire ideology that lowering taxes/regulations for the "wealth creators" benefits the entire economy is provably false so everything that flows from that is built on sand.
I'm standing firm in my conviction that any would be challengers are going to let her take the fall for the coming winter disaster. I've never understood why people were so keen to go for the leadership when it was clear that it's a poisoned chalice but its contents must look particularly rancid now given that nobody in the upper echelons of the party is even questioning Truss and Kwarteng's disaster capitalist strategy.
They're talking about growth the same way the Brexiters' talked about trade - pretend to care about it while doing everything possible to shut it down. A government that was genuinely focused on growth would be investing in housing, infrastructure and productivity. Instead, we got imperial measurements.
Britons on the whole don't care about growth. If they did, Brexit wouldn't have happened. This is a particularly unsound mast for Truss to nail her colours to.
I agree with you. Growth sounds good but when it is pointed out that it needs action on immigration and development (planning) and workers right etc, the concept rapidly loses support
as for the leadership, I, like you, just don’t get it. Why would anyone want to be in number 10 right now and probably (almost certainly) go down in history as one of the shortest tenured prime minister of modern times. Maybe down there with Anthony Eden at the very best. Candidates are just blinded by ambition….get in at all costs and deal with it later. If I were in the frame I’d be waiting to take over as leader of the opposition and then try to be elected PM. It’s remarkable how few PMs in recent times have actually been elected from opposition. And it’s those guys that are the most remembered (Boris excepting). It’s Thatcher, Blair, Cameron, and soon Starmer….a short list
the first half i would agree with, but not the second. I had some terrific neighbours when I lived there from an assortment of backgrounds. St Vincent, St Lucia, Guyana.
It has the largest community of Vincentians in the UK.
she has already said that it will be down to the local authorities, so she has semi backtracked on that one as well.
Yeah but the mandate was no fracking, now the red wall tories are getting hammered by constituents fearing fracking starting up in their areas. Make no mistake, every back bencher is looking 2 years down the line and all they see is the unemployment line if fracking goes ahead.
Fracking is such a monumentally stupid hill to die on. It only benefits parasitic companies like Cuadrilla. It's one of the few things right, left and centre can agree on.
Rees-Mogg invited them to frack his back garden yesterday 😆
No, he didn't. He gave that answer knowing full well that that carry on will never happen in his backyard.
I know. That was my joke
the only logic behind exploring fracking at the moment, is to introduce a threat of new competition in to the market. A play on porter's five forces to help strengthen a negotiating postion.
Some interesting activity at the Tory party conference yesterday.
A Pro-EU break-out session with speakers like Heseltine and others was absolutely packed , with queues out the door etc. while the main hall was almost completely empty
On the Russian linked money...
To be fair, his back garden probably extends several counties from his actual house
There is no logic behind it and there is no threat from something that will never happen.
They are just aping the US nonsense of trying to look anti progressive/liberal/woke/green.
If they thought they could generate electricity from burning tyres in school cafeterias they'd probably call it "a huge step forward towards energy independence"
Except anyone who knows anything about fracking knows it will take 2-3 years at a minimum to see any output and thats only after approval goes through, and even then it will still have to be sold on the global gas markets and will be such low quantities vs the total global supply it wont affect prices at all. So if thats the logic its woefully naive and uninformed.
Fracking in Britain is non viable, this is from the people who tried fracking last time.
Exactly. It's not like the US where there are huge reserves of shale gas. In the UK, it won't make a dent in energy prices even if it could be done tomorrow without opposition.
People all over the spectrum hate it, there are no benefits and it seems to be an undertaking to benefit a few companies. Even for the Tory party, this is moronic and these are the same people who pushed Brexit.
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