And then there were two. It's a sorry day when the best the Tory party can offer to lead the country is a choice between Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak.
Truss cannot do media, let alone appear to be able to think on her feet. Her economics is incoherent. She appears to have no understanding of government accounting. And her claims on delivery are false, unless the claim is that she has delivered on the intention to breach international law, undermine the Good Friday Agreement and threaten peace. There is a staggering lack of reality surrounding almost everything about Truss.
Sunak, on the other hand appears to have the sole objective of balancing the government's books, come what may. There is no other obvious policy on display from him.
Amongst Tory members Truss is the strong favourite. I assume therefore she is who we will get as next prime minister.
In the country I suspect Truss will be deeply unpopular. Selecting her looks like a loss of the next general election to me, after what will, however, be a torrid coupled of years before it happens. From what I hear from Labour this seems to be their view. They are worried by Sunak, but not at all by Truss.
But all that is game playing. What worries me is the harm Truss could do, which I think could be considerable when millions are facing destitution and there is no sign that she cares.
There is one thing Labour has to stop doing after 5 September though. From then on they have to beat the Tories and stop assuming that they will tear themselves apart. Is that too much to ask?
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Junior minister at education for almost two years, Secretary of State at DEFRA for two years, Lord Chancellor for a year, Chief Secretary at the Treasury for two years, Secretary of State for Trade for two years, Foreign Secretary for approaching a year. But what exactly has she done? What are her political or policy triumphs after almost 10 years in office?
Seems she is unable to keep a ministerial position for more than a couple of years, and it looks like that pattern could well continue.
What has she achieved? you ask. Well, er, British Apples at the top of the tree. Pork Markets. Selling Stilton cheese to the Japanese. Black Pudding sales up, perhaps. Yorkshire tea (The scandal that the UK imports two thirds of its tea) Just wait till you see tea plantatinons swathing the fells and dales of the West Riding. Her achievements are myriad.
Surprisingly, there is a small market for cheeses such as Stilton in Japan and China. The manufacturing process eliminates most of the lactose from the milk and so lactose intolerance is not an issue. My Chinese father in law always had Stilton on the table at Christmas. He wasn’t a Christian but always celebrated Christmas. I’ve also come across both Koreans and Japanese who associate Stilton with Christmas.
Three areas where Truss is already wrong.
* She voted remain, but now says she was wrong about that, and wants to take advantage of Brexit opportunities. There is a difference between accepting the inevitable and trying to mitigate the downsides, and wholeheartedly supporting this exercise in national self-harm.
* Despite all the terrible things he has done, she still wanted Johnson to continue as PM. By itself, that is a condemnation of her judgement.
* She thinks cutting taxes will increase growth and simultaneously reduce inflation. Er, right. Is this what they teach on the Oxford PPE? Or perhaps she is just a disciple of Patrick Minford…
God help us all.
C’mon, it’s not all bad news! In Scotland Boris was viewed by most as the best-ever recruiting-sergeant for independence, but Liz Truss will be equally effective in that role. There can be little doubt about that and the prospect of being forever run by a never-ending conveyor belt of Tory incompetents will surely push Scotland further towards self-government.
Ok, so one thing she did do was write “Britannia Unchained” in 2012 with Kwasi Kwarteng, Priti Patel, Dominic Raab and Chris Skidmore. And it seems she is a disciple of Patrick Minford, who still supports the poll tax. It will be interesting to see if Skidmore gets a job in the Truss government.
So, ten years later, they almost hold the levers of government, and have two years before the next general election to complete the destruction of the post-war settlement, tear up the welfare state safety net, the NHS, health and safety regulation, employment rights, rights to protest, other human rights, environmental regulation, rules on the content of food, and any other rules and regulations that protect the people from being exploited by the modern aristocracy. Essentially letting the market rip, and devil take the hindmost. They won’t say that, of course – it will be about restoring freedoms, and unleashing potential.
This could get very messy.
Very, indeed
Raab and Skidmore are supporting Sunak so the “unchained” mob will be around whoever wins.
But Truss says she wants to abolish any EU laws still on the UK statute books. That means one of three things:
* abolishing and not replacing all laws deriving from the EU, including for example financial regulations, environmental protections, food standards, employment rights, and VAT
* re-enacting those laws in exactly the same form, but as UK legislation no longer rooted in EU law, from which we may eventually diverge
* re-enacting those EU based laws in UK law, but with small or large differences
So which laws is she talking about (there are still literally thousands of SIs based on EU law) and what exactly is she going to do with them? Is it a bonfire, or does nothing actually change apart from the label, or are there changes in thousands of places? Does she have any idea what she is talking about?
No, is the answer to the last.
This is obviously absurd
I feel I have a fairly good handle on Sunak – good middle class parents (doctor and pharmacist). successful enough to send him to WInchester, then Oxford PPE, but Lincoln not New, then Goldman Sachs, hedge funds, US green card, married to a billionaire’s daughter. Rich beyond the dreams of Croesus, only an MP for 7 years, and turned 42 a few months ago, so would be younger than both Cameron and Blair when they became PM.
I’m still not sure I have a good handle on Liz Truss. Left wing parents, attended a decent comprehensive school in a relatively affluent Tory-voting area of North East Leeds (Tory from 1955, under Keith Joseph and then Timothy Kirkhope, and indeed apart from 10 years from 1945 to 1955, from its creation in 1918 to 1997). No doubt the fabric of the school suffered under the Thatcher years while she was there, but it was good enough to get her into Oxford, Merton, again PPE. Some insight to her youth here: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/18/liz-truss-roundhay-school-foreign-secretary-education
Management accountant at Shell and then Cable & Wireless, married to another accountant. She was a Lib Dem at university, but shifted right afterwards, and has kept on going. further and further right. An, ahem, “liaison” with Mark Field, before landing a safe seat on Cameron’s “A list”. A seat in the Cabinet aged 38, still only 46, seven years younger than Thatcher when she became PM.
Will the real Liz Truss please stand up.
After 12 years in government, is this really the best the Conservative party have to offer us?
Sunak is a banker and for a century British bankers have put balancing the books and ‘sound money’ ahead of maintaining full employment.
Truss’s main policy seems to be “tax cuts=growth.” There are many things the state needs to spend on and the growth from more consumption will not deliver them.
The difficulty for the opposition will be to challenge those two ideas which are widely believed to be true.
He’s not so keen on balancing the books when it comes to billions in Covid loan fraud, much of it handed out by banks with a nod and a wink that it wouldn’t have to be repaid, because they were fully protected from losses, and all those arrangement fees were a nice little earner.
Unsurprisingly, the data shows that the vast majority of these loans went to Conservative voters, being disproportionately representative of owners of qualifying businesses. They’ll claw back 50p from people who are financially destitute, but barely a finger has been lifted to claim back these misappropriated billions. Given how things have played out in this leadership election, I can’t help but think Sunak was buying himself a lot of goodwill at our expense.
Just been on a weownit call, where they told us that the government is going to try to undermine the covid enquiry. Good Law Project is involved.
https://goodlawproject.org/news/government-undermine-covid-inquiry/
I gather that this is true
I’ve just heard her talking with Nick Robinson on Today’s agenda-setting 08.10 interview slot.
Oh dear……
Considering economics is the chosen battlefield in this internal party election, I can only repeat Private Fraser’s common refrain:
” We’re doomed! Doomed, I tell yae!!
But perhaps the good thing is that her trashing of Tory economics of the past 12 years, telling us that the wrong path has been followed,gives progressive people traction for their own arguments out in the wider public domain.
What she proposes in its place is what worries us.
A Truss:
‘A truss is an assembly of members such as beams, connected by nodes, that creates a rigid structure.’
Wonderful. Says it all really. Another conviction politician. Just what we need eh?
If it is Truss then there is a very good chance that she will continue the record of every PM since 2010 being the worst ever and, following the efforts of The Quockerwodger, that will be going some.
It’s not just an open goal for Labour, the ball is already rolling downhill and the goal is infinitely wide. Actually, the ball is already in the net. Yet, I still think Starmer will mess it up and not score.
Craig
Truss is obsessed by the mantra that she “delivers”. She will then feel she has to implement a number of destructive policies to fulfill this claim to the detriment of all.
She has that dangerous combination of extraordinary incompetence and stupidity, and an indomitable belief in here wrongheaded nonsense. She is also, by numerous accounts, quite bonkers.
Truss’s obsession with growth is disturbing. Can she not see that growth is driving climate change (and numerous other environmental disasters)? The Tories always want growth: they know there is widespread poverty in the UK but don’t want to share their wealth. So growth is the only answer.
Can Labour beat the Conservatives? The bookies still have the Tories as odds-on favourites at the next general election.
Labour seems happy to continue the hopeless strategy of being a faction within the governing party rather than setting out their own vision. Irony of Johnson pointing this out in his ‘hasta la vista’ farewell.
All the media have been talking about for months is the Tories – and thats all Labour has been talking about. If they contine, they will promote the subliminal message – that only the Tories matter.
Yes the Tories have been tearing themselves apart – providing their own opposition – but thats part of their success over the years – pretending they can demolish themselve and re emerge as a new government.
Labour is so cowardly – not interested in ideas or the truth. Daren’t query govt spaffing money on failed nuclear power, darent query new trade barriers wrecking the economy, darent query the ‘let them get covid ‘ stance killing thousands, spreading illness and undermining schools, NHS etc.
100% agree with you. Cowardliness would be top of my list of words too. John Harris described them as weak and confused. I read a brilliant thread yesterday which unpacks Starmer’s doomed strategy on Brexit. Unless Labour decide they are not the Tories, this national disaster will grind on for decades.
https://twitter.com/seanjonesqc/status/1550189679496118273?t=qTSOWmRdoiGA_oZMEsEEMw&s=19
With Liz Truss, two quotations come to mind:
“These Are My Principles. If You Don’t Like Them I Have Others”
and
“Like the Feather Pillow, He Bears the Marks of the Last Person Who Has Sat on Him”
I think of her as Johnson but without the charisma.
Nevertheless, she has said what was necessary to get past Tory MPs
Now she has to alter course to get past Tory members
Then she can alter course again and start to say whatever she thinks voters would like to hear.
I am not sure that there is evidence of her being capable of actually doing anything, good, bad or indifferent.
The frustration is that there is so little credible opposition.
Labour have some good policies but there’s powerful leadership to push this home, they didn’t even get upset when the Tories stole some of those policies and branded them as their own. In reality they have been as complicit in letting Boris off the hook as the Tories, Angel Rayner aside.
Lib Dems could play a big part in the next election if only they altered their rigid stance on Europe that’s instantly alienated half the electorate and had some character about them.
SNP could well take Scotland out of the Union now, no one wants to see them go but right now would anyone blame them?
We are truly up s@$t creek with out a paddle, Boris told everyone they wouldn’t need it!
There is much evidence to suggest that the completely undiscussed key motivating factors for today’s Tory membership are greed, snobbery and racism, not necessarily in that order.
Although it might be impolite to say so Racism will help Truss and Greed is likely to work for Sunak for any Tory capable of thinking beyond immediate Tax Cuts for the rich.
Snobbery is harder to figure but I suspect it will work in favour of the candidate from Winchester school, the City of London and Goldman Sachs.
According to Truss, her planned £38 billion of tax cuts will cause inflation to fall! Patrick Minford told her so.
The only problem is that, assuming she gets the top job, it is likely to simply coincide with a drop in inflation so she’ll be able to claim it worked. No chance of the media (or Labour) pointing out this is the case. We’ll end up with brain-dead Tory orthdoxy thinking that cutting taxes will cause inflation to fall!
One thing that doesn’t seem to have been mentioned in all this is Human Rights. I watched a talk by Shami Chakrabati last night and she mentioned that the one thing we should all be against is what the tories are doing to the act. They will start in September, when they return, and soon we will have no rights. Both Sunak and Truss want changes.
Liberty this morning sent a link to the government’s survey, as if they want to ask us what we think about it.
https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=nt3mHDeziEC-Xo277ASzSjmyhv4Lz8tPuToBKZcY2O9UNkxXNVhCWjNJQzk5RjE1NDFTSUQ2TEdMVC4u
Everybody on here sounds as if they care about human rights. Please do this 3 minute survey. Shami is still a labour peer, and opposing the government than Starmer is.
Thanks Jenw, duly done. I don’t trust this government a millimetre on Human Rights, or anything else they come up with essentially.
Under Johnson they’ve become a government of corrupt, incompetent liars. If the talentless, principle-free moron Truss becomes PM I can’t see that improving.
“The UK is unusual in having so much debt (about a quarter of it) linked to inflation – and on the old RPI index, which usually runs ahead of CPI. This made for the most expensive” – Spectator today. FT has touched on this vaguely too. Can you shed further light on this please Richard?
We have simply issued more index linked debt than most countries – betting against any recurrence of inflation and we got that wrong
Thanks. What other govt debt instruments could have been used?
There was no need for any debt instrument to be used
It is doubly ironical that however confused and ‘Minfordy’ – the two Tories are raising questions about ‘borrowing’ , tax, spending and growth.
Labour daren’t engage in any open discussion beyond ‘balancing the books’ and ‘fiscal rules’ . As Johnson said in his farewell – no-one can name any significant economic policy from Labour.
remind me of the billions lost from ppe fraud, generosity to tories making a generation of tory multimillionaires , loans not repaid and companies house registered thousands of shadow companies and the funds moved offshore. well documented in the EYE also
Both Truss and Sunak have said that one of the first things they will do is privatise Channel 4. Truly disappointing and sickening, particularly as Channel 4 has just posted revenues of over £1.2 billion for the first time ever.
Truss is looking at reintroducing fracking – this really is the “government from hell”