UK Politics Thread part II

[Jimbuna]

After allowing her chancellor to rewrite the government's energy price plan, Liz Truss has just removed one of her biggest remaining arguments for staying in power.

Yes, reversing the Kwarteng income tax cut, abolishing the dividend tax changes and the VAT-free shopping scheme are very politically painful.

But abandoning the existing energy price cap scheme from April is on a different level of significance and leaves this government holed below the waterline.

Now people's energy bills will be going up from April, just as millions face bigger mortgage payments too, but this is only one of several problems this decision causes.

Boris Johnson always attempted to make the argument that he got big calls right. This is now all but impossible for Liz Truss.

The prime minister has clung on relentlessly to the wisdom of her energy price plan: praising it again on Friday in the awkward mini-press conference, over the weekend in an article in The Sun, and allowing government ministers - like Treasury minister Andrew Griffith on Sky 24 hours ago - to point to it as the one government success.

It wasn't even part of the mini-budget - announced 48 hours after she entered office - and over a fortnight before Kwasi Kwarteng's calamitous statement.

Yet politically the Truss team allowed it to morph into the mini-budget's biggest triumph, even as other parts were thrown in the dumpster.

Truss's MPs like Robert Halfon could see the folly, but she could not until the very last moment. She clung on to it when everyone else could see the warning lights.

It is hard to overstate what a big deal this is because of the wider signal it sends.

This will be seen as the day when bailout Britain ended. Starting in the pandemic, getting a nation used to bailouts with the furlough scheme and business support schemes, there has been an assumption government will step in when external shocks take place.

This is no more.

Liz Truss had exposed the public finances to near unlimited liability for two years, because she cannot have known the cost of gas rises resulting from Putin's war.

One of the most dangerous fiscal policies of modern times has been consigned to the bin.

It is for her MPs now to judge whether she still has enough credibility to remain in office after this particular U-turn.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknew...71bd5831d72d76

[mapuc]

Well Only me British friends can say if this is correct.

https://twitter.com/BBCNews/status/1582130995117293568

Markus

[Jimbuna]

Prime Minister Liz Truss has met her cabinet this morning, as she battles to regain authority and chart a new economic course.

New chancellor Jeremy Hunt was expected to tell ministers that they need to agree savings by the end of the week.

Last night, Truss said she was sorry for her government's mistakes, and that they had tried to move "too far too fast"

Hunt has scrapped nearly all the tax cuts announced at last month's mini-budget.

Truss says she still intends to lead the Conservatives into the next general election, despite heavy criticism from within her party.

Five Conservative MPs are openly calling for her to resign, with others briefing in private that her time in No 10 is up.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, tipped as a replacement for Truss, accused colleagues of playing "political parlour games"

[Jimbuna]

[Skybird]

The Neue Zürcher Zeitung comments:
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Glamour and vision have failed - now the British need a boring head of government

It is a certainty in Great Britain that British Prime Minister Liz Truss will be replaced sooner or later. Discussions are now turning to the man or woman who should succeed her. A serious go-getter would be a good recommendation.

Liz Truss still resides at Downing Street as prime minister, but she no longer really leads the country. That job has been taken over by her Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, whom she brought in to her own rescue on Friday, with his announcements. No one in Britain doubts that Prime Minister Liz Truss is already history after six weeks in office. The only open question is how quickly the Conservative Party will come around to her replacement and a succession plan. Now that the reliable troubleshooter Hunt has taken over, this question is not as urgent.
What the next prime minister should accomplish - no more miracles

More important than the individual names now being weighed up in excited circles in the Conservative faction of the House of Commons, however, would be the question of what kind of head of government the country now needs and what his priorities should be. A look at history can provide some indications here. The disruptive reformer Margaret Thatcher, whom Liz Truss has taken so much as a model, was followed in 1990 by the pale bourgeois John Major, who completely unexpectedly won another election for the Tories and governed much more successfully and for longer than the party and the public had given him credit for. Today, he is highly revered as the voice of reason.

Major was followed in 1997 by the left-liberal visionary Tony Blair. He triggered storms of enthusiasm far beyond the country's borders and a cultural and social upswing in the country, but his successes were based on a financial illusion that burst in 2008 during the financial crisis. A decade of stabilization, sobriety and austerity followed under the unimaginative administrator David Cameron and his hapless successor Theresa May. After this economically successful, but apart from Brexit, politically dry spell, the Tories threw themselves first at the dazzling bon vivant Boris Johnson and then at the libertarian revolutionary Liz Truss, while Labour allowed itself to be seduced by the state-socialist fantasies of the cantankerous old leftist Jeremy Corbyn. All three managed to inspire a loyal following, and all three failed magnificently.

Great Britain has been through enough experimentation. What it needs now is what is commonly referred to as good governance, which is recommended above all for developing countries. Good governance is described by the UN in the following terms: Transparency, responsibility, accountability, participation and responsiveness to the needs of the population. Under Johnson, responsibility and accountability suffered severely; under Truss, transparency and responsiveness to the needs of the country were lacking. Both led to chaos; both were quickly ended by well-functioning political institutions.

The time for seductive visions is over. Labour noticed it first after its painful 2019 election defeat. The party elected lawyer Keir Starmer as leader, a bone-dry but top-serious politician who clinically dissected each of Johnson's fanciful web of lies and evasions, yet is not loved by journalists or the public for his boring performance. The Tories are now following their ever-friendly man without qualities, the multifunctional minister Jeremy Hunt, who is confidently leading the country into calmer waters after the Truss storm. Hunt doesn't sweep anyone away either. But he can be counted on.

The country now needs an experienced chief executive like Hunt, the ambitious former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak or, in the event of new elections, perhaps Starmer at the helm, who is not a showman or a visionary, but who understands the craft of governing and is willing to apply it in daily, conscientious work. A head of government who addresses the country's real problems: the extreme centralization of the state, the overregulation after almost five decades of EU membership, the weak productivity performance of the economy, the often poor performance of public schools, the high inequality with all its social problems despite a considerable tax burden, the mediocre infrastructure, the overstretched state health care system. It takes a lot of work and may be boring. But it works.

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[MGR1]

Political stability UK wide and a possible Labour Government would knock the wind out of the sails of Sturgeon and the SNP. The recent announcements from the Nats about their plan for independence still don't add up in any serious manner.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotla...itics-63288369

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotla...itics-63293427

From observation, us Scots seem more at ease when a boring technocrat is in charge.

Mike.

[Jimbuna]

Liz Truss has told right-wing Tory MPs her tax U-turns were "painful," as she continues to try and shore up her support within the party.

The PM told Eurosceptic backbenchers she was still committed to boosting growth through economic reforms, No 10 sources said.

She has been meeting MPs to appeal for support, with her authority undermined after she abandoned flagship tax cuts.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63308930

[Jimbuna]

Liz Truss is battling to save her premiership after just over a month in the job - what are the key hurdles she faces?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63206989

[Jimbuna]

The latest inflation figures show the cost of living went up 10.1% in the 12 months to September, driven mostly by rising food prices.

It means prices are rising at their fastest rate for 40 years. The figure for August was 9.9%

September's inflation reading is important because it'll be used to help calculate April's rise in the state pension as well as increases in benefits.

The government will now be under pressure to confirm if these payments will rise in line with this figure.

BBC News is in Sunderland hearing how people are coping with the soaring cost of living and economic pressures.

More than half of people expect their financial position to worsen in the next six months, according to a survey we've commissioned.

[Jimbuna]

Suella Braverman resigns as home secretary in a face-to-face meeting with the prime minister - she has been replaced by Grant Shapps.

Braverman says she quit after sending an official document from her personal email, a breach of ministerial rules.

But in a blistering resignation letter, she says the government needs to rely on people "accepting responsibility for their mistakes"

Pretending we haven't made mistakes "and hoping that things will magically come right is not serious politics", she adds.

New Home Secretary Shapps served as transport secretary under Boris Johnson.

Truss faces significant discontent among Tory MPs and losing one of her key ministers will add to turmoil at the top of government.

Earlier she took part in her first Prime Minister's Questions after being forced to ditch her flagship tax cuts from the mini-budget.

Truss said she was "completely committed" to raising pensions in line with inflation.

[Skybird]

Liz Truss still has not yet been thrown out of the frontdoor, but the coat handed to her already earlier is the coat she now is being forced to wear in early preparation for her leave.

And see, while she wears it now everybody can see it's not a coat, but a straitjacket.


And btw, the door is over there, Liz. Careful, make sure you dont walk into the wall.



No, that is a window, dont walk out that - better take the door.

[mapuc]

Hehe
While Truss walks out of the front door-Boris Johnson walks in.
(Read a headline some days ago-where it said if Truss leave Boris J may try to return)

Markus

[Jimbuna]

BREAKING NEWS (two minutes ago)

Liz Truss is meeting 1922 Committee chairman Sir Graham Brady in Downing Street right now.

[Skybird]

Somebody has done a good job oiling the door hinges.

[mapuc]

It's happening in a Parliament in another country-Great Britain.
I can therefore not speak(write)what's on my mind about this...circus-No not circus in a circus there are order.

From what I have seen yesterday I must say it was a scandal. Today I heard in our news that some members of the Parliament was dragged from one door to another-It should be a Yes and a No entrance.

I understand if Jim and other British people here are furious.

Markus