Liz Truss’s time is up

[emanymton]

Yeah, they'll reach an agreement. That's the only thing delaying them right now, I would think. The decision's already been made. No way they can have another membership vote.

the risk of another leadership election is the only thing keeping Truss in position. The moment they work out how to anoint her successor (and who??) she's done.

I think there might be enough nutcases amongst the MPs that one will insist on staying in the contest and making it go to the membership. Unless they change the rules.

 

[killer b]

they'll change the rules then.

 

[belboid]

No fucking way are they allowing the membership another vote. Back room deal all the way.

 

[Petcha]

I quite like this headline from the gruniad

Truss gets through cabinet without any minister telling her she should quit, No 10 says​

 

[killer b]

My money is currently on Morduant as the one with the least enemies who actually wants the job of the top candidates fwiw

 

[kabbes]

Sunak has bought a lot of Sensible Man credibility through this episode as the only one saying you couldn’t lower taxes (in fact, the reverse) and staying clear of the fallout. My Home Counties antenna is suggesting that since Starmer is SO shit, replacing Truss quickly with Sunak might actually allow the Tories to recover the situation. I think he’s made too many enemies for the party to do it though.

 

[WhyLikeThis]

She doesn't look well tbh.

 

[Cid]

I’m not sure about that, Trussonomics and brexit were both challenges to the orthodoxy, unfortunately they came from the right, but they were different ideas. Nothing will happen unless the tories go though.

It's not just that they unfortunately came from the right though, the right were in position to make them. And both are really a case of pushing things a little further in an established direction, rather than turning the apparatus of capital onto a completely different road. As with the other pessimists on here, I tend to think the left is as far from making substantive change as it has ever been. Some rebalancing to the centre, sure, but nothing truly meaningful and enduring. Would of course be delighted to be wrong.

 

[Petcha]

My money is currently on Morduant as the one with the least enemies who actually wants the job of the top candidates fwiw

Her perfomance yesterday was fucking brilliant to be fair. Killing her softly. Her pauses to allow the jeers after confirming that 'the prime minister isn't hiding under a desk'

I didn't think the partygate thing could be topped in terms of absolute tory schadenfruede but, no, they've upped their game

 

[Cid]

Sunak has bought a lot of Sensible Man credibility through this episode as the only one saying you couldn’t lower taxes (in fact, the reverse) and staying clear of the fallout. My Home Counties antenna is suggesting that since Starmer is SO shit, replacing Truss quickly with Sunak might actually allow the Tories to recover the situation. I think he’s made too many enemies for the party to do it though.

Yeah, the Tory's worst enemy at the moment is themselves... The last couple of days have shown that they absolutely can regain economic credibility by installing dull technocrats, and potentially political credibility by having people who actually know how to push back answering questions.

 

[Santino]

If the choice at the next election was between brutal Tory austerity with a sensible face vs extremely mild social democracy under a vaguely competent Labour leader, you know the whole of media is swinging behind the Tories again.

 

[Wilf]

Her perfomance yesterday was fucking brilliant to be fair. Killing her softly. Her pauses to allow the jeers after confirming that 'the prime minister isn't hiding under a desk'

I didn't think the partygate thing could be topped in terms of absolute tory schadenfruede but, no, they've upped their game

Yep, Mordor would slaughter starmer, it's just the hole the tories have put themselves in is so deep. I wouldn't rule out Mordor or sunak getting it back to being a close-ish fight in 2 years, but those kind of predictions are pointless at this stage. How shit Labour are will certainly be a major issue when push comes to shove. Labour are almost equally stuck, starmer's whole raison d'etre is about not being corbyn, just at the very point the public wants some pro public sector policies.

 

[Petcha]

Yep, Mordor would slaughter starmer, it's just the hole the tories have put themselves in is so deep. I wouldn't rule out Mordor or sunak getting it back to being a close-ish fight in 2 years, but those kind of predictions are pointless at this stage. How shit Labour are will certainly be a major issue when push comes to shove. Labour are almost equally stuck, starmer's whole raison d'etre is about not being corbyn, just at the very point the public wants some pro public sector policies.

It's only 18 months now. And yeh - it's gonna be a Sunak/Morduant ticket, surely. They can't shoot themselves in the foot as spectacularly again and vote in another halfwit. And unfortunately I think that ticket would win against Starmer. It's the perfect amount of time to prove they're 'competent' as well. Markets will settle. Interest rates will settle. I'm fairly sure the deal's already been done.

Public services will be cut. But hey, who cares right!

 

[Knotted]

I reckon she's staying now.
Flawed logic or not, Hunt at the very least 'looked' like he knew what he was doing.
Plus Labour still look at bit meh, just less than the Tories do.
If they can keep the wierdos that always vote Tory on side, and use a nice bit of client journalism to win back those that have 'left', then - in their theory - they'll be able to win with at least a 'small' majority, or at the very least something that can be solved with another bribe to the DUP.

Don't get me wrong, I think they're properly fucked. The 'experiment' with the great red wall has been a disaster, and the cabinate is still full of Truss loyalists who still look as incompetent and mad as they did a month ago. Plus this is a late-stage Tory Government, we're never more than 24 hours away from some sort of crisis.

TL,DR I don't think she'll go, not right now. The Tories think they'll win, by hook or by DUP-crook. They won't. Labour are the less shit option, as they always have been.

I don't think they have a chance of winning whether she stays or not. I think they're in this predicament because they need to hold onto the voter coalition they put together in 2019 and they needed to do something dramatic like put in a new leader with dramatic eye-catching policies. If they coup in a "sensible"* Tory they're also fucked and they'll be fucked with infighting as the various factions won't accept it. So I think she'll stay but not because I think they think they have a chance with her, but because it might well be their least bad option.

* A "sensible" Tory's proper name is austerity Tory

 

[cupid_stunt]

It's only 18 months now.

They don't need to hold an election until Dec. 2024, so over 2 years to go.

 

[killer b]

It's only 18 months now.

if they take it to the line it's January 2025, so two and a bit years

 

[sleaterkinney]

Sunak has the whole green card/non dom thing to deal with. Mordant would be a lot more worrying.

 

[Pickman's model]

if they take it to the line it's January 2025, so two and a bit years

they'd be cutting it a bit fine with the other things planned for '25

 

[Pickman's model]

Yep, Mordor would slaughter starmer, it's just the hole the tories have put themselves in is so deep. I wouldn't rule out Mordor or sunak getting it back to being a close-ish fight in 2 years, but those kind of predictions are pointless at this stage. How shit Labour are will certainly be a major issue when push comes to shove. Labour are almost equally stuck, starmer's whole raison d'etre is about not being corbyn, just at the very point the public wants some pro public sector policies.

i don't think anyone will slaughter shammer if energy bills next year are £4k+ and who knows what they might be the year after.

how long till people who own wood burners start chopping down trees in parks etc for the fuel?

 

[bimble]

It’s going to be mordant I’m pretty sure, sunak chancellor. They’ll probably win the next election.

 

[Pickman's model]

Sunak has the whole green card/non dom thing to deal with. Mordant would be a lot more worrying.

It’s going to be mordant I’m pretty sure, sunak chancellor. They’ll probably win the next election.

didn't realise we were making out this was a situation calling for mordant wit

frankly whoever's in government for the next two years will lose the 24/25 election. the pandemic may have done for a lot of auld people. the next couple of years will do for a whole lot more through hypothermia etc

 

[platinumsage]

There are greater implications from this than what happens at the next general election. Woe betide any MP let alone party in the future who advocates any deviation from the the new normal of tight fiscal discipline.

 

[bimble]

didn't realise we were making out this was a situation calling for mordant wit

I couldn’t remember where the U goes and didnt care enough to check, soz

 

[Pickman's model]

I couldn’t remember where the U goes and didnt care enough to check, soz

it goes in her name

 

[Karl Masks]

 

[BusLanes]

2019 has made it hard to believe that the Conservatives cannot swing back from the depths and win easily.

But Johnson didn't have to deal with a cost of living crisis in 2019. He had to campaign for Brexit and against Corbyn in order to regain a Conservative majority.

The Conservatives now have to deal with high rent, mortgages, energy as well as a catastrophic loss in credibility in 2022. Maybe they can reinvent themselves yet again but to do so with everyone feeling poor and anxious seems a much harder job.

 

[contadino]

No fucking way are they allowing the membership another vote. Back room deal all the way.

The irony there being that party membership/subscriptions will dive if they're not allowed to vote on their party leader. So they'll be more reliant than ever on their dodgy donors - who will donate less given the Tory inability to implement change beneficial to those donors. Even the era of backhander-steered Covid contracts is past now.

 

[Thesaint]

Sunak has bought a lot of Sensible Man credibility through this episode as the only one saying you couldn’t lower taxes (in fact, the reverse) and staying clear of the fallout. My Home Counties antenna is suggesting that since Starmer is SO shit, replacing Truss quickly with Sunak might actually allow the Tories to recover the situation. I think he’s made too many enemies for the party to do it though.

Quite possibly, but it might depend if backbenchers scared of losing their seat might swallow their pride and pick him if only to give them have a chance in the next GE.

 

[elbows]

There are greater implications from this than what happens at the next general election. Woe betide any MP let alone party in the future who advocates any deviation from the the new normal of tight fiscal discipline.

Even when advocating changes in economic policy direction, or even something that would be considered vaguely radical, very few stretching back decades have been stupid enough to attempt to do so without having their plans costed in some at least semi-credible way. So I'm far from convinced that what happened to Trussonomics actually offers any new lessons in that respect. The other lesson is that trickle down is dead, but as I pointed back in the wake of the financial crisis years ago, the one ideological concession that the mainstream were prepared to declare at the time was that trickle down was dead, so that wasnt something we needed a new lesson about either.

 

[Petcha]

They don't need to hold an election until Dec. 2024, so over 2 years to go.

Oh shit, soz. Counting my chickens. It feels like its been an eternity!