Liz Truss’s time is up

[Pickman's model]

Max schadenfreude.

yeh he's covering the conference for the wiener abendblatt

 

[Tanya1982]

Not got to that bit yet. But interestingly she has thrown Kwarteng under the bus for the first time and said the upper tax rate thing was his idea and his alone.

So she's a liar and a disloyal friend, as well as everything else. Scum.

 

[Tanya1982]

While totally agreeing with the general sentiment, pretty much despite her seeming lack of intellect she has managed to work her way to the top of the tree, so she must have some kind of... I dunno, political nous or something.

Even saying that, it does still seem hard to fathom when looking at any of the evidence.


Funnily enough, for a while I've been wondering if I should do something like that, taking a moment to pause and properly process the info/question before responding, as otherwise I can often answer in a way that's not actually very helpful/relevant.

It's hard to go against the general conversational conventions that generally dictate an uninterrupted rhythm, though.

Again, not necessarily defending Truss, but just one of those things I find interesting to reconsider.

There may be something in that. I too have a tendency to answer a question immediately, which can lead to me imparting far more personal information than anyone needs. No stop valve. Occasionally, it's resulted in looks of total horror descending over professional situations. Taking a pause can work out for the best.

Perhaps Liz Truss is simply taking the time to remind herself not to tell the interviewer that she's been up all night with cystitis, before drawing parallels between herself to some character from a favourite film, and mentioning how she was inspired into a particular policy by helping with her child's geography homework.

If she's likely to do that kind of thing, coming across as somewhat mechanical and plodding might be preferable.

 

[quiet guy]

Why does she do the silence thing? Do you think it's some kinda power move or she is as I suspect, just not bright enough to have preempted what would be asked or react on the spot. Even Johnson would bloviate his way past any slightly awkward questions.

I don't think her "Man in the room next door" has quite got a grasp on parroting a response in her ear piece from the Central Office approved response playbook.

 

[Petcha]

There may be something in that. I too have a tendency to answer a question immediately, which can lead to me imparting far more personal information than anyone needs. No stop valve. Occasionally, it's resulted in looks of total horror descending over professional situations. Taking a pause can work out for the best.

Perhaps Liz Truss is simply taking the time to remind herself not to tell the interviewer that she's been up all night with cystitis, before drawing parallels between herself to some character from a favourite film, and mentioning how she was inspired into a particular policy by helping with her child's geography homework.

If she's likely to do that kind of thing, coming across as somewhat mechanical and plodding might be preferable.

I get your point. But she's effectively a salesperson. She's gotta be slick. She's not. She's a massive electoral liability which is brilliant in its own way.

 

[gosub]

I get your point. But she's effectively a salesperson. She's gotta be slick. She's not. She's a massive electoral liability which is brilliant in its own way.

Na, slick wouldn't have done it (but he knows what he is talking about), savvy admitting a bit of learning going on.

 

[planetgeli]

Christ. Just catching up on her performance on Kuennsberg this morning. Toe curling. She is actually very very thick isnt she.

Well yes, but she's perfectly complimented by KK who is extremely clever and won University Challenge.

It'll be fine.

 

[gosub]

 

[gosub]

‘Liz Truss hasn’t understood a word I wrote’, says PM’s favourite author

As I reported this summer, Liz Truss’s favourite historian is Rick Perlstein, the great chronicler of the rise of the new right in its Nixonian and Reaganite forms between 1960 and 1980. She told journalists that she read ‘anything’ he wrote. Interviewers noticed Perlstein’s books on her...

www.spectator.co.uk

 

[Tanya1982]

I get your point. But she's effectively a salesperson. She's gotta be slick. She's not. She's a massive electoral liability which is brilliant in its own way.

Oh absolutely. She's a massive cunt, which can work, but not without charisma - and we've never had a leader with less. She's fucked. Unfortunately, so are we.

 

[kabbes]

The charisma of Gordon Brown combined with the brilliance of Boris Johnson

 

[wow]

I'm not sure she will. She clearly has no idea what she's doing and has nothing going for her. The local radio interviews this week showed she's got no idea how to manage the criticism.

I think the Tories will look at ways to reverse these new polling trends but that may involve getting rid of her.

It’s the next wave, when she gets involved in the ukraine situation, we really need to worry about.

I genuinely think she knows what she's doing, yes she's not very able but she has a handle on the ideas of Hayek.

She has politics, but those politics are of the extreme libertarians.

I have to dig out Nancy Maclean's book Democracy in chains.

Sorry for the Monbiot link A despot in disguise: one man’s mission to rip up democracy | George Monbiot

Truss will ride this wave, but Kwarteng won’t. He’ll be long gone before the OBR announce their conclusions in November.

Truss tossed him out as bait on Kuenssberg this morning. Most armchair pundits and actual economists already blame him for this week’s economic disaster, so she’ll sack him to demonstrate her strong leadership.

She’ll also reverse abolishing the 45% tax rate, because that will score the most political points whilst affecting the fewest voters, but in reality changes nothing except the optics.

It’ll buy her enough time until the next disaster.

But I predict disaster for the Tories for the next decade anyway. They’re completely toxic.

 

[Tanya1982]

‘Liz Truss hasn’t understood a word I wrote’, says PM’s favourite author

As I reported this summer, Liz Truss’s favourite historian is Rick Perlstein, the great chronicler of the rise of the new right in its Nixonian and Reaganite forms between 1960 and 1980. She told journalists that she read ‘anything’ he wrote. Interviewers noticed Perlstein’s books on her...

www.spectator.co.uk

Some interesting stuff in that article.

This - In the 1970s, Irving Kristol, the editor of Public Interest, was explicit that politics must trump economics. The political advantage tax cuts would provide to the Republicans was so historically imperative they should be blasted through whatever the effect on the budget. ‘The neo-Conservative is willing to leave those problems to be coped with by liberal interregnums,’ he wrote in the Wall Street Journal. ‘He wants to shape the future and will leave it to his opponents to tidy up afterwards.’ - seems horribly familiar in the UK too.

This, Perlstein describing the source Liz Truss relies on for her economic philosophy - [It was] devised by a dude whose only economic training, in his own description, came from learning to count cards at the blackjack tables in Las Vegas. I wish I were making this up, but I'm not. - is genuinely terrifying.

 

[Raheem]

The charisma of Gordon Brown combined with the brilliance of Boris Johnson

If only.

 

[wow]

Some interesting stuff in that article.

This - In the 1970s, Irving Kristol, the editor of Public Interest, was explicit that politics must trump economics. The political advantage tax cuts would provide to the Republicans was so historically imperative they should be blasted through whatever the effect on the budget. ‘The neo-Conservative is willing to leave those problems to be coped with by liberal interregnums,’ he wrote in the Wall Street Journal. ‘He wants to shape the future and will leave it to his opponents to tidy up afterwards.’ - seems horribly familiar in the UK too.

This, Perlstein describing the source Liz Truss relies on for her economic philosophy - [It was] devised by a dude whose only economic training, in his own description, came from learning to count cards at the blackjack tables in Las Vegas. I wish I were making this up, but I'm not. - is genuinely terrifying.

Very interesting article. Thanks

 

[Jeff Robinson]

The charisma of Gordon Brown combined with the brilliance of Boris Johnson

Brown was a pretty powerful orator:



Compare that to this useless lump with an autocue:

 

[emanymton]

Kwasi Kwarteng ‘to bring forward planned fiscal statement’ in another U-turn – as it happened

Guardian understands chancellor will make statement later this month, rather than in November as originally planned

www.theguardian.com

Sure this will help their election chances.

 

[moochedit]

Kwasi Kwarteng ‘to bring forward planned fiscal statement’ in another U-turn – as it happened

Guardian understands chancellor will make statement later this month, rather than in November as originally planned

www.theguardian.com

Sure this will help their election chances.

Yep bbc reporting that too..

Chancellor expected to U-turn on 45p tax rate

Kwasi Kwarteng set to reverse plan to scrap the 45p rate of income tax, 10 days after it was announced.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[cupid_stunt]

Sky is having fun reporting the reversal of plans to cut the top rate whilst playing a clip of Truss yesterday saying she was sticking with the measures announced.

They are expecting an official announcement around 7.30am.

 

[moochedit]

She’ll also reverse abolishing the 45% tax rate, because that will score the most political points whilst affecting the fewest voters,

Are you in the cabinet?

 

[cupid_stunt]

She left it to Kwarteng to confirm the news in a tweet.

 

[ruffneck23]

As in the other thread, here is the tweet.

The replies are pretty scathing.

 

[teuchter]

Will "the markets" and the various financial institutions be at all settled by this though? As I understand it, the 45p rate change was responsible for only a small fraction (£1 or 2 billion out of the £45 billion) of the drop in tax income. The bulk of it is in the 20p rate drop.

 

[kabbes]

Will "the markets" and the various financial institutions be at all settled by this though? As I understand it, the 45p rate change was responsible for only a small fraction (£1 or 2 billion out of the £45 billion) of the drop in tax income. The bulk of it is in the 20p rate drop.

Quite. I don’t think it will help much, it’ll just add to the general sense that they don’t know what they’re doing

 

[brogdale]

Quite. I don’t think it will help much, it’ll just add to the general sense that they don’t know what they’re doing

IIRC none of the market volatility last week was remotely connected with the fiscal event; it was all down to global market volatility.

 

[Ax^]

she not for turn but when she is , she'll force someone else to do it on twitter ...

 

[Supine]

Will "the markets" and the various financial institutions be at all settled by this though? As I understand it, the 45p rate change was responsible for only a small fraction (£1 or 2 billion out of the £45 billion) of the drop in tax income. The bulk of it is in the 20p rate drop.

The lack of a payback plan was the bigger issue. Not publishing the governments own analysis still makes them look incompetent. This isn’t over due to one u turn

 

[Petcha]

Will "the markets" and the various financial institutions be at all settled by this though? As I understand it, the 45p rate change was responsible for only a small fraction (£1 or 2 billion out of the £45 billion) of the drop in tax income. The bulk of it is in the 20p rate drop.

I think a lot of the damage has already been done. This was actually a relatively small part of the whole shitshow they announced but showing that level of incompetence in a) announcing it and b) reversing it is what will have spooked global investors

Despite this morning’s U-turn, the damage in the bond market is still clearly visible, says Ben Laidler, global markets strategist at social investment network eToro

The UK government has bowed to the dramatic pressure from the financial markets today. Shelving the top rate of income tax cut provides short term relief to hard pressed Sterling and UK bond markets, but the government is not out of the woods yet with the vast majority of its unfunded spending plans still intact, from cuts to national insurance and basic income tax, to corporation tax and alcohol.
“Much of the damage from last week is also still visible, with 10-year bond yields up by a quarter from early September and by half from August, implying higher costs for all borrowers.”

Edit: The markets obvs dont actually give a fuck about the morals or otherwise of Truss/Kwarteng's plan. They're pragmatic. I think only a change of leadership will reduce the damage. Surely even Tories can see that.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Will "the markets" and the various financial institutions be at all settled by this though? As I understand it, the 45p rate change was responsible for only a small fraction (£1 or 2 billion out of the £45 billion) of the drop in tax income. The bulk of it is in the 20p rate drop.

It's not aimed at the markets. It's aimed at Tory MP's who - led by Gove and Shapps - have made plain that they would not be voting for the tax cut. As you say whilst this was one of the cheaper measures, even most Tory MP's realise that borrowing to fund tax cuts for the wealthiest is politically toxic during a cost of living crisis.

 

[Karl Masks]

I think a lot of the damage has already been done. This was actually a relatively small part of the whole shitshow they announced but showing that level of incompetence in a) announcing it and b) reversing it is what will have spooked global investors



Edit: The markets obvs dont actually give a fuck about the morals or otherwise of Truss/Kwarteng's plan. They're pragmatic. I think only a change of leadership will reduce the damage. Surely even Tories can see that.

people will just call for a GE if they go through another campaign.