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Liz Truss’s time is up


Amongst the interesting quotes:

“Strong momentum at the end of 2021 means UK economic growth will outpace the rest of the G7 this year. Tax cuts announced in the mini-Budget are expected to lift it even higher than the IMF's current forecast of 3.6pc”

[in reality, gdp shrank 0.4% this month]

“The IMF said its projections did not fully factor in measures announced in the mini-Budget,”


The UK is the only G7 economy which is still smaller than its pre-pandemic size. Analysts at Deutsche Bank do not expect it to recover until 2024.

“The IMF believes higher inflation and rising interest rates will push around 350,000 more people out of work, with the unemployment rate expected to rise to 4.8pc by the end of 2023, from 3.5pc today.”

Woohoo!
 
Tax cuts announced in the mini-Budget are expected to lift it even higher than the IMF's current forecast of 3.6pc

This is not actually what the report says. It says that GDP will fall by about 3 percentage points next year and that this fall might be slightly reduced by the tax cuts, but at the expense of a large increase in inflation. The 3.6 figure is a perviously published one for growth in 2022, so not in anyway a result of the mini-budget.

This seems to be a bit optimistic compared to what most economists think, btw.
 
Just listened to the latest Alistair Campbell (and Tory Stewart) podcast. He seems sure that a lot of tories know they are losing their seats at the next GE regardless of anything that can happen between now and then, and that they will do their damnedest to get rid of Dizzy Lizzy.
 
Q: "Ms Truss, do you agree with Mr Rees-Mogg that the mini-budget had nothing to do with the markets tanking?

A: "People were facing spiralling energy bills. This government has acted decisively to help these ordinary people facing spiralling energy bills."

Q: "OK, well that wasn't the question asked but moving on. Can you offer a guarantee that there won't be huge cuts in public sector spending?"

A: "People were facing spiralling energy bills. This government has acted decisively to help these ordinary people facing spiralling energy bills."

Q: "Are you OK? Would you like a cup of tea and a nice sit down?"

A: "People were facing spiralling energy bills. This government has acted decisively to help these ordinary people facing spiralling energy bills."

When I first read this, I thought you were paraphrasing in a truly exaggerated Zapp Brannigan fashion. Having just watched PMQs, I think you're being overly generous in your summation. Holy fuck, I've seen rabbits in headlights juggling floundering fish with more grace and skill than this. All the eloquence of a squabbling 8 year old throwing a tiny tantrum over a lollipop. Either unwilling or incapable to see anything past the front of her increasingly vacant face. A one-trick, one-legged pony.
 
Max Hastings, who has written some sketchy far right shit over the years, wants to see the Tories put out of their misery. We’ve really crossed a line now.
 
As I’ve always said. They’re not stupid. Quite the opposite actually (have you seen Kwarteng’s CV??). Just very clever psychopaths.

Do you think the mini-budget (designed to starved public services) was an accident? No. They knew they’d drop the higher rate tax cap. It’s like any negotiation. You start of higher than expectations. And the nursing pay strike? A deliberate provocation to undermine the ‘heroes of the NHS’. To soften things up for it’s eventual privatization. It’s on paper. We know what their agenda is.
 
Sounds like she got a right kicking from the back-benchers during the 1922 meeting yesterday, not so much a honeymoon period, as a halloween period.
 
The Tories had come to believe that they could elect any leader with impunity and it would make no difference either to their popularity or even to their effectiveness. After all, they had got through with May and then even Johnson without unreasonable self-immolation. Who cares what everybody else thinks? If about half our MPs plus some of our mental members want Truss, that’s fine and who cares if she can barely tie her shoelaces? Well, now they’re learning why they should care. Sadly, we have to pay the price for this lesson in humility.
 
As I’ve always said. They’re not stupid. Quite the opposite actually (have you seen Kwarteng’s CV??). Just very clever psychopaths.

Do you think the mini-budget (designed to starved public services) was an accident? No. They knew they’d drop the higher rate tax cap. It’s like any negotiation. You start of higher than expectations. And the nursing pay strike? A deliberate provocation to undermine the ‘heroes of the NHS’. To soften things up for it’s eventual privatization. It’s on paper. We know what their agenda is.
This isn't 5D chess.

It is the product of hubris.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice
 
The Labour manifesto in 2019 was fully costed - perhaps relying on some optimistic economic forecasts, but not too concerning to the markets - until they promised to compensate the WASPI women, which would've cost another £58bn, blowing a hole in all their budget forecasts. If they'd gone ahead with a £58bn black hole in their budget then the markets would certainly have reacted badly. That policy undid all the work Macdonald had done to reassure the markets that Corbyn's Labour was not a threat to their investments.

The markets only care about getting a return on their investments. They don't really care what governments do as long as their investments are safe. They get jumpy when left wing governments are elected as left wing governments should be hurting their investments. Allende, for example, nationalised the copper mines without compensation - about as bad for investors as it could get - and the markets reacted punishingly to that.

Markets are usually reassured by right wing governments as they've traditionally been there to protect the market's investments, at whatever human cost. Truss, with a £60bn black hole in her budget, borrowing billions to pay for the energy price cap when UK borrowing is already high following Covid, relying on fantasy growth to be able to cover the cost when only about 3 people in the world think her trickle-down plan will work, has made the markets think their investments aren't as safe as they'd assumed and they reacted. If she and Kwarteng had announced plans to pay for the energy price cap and tax give away which would've worked financially, such as huge cuts to public spending - ending the state pension, funding the NHS through insurance - the markets wouldn't have batted an eyelid.
What about renationalising all public utilities, even if costed?
 
As I’ve always said. They’re not stupid. Quite the opposite actually (have you seen Kwarteng’s CV??). Just very clever psychopaths.

Do you think the mini-budget (designed to starved public services) was an accident? No. They knew they’d drop the higher rate tax cap. It’s like any negotiation. You start of higher than expectations. And the nursing pay strike? A deliberate provocation to undermine the ‘heroes of the NHS’. To soften things up for it’s eventual privatization. It’s on paper. We know what their agenda is.

Not sure Kwarteng is thinking further ahead than creating some planned market upheavals for his chums to make an easy profit from.

As for his CV, he was in finance IIRC. You don't need to be smart to do that. Hedge fund traders have been shown to perform less well than random number generators at picking investments.
 
When I first read this, I thought you were paraphrasing in a truly exaggerated Zapp Brannigan fashion. Having just watched PMQs, I think you're being overly generous in your summation. Holy fuck, I've seen rabbits in headlights juggling floundering fish with more grace and skill than this. All the eloquence of a squabbling 8 year old throwing a tiny tantrum over a lollipop. Either unwilling or incapable to see anything past the front of her increasingly vacant face. A one-trick, one-legged pony.
I watched it on YouTube last night and I gave up after a few mins. She really did answer every question no matter what it was about with:-

"People were facing spiralling energy bills. This government has acted decisively to help these ordinary people facing spiralling energy bills" or some variation thereof at least up until the point I stopped and watched something else instead, I really just couldn't finish it off.
 
Just listened to the latest Alistair Campbell (and Tory Stewart) podcast. He seems sure that a lot of tories know they are losing their seats at the next GE regardless of anything that can happen between now and then, and that they will do their damnedest to get rid of Dizzy Lizzy.
Campbell is a spin doctor and liar, its all he knows and only gets him air time from producers who want to inject 'passion' into a piece
 
What about renationalising all public utilities, even if costed?
Markets are amoral, impersonal and only care about the performance of investments. If the prospects look good money flows in, if the prospects look bad money flows out.

Will the current investors get a 'fair' price for the public utilities, without creating an unsustainable debt burden through borrowing? Will all other short, medium and long term investments in the country remain stable and profitable? If the markets aren't concerned about ongoing investment opportunities in the country they'll be fine with it. If they think there's risk costs will rise. If they don't like the look of it they'll move their money elsewhere and the economy will crash. The markets have lived with nationalised industries before. And think of the money to be made in the future when they're privatised again.

The political opposition to renationalisation is a different issue.
 
Markets are amoral, impersonal and only care about the performance of investments. If the prospects look good money flows in, if the prospects look bad money flows out.

Will the current investors get a 'fair' price for the public utilities, without creating an unsustainable debt burden through borrowing? Will all other short, medium and long term investments in the country remain stable and profitable? If the markets aren't concerned about ongoing investment opportunities in the country they'll be fine with it. If they think there's risk costs will rise. If they don't like the look of it they'll move their money elsewhere and the economy will crash. The markets have lived with nationalised industries before. And think of the money to be made in the future when they're privatised again.

The political opposition to renationalisation is a different issue.
Would be interesting to see a historical precedent of mass nationalisation...I wonder if there's anything comparable.

I think anti corporate policy also "spooks" markets, and as we've seen this week it doesn't take much to knock the house of cards down.
 
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