Barely in her job and the first mini-budget is met by an emergency intervention from the BoE. Strong start from this incredibly dangerous government.
The Tories have been telling us as long as I can remember that people can’t have something for nothing and that people on benefits shouldn’t feel entitled. And then you get this ****. A life propelled by patronage and entitlement, literally Lording it over us with his access and his waffle. The biscuit was well and truly taken when it was revealed he took 10s of thousands from the EU to pay for a free market symposium (jolly) in Africa. We should be after him with pitchforks and flaming torches, not sticking him in the Lords.
Really weird watching the previous night's Daily Show as they kept pronouncing her name /tru:s/ not the 'normal' /trʌs/. Must've got had ghastly northerner on the BBC news that day they used for reference.
Absolute panic today. Black Wednesday vibes. https://news.sky.com/story/pound-slumps-live-news-mortgages-interest-rates-imf-12615118
The one consolation I've had while the US circles the drain is that I could always go back to the UK if I needed to. Thanks for buggering THAT idea up.
If things go as poorly as many think, I wonder if we are going to see a generational loss of support for the Tories? Between Brexit, Covid and now this latest economic kerfuffle it seems highly likely that anyone who came of age in the last decade is going to have no reason to thank them at all.
They said on the news that Dizzy Lizzy and chums might cause the complete downfall of capitalism. Vamos muchacha! Vote Conservative.
Once you view it from the perspective that they know that they’ll lose the next election… well all you can do is laugh. What a set of ****s.
Be very careful - I remember in '92, revising for my finals, staying up to watch the results come in, in the election that would do away with the corrupt, incompetent and hated Tory administration. I can still hear the sharp intake of breath that the nation took when the first result from Billericay came in.
Then they’ll have played an absolute blinder and I’ll toast them with a glass of whatever I’m drinking to escape reality.
So in simple terms (because I’m not very bright) how do they expect this to work? Lower taxes = more money in peoples’ pockets to spend and grow the economy…. But interest rates are going to shoot up, the market is spooked, no one knows what will happen in Ukraine this winter and energy companies could in theory hike their prices again in April* So Truss is going to do some interviews today and undoubtably double down and offer very little reassurance to people because she comes across as a disconnected, cold Politician. Around half a million people in the UK earn £150k+ a year. Do they expect them to spend spend spend? Is it not a known fact that if lower earners have more money in their pockets they spend it, whereas higher earners hoard it? *I think that’s right isn’t it?
In simple terms....it won't work. Trickle down economics has been debunked time and time again. Not only are the wealthy less likely to spend they are also far more likely to invest overseas. The market is spooked for a reason. No government should cut tax, especially to the rich, when massively increasing borrowing. It's not the amounts involved, it's the sentiment. The markets cannot have confidence in a government and chancellor that can get it so spectacularly wrong. An economist was asked by a BBC interviewer the other day "would the market recover if the mini budget is reversed?". His simple reply was no. The reason? The market is built on confidence and sentiment. Admitting a mistake was made does not restore that confidence.
A timely reminder of this classic (Apologies to anyone posting this recently, I’ve not gone over all recent pages as it’s too depressing)
In another astounding demonstration of Things Truss And Her Advisers Don't Understand, they put her on a conveyor belt of local radio appearances this morning. In brief it means sitting in one studio and then talking down the line to each BBC local station one after the other. Great idea, you'd think. An efficient way to communicate, perhaps they thought local journalists would give a softer ride. Go to one location, pop off a series of interviews that reach "real people" who listen to local radio rather than get sliced up by Radio 4, BBC 5 Live or Sky... Thing is local radio journalists tend to know and care a lot about their local areas, are well briefed on the issues, are professional and tenacious and – crucially – aren't part of the ludicrous self-regarding 'Westminster Bubble'. The result is clips on social media of Truss sounding ill-prepared, ill-informed, clueless and stumbling and stuttering while talking to a succession of radio hosts.
https://twitter.com/The_TUC/status/1575139107470196744?s=20&t=z0NGOmEwAupo-tiVT3Do3g Andrew Lilico saying the quiet bit out loud here. This is what the Britannia Unhinged crew think of the public. Sadly, too few of the British public will recognise that they are not in the gang and so they will vote for some more non-existent jam tomorrow next time round. If more of the public realised that when they hear the Tories say the words 'tax cuts' they don't mean them we'd be in a lot better state. Well worth reading the book 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism... A well-written, accessible look at how so many of the things we're encouraged to believe but that don't hold up to scrutiny. Not every theory is perfect but it gets the mind thinking about some of the things we're spoon-fed as cast-iron facts.
You might like.... Interestingly (well not really) I clicked on that creature Grimes's twitter page - he's really hit the ground running after 'that unfortunate sacking incident' - I suppose he has an awful lot of time on his hands...
