Forum Topic

Is it over for Truss?  Is it over for the left wing of Labour too?

Is it over for Truss?  The betting is moving against her.https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2022/09/28/its-a-41-betting-chance-that-truss-wont-survive-2023/And who will the Tories replace her with?   Will it make any difference now!  The party is over for this right wing cliche, that have failed the Tory party. Sadly we are all going to pay the price.For Labour nationally, this is once again demonstrating that a move to the centre ground, is the right one.  The mood from being in Liverpool recognises that.  Labour locally should have really won many more Ward seats in Chiswick back in May.  They didn't, and they didn't because of the left wing, momentum, extinction rebellion and cycling lobby dominated cliche, that sits within the labour group in Hounslow, who think they are superior to everyone else and so arrogant that they put up former lead for Transport, Hanif Khan, as a candidate.Just like the right wing cliche nationally in the Tory party they want to do to people what they want and act in their own narrow interest.  Ignoring the inequity that this creates.  This is the worst kind of politics and proven, once again, both nationally and locally to be a failure. The divisive cycleway that scars Chiswick, and LTNs in Grove Park, imposed against the will of the people is evidence of that. Time and again, a majority of Chiswick residents 80% to 20% have continually voted against all these schemes says it all.  Not only are the Council ignoring the will of the people, they are punitively taxing Chiswick residents for simply living there as disclosed the other week by SOGA that the Council are coining it, to the tune of £438,000 a week in fines on Staveley Rd, so far issuing £7.8m in fines.  That is immoral.  A failure. If Council leader, Shantanu Rajawat wants to be true to his word and start listening and working for all, he should follow the lead from the top of the Labour Party, stop the failures of the small interest group within his Cabinet, work with the people of Chiswick and not against them and implement schemes the majority want, the 80%, rather than the few, who have failed Chiswick and the Labour Party.

Jonathan Mabbutt ● 1454d30 Comments

So spot on. Couldn't be more accurate

Andy Jacobs ● 1454d

'Labour locally should have really won many more Ward seats in Chiswick back in May.  They didn't, and they didn't because of the left wing, momentum, extinction rebellion and cycling lobby dominated cliche, that sits within the labour group in Hounslow, who think they are superior to everyone else and so arrogant that they put up former lead for Transport, Hanif Khan, as a candidate.'Well, I've read some things about the local Labour party but that one takes the biscuit! My gripe as a former member and lifelong supporter - until recently, is that there are very few real natural Labour members among them. The party I joined in 1979 has changed and I find that locally they have bog-all in common with a lot of us, and I have friends who are still - only just - members. Middle class, arrogant and condescending chancers is my view, lots of fine words - you know - transparency, listening, working with local people and on and on ad-infinitum, But, none of that ever happens, it's all well we've got the power and we're hanging on to it come what may - and of course we know it all - who the hell are any of you to assume you know anything? There are exceptions who are few, but this is not the party for the people as far as my recent experiences are concerned.

Vanessa Smith ● 1454d

I've said it before and I'll say it again - despite our political differences, Vanessa, I wish you were still a councillor - you would be a massive improvement on the current lot.

Richard Greenhough ● 1454d

An improvement on the current lot would not be that difficult though, would it?

Brian Coyle ● 1454d

I hesitate to give this desperate post any credence by replying to it but I just can't avoid pointing out the irony of its bizarre premise, in light of a raft of accelerated net zero policy announcements at the Labour conference, being somewhat undermined by the removal of the whip from the most publicly outspoken opponent of LTNs on the Labour benches. Not that said whip removal is related but I feel satisfied that I have met the bar set by the OP for things being related.

Paul Campbell ● 1454d

Back to Truss / Kwarteng.Can anyone make any sense of the "fiscal event" non-budget?  (Sounds rather like a "special military operation" non-war).Is there any logic behind this "fiscal event" at all, or is  this really just a wanton intent to trash the UK economy to enrich Truss' and (particularly) Kwarteng's chums?  It is difficult to see any rational basis for the steps taken.If there is any truth at all that Kwarteng met his former employer (and major Tory party donor) hedge fund manager Crispin Odey a few days before the  non-budget resulting in Odey's massive bets against the pound, then we are in far more trouble in this country then previously seemed to be the case.

T P Howell ● 1454d

You know you`re right TP!"Is there any logic behind this "fiscal event" at all, or is  this really just a wanton intent to trash the UK economy to enrich Truss' and (particularly) Kwarteng's chums? " - that`s the one....

Cris Bur ● 1454d

I find the notion farfetched that Kwarteng tipped the wink to Crispin Odey and other hedge funds in advance of the budget to help them make a killing from it. The meetings did take place certainly but it is hard to think of any other explanation than he genuinely believed that by explaining his strategy to leading players in financial markets he would get more support when the measures were announced.I'm sure Odey and the others licked their lips during the meeting while making encouraging sounds to the chancellor then phoned their dealers from the taxi to short the hell out of gilts and sterling.That our Chancellor is an idiot rather than a crook probably  isn't much comfort. He is an idiot, not because he doesn't have a high degree of intelligence, but because once he has decided on a position he won't countenance that he is wrong.  The removal of Tom Scholar as Permanent Secretary to the Treasury was a massive red flag but, if you talk to anybody who has had dealings with Kwarteng, they will tell you it is indicative of his character which does like to have his opinions questioned. He will go down as one of the worst chancellors ever and hopefully the shortest lived. The cabinet should be demanding now that Truss fires him and puts Sunak in his place immediately. We are heading for a crisis but prompt action may mean there is a chance we recover from it.

Francis Rowe ● 1454d

Maybe Sunak would tell Truss it would be her job he'd accept, or he'll stay put.

Vivienne Cox ● 1454d

Bravo Vanessa - beautifully worded

Helen Bamberger ● 1454d

I don't think that is practical. As we have learnt over the last few months, changing Prime Ministers is a very long drawn out process. Changing a minister can be done overnight. Truss accepting Sunak as Chancellor would make her a lame duck PM but the cabinet could force her to do it - she may choose to resign and I'm not sure what happens then. She was never the best candidate and most of them supported her out of opportunism because they knew she would win the membership vote but will go with the tide. Her and Kwarteng have already infuriated the Brexiteers with their immigration policy so there will be a core of ministers ready to pounce. Who other that Therese Coffey will be willing to go to the wall for her?

Francis Rowe ● 1454d

Choosing the leader of the Conservative party is a very long drawn out process...Is there anything set in stone that the Prime Minster needs to be the leader of the Conservative party?  Can the Conservative MPs choose the Prime Minster without recourse to Conservative membership who would be involved in selecting the party leader?I believe Chamberlain was still leader of the Conservative party after Churchill became Prime Minister.

Michael Robinson ● 1454d

Francis, I grew with a lot of what you say. However, the sacking of Tom Scholar stems from bad blood between Truss and Scholar when she was at the Treasury because she refuses to countenance any other point of view other than her own (except she will change her mind in the interests of er career, obviously). She got Kwarteng to do her dirty work for her.She cannot surely replace Kwarteng with Sunak as Sunak could not possibly pursue the implementation of the recent mini-budget as his fiscal policy is completely at odds with that of Truss. Although, one can never tell….Meanwhile, the Bank of England is trying to save Pension Funds while Truss watches on….

Stewart Jones ● 1454d

Francis, I agree (not grew)!

Stewart Jones ● 1454d

Chris: I hope you are wrong.  Francis: I hope you are right.Incompetence usually trumps conspiracy, even at its most crass.  And hopefully Occam has got his razor out.But either way, we are in a heck of a mess.

T P Howell ● 1453d

We sure are.

Sarah Vickers ● 1453d

Come back Boris!!!

Chris Dakers ● 1453d

Noooooo!!!!He set the scene.

T P Howell ● 1453d

Question is, what will bring them down?

Russell Pearson ● 1453d

" Question is, what will bring them down? " Presumably all these measures will all need to survive a Commons Vote. While Truss and Kwarteng may live in a world of their own MP's have constituents who will hold them accountable and so it's a question of whether they want to sacrifice their entire political careers. Assuming any are salvageable at all before its too late. As it is Truss, is clearly a busted flush in no position to do anyone any further favours for loyaly nor exact any real revenge.

michael adams

Michael Adams ● 1453d

The question is also this. What is or can bring down the labour party as 2 years and a bit is a long time.A mini-budget has set things crashing outside and within the cons, while kier Starmer is the man of the hour because he has told you what he plans to do. Especially in 8 years time when we wont need gas. Who would have known He told everyone what he was going to do when campaigning to be the leader only to ditch them at the labour conference in 2021 Does anyone know where our prime minister is?

Julian Pavey ● 1453d

Indeed Michael, the Commons vote will be key. A question of just how much the Tories will risk, at the risk of an election, and of their party being split asunder. And then we have Starmer’s Labour as the alternative. Grim.

Russell Pearson ● 1453d

Where is Liz Truss?  Somewhere with her head in the sand.

T P Howell ● 1453d

https://youtu.be/bRhlRM6rYck

Jonathan Mabbutt ● 1453d

The Tories have played with the country for years to avoid a split in the party- what else was the Brexit referendum about? . We are all now going to pay the price. Heavily.

Stewart Jones ● 1453d

While the Cabinet should demand the sacking of Kwarteng, there isn't any strong indication at this stage that they will. Truss made no attempt to heal the wounds of the leadership contest by offering a reasonable share of posts to Sunak supporters, all of whom primarily backed him because they saw this disaster coming. That means there are a disproportionate number of ministers who know their position is solely down to their support for Truss as no other PM would appoint them.In so far as the rest of the cabinet are motivated by principle rather than personal advancement, they seem to divide into three principle camps all with different and contradictory views of Brexit. Truss's Singapore on Thames Brexit has limited ideological support, the bigger clique is the Little Britain Brexit group whose primary concern is immigration and they have been completely undermined by Truss and Kwarteng's policies which require a level of immigration beyond that seen when we were in the single market. The final group is the environmentalist Brexiteers who really believed that the CAP was destroying rural England and that rewilding and incentives for sustainable farming were required. This group have had the ground cut from underneath them more comprehensively than the others by Truss's policies but they may be less relevant following the departure of Gove and Johnson.A vote of no confidence in Truss is not in the arsenal of Tory MPs at the moment because of the moratorium after the one called for Johnson, so any rebellion needs to be minister-led. Looking at the list of Ministers, there are no obvious candidates to lead a delegation to Truss. Ben Wallace is one of the few with any heft but he may feel he needs to continue to focus on Ukraine. After that Penny Mordaunt would possibly be Brutus, and she would have the added benefit of being a likely winner of a membership vote if she was on the next ballot.The real danger is that the cabinet is to pusilanimous to act and the crisis gets deeper and deeper and becomes one we never recover from.

Francis Rowe ● 1453d

Well did Vanessa.I'd put it more down to the Tories imploding rather than Starmer suddenly becoming a viable leader.

Basil Finnis ● 1453d

A vote of no confidence is available.  The only person who would have been protected for definite, if he had won and fortunately he lost, was Johnson.  This does not necessarily apply to Truss, but there is confusion. The normal rules are that 15% of MPs submit letters of no confidence, but 1922 committee can change the rules or enough MPs demand the change.  In Round 1 of the voting by MPs to select Truss and Sunak, Truss only got 50 votes, that is l4%.  So there are 307 MPs who did not originally support Truss.The betting odds are also clear.  8% on her going in 2022, 40% in 2023. https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2022/09/29/punters-now-betting-that-truss-will-be-out-next-year/

Jonathan Mabbutt ● 1453d

According to the Speccie, Labour have a 33 point lead now. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/labour-surge-to-33-point-lead-over-tories

Russell Pearson ● 1452d

As usual, Jonathan, insightful, common sense, accurate and nail-on-the head analysis.  Thank you.

Claire Moran ● 1452d