Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Maladict]

And Truss it is.

That.is.a.disgrace.

[mongers]

And Truss it is.

That.is.a.disgrace.

Is that link along the lines of the ones that showed up when I googled "Trussed up" as I was trying to find a better pun?

[Tamas]

And she thanks the outgoing leader, "my friend Boris Johnson". She goes on:

Boris, you got Brexit done. You crushed Jeremy Corbyn, you rolled out the vaccine. And you stood up to Vladimir Putin. You were admired from Kyiv to Carlisle.

Awww!

Not going to lie - I loved the awkward silence after that before someone started clapping

I may be reading too much into it, but that tidbit shows me she really IS unaware of what's going on outside her tiny little bubble of personal ambitions and Thatcher biographies. There was zero reason to assure your undying support of your severely disgraced predecessor.

[mongers]

Realised I have no idea of who this person really is, so looked on wiki .....
Oh dear, she did PPE at Oxford.

[The Brain]

Whose PPE?

[Sheilbh]

My main (repeating) point is that in the US they have half of the UK's inflation yet they appear perfectly content to risk recession to make sure inflation is stopped before it develops into a spiral. I don't know what is the right policy to prevent the UK-specific inflation from running rampant, but I am fairly sure it's not the desperate chase to re-ignite the boom cycle.

The government's not in charge of monetary policy and hasn't been since 1997. The BofE is predicting a recession and hiking rates into it. I'm not sure that's right - but that is what they're doing and all the talk from Truss's team is that she thinks rates should go higher, faster and QE should be unwound quicker (although those are decisions for the BofE - whether they should be is another question).

I think the US inflation is materially different than European inflation right now - and the UK has a bit of both. I'm not massively convinced that there's a big difference between the Fed and the BofE. They've raised rates from 0 to 2.5% and the BofE has raise rates from 0.1% to 1.75% - both are signalling there's more rates to come. They seem to be behaving in quite similar ways - the outlier (and I think it's right for their situation) is the ECB.

I agree and I'm very dubious on tax cuts as a big policy idea right now. But, I think every government in Europe is going to have to spend massive amounts on energy. I think worrying about spending like crazy right now, as worrying about it during covid or wartime, seems to me a bit misdirected.

I don't think it's a bad idea for government to have a growth target though and I wouldn't mind formally setting one for the Treasury to at least try and focus minds there a bit.

[Sheilbh]

  I may be reading too much into it, but that tidbit shows me she really IS unaware of what's going on outside her tiny little bubble of personal ambitions and Thatcher biographies. There was zero reason to assure your undying support of your severely disgraced predecessor.

I think it's probably a bit of a convention now. Even if you've won an election and you absolutely hate your opponent you normally pay tribute to them - though you often couch it more in terms of always doing what they thought was right etc. I think it's probably a low cost and valuable convention.

I think it was overly fulsome though - but some of that is Johnson will have supporters, in the case of Johnson, he may well try and cause problems for you, plus Truss ran as the candidate who wasn't disloyal to a leader which the Tories always like (even after they've dumped a leader ). I slightly feel it was a bit of the Danegeld she has to pay for the campaign she run/how she positioned herself.

But it was very funny how misjudged it was and shouldn't have been an applause line. That silence was a reminder that Johnson doesn't have much support in the parliamentary Tory party - who I imagine are furious that after winning their biggest majority in 30 years, they've not really done much with it, have had to get rid of a leader and are ten points behind in the polls

Really hope she tries that line on the general public at some point if that's the response of Tory MPs

[Sheilbh]

Interesting point from James Johnson (of a rival pollster that didn't do a Tory members poll) - that polling has dominated the interpretation and cycle of this contest. There was an early YouGov poll which showed Truss on 70% and Sunak on 30% and the final YouGov poll still had Truss on about 65% - and that has really set how the entire race was reported, it was the context for all the debates and the hustings etc.

It was repeatedly explained that it's really difficult to poll Tory (or Labour) part members because they're a small electorate but also there's really limited data on their demographics which makes weighting incredibly difficult. In the 2019 leadership YouGov also overestimated Johnson's lead by 15%. Is there a bit of a question of the ethics of issuing opinion polls - even if you heavily caveat them? I feel there's a question of whether YouGov should even do it as well as whether the media should report it.

Either Sunak's run an incredible campaign and gone from 30% to 43%, or it was always incorrectly framed as an insurmountable lead/coronation by Truss.

Not sure what I think

Edit: Separately I see the NYT has commissioned another video by Jonathan Pie. I can't think of any other country or subject where the NYT would be giving space to an "anti-woke" satirist who started on Russia Today  doing "plague on all houses", anti-political rants - being anti-Tory will get you out of a lot

Their editorial decisions on the UK are often a bit weird and they seem to like "alternative" voices from the UK - some of whom are alternative for a reason.

[Maladict]

And Truss it is.

That.is.a.disgrace.

Is that link along the lines of the ones that showed up when I googled "Trussed up" as I was trying to find a better pun?

There's no link, it was generated because of the periods.
It's a quote from her cheese speech.

[Sheilbh]

The tribute to Johnson and awkward silence until someone started clapping
https://twitter.com/BloombergUK/status/1566755460065239041?s=20&t=Nk44NhegGch1vPEpLX3E0w

Edit: And as Tamas says in the monarchy providing its one useful constitutional service of keeping PMs in their place, Johnson will do his "farewell speech" at 7.30 am because the Queen's schedule (mainly about meeting her new PM) is pretty tight and the weather's bad so they need to leave early to get to Balmoral

[Josquius]

Wow. The Joe lycett stuff is great. Front page of the mail raging about him for making a joke that only works as a joke it you accept nothing that he says could possibly be believed by a sane person.

[Sheilbh]

Wow. The Joe lycett stuff is great. Front page of the mail raging about him for making a joke that only works as a joke it you accept nothing that he says could possibly be believed by a sane person.

Also that's been a very good meme today.

[Jacob]

A bit more context for those of us who don't know what "the Joe Iycett stuff" is?

[Josquius]

A bit more context for those of us who don't know what "the Joe Iycett stuff" is?

https://mobile.twitter.com/BeardedGenius/status/1566349321750171648?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1566349321750171648%7Ctwgr%5Ecfcf3bbe6f7a32ce99aa112f6877c8c3bfbc453a%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fd-24402221693362558363.ampproject.net%2F2208172101000%2Fframe.html

The clip in question.

[Sheilbh]

A bit more context for those of us who don't know what "the Joe Iycett stuff" is?

New political Sunday morning show launched yesterday and he was the comedian on the panel and very good
https://twitter.com/BeardedGenius/status/1566349321750171648?s=20&t=5F8LDQ1z2iyXBqDeAeOyKg

Cue enormous pearl clutching by centrist media types and the tabloids because it mocked (a) political talk shows and (b) Liz Truss.

The  thing is anyone doing a slot as a pundit would basically say "well, she hasn't said much and there's no clarity about her plan on energy" possibly quite angrily - and anyway he's sat next to a Labour MP who'll do that. I think what's really annoyed people is that he basically took the piss of the entire format. By pretending to be a Truss superfan (he whooped at the end of her interview too) it basically forced the host to either go along, or call his bluff which would mean admitting that it's absurd that anyone would be reassured by Truss's interview or that Truss said much of anything. And it works for basically any of those Sunday shows any week.