Should we trust Sunak or the next PM to fix the Country's problems? (title revised 24/10/22)

[honeybee13]

PM tries to reassure global markets by appearing on local radio. Here are the times for this morning.

 

0800 LEEDS

0808 NORFOLK

0815 KENT

0822 LANCASHIRE

0830 NOTTINGHAM

0838 TEES

0845 BRISTOL

0852 STOKE

[honeybee13]

Did anyone listen to any of the interviews? One journo said you might as well have recorded the first answer to Radio Leeds in the first interview and replayed that. I did manage to hear the Radio Kent one and the the lady tried hard to get answers, even cutting across the PM to try and stop her waffling. Truss was robotic IMO.

 

I doubt if it's made any difference at all, especially with the markets.

[honeybee13]

Someone on Twitter had a good suggestion, although co-ordinating the questions and sequence might not be easy.

 

They could have run it like one long interview, with presenters asking a series of questions so that Truss couldn't keep repeating the bits about help with fuel bills, etc.

[honeybee13]

Liz Truss wrong to claim ‘no household’ will pay more than £2,500 on energy bills - Full Fact

FULLFACT.ORG

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During an interview on CNN the Prime Minister claimed ‘nobody’ would have to pay more than £2,500 in energy bills. Per the government’s own figures...

 

[honeybee13]

Having heard clips of the interviews with local radio presenters, I think asking the same question more than once worked and the guys did a great job. You can hear the cogs whirring after some of their questions while the PM tries to find something to say which isn't normally an answer to the question asked.

 

There's a compilation of all the interviews.

 

Newscast - The Liz Truss BBC Local Radio Interviews - BBC Sounds

WWW.BBC.CO.UK

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The full set of interviews with the Prime Minister on BBC Local Radio

 

 

 

[honeybee13]

Secondly, we are now in a situation where the two primary monetary policy levers in the UK are being pulled in opposite directions.

 

Other people have made the same point. The Bank are there to control inflation and it's thought that the 'growth package' will increase it.

[honeybee13]

Andrew Marr was right that they should have been out there reassuring the markets but after yesterday's car crash with local radio, some people are saying maybe Truss should have kept quiet after all. Wee Nicola is one.

 

I don't remember a party conference being boycotted before. Could the temptation be to carry on for the party faithful and members and hope that nobody outspoken turns up to ask difficult questions?

[honeybee13]

UB, I think the jury's out, to coin a phrase, on your thread title.  

 

So she and KK are meeting the chairman of the OBR which has called them out on saying a forecast couldn't have been made available for last Friday. At least one journo is saying they didn't want any negative - realistic? - views of their pet project.

 

I wonder if they think they can talk the OBR round to their way of thinking?

 

 

 

[honeybee13]

Simon Nixon in the Times on restoring confidence.

 

'Yet there is no guarantee that the government will succeed in resolving the governance crisis. This undermining of institutions is best understood as part of a six-year, Brexit-driven flight from reality in which any individual or institution that provides unwelcome advice is dismissed as part of some giant left-wing, woke Remoaner plot, a conspiracy that now apparently includes the world’s dealing desks. Kwarteng’s budgetary gamble was driven by an urgent need to demonstrate some economic benefit from a Brexit that so far has led only to slower growth, weaker public finances and higher taxes.'

archive.ph

ARCHIVE.PH

 

[honeybee13]

I can't access the article atm, TJ.

 

Are you saying they want to massage the detail, perhaps?

[honeybee13]

My concern is for the gilt market after 14th October when the BoE gets through the £65bn. Will the markets have been reassured by then?

[honeybee13]

They're trying to blame everyone but themselves. Someone pointed out that we just passed from blaming the last Labour government to blaming the next one.

[honeybee13]

Depressing stuff, TJ.

 

Here's some more, Truss is pushing ahead with investment zones despite concerns over costs. It sounds to me as if it could reduce the overall tax take just when the UK needs more.

 

They seem to be in an awful hurry to bring in all these policies.

 

Liz Truss to push ahead with unlimited ‘investment zones’ despite costs row | Economic policy | The Guardian

WWW.THEGUARDIAN.COM

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Exclusive: Concerns about not capping number of areas allowed to get favourable tax and planning treatment

 

[honeybee13]

I think that should be investigated, TJ. You can't have the chancellor acting against the country to benefit his dealer mates.

 

More on lobbyists in No10 being paid under odd arrangements.

 

Two of prime minister’s senior advisers being paid through lobbying company | Liz Truss | The Guardian

WWW.THEGUARDIAN.COM

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Aides Alice Robinson and Mac Chapwell paid by company run by Liz Truss’s new chief of staff

 

[honeybee13]

That just sounds biased, UB, given how Somerset Capital has profited from sterling's problems. And a peerage to make sure he can be a minister.

[honeybee13]

There is a standards panel for peerages, I think it's called Holac.

 

A few people think the Tories are milking the system and the economy before they're ousted.

 

 

[honeybee13]

Interesting that Truss's speech today is said to have the line:

 

'I will not allow the anti-growth coalition to hold us back. Labour, Lib Dems and the SNP, the militant unions, the vested interests dressed up as think tanks, the talking heads, the Brexit deniers and Extinction Rebellion.'

 

The Tufton Street Elite Takes Back Control of the Brexit Project – Byline Times

BYLINETIMES.COM

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The libertarian ideologues in Downing Street are taking a hammer to Boris Johnson’s Brexit coalition, says Sam Bright

 

Liz Truss and the rise of the Tufton Street elite - New Statesman

WWW.NEWSTATESMAN.COM

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The free-market thinkers and ideas behind the most radical economic experiment in Britain for 40 years.

 

The BBC and the Guardian have also had articles about 55 Tufton Street recently.

[honeybee13]

The current opinion is she'll be out by Christmas but heaven only knows who we get instead.

 

On disruption and breaking things, UB, Andrew Marr has a new article out that could summon it up as Revolutionary Brexit.

 

The Brexit revolution devours its children - New Statesman

WWW.NEWSTATESMAN.COM

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As Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng lose authority and control, the Tories’ divisions can be traced back to the EU referendum.

 

[honeybee13]

Truss did vote against Brexit and spoke against it, but she saw career progression in becoming a Brexiter and is a convert/zealot now.

 

And she's had free marketeer beliefs for a long time, before Britannia Unhinged - oops, Unchained, I mean.

[honeybee13]

Best bit of the speech

 

Which, sorry?

[honeybee13]

If you were in charge of the LibDems, would you trust Gove, UB? I'm not sure I would. There was talk of him editing the Times not that long ago, but someone else seems to have got the gig.

 

Interesting article here about Truss's political 'honeymoon'. Steve Richards also wonders why she and KK didn't think about the consequences of the budget and talks about the role of right wing think tanks.

 

That u-turn and the shortest honeymoon in political history - The New European

WWW.THENEWEUROPEAN.CO.UK

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Liz Truss has made the worst start of any prime minister, revealing herself as a tinpot, tin-eared Margaret Thatcher impersonator

 

[honeybee13]

From James O'Brien on Twitter:

 

But most of these 'anti-growth' people are the ones who keep pointing out how stupid it was to withdraw from the largest free market on the planet. It's just deeply, deeply weird to ignore the measurable & obvious damage this has done, is doing & will continue to do to 'growth'.

 

 

[honeybee13]

Pound falls again as agency downgrades outlook for UK's credit rating to 'negative'

NEWS.SKY.COM

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Fitch takes aim at the apparent conflict between government policy and Bank of England action to fight inflation, warning that it is concerned by the...

 

[honeybee13]

This isn't the first time the UK has been called an emerging nation, quiet a few organisations have said this recently.

 

Britain is learning a painful lesson: what happens in ‘emerging markets’ could also happen here | Kojo Koram | The Guardian

WWW.THEGUARDIAN.COM

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The UK thought it would be protected from the volatility seen in ‘developing’ countries. Now, cracks are beginning to appear, says law lecturer Kojo Koram

 

[honeybee13]

20 hours ago, theoldrouge said:

Best bit of the speech

 

 

We see the anti-growth coalition at work across the country.

 

Keir Starmer wants to put extra taxes on the companies we need to invest in our energy security.

 

And his sticking plaster solution will only last six months.

 

He has no long-term plan and no vision for Britain.

 

Mark Drakeford in Wales is cancelling road-building projects and refusing to build the M4 relief road.

 

Nicola Sturgeon won’t build new nuclear power stations in Scotland to solve the energy crisis in Scotland.

 

Have these people ever seen a tax rise they don’t like?

 

Or an industry they don’t want to control?

 

They don’t understand the British people.

 

They don’t understand aspiration

 

In answer to @honeybee13question as to who we will have as the next PM by Xmas?

Well Boris obviously 

 

So that summary is 'the best part of the speech'? It doesn't read as if it's verbatim to me.

 

Who knows if Boris can come back as PM once the privileges committee does its work. He might not even be an MP.