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Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#261

Post by cameronh90 »

edmcnulty101 wrote: post #235
cameronh90 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every day that politics has been operating since she took office has been one crisis after another. The first disaster was the mini budget that everyone pointed out and how poorly it was handled, but the nail in the coffin was the chaos in parliament yesterday. In short, the opposition called a vote on fracking, which is supported by Truss' "pro growth" government, but was opposed in the conservative manifesto. The g…

"Assaulted!" God damn British politics is crazy! The need to put a UFC octagon in Parliament.

This is very not-typical and the details are still in flux. That being said, towards the end of a long run of a party in power, things do tend to get rather bumpy.

It's clearly time for a general election and end of the Conservative tenure in government.

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#262

Post by petesergeant »

mikro2nd wrote: post #252
petesergeant wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a general election would be the obviously correct solution As much as I'd love a GE and to see Tory MPs swept from power en-masse, that's just not how a Parliamentary system works. Everyone in the UK voted for (whether they think it or not) an MP to elect them for five years. Those MPs get to choose who leads them.

Do you in the UK have any means to recall an MP and force a by-election? (for whatever reason -- gone rogue, gone awol, gone loony, etc.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recall_of_MPs_Act_2015

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#263

Post by themgt »

fragmede wrote: post #132
HelloNurse wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a way that feels somehow good-hearted and doesn't lay bare the naked resentment and hatred that seems to be all we have left in the USA. Do you think it is real hatred or kayfabe?

Circa 2014, George Mitchell (D-Maine), Bob Dole (R-Kan.), Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and Howard Baker (R-Tenn.) were known to be IRL friends. But that was back then. These days I think the hatred is more real than not.

As a counterpoint, a recently released via FOIA transcript of Obama to reporters in the last days of his presidency:

Obama: Privately, that's not -- [Trump's] interactions with me are very different than they are with the public, or, for that matter, interactions with Barack Obama, the distant figure. He's very polite to me, and has not stopped being so. I think where he sees a vulnerability he goes after it and he takes advantage of it.

A fair amount of it is still kayfabe to the pros (the problem is, it isn't to the public).

https://docs.google.com/viewerng/viewer?url=https://assets.b...

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#264

Post by makomk »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #115
paganel wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not all the tax cuts announced were bad or badly welcomed. Not a tax cut per se, but I'm curious what will happen with the energy bill support scheme? That seemed like a good thing to implement, one for which Truss and her cabinet got a lot of critics from a certain part of the media. Granted, I'm not from Britain so maybe I'm reading the room wrong and that support scheme was, in fact, not liked by everyone involv…

Frankly, this energy support scheme is a blank cheque to the energy companies. It guarantees that the energy companies will fully profit from high energy prices, all in effect funded by the taxpayer, and Truss also rejected any windfall taxes on energy companies. I think it makes sense to limit it in its current form to this winter instead of 2 years (which is the latest status). It'll still be possible to reassess t…

It's not exactly true that Truss "rejected any windfall taxes on energy companies" even though the opposition Labour party keep on claiming that: https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-labour-kee...

Basically, the Tories had already placed a windfall tax on UK oil and gas before Truss even became PM that's almost identical to the one that Labour have called for, and no-one has proposed removing it. (To some extent, it looks like Labour copied the existing Tory tax.) The main reason why Truss' original proposal required so much more taxpayer funding was that her price cap lasted for two years rather than six months - Labour were relying on windfall tax revenue from well before the start of the price subsidy to make their numbers add up and still couldn't quite do it, so there's no way to extend it for longer without massive government borrowing.

Most of the media coverage didn't explain this at all, they just repeated Labour's claims that all that government borrowing was because the Tories were in the pockets of energy companies and rejected a windfall tax. Nor did they explain the practical consequences of the price cap ending in April. All of the numbers thrown around for the cost of Truss' longer price cap assumed energy prices would still be unaffordably high by then, but no-one pointed this out and what it would mean for households. Of course, the moment the government annouced their energy support would end in April there were headlines everywhere about the huge bills this could cause for households.

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#265

Post by __bjoernd »

tomp wrote: post #189
Gordonjcp wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will be the fourth unelected PM in six years (okay, Boris Johnson did actually win a GE after being foisted upon us, if you think that counts). It's time for an early General Election. This lot need to go. Every trace of the Tories must be obliterated. The hilarious part is, the way that polling stands right now, a General Election would result in a strong Labour majority with the Scottish National Party in oppo…

> It's time for an early General Election. Every trace of the Tories must be obliterated. Sounds like completely unbiased opinion. /s More seriously, I'm only interested in hearing the arguments for a general election from nominal conservative (Tory) supporters. All arguments from leftists are just "we want to win" in disguise so are completely untrustworthy. From what I understand of UK politics, Johnson won the las…

> All arguments from leftists…

Clearly unbiased opinion. /s

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#266

Post by klelatti »

usefulcat wrote: post #233
klelatti wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lost the confidence of the market for UK government debt pushing up borrowing costs for government and for others (as well as causing problems for pension funds who own that debt). She did this by launching a series of unfunded tax cuts and doing so without an assessment of the impact on the UK's finances.

> She did this by launching a series of unfunded tax cuts Another interesting difference between the US and UK. Republicans do this routinely in the US, and have done for many decades now. The last Republican president who didn't do this was George Bush (the first one). After promising "no new taxes" during his campaign, he later agreed to do the fiscally responsible thing and raise taxes in order to offset spending…

Two things:

- The UK doesn’t have the $

- I think in this instance it was partly the fact that they didn’t seem to be interested in the fiscal position and didn’t publish an assessment because they thought it was bad - so the markets assumed the worst. Don’t think any U.S. president has gone quite so far - happy to be corrected!

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#267

Post by Gordonjcp »

tomp wrote: post #189
Gordonjcp wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will be the fourth unelected PM in six years (okay, Boris Johnson did actually win a GE after being foisted upon us, if you think that counts). It's time for an early General Election. This lot need to go. Every trace of the Tories must be obliterated. The hilarious part is, the way that polling stands right now, a General Election would result in a strong Labour majority with the Scottish National Party in oppo…

> It's time for an early General Election. Every trace of the Tories must be obliterated. Sounds like completely unbiased opinion. /s More seriously, I'm only interested in hearing the arguments for a general election from nominal conservative (Tory) supporters. All arguments from leftists are just "we want to win" in disguise so are completely untrustworthy. From what I understand of UK politics, Johnson won the las…

It's an extremely biased opinion, and I make no apologies.

I think every single living member of every Tory cabinet present and past should be strung up in Parliament Square. I'm not in any sense unclear about my views on them.

We have had twelve years of disastrous Tory austerity that has comprehensively destroyed the UK's economy. What's the plan? Let them keep trying until they get something right? How long is it supposed to take for their austerity policies to work, to get the economy back to a sensible state?

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#268

Post by samwillis »

mikro2nd wrote: post #252
petesergeant wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a general election would be the obviously correct solution As much as I'd love a GE and to see Tory MPs swept from power en-masse, that's just not how a Parliamentary system works. Everyone in the UK voted for (whether they think it or not) an MP to elect them for five years. Those MPs get to choose who leads them.

Do you in the UK have any means to recall an MP and force a by-election? (for whatever reason -- gone rogue, gone awol, gone loony, etc.)

No, however I think there are some rules about them breaking the law and being sacked.

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#269

Post by nimbius »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #188
hairofadog wrote: post #90

I know this topic is important in substance and the thing I'm about to say is an aesthetic issue, but as an American watching this unfold I have admired the Brits for the sense of heart that still seems to be present in their politics. I'm referring to the parliamentary sessions in which, even though they're savagely roasting each other, they're doing in a way that feels somehow good-hearted and doesn't lay bare the…

One of my favorite C-Span shows was The Prime Minister's Questions[0]. Don't mess with British politicians. Even the grumpiest old dogs can savage most American politicians, as the folks that tried roasting Galloway found out[1]. [0] https://www.c-span.org/series/?PrimeMinisterQue [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5u1skEoqLs

I have to commend you, the testimony is hilarious to watch and succors a distant memory of the "mission accomplished" era of our dear George W Bush. This show trial if anything was a teachable moment for a party which --at the time-- had grown quite comfortable crushing any and all dissent during the Iraq war.

the great irony here is that Galloway left an innocent man, only to watch the US casually endorse its private contractors as they bribe taliban warlords for safe passage in Afghanistan in 2010.

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