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The Premiership of Mary Elizabeth Truss.Sept 2022 - Oct 2022

I wouldn't get too dewy-eyed about the OBR. It was created by George Osborne and its function, if not its stated aim, was to legitimise austerity. It's a roadblock on the path to progressive change, and I would not be sorry to see it go.

Agreed, but given the choice between any scrutiny and supporting figures, and none, I’m inclined to take the former even if I have to allow for bias.

The simple fact here is Truss & Kwateng have blocked this report purely because they know the figures it contains shred their policies and will be used by others, in their party and outside, to scrutinise their entirely reckless borrow to tax cut, crash and burn ideology. My suspicion is it shows the UK already deep in recession. They don’t want to hear that so they shoot the messenger. As far-right governments always do.
 
Yes, agree that she identified the benefits to the rich, though what Labour would do differently is unclear. For one thing Rachael Reeves herself has ruled out increases to Corp Tax and on a wider ideological point, which was what I was pointing at in my post, the adoption of the household model of the economy is a model that constrains public spending and means that, having condemned the Tories borrowing plans, raising taxes is the only option Labour has left itself to fund increased public spending.

Another constraint on raising public spending for Labour, is that it has also committed itself to reducing the deficit and the debt.
Well yes, you make some good points.
The thing is that thanks to the long term media impressed and entirely false image of Labour as a 'Tax and spend, fiscally incompetent' party, any Labour statement which can be interpreted as confirming that lie, will be seized upon in Parliament and by the press.
As a small example, the Tory Chief Treasury Sec bloke with 2 weeks in post couldn't wait to quote 'Labour's economic disaster of 2008' on telly earlier. He was briefly challenged by Jo wotsername, but not nearly as tenaciously as she should have.
It's a depressing reality.
It's a very difficult position for Labour to be in.
 
The chief sec to the treasury has just been on the box spouting the usual tripe, e.g. ‘Politics of envy’, ‘Labour’s financial crash’, ‘tax and spend’, etc. Where do they find these people?
I think I just came out of this budget somewhat richer, so I’m off down the supermarket to fill a trolley for the food bank. It’s the least I can do.
 
Well yes, you make some good points.
The thing is that thanks to the long term media impressed and entirely false image of Labour as a 'Tax and spend, fiscally incompetent' party, any Labour statement which can be interpreted as confirming that lie, will be seized upon in Parliament and by the press.
As a small example, the Tory Chief Treasury Sec bloke with 2 weeks in post couldn't wait to quote 'Labour's economic disaster of 2008' on telly earlier. He was briefly challenged by Jo wotsername, but not nearly as tenaciously as she should have.
It's a depressing reality.
It's a very difficult position for Labour to be in.
Surely the challenge is what about the tory economic disaster of now?
 
Well yes, you make some good points.
The thing is that thanks to the long term media impressed and entirely false image of Labour as a 'Tax and spend, fiscally incompetent' party, any Labour statement which can be interpreted as confirming that lie, will be seized upon in Parliament and by the press.
As a small example, the Tory Chief Treasury Sec bloke with 2 weeks in post couldn't wait to quote 'Labour's economic disaster of 2008' on telly earlier. He was briefly challenged by Jo wotsername, but not nearly as tenaciously as she should have.
It's a depressing reality.
It's a very difficult position for Labour to be in.
It might well be a difficult position that Labour finds itself in, but it is a position that about has adopted willingly, rather than be pushed into. It could, for example, make an economic case against Thatcher economics, it could offer a coherent ideological and economic alternative, but as long ago as Callaghan, it decided to adopt Thatcherite assumptions, and we have had Thatcherite economic assumptions ever since. We need an alternative.
 
The pound is plunging. Disastrously.

The Chancellor is laughing all the way to Her Majesty's grave.

FdVcUp_XwAInc77
 
A massive moment for @iealondon. They’ve been advocating these policies for years. They incubated Truss and Kwarteng during their early years as MPs. Britain is now their laboratory.

Ex-Conservative Home gobshite Tim Montgomerie actually nails it (Twitter). This is exactly where we are. An economy now defined by an entirely unelected dark-money-funded right-wing ‘think tank’ that masquerades behind a fake official-sounding name.
 
Sounds like the gilts market has followed Stirling in being totally spooked by this new age of economic incompetence (Twitter). Looks to have gone more wonky today than it did in 9/11, 2008, covid etc. Not my area of expertise obviously, but lots of posts by various economists, journalists etc saying the same thing.
 
I'd love to know what's going on, in terms of divisions in the Tory party and the likelihood of them fading away if Truss' measures deliver some short term growth and popularity, which doesn't seem impossible. But it's impossible to find out because as far as I'm aware nobody reports on the party in a realistic way, i.e. in terms of which groups serve which clients. Instead we get all this guff about Thatcherites vs One Nation Tories, and MPs worrying about their popularity, and even the real headcases genuinely wanting to do right by their constituents and so on and it's all complete bollocks, a fantasy.
 
A massive moment for @iealondon. They’ve been advocating these policies for years. They incubated Truss and Kwarteng during their early years as MPs. Britain is now their laboratory.

Ex-Conservative Home gobshite Tim Montgomerie actually nails it (Twitter). This is exactly where we are. An economy now defined by an entirely unelected dark-money-funded right-wing ‘think tank’ that masquerades behind a fake official-sounding name.

Good article by Monbiot on these think tanks

"For decades, policy development on the right was shaped as follows. Oligarchs and corporations funded the thinktanks. The thinktanks proposed policies that, by sheer coincidence, suited the interests of oligarchs and corporations. The billionaire press – also owned by oligarchs – reported these policy proposals as brilliant insights by independent organisations. Conservative frontbenchers then cited the press coverage as evidence of public demand: the voice of the oligarchs was treated as the voice of the people."
 
That is exactly it. The thing that annoys me so hugely is the BBC so actively promoting these entirely bogus entities with their fake official sounding names. There was seldom a QT or Daily Politics without some paid shill from “The Institute Of Economic Affairs”, “Tax Payers Alliance”, “Adam Smith Institute”, “The Henry Jackson Society” or similar scam entities cited as an expert reference without even the slightest scrutiny of their funding or blindingly obvious political leaning. They were usually positioned as independent academic research yet couldn’t possibly be further from it.

PS There is a list of these scam entities here on Wikipedia. One of the most covert, ideological and destructive, the ERG, has actually taken over the Conservative Party in the HoC. It sits at the very heart of government despite having zero legitimate mandate from anyone.
 
I would not be at all surprised if Downing Street insiders were making money from the markets and the fall of the pound, as we speak. All part of their plan to make money at all costs.
 
Can someone please explain Jacob Rees Mogg to me. I honestly do not understand how a multi-millionaire hedge fund manager can become “Secretary Of State For Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy” without every conflict of interest alarm in the world going off. How the hell is this possible? What is ‘insider trading’ if it is not this?!

Well in theory, he is a shareholder but has no active involvement in investment decisions. He's also apparently selling up. More info here:

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...ential-windfall-from-sale-of-somerset-capital

Generally the problem is that we went through a cycle of "This sort of thing looks dodgy > beef up the ministerial code > not actually do anything beyond requiring people to publish their interests"
 


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