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

[ks.234]

The backlash against Trussonomics is going to make matters even worse, not better. Further cuts to public services and more austerity are just around the corner. All the talk of paying down the debt shows how deeply we are embedded into the household model of the economy.

 

[Snufkin]

Petition
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/619781

This is going up by a few votes every second.

 

[wulbert]

The backlash against Trussonomics is going to make matters even worse, not better. Further cuts to public services and more austerity are just around the corner. All the talk of paying down the debt shows how deeply we are embedded into the household model of the economy.

This really is grim. Public services are already operating with around 75% of the funding they had in 2010 in real terms. We've had over a decade of cuts to public infrastructure. They are cut to the bone already and Truss's new cuts will dismantle the skeleton. There won't be a recognisable public sector in two years. I'm already very frightened of me or my family becoming seriously ill or me having an accident at work that involves a trip to A&E.

It's ironic that the backward-looking nostalgia and "Make Britain Great Again" rhetoric of Tory & Brexit supporters forgets that the "Good Old Days" actually included a functioning welfare state & NHS, collective bargaining for workers, powerful borough councils with a direct labour force and "social security" as a stated objective.

What price being comfortably wealthy in a hollowed-out UK, when you stumble in a flooded pot-hole in the kerb, as a desperate parent mugs you for your bag of groceries, as you walk back to your Range Rover Vogue?

This "government" (that no-one voted for, that has no mandate for their actions) have torn up their social contract with us. They can only govern with consent and it's time we withdrew our consent. I'm off to a protest rally this afternoon. I reckon there will be a lot of angry people there.

 

[ks.234]

This really is grim. Public services are already operating with around 75% of the funding they had in 2010 in real terms. We've had over a decade of cuts to public infrastructure. They are cut to the bone already and Truss's new cuts will dismantle the skeleton. There won't be a recognisable public sector in two years. I'm already very frightened of me or my family becoming seriously ill or me having an accident at work that involves a trip to A&E.

It's ironic that the backward-looking nostalgia and "Make Britain Great Again" rhetoric of Tory & Brexit supporters forgets that the "Good Old Days" actually included a functioning welfare state & NHS, collective bargaining for workers, powerful borough councils with a direct labour force and "social security" as a stated objective.

What price being comfortably wealthy in a hollowed-out UK, when you stumble in a flooded pot-hole in the kerb, as a desperate parent mugs you for your bag of groceries, as you walk back to your Range Rover Vogue?

This "government" (that no-one voted for, that has no mandate for their actions) have torn up their social contract with us. They can only govern with consent and it's time we withdrew our consent. I'm off to a protest rally this afternoon. I reckon there will be a lot of angry people there.

Yes, totally agree. Though it has to be said that the social contract was torn up in 1979. We, the electorate, need to recognise what a catastrophic mistake that was. The Social Contract was given up in exchange for the promises that the neoliberal economics of deregulation, privatisation and cuts to public spending would produce benefits for everyone in the long run. After half a century we are still being told that we will benefit in the long run. We were lied to 50 years ago and we’re being lied to again now.

As you say, our public services, especially health and education, are being dismantled before our eyes. Nurses, teachers and GPs are leaving their professions in droves because of poor pay, stress and working conditions. Such conditions are not unfortunate consequences of forces beyond the control of government, our public services are being run down as a matter of political and ideological choice. A political and ideological choice driven by the belief that the free market operates some sort of magic self correcting mechanism that like some sort of holy trinity, cannot be interfered with.

https://www.bmj.com/content/377/bmj.o1535

https://www.theguardian.com/educati...s-england-plan-to-quit-workloads-stress-trust

https://news.sky.com/story/cost-of-...use-they-cant-afford-to-work-for-nhs-12707742

 

[NeilR]

This really is grim. Public services are already operating with around 75% of the funding they had in 2010 in real terms. We've had over a decade of cuts to public infrastructure. They are cut to the bone already and Truss's new cuts will dismantle the skeleton. There won't be a recognisable public sector in two years. I'm already very frightened of me or my family becoming seriously ill or me having an accident at work that involves a trip to A&E.

It's ironic that the backward-looking nostalgia and "Make Britain Great Again" rhetoric of Tory & Brexit supporters forgets that the "Good Old Days" actually included a functioning welfare state & NHS, collective bargaining for workers, powerful borough councils with a direct labour force and "social security" as a stated objective.

What price being comfortably wealthy in a hollowed-out UK, when you stumble in a flooded pot-hole in the kerb, as a desperate parent mugs you for your bag of groceries, as you walk back to your Range Rover Vogue?

This "government" (that no-one voted for, that has no mandate for their actions) have torn up their social contract with us. They can only govern with consent and it's time we withdrew our consent. I'm off to a protest rally this afternoon. I reckon there will be a lot of angry people there.

I think if people want to preserve the role of public services in the UK, we are now at the stage of people needing to take to the streets en masse. It will be too late to wait until the next election, the damage will already have been done.

if I lived in the UK, i would be joining protests on the streets. Now is the time.

 

[ks.234]

I think if people want to preserve the role of public services in the UK, we are now at the stage of people needing to take to the streets en masse. It will be too late to wait until the next election, the damage will already have been done.

if I lived in the UK, i would be joining protests on the streets. Now is the time.

Yes, today’s the day, still not too late
https://wesayenough.co.uk/oct1/

 

[gavreid]

Today's events:

https://wesayenough.co.uk/oct1/

 

[ks.234]

Today's events:

https://wesayenough.co.uk/oct1/

Oi!

 

[eisenach]

What price being comfortably wealthy in a hollowed-out UK, when you stumble in a flooded pot-hole in the kerb, as a desperate parent mugs you for your bag of groceries, as you walk back to your Range Rover Vogue?

It doesn't even work for them, though they can buy their way out of it.

Last summer, after being taken to A&E by ambulance, on release I took the train to our local market town, and then had to get a taxi home, as the last bus (of 3) is mid-afternoon. Chatting to the taxi driver, he told me he'd been called out late on a dark, rainy night to pick up a chap whose Range Rover had blown out two tyres after hitting potholes on Herefordshire's wonderful roads. "I took him to a great, rambling pile in a village just north of Leominster".

After a bit of quizzing, I recognised the place, and who it belongs to, one of his many piles. It was a certain housing minister under a recent former administration. The taxi call out would have been just a bit of loose change to him.

 

[mik_rik]

I'm already very frightened of me or my family becoming seriously ill

...from the cradle to(an early) grave

 

[Jim Audiomisc]

Bit peremptory! You’re small fry, I assume: this kind of legislation, onerous as it might be, is more easily borne by large landlords, and so favours them in their competition with small landlords. Is one argument, I’d imagine. Another is that the author sees the state not simply as acting in the immediate interest of landlords but as mediating between rentiers and renters: you guys can’t have it all your own way because you’re stupid and selfish, no offence, and will exploit renters so severely that the whole racket will collapse - you need protecting from yourselves. Thirdly, the rentier category is being used quite broadly here, to refer to companies that make money from assets, including infrastructure and intellectual property.

I think it makes a lot of sense!

In part the basic problem is one Galbraith described *decades* ago. That 'big business' tends to mean large corporations controlled in reality by their grossly-paid 'directors' (*NOT* by shareholders). These essentially then control their 'market', and can fund politicians and lawmakers in various ways to get the laws they want.

They are NOT small businesses or renters who are left to the (rigged for the above) 'market'. Indeed, they generally *set* their own market via advertising, control of the content of complict newspapers, funding 'think tanks', etc. Thus camoflaging their operations so far as most people are concerned. For them, the 'market' is a tool, not their master.

We see this now with big corps making money from stupendous 'windfall profits' duly using a group of stooges selected by them and 0.2% of the UK population who they have 'groomed' to run the UK in a spectaularly crazy way... and will duly leave them to carry the can.

 

[TheDecameron]

The cat is out of the bag.

The vile little twerp Simon Clarke, the (alleged) Minister for Levelling Up is instead going to level the welfare state:

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...y-politics-latest-news?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

“My big concern in politics is that western Europe is just living in a fool’s paradise whereby we can be ever less productive relative to our peers, and yet still enjoy a very large welfare state and persist in thinking that the two are somehow compatible over the medium to long term.

They’re not. We need to address that precisely because in the end, if we want those strong public services then we are going to have to pay for them. I think it is important that we look at a state which is extremely large, and look at how we can make sure that it is in full alignment with a lower tax economy”.

….bye bye NHS

 

[Jim Audiomisc]

The appeal of Thatcher was that you could buy cheap shares in British Gas and you could buy your council house at a bargain price. She won against the Argie Bargies and she handbagged Up Yours Delors.

Remember Sid

British Gas "Tell Sid" Advert Series (1986) - Ad #3 - YouTube

Yup. She managed to get people to buy what they already owned. The result was predictable. People then sold again to get a 'profit' and have ended up paying for it every since.

 

[Tony L]

The cat is out of the bag.

The vile little twerp Simon Clarke, the (alleged) Minister for Levelling Up is instead going to level the welfare state:

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...y-politics-latest-news?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

“My big concern in politics is that western Europe is just living in a fool’s paradise whereby we can be ever less productive relative to our peers, and yet still enjoy a very large welfare state and persist in thinking that the two are somehow compatible over the medium to long term.

They’re not. We need to address that precisely because in the end, if we want those strong public services then we are going to have to pay for them. I think it is important that we look at a state which is extremely large, and look at how we can make sure that it is in full alignment with a lower tax economy”.

….bye bye NHS

It is worth noting they have absolutely zero mandate for this far-right extremism. None of this was in any manifesto. This IEA/ERG-driven “PM” and her “Chancellor” have next to no public support and zero legitimacy. No one elected this shit. I personally view the current situation as pretty much a coup. It is certainly a hostile takeover from an ideology that did not exist in the party manifesto. As such we need to bring this government down by any means necessary IMHO. They have no mandate for the act of national destruction they have embarked upon.

 

[billo]

How long before the spin comes in about Truss helping people avoid higher mortgage payments by having no one willing to lend them money?

 

[matt j]

It doesn't even work for them, though they can buy their way out of it.

Last summer, after being taken to A&E by ambulance, on release I took the train to our local market town, and then had to get a taxi home, as the last bus (of 3) is mid-afternoon. Chatting to the taxi driver, he told me he'd been called out late on a dark, rainy night to pick up a chap whose Range Rover had blown out two tyres after hitting potholes on Herefordshire's wonderful roads. "I took him to a great, rambling pile in a village just north of Leominster".

After a bit of quizzing, I recognised the place, and who it belongs to, one of his many piles. It was a certain housing minister under a recent former administration. The taxi call out would have been just a bit of loose change to him.

I've worked at the main residence of a certain ex Tory PM's father in law on two occasions now, it's a different world. To be fair to him he actually phones us himself and doesn't get some lacky to do it, although his telephone manner is errr, interesting to say the least!

 

[SteveS1]

She's toast. MP's column describes why but frankly, getting this sh1tshow voted through the HoC without removal of key elements is impossible.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/this-prime-minister-must-be-dispatched-now-c6vkf787k

"The parliamentary Conservative Party must urgently cut itself free of what will soon be the political corpse of its leadership.

An almost unknown prime minister and her almost unknown chancellor have trashed a golden opportunity to reach out to all sides in their party and consult and reflect during weeks of national mourning — and instead blundered straight into a massively ill-considered move that has almost literally scared the country out of its wits. This prime minister must be dispatched. Sacking her chancellor (though she should) won’t save her now. Her own removal is not a matter of “if” but when, how and by whom.

............

A shadow whipping operation is needed to assemble a consensus and tell the chief whip and the chairman of the 1922 Committee. Both must learn that Kwasi Kwarteng and Truss will not get their mini-budget through parliament without amendments that kick away the foundations of their ideology; that ministers will not get away with cutting welfare benefits to fund tax cuts; and that any leadership bid by Boris Johnson, who has always favoured Truss because she would fail (and over whose head the verdict of the Commons privileges committee hangs) will never again be indulged by colleagues.

And — lest Truss digs in — the nuclear option of an early general election must be on the table, but only as a backstop whose very threat should preclude its use. There must be people privately prepared to blow up their own government rather than let it disintegrate slowly and take the rest of the country with it."

 

[Tony L]

Tweet from Anna Soubry with a useful chart of the leadership votes that highlight just how little support within the parliamentary party Truss had (Twitter). That was obviously before this wilful multi-£billion act of economic vandalism that has cost each and every one of us so much. No mandate at all.

 

[PsB]

Tweet from Anna Soubry with a useful chart of the leadership votes that highlight just how little support within the parliamentary party Truss had (Twitter). That was obviously before this wilful multi-£billion act of economic vandalism that has cost each and every one of us so much. No mandate at all.

And yet there she is, wrecking the country's prospects and economy. You can't even call it a coup, as the bizarre political traditions of the country (aka constitution) were followed throughout the process of her appointment, and there's nothing non-party members could do about it. Take back control, indeed.

 

[Nick_G]

I think if people want to preserve the role of public services in the UK, we are now at the stage of people needing to take to the streets en masse. It will be too late to wait until the next election, the damage will already have been done.

if I lived in the UK, i would be joining protests on the streets. Now is the time.