Over the course of yesterday afternoon, what was left of the Prime Minister’s authority disintegrated. At midday, Liz Truss arose in the House of Commons chamber for Prime Minister’s Questions. The PM wouldn’t speak about market turmoil or tax cuts, only the government’s energy package. The faces of her MPs on the back benches were grim with despair. When they weren’t averting their gaze, they tried to suppress their laughter. Laughter is always the telling sign.
From then on, MPs speculated about the potential size of Labour’s majority if a general election was called. Many are resigned to their fate. Some have resorted to gallows humour. “All those with a majority smaller than 10,000 don’t think they’ll have a seat after the next election,” one said.
At 5pm, the PM addressed the 1922 Committee of backbenchers. The atmosphere was “funereal” – as one attendee put it to me. The MP Robert Halfon accused the Prime Minister of “trashing” the last ten years of conservatism. Another attendee was bemused that the PM still wouldn’t talk about the bond market even behind closed doors.
“What is there to say?” a former cabinet member said. “People are now asking why I didn’t vote for her. Now they know.” Or, as another former minister put it: “the public is sick to death of the Tory party psychodrama. It’s started to feel like a flight path from 1995 to 1997. On top of all of that, you’ve got the fact that Boris Johnson has demotivated us and damaged our self-respect by lying to us, the Commons and everybody.”
A further MP gives Truss a “few months or a year”. Truss is technically protected from a leadership challenge for 12 months from her appointment. But as one architect of Johnson’s decline notes, once enough MPs turn on her, the rules become immaterial. Johnson was forced to resign when he was technically protected under the same rules. Some MPs are now hoping to coronate a unity candidate as PM to avoid the humiliation of another leadership contest.
What options lie open to Truss? The key task for the government is bolstering its credibility on the economy. Market turmoil is expected to return when the Bank of England’s support programme ends on Friday. At that point, keeping the budget in its current form seems untenable. She may need to signal an about turn by sacking the Chancellor. Some MPs are already going through the list of potential replacements. But that may not suffice. The disunity that began at conference is now in full flow. Truss doesn’t elicit the anger that MPs felt towards Boris Johnson. Instead, many MPs simply don’t think she can do the job. She’s lost whatever authority she had – and her demise now feels inevitable.
Her Premiership is literally, ‘Trickling down’ the shitter.
>Some MPs are now hoping to coronate a unity candidate as PM to avoid the humiliation of another leadership contest.
It seems to me unlikely that this would improve their electoral prospects any. To get rid of a leader within a year shows that the party has no talent left, no direction, no plan. Any unity candidate would have a hard time promising anything because that would displease some corner of the party.
The only way out of this I can see is:
1. Sack Kami-Kwaze with a promise of another top job if he keeps quiet the next year
2. Sack Rees-Mogg and pin the whole budget fiasco on him
3. Appoint Sunak to replace himat business/energy to try and build some unity.
4. Bin the whole mini-budget and start afresh with Sunak input.
5. Put the safest, dullest, most respected pair of hands in at the Treasury.
Never under estimate the capacity of the conservative party to make other suffer to preserve itself
so the UK is gonna see a prime minister that was in office for only barely over a month? damn
So if she does get ousted, or at least replaces the chancellor… what are the chances that mortgage rates won’t be fucked any more?
I mean good but if who will probably follow on at a GE could actually support the nurse unions etc that’d also be nice.
The same thing keeps being reported with no change. I dislike her as much as the next person but I not getting all excited until it’s happening.
>Liz Truss’s demise now feels inevitable
Bring on the next incompetent criminal and / or regular criminal and the cycle continues.
It’s so obvious I even read that title as “Liz Truss’s inevitable demise now seems inevitable”.
After this giant dump of a year, you really think that you’re gonna be that lucky?
I’d ask why they don’t just call a general election early, every day that passes is another nail in the Tory coffin, they’ll never be voted in again at this rate.
Then I realise they’re Tories and are using these last few moments of power to damage the country as much as possible to make things more difficult for actual politicians. Selling off as much of Great Britain’s rotting corpse as they can before fucking off to a foreign villa.
I just hope the next government puts in place measures to ensure this bullshittery never happens again. Get rid of first past the post, add a mechanism for the people to vote for an early general election. Salvage the NHS. Maybe imprison some Tories for their utter Treason.
The entirety of Liz Truss’s drama makes zero sense to me
It was absolutely apparent her economic policies were complete asinine, and Sunak’s stance that she would simply kick the debt can down the road further while ushering in more inflation were easy to understand.
She gets in, and it’s immediately a train wreck. Everyone saw it coming. Now the tories are further divided and have little respect for their new leader whom they just voted in. Truss was completely out of her depth and yet ushered right in; in a way, I kind of feel sorry for her.
It’s the biggest case of /r/LeopardsAteMyFace in UK policies for a while. The question is – why did they knowingly choose the worst option?
If there’s one ray of light in all of this, it’s that there is now a huge possibility of a Labour landslide victory at the next GE, even under the toast-without-butter Kier.
The ones who voted her in should be for the choppity chop chop as well
When the governing party, let alone the opposition, have lost confidence in the pm, there should be a general election and not a leadership contest. These past several months have shown the idiocy of leadership elections for governing party as shuffling deck chairs as the country sinks.
For every Tory MP who feels they’ll lose their seat in the next election because of this, take what little time you have left in office to make a real statement.
Leave the party.
Because, Tories, your members voted for this. Your fellow MPs voted for this. Your constituents voted for this. In all three cases it was *not* the majority of those who could vote, but that doesn’t matter in the Tory party.
So, any Tory MP who finds themselves staring down the barrel of what their party is doing, how their party is acting, how their constituents are being treated by this, and past, governments… any Tory MP looking at that with disgust or despair should send a clear and concise message.
Leave the party.
Represent your constituents. Tell parliament you will not support the whims of a government that has clearly got no sense of supporting the country or even the party. If it makes you feel better, you can say you would return when the party returns to its values, or whatever else helps you soften the career blow to your liking. But it’s quite simple really. If you, Tory MP, stick around and keep donning the blue rosette and tie, then you support this catastrophe. This catastrophe is only maintained by the votes which keep it in power. If you really represent your constituents:
Leave. The. Party.
My money is on her going and the Tory’s are forced to call a general election.
The media and the people won’t allow for another leadership change.
This country needs someone less…. Interesting? Give me a dull bastard for a while that gets shit sorted for a change
19 comments
Over the course of yesterday afternoon, what was left of the Prime Minister’s authority disintegrated. At midday, Liz Truss arose in the House of Commons chamber for Prime Minister’s Questions. The PM wouldn’t speak about market turmoil or tax cuts, only the government’s energy package. The faces of her MPs on the back benches were grim with despair. When they weren’t averting their gaze, they tried to suppress their laughter. Laughter is always the telling sign.
From then on, MPs speculated about the potential size of Labour’s majority if a general election was called. Many are resigned to their fate. Some have resorted to gallows humour. “All those with a majority smaller than 10,000 don’t think they’ll have a seat after the next election,” one said.
At 5pm, the PM addressed the 1922 Committee of backbenchers. The atmosphere was “funereal” – as one attendee put it to me. The MP Robert Halfon accused the Prime Minister of “trashing” the last ten years of conservatism. Another attendee was bemused that the PM still wouldn’t talk about the bond market even behind closed doors.
“What is there to say?” a former cabinet member said. “People are now asking why I didn’t vote for her. Now they know.” Or, as another former minister put it: “the public is sick to death of the Tory party psychodrama. It’s started to feel like a flight path from 1995 to 1997. On top of all of that, you’ve got the fact that Boris Johnson has demotivated us and damaged our self-respect by lying to us, the Commons and everybody.”
A further MP gives Truss a “few months or a year”. Truss is technically protected from a leadership challenge for 12 months from her appointment. But as one architect of Johnson’s decline notes, once enough MPs turn on her, the rules become immaterial. Johnson was forced to resign when he was technically protected under the same rules. Some MPs are now hoping to coronate a unity candidate as PM to avoid the humiliation of another leadership contest.
What options lie open to Truss? The key task for the government is bolstering its credibility on the economy. Market turmoil is expected to return when the Bank of England’s support programme ends on Friday. At that point, keeping the budget in its current form seems untenable. She may need to signal an about turn by sacking the Chancellor. Some MPs are already going through the list of potential replacements. But that may not suffice. The disunity that began at conference is now in full flow. Truss doesn’t elicit the anger that MPs felt towards Boris Johnson. Instead, many MPs simply don’t think she can do the job. She’s lost whatever authority she had – and her demise now feels inevitable.
Her Premiership is literally, ‘Trickling down’ the shitter.
>Some MPs are now hoping to coronate a unity candidate as PM to avoid the humiliation of another leadership contest.
It seems to me unlikely that this would improve their electoral prospects any. To get rid of a leader within a year shows that the party has no talent left, no direction, no plan. Any unity candidate would have a hard time promising anything because that would displease some corner of the party.
The only way out of this I can see is:
1. Sack Kami-Kwaze with a promise of another top job if he keeps quiet the next year
2. Sack Rees-Mogg and pin the whole budget fiasco on him
3. Appoint Sunak to replace himat business/energy to try and build some unity.
4. Bin the whole mini-budget and start afresh with Sunak input.
5. Put the safest, dullest, most respected pair of hands in at the Treasury.
Never under estimate the capacity of the conservative party to make other suffer to preserve itself
so the UK is gonna see a prime minister that was in office for only barely over a month? damn
So if she does get ousted, or at least replaces the chancellor… what are the chances that mortgage rates won’t be fucked any more?
I mean good but if who will probably follow on at a GE could actually support the nurse unions etc that’d also be nice.
The same thing keeps being reported with no change. I dislike her as much as the next person but I not getting all excited until it’s happening.
>Liz Truss’s demise now feels inevitable
Bring on the next incompetent criminal and / or regular criminal and the cycle continues.
It’s so obvious I even read that title as “Liz Truss’s inevitable demise now seems inevitable”.
After this giant dump of a year, you really think that you’re gonna be that lucky?
I’d ask why they don’t just call a general election early, every day that passes is another nail in the Tory coffin, they’ll never be voted in again at this rate.
Then I realise they’re Tories and are using these last few moments of power to damage the country as much as possible to make things more difficult for actual politicians. Selling off as much of Great Britain’s rotting corpse as they can before fucking off to a foreign villa.
I just hope the next government puts in place measures to ensure this bullshittery never happens again. Get rid of first past the post, add a mechanism for the people to vote for an early general election. Salvage the NHS. Maybe imprison some Tories for their utter Treason.
The entirety of Liz Truss’s drama makes zero sense to me
It was absolutely apparent her economic policies were complete asinine, and Sunak’s stance that she would simply kick the debt can down the road further while ushering in more inflation were easy to understand.
She gets in, and it’s immediately a train wreck. Everyone saw it coming. Now the tories are further divided and have little respect for their new leader whom they just voted in. Truss was completely out of her depth and yet ushered right in; in a way, I kind of feel sorry for her.
It’s the biggest case of /r/LeopardsAteMyFace in UK policies for a while. The question is – why did they knowingly choose the worst option?
If there’s one ray of light in all of this, it’s that there is now a huge possibility of a Labour landslide victory at the next GE, even under the toast-without-butter Kier.
The ones who voted her in should be for the choppity chop chop as well
When the governing party, let alone the opposition, have lost confidence in the pm, there should be a general election and not a leadership contest. These past several months have shown the idiocy of leadership elections for governing party as shuffling deck chairs as the country sinks.
For every Tory MP who feels they’ll lose their seat in the next election because of this, take what little time you have left in office to make a real statement.
Leave the party.
Because, Tories, your members voted for this. Your fellow MPs voted for this. Your constituents voted for this. In all three cases it was *not* the majority of those who could vote, but that doesn’t matter in the Tory party.
So, any Tory MP who finds themselves staring down the barrel of what their party is doing, how their party is acting, how their constituents are being treated by this, and past, governments… any Tory MP looking at that with disgust or despair should send a clear and concise message.
Leave the party.
Represent your constituents. Tell parliament you will not support the whims of a government that has clearly got no sense of supporting the country or even the party. If it makes you feel better, you can say you would return when the party returns to its values, or whatever else helps you soften the career blow to your liking. But it’s quite simple really. If you, Tory MP, stick around and keep donning the blue rosette and tie, then you support this catastrophe. This catastrophe is only maintained by the votes which keep it in power. If you really represent your constituents:
Leave. The. Party.
My money is on her going and the Tory’s are forced to call a general election.
The media and the people won’t allow for another leadership change.
This country needs someone less…. Interesting? Give me a dull bastard for a while that gets shit sorted for a change