Tuesday 18 October 2022

It was all a bad dream

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I hope Liz Truss goes this week and it can be as if my country woke up from a terrible dream.

If not, at least the mini-budget and her economic policy is a nightmare from which we have woken. 

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard last night: 

'Fiscal order has been restored at breath-taking speed. Jeremy Hunt has done exactly what you have to do in fast-moving crises of this nature.

'Dribbling out half-measures was never going to work. You have to outflank the markets with shock and awe moves that entirely change the conversation.

'The reward has been instant. The pound is back to this year’s average against the euro. Gilt yields have converged with US yields. Futures markets have shaved 75 basis points off the “terminal” Bank rate for this cycle at a stroke, with a virtuous circle for funding costs on gilt debt-service and payments on excess reserves by the Bank of England.

'Global markets will soon forgive the UK for its brief lurch into ideological adventurism whether or not Liz Truss survives as Prime Minister.

'They will switch their focus to the next country that steps out of line as the US Federal Reserve sends ever more powerful and destructive tremors through the global credit system. Few can withstand the shock of vanishing dollar liquidity, down $4 trillion since April.'
Vanishing liquidity means the end of cheap money all over the world.

None of this fiasco has anything to do with Brexit. 

I remind you that La Truss campaigned against Brexit.

I couldn't stand Mrs Thatcher at the time, but admire her and miss her now. The Tory left went on to give us women with penises, autistic teenagers being persuaded by venal doctors to have their private parts removed, nudges, quotas for women on boards and many other aspects of the modern age. On the other hand, Thatcherites did nothing to impede the rapid victory of social liberalism and gave us Liz Truss.

My objections to her mini-budget (for it was hers) are not the policies but their timing and the way they were presented. 

My bigger objection is that Liz wanted to spend vast amounts on defence, overseas aid and Carbon Zero (like Boris) and uncosted plans for energy support, instead of a windfall tax on companies that own monopolies and are profitting from the international situation.

15 comments:

  1. Paul - as I've mentioned on Twitter and Facebook, this is not a 'Conservative' party in any shape or form, and neither have they given us any kind of meaningful Brexit.

    My sympathies for Truss are minimal.

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    1. Mine are less than zero and the Conservative Party is not Conservative. What sort of Brexit would you think meaningful? It's better than Theresa May's nightmare deal. I wonder if the Norway option might not have been acceptable for a few years.

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  2. Caligula's horse would do a better job.

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  3. https://youtu.be/wO2lWmgEK1Y

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  4. I was same with regards Mrs Thatcher at the time , and like you have come to appreciate her.

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  5. I have no sympathy whatsoever for Truss. I did rather like the idea of tax cuts, but to give those without any matching cuts in government spending was an idea that was bound to unravel as soon as it was uttered. The Tory Party is now in an irrecoverable tailspin. Truss was a terrible choice for PM (not that Sunak was any better), but I little imagined that Tory grandees would have the knives out for her within an instant of voting her into the job. Not only are the Tories wedded to big spending and 'woke' ideology, they are also out of ideas and pathologically divided. The Decline of the West has now reached its terminal phase.

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    1. Sunak might not be great but is infinitely better than Liz Truss. People you meet randomly at bus stops would do a better job than her. Yes the Tory Party is probably now in an irrecoverable tailspin, but they must try to set the right course and of course Tory greybeards have to get their knives out for her. If she is out fast it might be a blip. "Not only are the Tories wedded to big spending and 'woke' ideology, they are also out of ideas and pathologically divided. The Decline of the West has now reached its terminal phase." There is a lot of ruin in a country, a party and a civilisation. the end has not yet come for any of those three though the Tories look close to it. Yet in May last year the Conservative candidate won the Hartlepool by-election with 51.9% of the vote, only the second time since 1982 that the governing party gained a seat in a by-election from the opposition. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/may/07/hartlepool-byelection-result-labour-starmer-conservatives

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  6. Unfortunately what is succeeding her is worse. And what succeeds that - Labour - is unthinkable.

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  7. However good or bad Truss was, what are we supposed to make of Hunt de facto running the country when he came dead last in the first round of the leadership election?

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  8. However good or bad Truss was, what are we to make of Hunt de facto running the country when he finished dead last in the leadership election? It’s futile to say “Truss chose him” when she clearly has nothing to say. Who really put him in charge and with what authority or justification?

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  9. Prime Minister Truss tried to roll back recent tax increases - but was betrayed. I do not wish the lady to go - I wish her enemies to go.

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  10. The Conservative Party has gone full leftwing. The UK needs to do two things if it wants to remain a reasonable fascimile of its former glory: stop Third World immigration and cease sending money and arms to Ukraine.

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    1. I agree about immigration and I don't think we have the money to spend on Ukraine or other foreign countries, thanks to furloughs, closing down sources of energy, etc. Intervening in Iraq in 1990 was a good thing but fighting a proxy war against a nuclear power that could last a decade is not. But almost nobody seems to want negotiations. What happened to the pacifist Left?

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  11. The Conservative Party has gone full leftwing. In order for the UK to be a reasonable fascimile of its former glory it needs to stop Third World immigration and cease all assistance to Ukraine.

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  12. What a delusional bunch you are.

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