To be starting to really worry about Liz Truss

[Anothernamechangeplease]

OK, so I'm not a Tory. I hate Boris, and despise the rest of them. I don't hold or much hope of any of them actually doing anything to address the problems that we're currently facing, because I don't think any of them actually give a toss about ordinary people. Of the two candidates that are left in the Tory leadership contest, I would pick Rishi, because I think he has a more realistic understanding of the economic challenges, but obviously, I'm not a party member so I have no say in the matter.

Nevertheless, I have been relatively sanguine and the prospect of Liz Truss as leader, a) because I figured that things couldn't get much worse than the shit show that we have had under Boris, and b) because I am pretty sure that she will be utterly unelectable when it comes to the next general election, so worst case scenario would be that we have another couple of years of crappy Tory government, exacerbated by the cost of living crisis, and then we can be pretty confident of getting shot of them. So, pretty shit all in all, but survivable.

But listening to everything that she is saying she wants to do, to the economic forecasts, and to the analysis from both within and beyond the Tory party, I'm starting to get really very worried. All this talk of huge tax cuts and massive reductions in public spending...I fear that she is going to make the looming economic crisis infinitely worse at a time when we can least afford to risk it. Nearly all economists seem to agree that her plans are going to make things worse, not better.

We are already at breaking point. Public services are on their knees. Businesses are struggling to stay afloat. People both in work and out of work are struggling. The most vulnerable are already having to choose between bare essentials such as eating and heating. Inflation continues to soar, energy prices are going off the scale, interest rates are going up... and she is about to make it worse! We just don't have the resilience in the system to cope with this.

I am actually very worried about what is going to happen. This could be very bad indeed, and a lot of people are going to suffer. If we end up with austerity on steroids in the midst of an unprecedented economic crisis, there will be massive civil unrest, surely?

Anothernamechangeplease
Maybe the school was good, or maybe it wasn't. I'd be more inclined to believe what has been said by another pupil who was there at the time than I would judge it by what was going on years before LT even started at the school.

It clearly wasn't a 'good' school in 1995 (Liz Truss left the school in 1993) - the 1995 inspection report rated the school as 'satisfactory' - that's one grading below 'good'.

I am more inclined to believe an inspection report grading than I would 'the aunt and mother of a friend' of a random poster on social media.

walkersareback
Yes education was disrupted due to issues with the building but she talks as if it was a failing school which it definitely was not.

She claimed that children from disadvantaged backgrounds were let down at the school; 'there was too little time spent making sure everyone could read and write.’

I don't know if the school's inspection reports from the 1980s/1990s are still available to view but I am going on holiday today so it will have to wait.

I have spent plenty of time on FWR. I'm aware of the issues and I'm concerned about them, but I think you're a fool if you think that the Tories will protect women's rights just because they are able to define them. All of the evidence points to the contrary.

Clav's holiday is holding up the smear. Going anywhere nice?

Insults won’t help you but if you have spent time on FWR you should realise it matters to women beyond a go at your party

I wonder what her views - or Sunak's view are on:

Childcare costs
Making absent fathers pay child maintenance
Tackling DV and supporting the courts, hostels and the entire criminal justice and social services system
Social care - the population is getting older, it's hard to find support for looking after older parents
Supporting women in poorly paid, part time jobs

I am sure that other people could add issues that predominantly affect women to that list.

Of course it matters to women. It matters to me personally. Quite a lot, actually. I'm just not prepared to say that it's the only thing that matters, and I don't believe that I'll derive much comfort from the fact that the government knows what a woman is if everything else is turning to shit.

I see the impact of this government's policies on vulnerable women through my work. They are suffering. The fact that the government is able to define them is not helping them much.

*vera99^
Going anywhere nice?

Yes!

I would add, the Labour Party is not "my party". I think they're better than the Tories by a country mile, but in truth, I am politically homeless. None of them speak for me.

This must surely be the strategy for the whole Conservative party. Which other option is there for them to be able to have another long stint?

Have a good holiday dare I ask where!

That’s fine we can all prioritise how we like and vote accordingly but I do have an issue with it being reduced to women using it as a weakness who don’t care.

Some have been pushing on it for years and now seeing results. But anyway it looks like we agree it does matter so that’s good.

I think she’s a better choice than Rishi though. He’s been chancellor and shown the economy up to this point, hasn’t he?

www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/james-obrien/liz-truss-public-sector-pay-u-turn-leadership-race/

She's like one of those over-promoted blowhards that dominate meetings and know how to curry favour with the bosses whilst spending most of their time nicking subordinate's work and claiming it as their own. Everybody who matters knows they are useless but they still get promoted.

www.ft.com/content/3a79ee7e-0486-430b-af22-54e2581cf58c

The ERG’s preferred candidate was attorney-general Suella Braverman. Yet the Tory right was split in the MPs’ shortlisting stages and her hopes faded fast. The group shifted en masse to Team Truss, including ERG chair Mark Francois and its formidable former leader Steve Baker. Their backing bought momentum, but also a problem.

Prime minister Truss would have two options. One is to go all in and appoint an ERG cabinet: bring back former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith as chief whip, promote Braverman to home secretary or install her as culture secretary to fight a “war on woke”. Keeping them close provides protection, but it also gives her no political headroom and severely limits the talent pool of her nascent government.

Whoops - wrong thread. Apologies

I'm not saying that you don't care. As I said in my earlier post, I think many people are putting their faith in the Tories on this issue because they are allowing hope (or desperation, maybe!) to triumph over experience. Rhetoric over reality, if you like. The Labour Party have been terrible on this issue and it's deeply frustrating, I grant you. However, we shouldn't forget that the erosion of women's rights that we have seen in recent years has all happened on a Tory watch.

What I am saying is that I think that there are some people who are using this issue for their own agenda, without really having much care for what's actually happening to real women, because they think that they have found a convenient stick with which to beat the Labour Party.

It wasn’t about me. It was your claim it’s just a stick to beat the Labour Party. I’d say more women who raise it on here care than don’t.

And yet she now has Javid so nearly all MPs, they could easily back Sunak instead

And polls keep rising

Yes, I'm sure that's true. I am sure that most women with any common sense care about this issue. We can't afford to lose our sex based rights.

However, I do think some are a little triumphant over the Tory party's ability to acknowledge basic biology (which, after all, shouldn't be a big deal, and has only become one because of the Labour Party's abject failure to do likewise) while merrily supporting policies that are devastating to the most vulnerable women in our society. I don't understand how people can profess to care about the rights of women but then act in a way that is entirely contrary to them.

The ERG will never be happy back in John Major's day he called them out as he heard behind them the sound of men in white flapping coats. They are now a party within a party destroying all they touch for the perfect Brexit. It's a cult full of cultists.

Of course, all the MPs are going to Truss now that she is heiress apparent they want jobs. She should call a general election before the economic shitstorm hits if she had any political nous. But she won't and like Gordon Brown before bottle it and lose the next election in which voters will operate "who best to beat the Tories in my constituency approach" aided by unofficial non-aggression pacts on a local basis from Labour and Lid Dems. Very difficult to poll that.

I think the main reason Boris lasted so long was that nobody better could be found to replace him. Not a ringing endorsement of the Conservative party.

Current poll of poll;s

www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/united-kingdom/

Labour 40%
Cons 32 %
Libs 12%
Reform (ex UKIP/Brexit party) 4%
Green 5%

Add in unofficial constituency 'vote swapping' and Reform chipping away like UKIP before them on the tory vote, the absence of 'Get Brexit Done' and the Corbyn bogeyman and economic carnage the Tories are heading for an inevitable defeat, the only question is how big.

unfortnatly not big even in defeat. The issue that stops labour getting a large majority is Scotland. They took it for granted and since the SNP swept to power they have been listless up there. Until they can start to win again in Scotland any Labour government is likely to be either a minority or small majority government and will require the Lib Dems to do well in the Tory/lib dem seats

It’s good to be confident re your party definitely winning, a nice change after last GE too, although I wouldn’t call it yet either way.

Poll gap peaked around July 10 and is now closing but that may reverse or continue. Partygate was effective but I guess we’ll see which way it goes and when a GE is held.