To be starting to really worry about Liz Truss

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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?

Sunak is an out and out Tory with Tory beliefs and values. That's sinister enough in itself.

Truss doesn't have a principle she's not afraid to jettison in exchange for power. I think she lacks any core beliefs. I also think she's a liability when interviewed because she often goes off script. Sometimes that's endearing in a politician but not when what they say in those unguarded moments shows you that deep down they're a bit rubbish at their job.

Truss /Sunak are playing to the gallery of mostly retired, own their own homes, have probably indexed linked pensions, share portfolios, savings and the like and are I'm alright jack and jills which is why the cost of living crisis doesn't figure in their 'no more handouts' don't touch the energy companies with windfall taxes spiel.

That's what Sunak was relaxed about talking about Labour shovelling cash to the decaying cities whereas he will give it back to Royal Tunbridge Wells and their ilk.

Whereas Martin Lewis is going mental at how bad it's going to be and Gordon Brown has rolled up his sleeves and done pro-bono sage advice on how as a country we could get through this whilst these fuckers have gone AWOL.

Oh, and city workers getting cost of living increase whilst organised labour are sheep led by militant commie trade union 'Barons'.

They've nothing left in their corrupt, greedy, heartless souls except migrant hating, union loathing, woke culture warring, victim blaming, and beating the EU as an "evil entity" drum. 12 years in government and chaos lies all around and everybody's fault but their own.

Enough is enough.

wesayenough.co.uk/

right I'm off to Ikea and get real on Vinted...

Richie wants to bring artificial intelligence in to help teachers with worklo

YABU to start to worry about her. She's been alternatively ludicrous and scary for years.

I wish they could replace the MPs with AI at the moment.
They might actually do some work and try to sort out the current crisis we face, you never know.

Or skynet.. ;

Yes interest rates were much ridiculously high in the late 80s and early 90.
Even during most of the 90s , interest rates were at about 6%.

BUT- house prices were lower, people borrowed less. Even in 2000 you could easily get a house for £100k.

The reason people have to borrow more is because house prices have gone up massively.

We need to stop celebrating the fact that house prices have gone up massively.

Agree with Vera 99. I’ve said this hundreds of times before- the core Tory voters are retired people,who own their own homes predominantly in the south of England. Or middle class people in suburbia.

Apparently unions are ‘militant’ because they dare to say enough is enough for working class people.

Grant Shapps , the transport secretary won’t even meet the RMT , calling them militant.
Isnt that his job to?

The Tories want to ban anyone from stiking- aswell as protesters.

They also want to send migrants to Rwanda. Apart from it being unworkable - it’ll cost millions. And only about 50 have actually gone anyway.

The irony is it would actually be cheaper to send these ‘migrants ‘to private school and give them their own houses than it is to deport them to Rwanda.

They want to give tax cuts to businesses and the rich.Probably because their mates inn business will give them a back hander.

I wasn’t Browns biggest fan but atleast he’s come out and is speaking out.

Boris has given up- I’m alright Jack. He will
get another job and get a massive pay rise.

Whats more ,I wouldn’t be surprised if they still get voted back in. 🤷‍♂️

Yep all correct, except I don't think anyone has been sent to Rwanda yet. It was all "stalled" after the legal challenge and has gone very quiet since.

All part of the "will of the people" vs "lefty lawyers" that want to frustrate it narrative they have set up. When they say they must ‘keep Brexit safe’ what they mean is - to keep themselves safe. Keep pretending Brexit = patriotism. Keep claiming sovereignty matters more than democracy or prosperity. Keep lying to us. Keep dividing us. Anything to stop us from noticing the damage they’ve done. Sunak's latest video is pitiable but will probably cut through to the blue-rinsed angry Hyacinth Buckets in the shires.

twitter.com/RishiSunak/status/1556590394170818560

Husband has always voted conservative but his upbringing was working class and his parents lived in a council house in London all their life. His dad thought Mrs Thatcher was the best PM we ever had. The stereotype of only the rich in the shires voting for them historically isn't always correct and Essex was lost to them years ago too, many parts are not exactly affluent even now , but many I knew did make a fortune buying their council homes and quickly moving out to the 'nicer ' areas in the 80s and 90s ( even though his parents and mine didn't do this)
There are many reasons that people vote Tory
Dh and I don't discuss politics much . My views are not his, but a lot of his views were influenced by his parents.

I'm curious at what point Truss will u-turn on energy bill handouts. An analysis released today stuggests they could go over £4k after January, which is pretty much unaffordable for a third of UK households. I don't know how it benefits the tories by pretending this isn't happening.

Not surprisingly I hated Thatcher but would have her back in a blink if it was this shower vs her with no alternative. At least she would do a "good job" at fixing some stuff and would never have gone down this Brexit rabbit hole. All that and triple for The "Reverend" Gordon Brown whose Reverend father obviously deeply imbued him with a moral-ethical parsimonious streak. He not only helps to manage the Food Banks in his area but gives most of his fees from speaking gigs to charity.

Handouts to poor people - they are in the middle of appealing to the red meat traditional tory membership not the wider electorate at the moment. Hence their lack of focus.

Question for all the Tory-bashers though, do you really think Labour could magically make everything better, even with a proper leader if they could come up with one? The current horrendous situation is the result of many many factors, the Tory government being just one part of it. Also don't forget a lot of what Truss or Sunak says is the usual pre-election promise stuff that will no doubt be forgotten.

To a point, but doing nothing to help is also conveniently in line with the candidates' personal ideologies too.

But if Truss does want to hit the ground running, as she keeps saying, she should be talking about this now. She's going to win, might as well start acting like it.

There are no magical answers far from it and of course, I believe Labour / a coalition could do better than this hollowed-out right-wing ideological Tory party which has been shorn of a lot of it's old guard and wise old minds in the pursuit of the hardest Brexit. I'd say that things are so bad if we had any sense as a nation we would go for a National Government of all the talents but that's just daydreaming and something this current Tory leadership have burnt any bridges they could possibly have had and particularly with the devolved nations.

TBH I think Truss is so fixated on the prize for personal ambition reasons she doesn't have any capacity to fill the wider picture with a vision that would embrace the nation. Continuity Johnson fits the bill quite well - firefight from self-imposed crisis to crisis.

Energy hitting 4k per year isn’t affordable to most people though is it?y family joint income is £42k.
We haven’t got 4k per year to spend on energy.

Its not just about people on benefits or pensioners.

Average and lower earners won’t be able to afford it.

Many people don’t earn much money but don’t qualify for UC. So scrape by.

Imagine if 10 million households couldn’t pay? What would the government do? They can’t make everyone homeless can they?

That’s before we even think about pubs, restaurants, hair salons and shops.

Anything targeted through UC won’t reach you, you’re right

Whether payments should be targeted as they were previously seems to be up for debate between candidates

Martin Lewis is not one to catastrophise is predicting a cataclysm for millions of households this winter if nothing is done to ameliorate it and as Gordon Brown has powerfully made the argument that if nothing is done civil disorder and mass non-payment will bring back echoes of the Poll Tax and maybe worse. As a result of the impoverishment, the knock-on effects to retail and leisure will be equally severe as "just making do" becomes a retrenchment and no more pubs, eating out theatre, cinema and the like even for those relatively well off and in work.

Of course nobody thinks Starmer or any other Labour MP has a magic wand. Nothing can change the situation but the way it’s dealt with can be changed. Tax cuts benefit the richest most so they’re a pointless way of addressing the cost of living crisis. What’s needed is the rise in corporation tax that’s already planned and meaningful windfall taxation of the companies that are making eye watering profits from energy and fuel with the proceeds targeted to the most vulnerable.

twitter.com/MartinSLewis/status/1556939639675654150

Tragic news
The latest Corwallinsight prediction, based on Ofgem's new methodology, is an 81% price cap rise in Oct (taking typical bill to £3,582/yr) and a further 19% in Jan (so £4,266/yr)
Action & planning is needed now. The zombie govt needs wake up sooner than 5 Sept...
These amounts are unaffordable for millions. The Jan figure equates to 45% of the full new state pension, and a higher proportion of the old one.
The rise alone on the Jan prediction, from when the help was first announced in May, is roughly £1,400/yr...
That rise alone swallows up not just £400 help for all homes,but even the £1,200 for the poorest
This will leave many destitute. Tax cuts won't help poorest incl many elderly & disabled who've higher usage
Cutting green levy'd be just tiny sticking plaster on a gaping wound...
The leadership debate must not ignore this portentous national cataclysm any more.
-They can't say they weren't warned
-The excuse "we need to wait for Ofgem figure" doesn't wash. In May govt asked Ofgem for forward guidance & made plans based on that. It can do the same now..
An action plan is needed TODAY
They are all in the same party, let's call on them to come together for the good of the nation rather than personal point scoring
People's livliehoods, mental wellbeing & in some cases very lives depend on this
This is a desperate
Pls share

The only way I can see this through would be to go further than what Sunak is doing. Give people a bigger discount and pay it back over a longer period of time.
So basically the energy bills are subsided by government and they take it back over a longer period of time.
Obviously it may mean paying back more in the longer term, but surely we need to focus on the next two years.
Whats the point in rushing to pay off the UK’s credit card bill, if millions of people and businesses go bust? In that case we wouldn’t be able to pay it back anyway.
So borrow more to pay for the energy and pay it back in the longe term. But what do I know ??

I've always wondered, from whom do all our countries borrow money from ?! No country seems to be doing very well at the moment . Simplistic , naive question I know but can't we just wipe the debt off and start again . Please?
(I don't really want the A lends to B, goes around until E pays it back to A etc , etc explanation , am just fed up today and think that as "money " is a made up thing anyway why can't we get off the carousel and stop child poverty and give people the medical they need without lack of money being cited as the reason?