Liz Truss - why didn't we realise?

[ARoyalSubject]

Turn the clock back a month, and we knew she was stupid, and that more than likely she was the wrong choice for a sensible, responsible prime minister - but did people join the dots and realise that she was such an ideologue / so in thrall to ideologues?

AIBU to say that the media didn't spell out exactly what a Truss premiership meant?

She and Kwazi have written a book on exactly what's happening now for god's sake! Why wasn't the possibility they would act on it examined in more detail?

I'm not a member of the Tory party - did they realise what they were voting for?

Plus same goes for Sunak

Damaged as seen as too wealthy for public but avoiding him due to that would impact lower earners more

I personally cannot believe we even ended up with Liz Truss in the running. I can’t think of a single thing she’s ever done well or got right?! Doesn’t mean there aren’t any, just none that are meaningful enough for me to recall…

Some of us did realise, and the party members who voted knew exactly what they were voting for.

Problem is she also alienated all of Rishi’s supporters as soon as she came in, no attempt to unify the party or govt at all… thinking she didn’t need their votes…

She said she'd do this - Sunak said it was bonkers and would cause havoc. The Tory membership voted for her anyway.

That's what happens when all you believe in is tax cuts for the rich.

The Truss bot is probably going into some sort of meltdown today - she summarily sacked the Chief of the Treasury Sir Tom Scholar a seasoned hand of 30 years (who's now on a walking holiday in Yorkshire) - demoralized the whole treasury team as a result, cooked up their cunning plan with her ex squeeze Kwasi whilst the funeral was going on - announced it hoping for acclamation cheers to see the whole world and their dog pour a huge bucket of ordure all over their carefully coiffed heads. Talk about a bad day at the office ...

Boris will be having a chuckle whilst he finishes his Shakespeare book.. or the biography he wants to rush out for Chrismas.

For any crazy idea, one can always find 80 000 people voting for it.

Even Rishi said this would happen under her plans.

He did.

However most of us never voted for her and her ideas.

I've no idea how informed the conservative party members actually were - and I suspect many did know what they were voting for.

I do know they were not a representative of the electorate - being whiter, richer and more overwhelming more male than the UK voting public - and likely more ideological driven.

He wasn't much better than Kwarteng anyway so I doubt it. I mean, sure, Kwarteng ballsed up big time on Friday but we shouldn't forget that Sunak is part of the reason the economy is so weak. Certainly there have been external factors too but the economy has been run very badly for a very long time, probably as far back as the early 2000s under Blair. That's why we're coping less well with these shocks than other countries. Brexit, not taxing boomers enough to pay their way, taxing millennials too much to make up for that, wasting money on gimmicks like the triple lock, a poor early response to the pandemic including the idiotic Eat Out to Help Out and widespread fraud. It's all taken its toll.

Exactly. If you are a privileged, elderly white person everything is great at the moment. You plan to die in the mortgage free house you're in so you don't care what it's worth; you probably have savings (from downsizing when interest rates were low and property prices inflated) that are about to see much bigger rates of interest; your pensions are all inflation linked and you've just had a 1% tax cut too. My in laws are certainly rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of interest rate rises and couldn't give a fuck what that means for their own offspring, as is typical amongst that generation.

I think what is happening is no accident at all.

Tory members only had a choice between two very flawed candidates.

People are very swayed by their general preferences on a personal level, not liking Sunak etc.

The problem is that the candidates presented were so poor at all stages of the contest, or flawed in some way. Many people said to me during the contest that they did not like Sunak or particularly rate him, but that it was very important that he won because Truss would be dangerous. They weren’t Tory members though. I know a few Tory members and I only know how one voted, which was to write on the paper none of the above, so spoilt paper. I sympathise with that, In retrospect it might have been better to hold their nose and vote for Sunak though.

This may in large part be true but it does come across a bit stereotyped. I am not a conservative supporter but I know several and they are mainly young and not by any means all white or privileged. I also know many members of the older generation very concerned for the future of their children and grandchildren and doing all they can to protect them.

They’re the opposition. Their job is to “fight to take over”. Unfortunately they still haven’t got it together and I’m not sure how much hope there realistically is. Starmer needs to go.

Well we did know, but we had no choice. The Tories want to make things worse and then hopefully they can be voted out next time and let labour take the blame.

I don't have much hope for labour winning next time though.

The average Tory member is a white older middle - upper class male. They heard "tax cuts" and voted for her on that basis.

Unfortunately for them, the news about pension funds today isn't looking good. I have no sympathy.

I know a guy who voted for her (member of the tory party). He just broke up with his girlfriend so he can't afford to rent in London even though work and all his friends are in London. He lives three hours away, but is thankfully allowed to wfh. He would like to move back to London as his life is in London really. I asked him why didn't he join a flatshare and he said, what if they are serial killers. I then said oh well at least you are saving money living at home and can afford to buy your own place in future. He said that he would have to wait 200 years to afford that. I asked him then why was he still voting Tory when their housing policies clearly don't benefit him even as a young working professional (and I don't even vote tory even as a home owner). He said its because Labour would bankrupt the economy. he said he voted for Liz Truss because she was more appealing to the electorate as Rishi is a billionaire that most people can't relate to and his priority was the Tory party being in power.

He said all this on the day the Queen died. What do you all think? does this answer your question on how Liz Truss got voted in?

You're talking about the idiot savant wing of the Conservative Party there. Young and dysfunctional. They understand what the Tories are meant to be but are too intellectually inept to see the yawning gap with the reality that the Tories are a gerontocratic party who exists solely for the enrichment of already wealthy older people.

@BetterFuture1985 using “idiot savant” as an insult is disgusting.

This is simply not true. It was reported on she would be like this. Richi Sunak banged on about the implications of her policies, and he's been proved right. There were other commentators warning about what would happen if she did what she was saying she would. All this was well reported in the media, and in the 'mainstream media' at that.

All of what is happening was warned about and those warnings were well covered in the media.

The fact that some people missed this in the media, does not mean it was not there.

I think there ARE going to be pockets of Blindly-Blue voters - especially around the home-counties - people who are comfortably off but not uber rich - who are going to be shocked by the blatancy of her greed and lack of regard for the country. I am pretty sure her and Kwasi know that the Tory government is on its last legs so are doing everything they can to line their pockets before they go. Vile.

I am mostly baffled by the Tory government who voted her in knowing FULL WELL what she is and what her leadership would mean for their party.

He said its because Labour would bankrupt the economy.

I wonder how he feels after the last couple of days?

We did realise, but she was elected by the Conservative party, not by the UK electorate.

She will surely hand the keys over labour after the next election but at what price?

I am mostly baffled by the Tory government who voted her in knowing FULL WELL what she is and what her leadership would mean for their party.

The thing is that most of the Conservative MPs didn't vote her in.

Well, considering that Truss and her co-authors called the British 'the worst idlers in the world', I'm not sure they can complain too much about receiving a bit of harsh criticism themselves!