Oh will you look at that! A government u-turn!

[tenbob]

AIBU to think this government is now totally dead in the water..?

Wonder what all the Truss handmaidens tying themselves in knots to defend the tax cut will say now..?

Novum
Even your heart's not really in this, is it, @ Clavinova? Time was you could do much better than that

£58bn of uncosted spending, tacked on to Labour's manifesto at the last minute, is presumably one of the reasons why 46% of respondents thought the Labour Party were 'extreme' in YouGov's poll December 2019 (as per SleeplessInEngland's poll above). Keir Starmer was a shadow cabinet minister at the time.

This is a juicy one:

Westminster Voting Intention (Red Wall):

LAB: 61% (+12)
CON: 23% (-11)
LDM: 7% (+2)
GRN: 4% (=)
REF: 3% (-4)

redfield

Ouch. Red wallers just worked out that there will be no leveling up then

@Clavinova just in case you're feeling a little confused, today's date is 4th of October 2022.

If a week is a long time in politics, 2019 is centuries old, so stop dragging up old hat.

Ouch. Red wallers just worked out that there will be no leveling up then

It's looking that way.

There's muck, but no brass

SleeplessInEngland
Peston confirms Kwarteng associates benefitted from insider trading:
After all that, it turns out hedge funder Crispin Odey - who employed Kwarteng - was long sterling and gilts at end of last week, so made a packet out of sterling and gilt recovery. I asked him why and he said “patriotic!”

What did they expect when the Bank of England announced it wouldn't hesitate to intervene? It's not rocket science that the hoped-for outcome would be that sterling would recover.

He tells me he reversed his short position after “Kwasi came along”

Crispin Odey isn't named as one of the attendees at the post-budget drinks party, so what does he mean here? When Kwasi was made Chancellor? And if Crispin Odey is guilty of insider trading, why on earth would he boast about it to Robert Peston?

Apparently as little as 31 rebel votes could deprive the government of a majority. Although I do wonder whether any austerity proposals would get that far.

pointythings
just in case you're feeling a little confused, today's date is 4th of October 2022.
If a week is a long time in politics, 2019 is centuries old, so stop dragging up old hat.

Can the following posters please take note - pointythings doesn't like historical references - best not to upset her:

Damnautocorrect · Today 07:56
Did anyone see the channel 5 program 1978 winter of discontent
walkingonsunshinekat · Today 08:03
The fact remains is that the number of millionaires in the has gone from 740k in 2015 to 2.4m in 2021
SleeplessInEngland · Today 11:56
Ian Duncan Smith has come out against cutting benefits as it would damage growth. Shame he didn't think the same way back in 2010
Blossomtoes · Today 15:03
Labour. Every single time in local and general elections since I was first able to vote 51 years ago. Except in 2019 when I spoilt my paper.
the80sweregreat · Today 15:41
Jeremy Corbyn was never going to win an outright election.
He came close in 2017

That is one heck of a poll.

When is the latest they can call an election?
I guess that they want to call an election at optimum polling time.

The Policy Research Unit said: "At this moment, it is my understanding that the Government intends to stick to the election timeline of January 2025, whereby a general election will be held."

www.thesun.co.uk/news/19973083/date-next-general-election-revealed/

Oh well, two more years of the current government.

I wonder what the bookies are saying on that...

Be interesting to see how many more PMs we go through if they manage to stick the whole 5 years.

They may well go on and things pick up
A lot of the polices are popular with some of their core voters and if things look up this could blow over and they could move on from this.
Nobody wants a leadership battle.
I'm sure a lot of the MPs don't want a GE
It might just stagnate a tad.

“The voters are wrong” used to be the mantra of corbynites.

They'll be knocking on supporters doors saying "Please - will you be our leader?"

Nobody wants a leadership battle.

Really? I'm fairly sure Sunak and Mordaunt would be ok with it.

This is the problem Truss has. She only had the support of a third of the parliamentary party, the base in Parliament is just not there, so she was always going to have to play it very carefully once she got in. That has... not happened. There's absolutely no indication that she's learned anything from the debacle, or that she intends to behave herself, and the plan is evidently for policy proposals that go against the levelling up agenda the party put to the electorate in 2019. Naturally, a lot of them would like rid of her.

Well, this could happen but it looks unlikely as Truss is totally shit.

I think people are going to get angry at being stuck with this lot, personally.

It’ll include “I will make sure” and “I am very clear that …” from Truss, a lot of blah blah blah and no doubt some will blame Labour and Remainers.

Its the level of real harm they could inflict, in a timeframe of just over two years, that worries me.

Also the Tories have a lot more to worry about than their core vote, notwithstanding that some of the more soft right seats like Raab's are vulnerable too. The red wall is about 45 seats, most of which had Labour in second in 2019. They wouldn't have won in 2019 without them, nearly all have majorities only in the three or four figures and they're on course to lose most of them as things stand.

I think the Conservatives should be counting their blessings that they won't have to deal with local council elections in the next two years, that would be an absolute bloodbath, with all the public service cuts coming, fracking and environmental issues.

I’m upset that my post about the great U turn of 1660 didn’t get a mention.

I am sure that there are data crunchers in the party HQs looking at the actual seats and trying to gauge local support and how safe / gettable their seat it.