Well? Jeremy Hunt - thoughts?

[mamabear715]

I can't believe how politician-like he is, compared to Liz Truss!
Happy enough with the changes on the whole, what do you think?

I'll literally settle for someone who can string a coherent sentence together quite frankly right now, so, yes, he can stay.

No comment.

🤣

No I am not happy. Liz Truss is so so bad that it doesn’t take much to look better than her.

There is a reason he’s not made it to leader before and he has tried! Did you watch his whole statement? I did and found him patronising.

He still has the same approach - to balance the books off the back of those who can least afford it. I’ve had enough. The very very rich have has their turn - and continue to do so without investing in this country despite claims to the contrary. We need realistic economics not elite economics.

He's a cunt!

Miles better than his predecessor and good to see the nonsense Truss and Kwarteng tried to introduce going in the bin. That said, from what commentators are saying, he is pretty much the PM in all but name as well as being Chancellor. So the country is now been run not only by someone who wasn't given a mandate by the electorate but by someone who wasn't even given a mandate by the membership of the Conservative party. Our democracy (if we can even call it that with a straight face any more) is in tatters. It could only get more laughable if those who are suggesting bringing back Boris get their way.

This tbh

It's a pretty bad state of affairs when Jeremy Hunt is here to save the day!

He's not the PM. He shouldn't be acting as PM as literally NO ONE voted for him to do that job. He lost the leadership election twice.

They need to change PM not prop her up with Hunt, who only looks fairly competent because you're comparing him to the couple of fools we've had in power. He has only taken this job because a) he supports Truss b) he agrees with her and c) he wants power.

I like him, in spite of the fact that he's a public-school educated Conservative. He seems to know what he's talking about, unlike his immediate predecessor and the over-sexed liar before before her.

What @pompomdaisy said
Totally agree

I disliked him a fair bit during the pandemic so he’s gone up since then

Regardless LT needs to go asap so we can have people who can at least speak without chaos

Listen careful to the substance, not the manner of delivery.

He's putting on a shoe to appear statesmanlike and in control to settle the markets but none of his policies will be anything but bad news for the average working person or for Health and Education which are crying out for investment.

It's hardly difficult to turn up and look better than Liz Truss.

A show, not a shoe!

Would I vote for him? No.

Do I think it’s a good thing that he’s now chancellor? Yes.

I thought he came across as calm, respectful and competent. There was a definite sense that he is listening to experts and plans on treating his job in government seriously. He appears to be well respected on both sides of the aisle from his work in committees and seems to be instinctively moderate and bipartisan.

I fundamentally disagree with conservative policy choices but he and Mordaunt both came across as grown-ups today and set a new tone. That’s something that has been noticeably absent since Boris took over. This isn’t about winning the next election for them but the survival of their party. Earlier this week their polling numbers led electoral calculus to make a projection of just 80 odd seats in a snap election. I don’t want the tories to win, but a wipeout of those proportions wouldn’t be good for democracy either. Any government with a majority of 292 (which is the insane number that the projection was predicting) would be far too powerful.

He's definitely the de facto PM now. I don't see how she can maintain any credibility whatsoever, he's blatantly steering the ship and making no bones about it.

Oh Lizzy, a few short weeks ago your dream to be PM come true and how quickly it has turned sour.

I saw him described on twitter as smoother and more dangerous than black ice, which about sums it up.

He's not actively trying to torch the economy to win points from a bunch of incel-wannabe Hayek nerds, but it's a low bar.

Telling that only 18 of his colleagues voted for him in the leadership election though isn't it? And that he only looks reasonable because the rest of the front bench are SO bad - he was the WORST health secretary we had in a long while. People have short memories.

They need to GO. They don't have a mandate, they don't have a plan, and they are doing so much damage to the country.

He come across as vaguely competent.

Unfortunately, the Tories as a party are not.

Are we expected to forget that a third of Tory MPs backed Truss and her policies in the leadership election?

Truss might be the face of it, but economic illiteracy runs deep within the current iteration of the Tories.

A dangerous band of idiots.

First he fucked the arts and then he fucked the NHS. So basically I think we’re fucked.

Try to imagine him in this position without Truss or Johnson being where they are. You wouldn’t be so happy then. He’s literally a bit better than the previous PMs but they were about as bad as it gets. He’s personally responsible for a lot of what went wrong with our handling of the pandemic because he refused to plan for the exact scenario that emerged.

It’s a sad day when Jeremy Hunt is considered a good choice (for anything!), Jeezo!

Hunt has destroyed the NHS, what does this say about his regard for the common good?
Truss supports Kwarteng.
Hunt supports Truss.
This is just deck shuffling - not lasting change.

Nothing but a General Election will do. We have not had a moral compass steering us for 12 years!

@Hmmph Hunt supported Sunak during the Tory leadership shenanigans. Apart from that point, I think you're spot on. He has no mandate from anyone. But neither does Truss. She had a mandate from Tory party members, until she did a complete u turn on the policies she put to them.

If the Tories do go for broke and get rid of Truss whoever is put in her place will have a very narrow, edging into non existent, mandate.

The only honourable thing they can do is to call an election. But they wont, because the polls are against them. As Kier Starmer said, they put party ahead of country every time.

I’ve been impressed watching him today, he’s calm, pragmatic, polite, and comes across like he knows what he’s talking about. He’s answering a range of questions and doing so well. Kudos to him.