Will Liz Truss resign today? Part 2: PMQs

[sunnydaytoday0]

Well she's staggered on to PMQs today. Get the popcorn ready.

Ah that makes sense. I thought it was a fairly high profile abstention!

Wallace won't have necessarily been an abstainer. Just because he didn't vote doesn't mean he's in trouble. It depends if he had adhered to pairing arrangements or not as protocol should dictate. If he was paired he legitimately doesn't have to vote.

I think more interesting names on the list are T. May and B. Johnson.

If either failed to pair, then Truss has to take action. Good luck to the PM with that!!!

I think there's a couple of other belters of names on the list too. But I can't remember this morning. Just woked up after a late night...

Govt is now treating last night's chaotic vote on fracking as a confidence issue, according to a 1.33am (!) update from Downing Street

fgs. Hiding behind the chaos but LT declared that it wasn’t. It doesn’t (shouldn’t) count after the fact.

I think the whole vote should be voided and recast given the turbulence reported last night..

Yesterday afternoon when I heard Truss had run the fracking vote as a confidence vote, I thought 'uhoh what's she thinking'

This morning on hearing the news about the whip I'm thinking the same.

She's not thought it through and considered implications. It ends badly for her as a result.

Stupid woman doesn't know how Westminster works which is staggering. All of this is predictable. Who ever is giving her advice is as terrible at their job as she is!

According to the whips message yesterday morning it was "all slips removed" so no MP would have had permission to be absent, and pairing wasn't allowed. But since after that they said it wasn't a confidence vote, and now apparently it is, who knows what was allowed and what wasn't.

Obviously if Wallace was in the US for government business then I guess that's an exception.

I always find it odd when they fuck basic administrative stuff like this. Bad policy ideas are one thing but how do you let this happen?

We aren't an emerging Asian economy, trying to become one is just stupid, we don't have a young and highly educated workforce for starters.

Truss had no intentions or any plans, she said what she said because she thought it sounded good to the Tory membership, thats all, she has been in Govt for over 10 years, yet until a few weeks ago had never mentioned Growth Growth Growth!

The Tories have had 12.5 years to raise living standards and have failed, they gave us Brexit which has lowered GDP by 4%, they given us 7m waiting for operations and have allowed numerous maternity disasters through under funding of the NHS.

Our Health Secretary wasn't even aware of the latest maternity scandal in Kent, only commenting on it this morning!!

Or as one leading economist said yesterday "You brits left the EU, have no plan and now are all paying for it"

Tamara Cohen at tamcohen
36 Tories failed to vote with govt - according to updated list.

Truss did vote. Chief whip didn’t. Some had authorised absences including Theresa May and Ben Wallace.

Chris Skidmore, Angela Richardson and Tracey Crouch among those who said they would defy the whip

Remove the whip from Johnson and Kwanteng! And Dorries! Good Luck Ms Truss.

History shows that the electorate does not vote for divided parties. It’s very difficult to imagine anyone uniting the Tories now. The only question is how many seats they lose at the next election. With Liz as PM they’d maybe end up with 50 MPs. With someone else, maybe 100 or so. Either way, they're toast

So was it a Confidence vote or not?

Obviously if Wallace was in the US for government business then I guess that's an exception.

They didn't do that with Elwood, his whip got removed regardless.

And what about Johnson, who is in the Caribbean

This morning will be a catalogue of why x was naughty and can be punished and why y was naughty but we've now found an excuse to let them off the hook for it.

Soon to be followed by Tory outrage at the victimisation of those who get thrown under the bus. Promptly followed by another u-turn and probably a resignation or two if we are lucky. But more likely William Wragg like statements saying 'I'm staying as x minister for stability whilst Truss sorts her shit out, meanwhile my letter has gone in'.

Is there a Graham Brady watch (stalker) on twitter yet? Has anyone seen mention of The Spreadsheet yet this morning?

We are only at 8am. Got to get tasty yet. They've a report on child abuse to Bury in their own vanity today.

Only Vlad can save Truss now today...

I'll let you know what the position officially is about midday...

Tory MP Simon Hoare: PM has 12 hours to save job
Tory MP Crispin Blunt: PM must go today

Beth Rigby at bethrigby
An MP texts: “It would be mad to remove the whip for refusing to vote against something in our manifesto. But then this government is mad.”

Keep the context on this one. This is Truss's fall back position btw. When she fucks it this morning.

Andrew Neil at afneill
Liz Truss actually won the vote on fracking in the Commons last night. It is part of her special magic that she managed to make it look like a chaotic defeat.

Jon Sopel at jonsopel
A serving cabinet minister tells me that the Conservative Party in parliament is now ungovernable and unmanageable.
So how do you solve that?
‘It will only happen with a period in opposition,’ he says.

Imagine. This is what a cabinet minister is saying this morning.

This is such an utter shambles. How can a party go from massive majority to this in 3 years? Boris was a liability and had to go, but the party was in an ok state at that point and a new leader should have improved things. But Liz Truss and her friends in the ERG have literally destroyed the Conservatives.

I'd quite like Labour to lead the country - we really need them. But the country works best when the parties are matched in the polls and neither has a massive majority. It makes them all more near the centre and leads to sensible politics. I don't want a landslide Labour majority. Or SNP as the opposition - that is NOT a good thing.

The conservatives need to ditch Truss and get someone vaguely sensible in today. Then call a GE early next year.

Anyone know when Liz next has an audience with the King?
Dear, Oh Dear.

The conservatives need to ditch Truss and get someone vaguely sensible in today. Then call a GE early next year

The Tories have become fractionalised, they can't get behind any single candidate, ERG wont accept a moderate brexitier, let alone a remainer, then there are all the people who back BJ, Sunak, Mordaunt etc etc, the One nationers, the Singapore on Thames lot... they are like a multi party within a party coalition.

They've no direction & have no ideas on how to fix the issues facing us all.

Brexit, thats where it all went wrong for them, they won but what did they win?

Just checking in for what looks like an interesting day ahead

Transport minister (Anne Marie Trevelyan?) on radio 4 just now saying it absolutely was a three line whip. But that whips would be discussing with MPs why they didn't vote with the gov and some may have valid reasons. So like a PP said, I guess they'll just get rid of the ones they really don't like.

And the whole reason we weren’t an emerging economy is because we hadn’t the economic policies to make us one. The opportunity is now gone. Labour are now coming in and that will be ruinous.

@Kellie45 we were an economy before the 12 years of fucking Tory government. They’ve plundered all. The rich got richer. Their mates got richer. Corruption, nepotism, favouritism, incompetence, the list goes on.

And the whole reason we weren’t an emerging economy is because we hadn’t the economic policies to make us one. The opportunity is now gone. Labour are now coming in and that will be ruinous.
Who the fuck do you think has been in power for the last 12 years? The fairies at the bottom of the garden?, the SNP? Labour?
If the Tories are so fucking marvellous why are we now in the shitter?
I have no problem with a difference of opinion, but crass stupidity, and a complete failure to recognise any semblance of reality really pisses me off?

You... think that Labour will be worse than this lot? Really? When we had a MAJOR issue of the pension markets within 12 hours of crashing (which would have brought most of the financial economy down)??! When we have a plan to allow massive immigration... but just not from our closest cultural neighbours, but from half way across the world instead? When you have established economic heads of banks referencing the recent budget as the type of thing you see in emerging economies, or more like Argentina, than an established world power? When one of the stated objectives of the current political government was to introduce a "Singapore on Thames" society, with little or no safety net ("Britannia Unchained")

And you REALLY think Labour will be worse?

I am not sure how that is possible....