Elizabeth, Queen of Sewage UK

[Stavros]

As the catastrophe of Brexit grinds its merciless path through the mess currently known as the 'British Government', Prime Minister No 4 takes charge of a country swimming in shit. Literally -see the link below.

All I can offer is links which explain the relationship Truss does, or might have with the US (courtesy of the Financial Times), and a deeper look at the connections she has made with the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute, and her somewhat frosty relations with Nancy Pelosi, frost being a sort of political climate change issue little will be done about, either in the UK or the US.

Mary Elizabeth Truss, you will be told in various media outlets, is the daughter of a Maths Professor so claims to have clear ideas about stats, as allegedly was true of Margaret Thatcher. Truss dressed up as Maggie when she began her leadership campaign, though any hope of re-establishing 1970s fashion as infra-dig has not been maintained, perhaps because of the ridicule it deserved in the press.

She was co-author of Britannia Unchained, a Libertarian manifesto which proclaims the virtues of small state, low tax, regulation lite government. On that basis, and bearing mind she has travelled from the 'Left' ie, Liberal Democrats to the Conservatives, expect her professed Libertarian ideas to take a back seat while she borrows now to pay later. That said, she claims to be committed to a 'bonfire of EU regulations' -where have we heard that before?- but must get these policies through the Commons, where at least half the party don't believe in them. What fun.

You might say, give her a chance. But she entered Govt under Cameron in 2014 and is thus as much in the frame for all the mistakes since then as Cameron, May and Johnson. What a trio of losers to follow! We wish her a happy journey!

Sewage UK
Sewage Spills Spark UK Public Warning Against Swimming in Some Beaches - Bloomberg (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-26/why-british-beachgoers-are-worried-about-swimming-in-sewage#:~:text=Raw%20sewage%20has%20been%20spillin g,in%20dozens%20of%20swimming%20spots.)

Truss and the Americans
Inside Liz Truss’s not so special relationship with the US | Financial Times (ft.com) (https://www.ft.com/content/9e523a7e-f98a-4dba-aaa4-7b0f4612ce63)

Liz Truss met with US lobbyists who tanked Obama’s Clean Energy Act | openDemocracy (https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/liz-truss-heritage-foundation-lobbyists-climate-obama/)

[Stavros]

Two paragraphs from a recent article by John Harris lay bare the challenges facing the new PM.

"In 2018, a report by the TUC (https://www.tuc.org.uk/blogs/uk-third-bottom-global-investment-league) revealed that private and public investment as a proportion of national income put us 34th in a ranking of 36, trailed only by Portugal and Greece. In the 40 years to 2019, fixed investment in the UK averaged 19% of GDP (https://economy2030.resolutionfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Stagnation_nation_interim_report.pdf), the lowest in the G7. Now, business investment in the UK remains more than 9% below its pre-pandemic level. Crucial parts of our national infrastructure have been failed twice over: first when they were state-owned and let down by the stinginess of the man from the ministry – and then when they became privatised victims of modern capitalism’s increasing fondness for stripping out, squeezing down, and chasing dividends.

The fate of England’s water is a particularly vivid example. Pipes, reservoirs and treatment works were once owned and run by local councils, but are now in the possession (https://corporatewatch.org/who-owns-your-water-and-how-theyll-try-to-keep-it/) of a mind-boggling mess of interests that includes a Malaysian conglomerate called the YTL corporation, Norway’s state-owned bank and JP Morgan Asset Management. The consequences have been as mad as that suggests: between 1991 and 2019, such shareholders were paid £57bn in dividends (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/01/england-privatised-water-firms-dividends-shareholders) – nearly half what the water companies spent on maintaining and improving their infrastructure."
Britain has been avoiding its biggest problems for decades. Now we’re paying the price | John Harris | The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/16/britain-has-been-avoiding-its-biggest-problems-for-decades-now-were-paying-the-price)

[Stavros]

"For the first time in Britain’s history, there will not be a white man in one of the four great offices of state.Prime minister-in-waiting Liz Truss, who beat Rishi Sunak (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/rishi-sunak) in the Conservative leadership contest, is expected to appoint James Cleverly as foreign secretary, Suella Braverman as home secretary and Kwasi Kwarteng as chancellor."
UK’s four great offices of state may soon not feature a white man for first time | Politics | The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/sep/05/uks-four-great-offices-of-state-may-soon-not-feature-a-white-man-for-first-time)

The policies are what matters, and from what we have been told, we are all in for a rough ride.

[Fitzcarraldo]

Speaking of Queen Elizabeth ... have you checked the news today?

[Jericho]

The policies are what matters, and from what we have been told, we are all in for a rough ride.

Rough?
We're going to get fucked up the arse, with a handful of sand for lubricant!

[Jericho]

Speaking of Queen Elizabeth ... have you checked the news today?

Yes...The Queen is dead, long live the King, or something.

[Stavros]

I recommend the article by David Edgerton, and indeed his book on post-war British history.

"For most of the Conservative party, Brexit was far more important than royal propriety. What to them would once have been an incendiary charge that, as prime minister, Boris Johnson “lied to the Queen” to get a politically convenient prorogation of parliament made little impact, despite being true. In fact, it was a weaker accusation than it might seem, for it was that the prime minister had told fibs to the particular cherished royal person rather than to the sovereign.

Another telling sign was given by our new prime minister. Having just kissed the hands of the dying monarch, she eulogised her wrongly. Speaking from outside Downing Street, Liz Truss (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/liz-truss) said the late Queen “was the very spirit of Great Britain”. Clearly, no one in Downing Street knew to advise the notionally unionist Truss that her late Majesty was Queen of the whole undivided United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland."

That is telling. While it is a common error in the country at large, and in the media, it is an extraordinary one to be made by a Conservative prime minister on such a solemn national occasion and in the context of the politics of the Northern Ireland protocol. She and her advisers clearly did not know or care.
The Tories were once the party of the monarchy. Now they have other priorities | David Edgerton | The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/11/tories-were-once-the-party-of-the-monarchy-now-they-have-other-priorities)

[rodinuk]

...
Another telling sign was given by our new prime minister. Having just kissed the hands of the dying monarch, she eulogised her wrongly...

Inconvenient as it may be for the facts to get in the way of your version of the truth she did not kiss the hands of the monarch.

AFAIK the meeting was not whilst Her Majesty was dying either.

[obslam]

Inconvenient as it may be for the facts to get in the way of your version of the truth she did not kiss the hands of the monarch.

AFAIK the meeting was not whilst Her Majesty was dying either.

Don't reply with true facts to the troll. It's inconvenient for his "truth."

Just a sad person who loves everything to be a disaster and for some weird reason can't handle that it clearly isn't.

[Stavros]

Inconvenient as it may be for the facts to get in the way of your version of the truth she did not kiss the hands of the monarch.

AFAIK the meeting was not whilst Her Majesty was dying either.

I never said any of the above, it is quoted in the article by David Edgerton, as should be obvious from the presence of the quotation marks and the reference to the article in the Guardian, though I forgot to include the marks in the final paragraph.

[Stavros]

Don't reply with true facts to the troll. It's inconvenient for his "truth."

Just a sad person who loves everything to be a disaster and for some weird reason can't handle that it clearly isn't.

I would not be a troll for describing Brexit as a disaster for the UK, as it is the simple truth. I don't want 'everything' to be a disaster, as history has shown we can do things better in this country than what we have had: the abysmal incompetence of the Conservative and Conservative/Liberal Democrat governments we have had since 2010.

[Stavros]

And to be more on message, as this thread is about Elizabeth Truss, who may be in the process of bankrupting Britain, and her Cabinet, with an assessment of its likely attitude to LGBTQ+ issues. This is, I think, a fair assessment-

Liz Truss' cabinet and their LGBTQ records (pinknews.co.uk) (https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2022/09/07/liz-truss-cabinet-lgbtq-trans/)

[rodinuk]

I never said any of the above, it is quoted in the article by David Edgerton, as should be obvious from the presence of the quotation marks and the reference to the article in the Guardian, though I forgot to include the marks in the final paragraph.

well my sincere apologies for the wrongful attribution to your good self but an autonomous double-quote is just that. I prefer the use of the QUOTE tagging available using the widget at the far right of the Quick Reply editor toolbar but even then folk manage to somehow leave off the closing tag on occasion.

Surprised to see you recommending an article containing such obvious factual errors though...

[Stavros]

A fair point, rodinuk. As for Edgerton, well I am reading his book on Britain and it is, shall we say, 'interesting', and provocative. I sometimes quote people without agreeing with what they say.

Oh dear, have I used an Oxford comma?

[Stavros]

If a week is a long time in politics, a weekend must be an eternity. And for Elizabeth Truss and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng, the writing is on the toilet wall.

Today's Telegraph, the breakfast club for 'thinking Tories' (as opposed to the Can't Think, Won't Think Tories of the Mail), has the editor of The Spectator, Fraser Nelson, arguing the Party is now split three ways: the Optimists, the Humbled and the Defeated. It is worth reading if you can get past the paywall which at the moment is not preventing reading the full article. But hurry up!

The shattered Tories may yet face a fate even worse than political death (telegraph.co.uk) (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/10/13/shattered-tories-may-yet-face-fate-even-worse-political-death/)

[Stavros]

On second thoughts, I wil reprint the article here-

The shattered Tories may yet face a fate even worse than political deathThe Conservative Party is now split at least three ways on the future of Liz Truss as Prime Minister
Fraser Nelson, Telegraph 13th October 2022


Might it be time to give the public their fifth Tory prime minister in six years? Absolutely not, said James Cleverly today. “Changing the leadership would be a disastrously bad idea, not just politically but economically.” What’s striking is not really the Foreign Secretary’s argument, but that he felt he had to make it. In just five weeks, Liz Truss has whittled through all the stages of leadership and is now in the last: a fight for survival. The question is how many policies (or people) will be jettisoned in the process.
Just three weeks ago she felt bold enough to refuse to share mini-Budget details with her Cabinet, announcing tax cuts without saying how she would fund them. The audacity marked a clean break with Tory past, but her party wasn’t sure if they were watching the arrival of the low-tax cavalry or the Charge of the economic Light Brigade.
Most have now concluded that it’s the latter, with polls showing the Conservatives charging into the valley of death (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/10/13/just-nine-per-cent-have-favourable-view-liz-truss/). Her meeting with backbenchers this week was not even rowdy. The mood was one of murderous despair.
Many of the MPs who were at that 1922 Committee meeting say it was the worst one they can remember. “If I was interviewing a prospective Tory candidate who was as unable to answer questions as she was, I’d refuse to give them the job,” says one ex-Cabinet member. “Boris could at least speak to us like a cheated-on wife, asking us to remember the good times,” says another MP. “It’s harder for her, because there haven’t been any good times.” One ex-Cabinet member is more blunt: “After that meeting, I would not give tuppence for her survival chances.”
Johnson once observed that the herd instinct in Westminster is hard to resist. “When the herd moves,” he said, “it moves.” The herd is against Ms Truss. But where can it go? To consider the various options being touted – Rishi by Christmas, the (Kit) Malthouse compromise, the Boris restoration – is to appreciate their absurdity.
Do the Tories wish to outdo Italy in the sheer number of leaders that can be foisted on a country without the trouble of general elections (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/09/26/eu-paying-price-subverting-italys-democracy/)? Is this Prime Minister to be given no chance at all?
But with polls pointing to Keir Starmer winning by a margin approaching two-votes-to-one, these are desperate times for the Tories. If today’s polls were tomorrow’s general election results, less than a third of the current 356 Tory MPs would survive.
This focuses the minds of the remaining two-thirds: I’m told there are Tories with 20,000 majorities worrying about their seats. To a lot of them, the choice is no longer between victory and defeat, but between shades of defeat. This has changed the calculation.
The Tory MPs are, broadly speaking, in three camps. The optimists think that the markets may calm down (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/10/13/committed-growth-insists-defiant-kwarteng/) (with inflation peaking this month) and that some scandal may befall Labour. Meanwhile, Ms Truss collects herself and starts doing a better job at selling her pro-growth agenda (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/10/13/anti-growthers-will-turn-us-east-germany/). And then – miracles may well happen – her party might actually get behind her, realising that she’s the best leader they’ve got. So no more government-by-speed-dating. They would wait for the results of her policies.
It might be quite a wait. She admitted in her meeting with MPs this week that her tax cuts are pretty modest, all things considered. By some calculations they’d take the tax burden back to where it was only last year. So where is the great supply-side boost? “There are 20 big supply-wide changes we can do without legislation or money,” says one supportive Cabinet member. “But you may not see the results until after the election.”
And before the election? At the Tory conference she promised “growth, growth, growth”, but what if the various economists are right in predicting recession? The tax cuts may simply be too small to offset strengthening economic headwinds. With interest rates rising worldwide, the overall economic hit might have been even greater without the tax cuts – but few Tories feel confident about being able to make that argument on the doorstep.
The second group of MPs says Ms Truss must be visibly humbled. They think that the prospect of credible rebellion – from a party well-versed in regicide – would force her to perform an act of penance: a corporation tax rise, say, or another tax rise to dilute her cuts. A U-turn may well now be on the way. Neither her Chancellor nor her Foreign Secretary would rule it out yesterday. So she would stay, but humiliated. A prisoner of her party, just as Theresa May came to be.
A final group thinks that it’s all over, and that the next election is already lost – so a new pilot is needed to perform a crash landing. This means ejecting Ms Truss now, in full knowledge of how ridiculous this would make the Tories look in the eyes of the country and the world. As one new-intake MP puts it: “If we carry on as we are, we’ll lose by 250 seats. But if we make a change, we lose by 50 seats.” This would mean finding a unity candidate to assure the markets – although there isn’t much unity around who this would be.
A fourth option, mentioned by some Tories in moments of despair, would be a snap election to plunge Labour into the current mess and accelerate the renewal process. But there is no serious appetite for this. “The only thing we all agree on is that there can’t be an election now,” says one of those hoping to depose Ms Truss. “Too many of us simply wouldn’t come back from it.”
Of course, there could be an even worse option: that Ms Truss caves, gives up on her agenda, increases taxes and then just staggers on anyway. In doing so she’d become pointless, an emblem of a Conservative Party drained of ideas and personnel, unable to enact its own agenda and regarding its principles as politically unsellable.
This would be a rare example of a fate worse than political death. So yes, things are indeed pretty bad for the Tories – but that’s not to say they can’t get worse still.

[Stavros]

The news that Liz Truss has resigned comes as no shock to anyone, indeed, one is inclined to the view that this is becoming the normal pattern of High Politics in the UK -a Prime Minister unable to unite his or her party on policy, markets disagreeing with Govt policy, the Bank of England struggling not to raise interest rates, resignation.

Seen from a longer term perspective, I think is clear now that the era of low-to-zero interest rates economies have 'enjoyed' for so long, encouraged govt borrowing, and indeed, household debt, and that even after 2008 the crumbled cookie did not produce a more realistic fiscal environment.

On top of that one can see what a disaster Brexit has been, with its devaluation of the pound, the loss of trade with the EU running at 16% of the total and billions in monetary terms. That Truss wanted a radical overhaul of 'Treasury Orthodoxy' was pure ideology, the 'mini-budget' devised by her and Kwasi Kwarteng prepared and announced without any of the conventional discussions with insiders and relevant voices in the City, with the consequence that a Prime Minister who believes Markets know better than Governments, has fallen victim to the Markets verdict on her fiscal policies. It would be a hoot if were not for the fact that the country as a whole is worse off, and looking at a grim future for the next years, on top of the lost decade we have already lived through.

I cannot see a new Prime Minister making sense of this situation, and therefore expect a General Election sooner rather than later -December? Who knows? Nobody knows.

[obslam]

Are you still having nonsense conversations with yourself? You need treatment if so.

[filghy2]

Yes, Stavros, hence I blocked him.

It looks like you couldn't live without him

[filghy2]

I cannot see a new Prime Minister making sense of this situation, and therefore expect a General Election sooner rather than later -December? Who knows? Nobody knows.

Why would the Government call an early election when they are highly likely to lose? Are you suggesting lots of their MPs could vote no confidence, even though it might cost them their seats?

[Stavros]

Why would the Government call an early election when they are highly likely to lose? Are you suggesting lots of their MPs could vote no confidence, even though it might cost them their seats?

Your post does make sense, on the basis of current polls. For that reason, there is a 'Boris Restoration' moment taking place, which, assuming Boris Johnson wants to run, is based on the argument that he is popular with the party and enough of the country to win another election. The problem is that he has soiled his relations with the Parliamentary Party and some claim his return as leader could split the Party. The more obvious question is what policy changes would he make that would revive the Conservative Party's prospects at the polls? Jeremy Hunt has already shredded most of the 'Mini-budget', and the Bank of England may rescue the Party from doom by raising interest rates to a lower than expected level, but the fiscal problems remain and it is assumed whoever becomes Prime Minister will have to propose cuts to departmental budgets.

On that basis, Boris Johnson could be PM of a divided party that doesn't like him, or his policies. Can it continue to govern for another 2 years? And again, if it is Boris, his arrogance could well induce him to call an Election just to prove he has the election winning magic no other politician has.

So a lot depends on who runs this week -Sunak, Johnson, Mordaunt and possible Ben Wallace. And then the reactions of the Parliamentary Party.

[Stavros]

Are you still having nonsense conversations with yourself? You need treatment if so.

While I appreciate you taking the time to read my posts, I am disappointed that you never really engage in a debate and give us your opinion with some detail, rather than the dismissive comments you seem to prefer.

[Stavros]

The most famous of the recent losers in the English Conservative movements -let's not call it a party, as there are now 6 parties within the party- has published a book, which is what most politicians do these days, win or lose.

It is called

Ten Years to Save the West. Lessons From The Only Conservative In The Room.

Presumably the smallest room in the house, where she holds forth to those interested in what she has to say.

And the sewage continues to flow into the UK's rivers and streams.

Liz Truss Just Announced A New Book And Its Name Alone Has Drawn Internet Ridicule (yahoo.com) (https://uk.news.yahoo.com/liz-truss-just-announced-book-113317305.html)