Líz Truss Continues To Be The Bad Prime Minister Everyone Had Expected Her To Be

October 14, 2022

In late September I stated that Liz Truss is the bad prime minister everyone expected her to be. The chaos her chancellor's mini budget caused continues to endanger pension funds. To recap:

As soon as the deceased queen was buried Truss went to work. Chancellor Kwarteng announced a 'mini-budget' that will lower taxes for people with high incomes while increasing the deficit to cover the promised energy cost subsidies:
[…]
As soon as the 'mini budget' was announced the British pound sterling tanked. This not only against the overvalued U.S. dollar but also compared to the rather weak Euro.

Interest rates on British government bonds (Gilts) increased sharply.

After two days the British central bank, the Bank of England, had to intervene to prevent a Lehman like crisis that would have killed many British pension funds. The bank, which had just increased its interest rate to tighten money supply, reverted to quantitative easing by buying gilts in the open market. This will further increase the already runaway inflation.

On October 3 Truss had to trash her plans to lower taxes for rich individuals:

In a major U-turn, Prime Minister Liz Truss said Monday that the proposal to scrap the 45 percent rate for people earning more than 150,000 pounds ($168,000) had become a “distraction.”

Reacting to the news of the reversal, the pound rebounded Monday morning against the U.S. dollar, returning to where it was before the government’s tax-and-borrowing plan sent it plunging.

But Britain will still have a major budget deficit and gilts soon started to fall again. Three days ago the Bank of England again stepped in to save the nearly bankrupt pension funds.

Some saner members of the conservative party were finally preparing to oust her:

Britain’s government faced intensifying calls on Thursday to retreat from tax-cutting plans that have alarmed financial markets, as questions continued to swirl about the future of the country’s new prime minister, Liz Truss, and her beleaguered chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng.

On a day of political turmoil, the foreign secretary, James Cleverly, warned colleagues against trying to oust Ms. Truss. And Mr. Kwarteng rejected suggestions that the backlash against his so-called mini-budget, which includes unfunded tax cuts and a costly package to help consumers with energy bills, could cost him his job, insisting: “I’m not going anywhere.”
…
On Thursday, Downing Street said that its policy had not changed, but that did nothing to quell speculation that the government would have to change course and increase corporate taxes, something it had previously decided against.
…
Speaking from Washington, where he is attending a meeting of the International Monetary Fund, Mr. Kwarteng acknowledged there had been “some turbulence” following his announcement last month but told the BBC that he was still focused on delivering the tax-cutting plans.

Asked if he and Ms. Truss would be in their jobs next month, Mr. Kwarteng replied, “Absolutely, 100 percent.”
…
But there is skepticism that she has the support for such measures among her own lawmakers. A majority of them preferred Rishi Sunak, a former chancellor of the Exchequer, to succeed the last prime minister, Boris Johnson, who was forced out after a series of scandals. But the final decision fell to rank-and-file party members, who chose Ms. Truss.
…
Under the Conservative Party’s rules, Ms. Truss cannot face a leadership challenge until September 2023, but so sour is the mood within the party that there is already talk of changing the rules.

On Thursday Mr. Cleverly, the foreign secretary, acknowledged the threat to Ms. Truss’s position even as he defended her strategy. “Changing the leadership would be a disastrously bad idea,” he told the BBC.

Kwarteng is not good in making predictions. Today Truss sacrificed her pawn to survive the game a bit longer:

Kwasi Kwarteng has been sacked as chancellor amid intense speculation Prime Minister Liz Truss is about to junk key parts of their economic plan.

Mr Kwarteng met Ms Truss for crunch talks in Downing Street after cutting short a US trip.

In a letter to the PM, Mr Kwarteng said Ms Truss's vision for economic growth was "right" and he still supported it.

Ms Truss is expected to announce a U-turn on business tax cuts at a news conference in Downing Street at 14:30.

The prime minister has appointed former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt – who backed Rishi Sunak in the Tory leadership contest – as the new chancellor.

Ms Truss's pledge to cut taxes was at the heart of the economic agenda that won her the Tory leadership at the start of September.

Truss was responsible for the 'mini-budget' and its tax cuts for the rich and for large corporations. Those were her ideas. She had fought for them. In her news conference today she further withdrew such plans:

Prime Minister Liz Truss's U-turn on corporation tax means it will rise from 19% to 25% next April – a move that should add an estimated £18bn a year in tax revenue to the government's coffers.

Corporation tax is paid on profits by UK companies and foreign companies with UK offices.

Before the Conservatives came to power in 2010, it was charged at 28%, but was then cut several times before being reduced to 19% in 2017.

In his March Budget, the former Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced the tax would climb from 19% to 25% in April 2023. He said it was fair to ask companies to contribute more after the government spent billions of pounds supporting them during the Covid pandemic.

However, Liz Truss had pledged to reverse the decision before her U-turn was confirmed today.

It is certainly fair to criticize her change of mind:

Reacting to Liz Truss's U-turn on corporation tax, the Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Jon Ashworth says "this is a government in utter meltdown".

"Let's be clear what's just happened. Liz Truss has sacked her chancellor for carrying out the policies of Liz Truss – a set of policies that led to turmoil on the markets, a run on pension funds and soaring mortgage rates for homeowners across the country," he tells the BBC.

After only 38 days Kwarteng is no longer chancellor. That is good. But Liz Truss still has the same ideas and in her libertarian zeal will continue to make dreadful policies.

How many of those will the conservative members of parliament, who had just planned to oust her, let pass?

Said differently. I do not expect that this was the last episode of the bad movie we have just seen. There are many crises still developing in Britain and Europe that will hit critical points over the next months. Wrong decisions can make each of them worse.

The Bank of England will not be able to save everything.

Posted by b on October 14, 2022 at 15:45 UTC | Permalink

Comments

We see Empire for the House of Cards it is whereby political rhetoric is divorced from reality and the people enter into open rebellion. One wants to see Macron share the same fate.

Posted by: gottlieb | Oct 14 2022 15:53 utc | 1

Mercouris said yesterday that a coup was underway in the UK – that the goal is to replace Truss with Keir Starmer because Starmer is seen as being much better at controlling his party and the restive UK populace.
If so, this underscores just how sad a state UK politics is in. – that the UK Deep State is literally choosing governing talking heads for their ability to keep control as opposed to study and fix the numerous problems facing that country.

Posted by: c1ue | Oct 14 2022 15:54 utc | 2

One big problem is that the opposition Labour Party is in no position to offer a real alternative to this Tory chaos other than a slightly less insane financial policy, and perhaps a slightly less brutal attitude towards the poorest in Britain. They will be just as racist, just as in thrall to corporate interests, and just as intellectually bankrupt as their predecessors. I do not think the UK can survive the next few years in its current form without a radical break from the last 45 years of neoliberalism and Kier Starmer is absolutely not going to offer anything of the sort.

Posted by: Kaiser Bill | Oct 14 2022 16:03 utc | 3

The Duran:
Regime change plot in UK. Dark times ahead
Regime change is coming home…

Posted by: Norwegian | Oct 14 2022 16:08 utc | 4

IMO, the point’s been reached where UK & European citizens must oust their governments, get out of EU/NATO, reinstate their own currencies and make their central banks public utilities, and shove all US military forces into the sea as that’s the only way to regain control over freedom and destiny for those millions. The warders are few compared with the masses, so they have no impediments to act. Those millions must understand that not changing their future direction presents an existential threat to most everyone regardless their politics, that their enemies first and foremost are the Neoliberals that have taken control, who are traitors to every European nation.

Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 14 2022 16:08 utc | 5

@karlof1 | Oct 14 2022 16:08 utc | 5
Yes. 100%

Posted by: Norwegian | Oct 14 2022 16:14 utc | 6

“Let’s be clear what’s just happened. Liz Truss has sacked her chancellor for carrying out the policies of Liz Truss,”
The guy’s who wrote the script’s for Yes Prime Minister would love that line.
Oh the comical or is it criminal ineptitude or the tory party grandees in the shires.

Posted by: jpc | Oct 14 2022 16:18 utc | 7

Bank of England announces end to propping up corporate greed – sort of!

Posted by: c | Oct 14 2022 16:32 utc | 8

Marcouris follow up now:
Kwarteng gone. Elensky curse coming for Truss. Sunak next in line
Truss will be out soon.

Posted by: Norwegian | Oct 14 2022 16:36 utc | 9

they were hardly “her” ideas. austerity and tax cuts have always been a thing with the people who actual make the decisions and no matter what middle (wo)man they put up as window dressing it’s what they get. for now, at least.
this is just another example of tone deaf and clositered “elites” refusing to read the writing on the wall. the solutions are all there for anyone to see but – unless corbyn can claw his way back up – they would rather end up with their heads in a basket than give up their precious “spoils of mammon”. “there is no alternative”, remember? any attempt to use various forms of socialism are “verboten” because they’ve been drinking the milton friedman kool aid their entire posh lives. it’s basically becoming the british version of a “mexican standoff” at this point but there are a LOT more pissed off “NEDs” than there are bankers and their personal security guards (aka “the cops”).
as someone who loves seeing the west cannibalize itself i’m fine with it. “the purge: UK” is a movie i’d gladly watch.

Posted by: the pair | Oct 14 2022 16:37 utc | 10

Roger Boyd has a marvellous piece at substack on the parallels between the UK and Argentina: both run by ruling classes intent on looting their own populations.
Of course the UK always has been: the dispossession of the country people was the basis of the empire, which followed the course of privatising communal resources everywhere it went from Bengal to Bahrain.
And now it is reduced to taking the last few scraps of public wealth left- the NHS, for example- and devouring it.
https://rogerboyd.substack.com/p/the-uk-chooses-the-argentina-option?publication_id=571129&post_id=75460041&isFreemail=true

Posted by: bevin | Oct 14 2022 16:41 utc | 11

Posted by: too scents | Oct 14 2022 21:00 utc | 11
They are using LDI because Nigel Lawson raided them imposing tax on dividends within the funds……..
http://globalag.igc.org/pension/world/pensionuk.htm
http://www.opalliance.org.uk/archive/decline.htm
It was sheer greed and fostered the antics of Hanson plc and other asset strippers winding up defined benefit pension funds and skimming surpluses
It is Conservative regimes that have defraud the pension funds and Truss is but the most incompetent………if BoE had not set its face against her and dared her to fire the Governor instead of her Chancellor it is clear the entire pensions sector would have dragged the global economy into ruin
I consider Truss was put in place to Washington to keep Ukraine on fire……….Hunt as Chancellor is going to slip into the premiership smoothly – he was Foreign Secretary and knows the right people and is the only grown up left

Posted by: Paul Greenwood | Oct 14 2022 16:50 utc | 12

The Labour Party have given me few laughs of late but Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Jon Ashworth nails it:
“Let’s be clear what’s just happened.
Liz Truss has sacked her chancellor for carrying out the policies of Liz Truss.”
I’m very sceptical of any dark cabal/deep state shenanigans regarding shoe-horning Starmer into power.
The fact that post 2008 QE, the Bank of England funnelled nearly a trillion pounds into the economy, a good proportion of it in the last couple of years, has inflationary consequences and add on Brexit/post-lockdown/ or whatever other causes you choose and literally any political party in power right now would be tanking spectacularly & any opposition would be reaping the rewards.
It just so happens to be the Tories in power right now so obviously Labour will be the ones championed as the safety valve alternative.
Labour having destroyed it’s class based orientation & replaced it with identity politics progressivism & Democrat humanitarian bomber think is perfectly placed to take up the slack from the economic extremism of the Conservatives
British politics has become a constant yin/yang with the goalposts moving permanently away from the traditionl left/centre and towards the right neo-liberal/soft fascism position (which paradoxically co-exists with the progressive woke under the pro-NATO banner of the EU leadership and US Democrats)
You don’t need a deep state weatherman to tell you which way the British political wind blows.

Posted by: FakeBelieve | Oct 14 2022 16:58 utc | 13

What a shambles. Her press conference was so embarrassing. I lost count on how many times she said stability. She was like a wooden top. She’s out of her depth. The comments on the guardian article are priceless.

Posted by: ThusspakeZarathustra | Oct 14 2022 17:01 utc | 14

Complaining about Liz Truss almost seems like a moot point. What was the alternative? I’m not joking, 40 years of neoliberalism has taken it’s toll, virtually nobody in political leadership positions or poised to take them can answer the question “Why do you want to be our leader?”, they’re not leaders anymore, they’re managers and we’ve finally run out of the older cohorts raised under some pretense that politics mattered or that anything positive or pro-social or pro-community could be advanced through the party organs.
And, hilariously, whenever somebody does break that deadlock and inject actual democracy or choice or pro-social politics, they’re invariably branded as a threat to ‘democracy’.

Posted by: Altai | Oct 14 2022 17:01 utc | 15

I see 2021 UK debt to GDP is now 96% vs 137% for the USA.
Even if the semi-socialist party gets in, the debt overhang will prevent the rapid implementation of their policies.
Some think this is by design 😉

Posted by: Opport Knocks | Oct 14 2022 17:04 utc | 16

Still not seeing any mass demonstrations outside Westminster. What will it take to get the British public really fed up?

Posted by: dh | Oct 14 2022 17:07 utc | 17

This is a coup by Tories loyal to the World Economic Forum agenda – Boris had too much common sense to completely buy into it and whoever is pulling Truss´s strings seems to represent the highest earners (over £150k pa upper middle class masonic types) who were supposed to no longer have a higher income tax % band for supporting her.
“Let’s be clear what’s just happened. Liz Truss has sacked her chancellor for carrying out the policies of Liz Truss,” Truss has just back stabbed one of her most loyal supporters – the rest can see now she will throw anyone under the bus if she thinks it saves her skin for a day. Truss clearly failed ´´to keep her friends close and her enemies closer´´. I suspect Boris wouldnt take the leadership back even if they begged him to come back so it looks like the UK will get Blair Mark 2 WEF team Starmer when Truss has to call an election or resign soon,

Posted by: Gatt | Oct 14 2022 17:08 utc | 18

That is the worst question and answer performance of any politician anywhere, I have ever seen.
Ai-Da Robot recently seen in The Houses of Parliament could have done a far better job.
https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/36ce838f-eb8d-4a47-91d2-9d20eb1d2180?in=15:41:35

Posted by: tonyopmoc | Oct 14 2022 17:09 utc | 19

Ms Truss may be everything you say, but there is such a concentrated assault on her since her elevation to the office of Prime Minister that it redefines the phrase “hatchet job”.
Whatever problems the British economy faces, they predate Ms Truss by some time and fall squarely on the shoulders of the Bank of England and the institutions that make up the City of London financial sector.
They obviously have the acquiescence of all media outlets in their efforts to make Ms Truss the scapegoat for their criminal failures, but I’m not sure they can carry the facade for long after they fall off the cliff and people, even journalists, start asking, where is our money.

Posted by: Orchard1 | Oct 14 2022 17:12 utc | 20

Like the USA and the EU, the UK can’t stop tripping over its’ own feet. They should never be allowed to possess a firearm for fear of really hurting themselves. So, who’s to blame for all of this nonsense? The Central Banks? The WEF? Probably. Personally, I believe those 2 are the same, mirror images and, are guilty as charged. It’s obvious that the system is fatally injured and needs to be scrapped. In a truly fair market corporations left to their own devices will grow or die. But there’s a problem. The multinationals seem to control agencies such as the CIA, MI 5&6 etc, and their respective armies. An argument can be made that the USA would not exist as is without war. After all it has been in conflict for all but maybe 30 years of its’ existence. Just the other day the US Coast Guard has dispatched to Haiti. Who would have thought. War is politics, business is war and that my friends must change. Imagine, I own a small market in a small neighborhood. Two blocks away is a market offering the same merchandise. One morning I get up grab my pistol to walk the 2 blocks and kill my competitor. Should I be prosecuted? Of course. But if I’m, let’s just say, Exxon Mobile and I contract to assassinate the president of Ecuador and wreck the lives of the indigenous population, well, that’s just business. Basically, that’s the world we live in. Fair? Not by a long shot.
The issue is, do we really need all of the so-called progress the multi-nationals claim to provide? Or can we do without being stuffed into mega Citys with all the stress and misery that goes with it? Do we really need Central Banks and fiat currency? No! Absolutely not! There was life before the Central Banks and their usury. Just speaking of the USA. Since the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 we have seen the intro of Federal Income Tax and war after war. There’s a lot to unpack here, and I just ask you to think and maybe read a book. I suggest “The Creature From Jekyl Isle” by Griffin.

Posted by: joesph | Oct 14 2022 17:12 utc | 21

Altai.
The answer is Corbyn, who represents the only reformist alternative to neo-liberalism: sovereignty being the starting place. Corbyn wasn’t knocked off because he represented a real threat to Zionism, the UK just isn’t that important. The threat was long term and moral: an independent foreign policy, an orientation towards peace and development rather than war and subordination to the empire, all were inherent in a Corbyn strategy which would have involved a long painful struggle to take over the Labour Party.
The threat was that any country which takes the lead away from NATOism will be followed: all over Europe there is a longing, rarely expressed and not widely understood by those who have it, to reject neo-liberalism and kick the USA out.
We saw it momentarily in Syriza’s brief flirtation with relevance, then Podemos, and Melenchon offered tantalising glimpses of the future movement.
The right has nothing to offer, liberalism is neo-liberalism and imperialism.
Its either Socialism or Barbarism and Barbarism is nearing the finishing line while Socialism hasn’t even saddled up yet.

Posted by: bevin | Oct 14 2022 17:16 utc | 22

There seems to be some confusion about the impact of Truss’s economic policies on this site. Tax cuts for the rich can often be unjust and increase inequality, and that is enough reason for not implementing them, but the British government does not need tax for revenue. Those who attack deficit spending are setting up an entirely false constraint. A sovereign government that issues its own currency faces no inherent financial constraints. It cannot produce a financial imbalance. It can buy ANY resources that are for sale in terms of its own currency by using key strokes. Of course, if it buys up too much of these resources, it can drive inflation in certain circumstances (like the present!), and it can leave too few resources to fulfill the private purpose.
Government needs to use its sovereign power to move just the right amount of resources to serve the public purpose while leaving enough for the private purpose. However, that balance is entirely POLITICAL, not driven by financial need.
Truss’s proposed policies were bad because they would do little to constrain inflation, while rewarding the wealthy at the same time as the earning classes were to receive little support in dealing with rising prices. (I repeat, the Government can have no difficulty getting “munnie”, as it is a currency issuer.) The inflation is largely due to a variety of supply challenges, many of the Tories making, but the HM’s Treasury could just as easily have saved the pension plans as the Bank of England (which did it without any thought as to the needs of pensioners, merely to forestall chaos in the financial markets). Public debt is not the issue. Gilts schmilts.

Posted by: Marian Ruccius | Oct 14 2022 17:20 utc | 23

Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelensky told reporters that in the future, his country would be like “a big Israel” and…..
https://thegrayzone.com/2022/09/17/zelensky-nato-ukraine-big-israel/

Posted by: Hannibal | Oct 14 2022 17:27 utc | 24

Starmer is Blair. Truss is 1 million times better than zionist Starmer. There is no way I will ever vote for him.

Posted by: Giyane | Oct 14 2022 17:32 utc | 25

the point’s been reached where UK & European citizens must oust their governments
Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 14 2022 16:08 utc | 5
—
Jim, is that you? Karl, very few people can write as well as you, jhk being one of them.
Viewers might be interested in reading his most recent essay @ kunstler.com. His transformation from reasoned trust to open declaration is fairly remarkable.
Perhaps it’s indicative of a broader movement among the educated middle?

Posted by: B9k9 | Oct 14 2022 17:43 utc | 26

Just to take a step back and look at the carnage, almost everyone except those who voted for her, seemed to believe she would be a disaster. Yet she was “selected” in the face of impending disaster.
The same applies to Germany.
The same applies in spades in the us with the “selection,” a relic so incompetent that he is unable to read correctly teleprompters prepared by his handlers. He is unable to find his way off the stage without someone taking his hand.
Why is that? Is it foreign machinations, davos, intell agencies mi6/cia/mosssad? Of course, I donno, but the “sheeple” surely see this travesty but to what effect.
The problem is that the bench is non existent: starmer, a blair reincarnation. The gopers in the us, ball less almost one and all. Canada, Germany no idea.

Posted by: Taras 77 | Oct 14 2022 18:02 utc | 27

Some saner members of the conservative party were finally preparing to oust her
Nope.
Sorry, b. You’ve gotten Brit politics the wrong way around again.
The US government, the IMF, the EU and the WEF are united in glee at what’s happening in Britain. That should tell you it’s not the good guys who are winning here. The British government has just had all of its authority removed, the globalists are very firmly in charge of everything now. They’ve got no democratic mandate, but that’s a feature, not a bug.
Instead of sanity, this means the energy crisis is going to be permanent (the ‘sane’ people have no intention of allowing Britain to frack its way out of poverty). Net Zero is going to kill the British working classes and evaporate the middle class, assuming the ruling class doesn’t kill us in a nuclear war with Russia first.

Posted by: ZX | Oct 14 2022 18:09 utc | 28

Posted by: Giyane | Oct 14 2022 17:32 utc | 25
Whilst I agree with you, and most comments here. I don’t think Liz Truss is inherently evil, though she says some incredibly stupid stuff, which is totally embarrassing, as now a UK Prime Minister.
She can’t be taken seriously by anyone after her perfomance today.
On the positive side, as she made even me laugh in embarrassment, she is going to make the likes of Putin and Biden laugh too. The French and even The Germans will be in hysterics, now that our Prime Minister is outperformed in Westeminster by Aida the robot, who does actually answer questions and makes some sense, but then has to be rebooted when asked a difficult one
We are probably less likely to be nuked now, unless Putin or Biden, trips over and land on the red button.
It’s like watching Dr Strangelove in slow motion.
Tony

Posted by: tonyopmoc | Oct 14 2022 18:11 utc | 29

As I commented on rt when she was in the final leg of the leadership race, I truly wished she wins it, because a talentless power-hungry attention seeker like her could do serious damage as the head of a country like usa, but in charge of a has been empire, she would only further weaken uk without causing any harm to anybody else. World needs this woman to be in charge of uk.
I genuinely hope she designates China as a threat asap and destroy the northern Ireland protocols reached with the eu.

Posted by: A.z | Oct 14 2022 18:16 utc | 30

Anyone read “immoderate greatness” by William Ophuls? A slim but deep book. Shows how and why civilisations slide into decadence and incompetence over time.
We don’t need some shadowy WEF cabal to explain the shitstorm, just game theory, interest-bearing debt creation and the dumbing-down of society.
Jesus, just get this over with! Collapse already!

Posted by: Benn | Oct 14 2022 18:20 utc | 31

Its either Socialism or Barbarism and Barbarism is nearing the finishing line while Socialism hasn’t even saddled up yet.
Posted by: bevin | Oct 14 2022 17:16 utc | 22

They too are busy discussing what color horse to use, whether it is morally right to exploit the horse, should it be free range or grain fed and then who will provide it?
I spent far too much time in my initial career around people like that. As a boss once said: “I understand the benefits of management by consensus, but life is too short.”

Posted by: Opport Knocks | Oct 14 2022 18:20 utc | 32

What is Liz Truss’s background? She seems like a ditz. I don’t really want to do a deep dive at Spookipedia if I can avoid it. Who or what groups does she come from and why would she have so transparently announced such a huge giveaway to the rich when the UK is in crisis mode?

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Oct 14 2022 18:22 utc | 33

Taxing businesses is retarded, doing so kills jobs and forces said businesses to hike prices in order to stay afloat and continue to generate a profit. The real problem is that government pensions (and other welfare programs) are going bankrupt. As the Iron Lady once said, the trouble with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money. Well, the UK is running out of other people’s money.
This isn’t a UK problem, its endemic to the governments of all developed nations. In the US, social security and medicare are expected to go bankrupt in the next ten to fifteen years. Truss’ only real crime was trying to rip off the bad-aid and do the thing that needed to be done.

Posted by: Monos | Oct 14 2022 18:34 utc | 34

Thanks to b for the analysis, and to the bar for the comments on this. In reading the linked NY Times article which b quoted from, I thought he missed a pertinent detail — the dismissal of Tom Scholar, the official in charge of the Treasury since 2016. … I’m from Canada, so nothing here compares to UK politics, but that’s quite a power move isn’t it?
I was reading this BBC coverage in which Lord Butler and Lord O’Donnell in a very polite, well-heeled British manner explain why this is wrong. … what to make of their Lordships in the Truss government U-turn scandal? (In scruffy Canada, Lordly interference in the form of explanations of proper political etiquette is generally not received well.)
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-62869880

Posted by: Bruised Northerner | Oct 14 2022 18:37 utc | 35

@Giyane | Oct 14 2022 17:32 utc | 25
A million times zero is still zero.
Both Blair and Truss have very large negative values.

Posted by: s4bj | Oct 14 2022 18:39 utc | 36

“The Bank of England will not be able to save everything.”
Let’s not be naive, this is not random, someone has a plan here. Pawns are expendable, particularly “useful and enthusiastic” ones.
Who will be the winners and losers when the system is finally made to break????????

Posted by: James Cook | Oct 14 2022 18:42 utc | 37

Starmer is a spook. He is an ACPO man from day one.

Posted by: Fred | Oct 14 2022 18:56 utc | 38

Tom_Q_Collins | Oct 14 2022 18:22 utc | 33
Not posh – went to an ordinary school in Leeds, Northern England. The kind of girl, I would hope to meet in Leeds, for a laugh amd a chat and a shag, if I wasn’t considerably older than her.
He Dad was a Professor of Maths, and she used to go on CND (Campaign For Nuclear Disarmamnet) marches with her Mum and slag off Margaret Thatcher – the Milk Snatcher (she stopped free school milk)
Good Northern Party Girl basically. No real interest in politics, and not intrinsically evil like American / Straussian / Neocons who want to kill us all even Europeans now.
Not very good Geography, though she has travelled a bit, and embarrassed herself in Moscow, but was basically set up, to fall into a trap.
The Russians know she is harmless, and she probably went clubbin’ with Maria Zacharova who is far more intelligent (and better looking)

Posted by: tonyopmoc | Oct 14 2022 18:57 utc | 39

Just a further thought to my @ 35.
If the polite explanations don’t work, they tend to follow it up with something really mean. … I used to think the British elites were worse than the American ones because the American ones sort of assumed their natural superiority, due to exceptional status, was an inherent punishment on helplessly inferior Canada. Not so with the British elites. They want Ottawa genuinely weak. Although, geography being a factor in geo-politics, Ottawa would politely point out that if they are too weak to resist London they are also too weak to resist the Kremlin. And Russia is asking us for something else. So you better figure it out with them first then get back to us. Not to mention the French factor.

Posted by: Bruised Northerner | Oct 14 2022 19:09 utc | 40

@Gatt #18
You said

Boris had too much common sense to completely buy into it

I think I know what you are saying, but the very fact of attributing sense to BoJo is highly entertaining…

Posted by: c1ue | Oct 14 2022 19:13 utc | 41

DH no. 17
Well it was quite late on a friday afternoon. They may mobilize by monday.

Posted by: ThusspakeZarathustra | Oct 14 2022 19:16 utc | 42

Let’s not be naive, this is not random, someone has a plan here. … Who will be the winners and losers when the system is finally made to break????????
Posted by: James Cook | Oct 14 2022 18:42 utc | 37
Agreed. Without even going as far as collapse, anyone with foreknowledge of the Truss-catalysed market turmoil and subsequent BoE intervention could have made an absolute killing.
Perhaps things evolved in a more or less authentic fashion, or perhaps the prospect of Truss-inspired flood of BoE funds into the bond market was just what the banksters ordered?

Posted by: anon2020 | Oct 14 2022 19:18 utc | 43

@5 karlof1, @6 Norwegian
Hear, Hear!
I will say it again: I can not wait for my parents’ 401k and pensions to go completely tits-up.
This is the only signal capable of redpilling the normies: prolonged economic devastation.
Putin: “This is a war against satan.”
And satan’s funny-money system must come to an end to deliver us from the shadow of nuclear war.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Oct 14 2022 19:19 utc | 44

@15 altai
Agree. Here in the states, Biden is the definition of moot point.
His presidency is so inconsequential that no one, not even Trump, could hold back the system shock that is emerging in our crumbling economy.
It was gonna happen under Truss or even some dreamy candidate that old-leftists would finally be smitten with.
But the retardation of these austerity neolibs IS laughable.

Posted by: NemesisCalling | Oct 14 2022 19:24 utc | 45

@ Posted by: c1ue | Oct 14 2022 15:54 utc | 2
Re coup.
lol the only way the fairytale of a two party parliamentary democracy can be perpetuated in the year of the new Kings coronation is by alchemy.
It’s that or a ‘coalition’ government due to a major world ‘crises.’
To keep the actual social democrats out and deliver the Atlanticist agenda. Maggie wouldn’t have won without the SDP breakaway and post war Labour consensus would not have broken down without the light blue/pink tearing voters away from their tradition of solidarity with fellows and towards ‘loddsamoney I’m alright Jack ‘ that now pervades. Blairites were always happy to pull in non-social democrats as they doubled down on ever more privatisation and war mongering – many Liberals if you didn’t know, remember education education education architect Adonis a mighty Lord for his efforts? Labour front bench has Nandy, another scion of grandee Liberal stock etc. there were more than a few Tories who crossed the floor into Blair’s government too . 
Some of the nonsense that is believed by the ‘working classes’ (they don’t realise they are the 90 percent) of our day:- Why should I support a Union? I am not allowed by my contract to be in a Union? I have to work 45-50 hours a week they only have to work 37.5! These immigrants coming over in boat’s My taxes pay for everything At least Bozo was funny Give me my 4th booster GreenSkrinEllensky is a lovely lad. Let’s screw our own elderly and poor with massive manufactured inflation and destruction of all our savings making millions bankrupt with the insane increase in interest rates The Sun says, the Beeb says, Sky says, I look at them all , I have an independent mind! Etc etc etc.
They will now believe that the government won’t be able to afford their extortionate energy bills this winter – because that’s the baby that was in the Kwarteng corporation tax rise on companies profiteering.
They get smoke and mirrors as usual, as Truss fuck buddy, runt Kwarteng, having got his contracts in place in the US is stood down for the return of the complete and utter Hunt – ready to finalise the full Americanisation of our NHS and the remaining Public Services as we officially transmute into a US state with our currencies on parity – ie all these dollars now get to buy up everything at a hefty discount!
Yup musical chairs , bits of drama and a hole we have had dug for us through BrexShit and the last throw off the Great Game dice about to ‘culminate’.
The biggest news of the day is actually the transition of Turkey and Erdogan out of Nato and into the SCO with the grand prize of the EurAsian gas hub as befits the wannabe sultan of Babylonia.
It seems the West is a Waste and the East is the yeast in that recipe.

Posted by: DunGroanin | Oct 14 2022 19:28 utc | 46

@42 “They may mobilize by monday.”
Any idea what form the protests will take? Race riots? Blocking motorways? Mass exodus to the Costa Brava? Rude cartoons?

Posted by: dh | Oct 14 2022 19:31 utc | 47

Posted by: Fred | Oct 14 2022 18:56 utc | 38
“Starmer is a spook. He is an ACPO man from day one.”
I don’t know what ACPO is, but Starmer, totally f’cked over Julian Assange, when The Swedes, wanted to drop the non-existant rape case (both girls one of which was almost certainly working for the CIA), and both invited him to their beds – and neither ever accused him of rape, but one mentioned a split condom, but no dna was found..It was all extremely well documented at the time
Starmer – Director Public Prosecutions (UK) Threatened the Swedes – you have got to keep this case going…Is an evil man. He is not nice.
I hope Liz Truss, whilst useless in a debate, probably knows nothing about economics, has the courage to keep her job, because she is harmless.
She hasn’t got the courage to tell The Americans, to Fuck Off yet.
Maybe Liz Truss, is The Peacemaker, whilst the world laughs at her.
She got dumped with a job, that no one wanted to take.
If she makes us laugh, it can’t be that bad.
She has only just started her job, and is being attacked, by all sides including her own party, and me, who voted for Jeremy Corbyn.
Give the Girl a Chance.
She might save us all from Armageddon yet.
Tony

Posted by: tonyopmoc | Oct 14 2022 19:51 utc | 48

The Queen was more a center of moral/psychic unity than was perhaps realized during her years alive, and especially of late. Europeans are admitting to consciousness what their sub-conscious has been telling them for years: their enemy is to their west, Washington and London, not to their east, Moscow and Peking. Krakatoa arrives as that realization reaches the active consciousness.
God is like a great road hauler. He waits patiently as yard switchers make up the consist. When the full train is ready, He couples to its front and off it goes to the destination of His choosing.

Posted by: The Rev. David R. Gr | Oct 14 2022 20:07 utc | 49

How about taxing the new billionaire king RIII? I hear he has many stolen/is stealing many more from African countries.
That’ll keep the country afloat for many more years.

Posted by: Sakineh Bagoom | Oct 14 2022 20:22 utc | 50

There have been some conspiracy theories going around, mainly since 9/11, that nukes don’t work.
Well, I am 99% certain that they do.
They can be used for peaceful purposes, or they can be used to kill us all, except the fish, deep in the ocean.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_testing_at_Bikini_Atoll
“Authorities had promised the Bikini Atoll’s residents that they would be able to return home after the nuclear tests. A majority of the island’s family heads agreed to leave the island, and most of the residents were moved to the Rongerik Atoll and later to Kili Island. Both locations proved unsuitable to sustaining life, and the United States had to provide residents with on-going aid. Despite the promises made by authorities, these and further nuclear tests (Redwing in 1956 and Hardtack in 1958) rendered Bikini unfit for habitation, contaminating the soil and water, making subsistence farming and fishing too dangerous. The United States later paid the islanders and their descendants $125 million in compensation for damage caused by the nuclear testing program and their displacement from their home island.[7] A 2016 investigation found radiation levels on Bikini Atoll as high as 639 mrem yr−1 (6.39 mSv/a), well above the established safety standard for habitation.[8][9] However, Stanford University scientists reported “an abundance of marine life apparently thriving in the crater of Bikini Atoll” in 2017.”

Posted by: tonyopmoc | Oct 14 2022 20:33 utc | 51

Bear in mind that the British state doesn’t have to worry about the people, we don’t count for a tuppenny damn. This is a fight within the boss class. Liarbour will be no better, they aren’t influenced by the public either, Der Sturmer has made sure of that.

Posted by: squeeth | Oct 14 2022 20:45 utc | 52

“Let’s be clear what’s just happened.
Liz Truss has sacked her chancellor for carrying out the policies of Liz Truss.”
Good one. Reminds me of: the empire went into Afghanistan to replace the Taliban, with, after 20 years of fighting, the Taliban.

Posted by: Sakineh Bagoom | Oct 14 2022 20:47 utc | 53

Those millions must understand that not changing their future direction presents an existential threat to most everyone regardless their politics, that their enemies first and foremost are the Neoliberals that have taken control, who are traitors to every European nation.
Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 14 2022 16:08 utc | 5
Well said, with the caveat that, as history has demonstrated in spades for millenia, ‘those millions’ can rarely muster a single coherent thought let alone a viable strategy.
Truss is the chosen Collapse PM. Anyone foolish enough to agree to take her place right now – even if they could change the rules to make it possible – would be even worse because nobody will be able to stop the bottom from falling out until the elites are finished with making it happen.
This is why I think Boris is Back will be a headline at some point. But not until after the collapse. He will be trotted out as a Knight in Shining Armor to save the Realm and has the rhetorical chops to play the part, especially with a favorable Press which at that point he’ll get. The only other possible right now is Rees-Mogg. But he just too thin and his nose is too aquiline. Not a British Bulldog type. No, Boris will have to do… But later, much later.

Posted by: Scorpion | Oct 14 2022 20:49 utc | 54

Tom Q Collins @ 33:
A brief look at Liz Truss’s Wikipedia entry doesn’t hurt. I’m sure you’re made of much sterner stuff than you make out.
Truss is from a middle class Yorkshire family with social democrat political leanings. She attended a govt comprehensive school (Roundhay) in Leeds. She then attended Oxford University, enrolling in the PPE (Politics, Philosophy &Economics) course: this indicates that in her early 20s she had political ambitions. During her time at Oxford, Truss’s political allegiances must have flipped 180 degrees from British Labour to Conservative.
After graduation, Truss worked for energy companies in accounting and finance roles and was deputy director of a thinktank before entering politics around the year 2010.

Posted by: Jen | Oct 14 2022 20:53 utc | 55

Escobar posted the link to this testimony, “Europe’s descent into totalitarianism”, which describes his recent experience entering his own nation–UK–from abroad. Yes, what he was subjected to was put into place well before Truss, and I doubt it will ever be rescinded unless the UK has another Civil War that alters it drastically. And it’s likely something similar is in place for those of us residing within the Outlaw US Empire.

Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 14 2022 20:54 utc | 56

Talk of the devil: today’s Bring Back Boris article. Telegraph. by Lord Crudass.
(Appears to be a real name!)
https://archive.ph/XODmV

Posted by: Scorpion | Oct 14 2022 20:54 utc | 57

Posted by: ZX | Oct 14 2022 18:09 utc | 28
Not only that. Exactly no one in the HoC has mustered a confidence vote.
So.
Wake me up when made man Alex M. murmurs the magic word.

Posted by: sln2002 | Oct 14 2022 20:59 utc | 58

Kwarteng didn’t endanger pension funds by exposing they were overleveraged and underfunded. That cake had been baked for quite some time.
There is no way to unwind LDI without something breaking.

Posted by: too scents | Oct 14 2022 21:00 utc | 59

And it’s likely something similar is in place for those of us residing within the Outlaw US Empire.
Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 14 2022 20:54 utc | 56
Isn’t this your neck of the woods karlof1?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11313419/Rural-Oregon-conservatives-fed-liberal-politics-want-secede-state.html
“Members of the Greater Idaho movement are pushing their state legislators to redraw Oregon’s border so that the eastern section becomes part of Idaho.
By Melissa Koenig
“Oregonians force vote to SECEDE from the woke state and become part of Idaho: Two counties are set to vote on measure – after nine backed it – due to defund the police, CRT in schools and bail laws
Members of the Greater Idaho movement are pushing their state legislators to redraw Oregon’s border so that the eastern section becomes part of Idaho
The movement has already gained support from residents in nine Eastern Oregon counties, with those in two others set to vote on it next month
Supporters argue the proposal makes sense because Idaho’s politics more closely match eastern Oregonians’ conservative views
They have railed against their states woke policies like defunding the police, getting rid of bail and teaching critical race theory in schools
Crime in the state’s largest city, Portland, is also spiraling out of control and the mayor estimates 6,000 people are living on the streets…”
Young News Star with woollen cap picks up on the story:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1F_Req4DE5Q
Not full revolution, but it’s a start… citizens trying to work the system to make changes. Will be interesting to see what happens.

Posted by: Scorpion | Oct 14 2022 21:01 utc | 60

Dungroanin
Brilliant comment, kerouacesque.

Posted by: Eoin Clancy | Oct 14 2022 21:10 utc | 61

tonyopmoc | Oct 14 2022 19:51 utc | 48
Association of Chief Police Officers.

Posted by: JohninMK | Oct 14 2022 21:16 utc | 62

After only 38 days Kwarteng is no longer chancellor. That is good. But Liz Truss still has the same ideas and in her libertarian zeal will continue…

Sorry b, but you have to be pretty clueless about Libertarianism (and economics and political history in general) if you think Truss is a Libertarian.
Cutting the upper tax rate from 45% to 40% was politically tone deaf, but economically inconsequential. Would a Libertarian impose price caps (ie subsidies) on energy prices the way Truss (an Kwarteng) did?
What we’re seeing is the fallout from decades of declining interest rates, inflationism and bailouts, COVID lockdowns, wicked wars in MENA and support for a wicked war in Ukraine, and the usual results of having fiat currencies.
The voters are incapable of understanding the consequences of decades of Leftist policies. Yes, progressive tax rates, social welfare and government-corporation collusion are Leftist, not Libertarian, and the chickens are coming home to roost. Throw in the West’s abandonment of fossil fuels, and the fact that we appear to have entered the “autophagy” stage of civilisational collapse, and the fall of the West is ineviatble.

Posted by: Observer | Oct 14 2022 21:20 utc | 63

Though I agree that Truss is an idiot, what we are watching is unprecedented regime change.
In the UK they often hail that the BoE is independent from the Govt! in fact we find that it is the Govt which is not independent of the BoE and all its establishment bankster cronys.
We are swirling down the pan. Goodbye Cruel World, for real.

Posted by: intp1 | Oct 14 2022 21:24 utc | 64

Posted by: The Rev. David R. Gr | Oct 14 2022 20:07 utc | 49
I have read some of your stuff, and you are highly intelligent.
I was brought up in a highly religious Roman Catholic Family.
My Nephew is a Priest – with all the robes, highly intellient. I reckon he stands a good chance of being the next Pope.
I am the youngest of my family of 2 brothers and 2 older sisters
His Mum is still alive, and she used to be the fulcrum of contacting all our family, but most of us are dead now.
I am 69. She will be about 83.
My older brother (his wife) who is the cleverest man I was lucky enough to be inspired with, got brain cancer when he was 29. I didn’t think he was going to live the night
The following week, he made a miraculous recovery and was taking his kids swimming…and went back to work..he nearly made 60. He was determind to see his 4 children grow up.
I gave up religion, at the age of 15
If you have got any God, its within you, and your wife who you are lucky enough to meet and fall in love, and see your Children being born…
And now our Grandchildren playing with us.
God is within your heart and soul.
Heaven is here on Our Planet Earth.
The Evil American Neocon Bastards are trying to kill us all
Do your best to survive.
You will find God, in what you do to help your neighbour, rather than just writing about it on the internet.
I prefer Births to Funerals.
Our Grandaughter is Tiny
Half the size of a cat
She is fine
This is God
Tony

Posted by: tonyopmoc | Oct 14 2022 21:25 utc | 65

The British government’s public exhibition of gymnastic aptitude, while entertaining, is mostly just a smokescreen for the public. Sort of like the ink cloud that an octopus excretes when it is in danger.

Posted by: Josh | Oct 14 2022 21:32 utc | 66

It’s crazy how all of the leaders of “democracy” seem to be extremely unpopular and never do anything the people want. President of the United States Brandon, Liz “Thatcher with brain damage” Truss, granny-lover Macron who married his old kindergarten teacher. All have zero accountability to the people and enjoy lowest popularity of any leaders on earth.
Meanwhile the leaders of “authoritarianism,” like Xi, enjoy widespread popularity because of their policies that benefit and improve the lives of the people.

Posted by: FVK | Oct 14 2022 22:15 utc | 67

The only things that seem to unify people throughout Europe and within each country are support for Ukraine and being able to virtue signal that they aren’t racists. Hard to see how that is sustainable. Probably means greater authoritarian crackdown on dissent in the name of democracy

Posted by: My Comment | Oct 14 2022 22:36 utc | 68

The comments on the guardian article are priceless.
Posted by: ThusspakeZarathustra | Oct 14 2022 17:01 utc | 14

What Guardian article?

Posted by: aij | Oct 14 2022 23:02 utc | 69

My god, we’ve now got Trussbots here. e.g. observer @63. I didn’t think she was so organised as to be able to get up a claque.

Posted by: laguerre | Oct 14 2022 23:10 utc | 70

Posted by: Observer | Oct 14 2022 21:20 utc | 63
Correct. People think that every corporate tax cut is “libertarian” (especially “small L libertarians” – that’s the extent of their knowledge of the subject. It’s not, it’s just corporate greed and political corruption. No real libertarian that I’ve ever heard of wants corporations to rule the world, even if they’re “right libertarian” and support the concept of business and capitalism. Corporations are creatures of the state. They cannot exist without the state (“companies”, in the original meaning of the term, can, though.)
Truss is a corrupt corporate statist – there’s nothing remotely “libertarian” about that.
Had to comment again about b’s lack of comprehension of libertarian philosophy. Resuming silence.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Oct 14 2022 23:18 utc | 71

Good Northern Party Girl basically. No real interest in politics, Not posh – went to an ordinary school in Leeds, Northern England.
Posted by: tonyopmoc | Oct 14 2022 18:57 utc | 39
That’s naive, Tony. You aren’t an ordinary northern girl when your father is a University professor of mathematics, and you were born in Oxford while your father was a research fellow there. The school was indeed a state school but an upper crust one where all the middle class kids went.

Posted by: laguerre | Oct 14 2022 23:19 utc | 72

Posted by: laguerre | Oct 14 2022 23:19 utc | 72
No point addressing Tony re Lizzy T. He clearly has had the hots for here for a very long time. He is not objective. I cannot think why- she has a cruel mouth, but then I am not a 69 year old man.

Posted by: watcher | Oct 14 2022 23:32 utc | 73

@72 Not for me to comment on what goes on between the bedsheets (this is 2022) but it may be of interest to know that Liz Truss had an affair in 2005 with Mark Christopher Field whilst married to Hugh O’Leary. Mark Field is a British politician who served as the Member of Parliament for Cities of London and Westminster from 2001 to 2019. So Liz has strong connections to the Conservative Party.

Posted by: dh | Oct 14 2022 23:50 utc | 74

A lot of people slag off London, as not a safe place, to for example, if a alone single white blonde female, to walk the streets of London.
Whilst we have seen Massive Attack at Brixton Academy together, which I rate as the best music venue in London, gently sloping floor, free bottles of water, if you are skint – free busses and trains if yoo are over 60…
I was just compleletely delighted, when my wife texted me – on the 154, and walked in through our door.
Of course I worry, but she says Brixton is totally amazing now…It’s better than it was before.
Come with me next time.
She has no fear whatsoever
London is her home town now (We are from Lancashire)
Its me that has had my head done in by covid fear, though there is nowt much wrong with me either. (we have not been jabbed)
Local pub tomorrow with my lovely wife.
Good band on.
London is OK
You American neocons hate us and are trying to destroy us in Europe – well fuck off back to where you came from…The USA
We never wanted you here.
We did not invite you
Go Away. Back to The USA
Go home
And Fuck Off and Die
Bye
Tony

Posted by: tonyopmoc | Oct 14 2022 23:50 utc | 75

I must admit it is fun watch the Tory government writhe in pain just after a month in office. But then again, other than the entertainment, how relevant are the British in world affairs. Not much in my opinion. Maybe “Great” Britain can join the Kingdom of Belgium or Kingdom of Monaco as relics of past feudal glory. Someone should next figure out how to remove all of those nuclear weapons from their foolish hands.

Posted by: Toivos | Oct 15 2022 0:05 utc | 76

Starmer
https://www.technocracy.news/trilateral-commission-a-deep-insight-into-the-globalist-mind/

Posted by: slippery | Oct 15 2022 0:31 utc | 77

The London financiers are calling the shots here.
Starmer’s their man.
They want regime change and they’re manipulating things to that end. They think they can manage a collapsing system which was theirs to stuff up in the first place.
Who cares about Q.E.now? Might as well let her rip, spread some crumbs for the people.
Maybe it’s a moot point but a purged Labour Party under groomed stooge Starmer will be worse for the people because these creatures think they can salvage a rotten system by human sacrifice.
Alexander Mercouris was absolutely revelatory yesterday.

Posted by: Australian lady | Oct 15 2022 1:38 utc | 78

Posted by: The Rev. David R. Gr | Oct 14 2022 20:07 utc | 49
Driving that train, high on cocaine, Casey Jones God better watch your speed

Posted by: hunterand garcia | Oct 15 2022 1:56 utc | 79

@Posted by: tonyopmoc | Oct 14 2022 23:50 utc | 75
Just because the USA is cancer doesnt mean the UK isn’t. They’re both crap for the same exact reasons (because they were founded by British people, the worst people of all time).
London is garbage and so are you and your wife (along with everyone else inhabiting Britain).

Posted by: FVK | Oct 15 2022 2:11 utc | 80

I reckon Pepe Escobar, from Brazil, is a poet and also the best analyst and writer we have got in the world…does he go to the same gigs as we do..and queue up to see “Dead Can Dance” in London at the Hammersmith Odeon?
https://thesaker.is/the-thin-red-line-nato-cant-afford-to-lose-kabul-and-kiev/
“Yet the Dead Can Dance show must go on. As the EU forbids itself to buy Russian energy, the Brussels Eurocracy skyrockets their debt to the financial casino. The imperial masters laugh all the way to the bank with this form of collectivism – as they continue to profit from using financial markets to pillage and plunder whole nations.
Which bring us to the clincher: the Straussian/neo-con psychos controlling Washington’s foreign policy eventually might – and the operative word is “might” – stop weaponizing Kiev and start negotiations with Moscow only after their main industrial competitors in Europe go bankrupt.”
“Dead Can Dance – The Carnival Is Over (Official Video)”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPDLJ1UU2Uk
Tony

Posted by: tonyopmoc | Oct 15 2022 2:16 utc | 81

Bevin @11
Once the lands of the Commons were seized by the oligarchs; Britain lost its soul. Industrialization followed and millions of rural folk crowded into the industrial cities, living in slums. The most unfortunate and incorrigible ones were first sent off to Georgia and later to Botany Bay and then Tasmania.
Tell me, have you heard any scuttlebutt about Cockney carpenters assembling guillotines?

Posted by: aristodemos | Oct 15 2022 2:50 utc | 82

Not dead yet.
Goodnight

Posted by: tonyopmoc | Oct 15 2022 3:11 utc | 83

Toivo@76
However supine the British people may currently be, they are not the problem. The world is ruled from the Square Mile, City of London, a politically independent entity within Metropolitan London. World banking, insurance, media, metals and more are all under the thumbs in that spider’s nest of highest finance capital. Even law is involved, as the American Bar Association is but an adjunct of the Bar at Temple Court.

Posted by: aristodemos | Oct 15 2022 3:13 utc | 84

@Posted by: Toivos | Oct 15 2022 0:05 utc | 76
Apart from acting as America’s trojan horse in the European continent, that has already happened. UK would be as irrelevant as those other states if they were not acting as useful extensions of the USA. Regardless, Britain has no future because they have nothing to offer the world. After American neo-colonial parasitism has been put in the grave where it belongs, then Britain will be as irrelevant as its geography dictates, being a worthless barren rock in the Atlantic populated by low quality slave caste losers.

Posted by: FVK | Oct 15 2022 3:31 utc | 85

Laguerre [72]
Your points are well made. Roundhay was notably a school populated by Jewish students from North Leeds. Who knows she might have failed to get into Leeds Girls High selective school
She was however Liberal Democrat at Oxford, anti-Monarchy, and CND, and took her marriage vows to one we can only assume was a Catholic O’Leary very lightly
Did not become an ACA but an ACMA which is also interesting and probably not a good degree
Quite how she survived Prelims in first year eludes me as she shows no mental acuity
She is one of Cameron’s over-promoted women on fixed candidate lists

Posted by: Paul Greenwood | Oct 15 2022 5:15 utc | 86

From a Xinhuanet posting

…
In a press conference, Truss confirmed Kwarteng’s resignation, calling him “a great friend” and saying she was “incredibly sorry to lose him.”
Referring to Hunt as “one of the most experienced and widely respected government ministers and parliamentarians,” Truss said the new chancellor will deliver the medium-term fiscal plan at the end of this month.
In a second U-turn on the policies set out in the mini-budget, the prime minister said UK’s corporation tax will rise to 25 percent, reversing the promise in the mini-budget of freezing the tax rate at 19 percent.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Oct 15 2022 5:36 utc | 87

@Bevin #22
“The answer is Corbyn”
YES!!!

Posted by: Tim | Oct 15 2022 6:41 utc | 88

The hedge funds were massively short all bonds and all currencies against the $ going into month end and quarter end. The mini Budget was a classic catalyst event to try and spook markets and allow them to get out with maximum profits. They would have sold sterling whatever Kwasi Kwarteng said, which is why sterling went down for no more than 48 hours. It was a ‘get out quick/rich trade, NOT a verdict on the Budget. The LDI pension debacle was an accident waiting to happen and was basically naïve pension fund trustees sold something ‘safe’ by unscrupulous Wall St types (Blackrock as usual) such that they got hit with the equivalent of a margin call. It was not a ‘disaster’ – although the awful Andrew Bailey hardly helped as his markets team stepped in to do their job, he poured petrol on the fire from his academic perch.
The reality is that this is a Remainer coup. Tom Scholar, mentioned in an earlier comment, the Treasury official (rightly) sacked, was a close political ally of Gordon Brown and moving to the Treasury after George (Bilderberg) Osborne was forced out after Brexit has basically ensured that all Chancellors since then have continued the same big government, tax and spend, Globalist agenda that is essentially identical to the EU. The triple threats facing the UK and EU come from this top down idiocy – zero interest rates, zero covid and zero carbon (which has led to the energy crisis) – none of which have ever appeared in a democratic manifesto. Truss/Kwarteng got rid of Tom Scholar and reversed the crippling tax increases that he and Rishi Sunak had proposed in order to plug a hole caused by zero Covid policies, ignoring the fact that the BoE were blindly following the Fed in tightening monetary policy which is much more painful for UK households than in the US thanks to floating/short fix mortgages. At the same time, energy bills were exploding thanks to the complete lack of energy policy outside of Green Unicorn breath. A triple hit to UK households, thrown under the bus of WEF policies. They tried to change it, the Remain/WEF stormtroopers have stopped them.
The UK is not going to be allowed to be more competitive than the EU by cutting taxes, allowing the currency to depreciate and getting rid of green insanity. The new Chancellor Jeremy Hunt (I sat next to him once, hugely underwhelming used car salesman type) will ensure this. Indeed I would not be surprised if they also re-adopt all the EU policies Truss was going to scrap and essentially run UK as a shadow member of the EU, dreaming of another referendum (but with better propaganda this time)

Posted by: Mark T | Oct 15 2022 6:51 utc | 89

Normaly when a conservative government is in power they get an easy ride from the financial markets and the press. This one has not so capitals plan must be to replace it with somerhing else, which can only be Kier Starmer’s NuLabor. The purges have made it oven ready for a neo-liberal blood-fest and the hope is that deserters from the tories will make up for votes lost from left wingers. Failing that the ballot can be rigged in key marginals, the number crunching will already be underway.

Posted by: Johnny Conapiranoid | Oct 15 2022 7:23 utc | 90

The more I think about it, the more I think the real disaster for Truss in the budget-debacle is her scapegoating of Kwarteng, instead of assuming full responsibility for the policies they shared and procedure she must at least have approved:
Apparently, for PM Truss, the pound stopped at Kwarteng.
Gutless and treacherous.

Posted by: John Kennard | Oct 15 2022 7:24 utc | 91

My take is that Truss was given a hospital pass in the sense that all policy options were bad given a background of rising rates and inflation, energy shortages and out of control government spending. In additon a debt time bomb has been created which will make Lehman look like small beer. There is no way that the UK can avoid a very painful economic readjustment but no one will be elected if they tell the truth and implement policies which have half a chance of addressing the underlying problems.
So in the absence of any good options, Truss at least tried to implement policies which appealed to the Tory faithful. These blew up in her face when the bond market disagreed – unsurprising – and then pension funds went into melt down as leveraged bets went the wrong way. The latter was perhaps more of a surprise but maybe should not have been given that rate stresses were bound to have a systematic impact somewhere in an over indebted financial system.
Well what now? There are still no good options. The UK establishment seems in denial that 20 years plus of insane fiscal, monetary, regulatory and energy policies have created a trap from which there is no escape.

Posted by: marcjf | Oct 15 2022 7:36 utc | 92

karlof1@5
Totally agree. Time for torches, bailing-hooks, pitchforks et al. Quite likely the East End Cockneys will lead the charge as hunger looms and that dankness gets underneath their woolen sweaters. Even French style neck-scarves will not offer much comfort.

Posted by: aristodemos | Oct 15 2022 7:44 utc | 93

aij no. 69
“Kamikwasi takes Librium Liz’s offer to consciously uncouple from train wreck”
John Crace
14th oct the guardian

Posted by: ThusspakeZarathustra | Oct 15 2022 8:09 utc | 94

Alexander Mercouris seemed to think that the Bank of England had basically thrown Truss under the bus by raising interest rates and publicly stressing that the pension funds were therefore at risk. That is, it created the crisis, then backtracked while everyone looked at Truss.

Posted by: james | Oct 15 2022 8:32 utc | 95

Good morning james and to b and the rest of the bar! When politics gets interesting in the UK, I find CBC’s The National sometimes reveals another perspective. Last nights episode was politically dense — Jan.6th committee, investigation into Ottawa’s use of the Emergency Act for the Freedom Convoy, visit by Canadian MPs to Taiwan, etc. — but at about the 16 minute mark, there is a report on Liz Truss. It’s followed by coverage of the stunt pulled on that famous sunflowers painting by a gang known to glue themselves to items of value.
https://youtu.be/9mKg6uz-Rn0

Posted by: Bruised Northerner | Oct 15 2022 9:23 utc | 96

@ various fuckwits on this short comments including demented posturing old geezer Compo and various free marketeer types.
Especially @ Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Oct 14 2022 23:18 utc | 71
“ Corporations are creatures of the state. They cannot exist without the state (“companies”, in the original meaning of the term, can, though.)
Truss is a corrupt corporate statist – there’s nothing remotely “libertarian” about that.
Had to comment again about b’s lack of comprehension of libertarian philosophy. Resuming silence. “
We’ll mate as someone wrote best to remain silent and be thought a fool then to open your gob and be proved to be an idiot. You did yourself no favour with that comment. So many things wrong in so few words.
The East India companies existed transnationally and set the tracks of the global corporations which create and destroy nation states. Don’t you agree?
Next,
Libertarian is as Libertarian does , stoopid.
You do know that Truss and Kwarteng fuck buddies put their names as ‘co-authors’ to that Mein Kampf of the libertarians and BrexShitheads ‘Britannia Unchained’ – actually totally mentally UNHINGED. You know that, right?
Where we are is where we have been led to over the last 50 years of unraveling from the Trente Glorious. Gifted to us Europeans by the sacrifice and victory of the Russian Red Army against our last load of proxy Nazis sent to once again to invade the EurAsian riches. The Ancient City and its Financial wizard partners that long laid claim to EVERYTHING, want it all back in their control.
BrexShit was planned to escape the level playing field that threatened that ancient Exceptionalism of the Robber Barons , isolated within England as some Holly state within a state – as much as the Vatican in Italy.
Never really acknowledged to the masses called upon to die for it regularly in conquests through the world through the ages.
The ever closer Union threatened that with its independent judicial court – not the corrupt easily controlled London ones. Like the one that jailed Assange without trial in the heart of the City.
b knows his libertarians better than most of you fuckwits.
Ps Compo your predilection of fancying anything in a skirt may have been cute when you were a young shagger and it obviously drives your ego – but it’s now more than showing as a dirty old man flashing in his Mac in the streets of London. Grow up man. But it’s probably too late.
And who ever that idiot is who has started beating up on us Londoners , remember that we can do it better to ourselves, your help ain’t needed.
In fact the whole xenophobic concept of collectively calling a Country or Peoples as the same is an idea of Control created and practiced throughout the Western World for the last century or two. It takes in Imperial Propaganda of Great Writers, fiction, Hollywood, TV and now this here inter web – it is the Ancient Financiers and their ‘great man’ fronts such as Lenin,Roosevelt, Churchill and let’s not forget the British invention of concentration camps, poison gas usage, the trench warfare mincers and never ending Great Game.
They are linked with the final dots in the ancient chain of Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum, and her celebrated ‘’libertarian’ screed , Atlas Shrugged to the idiots who put their name to Brittannia unhinged – raised to run this government towards their long planned goals that is the current face of U.K. government.

Posted by: DunGroanin | Oct 15 2022 11:03 utc | 97

Posted by: Benn | Oct 14 2022 18:20 utc
Thank you for mentioning “Immoderate greatness.”
I’d never heard of it before but found it at the internet archive and am reading it now, expecting to finish it soon!

Posted by: spudski | Oct 15 2022 12:24 utc | 98

DunGroanin @97
Long on vitriol and short on knowledge… (as usual)

The East India companies existed transnationally and set the tracks of the global corporations which create and destroy nation states. Don’t you agree?

The East India companies were granted their charters to plunder by… governments. Not that it makes much difference, as the governments that granted them their rights to plunder foreign lands were also up to their eyebrows in plundering, both foreign and domestic. A central tenet of Libertarianism is that transactions be voluntary. Whether a pirate flotilla choose to fly the Jolly Roger, or the Union Jack (or the Red Star), doesn’t make them “Libertarian”.
Truss and Kwarteng may well be (slightly) more market-oriented than the commissars of the EU, but that doesn’t make them “Libertarian”.
And to suggest Ayn Rand was a Libertarian tells us you really are completely ignorant of the subject. Rand was an Objectivist, disliked Libertarianism, and dismissed Libertarians as “hippies of the Right”.
Read some Rothbard and come back to us in a month or two when you have a clue.

Posted by: Observer | Oct 15 2022 13:19 utc | 99

The mini budget was right in pursuing fiscal expansion, but wrong in doing it by tax cuts.
The bond sell offs that put the overleveredged pension funds in difficulty were driven by the erroneous idea – typified by the IMF – that tax cuts or public spending must be funded, that they are only possible given ‘fiscal space’. The same insistence that has caused so much unemployment in Italy, Spain, Greece…
The recent inflation has been driven by supply side problems, not by excess money. To try to counter it by raising interest rates and suppressing demand is simply confused.
Worries that that the currency will be devalued by fiscal or monetary expansion misunderstand the nature of money. Money is a social convention, not something that should be reified. If credit is issued to mobilise resources, on the basis of a well warranted faith in their productive potential, then there is no reason why the units that credit is issued in should be perceived as losing value.
We should ask ourselves, as did Eduardo Galeano, who exactly the ‘Gods of the World’ like the IMF, Moodys and Fitch etc are. And why they should be able to constrain the economic policies of sovereign nations.
Britain certainly faces many serious problems, but “fiscal prudence” isn’t the answer to any of them.
A recommended site for articles on the economic problems our societies face:
https://braveneweurope.com/

Posted by: diagonal | Oct 15 2022 13:31 utc | 100

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