How is the Tory Government Doing?

Yes, I have to admit that the Tory’s are an easy target at the moment and of course there are doubts about Liz Truss. Her radio, performances were embarrassing to say the least, can’t deny that and it does expose a weakness that certainly would be exploited by more senior interviewers but we are where we are and I’ll have to hope she improves? She is however an extremely intelligent politician and I’m sure will at least deliver what she promises unlike Boris who had all the charisma but none of the ability to do what he promised, except for Carrie of course.

My only consolation is that Labour are every bit as bad as the Tory’s and if anyone could be more boring than Liz it’s Captain Hindsight. As I’ve said, there’s two years to go yet, plenty of time for things to turn round completely. Naturally it’s going to be difficult but once the public see that despite Labours lies that they’re now worse off, they’re actually better off by the energy cap, NI increase removal and the reduction in income tax, they’ll come round to what the Tory’s are doing and realise that the 45% tax removal and bankers bonus cap undoing will actually benefit the country. Hopefully inflation should be down significantly as energy costs fall and the cap takes effect so mortgage rates won’t have to rise to the levels the moaners are predicting. Others are faring just as badly if not much worse than we are and once that’s given more air time and media coverage improves so will sentiment towards the party. Liz is doing most of the things the country's asking for and once that becomes apparent, this fictitious Labour poll lead will quickly diminish.

Whitesince63 wrote:Yes, I have to admit that the Tory’s are an easy target at the moment and of course there are doubts about Liz Truss. Her radio, performances were embarrassing to say the least, can’t deny that and it does expose a weakness that certainly would be exploited by more senior interviewers but we are where we are and I’ll have to hope she improves? She is however an extremely intelligent politician and I’m sure will at least deliver what she promises unlike Boris who had all the charisma but none of the ability to do what he promised, except for Carrie of course.

My only consolation is that Labour are every bit as bad as the Tory’s and if anyone could be more boring than Liz it’s Captain Hindsight. As I’ve said, there’s two years to go yet, plenty of time for things to turn round completely. Naturally it’s going to be difficult but once the public see that despite Labours lies that they’re now worse off, they’re actually better off by the energy cap, NI increase removal and the reduction in income tax, they’ll come round to what the Tory’s are doing and realise that the 45% tax removal and bankers bonus cap undoing will actually benefit the country. Hopefully inflation should be down significantly as energy costs fall and the cap takes effect so mortgage rates won’t have to rise to the levels the moaners are predicting. Others are faring just as badly if not much worse than we are and once that’s given more air time and media coverage improves so will sentiment towards the party. Liz is doing most of the things the country's asking for and once that becomes apparent, this fictitious Labour poll lead will quickly diminish.

I take all this on board mate, but I think there's a fundamental issue which may not be overcome. In the nation's rush to leave Europe and move towards populist nationalism there has been an assumption by those swayed that the Tories would look after them, would be a safe pair of hands with the economy and they would enjoy the privileges, relative wealth and services that they enjoyed beforehand. And fair play to the Tory marketing machine - they have distracted, obfuscated and generally confused the electorate with non-issues and have exploited personality over policy - especially under Boris who dominated the news with his personal antics - and managed to distract from the traditional Tory agenda. They even managed to ride out scandal after scandal and in a way, they actually helped keep minds focused away from the economy.
Now that Boris is history, Brexit has run it's course and the pandemic is dead in the minds of swathes of the electorate, there's nothing left to hide behind and those who jumped on the Brexit/Boris bandwagon are coming to realise that there's something else going on that may not be in their best interest.
They're too pig-headed to admit they were wrong in the first place, but the more that government support for the minority at the expense of the majority is exposed, the more likely it becomes that they'll abandon the Tories.

IMO.

That’s an opinion Lusty but I think otherwise. Certainly people have been disappointed with how Brexit’s been delivered, it certainly hasn’t led to what many believed but it’s impossible not to accept that since we left in early 2020 other matters have taken over. You can’t seriously ignore the effect that Covid and the Ukraine situation has had, which would have hobbled any government. Hopefully the pandemic is behind us and the major effects of the Ukraine situation around Energy are easing, which will help the economy massively. I feel sorry for Boris because without either of these and more so the pandemic, the Brexit follow through would have changed everything. I think Boris catching the virus and then being hugely swayed by Carrie were the root of his problems.

Anyway,he’s gone now and if as I expect the financial situation calms down over the next month or so, many of the doubters and disillusioned Tory voters will come back. Clearly if Liz and Kwasi don’t improve things there’s little hope but two years is still a long time to set things right and sway opinions. As I’ve said, it’s not just the UK suffering, though to listen to the MSM you’d think it’s only us that are having problems which it clearly isn’t. I would though like those Tory MP’s unsettling things to be put back in their box because split parties never succeed and they should know that. Rowing back on policy or agitating for another leadership election is plain crazy and would be catastrophic. They need to grow up and accept where we are and that the party needs to pull together.

With this particular bunch of Tories though, (post the anointment of King Boris I) it has been nothing but continuous lies, scandal, sleaze, corruption, deception and attempted distraction. As soon as one national scandal/embarrassment passes, a new and seemingly seedier one rears it's ugly head. Both Blowjo and Truss have filled their cabinets with hopeless but loyal "yessites" who are prepared to go out and lie for/defend their leader in the media when all concerned (including themselves) know they're spouting just absolute bollocks.
This massive tax breaks for the rich "financial event" coupled with benefit cuts for the poor in the middle of an acute cost of living crisis will be the final nail in the Tory coffin. Working people who don't normally bother with politics or voting suddenly realise they are having the piss extracted from them.

Whatever Sir Keir Starmer's faults, boring he may be, but most people reckon him to be be a fairly honest, decent and fair man. Having put up with this bunch of spivs for the last 12 years I think most people will be grateful for a return to some sort of political decency.

 There's no more "Oh I quite like Boris" factor any more. There's no more "Get Brexit Done" factor. There's just Thick Lizzie who anyone can see is just arrogant, inept and just not up to it. 
Truss is the Tory equivalent of Labour's Corbyn period. They'll never live it down.

Here's one scenario to ponder on...

Truss is so bad she gets the push.

New Tory leader contest.

Boris stands and wins.

Boris leads the Tories into the next election v Keir.

Who will win?

Sluffy wrote:Here's one scenario to ponder on...

Truss is so bad she gets the push.

New Tory leader contest.

Boris stands and wins.

Boris leads the Tories into the next election v Keir.

Who will win?

The Tory party donors

wanderlust wrote:

Sluffy wrote:Here's one scenario to ponder on...

Truss is so bad she gets the push.

New Tory leader contest.

Boris stands and wins.

Boris leads the Tories into the next election v Keir.

Who will win?

The Tory party donors

Yes, because there is a secret corporate cabal pulling the strings of the UK Prime Minister's to economically destroy the country in order to make them even more mega rich than they are already.

Sluffy wrote:

Yes, because there is a secret corporate cabal pulling the strings of the UK Prime Minister's to economically destroy the country to make them even more mega rich than they all are already.

You forgot to add that they are foreigners or are rich enough not to have to live here or depend on the NHS anyway and use the 17 British Overseas Territories for banking with the latest OECD report rating three of them - BVI, Caymans and Bermuda as the top three corporate tax abuse enablers on the planet (in that order)

At least Britain tops the charts in something even if it is being the number one corporate tax abuse enabler in the world.

wanderlust wrote:

Sluffy wrote:

Yes, because there is a secret corporate cabal pulling the strings of the UK Prime Minister's to economically destroy the country to make them even more mega rich than they all are already.

You forgot to add that they are foreigners or are rich enough not to have to live here or depend on the NHS anyway and use the 17 British Overseas Territories for banking with the latest OECD report rating three of them - BVI, Caymans and Bermuda as the top three corporate tax abuse enablers on the planet (in that order)

At least Britain tops the charts in something even if it is being the number one corporate tax abuse enabler in the world.

You are absolutely bonkers if you believe even half the stuff you write.

Sluffy wrote:Here's one scenario to ponder on...

Truss is so bad she gets the push.

New Tory leader contest.

Boris stands and wins.

Boris leads the Tories into the next election v Keir.

Who will win?

Labour.

Sluffy wrote:Here's one scenario to ponder on...

Truss is so bad she gets the push.

New Tory leader contest.

Boris stands and wins.

Boris leads the Tories into the next election v Keir.

Who will win?

The current situation is too serious for another Tory Leadership contest, it's the last thing the public would want.

I think the Chancellor is possibly on very thin ice though, Truss has already thrown him under the bus in reference to the 45% tax cut on Kuenssberg this morning.

One things for certain Austerity isn't over, Truss wouldnt answer this morning but The DWP will soon be getting the cosh out.

Don't forget this government doesn't believe in Hand outs, unless of course they go to the top earners.

 They have to get something back and they are pre conditioned to go for all those lazy scroungers that she mentioned in that book Britannia Unchained she must now regret writing. This morning Gove almost sounded like a normal person. He's not happy.

I can't wait for the Pm's Conferemce speech, with her stuttering delivery watching Conference clapping through gritted  teeth.  Car Crash doesn't come close.

Wow - the boot is really going in here!!!

Tory conference: Labour favourites to win power at next election, says John Curtice



The Labour Party are "very clearly the favourites" to form the next government, pollster Sir John Curtice has told Tory activists in Birmingham.

New PM Liz Truss was now as unpopular with voters as Boris Johnson was when he was ousted, said Sir John.

And even if Labour's current double digit poll lead reduced before the next election in 2024, Labour were still likely to gain power, he suggested.

His analysis was greeted with dismay and cries of "wow" from activists.

The veteran pollster, who masterminds general election exit polls, said Labour already had a nine point lead in the polls when Ms Truss won last month's Tory leadership election and she had not enjoyed a honeymoon period.

Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng's tax-cutting mini-budget last Friday - and the market reaction to it - had produced a 7% swing to Labour, he said.

"The truth is, whatever the merits of Liz Truss's package, it has resulted in very serious electoral damage to the Conservatives as an institution and to this new leader," he told the Demos fringe meeting.

The swing to Labour was similar in size to that seen on Black Wednesday in 1992, the first time the policies of a Conservative government had produced turmoil on the money markets.

If voters remembered the events of the past week when they go to the polls in two years' time, Labour could be on course for a three figure majority, said Sir John, even if Ms Truss's policies work as intended and produce economic growth.

In the event of a hung Parliament, opposition parties would be unlikely to prop up a minority Tory administration, he suggested, which made Labour clear favourites to gain power.

Tory activists received a similarly sobering message at an earlier fringe meeting, from pollster with links to the party.

Veteran US pollster Frank Luntz told them: "If you want to win, stop bitching, stop griping, stop complaining and get [it] together."

He said the party's MPs had to start communicating with voters in a language they understood, and talking about things which mattered to them.

He also took aim at defeated Tory leadership contender and former chancellor Rishi Sunak, who has opted to stay away from this week's conference.

"Where is Rishi Sunak? Why is he not here?" he asked the audience of Tory members.

If Mr Sunak was here he could "start to unify the party, you guys can go forward together," added Mr Luntz.

"When people don't even show up, what are the voters supposed to think?"

In a scathing assessment of Liz Truss's first weeks in power, Rachel Wolf, who co-wrote the Conservatives' 2019 election manifesto, said the new prime minister had no mandate from voters or her own MPs for the "ambitious" Thatcherite agenda she was pursuing.

She accused Ms Truss of "appearing not to care" about the impact her policies will have on voters worried about the cost of living,

"People are feeling poorer," she added, and they don't think the solutions Liz Truss has come up with "make any sense".

Ms Wolf, co-founder of polling company Public First, and a former adviser to Michael Gove, picked apart Ms Truss's claim to be a strong leader in the mould of Margaret Thatcher, and not afraid of unpopular policies.

The crucial difference between the two, she argued, was that Lady Thatcher had an electoral and Parliamentary mandate for her policies and was capable of articulating them in way that resonated with ordinary voters.

"Thatcher was always a strong leader," she told the meeting, "but she was of the people, she spoke in their language".

Pursuing an "ambitious Thatcherite agenda" without a mandate was a recipe for disaster at the polls, she suggested, and she hoped Conservative MPs could at least start to demonstrate some unity and competence.

She also had a message for Sir Keir Starmer.

"People are voting against the government but they are not voting for Labour, That might quite possibly be enough but it is the thing I would be most worried about if I were him.

"The thing that always comes up with Starmer, and still does, is that he has no views, no ideas of his own."

Asked about the qualities needed in a modern leader, she said: "It's very hard to support a leader who is uninterested in, or despises, you.

"It's not whether they are strong, whether they have a view of their own, if they fundamentally don't seem to like their electorate very much, or don't think they are worth considering it's very hard to vote for them."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63110539

Due to Truss/Kwarteng's blunders, this very important government admission of embarrassing failure over talks in N Ireland has not received the coverage it should have done:- Minister, Steve Baker accepts that he has been disrespectful towards NI and the EU, ignoring their legitimate concerns in important discussions.

Appalling Tory priorities and decision-making flaws continue to be all too apparent despite the change of leader and cabinet. Resignations should follow. They won't!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-63111685

The Daily Mail had the headline "Not for Turning" towards the end of last week. I see the govt have u turned this morning

7:27
BREAKING
Chancellor confirms U-turn on top rate of tax

Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng has confirmed he will not pursue cutting the 45p rate of income tax on people earning more than £150,000 a year.

Posted at 7:51
This is a massive and humiliating U-turn

Rob Watson
BBC political correspondent

This is a massive and humiliating U-turn.

It comes only a day after Prime Minister Liz Truss insisted she would not abandon the tax cut for the wealthiest. It would also seem to undermine her central argument that growth depends in large part on lower taxes to attract entrepreneurs.

The government justified the U-turn by calling it a distraction from its wider growth plan.

But maybe the damage is already done in terms of the Truss government’s standing with the voters and the markets.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-63114183

Sluffy wrote:7:27
BREAKING
Chancellor confirms U-turn on top rate of tax

Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng has confirmed he will not pursue cutting the 45p rate of income tax on people earning more than £150,000 a year.

Posted at 7:51
This is a massive and humiliating U-turn

Rob Watson
BBC political correspondent

This is a massive and humiliating U-turn.

It comes only a day after Prime Minister Liz Truss insisted she would not abandon the tax cut for the wealthiest. It would also seem to undermine her central argument that growth depends in large part on lower taxes to attract entrepreneurs.

The government justified the U-turn by calling it a distraction from its wider growth plan.

But maybe the damage is already done in terms of the Truss government’s standing with the voters and the markets.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-63114183

Got her listening ears on then?

I doubt the two of them can survive long. This was a catastrophic political blunder at the first fence.

What an utter calamity.

I told you that Truss's tax cut and determination not to fund them by increased borrowing - on which she based her leadership campaign - made absolutely no economic sense whatsoever - but in all honesty I never expected her to actually implement them - I just thought it was rhetoric to beat Rushi and that she might do something around the edges in order to say she was working on the polices she won the leadership on.

This shows to me that she has no basic understanding of economics, that she relies totally on Kwarty's ideology on this and that clearly the Civil Service at the Treasury were dead against the stupidity of such economic action and that was why its head there, Tom Scholar was sacked...

Tom Scholar: Former top civil servants hit out at Treasury boss sacking
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-62869880

Clearly also the Office for Budgetary Responsibility (OBR) report was suppressed because it too would have reported on the madness of the Truss/Kwarteng ideology.

All this shows how massively, massively lacking Truss is in two clear respects, the obvious one being she has absolutely no idea of how the economy works and is driven by ideology instead, the second is she has no political touch and sensitivity in that although the 45% tax cut would not in relative financial terms cost that much to fund but missed (or more likely ignored) what message it sent out to the public, namely a tax hand out to the very rich whilst the rest of the country is becoming poorer by the day.

An obvious vote loser.

How could she and Kwarty not see that, or perhaps more pertinent COULD see that but still couldn't give a damn.

Absolute shambles and I have zero confidence in them to get things right.

Christ as recently as yesterday Truss went on the telly that she was not for turning!

Margaret Thatcher she definitely is not!


Do you know I don't think it is at all inconceivable that Boris will be back as PM before the next General Election...

Sluffy wrote:
All this shows how massively, massively lacking Truss is in two clear respects, the obvious one being she has absolutely no idea of how the economy works and is driven by ideology instead, the second is she has no political touch and sensitivity in that although the 45% tax cut would not in relative financial terms cost that much to fund but missed (or more likely ignored) what message it sent out to the public, namely a tax hand out to the very rich whilst the rest of the country is becoming poorer by the day.

An obvious vote loser.

Make your mind up, in post 94 when i pointed out the unfairness, you decided i was like many others emotionally linked to believing  blah blah.... 

You went on to prove your point as always with some condessing twaddle about the price of a pint. before you go again, i accept that your points financially are correct but ...

You missed  the main point that it's all about perception. The damage was done it was deemed unfair not just be me and my emotianally charged mates, but even by Tory Ministers and MPs hence todays U turn. As you now say  an obvious vote loser.

wessy wrote:

Sluffy wrote:
All this shows how massively, massively lacking Truss is in two clear respects, the obvious one being she has absolutely no idea of how the economy works and is driven by ideology instead, the second is she has no political touch and sensitivity in that although the 45% tax cut would not in relative financial terms cost that much to fund but missed (or more likely ignored) what message it sent out to the public, namely a tax hand out to the very rich whilst the rest of the country is becoming poorer by the day.

An obvious vote loser.

Make your mind up, in post 94 when i pointed out the unfairness, you decided i was like many others emotionally linked to believing  blah blah.... 

You went on to prove your point as always with some condessing twaddle about the price of a pint. before you go again, i accept that your points financially are correct but ...

You missed  the main point that it's all about perception. The damage was done it was deemed unfair not just be me and my emotianally charged mates, but even by Tory Ministers and MPs hence todays U turn. As you now say  an obvious vote loser.

It's hard work with you mate at times.

I didn't miss the main point about perception at all, I was talking however specifically about the 45% tax rate being scrapped and how relatively little in revenue terms (£3 billion) it actually contributed towards the total £45 billion in tax cuts.

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/centres/cage/news/26-09-22-six_takeaways_from_the_mini_budget/

Sluffy wrote:And fwiw also, I think the scrapping of the 45% tax rate is something of a political red herring in the sense that it only applies to those who earn over £150k per year and the tax revenue it actually raises is not really that great (if you are earning £150k or more a year you have tax advisors who tell you what to do legally with your money to minimise what tax you pay on it!).

The reason why it is trotted out by Labour and the press is more to do with the 'image' of the fat cats getting fatter, when the truth is really that the fat cats are mostly already 'avoiding' the 45% tax in the first place anyway.

My point was that everyone was focused politically on the 45% tax cut which accounted for about just 7% of it and ignored the remaining £42 billion (93%).

I'm sorry if my 'condescending twaddle' didn't make that clear to you, so I'll attempt to dumb down my explanations even further in future so you hopefully can understand them.

And yes, you are the emotional type as clearly evidenced in your post above!

Other than that, have nice day.