What Do You Think Today?

[peter]

Totally Av.

Given the situation it seems inconceivable that there should not be a general election (the effective total collapse of the government, the PM in hiding and the economy in tatters), but this is absolutely the one thing that all the Tory parliamentary MPs can agree upon - that they don't want one.

Given this dynamic they will be bending heaven and earth trying to establish the way through this that doesn't involve going to the country.

There seems to be two opposing schools of thought. First you have those that believe Truss should be got rid of fast, and a single unity candidate got into place to replace her. The idea is that you then present her governance as a brief interlude that you have rapidly corrected, and try to reestablish some economic and fiscal credibility pretty quickly and hope everyone forgets what has happened. The problem is that the mandate has been spaffed up the wall and Labour will never, never, never, let the public forget it. The risk is that despite your new leadership and change of course, you still finish up having to call an early election.

The other course is to literally prop up Truss like a corpse, and run the show with her simply like a second figurehead leader, but with no executive power. That way you (conceivably) get out of having to call an election (if the markets stabilise and the pound recovers etc) by doubling down on the idea that the economic free fall was largely down to external factors with (you admit) a little bit of responsibility falling on the mini-budget. Say it often enough and loud enough and hope it becomes true. Also lay off blame elsewhere - remainders, anti-growth coalition, Bank of England etc, as far as possible. Problem with this approach is that every time Truss is forced to appear in public, she is accused of being an irrelevance - and it's true. Many Tory backbenchers think this is simply unsustainable, and they are correct.

So this will be the main thrust of the decision being thrashed out behind closed doors as we speak. Jeremy Hunt warned in the House that "this atrocious situation is far from over", which I suppose is an admission of sorts that the situation is atrocious, and Penney Mordaunt did a stirling job explaining the PM's absence (she had declined Kier Stamer's request to come to the House to answer an urgent question). Both Mordaunt and Hunt were described as having given Prime Ministerial performances, while Truss was ridiculed for not having the courage to come out and face the music.

In fairness it is difficult for her. Her entire budget was in effect ripped up this morning by Hunt, and more - he actually had to go further back than the position that Truss and Kwarteng started from when they introduced their budget. (Eg, the proposed tax cut from twenty to nineteen percent penciled in by the Johnson administration for next year was cancelled indefinitely.) The two year help for the public with energy costs was rowed back to six months - a bitter blow to Truss who has leant heavily upon it as the key policy of her entire budget in the last few difficult days. The problem is that she cannot claim that these ideas are all Kwarteng's and she is really a middle of the road Tory who in truth supports everything the Sunak supporting Hunt (ie in the leadership campaign) is doing. Everyone knows that she really believed in that libertarian stuff and what Hunt is doing to rectify the damage is totally against what she really believes in. All the more reason for changing her, because she just really has no credibility sitting at the head of this kind of government.

Any way - that's it for tonight. Let's see what the overnight action brings. She's meeting with her cabinet over drinks as I post and has had a meeting with Chairman of the 1922 committee Graham Brady earlier. She's also met the centrist One Nation cohort earlier in the day. All of these meetings will be determining what happens now next, but it is not Truss that is the central thing anymore, it is the backbench MPs that are making the running.

[peter]

A key thing to consider.

If the Tories are prepared to deny, for their own self-interest, the clear right of the people to have a general election (because we are now so far from the mandate which was given to the conservative party in 2019 it hurts, not to mention the meltdown of the government and the pertaining chaos) - then what price democracy in the UK?

Having crossed the psychological Rubicon of acceptance that party interest trumps national, how small a step is it to thinking that "the time is not right" or "the situation in Europe is too precarious", when the allotted time for this parliament to end falls due?

This is dangerous territory we are entering here. This is one party state territory.

Yesterdays announcement in one fell swoop did away with the certainty that we would be able to (just about) cope with the doubled energy costs we already face in my household over the next two years. We also lost the guarantee of the triple lock on pensions being maintained (that they will keep pace with wages, inflation or 2.5 percent increase, whichever being the highest).

This in my small and simple household. How much more will be lost by younger families with mortgages and more significant outgoings, with families to care for and commitments to keep?

We are being led by a corpse prime minister, a shadow who hides from the public and who in less than six weeks has wreaked damage upon the economy, the futures of millions of people, that will take years to rectify. We are now so far removed from the manifesto commitments of the 2019 election that it is almost invisible in the distance. We have an unelected prime minister leading an unelected government and causing mayhem in their wake at every turn. The right of the people to be governed only by those who have a mandate to do so is being trashed before our eyes, yet we are denied the powers to exercise that right, even in the face of economic crisis and a calamitous threat to stability.

And this at a time of unparalleled upheaval in the world in general and Europe in particular. With the spectre of war hanging over us and the bruising effects of our leaving the EU yet to even be truly felt, we are condemned to governance by chaos, prey to whichever faction of the Tory parliamentary MPs happens to be holding the whip-hand today.

Surely this is not sustainable? For the good of the nation, the Tories should recognise that they have moved beyond the point where they are fit to govern. Parliament should be dissolved and a general election called. The Conservative Party need a period out of office in order to put their house in order. Stamer's and his Labour cohort are by no means the ideal option for this country - but this chaos at the top is becoming frightening. It needs to stop. We need to get into territory that we understand; general elections and campaigning, leaders that persist for more than a year or two, policy platforms that are given a mandate and then adhered to. Stability.

How have we reached, after hundreds of years of development of our constitution, this point of chaos, whereby a government can run amok, go into meltdown, but there is no constitutional mechanism whereby a general election can be called? It is inconceivable. Nothing like it has ever happened in my lifetime, or in anyone else's. This is the scale of the disaster we face. Unbelievable! Is this what it feels like to live in a failed state?

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The ability of newspapers to forget what they have previously been saying, to turn volta face on the head of a pin, is astounding.

I'm not talking about the kind of stuff that James O'Brien was going on about yesterday. Where over the weekend the assistant editor and regular contributor to the Daily Telegraph had at last come to his senses and written an article stating that "Project Fear Was Right All Along" - a recognition that the six years of chaos and loss of economic clout in the world could essentially be traced back to our decision to leave the EU.

No. I'm referring to the kind of forgetfulness that we see in the Mail and Express, that can push for Liz Truss to be leader (exercising their baleful influence over millions of readers not to mentioned the 160,000 or so who got to actually have a say in the matter), then ignore this fact weeks later when she falls from grace. "At last! A proper Tory budget!", they screamed from their front pages as kwarsi Kwarteng unleashed his ballistic missile onto the markets and the mortgage hopes of millions of youngsters in the months and years ahead.

Now today, they speak in different, more sombre tones. I quote:

Comment.

It is time for the wise men and women (I kid you not!) of the Conservative Party to decide whether the loss of confidence in Miss Truss is terminal. If it is, they must come to a solution - and fast - that can command the support of MPs and the millions of Tory voters looking on in horror.

I mean you couldn't make it up! These rags pushed her and her libertarian agenda to the hilt. Now they effect the gravitas of wise sages, nodding as if in avuncular understanding of the wilful behaviour of their unruly adolescent readership that would have supported such folly, but gently recommending a return to more normal methods of politics, following a brief but instructive period of youthful over confidence.

Meanwhile a contrite Truss is dragged to the cameras to make an apology. "We went too far, too fast," says the trembling PM, in the hope that this will be enough (alongside the complete ditching of everything she has ever stood for by her new boss, the re-emergent Hunt, after his three year sojourn in the wilderness). It won't be. She is an irrelevance now. It is her parliamentary MPs who are making the running, and they who will decide where we go from here.

But it goes without saying, it won't be into the one place where we need, we have a right to go - into the polling booths.

[peter]

I just watched the sky debate on whether there should be a general election and amazingly they just didn't seem to get it.

That a government cannot expect to do what the Truss government has done to our economy, our country and walk away from it.

Certainly party's can change leaders without going to the country if there is a degree of continuity in what they propose to do. But to go off at a tangent and then destroy the economy - the normal rules no longer apply.

We now have an effective new leadership with a completely different agenda than the one voted for in 2019 - and one that no one really knows what it is. Hunt was a remainer; for all we know he may intend to take us back closer to the EU. He could be thinking anything - we have no idea.

So two things - what they have done and what they intend to do - mean that it is simply right that the people are given the opportunity to choose, despite there being no actual constitutional demand for an election.

[Avatar]

I really don't think there's much danger of anybody trying to block an election when it is legally due, although I do expect them to wait until the absolute last minute.

(Say, couldn't the King dissolve Parliament if the public demand an election? I seem to remember the monarch holds that power?)

--A

[Iolanthe]

(Say, couldn't the King dissolve Parliament if the public demand an election? I seem to remember the monarch holds that power?)

--A

No, Av, the King can't do that.

What a sorry mess we are in. I did enjoy the debate yesterday when Starmer asked the urgent question and Penny Mordaunt was made to reply. The Speaker is a comedian. I now can't stop imagining Truss hiding under her desk! Surely she can't last much longer.

Regarding the coronation, I do hope they are not going to cut the bit where the current Dymoke (the King's Champion) brandishes his axe and challenges any objectors to Charles becoming King. I actually sat next to the previous Dymoke during a lunch as he opened a conference for us and he described his duties at Elizabeth's coronation. The Dymokes live at Scrivelsby in Lincolnshire. What a shame he won't arrive on his horse; apparently the last time the horse was ridden into the ceremony was in 1821. The Dymokes have been doing this since 1066!

[Fist and Faith]

That Dymoke thing sounds excellent! If I knew that was going to happen, I might actually watch it! Can't imagine why they wouldn't still ride in on a horse.

[peter]

Just watched a 25 minute YouTube post by the Financial Times entitled The Brexit Effect.

It's a serious look at just how damaging brexit has been, and will continue to be in the future, in terms of its effect on the UK economy.

The presenters - some of the FT's leading analysts - were unequivocal in their stating that the effects they were talking about were not due to the pandemic, not due to the war in Ukraine, not due to world economic conditions. They were all effects that could be considered like for like with other countries, and thereby isolating the effects down to Brexit alone.

The key point they were making was the effective 'conspiracy of silence' that pervades both leading political parties and the Bank of England when it comes to discussion about this elephant in the room. Until this discussion could be had, they said, it would be impossible to address the very real damage that the way we have left is causing, and begin the process of undoing the worst of the damage. They likened Brexit to a slow puncture on the economy that, following the Chancellor's mini-budget, had raised to an audible hiss, with the threat of developing into a full scale blow-out.

I challenge any Brexit supporters who may drop by on occasion to watch this video post and begin at least, to acknowledge that there is a discussion to be had. It makes for sobering viewing but who knows - perhaps these arguments may be open to refute. But unless the discussion is engaged, we shall never know, shall we.

[peter]

The conundrum for the Tories is this. Everybody and his mother wants her replaced as PM - but no one can agree on who should be chosen to be put in her place. And thus she stays in situ while the party self-immoliolates.

And today the situation develops further as her cabinet fractures, and her party erupts in fury over not her abortive mini-budget debacle (that's ancient history now), but over her new policies, as put forward by the real power behind the throne.

Because Hunt is going through it like a dose of salts.

He wasn't kidding when he said that he had some "eye-wateringly difficult decisions" to make; well he certainty seems to have found his groove with them pretty quickly. He's started by eyeing not only the inflated profits of the energy companies (he's not, he tells us, in principle against windfall taxes) but also those of the banking industry, garnered as a result of increased interest rates. He's gone from saying that the forthcoming squeeze on public finances will not be anything like George Osbourne's austerity cuts to saying that they could well be worse. And finally, sacrilege upon sacrilege, he has confirmed that the rise in pensions will likely only match that of wages, not inflation. This latter could cost every pensioner in the land, rich and poor alike, about 450 quid a year, and at a time when many can not both heat their homes and eat, having to choose to do one or the other.

This last measure has caused the parliamentary party to erupt. Huge numbers of Tory MPs say that they will not vote for this (not out of any humanitarian sentiment you understand - but because pensioners form a large part of their already hammered voting demographic).

The cabinet is also showing signs of being ready to blow itself apart. Ben Wallace (much loved because of his perceived decent showing in his handling of the UK response to the Ukrainian war) has threatened to walk if Hunt does not stick to the three percent increase in defence spending as promised by...... some earlier manifestation of the Chancellor - it gets hard to keep up with them, having had four in six months. Another lesser known one has threatened the same, and Hunt's vigour in turning the government from a laissez-fair right wing version into a high-tax, no-spend avatar in the blink of an eye is not going down well. Jacob Rees-Mogg pretty much sealed Truss's fate as a gonner yesterday (and made more of a tit of himself than he already is, if that is possible) by saying as he entered Downing Street, that the PM's cabinet was "fully behind her." We haven't heard much from the top-hatted duffer since he said that the turmoil in the bond-markets had nothing to do with the government's mini-budget. As the PM who he backed for leader has presided over the meltdown of the government and the parliamentary party, and overseen our turning almost overnight from a leading world economy into the laughing stock of the Western world, he has suddenly disappeared from view. (That's one bloke who's windfalls - and there have been a number of them amounting to millions of pounds since he championed the disastrous decision to leave the EU - could do with taxing. Not much chance though: the dish is all stashed away nicely in the Cayman Islands.)

But this chaos must persist because the Tories cannot decide upon a new leader and because the country has no way of ousting them from power via an early general election. There is no constitutional mechanism to shift a government in meltdown it seems, short of the King himself stepping in, and I don't see King Charles doing so in a hurry (he has not the experience of his mother in dealing with constitutional crises - and this is a constitutional crisis; one commentator said it was the worst one since Suez back in the 1950's).

And to put the icing on the cake of Truss's misery, Michael Give has said that her replacement is inevitable. That's all she needs. The perfidious Gove, he of the black soul who cannot help but be a Brutus at every opportunity, piling on the agony. I mean - what the **** would she have wanted this job in the first place for? Who in their right mind would want it? Let's face it. Being the PM of this country is a poisoned chalice from day one. It's being given the task of reviving the dead body on the sidewalk with CPR while being beaten on the back with barrel staves as you do it. You'd have to be a complete Hunt to want it.

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But the unpalatable truth is that Hunt has probably got it right. He probably has the measure of it. (Aside; why is it that Sunak is always referred to by the more friendly moniker of 'Rishi' by commentators and public alike, while Hunt remains, well Hunt whenever referred to? Draw your own conclusions.)

There is a fiscal black hole that some have estimated to be around the seventy billion pound mark - and that even after the new chancellor's recent reversals. And like it or not, the only way to address this is via taxation. If anything, Hunt has not gone far enough in pulling in tax revenues in order to meet this deficit. There is real need to consider the introduction of an emergency tax policy, if only for a short period, in order to pull in significantly greater revenues with which to balance the books.

And there is plenty of scope for it.

Think of the revenue lost via legal tax avoidance loopholes - the stashing away of profits and income in offshore accounts, the setting up of offshore 'headquarters' via which tax payment to the UK exchequer is avoided, despite the bulk of business being carried out in this country. The billions of tax that could be accessed via the closure of these loopholes would probably be enough of itself in order to fill the hole.

And income tax. No one needs to be earning to the tune of hundreds of thousands in order to survive - not when there are people in our society who will die from the cold, from malnutrition, in the bleak days ahead. Certainly, reverse the intended tax cut from twenty to nineteen percent that had been planned. Put it up to twenty-one percent. For people on minimum wage this is going to make so little an impact upon their incomes as to be negligible (if anything, they will benefit from the increase in public services which this could allow in the near future). But simultaneously raise the tax on income over a hundred and fifty thousand to fifty percent. And raise the tax on income over a million to seventy five percent. No one needs a million pounds a year to survive and these are desperate times. We cannot see public services stripped to the bone at the very time that we need them to be functioning at their best. Desperate times.

"But people will just leave the country!", would be the cry. No they won't. That's bollocks. They'll moan like drains and stump up because the deal they are left with in this country will still be a million times better than the one they could get anywhere else.

There is only one way out of this situation that leaves us with a country that's anything like recognisable as the one we have grown up used to living in and that's via taxation. Hunt knows this and he should grasp the nettle and get to it. There will be short-lived pain but it will be brief. The main thing - the absolute thing - is that it must be shared, and shared evenly. The rule that the burden must always be bourn by those at the bottom of our society cannot be allowed to apply here. We need to be hit hard with taxation for a brief period to get this borrowing back to manageable limits, to fill this hole in the public finances. People are not so stupid that they can't be made to understand this - certainly not at the lower end of the income scale. It's up to the people at the higher ends to demonstrate that they are not to selfish to accept it. If they are, then let them do as they say, and leave. There is no place for them here.

Desperate times.

[peter]

In an out of the blue surprise this afternoon Home Secretary Suela Braverman resigned, citing having broken governmental regulations by sending an email with information that should only have been sent by internal memo as her reason for doing so.

Very noble Suela, but falling on your sword for such a minimal breach of security offence seems, well, a trifle overblown even for you.

Now this is a big deal, whatever the reason behind her going, simply because it means that Truss has lost two of the three governmental big chiefs in less than a week. In even a strong and stable government this would be seen as careless in the extreme - in Truss's case it could prove fatal.

The government position is that Braverman has made a mistake and has done the honourable thing and resigned.

Which would be okay if Braverman in her resignation letter had not ripped Truss to pieces and said that she was less than happy with the direction of travel of the government. Truss in her reply was brief in the extreme - no gushing eulogy on her period of service - just a bald thank you and see you around.

But the interesting thing to me is the nature of her mistake and the implication that can (I think) be drawn from it. I simply cannot see Braverman making this kind of school kid error, or resigning for it if she had. This to me looks like a woman jumping ship from a government that has shifted away from her and in which she can no longer believe. It just so happens that the email error in question was to do with migration numbers in the future, a subject that Truss and Braverman were known to disagree about. Truss had indicated that she might be willing to rethink the policy on migrant labour coming in to do agricultural piece work - a utilisation of which we have been unable to avail ourselves since Brexit and the cessation of short term visas given out by our immigration office for the purpose. Braverman is absolutely against the brining in of immigrant labour for any purpose; she seems to have a deep and abiding hatred of immigrants, saying recently in interview that her dream was to see a plane full of immigrants taking of from Heathrow and headed for Rwanda. I kid you not. This was in interview on BBC Radio Four's morning political slot, probably the most listened to political radio show in the country.

I simply do not believe that this 'mistake' was accidental. I think she wanted out, she wanted to let it be known why she wanted out, but she didn't want to bring Truss down quite yet until she had got her ducks in a row to have a punt for the job herself. This was her way of saying to the centrist Tories, "If you think you are going to put your candidate in by coronation (ie without a leadership contest) then you are mistaken!" At the same time she was setting herself up as the candidate of the right. It's no secret that she has been pretty contemptuous of Truss's leadership: she said at the Tory Party Conference that Truss had about 30 days to get things under wraps. Aside from this, she is bound to be unhappy with a centrist like Hunt making all the running and a combination of her disagreement over immigration policy and the debacle of the mini-budget must have been enough to push her over the edge.

Truss for her part has appointed nonentity Grant Schapps, who she sacked from the cabinet not five weeks ago in her first cabinet reshuffle. He, like Jeremy Hunt, was a Rishi Sunak supporter, so it is clear that, having lost the support of the right of the party she is now looking to shore up her premiership with the centrist MPs who she passed over so completely in the formation of her first cabinet. You may remember, she turned her back on any and everyone except her own supporters in the leadership contest - an act that many onlookers said was foolish at the time. She simply alienated too many of her own backbencher MPs by her petty vindictiveness.

Anyway, that's tonight's debacle. Prepare for another one tomorrow. Who knows what it will be, but whatever, it won't be long before Truss is gone. Tory MPs want her gone almost to a man.....they just haven't figured out how to do it yet.

[peter]

Somewhere between 50 and 100 votes of no confidence submitted to the chairman of the 1922 committee, shouting and screaming in the chamber during the fracking debate and reports of MPs being physically manhandled through the lobby's during the vote. Up to forty MPs failing to show even though in doing so they risked loosing the party whip, two of the big four offices of state changing ministers in a week and rumours that the whips nearly threw down the towel and walked...... and Jacob Rees-Mogg says that the government is "functioning well".

I think King Charles summed it up about as well as could be done with his recent comment made when meeting Liz Truss for the weekly briefing. "Oh dear, oh dear."

Yes the government was successful in defeating a motion to introduce a ban on fracking by a healthy margin, but it is hardly surprising since they had earlier tagged the motion as a 'vote of confidence'. This means that any Tory MPs had voting against the government wishes (ie in support of the motion to ban fracking) would have been thrown out of the conservative party, and had the motion been passed there would have had to be a general election in which most of them - Tory MPs that is - would have lost their seats.

Just in case it isn't clear, the Truss government has said that, contrary to the earlier manifesto commitment, it will allow exploration for the exploitation of shale gas reserves to go ahead. The motion in the commons, brought by the opposition, would have introduced a ban on this, so the government very much didn't want it to pass, and in their efforts to coerce their own MPs to vote against it, tagged it as a vote of confidence. Many Tory MPs are from rural constituencies who would be highly impacted by fracking, and are thus loath to see its introduction. Because of this it was a real risk that these Tory MPs would vote in support of a fracking ban and the government's intentions would be scuppered. Thus the government's tagging of the vote - a means via which recalcitrant Tory MPs could be forced to vote against their own and their constituents desires to see a ban on the process introduced.

Now this is not how a democracy is supposed to work. Yes, the whips have a job to do in ensuring party discipline - but the deliberate forcing of MPs via such coercive tactics as threatening their very livelihoods (never mind the physical bullying that has been reported) is beyond the pale. Our MPs are supposed to be free agents within the House, voting as their conscience dictates. And while a government can be expected to persuade, and persuade vigorously, its MPs to support it, there are limits.

And it might be that even the whips were not happy with the way they were expected to behave in this. Murky stories in this morning's press tell of shouted exchanges and the chief and deputy whips tendering their resignations before being persuaded to retract them.

All of which put Truss's survival chances at further risk (if this is possible). Word has it that she will be gone by the end of the week, that the decision has been made and all that is now sought is the mechanism via which it will be executed. There is even a possibility of a mass desertion of her cabinet, despite what Jacob Rees-Mogg says. He probably thinks that his denial of the obvious is a demonstration of some kind of archaic honour.... loyalty or chivalry or something...but what he fails to get is that the cause he is honouring has lost all honour itself. He really is a very silly man, despite all of his financial success.

So it's a fairly sound bet that the PM is, like General Gordon in that famous picture, on the steps and pretty much doomed. Boris Johnson must be laughing as he watches it all unfolding. He of course supported Truss's leadership bid - not because he thought she'd be any good as PM or agreed with her neo-liberal ideology; rather because he hated Rishi Sunak and Truss looked like the best bet to thwart his desires to win the post. There will be no concern for what this is doing to the country to be found in that corner.

But I, like everyone else who is watching this unfolding unfolding (get that?), saucer-eyed with amazement, have absolutely no idea how the story ends. It's a psychodrama to match anything on Netflix or Prime, and one that we everyone of us, has a vested interest in the outcome. We have seen what a bad decision by a PM can do to our lives (it took Truss only five days to cost every person in this country thousands of pounds a year in extra fuel, mortgage and interest costs, let alone loss of pension and other payments), and for those watching, bad decision is being heaped upon bad decision on an almost hourly basis.

I can only imagine what this country must look like to the observing world. As you enter this country through one of its ports or airports you always see the customary sign as you pass through immigration, "Welcome to the United Kingdom," or something like. Perhaps it should be changed to "Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here!"

[Avatar]

And yet...be cognisant of the fact that for all its current travails, there are many countries, and many hundreds of millions of people who are doing far, far worse. (Small comfort in that perspective perhaps, but nonetheless.)

Yes, Boris must be rolling about laughing as he watches all this.

--A

[peter]

Totally Av. I was thinking that no matter how bad it is here - and the more you read, the more it appears to have descended into a Brian Rix farce - it pales into nothing as compared to what the poor people of Ukraine are going through.

As for Johnson, he will indeed be laughing fit to burst.....but from a long way away. He was one of the few MPs given permission to miss the fracking vote last night. Not because he's too busy serving his constituents in Uxbridge however. Because he's in the Caribbean.

[Avatar]

Haha, I watched the latest episode of "Have I got News For You" and when a panellist said something about him doubtless being hard at work serving his constituents, an audience member called out "No he's not!"

Anyway, from what I understood, the whole fracking thing is just political theatre...saw some geologist saying nobody in their right mind would bother actually fracking in the UK because it would be almost impossible to recoup the cost of setting up an operation due to the tiny amount of yield they would get.

--A

[peter]

She's gone.

Tories have one week to choose a new leader (won't be Hunt - he's ruled himself out).

Won't be easy because there is absolutely no consensus about who it should be (Nadine Dories has called for Boris Johnson to be recalled - yeah right Nadine!)

I have no evidence to back this up - it's pure gut feeling - but I think it could be Ben Wallace. If he could be persuaded to stand, he is the only one that could be presented as a unity candidate.

Pure speculation on my part.

[Avatar]

Damn, Really thought she would tough it out longer than that. Ignominious end indeed, what?

--A

[Fist and Faith]

Holy cow! I only follow along this thread in a very surface kind of way. I barely know what's going on over here. I wouldn't try to tackle another country. But wow, this is just crazy.

[peter]

Breaking news. The Telegraph has tweeted that "Boris Johnson is expected to stand."

Could just be Johnson being mischievous.

1922 committee will do everything in their power to try to get only one candidate on the ballot paper, but this could be near impossible given the fractured nature of the parliamentary party.

Thoughts on Truss. Up like the rocket. Down like the stick. A case of 'can't deliver, can't deliver, can't deliver.'

[peter]

I watched Liz Truss's resignation speech yesterday, first as it happened and then in subsequent replays a couple of times more.

I'm convinced she was struggling to not laugh at the end of the speech (it's only 83 second's long) - could be just a nervous reaction to all she has been through or even the effect of drugs (medically prescribed) to calm her nerves. Who could blame her for needing some 'mother's little helper' after the bruising punishment she has endured. Thus it is no surprise to me to read in the Telegraph that she is "relieved" that it is over.

What is a surprise however, is to read that a super heavyweight contest is emerging as Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak emerge as the two front runners for a showdown for the Conservative Party leadership. It seems in many ways a natural conclusion to the drama that began that day that Boris Johnson stood at the lectern and gave his reluctant and defiant resignation speech. That would be if it weren't, I don't know, almost so theatrical a culmination, so what would be contrived if it were written as a film script. It would be the denouement in a Ricky film that would occur following a montage of the titular hero running up the steps of the Washington monument.

But in a bizarre twist of life imitating art it appears that it may be happening for real as the runners and riders prepare to declare before Monday's noontime deadline. There has been accusations that the backbench committee of Tory MPs who organise such contests are deliberately trying to keep Johnson off the ticket by setting the entry stake so high (100 backbench proposers to be even allowed entry - five times that required for the summer leadership contest), but in doing so they run the risk of no candidate reaching the bar, particularly so if any number of alternative candidates declare by the deadline. In the eventuality that no individual or individuals (and it could only be three) reach the required number of proposers, then it's general election time - no argument. It's therefore a risky strategy - shit or bust really - to focus Tory minds about getting behind a small number of candidates - or better, only one.

There has been some negative reaction to the news that Johnson is limbering up in the corner of the ring; some MPs have declared that they will "never serve under that man", threatening to 'hand back the whip' (ie leave the Tory party) rather than do so. But there is acknowledgment that Johnson is an election winner (and boy, do they need one) who is the only one who can argue that he actually does have the mandate to lead the country. After all, he won an eighty seat majority in the last general election. This is a powerful argument, love the man or hate him.

Another problem for Johnson is that he is by no means clear of the fallout from partygate yet. The inquiry is yet to sit, and for him to be back as leader when it does so would open up all kinds of cans of worms for the government. There is no argument - Johnson comes with history.

So what about Sunak?

Well, Sunak is a man who (not unlike Johnson) has the record of history on his side - and against him as well. He predicted to the letter the effect of Truss's disastrous mini-budget on the economy and he was the 'giveaway' chancellor who spread furlough money around like a farmer sowing corn - who everybody loved until they hated him. But then he has that one great thing for which he can never be forgiven: he's a traitor. It was he who jumped ship following the departure of Sajid Javid and ultimately brought Johnson's premiership to an end. There are many amongst the parliamentary party and the country as a whole that have never, will never, forgive him for his role in the Johnsonian downfall. Like it or not, Sunak will never compare to Johnson when it comes to presenting the party before the people at a general election, and the backbench MPs must know this. That there will be a reckoning for all of this is beyond question, and the Tories are going to need all of the help they can get if they are not going to be annihilated. Kier Stamer will be the one who most greatly fears a comeback of Johnson - and that should give the Tory backbencher MPs pause for thought as they go home for a weekend of considering their options.

Difficult to know how this will pan out, but if it comes down to Sunak vs Johnson in a standoff put to the party membership, then it's Johnson first, Sunak nowhere. Sunak has to win via coronation or not at all. The 1922 committee know this, and if they truly don't want Johnson then they will be working like dogs this weekend to achieve this outcome. Johnson will, if he is serious, be ramming this down the throats of every Tory MP he speaks to. He has to get that 100 proposal backing or he's out.

If anything at all comes out of this mess it is the complete dissociation of the parliamentary Conservative Party from it's membership. Not a million miles away from the Labour position either as it happens. And riven by factionalism and internal division as it is, it is by no means a stretch to say that as things currently stand, the Conservative Party is ungovernable. And if this be so, how can it reasonably be expected to be able to govern the country?

(And you'll be pleased to know that the Daily Star's romaine lettuce is celebrating it's longer survival than 'lettuce Liz' with a bottle of bubbly and a Gregg's sausage roll. They finish by saying, "and you'll never guess which cabbage is returning to save us!")

[Iolanthe]

That Dymoke thing sounds excellent! If I knew that was going to happen, I might actually watch it! Can't imagine why they wouldn't still ride in on a horse.

Interesting tradition Fist. The first Dymoke Kings Champion was awarded the manor of Scrivelsby by Will the Conq and they are still living there. In medieval times he would have ridden the horse into Westminster Hall during the post coronation festivities. Presumably this coronation will be held in the Abbey - can't ride a horse into the abbey

So Boris is back in the running. While the Tories indulge in their internal squabbles other people are having to choose between malnutrition or hypothermia.

[Avatar]

I cannot see Boris, a man who was pushed out for being unsuitable to be PM, sudden;y being suitable again. The clowns really would be running the circus if that happened.

(Caveat: My track record on these kind of predictions is not great. )

--A