truss

[ncRover]

The IMF didn’t have a problem with the many multiple times more money spent on trying to stop covid and grind the economy to a halt. More so than the £2bn initially lost through tax cuts, why’s that?

Do you really want to know, or is this just another knee jerk anti-lockdown spasm?

My point was to highlight the relatively small ratio of the tax cuts. For example 2bn in relation to 150bn energy bills support package or 32bn on track and trace.

No need for the spiteful tone, I’m just trying to understand things.

Apologies. I saw exactly that line ooze out of loads of right wing COVID denial sites yesterday, repeated by people who should know better. In fact people who probably DO know better but chose to feed folk that bullshit line.

Here's why there's no comparison. Oh and before we start, the tax cuts are £45bn, not £2bn.

1) Why wasn't Govt spending to support people and companies in lockdown a problem?

You have to understand how Govts borrow. They don't pop down to see the bank manager and ask for a loan. The Treasury offers billions of pounds of Govt bonds, promising to pay interest. I'm effect, the financial markets, dominated by big pension funds decide what interest rate they want in return for buying those bonds.

In 2020, the world economy was grinding to a halt. There were very few safe places for money to go. No big commercial investment opportunities were safe. So the financial markets were falling over themselves to lend money to Govts all round the world at effectively zero interest rate.

2) COVID related Govt spending, though large, had a purpose and was always going to be time limited. The markets could see that.

3) Onto Kwarteng. Where to start? He's made several decisions which have freaked the market.

4) Before that, look at the global context. We are now asking to borrow money in a world awash with rapidly growing economies that have bounced back into growth post-COVID. We now have to persuade bond buyers to buy ours. That means they need to have confidence in the direction our Govt finances are going.

5) And there's the rub. Kwarteng announced £45bn of tax cuts on top of £150bn of energy cap funding and he didn't say a single word about how that would be funded. The tax cuts are key here because they would constitute an ongoing cost, year after year. That's called a current account deficit and you cannot run a country over the long term by borrowing to fill a current account deficit.

6) He claimed, against 99.9% of economic advisers' opinions, that the tax cuts would boost long term growth and thus fill the whole in the accounts.

7) He refused to publish a report by the OBR into what they thought the effect of the tax cuts would be.

8) And the Govt is saying that their policy is growth, while the BoE is following its legally enforced mandate to bring down inflation. Never happened before that the Treasury and the BoE are pulling in directly opposite directions.

9) Put all that together and the financial markets said, "we think you are taking a massive risk spadger. We're not even sure there are any grown ups in charge anymore. We'll lend to you, but only if you give us 5% interest to cover the risk." (It was <1% this time last year.

 10) That bond rate rise, if it sticks, adds £100bn to our annual debt interest bill. That massively depressed our future economic outlook. That puts downward pressure in the Pound, which means more inflation and higher interest rates to control it.

++++++++++

That's why this is nothing like the COVID spending. I saw someone sum it up far better yesterday. They said we are suffering because the markets are demanding a Moron Premium when they lend to us. Because what Truss and Kwarteng have done is THE most moronic economic policy decision, certainly in 50 years, possibly in the last century since Churchill brought back the Gold Standard.

Fair enough, good points.

I have libertarian (this isn’t “far-right” as suggested above) leanings but as you have said, politics is about being adaptable and knowing when the time is right to have more of the policies you would ideally like.

I just believe in a smaller state as it has just grown and grown. After covid, people expect it to do everything.

Has the pound slightly recovered? What would this suggest?

[ncRover]

This is disgraceful by The Mirror. They should hang their heads in shame.

https://twitter.com/KwasiKwarteng/status/1576133060411523072?s=20&t=SbhvvhgndvjHyxX09hyfCA

Did you hear Huq’s words on Kwarteng?

[tyke1962]

The IMF didn’t have a problem with the many multiple times more money spent on trying to stop covid and grind the economy to a halt. More so than the £2bn initially lost through tax cuts, why’s that?

Do you really want to know, or is this just another knee jerk anti-lockdown spasm?

My point was to highlight the relatively small ratio of the tax cuts. For example 2bn in relation to 150bn energy bills support package or 32bn on track and trace.

No need for the spiteful tone, I’m just trying to understand things.

Apologies. I saw exactly that line ooze out of loads of right wing COVID denial sites yesterday, repeated by people who should know better. In fact people who probably DO know better but chose to feed folk that bullshit line.

Here's why there's no comparison. Oh and before we start, the tax cuts are £45bn, not £2bn.

1) Why wasn't Govt spending to support people and companies in lockdown a problem?

You have to understand how Govts borrow. They don't pop down to see the bank manager and ask for a loan. The Treasury offers billions of pounds of Govt bonds, promising to pay interest. I'm effect, the financial markets, dominated by big pension funds decide what interest rate they want in return for buying those bonds.

In 2020, the world economy was grinding to a halt. There were very few safe places for money to go. No big commercial investment opportunities were safe. So the financial markets were falling over themselves to lend money to Govts all round the world at effectively zero interest rate.

2) COVID related Govt spending, though large, had a purpose and was always going to be time limited. The markets could see that.

3) Onto Kwarteng. Where to start? He's made several decisions which have freaked the market.

4) Before that, look at the global context. We are now asking to borrow money in a world awash with rapidly growing economies that have bounced back into growth post-COVID. We now have to persuade bond buyers to buy ours. That means they need to have confidence in the direction our Govt finances are going.

5) And there's the rub. Kwarteng announced £45bn of tax cuts on top of £150bn of energy cap funding and he didn't say a single word about how that would be funded. The tax cuts are key here because they would constitute an ongoing cost, year after year. That's called a current account deficit and you cannot run a country over the long term by borrowing to fill a current account deficit.

6) He claimed, against 99.9% of economic advisers' opinions, that the tax cuts would boost long term growth and thus fill the whole in the accounts.

7) He refused to publish a report by the OBR into what they thought the effect of the tax cuts would be.

8) And the Govt is saying that their policy is growth, while the BoE is following its legally enforced mandate to bring down inflation. Never happened before that the Treasury and the BoE are pulling in directly opposite directions.

9) Put all that together and the financial markets said, "we think you are taking a massive risk spadger. We're not even sure there are any grown ups in charge anymore. We'll lend to you, but only if you give us 5% interest to cover the risk." (It was <1% this time last year.

 10) That bond rate rise, if it sticks, adds £100bn to our annual debt interest bill. That massively depressed our future economic outlook. That puts downward pressure in the Pound, which means more inflation and higher interest rates to control it.

++++++++++

That's why this is nothing like the COVID spending. I saw someone sum it up far better yesterday. They said we are suffering because the markets are demanding a Moron Premium when they lend to us. Because what Truss and Kwarteng have done is THE most moronic economic policy decision, certainly in 50 years, possibly in the last century since Churchill brought back the Gold Standard.

Fair enough, good points.

I have libertarian (this isn’t “far-right” as suggested above) leanings but as you have said, politics is about being adaptable and knowing when the time is right to have more of the policies you would ideally like.

I just believe in a smaller state as it has just grown and grown. After covid, people expect it to do everything.

Has the pound slightly recovered? What would this suggest?

I'm always fascinated by the  using the term " Small State " when spoken today .

Just how small can it actually get given that the size of the state has shrunk massively since 1979 ? .

If the state shrinks anymore then we won't need a government , they'd be nowt to govern .

[ncRover]

Has the pound recovered somewhat?

[wilts rover]

Has the pound recovered somewhat?

After the £65 billion Bank of England bail out you mean? It's to be hoped so.

[tyke1962]

Has the pound recovered somewhat?

Your making the mistake of saving capitalism for big state .

[wilts rover]

Ladies and gentlemen - your Prime Minister (in tomorrows lefty rag, The Sunday Times)

https://twitter.com/DavidHenigUK/status/1576279051341561858

[tyke1962]

You can pretty much see where this is going to try and save some money .

A large slice of austerity pie is getting served up .

That big state line and we need to shrink it will be the sound bite coming from the Truss team .

Unfortunately for Dizzy Lizzy there's nowt left to cut back since none of Osborne's policies were improved on .

This particular Tory PM is taking this country to a place it's not seen since probably the 1930's if at all .

I'm seriously worried and I don't worry a right lot these days but this women is proper scary .

[wilts rover]

£300 million to be cut from Education budget next year following Kwarteng & Truss' tax changes.

Schoolkids paying for millionaires tax cuts - Big state my a**e!

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/school-budget-cuts-follow-national-insurance-change/

[grayx]

She will deliver, she will deliver, she will deliver.
Even the most devoted tories i know are embarrassed of this stupid attention seeking woman. She wont last long but she’ll have her moment of fame i guess.

[ravenrover]

Every opportunity on Twitter and it's a tweet complete with a photo, talk about attention seeking

[wilts rover]

The first job of an MP is to act in the interest of their constituents & in the national interest. We cannot clap for carers one month & cut tax for millionaires months later.

Julian Smith MP (former Chief Whip under Theresa May and NI Secretary under Johnson) on the idea that Tory MP's who vote against Truss' tax cuts when they come to Parliament will loose the whip.

[SydneyRover]

Gove going then, what does that say about what's left

[Filo]

The first job of an MP is to act in the interest of their constituents &amp; in the national interest. We cannot clap for carers one month &amp; cut tax for millionaires months later.

Julian Smith MP (former Chief Whip under Theresa May and NI Secretary under Johnson) on the idea that Tory MP's who vote against Truss' tax cuts when they come to Parliament will loose the whip.

They need to be careful, too many and they’ll lose their majority

[Colin C No.3]

Has the pound recovered somewhat?

Up 2% on the ‘Obotu Bean’.

[SydneyRover]

Has the pound recovered somewhat?

Up 2% on the ‘Obotu Bean’.

Parity with a bean, fmd

[SydneyRover]

I'm waiting for pud to tell me it all looks good on paper

[wilts rover]

The first job of an MP is to act in the interest of their constituents &amp;amp; in the national interest. We cannot clap for carers one month &amp;amp; cut tax for millionaires months later.

Julian Smith MP (former Chief Whip under Theresa May and NI Secretary under Johnson) on the idea that Tory MP's who vote against Truss' tax cuts when they come to Parliament will loose the whip.

They need to be careful, too many and they’ll lose their majority

35

Gove said on the BBC he wont vote for it, presumably Sunak wont as he said it was economic madness in the summer, so thats 3 already.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Watched Truss earlier on Kuenssberg's show.

She truly is the very worst kind of modern politician.

She makes a big deal about how Iron Lady she is and how she's not afraid of making tough, unpopular decisions. Then when quizzed in detail on specific tough decisions (interest rates, Govt spending, benefits uprating) she says those are decisions for the BoE, Treasury, DWP.

She made a big deal on how strong she was on scrapping the 45% tax rate. Then this.

LK: Did you discuss the 45% tax scrapping with the whole Cabinet?

LT: (Pause) (Blink). No. (Pause) (Blink). The Chancellor made that decision.

Cowardice, trying to pull on a cloak of gravitas.

[Filo]

The first job of an MP is to act in the interest of their constituents &amp;amp;amp; in the national interest. We cannot clap for carers one month &amp;amp;amp; cut tax for millionaires months later.

Julian Smith MP (former Chief Whip under Theresa May and NI Secretary under Johnson) on the idea that Tory MP's who vote against Truss' tax cuts when they come to Parliament will loose the whip.

They need to be careful, too many and they’ll lose their majority

35

Gove said on the BBC he wont vote for it, presumably Sunak wont as he said it was economic madness in the summer, so thats 3 already.

What they’ll do is what they always do, take the cowards way out and abstain

[BillyStubbsTears]

Most astonishing thing of the interview. She's made Gove sound sensible and statesmanlike.

[tyke1962]

Most astonishing thing of the interview. She's made Gove sound sensible and statesmanlike.

The most astonishing thing about that interview personally is I'm actually going to vote Labour as things stand today .

I simply can't take any chances with these fruit cakes because another term under this lot will see the country un saveable .

That pension debacle last week made my mind up , I can't lose a penny if I'm to at least have some kind of life in retirement .

These fruit cakes will take 90% of us down there's no doubt in my mind about that .

A vote for a party who i don't particularly like seems a price worth paying considering the alternative .

Feckin hell , it's that bad .

 

[BillyStubbsTears]

Meanwhile, since the hedge funders on the far right of the Tory party appear to have made a killing yesterday shorting British debt, might as well try to make a few Bob out of this shit show.

11/4 that Truss is booted out by the Tory party before the next election.

9/4 and shortening this morning.

Get your bets on.

2/1 and shortening.

Tory MPs are briefing that letters of no confidence in Truss have already started to be submitted to the 1922 Committee.

Don't say I didn't tell you.

7/4 and shortening.

6/4 and shortening.

Get this.

Starmer is 4/6 on to be PM after the next election.

But he's 17/10 against being the next PM.

Here's what is do if I were Starmer.

Table a vote of no confidence in Truss in the House.

Publicly announce that if Tory MPs join with him in bringing down Truss, Labour will support a Sunak-led Govt to get us out of this disaster.

11/10 now to be hoyed out before the election.

Now 8/13 on to be gone before the Election.

I'm a political obsessive and I thought I'd seen everything, but this is absolutely unprecedented. The utter collapse of a PM within four weeks of taking power.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Tyke. I've been telling you for years. In FPTP, you don't vote for some ideal of what you want. You vote for the party that's most likely to end up producing a least-bad final outcome.

[BillyStubbsTears]

https://mobile.twitter.com/nadinebh_/status/1576544518853124096

Tory MP Bim Afolami here having one of those Mitchell & Webb "Are we the baddies?" moments.

[tyke1962]

Tyke. I've been telling you for years. In FPTP, you don't vote for some ideal of what you want. You vote for the party that's most likely to end up producing a least-bad final outcome.

Billy I know full well there's no political utopia .

However there has to be at least a modicum of relatability .

The relatability is I get to 67 with half a chance of retiring on a modest income which I think Labour would just about deliver .

Last week shook me because at 60 years old I can't risk losing anything because I'm far from wealthy .

In fact it's just as well our lass is ten years younger than me and earns at least an average wage because if that wasn't the case I wouldn't be able to have a reasonable retired life .

[Hounslowrover]

Tory chair Jake Berry has said, “ People know that when their bills arrive, they can either cut their consumption or they can get a higher salary, higher wages, go out there and get that new job”.
Are they in the real world?

[tyke1962]

Tory chair Jake Berry has said, “ People know that when their bills arrive, they can either cut their consumption or they can get a higher salary, higher wages, go out there and get that new job”.
Are they in the real world?

This is exactly the nonsense they've spouted for 40 years and it falls on deaf ears with the electorate .

What it means is they don't believe it's their responsibility to provide decent jobs that pay .

That's the markets and business responsibility not theirs .

This is their idea of small state and exactly why I get disturbed when people spout nonsense about shrinking the state even more .

[River Don]

The IMF didn’t have a problem with the many multiple times more money spent on trying to stop covid and grind the economy to a halt. More so than the £2bn initially lost through tax cuts, why’s that?

Do you really want to know, or is this just another knee jerk anti-lockdown spasm?

My point was to highlight the relatively small ratio of the tax cuts. For example 2bn in relation to 150bn energy bills support package or 32bn on track and trace.

No need for the spiteful tone, I’m just trying to understand things.

Apologies. I saw exactly that line ooze out of loads of right wing COVID denial sites yesterday, repeated by people who should know better. In fact people who probably DO know better but chose to feed folk that bullshit line.

Here's why there's no comparison. Oh and before we start, the tax cuts are £45bn, not £2bn.

1) Why wasn't Govt spending to support people and companies in lockdown a problem?

You have to understand how Govts borrow. They don't pop down to see the bank manager and ask for a loan. The Treasury offers billions of pounds of Govt bonds, promising to pay interest. I'm effect, the financial markets, dominated by big pension funds decide what interest rate they want in return for buying those bonds.

In 2020, the world economy was grinding to a halt. There were very few safe places for money to go. No big commercial investment opportunities were safe. So the financial markets were falling over themselves to lend money to Govts all round the world at effectively zero interest rate.

2) COVID related Govt spending, though large, had a purpose and was always going to be time limited. The markets could see that.

3) Onto Kwarteng. Where to start? He's made several decisions which have freaked the market.

4) Before that, look at the global context. We are now asking to borrow money in a world awash with rapidly growing economies that have bounced back into growth post-COVID. We now have to persuade bond buyers to buy ours. That means they need to have confidence in the direction our Govt finances are going.

5) And there's the rub. Kwarteng announced £45bn of tax cuts on top of £150bn of energy cap funding and he didn't say a single word about how that would be funded. The tax cuts are key here because they would constitute an ongoing cost, year after year. That's called a current account deficit and you cannot run a country over the long term by borrowing to fill a current account deficit.

6) He claimed, against 99.9% of economic advisers' opinions, that the tax cuts would boost long term growth and thus fill the whole in the accounts.

7) He refused to publish a report by the OBR into what they thought the effect of the tax cuts would be.

8) And the Govt is saying that their policy is growth, while the BoE is following its legally enforced mandate to bring down inflation. Never happened before that the Treasury and the BoE are pulling in directly opposite directions.

9) Put all that together and the financial markets said, &quot;we think you are taking a massive risk spadger. We're not even sure there are any grown ups in charge anymore. We'll lend to you, but only if you give us 5% interest to cover the risk.&quot; (It was &lt;1% this time last year.

 10) That bond rate rise, if it sticks, adds £100bn to our annual debt interest bill. That massively depressed our future economic outlook. That puts downward pressure in the Pound, which means more inflation and higher interest rates to control it.

++++++++++

That's why this is nothing like the COVID spending. I saw someone sum it up far better yesterday. They said we are suffering because the markets are demanding a Moron Premium when they lend to us. Because what Truss and Kwarteng have done is THE most moronic economic policy decision, certainly in 50 years, possibly in the last century since Churchill brought back the Gold Standard.

Fair enough, good points.

I have libertarian (this isn’t “far-right” as suggested above) leanings but as you have said, politics is about being adaptable and knowing when the time is right to have more of the policies you would ideally like.

I just believe in a smaller state as it has just grown and grown. After covid, people expect it to do everything.

Has the pound slightly recovered? What would this suggest?

The pound hasn't recovered. It has stabilised at a new lower level. Its worth remembering the BoE is pumping £5 billion A Day into gilts to achieve this. £5 billion a day mind you!

[River Don]

Most astonishing thing of the interview. She's made Gove sound sensible and statesmanlike.

Another one making the point about borrowing to fund tax cuts, he says its not conservative. Rishi said the same. Ken Clarke says the same. The tories are going down the same hole as Labour with an extreme wing unwilling to listen to moderate voices.

Unfortunately the ideologues are in charge, unwilling to listen. Unable to change course.

Shockingly Simon Clarke essentially said this morning that it's all a big gamble they have to take to stand any chance in the next election. Completely irresponsible.