Liz! Truss!

It’s not economics, it’s a purpose built right wing fantasy.

Its odd because it can be used just as easily to justify a raise in taxes. The belief we are on the right hand side of the chart is what is a fantasy. As is the nice shape of the curve when in reality the shape of the curve is unknown.

Something terrible has just happened. I just read this Tweet and the true realisation of the state we’re in became apparent.

James Cleverley is our Foreign Secretary

Putin's referendum playbook is a blatant sham designed to seize Ukraine’s land. Any votes held at the barrel of a gun cannot be free or fair.

We will never recognise the results of any sham referendums or attempts to annex Ukraine’s sovereign territory.

— James Cleverly?? (@JamesCleverly) September 21, 2022

Then I remembered that Suella Braverman is Home Secretary and Kwasi Kwartang is Chancellor of the Exchequer too

And Liz Truss is PM

This isn’t a cheese dream, is it? This is real, isn’t it?

We really are truly ****ed!!

Imagine looking at the state of the country just now. The cost of living crisis, millions reliant on food banks and public services crumbling.

Imagine given all that a new Prime Minister coming in and saying “You know what will fix this? Lowering taxes and increasing banker’s bonuses”.

Stark

Raving

Mad

Imagine looking at the state of the country just now. The cost of living crisis, millions reliant on food banks and public services crumbling.

Imagine given all that a new Prime Minister coming in and saying “You know what will fix this? Lowering taxes and increasing banker’s bonuses”.

Imagine, given all of the above, that if an election were called tomorrow, they’d probably be re-elected.

Stark

Raving

Mad

Liz Truss arrested in US for impersonating British Prime Minister

the bankers bonus is a wierd one – it may be sensible (encourages bonus-lead renumeration packages – you can probably get 200% bonuses in sales?) but its just noise – it probably affects a few thousand people. Maybe its intended to distract from other things?

the bankers bonus is a wierd one

Its part of a wider lets get rid of those boring regulations which were put in place after 2008 (after those put in after the great depression were removed).
Problem with bonuses is it really gives an incentive to short term behaviour. To take the sales example it could lead someone to selling something at a discount or (as a code monkey my particular hate) something which doesnt actually exist yet and will be a nightmare to implement and given that I aint a cheap monkey never turn a profit.
It is questionable how well it works but the theory is if you restrict bonuses then it pushes it onto the salary instead which, in theory, makes the management think more since they dont want to overpay an underperformer so a short term blip in performance due to dodgy practices wont get a salary to match.

Maybe its intended to distract from other things?

Sends a signal that the Conservative Party is open for business, even if the country isn’t.

The not-so-stealthy privatisation of the NHS is nearing its endgame, run it down until a critical mass of wealthier people are prepared to pay for their GP appointments etc. NHS Dentistry is the target destination, not some underfunded outlier.

BBC has a headline that claimed “Firms energy bills to be cut by half this winter”.

Now that’s some pro-Tory government spin on the reality.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/cljev4jz3pjt

However, they have changed the headline when you now click on the article.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62969427

I wonder if there has been some complaints?

Quick… do all the bonkers stuff asap…

2/2 Lorraine Platt, co-founder of the Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation @ConservativeAWF, told The Independent she was bitterly disappointed. "Some people vote on manifesto commitments at elections,” she said.

— Jane Dalton (@JournoJane) September 21, 2022

Pensioners shivering on benefits around the country will be popping vintage champagne corks knowing that their supply of foie gras and mink coats can continue.

Got to love him…

pic.twitter.com/SRgRuMnnHd

— Cold War Steve (@coldwarsteve) September 22, 2022

The Tories are merely acting out Tory ideology (they don’t have anything else do they – they only understand Tax cuts.)

At least they have an ideology unlike our amazing party leader.

But the smart money is on what they offer the people that give them the majority – so you can take a position of look and laugh as the Truss makes some gains in the polls with just the right amount of handout – or you could give Labour some criticism for not offering a way out of right-wing solutions.

Mini budget should be fun – I will be giggling along at the Reeves response built around not spending and fiscal prudence – just what a nation needs on the cusp of contraction.

You can have scary sneaky u-turney Tory with Truss or old fashioned dim-wit put a jumper on Tory with Starmer.

What a time to be alive.

Reading around there’s lots of suggestions that Truss and Kwarteng are still very very close. Doubtless lots of cheese and pork market discussions. Traditionally there has been a tension between the PM and chancellor, we are entering new territory.

see the pound is heading south again this morning against the dollar < 1.12, the markets aren’t feeling Dizzy Lizzy’s “confident” vibe. Can you imagine the vitriol in the right wing press if a Labour government had seen a 20%+ devaluation in the pound in the last year!

Can you imagine the vitriol in the right wing press if a Labour government had seen a 20%+ devaluation in the pound in the last year!

Not so much a ‘mini’ budget this morning, more a live brainstorming session by a collection of right wing thinktanks

Laugh my cock off at kwarteng – “unleash the power of the private sector.” And here we are spending cash because the private sector is contracting.

Numpties.

Private sector is dying on its arse. It’s nothing without the state.

The fiscal side of Conservatism is doomed. The fiscal side is the engine but the fuel is monetarism. And the BoE are making money expensive.

What a mess of logic.

see the pound is heading south again this morning against the dollar < 1.12, the markets aren’t feeling Dizzy Lizzy’s “confident” vibe. Can you imagine the vitriol in the right wing press if a Labour government had seen a 20%+ devaluation in the pound in the last year!

The pound has been tanking for a long time it’s not simply because Dizzy Lizzy has done anything yet.

It’s the Fed and their pointlessly aggressive interest lifting. Simply put our economy can’t work along with that.

But yeah fair point Labour always get thsis sort of shit. But Brown made the BoE independent “to set rates” so what goes around comes around.

I ended up taking over the company I worked for during the pandemic. A difficult sector in that we were hit hardest first and were the very last people back to work.

Now I’m completely new to owning and running a business and this corporation tax non increase puzzles me slightly. The real challenge for us has been the fixed costs, business rates, what he hell are they all about, no relation to how well we are doing and what exactly do we get for them?

I’d rather see those go and the tax on our profits increase. Also it seems to me that if we have to pay more tax on profits that’s more of an incentive to invest in more equipment and people to grow the business. So what am I missing? I’m now paid a small salary and make up the difference to what I used to earn with dividends. My guess is that this is why some tories want lower corporation tax so people like me can take bigger dividends instead of investing in growth. But hold on I thought this was all about growth.

Please help, I’m missing something, I must be.

Clueless Reeves has just cited the George Osborne Tory invention – the OBR as an ‘institution.’

It’s not an institution – it’s a Tory mechanism designed to make austerity justified.

Let that be known.

She’s an absolute disgrace.

So much repressive rubbish coming out of this debate. Twitching about bonds – they’re 3 times over subscribed!

The OBR data is useful for getting an understanding of budget announcements. Without it we’re at the mercy of self appointed internet experts when trying to understand the (likely) impact of the changes being made.

In the company and tax thing – my take is the investment comes out before the tax bill anyway. So the more you invest the less tax you pay. It’s the other way around.

You don’t need the tax incentive.

Like lots of tax tools they have it the wrong way around.

The OBR data is useful for getting an understanding of budget announcements. Without it we’re at the mercy of self appointed internet experts when trying to understand the impact of the changes being made

Their forecasting history is terrible.

It exists to keep Tory austerity on the ready and now Labour austerity it seems.

It was invented by Osborne for that reason.

It sees government spending as limited by lack of tax revenue. Number one problem.

my take is the investment comes out before the tax bill anyway. So the more you invest the less tax you pay.

Exactly, so a higher tax rate is an encouragement for us to invest in the business. Keeping it is an encouragement for us to reduce investment and with the profits pay ourselves dividends

seems the markets liked what they heard !

Pound still falling.

1.10

Hard to capture the scale of the sell-off in UK bond markets since Kwasi Kwarteng's statement.
Five-year gilt yields have risen almost half a percentage point to a peak of 4.047% – the biggest one-day rise since at least 1991, by my calculations.
New borrowing now far costlier. pic.twitter.com/EpPBmplDvq

— David Milliken (@david_milliken) September 23, 2022

The markets are delivering their verdict on our likely future as an economic basket-case.

Given Kwarteng’s weird performance at Her Maj’s funeral, one can only assume that the drafting of this ‘strategy’ was equally influenced by recreational substances.

1.10

That is truly shocking.

I’m really not sure that today’s #BudgetForTheRich is going to help her

Change in Voting Intention Polling 2 Weeks After Becoming PM:

May: +6.7%
Johnson: +5.6%
Truss: +0.3% pic.twitter.com/q85RdkQLA7

— Election Maps UK (@ElectionMapsUK) September 23, 2022

That is truly shocking.

1.09

Once the unpublished OBR numbers have been worked out fully elsewhere, it’ll go lower.

DOH

Westminster Voting Intention:

LAB: 41% (=)
CON: 34% (-1)
LDM: 11% (+1)
GRN: 5% (=)
SNP: 4% (=)

Via @techneUK, 21-22 Sep.
Changes w/ 14-15 Sep.

— Election Maps UK (@ElectionMapsUK) September 23, 2022

"We are at the beginning of a new era" pic.twitter.com/2hpT3CfvFr

— christhebarker (@christhebarker) September 23, 2022

DOH

Labour leads by 10%.

Westminster Voting Intention (21 Sept.):

Labour 42% (–)
Conservative 32% (-2)
Liberal Democrat 12% (+2)
Green 5% (–)
SNP 4% (–)
Reform UK 4% (+1)
Other 2% (+1)

Changes +/- 18 Sept.https://t.co/Hm194dpYpe pic.twitter.com/wbHEPfOqU3

— Redfield & Wilton Strategies (@RedfieldWilton) September 23, 2022

Like a phoenix raising from the ashes I await his second coming.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/boris-johnson-plot-prime-minister-tory-mps-liz-truss-b1022986.html

I reckon Truss has longer than until Christmas but I do think that she is on shaky ground. She was never hugely popular with the Parliamentary Tory Party and got lucky with the elimination process to end up as one of the last two to be put before the membership.

If her “I don’t give a **** if it’s unpopular I will do what I want” backfires then I would expect a few more letters, especially from Tories in marginal seats.

I guess it depends how badly the polls become for the Tories, and how Labour react. An effective sustained attack on Truss from Labour will accelerate her demise in the polls, but it will also likely result in the Tories rallying around her more.

If Labour do little and don’t exploit what are clearly wide open goals then given time Truss might ride this out. In politics people forget things very quickly. However Truss will still remain under threat from her parliamentary colleagues though if the stated aims of her economic gamble fails to deliver. IMHO

Can’t wait to find out how you spend 2grand in the Norwich City shop

Liz Truss faces questions over £1,841 spent at Norwich City's online shop while she was foreign secretary https://t.co/2Ki4PJ9JQT

— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) September 23, 2022

We’ll know the gig is up when the stuff about her affairs gets on the front pages

Interesting to see if they U-turn on this budget

1.086

Continuity Johnson

Senior Conservatives including Truss allies furious about this — far more than FBI story. One prominent Truss backer texts: “I've never heard of such an arrangement and it is obviously quite wrong. The chief of staff has to be employed by the government (or by the Party)..” 1/2 https://t.co/gDc2WIfOvG

— Gabriel Pogrund (@Gabriel_Pogrund) September 24, 2022

Well, they clearly aren’t working for us, there’s something honest in some of their payment structures reflecting that I suppose.

[ dark humour, I don’t mean it, it stinks ]