[Politics] Next Conservative Leader - Rishi Sunak

[Icy Gull]

Precisely, because the votes of the nation will not reflect the number of seats returned

I'm off to Dinner but have hopefully triggered HWT

Just realised I haven't seen a post from him for a few days, hope all's OK

Check the music threads

 

[Weststander]

I agree there are Global problems (AND SIZE ISN'T EVERYTHING )

But we are not helping ourselves, are we ?

The UK will be stuck with searing inflation for years because of Brexit, according to strategists at Wall Street’s top banks.

Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp. and Standard Bank all see the UK as a outlier in the developed world because of the economic damage wrought by the decision to cut ties with the European Union. Even as price pressures start to fade elsewhere, they say UK inflation will be higher-than-normal because of immigration controls and supply chain disruption.

Experts say it’s hard to know to what degree the UK’s economic woes are caused by the pandemic or the aftermath of Brexit. Some research suggests Brexit is already taking a toll. Trade barriers have driven a 6% increase in UK food prices, according to a report from the London School of Economics.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...is-hotter-uk-inflation-risk-for-years-to-come

The BBC and Government's own statisticians, the OBR, simply say twice the total cost of COVID

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59070020

I agree, it must be an added factor, import costs from our neighbour. Also, something will have to give on labour supply eventually, we’ve gone from an EU feast/employers holding all the aces, to a famine, 20 year olds are being offered jobs with no experience or suitable skillset on £20k and some.

But it’s interesting how inflation rates aren’t dissimilar. At an IMF press conference on inflation a few days ago, it was THE concern on a global scale. The IMF pushing for monetary responsibility by all governments.

Germany got a shoeing from the EU Commission, France and other nations for its €200b energy package.
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/european-...-wave-of-criticism-in-europe_5999277_156.html

France is a one-off for now inflation outlier, as a couple of months back they de facto nationalised the energy suppliers and froze energy prices.

 

[Wrong-Direction]

 

[sparkie]

Well at least a grown up is now in number 10.

We wait and see what his policies will be - and I am slightly pessimistic about them, but you never know.

Hopefully this also marks the end of those tiresome culture wars so favoured by Johnson.

 

[Jackthelad]

Sunak the ex-Goldman Sachs wanker, who will really push the CBDCs. We are going down the China social credit system path.
The amount of damage the Tories are going to do in these coming years will be unparalleled.

 

[Weststander]

The amount of damage the Tories are going to do in these coming years will be unparalleled.

All two of them.

 

[deletebeepbeepbeep]

 

[Zeberdi]

Indeed - which makes the BoE's approach of using interest rates to fight it look somewhat archaic.

The BoE sets interest rates (to implement Government targets for inflation) and that is its job - Unfortunately when you have a monetary policy coming from the BoE to actively increase interest rates to control inflation, it makes no financial sense at all to introduce widespread tax cuts at the same time without saying how you will pay for them (Truss’s f*ck up) - if it wasn’t for the BoE stepping in after the mini-budget and buying large amounts of Gvt debt (bonds) to shore up Sterling, pension funds could have been seriously devalued.

Which leaves us with the problem of how, in the face of global prices increases and burgeoning Gvt debt post-Covid, do you stop soaring inflation unless you raise interest rates? Raising interests rates increases the cost of borrowing (so reduces investment), increases the cost of living (mortgage increases etc) and makes people spend less - hardly the direction you need to go in for kick starting the economy which left BoE (and the IMF) at loggerheads with Truss’s economic policy of making it cheaper for businesses (and very rich people!) to invest by reducing the tax burden (the ‘trickle down effect’ economic theory) . However you can’t spend you way out of debt which was Sunak’s main argument v Truss. And, you certainly can’t announce a £45b worth of tax cuts unless you can convince the Office for Budget Responsibility you can pay for it!

Labour are very quiet on this, traditionally the Party of Tax and Spend and I don’t believe they could (unless they changed their fundamental ethos) do any better post Brexit, post-lockdowns, Ukraine war etc. At the moment I would rather trust someone with Sunak‘s understanding of economics and fiscal policy to handle this sh*t show of an economic crisis if only it is because perceptions of the capabilities of a PM are important and the markets need to believe!

Personally to pay our way out of trouble, I would have removed/heavily taxed all the bonuses of the Fat Cats CEOs in banking and utilities, slapped windfall taxes on the large fuel suppliers who are raking in profits even as we speak, increased stamp duty to 17% on homes over 1.5m and taxed wealth/or capital gains - but then people might call me an effing socialist and I wouldn’t be in the Government now in power to start with

 

[Weststander]

View attachment 153097

Jack Hargreaves spectacularly throws away his broadcasting career.

 

[The Clamp]

It’s the beginning of the Sunak era – and the end of Britain’s Brexitist delusions​

It’s the beginning of the Sunak era – and the end of Britain’s Brexitist delusions | Timothy Garton Ash

As a realist, the new prime minister will see the need to steer a new course, says Guardian columnist Timothy Garton Ash

www.theguardian.com

 

[chickens]

Well, my natural optimism makes me think, he at least seems like a grown-up, like he might tell the truth, and that we might get a more realistic appraisal of our options from him.

On the downside, all the while the right of the Conservative Party persists with its “Singapore on Thames” fantasy, it will continue to chronically underfund public services in an effort to keep taxes as low as humanly possible.

Anybody who’s ever owned property, a vehicle, or any form of machinery knows that it’s cheaper to maintain it in serviceable use than let it fall into neglect and then try to restore it. The Conservative Party policy is (to my mind) this false economy of allowing our public services to become almost unusably poor, and then increase the flow of cash just enough to keep them on life support. Not through necessity, but choice. The issue then is that it takes considerably more investment to rebuild things back to where they were than if they’d just been properly maintained in the first place.

I would rather have European levels of taxation, and European levels of public services, but clearly among the voting public, I’m in a minority. I have to be a grownup about that. It will be interesting to see how pragmatic Rishi is. I wonder if he’s customs union pragmatic?

 

[knocky1]

Appears that Diane Abbott gave advice for the counting of Tory MPs votes for the new PM. Boris 102, Rich Sunak 200ish and belly flop Mordaunt 90.
Tory Brexit, lower middle class, members will be more upset than me by such fiddling.

General Election needed.

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

I am struggling to unders

So how would you have implemented it at very short notice, or are you blaming the Tories for dishonest companies too?

That seems a rather aggressive response to what I thought was a fairly harmless post.

I don’t know how it was implemented, so I can’t say whether i would have done it differently.

I’m not blaming the Tories for dishonest companies……. Unless they were encouraging them to be dishonest, which I doubt.

If I were to criticise anything, which I didn’t in the post, it would be the seeming inactivity of government to try and recoup any of it.

 

[Motogull]

What an anticlimax. At least the country's reputation rises a bit.

He's a proper midget.

 

[knocky1]

That seems a rather aggressive response to what I thought was a fairly harmless post.

I don’t know how it was implemented, so I can’t say whether i would have done it differently.

I’m not blaming the Tories for dishonest companies……. Unless they were encouraging them to be dishonest, which I doubt.

If I were to criticise anything, which I didn’t in the post, it would be the seeming inactivity of government to try and recoup any of it.

You were right in the first place. £3-4 Billion went astray. Any registered business could apply, didn't even have to be operating at the time. I have friends who took £50,000 covid loans, closed the business and opened under another name. No need to pay back then. Private Eye had fortnightly lists of rich acceptors of handouts. Tottenham applied and backed down after bad press and the PL held back.

 

[Zeberdi]

.. I still think Labour will gain an overall majority, but you’re correct that it will be far less than recent polls indicated. Difficult to get to 1997 levels with the SNP holding swathes of former Labour seats. Very hard to predict with FPTP.

Haven’t you heard - one of the sweeping changes recently introduced by the Tory party has been electoral reform - we no longer have FPTP but First Past The 1922 Committee

 

[Cheeky Monkey]

Worst reading of an autocue ever, looking across to the left the whole time, reading it in such a stilted fashion, I thought this guy was supposed to be slick. Is it really that hard or risky to use YOUR OWN words and thoughts in a brief acceptance speech including all the right noises, rather than reading something drafted for you that insults the intelligence of the GB public? It’s not as though he hasn’t had to address an audience off-the-cuff before. Ludicrous, and frankly embarrassing start to his tenure. Even the imbecilic Johnson could make a half-convincing speech off-the-cuff.

 

[pure_white]

When is Sushi gonna dish out some more doughfor Joe Public?

 

[Bodian]

Appears that Diane Abbott gave advice for the counting of Tory MPs votes for the new PM. Boris 102, Rich Sunak 200ish and belly flop Mordaunt 90.
Tory Brexit, lower middle class, members will be more upset than me by such fiddling.

General Election needed.

I guess some of The Liar's 102 then went to the others after he pulled out - and got counted there as well?

 

[LamieRobertson]

You were right in the first place. £3-4 Billion went astray. Any registered business could apply, didn't even have to be operating at the time. I have friends who took £50,000 covid loans, closed the business and opened under another name. No need to pay back then. Private Eye had fortnightly lists of rich acceptors of handouts. Tottenham applied and backed down after bad press and the PL held back.

So criminals then?