Mailwatch(ed) Forum

Marina Hyde is on smoking form today - although I'm surprised that she filed her copy this early, given the circumstances:

Earlier, temporarily released from her oubliette, the PM had put out a tweet. “The British people rightly want stability,” this began, “which is why we are addressing the serious challenges we face in worsening economic conditions. We have taken action to …” No, sorry, I haven’t got the strength to reproduce the thing in full. Long story short: she’s pissed down your back, and now she’s telling you it’s raining.

Anyway, on to Hunt, clearly the more operational figure. Many of us will have spent far too long yesterday watching the new chancellor’s already unsettling twitch of slightly opening his eyes in a slightly startled fashion, slightly more often than every five seconds. I really don’t want to think of Jeremy as a chess grandmaster whose moves are being dictated by the markets via vibrating anal beads. But since I have, you must too.

If you’d told any of us this time a week ago that Jeremy Hunt would be chancellor – apparently in the German sense – then we’d have struggled to get our heads round it. I mean, he’s already died in two timelines (once in the 2019 leadership contest and once in the one earlier in the summer). In our new timeline, austerity is both still happening and about to happen all over again. The narrative threads of the current political crisis are now so completely nutso that you have to conclude the Conservative Cinematic Universe has officially entered its multiverse era. Only the true fanboys can explain it.

Of course, the key difference is that the long-term governing party is not on to a winner with this. Whereas Marvel have found a way to almost guarantee money from the notoriously unpredictable movie business, the Conservatives have managed to preside over a period from 2016 in which the UK economy contracted from being 90 % the size of Germany’s to now being just 70%. Eventually the sole remaining business in our economy will be the hipster trade in ironic In Liz We Truss mugs. I don’t know if this was forecast by any of Truss’s wingnut economists, but I guess it’s called growth? (Incidentally, speaking of Liz’s spirit economists and thinktank army, do now settle in for literally decades of them whining that the problem with their ideas was that they weren’t done properly, like communism or Brexit.)

Liz Truss no longer committed to triple lock on pensions, No 10 says, despite her backing it two weeks ago

I think she's got a point. Don't see any more reason for this than a triple lock for anything else.

Has she been forced to stay on to front the least popular stuff?

Ditching the triple lock is political suicide for the Tories though. It’s as close as you can get to implementing a policy that directly targets your user base and says “deal with it”, much like the Poll Tax before it targeting all Thatcher’s newly minted homeowners.

They'd say it was suspended. No reason why they couldn't raise at a higher rate later. Pensions are such a big part of the budget, I don't think they could avoid this.

They can afford whatever they want. Always could.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Tue Oct 18, 2022 2:19 pm They'd say it was suspended. No reason why they couldn't raise at a higher rate later. Pensions are such a big part of the budget, I don't think they could avoid this.

It’s breaking the seal though. They can frame it however they want, and promise later raises, but a cast-iron guarantee isn’t a guarantee anymore the moment you pause it. It’s just a broken promise - and one that the Tory voter base will actually care about as it affects many of them directly.

(Not to say I think the triple lock should stay, or that older Tory voters haven’t happily turned a blind eye to younger generations being repeatedly shafted in their favour - it’s just a sign of how bad it has got for Truss on the one hand, and how they’re cluelessly shooting off the remnants of their already gangrenous foot on the other)

They broke the promise before, admittedly they had a better pretext than "sorry, we fucked up". But yeah, it's difficult politically. Philip Hammond, when they thought they would kill Corbyn in an election, talked about doing it, but backed off.

Is this setting the scene for a transition back to Johnson?!

The pensions news has gone down as well as expected with the pensioner-targeting newspapers.

The government bench at PMQs today

PMQs was a bit flat. Lots of repetition from Truss, as predicted.

Interesting thing was the number of questions asking her to commit to protecting/increasing spending in areas only a heartless bastard would cut. And of course, she's committed to them all. See how long that lasts.

Meanwhile it looks as if her "local support for fracking" thing isn't worth the paper it's written on. Sounds like people who actually live by earmarked sites are at the bottom of a very long list of stakeholders.

I am starting to have doubts about her well-being

Seems a bit obsessed with railways.

And not in a good way, like several of our esteemed forum colleagues.

Lots of "I have been clear", "I have delivered", and now - "I'm a fighter, not a quitter" (c. P. Mandelson), with some truly desperate, out of left field references to "tackling the militant trades unions".

One of the most bizarre PMQs I've ever seen. Good opening joke from Starmer, mind ("Out by Christmas").

You missed "I've been honest".

Real bingo card and shot glass stuff.

Nice opening from Starmer, though. He didn't need to go tough from the start on this one - just highlight the ridiculousness of the situation.

Tories will say she was "brilliant". Lookisaidkeith on Twitter will say Starmer was useless. And the man himself knows that going in too hard makes him look a bully, emboldens the even worse guys and makes the mess even harder to clean up.

Better to see Surgical as a clown than as a victim...

I suspect this PMQs will still have major consequences. Truss has over-ridden Hunt by saying the triple lock stays - so potential huge U-turn there. And Javid only agreed not to humiliate Truss if the advisor who allegedly briefed he was shit was suspended - and the person suspended has not taken it well, suggesting they have the wrong person.

And that’s before this afternoon’s fracking trap, which Truss’s team have walked right into. They either have a rebellion, or hand Labour a huge PR win by having their MPs vote for fracking - in many cases having to eat their words on it.

Another disastrous day for the Tories.

She also got humiliated by William Wragg who said he'd vote with the government on fracking because otherwise his no confidence letter wouldn't count.

Has anyone said anything nicer than "she's on probation"? You're no on probation if that's the nicest thing anyone will say about you.

Has this been confirmed?



I'm quite surprised, would have thought with their majority this would pass. They also benefit from some easy politics of "Sir Keir went to a grammar school blah blah".

But I suppose it makes sense. If you're an MP in an affluent shire seat, your voters' kids probably go to comprehensives that get good results and are fairly convenient to you. Are they going to want to risk losing that and possibly getting a secondary modern that could be much further away?