Minibudget

[Puja]

N=1

But about the only thing my patients are talking about this week is how they need to kick the tories out - this is Tewkesbury (58.4% tory 2019), and the more affluent residents who are happy to pay for healthcare (chiropractor) rather than wait for a physio.

Sadly, in my work (Bath, a Lib Dem/Tory swing), I had to field someone proposing the talking point of, "Well, it's a global thing isn't it? It's not just happening to us, Europe's got it just as bad."

Puja

[Sandydragon]

Can't be long now until another vote of no confidence surely

She is safe for 12 months from any internal challenge. But if cabinet ministers walk out then she is as screwed as Boris.

I can’t see labour calling a vote of no confidence in the commons, they would almost certainly lose even if a number of Tory MPs abstained.

[Sandydragon]

The local radio interviews....sweet mother of fuck.

Massive, massive tactical error from Team Truss. Had she done one national program, something fluffy like This Morning, then it would probably have been rough, but they could've controlled the questions, threatened loss of future access if they got too rough, got it over and done with in 15 minutes. Doing a round of local radio meant that a) she was facing a bunch of interviewers who didn't give a fuck about losing access cause they were never going to get a chance like this again (and I'd imagine a few of them are now fielding job offers or at least using the audio to try and get a better job), b) had over an hour of questions which are now all online, and c) gave each later interviewer the chance to listen to her early evasions and tailor their approach to absolutely murder her in a way she didn't have a response to.

It's like her advisers thought this was the 1990s and local radio interviews would be entirely discrete because it only got heard in that area and so she would be doing the same interview over and over.

Puja

They probably thought local radio presenters would be a bit shit and it would be like being interviewed by little Ant and Dec was for Blair. Opps

[Stom]

N=1

But about the only thing my patients are talking about this week is how they need to kick the tories out - this is Tewkesbury (58.4% tory 2019), and the more affluent residents who are happy to pay for healthcare (chiropractor) rather than wait for a physio.

Sadly, in my work (Bath, a Lib Dem/Tory swing), I had to field someone proposing the talking point of, "Well, it's a global thing isn't it? It's not just happening to us, Europe's got it just as bad."

Puja

2 countries worse off than others in Europe right now...they've got more than one thing in common...

I say good. Some hardship now, maybe a lot, and we could bury the Tory party for a generation.

[Son of Mathonwy]

N=1

But about the only thing my patients are talking about this week is how they need to kick the tories out - this is Tewkesbury (58.4% tory 2019), and the more affluent residents who are happy to pay for healthcare (chiropractor) rather than wait for a physio.

Sadly, in my work (Bath, a Lib Dem/Tory swing), I had to field someone proposing the talking point of, "Well, it's a global thing isn't it? It's not just happening to us, Europe's got it just as bad."

Puja

Without the Tory press, that kind of view would be virtually impossible in a sane mind.

[Son of Mathonwy]

Can't be long now until another vote of no confidence surely

She is safe for 12 months from any internal challenge. But if cabinet ministers walk out then she is as screwed as Boris.

I can’t see labour calling a vote of no confidence in the commons, they would almost certainly lose even if a number of Tory MPs abstained.

Worth calling for nonetheless, get the Tories to say they have confidence in Truss's handling of the economy or get a GE.

[Puja]

Can't be long now until another vote of no confidence surely

She is safe for 12 months from any internal challenge. But if cabinet ministers walk out then she is as screwed as Boris.

I can’t see labour calling a vote of no confidence in the commons, they would almost certainly lose even if a number of Tory MPs abstained.

Worth calling for nonetheless, get the Tories to say they have confidence in Truss's handling of the economy or get a GE.

Agreed. Maybe not quite the right time to do it yet, but if the anti-Truss fervour builds for another couple of weeks and she continues to hold the course, then forcing MPs to publically state that they back her plan would be a devastating move.

Puja

[Puja]

Led by Donkeys have a new site explaining the issues: https://kamikwasi.tax/

Puja

[Son of Mathonwy]

So, anyone here enjoying being taken for a fool by Truss maintaining that the crisis is a global one caused by Putin despite it only happening to the UK economy and only since last Friday?

It's a bit like the endless lies emitted by the Johnson regime - except even more obvious (and that's saying something). TBH Boris would have said the same but sold it a bit better.

[Son of Mathonwy]

She is safe for 12 months from any internal challenge. But if cabinet ministers walk out then she is as screwed as Boris.

I can’t see labour calling a vote of no confidence in the commons, they would almost certainly lose even if a number of Tory MPs abstained.

Worth calling for nonetheless, get the Tories to say they have confidence in Truss's handling of the economy or get a GE.

Agreed. Maybe not quite the right time to do it yet, but if the anti-Truss fervour builds for another couple of weeks and she continues to hold the course, then forcing MPs to publically state that they back her plan would be a devastating move.

Puja

Let's see how the Tories' conference goes . . . if Truss makes it to the end of next week.

[Puja]

So, anyone here enjoying being taken for a fool by Truss maintaining that the crisis is a global one caused by Putin despite it only happening to the UK economy and only since last Friday?

It's a bit like the endless lies emitted by the Johnson regime - except even more obvious (and that's saying something). TBH Boris would have said the same but sold it a bit better.

It's the kind of thing that gains traction if you repeat it often enough. You and I know enough to know it's bullshit, but it's an easy release valve and talking point for the people who want to support the Conservatives because of their identity and who want to believe it.

And Boris would never had got himself into this situation in the first place, by virtue of having no beliefs or ideology at all, let alone one as stupid as Truss/Kwarteng's.

Puja

[Sandydragon]

So, anyone here enjoying being taken for a fool by Truss maintaining that the crisis is a global one caused by Putin despite it only happening to the UK economy and only since last Friday?

It's a bit like the endless lies emitted by the Johnson regime - except even more obvious (and that's saying something). TBH Boris would have said the same but sold it a bit better.

Boris had no ideology other than to be world king, or failing that PM. Being a lazy git he was happy for Sunak to do the economic heavy lifting, so on that basis he probably wouldn't have gone over the same cliff that Truss has.

[Stom]

Btw, with food inflation reaching 10% in the UK, I raise you Hungarian 35%.

Yes, you read that right, 35%. Last week, milk literally went up 25%. That’s beyond the 15% it had gone up in the past 8 months or so.

And that 35% is despite government caps on the price of chicken. Once those are gone…yeah, I don’t know.

2 years ago, it cost us, as a family of 4, around 500,000HUF-£1,200- a month. Now it costs closer to 900,000.

As an aside, average wages are less than 300,000. So figure that one out. Sure, our kids are in private school, but the cheapest at around 100,000 a month (£250) for the two of them (UK prices for Steiner schools would be about £2,000 for the two of them), but still, where do people make up the shortfall?

[Puja]

Meanwhile, in the Sun:

TREVOR KAVANAGH Don’t be fooled by the doom mongers – this is how YOU will benefit from the Trussonomics tax revolution


KEIR STARMER is licking his lips in Liverpool today at the prospect of a Sterling crisis and a one-way ticket to election victory.

Labour MPs and their trade union paymasters are preparing for government within a year.

The whole point about Britain’s elastic, free-floating currency, is its capacity to absorb shocks

And wobbly Conservatives are wetting themselves as they wait for the currency exchange markets to open this morning.

But hang on! The whole point about Britain’s elastic, free-floating currency is its capacity to absorb shocks.

According to one tried and trusted expert, a temporary fall against the US dollar could even be a good thing.

“It will make our exports cheaper and force us to rethink our energy supply policy,” says Professor Patrick Minford. “Sun readers will be among the winners.”

Unlike the rigid euro, the Pound is not a fixed commodity. It floats on the tide and rolls with the punches.

Even dropping below the ­dollar would not necessarily mean disaster.

After six years of dither and paralysis, Brexit Britain is wide open for business, trade and investment — and on the way to a new age of prosperity. War on The Blob has just begun.

Rose-tinted optimism? No, Prof Minford is the hard-nosed Thatcherite whose blueprint for the 1980s helped deliver three sensational decades of unbroken economic growth.

 The Professor of Applied Economics is a world-renowned analyst with a reputation for unerringly accurate forecasts.

Thanks to Friday’s tax-cutting, red tape-slashing Budget bombshell, in which he played a part, UK plc is primed to bounce out of recession faster than the inflexible EU or the overblown US.

“Britain is not a fixed-rate economy,” he tells me. “I’m quite calm about the Pound.

“The last time we tried to intervene on exchange rates was a complete disaster.”

Minford was talking about September 1992, when Britain was humiliatingly ejected from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.

The boom that ­followed ran and ran until the 2008 global economic crash.

Since then we have been ­living on artificially low interest rates and digitally enhanced borrowing.

The oomph drained from our trading instincts.

Minford blames 12 years of “do-little” Cameron-Clegg coalition, pro-Brussels Theresa May, “green-obsessed” Boris Johnson and tax-hiking Rishi Sunak.

“It has been painful to watch as they did nothing for the economy and just kept raising taxes,” says Mrs Thatcher’s ­former guru.

Sun readers will benefit from the Trussonomics tax revolution and cheaper energy from fracking and North Sea oil, he adds.

“I think we are now looking like a very attractive place to do business in.”

Minford predicts growth will rise above two per cent by next year, a sharp increase on recent times, with inflation falling faster than expected before Chancellor Kwasi ­Kwarteng’s Friday bombshell.       

That will translate into higher wages, lower tax, plenty of jobs for those who want to work — and welfare incentives, or cuts, for the one in four who don’t.

By contrast, the EU and US risk being plunged into deep and damaging recession by a “vicious” squeeze on interest rates.

“This will create a whiplash effect as countries like France and Spain push back against this vicious tightening,” he says.

Minford has no time for leftwingers and faint-hearted Tories who claim Truss is ­cutting taxes for the rich at the expense of the poor.
‘Proof in pudding’

Indeed he believes our newly streamlined economy, plus a war on red tape, will leave EU states eating our dust.

And why would voters back Labour’s promise to restore the abolished 45 per cent tax rate — imposed by Gordon Brown in his last days as PM to spite incoming Tories?

“People are not stupid,” says the Prof. “They know we rely on the rich to bankroll growth. They want a business-friendly UK creating good jobs.”

But with only two years until polling day, is it too little too late?

“Time is short,” admits ­Minford.

“But time was short for Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. We can win this election on the basis of results. The proof will be in the pudding.”

That is something else entirely. Like a completely alternative reality.

Puja

[Puja]

Btw, with food inflation reaching 10% in the UK, I raise you Hungarian 35%.

Yes, you read that right, 35%. Last week, milk literally went up 25%. That’s beyond the 15% it had gone up in the past 8 months or so.

And that 35% is despite government caps on the price of chicken. Once those are gone…yeah, I don’t know.

2 years ago, it cost us, as a family of 4, around 500,000HUF-£1,200- a month. Now it costs closer to 900,000.

As an aside, average wages are less than 300,000. So figure that one out. Sure, our kids are in private school, but the cheapest at around 100,000 a month (£250) for the two of them (UK prices for Steiner schools would be about £2,000 for the two of them), but still, where do people make up the shortfall?

Ooft. All my sympathies there. That's no joke.

Puja

[Stom]

Btw, with food inflation reaching 10% in the UK, I raise you Hungarian 35%.

Yes, you read that right, 35%. Last week, milk literally went up 25%. That’s beyond the 15% it had gone up in the past 8 months or so.

And that 35% is despite government caps on the price of chicken. Once those are gone…yeah, I don’t know.

2 years ago, it cost us, as a family of 4, around 500,000HUF-£1,200- a month. Now it costs closer to 900,000.

As an aside, average wages are less than 300,000. So figure that one out. Sure, our kids are in private school, but the cheapest at around 100,000 a month (£250) for the two of them (UK prices for Steiner schools would be about £2,000 for the two of them), but still, where do people make up the shortfall?

Ooft. All my sympathies there. That's no joke.

Puja

The government put a cap on the best food ever... Chicken asses. Backs and bums. They cost around 80p/kg. So at least the dog food is cheap

Yet, as a comparison, minced beef is around £8/kg. Just looked at the UK price match... £3.58/kg. More than double, when wages are around a third.

[Sandydragon]

Meanwhile, in the Sun:

TREVOR KAVANAGH Don’t be fooled by the doom mongers – this is how YOU will benefit from the Trussonomics tax revolution


KEIR STARMER is licking his lips in Liverpool today at the prospect of a Sterling crisis and a one-way ticket to election victory.

Labour MPs and their trade union paymasters are preparing for government within a year.

The whole point about Britain’s elastic, free-floating currency, is its capacity to absorb shocks

And wobbly Conservatives are wetting themselves as they wait for the currency exchange markets to open this morning.

But hang on! The whole point about Britain’s elastic, free-floating currency is its capacity to absorb shocks.

According to one tried and trusted expert, a temporary fall against the US dollar could even be a good thing.

“It will make our exports cheaper and force us to rethink our energy supply policy,” says Professor Patrick Minford. “Sun readers will be among the winners.”

Unlike the rigid euro, the Pound is not a fixed commodity. It floats on the tide and rolls with the punches.

Even dropping below the ­dollar would not necessarily mean disaster.

After six years of dither and paralysis, Brexit Britain is wide open for business, trade and investment — and on the way to a new age of prosperity. War on The Blob has just begun.

Rose-tinted optimism? No, Prof Minford is the hard-nosed Thatcherite whose blueprint for the 1980s helped deliver three sensational decades of unbroken economic growth.

 The Professor of Applied Economics is a world-renowned analyst with a reputation for unerringly accurate forecasts.

Thanks to Friday’s tax-cutting, red tape-slashing Budget bombshell, in which he played a part, UK plc is primed to bounce out of recession faster than the inflexible EU or the overblown US.

“Britain is not a fixed-rate economy,” he tells me. “I’m quite calm about the Pound.

“The last time we tried to intervene on exchange rates was a complete disaster.”

Minford was talking about September 1992, when Britain was humiliatingly ejected from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.

The boom that ­followed ran and ran until the 2008 global economic crash.

Since then we have been ­living on artificially low interest rates and digitally enhanced borrowing.

The oomph drained from our trading instincts.

Minford blames 12 years of “do-little” Cameron-Clegg coalition, pro-Brussels Theresa May, “green-obsessed” Boris Johnson and tax-hiking Rishi Sunak.

“It has been painful to watch as they did nothing for the economy and just kept raising taxes,” says Mrs Thatcher’s ­former guru.

Sun readers will benefit from the Trussonomics tax revolution and cheaper energy from fracking and North Sea oil, he adds.

“I think we are now looking like a very attractive place to do business in.”

Minford predicts growth will rise above two per cent by next year, a sharp increase on recent times, with inflation falling faster than expected before Chancellor Kwasi ­Kwarteng’s Friday bombshell.       

That will translate into higher wages, lower tax, plenty of jobs for those who want to work — and welfare incentives, or cuts, for the one in four who don’t.

By contrast, the EU and US risk being plunged into deep and damaging recession by a “vicious” squeeze on interest rates.

“This will create a whiplash effect as countries like France and Spain push back against this vicious tightening,” he says.

Minford has no time for leftwingers and faint-hearted Tories who claim Truss is ­cutting taxes for the rich at the expense of the poor.
‘Proof in pudding’

Indeed he believes our newly streamlined economy, plus a war on red tape, will leave EU states eating our dust.

And why would voters back Labour’s promise to restore the abolished 45 per cent tax rate — imposed by Gordon Brown in his last days as PM to spite incoming Tories?

“People are not stupid,” says the Prof. “They know we rely on the rich to bankroll growth. They want a business-friendly UK creating good jobs.”

But with only two years until polling day, is it too little too late?

“Time is short,” admits ­Minford.

“But time was short for Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. We can win this election on the basis of results. The proof will be in the pudding.”

That is something else entirely. Like a completely alternative reality.

Puja

The pound falling vs the dollar isn’t the biggest problem in the world I agree. But the rampant inflation and unjust sense that those at the bottom have just been royally fucked whilst scrapping 45% tax rate for the richest is insane.

The Sunnis just a propaganda rag. I wonder if they will switch allegiance to Labour like they did last time out?

[Son of Mathonwy]

Meanwhile, in the Sun:

TREVOR KAVANAGH Don’t be fooled by the doom mongers – this is how YOU will benefit from the Trussonomics tax revolution


KEIR STARMER is licking his lips in Liverpool today at the prospect of a Sterling crisis and a one-way ticket to election victory.

Labour MPs and their trade union paymasters are preparing for government within a year.

The whole point about Britain’s elastic, free-floating currency, is its capacity to absorb shocks

And wobbly Conservatives are wetting themselves as they wait for the currency exchange markets to open this morning.

But hang on! The whole point about Britain’s elastic, free-floating currency is its capacity to absorb shocks.

According to one tried and trusted expert, a temporary fall against the US dollar could even be a good thing.

“It will make our exports cheaper and force us to rethink our energy supply policy,” says Professor Patrick Minford. “Sun readers will be among the winners.”

Unlike the rigid euro, the Pound is not a fixed commodity. It floats on the tide and rolls with the punches.

Even dropping below the ­dollar would not necessarily mean disaster.

After six years of dither and paralysis, Brexit Britain is wide open for business, trade and investment — and on the way to a new age of prosperity. War on The Blob has just begun.

Rose-tinted optimism? No, Prof Minford is the hard-nosed Thatcherite whose blueprint for the 1980s helped deliver three sensational decades of unbroken economic growth.

 The Professor of Applied Economics is a world-renowned analyst with a reputation for unerringly accurate forecasts.

Thanks to Friday’s tax-cutting, red tape-slashing Budget bombshell, in which he played a part, UK plc is primed to bounce out of recession faster than the inflexible EU or the overblown US.

“Britain is not a fixed-rate economy,” he tells me. “I’m quite calm about the Pound.

“The last time we tried to intervene on exchange rates was a complete disaster.”

Minford was talking about September 1992, when Britain was humiliatingly ejected from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.

The boom that ­followed ran and ran until the 2008 global economic crash.

Since then we have been ­living on artificially low interest rates and digitally enhanced borrowing.

The oomph drained from our trading instincts.

Minford blames 12 years of “do-little” Cameron-Clegg coalition, pro-Brussels Theresa May, “green-obsessed” Boris Johnson and tax-hiking Rishi Sunak.

“It has been painful to watch as they did nothing for the economy and just kept raising taxes,” says Mrs Thatcher’s ­former guru.

Sun readers will benefit from the Trussonomics tax revolution and cheaper energy from fracking and North Sea oil, he adds.

“I think we are now looking like a very attractive place to do business in.”

Minford predicts growth will rise above two per cent by next year, a sharp increase on recent times, with inflation falling faster than expected before Chancellor Kwasi ­Kwarteng’s Friday bombshell.       

That will translate into higher wages, lower tax, plenty of jobs for those who want to work — and welfare incentives, or cuts, for the one in four who don’t.

By contrast, the EU and US risk being plunged into deep and damaging recession by a “vicious” squeeze on interest rates.

“This will create a whiplash effect as countries like France and Spain push back against this vicious tightening,” he says.

Minford has no time for leftwingers and faint-hearted Tories who claim Truss is ­cutting taxes for the rich at the expense of the poor.
‘Proof in pudding’

Indeed he believes our newly streamlined economy, plus a war on red tape, will leave EU states eating our dust.

And why would voters back Labour’s promise to restore the abolished 45 per cent tax rate — imposed by Gordon Brown in his last days as PM to spite incoming Tories?

“People are not stupid,” says the Prof. “They know we rely on the rich to bankroll growth. They want a business-friendly UK creating good jobs.”

But with only two years until polling day, is it too little too late?

“Time is short,” admits ­Minford.

“But time was short for Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. We can win this election on the basis of results. The proof will be in the pudding.”

That is something else entirely. Like a completely alternative reality.

Puja

Holy shit. How do they sleep at night?

Too much to dismantle, I don't have the strength to take that apart, line by line.

I guess people with mortgages (or trying to get one) will painfully see though this bullshit. Well-off pensioners, perhaps not.

[morepork]

That steaming pile of odure can be summed up by one quote:

"... plenty of jobs for those who want to work — and welfare incentives, or cuts, for the one in four who don’t".

What is the next fiscal policy. Mercury poultice and a strychnine enema for every single parent in the country?

[Which Tyler]

NB: I am not Russ In Cheshire. Thoughts and opinions expressed by Russ In Cheshire are (presumably) the thoughts and opinions of Russ In Cheshire, not necessarily of myself - either literally or in reductio ad absurdium reading of thoughts and opinions that Russ In Cheshire hasn't expressed, and probably doesn't hold.
NB2: I have not independently fact checked everything that Russ In Cheshire has written, either in the tweet posted, the tweet thread linked to, or the entire account of the tweeter.

[Bob]

Noting that the PM’s chief of staff is being paid via a company rather than as a temp civil servant then that puts the IR35 decision into context.

Indeed