Liz Truss refuses to rule out running for Tory leader again
Liz Truss's tenure in Downing Street lasted just 49 days after her £45bn package of unfunded tax cuts triggered mass market turmoil. The former prime minister has since doubled down on what she was trying to achieve, and is touring the media ahead of the publication of a book...
The Lib Dems branded her a "national embarrassment" following the comments, while Labour said the prospect of her returning to office "will send shivers down the spine of working people".
Ah - it's the Lib Dems. They aren't at all embarrassing, apart from leader Ed Davey who may just conceivably be embarrassed by the Post Office scandal after being knighted in the 2016 new year honours for “political and public service”.
But that doesn't count because there are many things Lib Dems have to discount. It's part of being a Lib Dem.
14 comments:
I used to wonder what the Lib Dems were for; why is there a need for a third party in a two-party system which encompasses far right and far left, and includes different types of libertarian?
Then I realised that it's not about potential government. The party is a place where incoherent and incompatible fringe ideas are talked about, and their various proponents gather in the hope that they can somehow advance their pet cause. Together, the loons contribute enough money to support a paid leadership, who in turn encourage the dreaming and the giving.
Sam - I'm sure you are right, it's a kind of overflow area for loons. I wonder if the Greens worry them as a competing overflow?
Rather than continue with the contested left/right dimension of political thought perhaps we should use looniness?
Conservatives - just a few loony sorts
Labour - a loony wing
Lib Dems - all loons
SNP - nationalist loons
Greens - specialist loons.
Mind you the Conservatives now appear to have the loony sorts in charge and we don't know where Reform will fit into the loony scale...
DJ - good idea because it could get rid of the idea that there is a spectrum of political allegiance. The attraction of that is that it emphasises a divide between the political and the apolitical where only the political further divide themselves into factions, all of them more or less loony.
"Overflow area for loons".
Perfect description of the go-to party which is rather like the old 'J' Cloth, which still has enough use to mop up the spud peelings which miss the compost bucket under the sink!
Scrobs - I don't know how we managed without J Cloths. I wonder if some loon has decided they aren't green enough?
"... her £45bn package of unfunded tax cuts triggered mass market turmoil..."
I am not convinced about this. I think what really did for her was some highly-technical shenanigans indulged in by the Bank oF England, which allegedly could have caused the entire pensions industry to implode; that's what caused market turmoil. Oddly enough, once she'd gone they reversed tack. Stitch-up or what?
Long story short - she wasn't the technocratic elite's placeman, so she had to go.
Peter - I'm not convinced either. My reading suggests it was bungled bond market activity by pension funds which had been on the cards for years and the BoE should have done something earlier.
I think you are right, she wasn't the technocratic elite's placeman, so she had to go.
There's a lady friend who is a Lib Dem councillor, very intelligent, and whose company I enjoy. When she told me she enjoyed the theatre, I let her take me to see "La Boheme" (not many laughs in that). My revenge was an evening seeing "The Book of Mormon" (loads of laughs in that). Being apolitical, i.e. someone who thinks the majority of central, and some local, politicians are numpties, we tend to shy away from that subject though, when it is raised, I hint at my support for Reform, Nigel Farage, or the MRLP. She is very forgiving.
Penseivat
Penseivat - sounds like an interesting relationship. Political and apolitical do seem to be where the real political divide lies, not left and right. It's a pity local politics are party political because it doesn't help.
As an add-on, it's not only local councils being political. There is an upcoming election where I live, for the next Police and Crime Commissioner. Considering that the Police are supposed to be apolitical, as a now retired Police officer, I find it interesting that the majority of candidates are sponsored by political parties. Shirley, the Chief Constables wouldn't let party politics play a role in crime prevention (he says, sarcastically)?
Penseivat
Penseivat - yes, having political Police and Crime Commissioners is even worse.
Ref. establishment plots, Patrick Minford in today's DT agrees with me.
I'll take that as heavyweight support!
Peter - and I bet many economists knew it was nothing to do with Truss at the time.
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