My country has been in a challenging position for a while - what with The Brexit Disaster, COVID19 and Putin's war upon Ukraine. Common sense tells me that this was not the time to test out breathtaking economic experiments to boost growth. This was a time for diligence and probity, for trying to get through stormy waters as best as possible.
In the shortest political honeymoon ever, our new prime minister Liz Truss and her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng have managed to plunge Britain. into unmitigated disaster like the captain of "The Titanic"
They have been playing poker with citizens' lives on the back of a hunch. Most of us had open mouths when we learnt they were going to cut taxes - especially for the most wealthy. Truss said that she would be happy to make unpopular decisions and that she would "deliver" on her promises.
It was a load of bravado and hot air. Tough talk from a couple of muppets. And now the markets are giving their damning verdict in no uncertain way.
Where is this nightmare going to end? Will Truss and Kwarteng backtrack? Will they resign? All of a sudden The Labour Party looks a better bet, advancing by seventeen points in the polls under Sir Keir Starmer's steady leadership.
If everything goes pear-shaped, Truss and Kwarteng will be fine. They'll have enough personal wealth to survive the worst that the economic weather can throw at them. However for ordinary citizens , that is not the case. They will have to bear the brunt of the failed experiment It's just like wartime. Leaders make wars but it is ordinary people who have to fight them.
Old Liz knew what was coming and decided she couldn't bear to watch
ReplyDeleteThe most wonderful funeral the world has ever seen a straight afterwards we find Truss and Kwarteng grovelling in the mud.
DeleteWhy must politicians re-try failed economic "trickle down" policies? The rich are getting richer everywhere and the not rich are struggling. Argghhh.
ReplyDeleteIt's trickling down their legs Margaret.
DeleteI'd say you have a good grasp on things economic.
ReplyDeleteSome things I can see very clearly... but not the internal intracacies.
DeleteCutting taxes for the wealthy? How is that going to help? They have so much, they should pay double into the coffers so the underprivileged can be better helped, with schools, hospitals and roadworks etc. It's always the rich who get the benefits.
ReplyDeleteTruss calls helping the underprivileged "hand-outs" when the term should be "benefits".
DeleteIt is not just like wartime - it IS wartime, with fighting on all fronts. The economic sector, health care, energy providers, digitalisation, immigration, environmental issues, public transport - you name it, there are fights going on everywhere. And that is just referring to our countries who are officially at peace and not in a war like the Ukraine (and way too many other nations around the world).
ReplyDeleteThese are worrying times but in Britain, Truss and Kwarteng made the times even more troubling.
DeleteAgree with every word of this...sadly. Jan Bx
ReplyDeleteWho do they think they are?
DeleteThis is muppetry on a huge scale.
ReplyDeleteIt is irresponsible beyond belief.
It's like living in some sort of crazy, computer generated challenge show.
Yes, the wealthy will be alright.
Did you see Lord Markland on sky news a few days ago? He's a very wealthy man and was applauding Kwarteng! He said it was great for business.
I really do think that some wealthy people have no idea what it means to be poor or even just what it is to work every day just to keep your head above water.
My husband and myself have brought three children up. We both did menial jobs. I sewed and looked after old people in a care home doing 12 hour nights. My husband worked as a pool attendant and got a lucky break through his sister who put him in touch with Accident and emergency and he got a job, on nights on reception. He worked opposite nights to me. We hardly saw each other.
He's worked hard and is now very successful doing business analysis for the nhs.
We have never been in any debt, lived within our means and brought our children up to be kind and decent.
We are at the mercy of these people. What they did on Friday would have hit pensions by 1trillion pounds! It's a good job the bank stepped in as far as that goes but this country is in a sorry state.
Where will it end?
I recognise your despair Christina and thanks for sharing all that personal information about yourself. We are all connected and Markland became rich because of other people - not because he was somehow "special".
DeleteWhen people can no longer afford their mortgages, on top of their energy and food bills, or they can't get a mortgage, house prices will fall, which might be a good thing unless you're suddenly in negative equity.
ReplyDeleteTruss has kept her promise to reward the rich with lower taxes at the expense of nearly everyone else. Good old Tory policy and the way to make sure the well off keep voting you in.
Truss hasn't even attempted to disguise her disdain for ordinary working people. Maybe she thinks she is "special" too but she isn't and her fall will be spectacular.
DeleteExperimenting with economics and 60 million people's lives, you couldn't really make it up. Arrogant bastards ;)
ReplyDeleteYou last remark is far too polite Thelma.
DeleteThe wealthy get a break and everyone else gets screwed. Not a winning idea..
ReplyDeleteNot at any time but especially in these circumstances,
DeleteIt feels like history is repeating itself.
ReplyDeleteWhat? Nightmare on Elm Street?
DeleteIt really is astonishing how quickly they've stepped in it. And yes, with potentially devastating results for everyday people. These Tories (and Republicans, in the states) still wave the flag of trickle-down economics even though that theory has been repeatedly shown to be bunk.
ReplyDeleteTruss disdains ordinary working people as if she was somehow more blessed but she isn't. She calls social benefits "hand-outs" like Victorian alms for the poor.
DeleteYes, just like wars where the Generals planned miles from the fighting while the ordinary soldier became cannon fodder. Just hope our pensions are safe as hubby and I live on our pensions. we've stopped using our tumble drier to air our line dried clothes. We don't have an airing cupboard in this bungalow we moved to last year, The radiators are beibf used when they're on.
ReplyDeleteWhat has been a real battle for people of modest means is going to get much worse under Truss - unless they chuck her out.
DeleteOur hands have been pretty busy with a hurricane so I have heard exactly nothing about all this going on over in England. But I will toss out that we've had plenty of experience of doing nothing to try and improve the economy. We did nothing during the Great Depression and it took 10 years for things to improve. So I think some measure of trying to improve it is helpful in reducing that lead time. How that gets done is open for debate though.
ReplyDeleteYes it should be open to debate but Truss and Kwarteng thought they knew best so were not listening.
DeleteLiz Truss is an immature personality rather like her predecessor; just listen to her younger self, YouTube.
ReplyDeleteKwarteng likened Brexit to the English Reformation - when the nobility enriched themselves further by stealing the wealth of the church, including the monasteries, which as Hilaire Belloc said were the social security system for the hungry poor.
Peter Ricketts has been at the heart of Britain's foreign policy for more than 40 years.
As he writes, Brexit will deprive a generation of the opportunities of working and studying in Europe.
*Hard Choices - The Making and Unmaking of Global Britain* by Peter Ricketts is now in paperback.
A Gambler's Streak? What drives Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng?
BBC Newsnight. YouTube. September 23 2022.
Mini Budget was a serious mistake - former Tory Chancellor Lord Clarke says.
YouTube. Sky News. September 29 2022.
As Kylie said, Queen Elizabeth could not have endured watching this economic disaster unfolding before our eyes.
Truss and Kwarteng are playing Right Wing student politics with the British economy.
Ken Clarke should have been a Labour man. Kwasi Kwarteng should have been a labourer. Truss should have been in labour.
DeleteKen Clarke as a Labour man ? What might have been.
DeleteMaybe if the Labour Party had been more business minded.
It has too many out-of-touch dreamers like Jeremy Corbyn.
Michael Heseltine, like Ken a Europhile, said he attended Labour Party meetings as a younger man, and thought they were like black & white television when the world had gone colour.
Tam Dalyell (1932-2017) an 11th baronet and educated at Eton, joined the Labour Party in 1956, following the Suez Crisis, and was a Labour MP between 1962-2005.
Like Willie Ross, former Secretary of State for Scotland, Tam opposed devolution, seeing it as a slow road to Scottish independence.
*Starmer in full : Truss is a danger to the economy.*
YouTube. Sky News. September 28 2022.
We have a very stupid woman in10 Downing Street.
Our Chancellor in Number 11 seems hellbent in destroying the pound.
Neither of them belong in national politics.
History repeating itself, yet again.
ReplyDeleteWhen will they ever learn?
DeleteWhen people show you who they are, believe them. What a shit show.
ReplyDeleteWhy shouldn't the weathly pay their fair share? Nothing seems to change does it? Makes me feel sick to my stomach.
Thing is that Truss wasn't even democratically elected. The people had no say in the matter.
DeleteTo cut it short: The title is unfair - to the Muppets.
ReplyDeleteHa-ha! Nice one Sean!
Delete*James O'Brien's brutal reaction to Kwasi Kwarteng's mini budget budget/ LBC.*
ReplyDeleteYouTube. September 23 2022.
One comment below the Keir Starmer interview (Sky) said the tax windfall for the very rich is like seeing a beggar on the streets and thinking you can help him by giving a huge wad of cash to a millionaire in Mayfair.
Socialism for the Rich : The Kwarteng Theory of Economics.
It could see public spending cuts so brutal that it will lead to the death of the National Health Service, according to a former depute director of the Bank of England.
I don't think the pair of them would be much use in a university debating society.... "This house believes that Truss and Kwarteng should be shipped to St Kilda and abandoned there for all eternity"..
DeleteTruss and Kwanteng exiled on St. Kilda ?
DeleteGawd help the puffins !