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October 18th / 2022  

Liz Truss -> What the world is saying about UK turmoil

The world has been watching the political and economic upheaval in the UK over the past few weeks.

The havoc caused by Prime Minister Liz Truss's tax-cutting plan, followed by its withdrawal this week, made headlines around the globe.

Even US President Joe Biden waded in, breaking diplomatic norms in doing so.

But what impact has it really had outside the UK? BBC reporters from Berlin to Washington explain how it's being viewed where they are and what's changed.

Full article: 
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-63293009

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Britain told China's Charge d'Affaires in London -> that the right to peaceful protest must be respected, after he was summoned to explain an incident in which a protester was seen being pulled into the grounds of a Chinese consulate and beaten.

British police are investigating the incident, which occurred in Manchester, England during a demonstration against Chinese President Xi Jinping. Officers entered the consulate grounds to rescue a man who they said "was dragged" inside and assaulted by several men.

Full article: 
https://www.reuters.com/world/uk-should-deal-with-assault-hong-kong-protester-line-with-local-laws-hk-leader-2022-10-18/

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Suella Braverman has been forced to resign as UK home secretary, throwing Liz Truss’s premiership into further chaos and angering the Tory right.

The Guardian was first to reveal that Braverman was departing, and that Grant Shapps, the former transport secretary who strongly backed Rishi Sunak in the Conservative leadership race, was replacing her.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/oct/19/suella-braverman-departs-as-uk-home-secretary-liz-truss

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2 hours ago, Aristides said:

Truss

Just in:

UK Prime Minister Liz Truss’s Conservatives defeated an opposition attempt to force Parliament to consider legislation to ban fracking, a rare moment of respite as she battles to cling to power. 

The government won by 326 votes to 230 in the House of Commons on Wednesday.

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SkyNews: 

- The Prime Minister's premiership hangs by a thread after a shock resignation

- Ministers deny allegations MPs were bullied and manhandled into voting with the government on fracking

- Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman takes aim at the PM, as she becomes the second senior cabinet minister to leave the government in less than a week

- Grassroot Tories tell the government to get its house in order before the shutters come down on Truss's premiership

- Outside of Westminster, an anti-poverty charity launches its first-ever emergency appeal, as food banks prepare for their toughest winter yet. 

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15 hours ago, Contrarian said:

Just in:

UK Prime Minister Liz Truss’s Conservatives defeated an opposition attempt to force Parliament to consider legislation to ban fracking, a rare moment of respite as she battles to cling to power. 

The government won by 326 votes to 230 in the House of Commons on Wednesday.

Apparently they had to to threaten MPs that wouldn't go on board. 

No sure how banning Fracking helps the UK's current energy situation though. 

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When you’re such an extreme pro-elite ultra-predatory capitalist  that even the extreme pro-elite ultra-predatory capitalist IMF has to denounce you for being an extreme pro-elite ultra-predatory capitalist.  I mean she wasn’t even peddling conservatives’ current version of trickle-down voodoo economics, what she was peddling sounded more like Maggie Thatcher’s discredited version 1.0 from the 1980s. 

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Truss has discredited high-octane, free-market economics - perhaps for ever

….

From now on, anyone who preaches the old IEA gospel about tax cuts – in Britain or elsewhere - will first have to distance themselves from the catastrophe unleashed by Truss. Thanks to the Truss-Kwarteng ideological experiment, which turned Britons into lab rats, the world has seen what happens when you do what the right has demanded for decades. It leads to the opposite of growth, creating a massive black hole in the public finances, made wider and deeper by the increased cost of borrowing – a black hole that will be filled either by tax rises or spending cuts, both painful.

Post-Brexit Britain was already a cautionary tale, a warning to the nations of Europe to do nothing so stupid as to leave the EU. Post-Truss Britain is a warning of a new kind: be careful of fevered, ideology-fuelled dreams, for they can bring ruin faster than you ever imagined.

The fact that those warning voices were vindicated so fully and so quickly should deal Brexitism a fatal blow. It proves that what Brexitists like to cast as the boring, naysaying establishment sometimes says nay for a reason. After Truss, no one will again dare to issue any kind of fiscal statement without prior scrutiny by the Office for Budget Responsibility, lest it spook the markets – just as the Truss-Kwarteng sidelining of the OBR last month rattled the money men. The fact that Truss had to reach for a solid, orthodox, pro-remain figure such as Jeremy Hunt to calm the markets was itself a reading of the last rites for Brexitism.

That should have an impact on populism itself. Truss and those who voted for her once sang hymns to the glory of “disruption”. They cast themselves as swashbuckling disruptors of the old order, a boast they’d been making since 2016. Which voters long for a disruptor now? The very word sounds like a synonym for arsonist. Orthodox, steady, stable, conventional: in the midst of an economic crisis crippling families’ finances, those are the highest compliments. 
 

It wasn’t just the 10th-rate calibre of those given seats at the top table, chosen, as Johnson’s ministers were chosen, for factional loyalty rather than ability. It was Truss herself. Johnson – now threatening a comeback, one that would extend this hideous psychodrama for yet another chapter – has at least some obvious political gifts. But Truss was so conspicuously lacking in fluency, imagination or thought of any kind that it never stopped being a source of mystery and wonder that she was Britain’s actual prime minister. Even her resignation speech was lifeless and flat. And yet, the Conservatives, so used to hailing themselves as the world’s most successful political party, could do no better than her.

In that way, she perfectly embodied what may be her lasting achievement. She will be the symbol of post-2016 Britain, a country that set itself on fire and became an object of derision, pity and sadness in the eyes of a world that once saw Britain as an island of reliable, if sometimes dull, solidity.

She had only six weeks, but that was enough to send people’s bills soaring and their hopes falling. Britain is a smaller country than it used to be, and Truss – and the party so heedless of the national interest that they elevated her – are part of the reason why.

 

https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2022/oct/20/liz-truss-resignation-brexit-brexitism

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New figures show a gloomy picture for the UK economy with government borrowing up and people shopping less than before the coronavirus pandemic.

Retail sales volumes fell by 1.4% last month, continuing their slide from August, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

It also said government borrowing saw the second highest September on record.

"Consumers are now buying less than before the pandemic," said Darren Morgan, from ONS. 

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-63340725.amp

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Why Republicans are so dangerous 

 

"I love what Liz Truss is doing," says Trump economist Stephen Moore 

"It's exactly what the United States should be doing," Moore says

 

Far-right economist Stephen Moore was ridiculed on MSNBC Thursday after he sang the praises of UK Prime Minister Liz Truss for her tax policies. Truss was forced to resign after just 44 days when it was discovered she couldn't actually usher in the policies she spoke about.

"I love what Liz Truss is doing," Moore said, singing her praises. "I think it's exactly the right agenda of cutting taxes, reducing government spending, deregulating, moving back towards fossil fuels. It's exactly what the United States should be doing."

 

 

https://www.salon.com/2022/10/21/i-love-what-liz-truss-is-doing-says-economist-stephen-moore_partner/

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Look at this: 

Ben Wallace rules himself out and 'leans towards' backing Boris Johnson. 

You are not dreaming folks. There is speculation that -> Boris Johnson wants a comeback. 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/10/21/liz-truss-resign-prime-minister-boris-johnson-sunak-election/

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There is something strange about the western world these days how weak all the leaders are. Biden is senile, whoever happens to be in charge in the UK is weak, Macron is a puppet, Scholz is like an invisible man.

The very thing that countries like Germany allowed themselves to become dependent on Russian energy is either a manifestation of weakness or being traitorous.

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As we approach midnight in the UK, here’s a roundup of today’s developments in the Conservative party leadership contest.

Rishi Sunak reportedly has the backing of the 100 MPs needed to go through in the race. He is yet to formally declare his candidacy, and the Guardian’s count has him on 88 MPs, but Tobias Ellwood claimed that he had helped the former chancellor cross the threshold.

Among Sunak’s backers to declare on Friday were Matt Hancock, Tom Tugendhat and Sajid Javid.

Boris Johnson is on his way back from a holiday in the Dominican Republic, as he trails Sunak. The former prime minister has already secured the backing of six cabinet ministers, including Jacob Rees-Mogg.

Johnson was reportedly booed as he boarded the plane home, according to Sky News. He will land at London Gatwick at 9.30am on Saturday.

A Johnson-supporting MP has said Johnson told him he is “up for it” and will fly back to the UK from his Caribbean holiday to stand in the Tory leadership contest.

Lord William Hague, the former Conservative party leader, has said that Johnson’s election would send the party into a “death spiral”.

Former Daily Telegraph editor and biographer of Margaret Thatcher, Lord Charles Moore, who is an ally of Johnson has urged him not to run in the contest and “sit this one out”.

Penny Mordaunt officially launched her leadership bid, saying she had been “encouraged by support from colleagues who want a fresh start, a united party and leadership in the national interest.”

Polling by Opinium suggests that Sunak will beat Mordaunt and Johnson in a leadership contest, and that Mordaunt will also beat Johnson.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/oct/21/uk-politics-live-liz-truss-resigns-tories-tory-leadership-race-new-pm-contest-rishi-sunak-boris-johnson-penny-mordaunt

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When it comes to policies the Tories would have absolutely no problem with Rishi Sunak. The fact is just that they can't digest the thought of having PM of the UK someone whose name is Rishi Sunak.

For most of them even Scotland is a foreign country.

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Boris Johnson rules himself out of Tory leadership race. 

Before Johnson's announcement, the BBC’s tally of public declarations of support had 146 MPs for Sunak, 57 for Johnson and 24 for Penny Mordaunt.

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Rishi Sunak: I am standing to be British prime minister

Britain's former finance minister Rishi Sunak confirmed he was standing to replace Liz Truss as prime minister.

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/rishi-sunak-i-am-standing-be-british-prime-minister-2022-10-23/

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New British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has confirmed that he wants Jeremy Hunt to remain in his post as finance minister, Sky News reported.

https://www.euronews.com/2022/10/26/britain-politics-sunak-hunt

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