2022 Tory leadership election

[Sebastian Cobb]

Good analysis on the Telegraph article here from Dr Maria W. Norris:

https://twitter.com/MariaWNorris/status/1554760657597251586


As she points out it's all about criminalising dissent whilst detaching far-right extremism from counterterrorism. As a postscript she adds a really interesting point:

HUGE POINT - this language could also criminalise those arguing for Scottish and Welsh independence, as this by definition challenges the existence of the United Kingdom as it is.

Would be interested in hearing from
@theSNP
 and
@Plaid_Cymru
 on this point.

[Zetetic]

We did Prevent training in the hospital I worked in and it covered Islamists AND the far right.

Remembered I'd posted about PREVENT training once upon a time, and then discovered it was 7 years ago...
https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=48234.0

[Zetetic]

Forgot that Isy Suttie and Phil Hammond were the faces of PREVENT. Wonder if they still are.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I've seen a stand-up set by Dr Phil Hammond (my Mum used to work with him when she was on the wards).

It wasn't very good.

[Zetetic]

And I've never reported anyone to PREVENT. Poor showing all round, really.

[BlodwynPig]

I'm proud to despise Britain and the UK. I wish only misery on the green isle. I hope it sinks beneath the waves. And is replaced by a statue of Jeremy Corbyn surrounded by smiling people.

[Zetetic]

Seeing more of the tension between rhetoric and actual policy when it comes to centralisation. Everyone wants to decry devolution beyond England, maybe undermine it (to the extent that it's even possible to make it any more impotent), but no one actually wants to bother reversing it (not least because it's useful to be able to point at Wales and note that it's also pretty shit).

[Alberon]

Truss still trying to walk away from the massive dumpster fire of her civil service cuts.

"It was misinterpreted ... by the media," Truss told a crowd of Tory members in Cardiff, for the third hustings of the campaign.

"It was never intended to apply to nurses, doctors and teachers. So I wanted to clear the matter up straight away. And I have been very clear. We're now not going ahead with that policy.

"It wasn't a central part of my policy platform. And I've been clear that it is not happening."

All complete horseshit of course.

Truss, whose campaign received a boost earlier on Wednesday with the backing of former health secretary Sajid Javid, was pressed on how she would fill the shortfall of what her campaign estimated would equate to £8.8bn in savings. Truss said: "This is not part of my central costings."

She said her financial pledges were scrapping the national insurance rise, keeping corporation tax low and putting a temporary moratorium on the green levy, which is added to domestic energy bills.

"Those policies will cost roughly £30bn and they will be funded out of general taxation," she said.

"And we'll still be able to see the debt falling after three years. Now the policy you're referring to was something that was much longer term. It wasn't about the immediate term. But as I've said, we're not going ahead with it.

"It's not happening and I've been very clear about that. I'm somebody who, when things are misinterpreted, when mistakes are made, I'm honest about that."

So she ditched a policy just because it was misinterpreted?

Asked about her previous membership of the Liberal Democrats and her support for remain, Truss said: "I've always said that if we weren't part of the European Union I wouldn't want to join it. But I was concerned about some of the disruption. The fact is that disruption didn't happen. And since the Brexit vote I've done more than most people in government to deliver on the opportunities of Brexit."

Has she even heard of Dover?

[Buelligan]

Post Johnsonian Truth now mate.

[Paul Calf]

Yeah, but she cosplayed as Thatcher. That's what the dried-up, impotent try-hard wannabe aristocrat Daily-Mail chuggers of Stevenage and Derby will remember. That's what's important.

[bgmnts]

https://nation.cymru/news/sunaks-extremism-plans-could-criminalise-supporters-of-welsh-and-scottish-independence/

Sunak getting the mental anti-Scottish and Welsh sentiments in early.

Some crazy authoritarian sounding shit there.

[Butchers Blind]

https://twitter.com/NewStatesman/status/1555476253045673987?t=aM_7D_bcne3nMnLU9Fo4gw&s=19

Basically at the stage now where they're not even attempting to hide their disdain for the poor.

[idunnosomename]

Great we're heading to become Boomer Island where we all become enslaved in great big dungeons under a hive world city in Tunbridge Wells

[Buelligan]

Heading?

[Sebastian Cobb]

https://nation.cymru/news/sunaks-extremism-plans-could-criminalise-supporters-of-welsh-and-scottish-independence/

Sunak getting the mental anti-Scottish and Welsh sentiments in early.

Some crazy authoritarian sounding shit there.

Some of the authoritarian stuff Sunak's been dropping around the gender acts and the prevent stuff worries me far more than Truss' idiocy. We lose either way of course.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Liz Truss is facing the possibility of her first major sleaze probe amid claims she failed to declare "murky donations" related to her leadership campaign.

Labour on Thursday appealed to the cabinet secretary to open an investigation into the Tory frontrunner over funding for a so-called "Fizz with Liz" champagne dinner.

The Liberal Democrats have also written to the parliamentary commissioner for standards asking her to open an investigation of her own...

The funding for the event, hosted in Mayfair, was paid by a multimillionaire private members' club owner and aristocrat Robin Birley and was attended by around a dozen Conservative MPs.

Asked why the dinner – said to be used to sweet-talk Tory MPs ahead of her leadership bid – did not appear on the MPs' register of interests, Ms Truss's campaign said it had "nothing to do with her" and was in fact hosted by Mr Birley.

But this account was disputed by other MPs present who told The Independent that they had been invited by Ms Truss, and that she was the host and not Mr Birley, who "turned up briefly to say hello".

An invitation to the dinner sent from Ms Truss's Commons email address, seen by The Independent, said: "Liz Truss MP is delighted to invite you to attend a dinner at 5 Hertford Street on 26 October at 7.30pm. Most grateful if you could confirm attendance by 10 October. Best wishes, Office of Liz Truss."...

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/liz-truss-fizz-champagne-dinner-donations-investigation-b2138193.html

[Fambo Number Mive]

Truss still doing well in the polling among Conservative members.

A Conservative Home survey saw 58% backing Truss, 26% backing Sunak and 12% don't know. (with the rest either choosing neither or not voting).

[Rich Uncle Skeleton]

I've seen a stand-up set by Dr Phil Hammond (my Mum used to work with him when she was on the wards).

It wasn't very good.

I've watched Dr Phil Hammond walk through a hospital waiting area.

It also wasn't very good.

[Fambo Number Mive]

"Will the real Liz Truss please stand up"

[TrenterPercenter]

Sunak just openly admitted redirecting funding for deprived areas into better off ones in a gambit to try and woo the voters of Tunbridge Wells.

[Huxleys Babkins]

I've watched Dr Phil Hammond walk through a hospital waiting area.

David Peoples considers (another) rewrite.

[dissolute ocelot]

Truss, whose campaign received a boost earlier on Wednesday with the backing of former health secretary Sajid Javid, was pressed on how she would fill the shortfall of what her campaign estimated would equate to £8.8bn in savings. Truss said: "This is not part of my central costings."

She said her financial pledges were scrapping the national insurance rise, keeping corporation tax low and putting a temporary moratorium on the green levy, which is added to domestic energy bills.

"Those policies will cost roughly £30bn and they will be funded out of general taxation," she said.

The green levy should definitely be abolished and green energy funded from taxation rather than the current, regressive method of taking it from energy bills (if you're poor you pay proportionally more of your income to bills and hence towards the green levy than if you're rich). But I'm fairly sure what she means is abolishing both the levy and any kind of spending on green energy and conservation.

[Alberon]

After a debate last night that Sunak seemed to win, Truss' supporters are now claiming the audience was filled with his supporters.

The Tory leadership debate on Thursday night was stacked with Rishi Sunak supporters, allies of Liz Truss have claimed.

They said the audience for the Sky debate appeared hostile to the Foreign Secretary with one of the harshest critics identified as the former chief of staff to MP Anna Soubry, who quit the Conservative Party over Brexit.

Tom Harding, who previously worked for Ms Soubry, quizzed Ms Truss over her U-turn on regional pay for civil servants, urging her to apologise for the "offensive" policy.

He previously tweeted his support for Mr Sunak even though Sky said the audience comprised undecided Tory members, and appeared previously on the BBC, saying he was only remaining a Conservative to get rid of Boris Johnson.

The former Chancellor was widely judged to have won the debate after a show of hands showed the overwhelming majority of the studio audience was most convinced by his pitch.

An ally of Ms Truss said: "The audience didn't exactly reflect what we're seeing in the polling, let's put it that way. When you have Soubry's ex chief of staff, it's clear it wasn't exactly an audience of typical Tory members." 

It's a poor tactic to try, to be honest. Especially as Truss is still way ahead.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Exactly, all the Truss campaign have to do is make sure Truss doesn't make any other major gaffs and she will win this with a massive majority of Tory members' votes. Even if she does make one or two more major gaffs, she will still win. Not sure if she makes some major guffs though.

Maybe they are trying to damage Sunak's standing among Tory MPs who aren't supporting Truss? Hoping that MPs will fall into line with the new PM if they think most Tory members love Truss?

[Buelligan]

Still can't quite hang on to the notion that Britain is going to field, it's literally going to be run by, a fully out idiot berk like Truss.  She makes Macron look like Marcus Aurelius.  Incredible.

But then, it's a country that seems to be determinedly publickly fucking itself in every imaginable and humiliating way possible, so I guess any fool should've seen it coming.

[Dr Rock]

Maybe the Tory party members have noticed how little Sunak is.

(More likely they've noticed he's brown)

[FalknerHinton]

I could easily throw Rishi Sunak over a pub.

[pigamus]

I'm surprised there isn't more pressure for him to stand aside and just let Truss get on with it

[Fambo Number Mive]

I think they want to avoid a repeat of 2017 when Theresa May won the leadership unopposed after Leadsom stood down. I think all candidates pledged to stay in the race if they got to the final two? I might be wrong.

[idunnosomename]

I'm surprised there isn't more pressure for him to stand aside and just let Truss get on with it

seems it's stalemate when it comes down to how many offspring they have