Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

I've not had a phone call from No 10 yet :erm:

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Don't worry they'll get around to needing a party planner ;)

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

:drunk:

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

I've had fun looking at the dictionary definition of a truss.;)

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Penny Mordaunt appointed Leader of the House of Commons. Ben Wallace stays as Defence Secretary.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

First female PM not to take her husband's surname.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

That’s a bit "woke"…

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Kwasi Kwarteng has been named chancellor - I dont even know how to pronounce that :erm:

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Just drink 15 pints then ask someone to draw the curtain in the toilet, and you'll of nailed it!

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

BREAKING: President Zelenskyy of Ukraine becomes first Foreign leader to speak to Liz Truss as Prime Minister, inviting her to his country.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

chaan-suh-luh

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Perhaps she was woke when she married. ;)

---------- Post added at 21:00 ---------- Previous post was at 20:50 ----------

No issues with No 10 holding parties as long as she doesn't appear on Tv and tell us not to.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

No doubt to ask for more weapons.
Were partly in this mess for supporting him.
I'm starting to wonder if its really worth it.

Ha Ha :)

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Alternatively, go all out with support for Ukraine so that Russia gets defeated and we can start buying Russian gas again.

Say £5bn tops in weapons costs compared to the £90bn package announced today and the yet-to-be-announced costs for supporting businesses.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

No real alternative other than letting Putin bully and invade Eastern Europe.

All we're really doing is bringing forward what would happen anyway and that's Europe reducing its dependence on Russian energy. If we didn't support Ukraine then Putin would be looking at Moldova and elsewhere and we would be in the same situation, with Russia threatening to withhold gas if we stand up to them.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

LATEST: New Prime Minister, Liz Truss has this evening accepted President Zelenskyy’s invitation to visit Ukraine.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Russia are not going to be defeated, not in the way you think anyway.

Then perhaps we (they) should have reduced reliance first (the UK isnt really reliant on it).

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Rt Hon Jacob Rees-Mogg MP as Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy - No.10

---------- Post added at 21:29 ---------- Previous post was at 21:23 ----------

Former President Trump, Warned and ridiculed Germany for relying too heavily on Russian gas in 2018, he was laughed at and berated by German politicians, but he had an absolute point that being of where we are now.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

To be fair, Trump was one of a very large number of politicians who warned Germany of its folly, going back over 30-odd years. Eastern European leaders, especially from the Baltic states, were especially vocal. If Trump joined the chorus in 2018 he was actually pretty late to the party.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

2018 was four years after the invasion and annexation of Ukrainian territory which should have given us all a heads-up on the need for greater energy sovereignty.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Well, he did only become president in 2017. Before that, they were hardly going to listen to a real estate businessman.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

One of Germany's problems was the brain-dead idea to close nuclear power plants for no real reason other than the general political mood of the time. Everyone went crazy after Fukushima even though that was an old plant, hit by an earthquake and a tsunami which still isn't predicted to have had that many fatalities (a lot more people will die from being able to heat their homes this winter).

One of our problems is successive governments refusing to build them because they take 10 years to come online.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

So we can blame Nick Clegg for scuppering plans for Nuclear power back in 2010, as part of a Coalition agreement with the Tories. Got it. ;)

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Well yes, Clegg explicitly stated we shouldn't have them because they wouldn't come online until 21/22! Although the coalition agreement only stopped them from using public money to help build them.

Labour wanted them but never pushed it though because they were lukewarm on it, pretty much for the same reason that they didn't want to pick up the bill.

But the Tories too have done little on nuclear power and have been in power for 12 years with the coalition or 7 years without them.

I think we should do it ourselves and own the plants at this point. Hinkley Point is estimated to be about £25 billion. We could have built four of them for the price of this cap freeze until January. Underinvestment costs us in the long run as does depending on a private company who'll delay every step of the way hoping to get us to foot a lot of the bill for their shiny new plant.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

This may trigger some but Tony Blair very amusingly calls out the Conservatives' views on nuclear power in this historical clip. I think it neatly sums up the views of many on both sides.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktIPiKwmnEI

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Super, a climate change denier in charge of Energy. Maybe he'll have us all going round on Penny Farthings, to trade with each other in highly prized candles...

As for Industrial Srategy, it will no doubtless be to provoke as many strikes as he can....

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

We've now got a separate Minister for Climate - https://www.gov.uk/government/minist...er-for-climate

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

which is O'Leary ;)

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

It's very common now for women who've got established public careers under their original names to keep it now for obvious reasons. I think I prefer that any way to the other increasingly common trend to have double-barrelled surnames as I think that'll get messy when their kids go onto to marry other people with such surnames (Smith-Evans-Taylor-Jones anyone?)

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Mrs Pierres family were all girls, and her sister only had daughters. We have two boys but we don't go in for double barrel names so our boys middle names are Mrs Pierres surname.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Don't countries who do this just drop the second surname after the hyphenation so it would be Smith-Taylor in the above example if the parents were Smith-Evans and Taylor-Jones?

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

I simply point out that it was the obsession with green energy which has resulted in us being in the position we are in now.

Had we gone for a gentle transition, closing down fossil fuel resources only as green fuels were able to replace them, we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in now.

We are still committed to net zero by 2050, but most of these green extremists want it all now. We should stop listening to them.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

the thing is OB we cant just carry on as normal and do nothing cant just sit back and make the planet uninhabitable

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

If you re-read my post, I accept that we need to reach net zero by 2050. But we need to do it sensibly.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

agree but we got to make sure we dont leave it to late

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

It won't matter a jot what we do on this small island about climate change, especially when you have huge nations like China and India still using fossil fuels and will probably continue to do so for many years to come.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

I'll be fossil fuelling the arse out of my stove this winter.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Yet we are making tons of green energy at a fraction of the cost we are paying for it.

It’s not the green agenda that’s failed. It’s the fake free market. Happy to trouser taxpayers cash with tens of billions in profit completely unlinked to the cost of production.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Yes, they call it pump priming in the business. We had to incentivise the move to green fuel first, and yes, happily the cost of production has fallen.

The green protagonists want every thing done yesterday. They have the right dream but they lack the know-how on the means to achieve the aim without major disruption to the well being of the population.

---------- Post added at 16:40 ---------- Previous post was at 16:37 ----------

And that’s why the protests on climate and energy are wasted in this country. They should be protesting to the large users of fossil fuels about their lack of progress. But they won’t do that, will they?They would rather protest in the UK, which has already committed to net zero by 2050. Pretty pointless, really.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

The means :rofl:

Like £170 billion thrown onto the national debt what would that buy you if it wasn’t being siphoned off into shareholder dividends?

£2.5 trillion of debt on the Conservatives watch. Which begs the question what are they conserving? Fat cat bonuses?

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Do you actually understand how business works, jfman?

You’d screw the economy completely if you were in charge. Investors would upsticks for a start, then where would we be?

In the wotsit, that’s where we’d be. Mind you, I expect you would be rolling in it, so pleased with yourself that no rich people were left in the country, but wondering why public services and pension schemes had totally collapsed. It wouldn’t have been your fault, of course. Somebody will have made you do it… :rolleyes:

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

:rofl: we call that playing the man not the ball, OB.

Nice to see your party letting you down that much even you can’t defend them.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

You don't clearly, Bernie Loony himself said a windfall tax wouldn't affect investment in the North Sea but why let that stand in the way of your fanaticism

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

jfman and I rarely see eye to eye, but wacking on £130+ billion to our national debt at the moment when the cost of borrowing is going up is lunacy.

Taxing the operators more, and charging on the actual cost of generation are a couple of things that could help short term.

Long term, scrapping net zero for something a bit more sensible.

Building more nuclear, fracking, tidal - take control of our national energy policy.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

So the North Sea is the only place to invest in energy self sufficientcy?

Don't you think SMR's would be a good investment?

https://www.rolls-royce.com/innovati...ction-overview

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

What he said.

We all agree there’s some things better left to the market. It’s clear for energy that either way there’s a role for the state. The question after that is to benefit who exactly.

It’s difficult to rationalise that should be global energy companies already making supernormal profits in the absence of genuine competition.

By not taking control of these resources - or a sizeable proportion of our demand for them at a minimum - we leave ourselves exposed to being price gouged at every emerging geopolitical crisis. That hits our citizens and businesses equally, generating inflationary pressures and increasing instability.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

It looks like the market agrees with jfman on this one. The Pound has dropped to its lowest level against the Dollar since 1985!
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/othe...omMaestro=true

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

The dollar has been doing exceptionally well anyway.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

French taxpayers who now own 100% of EDF UK must be pretty happy with Truss's decision. Macron can't believe his luck!

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Or you could ask the appropriate person your question, you know, the one who said investment in the North Sea would be reviewed in the light of a windfall tax and then basically said sod it we're making so much it won't make a difference

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

When you look at where this country used to be in terms of nuclear power the state we now find ourselves is shocking. We had the first civil nuclear power programme in the world and designed and built our own reactors. Now apparently we’re unable to do anything without the blessing of EDF including, it should be noted, its trade union which has a seat on the board and understandably has demanded to know, from time to time, why this level of investment is being spent in the UK rather than in France.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Not sure all this is relevant to the topic.

Please discuss energy investment in the energy topic.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

They've mentioned it but it's hardly the lead story.

And it's significant because it's the first time that none of the big offices of state has been held by a white man. There wasn't a meeting one year in the 70s, 80s or 90s where everyone collectively decided to end racism and misogyny and that was it. It's a process and this is more evidence of that progress. Showing that your race or gender need not be a hindrance to occupying the most senior positions in this country is something worth noting.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Social mobility has been a particular problem amongst people from ethnic minorities in the UK. Their presence in the cabinet signals that things are - slowly - changing. It is unlikely to alter the deliberations of cabinet very much because none of these people has come straight from a ghetto to government so they don’t bring that perspective. But their highly visible presence may perhaps permit some people from those places to dream and to aim for it themselves.

Without the “poxy press” making these observations, I am quite sure plenty of people from BAME backgrounds are making them for themselves.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Wonder what people of these ethnicities say about this, wonder if they feel represented, wonder if they think these people understand their hopes, troubles and hardships, more likely I suspect they'll say the only thing they have in common with them is an abundance of menalin

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

In the UK, our expertise in nuclear power reduced when the power companies were privatised and the company running nuclear power stations, British Energy, was acquired by EDF.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Pretty sure it isn’t. The Press exists to document and critique our national life. Nothing should be off limits.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Well that depends on why they were appointed.
If they were appointed to deliberately be "non white", thats a problem.
If they were appointed because they are the best person for the job, and happen to be non white, then I dont see an issue.

Some sites making a point about it does however seem like typical woke signalling.
I had not noticed, or given it a second thought until the BBC made a point of mentioning it.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

That they got the chance to be appointed to cabinet is probably due in part to David Cameron's positive discrimination initiative. How Truss then decided who to appoint as her ministers is probably being saved for her autobiography.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

A health minister that is 20 stone, loves her cigars and is anti-abortion? Cracking appointment.

What's happened to the Minister for Brexit Opportunities post? Seems to have been quietly forgotten about... Impossible task I guess.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

I hate gimmicky Ministerial jobs anyway. I am not opposed to the creation of them but it should be a real job with a Ministry. They keep shuffling them around and bolting things onto different departments. It's a mess.

The one they should do it to is the Home Office which is far too big.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

In the last hundred years

Home Secretary - there have been 41 office holders, 3 of which were from an ethnic minority (all in the last 4 years)

Chancellor of the Exchequer - there have been 37 office holders, 1 of which was from an ethnic minority (the current Officeholder)

Foreign Secretary - there have been 44 office holders, 4 of which were from an ethnic minority (all in the last 3 years).

Perhaps it’s a pertinent, rather than gratuitous, observation because of the 122 Officeholders, only 8 of them have been from ethnic minorities, and all of those in the last 4 years, and never before have all 3 Offices been held by ethnic minorities.

It’s a change, and the media reports change…

btw, interesting (imho) statistic - 7% of the U.K. population are privately educated, yet 74% of the new Cabinet are privately educated.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Apparently Rees-Mogg still has that as part of his new job. But that other departments are now also supposed to look out for them.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Former BBC journalist and rector of Edinburgh University is slammed for racism after dubbing Liz Truss's diverse Secretaries of State as 'the coconut cabinet'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ed-racism.html

his post should be renamed rectum of Edinburgh University :(

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Nobody was making this observation when overweight, cigar smoking and whiskey drinking Ken Clarke was Health Minister.

Is it because it's a woman that it bothers you?

---------- Post added at 09:33 ---------- Previous post was at 09:28 ----------

3 - Sunak, Kwarteng and Zahawi

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

I don't think forums were around then or I'm sure the point would have been made on them if other media did not pick up on them. Would have expected to see something in the tabloids at the very least.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Latest opinion polling since Liz Truss became prime minister.

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics...7-sep-2022-aug

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Thank you for the correction - appreciated…

(tbf, 2 of those were in the last 2 months;) )

This Ken Clarke?

https://www.cableforum.uk/board/atta...2&d=1662628838

And I believe there was a comment in Yes, Minister/Prime Minister about an overweight smoking Health Secretary.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

It's at the end of the episode that he comes Health Secretary having tried to stop a smoking tax during the episode, the premise of the joke is that he is really unhealthy but becomes Minister for Health anyway.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

4 - Javid?

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Jeez

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

The posts are unacceptable and I'm glad his current employers are taking action. Although typical of the Mail to get the BBC association in, even though he's not been employed by them for over 13 years as far as I can see.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

BREAKING: Prime Minister Liz Truss announces in House of Commons, a yearly £2,500 price guarantee on energy bills for two years. Also government, removes ban on fracking in the UK.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

TBF Ben this is common practice all over.

Constant references to the past if it can create an effect is carried out by all the media. ;)

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Something going on in the house, notes being passed round, people leaving, The Queen is under observation :(

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

BREAKING: Something big is happening in the Commons - Keir Starmer is on his feet but has just been passed a note via his deputy Angela Rayner. SNP bench also made aware. A lot of very glum faces - Kate McCann, Talk TV

---------- Post added at 12:38 ---------- Previous post was at 12:32 ----------

BREAKING: Buckingham Palace spokesman: “Following further evaluation this morning, The Queen’s doctors are concerned for Her Majesty’s health and have recommended she remain under medical supervision. The Queen remains comfortable and at Balmoral.”

Being in the Health care sector, this is an indication to me that the Queen is on end of life care.

Who would really want that posistion anyway??

With how bad things are now..... God bless Mrs. Truss if she indeed does take the Job!!

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

She took it 3 days ago.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...our-says-no-10

She's not accompanying the King after all, they're just going to the same places, at the same time.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Correct.

Whats you point exactly ?

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Merely noting that Number 10 corrected some of the previous reporting on the matter - specifically the use of the word accompany which was in the link in the post immediately before mine.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

The cull of Johnson's allies continues. The unelected Goldsmith is sacked as Environment Minister.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknew...83b2e6116277c5

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Kwasi Kwarteng, the new Chancellor, has mooted lifting the cap on Bankers’ bonuses (which has been in place since 2014) - YouGov did a survey on it…

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62906854

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/economy/.../09/15/e8157/2

https://www.cableforum.uk/board/atta...9&d=1663321218

https://www.cableforum.uk/board/atta...0&d=1663321218

For context, here is a recent article on Investment Bankers’ salaries.

https://www.efinancialcareers.co.uk/...s-banks-london

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Trickle up economics is back.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

exactly tories only care for the rich as always

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Interesting article on wealth distribution from of all places, the FT. Can Truss afford to see the average household fall behind Slovenia in 2024?
No paywall link: https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://www....8-c951baa68945

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

They'll be wanting those bonuses in dollars if the pound keeps tanking.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

I just despair. After the real optimism I had in 2019 that the government had the majority and opportunity to do something.

The class of politician we now have (on all sides) is piss poor, you could grab someone off the street that would have a better understanding of the UK and what the people of the UK think.

What idiot would think that in the current climate uncapping banker's bonus would have good optics? Amateurs.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

l agree with Pierre as its a terrible look in the current climate.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

I don't think you can blame Sir Ed Davey or Sir Keir Starmer or even Boris Johnson for this move.

It's clearly a Liz Truss move which anyone with an ounce of sense would tell her not to do.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

How is it "clearly a Liz Truss move" ?

Its nothing more than a rumour/suggestion/gossip that the "new chancellor" is considering the move.

Its not official policy, nor has it been announced as such in any way at all.

As has been pointed out many times in the past, many things are "considered" by ministers, and thats as far as they ever get.

I would hope that Truss would clearly know that it would be as close as you can get to party [policy] suicide at the moment.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

I'm not blaming them for anything, I just think that they're all terrible politicians

Whether it's Truss, or Kwarteng or their SPADS, they're idiots. Several places removed from reality.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

Considering they replaced the top civil servant at the Treasury, it's fair to say it's politically driven and not from the ideas floating around Whitehall.

Re: New Prime Minister: Liz Truss
 

It's not gossip - Kwasi Kwarteng mentioned it to the City last week. He's seeking a Brexit benefit and believes he has found one that makes the City of London more attractive It's a high-risk strategy so makes sense to get it out of the way before an election.

Will be interesting to see what happens.