Rees-Mogg appointed Secretary of State for Business - holy ****! We’re ****ed! Will never get out of my mind his lounging on the front benches - if that’s his approach to serious government, god help all us small businesses. Responsibility for Energy and Industrial Strategy - really! I wouldn’t give him my shopping list to manage.
Kemi Badendoch as Trade Secretary is an interesting one. She's always impressed me, but obviously, still junior
Well it seems clear from PMQs that she will indeed freeze energy prices, but that rather than paying for it from a windfall tax on energy companies as Labour would, we'll all pay for it - just later rather than now. Not a great start.
No fan or champion of Ms Truss but have to say that she acquitted herself very well at her first PMQs, made all the easier because Starmer is just terrible, terrible, terrible.
Still time for a future government to go for the windfall tax option to pay at least some of it off. It’s better than it looked a few weeks ago, when it was ‘tax cuts will sort everything’. Fewer people will suffer quite so much. She’s a proper monetarist, or at least is today she seems to change her mind on lots of things, be grateful for small mercies. There are people around her who genuinely believe that poor people suffering is God’s will. I hope business, especially small business, also gets some help.
Its is God's will..... The rich man in his castle, The poor man at his gate, God made them, high or lowly, And ordered their estate.
Really? She had one good line but overall she seemed to me to be even more robotic than Starmer. Anyway, what they say is more important than how they say it and what she said was quite frightening, I thought. I would say though that it was quite refreshing to see a Tory leader discussing policy at PMQs rather than trading inane insults.
i guess one’s personal political bias influences how one perceives performance, but I’d hope even Leftwing ‘Leftie’ McLeft in Redsville, Commieshire could see how poor Starmer is. Not sure what frightened you, TBH. I thought the only contentious thing was the windfall tax or not debate. I can see both sides of the argument on that and it’s ballsy of her to take the line she has because it’s so easy for opponents to criticise it. If she can improve and address all the things that were mentioned I’d be prepared to let Eric Pickles sit on my face for 5 minutes. There’s a lot there (however you read it).
It's the stuff about cutting taxes to generate growth that I find frightening. She believes in the discredited nonsense of trickle-down economics, which would continue and accelerate the trend of the last 12 years whereby the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
I do agree that Lizzo did better than I expected … mostly because my expectations were a total car crash for her. Starmer lost his opportunity to pressure her and stake his power as opposition leader. His questions over windfall taxes were more akin to giving her a rub down with his favourite cuddly pillow and a little tickle of the ribs.
