I read the news today (oh boy) - Current world events | Page 187 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

The turmoil around the UK Government and it’s recent mini-budget continues, with the Chancellor (finance minister) flying back early from the IMF meeting in Washington amid rumours that many of the unfunded tax cuts that were announced in the mini-budget are about to be reversed.

With the markets in turmoil and the Tory party poll figures in freefall it is difficult to think of a British Prime Minister who has had a worst start than Liz Truss (with her personal poll ratings being the worst of any PM in decades), and there are suggestions that she and her Chancellor cannot survive the fallout of their tax choices.

Though it would be difficult for them to again change party leader without a General Election, and a General Election in these circumstances could see the Tory party wiped out (some of their poll ratings would see them reduced to just 54 seats out of 650, after having an 80 seat majority in the 2019 election).

The markets have rallied a little based on the expectation that many, if not all, of the tax cuts are about to be reversed, but if the PM and Chancellor stick to the line they were holding until yesterday that they would not reverse any more of their tax cuts (they have already had to U-turn on their proposal to remove the highest rate of tax) then who knows what happens.

The Chancellor’s plane is just about to land and Liz Truss has cancelled her engagements for talks, so we could be in for an interesting and fast-moving day or two in UK politics.

So, after just 44 days in office — ten of which saw a halt to politics for the period of national mourning following the death of HM The Queen — Liz Truss has resigned and will have had the shortest tenue of any UK Prime Minister ever. (The previous holder of that title was George Canning in 1827 who served for 119 days before dropping dead.)

She crashed the UK economy, sending mortgage and interest rates up, increasing the cost of Government borrowing and seeing the £ at its lowest against the $ ever. She gained the accolade of having the lowest approval rating of any UK party leader in modern history at -70, with Labour having between 30% and 35% lead in recent polls. Her first Chancellor (finance minister) was sacked resigned on Friday. Her first Home Secretary (interior minister) was sacked resigned yesterday. There were scenes of disgrace in Parliament last night as Tory MPs were bullied to vote against a Labour motion on banning fracking, with reports of some MPs being manhandled into the No lobby.

Her time as Prime Minister has been a complete disaster for the country, and an embarrassment.

The Conservative Party aim to somehow have a new leader in place by next Friday which will include the party membership! Exactly how this will be done hasn’t been revealed yet. There are rumours that Boris is taking soundings about standing, but that would surely be suicide were they to go that route.

So, soon we will have our third Prime Minister this year, and the question of democratic legitimacy increasingly looms its head. While we may have a Parliamentary democracy, where we vote for parties rather than a leader, the votes that parties nearly always depend on who the party leader is and the vision they offer.

Unfortunately BBC News is seeing much of its UK-specific content being dumped, @Little Piggy Dragonguy (good to see you), and The Papers is one of many casualties. They want to rely more on their World News channel rather than the domestic channel that UK license pay for. A disgrace that makes me sad.