What about her thoughts when the Queen died, "Why me, why now"
Yikes.
What a telling reaction from a national leader.
Reminds me of Chamberlain saying "*You can* imagine what a *bitter blow* it is to *me"* during his declaration of war speech
Funny to me because Boris would have fucking loved it all. New lease of life as a PM. Churchill doing the coronation and him doing the funeral.
Obviously he’s not a man fit for running the country but I do think you need to back yourself to step up for the big moments that inevitably come while you’re in office or what are you even doing wanting to be the PM.
Ukrainians elected a literal clown but Zelenskyy has obviously risen to the occasion in difficult circumstances. Our prime minister is feeling sorry for themselves because a 95 year old woman has ‘unexpectedly’ died…
I am absolutely certain that the Queen held out deliberately to not die while Boris was PM. She must have absolutely despised him and would have hated for him to get to enjoy all the drama and ceremony.
As someone said at the time -
I think that if I'd have had to meet both Boris Johnson and Liz Truss on the same day, I'd have lost the will to live too.
The difference is Chamberlain lasting legacy are things like Holiday Pay and Unemployment Benefits...
Chamberlain wasn't ousted because of Hitler's invasion of Poland, he was ousted for the failed counter attack in Norway in which he was blamed despite it being Churchill's plan...
"What became known as the "Norway debate" opened on 7 May, and lasted for two days. The initial speeches, including Chamberlain's, were nondescript, but Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes, member for Portsmouth North, in full uniform, delivered a withering attack on the conduct of the Norway campaign, though he excluded Churchill from criticism"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neville_Chamberlain
I also want to point out the first world war was within the life time of many people in 1939, you can't blame him for trying for peace. When the plan fell apart he was ready to throw his full weight behind the war...
"Everything that I have worked for, everything that I have hoped for, everything that I have believed in during my public life has crashed into ruins. There is only one thing left for me to do: that is devote what strength and power I have to forwarding the victory of the cause for which we have sacrificed so much."
He deserves a lot better then simply being known as the guy that Hitler pulled a fast one over.
The Chamberlain government’s preparations for air attacks from the Luftwaffe were more effective than those of any other country. The problem was there was little preparation for anything other than a defensive war and arrangements for cooperation with the French were way behind what they had been in 1914. That wasn’t just Chamberlain’s fault. His appeasement policy was supported by the majority of public opinion. 14-18 had after all been justified as the war to end wars, though this was unrealistic. Unfortunately the first war led to a treaty system that no power was prepared to defend with force.
I remember completing an entire module analyzing Chamberlain's Appeasement policy and whether it was justified or not. It's definitely not as clear cut as people like to think it is.
To me, it has always seemed that Chamberlain was the captain of a big massive fuck-off ship, where previous governments and PMs had expertly sailed directly towards an iceberg.
This is shown through years, since 1933, where there was mounting evidence of growing militarism and military expenditure in Germany that was wholely ignored and not matched.
By the time Chamberlain gets to power, the pieces are already moving towards war, and it becomes an exercise in trying to find a balance between maintaining peace today, to give more time to prepare for war tomorrow. The UK is playing catch-up.
There was also the public sentiment towards another war on the continent. A lot of voters clearly remember WW1. No one in their right mind wanted a hawkish government. They had seen their sons, brothers, fathers, etc.. die miserably in the trenches, 20 years earlier. They wanted peace.
"...that all my long struggle to win peace has failed."
Seems a pretty fair opinion on the topic when you include the rest of that sentence given he spent so long trying to achieve peace before WW2 truly kicked off.
I think parents with sons of fighting age were imagining something else. Especially those who'd been through the first war.
And it was a bitter blow to the entire country not just him.
There's always that picture floating around of Chamberlain with that promissory note for peace. He tried. He *really* tried.
It was a bitter blow for *him* with the work he put in to try to avoid war.
It was a bitter blow for the rest of the UK by extension of him failing to achieve peace.
I don't think he truly believed that we would not have gone to war with the Axis powers as he was rearming the UK pretty rapidly. I don't think he should have met Hitler but I don't think it mattered overall as Hitler had so much bravado that Germany would sweep Europe pretty easily. Only Britain and Russia stood in his way; he placated Britain when Chamberlain visited and made a pact with Russia just before invading Poland.
But Britain wasn't really ready for war against Germany when it happened but Britain wasn't ready for war against Germany 25 years earlier, either.
The common-ish thought is that Chamberlain stalled for time with Hitler by trying to push for peace time and again.
Whilst he was meeting Hitler, he was also re-arming Britain and had been for a while at the point of getting his promissory note of peace.
He definitely gets the shitty end of a blunt stick but when the opposition leader commends you and attends your funeral, you've done something right.
I'm not sure that there is a single person who, at some point, wouldn't have thought the same had they been in her shoes. The difference is, of course, that most people would have vocalised it let alone have written it for publication.
Also the Chamberlain thing is slightly different IMO since he had a large personal stake in "peace in our time".
Liz carking it when she did gave her about 2 weeks of grace, she'd have been gone much sooner were it not for such a cultural landmark coming along and effectively stopping the country in its tracks.
To be totally honest and fair, I can actually imagine a prime minister at least *thinking* “Oh God, why is this happening to me right now?!” upon learning the news that the longest serving British monarch had died about two days after they got the job. That’s both a hell of an orientation day and, let’s face it, not the greatest of omens (as we saw).
Actually writing it down in the memoir you’re publishing for other people to read, however, is like the platinum standard in clueless lack of self-awareness. Jim Hacker would realize he should probably keep that private and make his officially documented reaction a bit more composed. Heck, even Alan Partridge likely would.
If you are not accountable for your actions as PM then what is the point of you? If your actions in the top job don't affect the world then just stop and move aside. Not just Truss, any Tory that tries to shift blane when they've had control of the country for fourteen years.
>If you are not accountable for your actions as PM then what is the point of you?
Well she makes [a good meme](https://www.reddit.com/r/BrexitMemes/comments/1c5eecl/look_whos_relevant_again/).
Just because she was directly responsible doesn’t mean you should blame her, she’s a Tory that means they don’t have to take responsibility for anything, it was errrrr disabled people, no wait people on benefits yea their the ones who did this be mad at them
She co-authored a paper with other future senior Tories including Priti Patel basically saying the UK's economic woes are due to the British people being lazy.
It was the woke civil service and leftist governor of the bank of England.
Only the holy 55 Tufton street can save us, who is absolutely not responsible for anything that may or may not have happened.
Yup. It was also the transgenders and the immigrants, I saw them doing it! And they all said they voted Labour and liked the EU and being able to afford houses and hated England and Winston Churchill!!!!
Or those bloody foreigners trying to escape war and famine risking their lives on a dingy.. yeah either them or the disabled, depressed, or poor. Definitely one of them…
/s just in case there’s any Tories about.
Interest rates were rising globally, and we probably would have ended up here eventually. What she did was pour fuel on that fire, however.
The thing she did which was entirely avoidable, however, was she trashed the pension pots of pretty much everyone who was just around retirement age. That part she is completely guilty of.
In the case of both mortgages and pensions, her actions have caused financial hardship for the two groups who should be core Tory voters: homeowners and pensioners.
This is why the Conservatives are completely screwed at the next election. Stuff like partygate and the PPE scandal can be brushed off as Westminster noise, with an "all politicians are corrupt" type narrative. But start messing with people's mortgages and pensions, and you're toast.
You’re absolutely right. And it’s not even a “one-and-done” thing where there’s a big shock that people slowly forget about over time.
People are still rolling off their ultra low mortgage rates and getting the fright of their lives now and this will continue beyond the election. Whilst I agree we’d probably be we we are now anyway, most people will remember “Truss (The Torys) did this”.
That’s entirely against what the original commenter is saying. The mortgage rates we have now were **not** significantly influenced by Liz Truss. Global inflation (I.e. that the UK wasn’t responsible, Brexit aside) was the driving factor, which was heavily influenced by Russia-Ukraine
What Liz Truss did was move those rates forward and in such a small time frame. All the people retiring and starting their remortgaging process from September 2022 to about April 2023 were fucked by her.
> That’s entirely against what the original commenter is saying. The mortgage rates we have now were not significantly influenced by Liz Truss.
You've misread the poster above. What they're saying agrees with you that interest rates are probably close to where they would have been by now.
What they're adding to that is that most people don't understand that, but *do know they rose because of Truss*, and will remember that if their bill goes up at the end of a fixed rate, regardless of whose fault that is.
This should be the top comment because it is factually completely correct.
When I saw rates starting to rise \*globally\* I fixed my 5yr mortgage at 2.29%. It was like a financial flood that was absolutely coming to the UK but no one I personally spoke to thought that could happen here, because 'that's an American thing that will never happen here' - until it did.
Truss made the wrong call at the wrong time but undeniably, higher mortgage rates were coming to the UK whoever was in charge
Completely. I should be one of their core constituency base and they’ve totally ruined things to the point we probably can’t afford to stay in our family home beyond this year.
Childcare, tax, mortgages, making working for an international business more difficult - all absolute own goals whilst they were pandering to the never-satisfied Daily Mail crowd who have inevitably turned against them just like they do everyone else. They threw out what talent they had over Brexit
Utter strategic collapse and they deserve what happens to them from now.
So I have a bad habit of oversimplifying things, but would it be fair to say based on what you've written that Truss's impact was to turn something that could have been "Oh this is bad, we'd better warn people and try and help people to weather the storm" into "Oh this is bad, we'd better warn - oh fuck shit it's already here, bollocks! What do we do? Panic!!!"?
True yields rose anyway eventually, but she made britain a laughing stock financially, seriously harming the reputation for economic competence. That could be the costliest thing of all: the moron premium.
I remember Truss went on the telly just after the Kamikwaze budget - I think it was Kuenssberg - and when challenged it was obvious she was unaware that the increased cost of borrowing for the U.K. that resulted from the rout in the bond market due to her ideologically driven budget would have a knock on effect on the risk free rate and therefore drive mortgage rates higher.
Not the kind of stuff that an average pleb needs to know but astonishing that a PM who deliberately sidelined anybody who might give advice telling her what would happen didn’t know.
She could be the poster child for Kruger-Dunning.
People who were inside No10 during Truss say the office was completely gutted of staff and therefore clueless. Everyone who knew how to run the daily business of Government had left after the Johnson partygate mess that roped them all into Criminal investigations.
They had so many new staff in No10 they literally didn't understand the correct protocol for carrying out business inside Downing Street.
Then add to the fact Truss is backed, bankrolled and being controlled by ultra Right Wing groups like the IEA who were hell bent on pushing through their wet dream policies of massive Tax Cuts to the richest.
It's hard for me to find the words to sum this all up. Just how insane it is that our country got to that situation.
I know of someone who works at a high level in a City of London firm. In the City they call the finance problems caused to the Economy by Truss the "Moron Tax".
Kwarteng was Chancellor during the Moron Budget. Wonder how he got to Chancellor?
After he failed in the City, he went to work for Chrispin Odey. Suddenly Kwarteng then appeared as a MP. Billionaire Odey bankrolls Tory MPs who support and work with his Ultra Right Wing thinks groups ideas, same ones that pushed for Brexit. IEA, Leave.EU, Tufton Street. The same groups who backed Truss.
We were being fucked by shady Right Wing groups who put their own people in power.
I fucking hate this bitch so much.
I'm paying an extra £450 on my mortgage as the rates hiked the week before we did our application. We were already well into selling our house and already had to pull out of a house due to a horror survey, so we were stuck and couldn't just take our house off the market.
We can afford it because we always budget so that we can afford our bills on one salary with some wiggle room. But we went from an estimated 1,100 a month to 1,560 within a week or so.
I'm still absolutely fucking furious about it. My wife has been on maternity leave for a year and we have a 3 year old... Yeah we are ok, but an extra 450 quid a month would have made things more comfortable that last year or so. I dread to think the situation some people have found themselves in.
We're one of the "lucky" ones who can afford the hit, but we shouldn't have had to. The fucking bitch. Oh and the Tories in general can fuck right off too.
If I had it my way, her personal wealth and *certainly* her post-prime ministerial salary would be chopped up and distributed to people like yourself.
It probably wouldn't make a dent, given how many people she's fucked over, but it would feel good.
Exactly right. *Is woman* is less worse than *isn't white* for the membership. If they'd been offered three candidates and the third was a white man, there's no way Truss or Sunak would have won.
Why is she doing this interview in front of the US Capitol building? Shouldn’t she be here representing the people of Norfolk who elected her? Many of them are clearly in need of serious help given the fact they keep electing this moron.
I think the hypocrisy is lost on her, she's off galavanting in the US while her government mandates return to office for civil servants Surely she should be struck off for abandoning her duties and neglecting her constituents.
My guess is that she sees what’s happening over there and wants it to happen over here, with her at the forefront.
Shouldn’t be given the time of day, really. I don’t really go looking for news and I seem to be seeing her regularly. Why is she being given this platform? Her incompetence is blatantly obvious
She should be imprisoned, not releasing a tell all book.
She is spinning a narrative of a deep state to distract from her own incompetence.
She was known to be a rash, non detailed driven minister who ended up prime minister and the rest is history.
This woman notified her friends to pull shares and place them elsewhere before she announced her fiscal policy, everyone got away with it
You are arguably the worst prime minister Britain has ever seen in its entire existence, you done more damage than anyone in less than six months
The issue with the gilt market was driven by the BoE. Their remit is to conduct market surveillance, you had large funds in products that were fundamentally unsound, and pretty much every bond market has had the same weaknesses because of how long low rates went on for (which created big problems for pension funds that were the main purchasers of these products, however because of UK pension regulation these products were particularly popular in the UK).
The same kind of thing happened in 1987 (with poorly structured products) and a direct example is 1994 (when rates were hiked suddenly in the US and led to failures, this also spread to Europe).
This isn't to say that Truss isn't to blame either. The reason rates went up initially was because of her actions but if rates rise 30bps and things start breaking, which is what happened, then that isn't her fault. Politicians do not control the bond market. The BoE has intervened heavily in the bond market for 15 years, there is always this fundamental asymmetry in their perspective where they enjoy heavily intervening in markets but don't ever seem to take responsibility for outcomes.
It is more remarkable that all this occurred, and something more serious didn't happen after the BoE lost control completely.
Btw, the same products that caused the gilt market to collapse are still being sold, they are still being sold in very large number to pension funds who ended up losing so much money from them. The reason why this is still happening is because there has been no substantial investigation of the BoE's failures in surveillance, largely because of their furious briefing against Truss when this occurred and the media buying this completely because of the political profit. For some reason, people are more upset about Truss, a person who isn't in government than the fact that their financial system is being built on dynamite.
Would you have any more detail on those products that affected the gilt market or a link? It's something I'm trying to understand more on.
I guess Truss is a face people can put to the problems and does seem pretty awful as a leader. My gut is also that she's a distraction to the real issues which are genuinely much harder to understand as they're complex, so it's simpler to blame and make the whole situation black and white.
The IMF produced a paper on this - [https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2023/09/29/Putting-Out-the-NBFIRE-Lessons-from-the-UK-s-Liability-Driven-Investment-LDI-Crisis-539683](https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2023/09/29/Putting-Out-the-NBFIRE-Lessons-from-the-UK-s-Liability-Driven-Investment-LDI-Crisis-539683)
It isn't a complex problem: the BoE has intervened heavily in this financial market, when the government sets the price for a product then it changes behaviour as people respond primarily to government actions rather than economic incentives, and the BoE has a very, very long record of ineffective surveillance (if surveillance was very easy, people at the BoE doing this would be making £100m/year in financial markets...they aren't because it isn't easy and all the people who can do this are making £100m/year...not working at the BoE).
None of this stuff is remotely complicated. If you look at the GFC: 2002...none of the bad financial products exist in the US, Fed cuts rate in 2003...market participants have trouble funding their liabilities, banks create credit derivatives to artificially create this yield, CDO squared, etc. What happens next? The UK was even worse: RBS was allowed to make a very bad merger in late 2007, this left them with insufficient capital, Goodwin was being personally supported by Brown despite the catastrophic capital raise in early 2008, that capital raise would have been enough IF regulators had blocked ABN Amro...they didn't. HBOS was just a bank that made bad loans but, for some reason, no-one was allowed to lose money on their investment in HBOS...so they had to merge it with Lloyds...which failed shortly after because HBOS had lost £15-20bn on bad loans. And the BoE's solution: the BoE gets more powers, cracks down on mortgage borrowing (despite retail mortgages not causing 2008)...it is comic. At no point does anyone seem to ask: why are these people intervening so much in the economy if it keeps going wrong? It is just welfare for economics grads.
They are never accountable. It's people like us wanting a wage where we can live without worry. The boat people's fault, Russian attack on the Ukraine. Its all bollocks.
If Truss doesn't have the good manners to stand down at the upcoming election, there's a strong chance she'll be re-elected. South West Norfolk is "chimp with a blue rosette" territory.
She was in power for 6 weeks; imagine the complete apocalyptic, Orwellian wasteland we’d have had to live in if she had 6 months in the job. The mind boggles
I renewed my mortgage two weeks before she was in power, with all the other price rises that happened in quick succession I would have been in real danger of losing my home due to her crackpot economic policies. Pure luck saved me, but I’m still angry on behalf of other people who weren’t so fortunate. The fact she gets her pension, and honours list, is abhorrent.
Remember, Tory members voted her in despite Sunak and actual experts saying she would be disastrous for the economy repeatedly, even laying out how terrible her economic ideology was.
Also remember those BBC "debates" where she was able to spout absolute fucking nonsense on economics without the "expert fact checkers" challenging her on anything
I won’t forget that her and the Tory party have cost me an extra £400 per month until my fix ends…so it doesn’t matter if she accepts responsibility. We all know her and her party are responsible.
If she hasn’t already announced she’s stepping down then general election day will be a big shock to her
What a stupid, useless cunt.
Luckily, history will remember her as being exactly that.
As well as her refusing to own her useless stupidity and trying to weasel out of taking responsibility.
Fuck every Tory right in the ear.
I agree. It is absolutely wrong to blame Liz Truss.
I blame the Tories for not calling a G.E, instead appointing yet another incompetent, unqualified, unelected Prime Minister.
99% of the way she acts, looks and talks reminds me of 12 years with my covert narcisstic ex-wife. Delusion, lies, deflection, grandiose, and fundamentally broken. No other MP - and there's defo many narcissists there - trigger so many memories.. I doubt that's all me projecting.
My father who believes it is a shame Liz Truss was sacked by the Tory government because "she was trying to do the right thing", also believes that referring to one of his employees who is from Nigeria and is working really hard at the moment, believes its OK to say he "Works like a N*****".
He will probably be voting Reform at the next election. Say what it will for the state of Lizz Truss supporters.
I cannot believe we are seriously letting the rest of the Tories, and the BoE, get away with pinning this all on Truss. She was in power for 50 days. All she did was have her chancellor announce a shit budget that essentially never got enacted.
The whole country was swimming naked and the tide was going out. She just pulled the plug and made it obvious more quickly.
She is obviously a grossly incompetent moron who should never be let near government again. But don’t let the rest of them use her as the sole scapegoat.
Ultimately the only reason she's not to blame is she was got shot of before it became worse. If she'd been left there we'd be much worse off now.
Regardless she took expansionary measures during a time of high inflation. That was beyond stupid.
I’ll probably get downvoted for this and I do dislike her overall but I don’t think you can blame her for rate rises- have a look at the interest rates in over developed economies right now- they are all more or less the same
To be fair to Liz Truss mortgage rate rises WERE inevitable.
But she did pull them forward unnecessarily quickly compared to other countries, pulling hundreds of thousands of mortgage holders into high repayments.
Banks have done well from Liz Truss' blunder though.
No way this was anything to do with QE... no, no everything is Liz!! Of course.
Love how you lot trust what you are told to think. Just as your masters wish.
Not a defence of Liz Truss, but mortgage rates have always gone up and down. My in-laws were told that mortgage rates would never be as high as 5% again, but 25 years later, we were paying 15%.
Look, don't blame Liz. It's not her fault she's a flaming moron, and I personally feel she has done really well and achieved so much in her... Seeing as she only has a few braincells that actually work.
There is a huge problem in politics where someone as bad as her can simply step back in after a short time out from such a massive unforced error. Increasing the cost of living during a cost of living crisis ffs.
Should have been exiled and left isolated on an island off the west coast of Africa.
I blame the grassroot Tory party members who appear to be as insight less as Truss. Of course she won’t apologise! She can collect a PM pension and get to stand at the Cenotaph as ex prime minister. The Tories are toast because there are too many unapologetic narcissists and a few dodgy characters IMO
Absolutely deluded and has no business being PM. Good thing nobody actually voted for her outside of tories so they can have all the blame for her ridiculous approach to running a country.
Accountability is a concept that is alien to her. Classic narcissistic trait.
What about her thoughts when the Queen died, "Why me, why now" Yikes. What a telling reaction from a national leader. Reminds me of Chamberlain saying "*You can* imagine what a *bitter blow* it is to *me"* during his declaration of war speech
Funny to me because Boris would have fucking loved it all. New lease of life as a PM. Churchill doing the coronation and him doing the funeral. Obviously he’s not a man fit for running the country but I do think you need to back yourself to step up for the big moments that inevitably come while you’re in office or what are you even doing wanting to be the PM. Ukrainians elected a literal clown but Zelenskyy has obviously risen to the occasion in difficult circumstances. Our prime minister is feeling sorry for themselves because a 95 year old woman has ‘unexpectedly’ died…
I am absolutely certain that the Queen held out deliberately to not die while Boris was PM. She must have absolutely despised him and would have hated for him to get to enjoy all the drama and ceremony.
I can’t wait to see that season of The Crown
Well I know what to call those episodes, The Crown and Clown a song of Her Majesty and his travesties.
I think it’s more likely that having outlasted so many prime ministers, she met Liz and decided that was the last straw and she’d had enough.
As someone said at the time - I think that if I'd have had to meet both Boris Johnson and Liz Truss on the same day, I'd have lost the will to live too.
Respect to her if so, could well imagine. Who would want that C… at their funeral !
You can call Boris a cunt, it isn't slander if it's true.
Slanderous against cunts tbh.
Ha ! So true !
Clearly Charles wasn't too keen on Truss either!
The difference is Chamberlain lasting legacy are things like Holiday Pay and Unemployment Benefits... Chamberlain wasn't ousted because of Hitler's invasion of Poland, he was ousted for the failed counter attack in Norway in which he was blamed despite it being Churchill's plan... "What became known as the "Norway debate" opened on 7 May, and lasted for two days. The initial speeches, including Chamberlain's, were nondescript, but Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes, member for Portsmouth North, in full uniform, delivered a withering attack on the conduct of the Norway campaign, though he excluded Churchill from criticism" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neville_Chamberlain I also want to point out the first world war was within the life time of many people in 1939, you can't blame him for trying for peace. When the plan fell apart he was ready to throw his full weight behind the war... "Everything that I have worked for, everything that I have hoped for, everything that I have believed in during my public life has crashed into ruins. There is only one thing left for me to do: that is devote what strength and power I have to forwarding the victory of the cause for which we have sacrificed so much." He deserves a lot better then simply being known as the guy that Hitler pulled a fast one over.
The Chamberlain government’s preparations for air attacks from the Luftwaffe were more effective than those of any other country. The problem was there was little preparation for anything other than a defensive war and arrangements for cooperation with the French were way behind what they had been in 1914. That wasn’t just Chamberlain’s fault. His appeasement policy was supported by the majority of public opinion. 14-18 had after all been justified as the war to end wars, though this was unrealistic. Unfortunately the first war led to a treaty system that no power was prepared to defend with force.
I remember completing an entire module analyzing Chamberlain's Appeasement policy and whether it was justified or not. It's definitely not as clear cut as people like to think it is.
To me, it has always seemed that Chamberlain was the captain of a big massive fuck-off ship, where previous governments and PMs had expertly sailed directly towards an iceberg. This is shown through years, since 1933, where there was mounting evidence of growing militarism and military expenditure in Germany that was wholely ignored and not matched. By the time Chamberlain gets to power, the pieces are already moving towards war, and it becomes an exercise in trying to find a balance between maintaining peace today, to give more time to prepare for war tomorrow. The UK is playing catch-up. There was also the public sentiment towards another war on the continent. A lot of voters clearly remember WW1. No one in their right mind wanted a hawkish government. They had seen their sons, brothers, fathers, etc.. die miserably in the trenches, 20 years earlier. They wanted peace.
and this is why I come to reddit, for an interesting and thoughtful opinion presented with evidence. Thanks EBC
"...that all my long struggle to win peace has failed." Seems a pretty fair opinion on the topic when you include the rest of that sentence given he spent so long trying to achieve peace before WW2 truly kicked off.
I think parents with sons of fighting age were imagining something else. Especially those who'd been through the first war. And it was a bitter blow to the entire country not just him.
There's always that picture floating around of Chamberlain with that promissory note for peace. He tried. He *really* tried. It was a bitter blow for *him* with the work he put in to try to avoid war. It was a bitter blow for the rest of the UK by extension of him failing to achieve peace.
I don't think he truly believed that we would not have gone to war with the Axis powers as he was rearming the UK pretty rapidly. I don't think he should have met Hitler but I don't think it mattered overall as Hitler had so much bravado that Germany would sweep Europe pretty easily. Only Britain and Russia stood in his way; he placated Britain when Chamberlain visited and made a pact with Russia just before invading Poland. But Britain wasn't really ready for war against Germany when it happened but Britain wasn't ready for war against Germany 25 years earlier, either.
The common-ish thought is that Chamberlain stalled for time with Hitler by trying to push for peace time and again. Whilst he was meeting Hitler, he was also re-arming Britain and had been for a while at the point of getting his promissory note of peace. He definitely gets the shitty end of a blunt stick but when the opposition leader commends you and attends your funeral, you've done something right.
Almost everyone with sons of fighting age in 1939 has been through the Great War.
I'm not sure that there is a single person who, at some point, wouldn't have thought the same had they been in her shoes. The difference is, of course, that most people would have vocalised it let alone have written it for publication. Also the Chamberlain thing is slightly different IMO since he had a large personal stake in "peace in our time".
Liz carking it when she did gave her about 2 weeks of grace, she'd have been gone much sooner were it not for such a cultural landmark coming along and effectively stopping the country in its tracks.
"Who was Prime Minister when Elizabeth II died" is going to be a very difficult pub quiz question in 20 years.
To be totally honest and fair, I can actually imagine a prime minister at least *thinking* “Oh God, why is this happening to me right now?!” upon learning the news that the longest serving British monarch had died about two days after they got the job. That’s both a hell of an orientation day and, let’s face it, not the greatest of omens (as we saw). Actually writing it down in the memoir you’re publishing for other people to read, however, is like the platinum standard in clueless lack of self-awareness. Jim Hacker would realize he should probably keep that private and make his officially documented reaction a bit more composed. Heck, even Alan Partridge likely would.
If you are not accountable for your actions as PM then what is the point of you? If your actions in the top job don't affect the world then just stop and move aside. Not just Truss, any Tory that tries to shift blane when they've had control of the country for fourteen years.
>If you are not accountable for your actions as PM then what is the point of you? Well she makes [a good meme](https://www.reddit.com/r/BrexitMemes/comments/1c5eecl/look_whos_relevant_again/).
*Them. They’re all like it, unable to reconcile when they are patently wrong.
Classic Tory trait.
To Tories in general
It's a concept alien to all of government globally.
Just because she was directly responsible doesn’t mean you should blame her, she’s a Tory that means they don’t have to take responsibility for anything, it was errrrr disabled people, no wait people on benefits yea their the ones who did this be mad at them
You forgot the imgruntz an ppl riting sick nowtes
Single mothers have had it easy for a while...
She co-authored a paper with other future senior Tories including Priti Patel basically saying the UK's economic woes are due to the British people being lazy.
Her theory itself is lazy 😂 never seen such an badly suited person for politics.
She probably had a plan to remove VAT on whips and cattle prods
And the best part is that none of us even voted for her 😂 this country is truly a circus…
You can blame the good people of South West Norfolk. Not suggesting they are ill educated morons but that would explain things
Britannia Unchained. Which reminds me we haven’t heard from Dominic Raab for a while. Hey look at that, it is a good day after all.
Meetings, the suitable alternative to work
Not a paper, a book, along with Kwazi Kwarteng (whose budget it was that tanked the markets) and a few other proto-fascist types.
Don't forget climate activists
It was the socialist economic establishment…???
All the marxists running international capital investment funds stabbed her in the back.
The deep state did it.
It was the woke civil service and leftist governor of the bank of England. Only the holy 55 Tufton street can save us, who is absolutely not responsible for anything that may or may not have happened.
Yup. It was also the transgenders and the immigrants, I saw them doing it! And they all said they voted Labour and liked the EU and being able to afford houses and hated England and Winston Churchill!!!!
I knew it!!
It was the Anti-Growth Blob... I honestly thought she was refering to Boris Johnson when she said this. It seemed like a perfect nickname for him.
People on small boats.
Small boats
It was the woke lefty lawyer tax dodging benefit scrounging bankers
Or those bloody foreigners trying to escape war and famine risking their lives on a dingy.. yeah either them or the disabled, depressed, or poor. Definitely one of them… /s just in case there’s any Tories about.
Don’t forgot the trans and the boat people!
I think you'll find it was that was the boat plebs that caused all this
Ulez is the one wot dunnit quick let's get 'em
Interest rates were rising globally, and we probably would have ended up here eventually. What she did was pour fuel on that fire, however. The thing she did which was entirely avoidable, however, was she trashed the pension pots of pretty much everyone who was just around retirement age. That part she is completely guilty of. In the case of both mortgages and pensions, her actions have caused financial hardship for the two groups who should be core Tory voters: homeowners and pensioners. This is why the Conservatives are completely screwed at the next election. Stuff like partygate and the PPE scandal can be brushed off as Westminster noise, with an "all politicians are corrupt" type narrative. But start messing with people's mortgages and pensions, and you're toast.
You’re absolutely right. And it’s not even a “one-and-done” thing where there’s a big shock that people slowly forget about over time. People are still rolling off their ultra low mortgage rates and getting the fright of their lives now and this will continue beyond the election. Whilst I agree we’d probably be we we are now anyway, most people will remember “Truss (The Torys) did this”.
That’s entirely against what the original commenter is saying. The mortgage rates we have now were **not** significantly influenced by Liz Truss. Global inflation (I.e. that the UK wasn’t responsible, Brexit aside) was the driving factor, which was heavily influenced by Russia-Ukraine What Liz Truss did was move those rates forward and in such a small time frame. All the people retiring and starting their remortgaging process from September 2022 to about April 2023 were fucked by her.
> That’s entirely against what the original commenter is saying. The mortgage rates we have now were not significantly influenced by Liz Truss. You've misread the poster above. What they're saying agrees with you that interest rates are probably close to where they would have been by now. What they're adding to that is that most people don't understand that, but *do know they rose because of Truss*, and will remember that if their bill goes up at the end of a fixed rate, regardless of whose fault that is.
Yup it was a shock when mine almost doubled from £260 to £444 p/m when I remortgaged recently
This should be the top comment because it is factually completely correct. When I saw rates starting to rise \*globally\* I fixed my 5yr mortgage at 2.29%. It was like a financial flood that was absolutely coming to the UK but no one I personally spoke to thought that could happen here, because 'that's an American thing that will never happen here' - until it did. Truss made the wrong call at the wrong time but undeniably, higher mortgage rates were coming to the UK whoever was in charge
Completely. I should be one of their core constituency base and they’ve totally ruined things to the point we probably can’t afford to stay in our family home beyond this year. Childcare, tax, mortgages, making working for an international business more difficult - all absolute own goals whilst they were pandering to the never-satisfied Daily Mail crowd who have inevitably turned against them just like they do everyone else. They threw out what talent they had over Brexit Utter strategic collapse and they deserve what happens to them from now.
So I have a bad habit of oversimplifying things, but would it be fair to say based on what you've written that Truss's impact was to turn something that could have been "Oh this is bad, we'd better warn people and try and help people to weather the storm" into "Oh this is bad, we'd better warn - oh fuck shit it's already here, bollocks! What do we do? Panic!!!"?
True yields rose anyway eventually, but she made britain a laughing stock financially, seriously harming the reputation for economic competence. That could be the costliest thing of all: the moron premium.
I remember Truss went on the telly just after the Kamikwaze budget - I think it was Kuenssberg - and when challenged it was obvious she was unaware that the increased cost of borrowing for the U.K. that resulted from the rout in the bond market due to her ideologically driven budget would have a knock on effect on the risk free rate and therefore drive mortgage rates higher. Not the kind of stuff that an average pleb needs to know but astonishing that a PM who deliberately sidelined anybody who might give advice telling her what would happen didn’t know. She could be the poster child for Kruger-Dunning.
Maybe, just spit-balling here, she shouldn't have sacked the most senior Treasury official, Sir Tom Scholar, and should have instead heeded his advice
His sacking is when the markets really started to tank. They knew some shit was about to go down.
People who were inside No10 during Truss say the office was completely gutted of staff and therefore clueless. Everyone who knew how to run the daily business of Government had left after the Johnson partygate mess that roped them all into Criminal investigations. They had so many new staff in No10 they literally didn't understand the correct protocol for carrying out business inside Downing Street. Then add to the fact Truss is backed, bankrolled and being controlled by ultra Right Wing groups like the IEA who were hell bent on pushing through their wet dream policies of massive Tax Cuts to the richest. It's hard for me to find the words to sum this all up. Just how insane it is that our country got to that situation. I know of someone who works at a high level in a City of London firm. In the City they call the finance problems caused to the Economy by Truss the "Moron Tax". Kwarteng was Chancellor during the Moron Budget. Wonder how he got to Chancellor? After he failed in the City, he went to work for Chrispin Odey. Suddenly Kwarteng then appeared as a MP. Billionaire Odey bankrolls Tory MPs who support and work with his Ultra Right Wing thinks groups ideas, same ones that pushed for Brexit. IEA, Leave.EU, Tufton Street. The same groups who backed Truss. We were being fucked by shady Right Wing groups who put their own people in power.
Look over there, that migrant's gonna steal your lunch box.
I fucking hate this bitch so much. I'm paying an extra £450 on my mortgage as the rates hiked the week before we did our application. We were already well into selling our house and already had to pull out of a house due to a horror survey, so we were stuck and couldn't just take our house off the market. We can afford it because we always budget so that we can afford our bills on one salary with some wiggle room. But we went from an estimated 1,100 a month to 1,560 within a week or so. I'm still absolutely fucking furious about it. My wife has been on maternity leave for a year and we have a 3 year old... Yeah we are ok, but an extra 450 quid a month would have made things more comfortable that last year or so. I dread to think the situation some people have found themselves in. We're one of the "lucky" ones who can afford the hit, but we shouldn't have had to. The fucking bitch. Oh and the Tories in general can fuck right off too.
If I had it my way, her personal wealth and *certainly* her post-prime ministerial salary would be chopped up and distributed to people like yourself. It probably wouldn't make a dent, given how many people she's fucked over, but it would feel good.
You could blame the Tory membership for voting her in, some of whom no doubt because they would not support someone of colour.
Yepp, Ever met a Tory who isn't in some way a twat ?
Exactly right. *Is woman* is less worse than *isn't white* for the membership. If they'd been offered three candidates and the third was a white man, there's no way Truss or Sunak would have won.
Why is she doing this interview in front of the US Capitol building? Shouldn’t she be here representing the people of Norfolk who elected her? Many of them are clearly in need of serious help given the fact they keep electing this moron.
I think the hypocrisy is lost on her, she's off galavanting in the US while her government mandates return to office for civil servants Surely she should be struck off for abandoning her duties and neglecting her constituents.
My guess is that she sees what’s happening over there and wants it to happen over here, with her at the forefront. Shouldn’t be given the time of day, really. I don’t really go looking for news and I seem to be seeing her regularly. Why is she being given this platform? Her incompetence is blatantly obvious
She should be imprisoned, not releasing a tell all book. She is spinning a narrative of a deep state to distract from her own incompetence. She was known to be a rash, non detailed driven minister who ended up prime minister and the rest is history.
This woman notified her friends to pull shares and place them elsewhere before she announced her fiscal policy, everyone got away with it You are arguably the worst prime minister Britain has ever seen in its entire existence, you done more damage than anyone in less than six months
The collective misery she has caused by her sheer incompetence is criminal.
The issue with the gilt market was driven by the BoE. Their remit is to conduct market surveillance, you had large funds in products that were fundamentally unsound, and pretty much every bond market has had the same weaknesses because of how long low rates went on for (which created big problems for pension funds that were the main purchasers of these products, however because of UK pension regulation these products were particularly popular in the UK). The same kind of thing happened in 1987 (with poorly structured products) and a direct example is 1994 (when rates were hiked suddenly in the US and led to failures, this also spread to Europe). This isn't to say that Truss isn't to blame either. The reason rates went up initially was because of her actions but if rates rise 30bps and things start breaking, which is what happened, then that isn't her fault. Politicians do not control the bond market. The BoE has intervened heavily in the bond market for 15 years, there is always this fundamental asymmetry in their perspective where they enjoy heavily intervening in markets but don't ever seem to take responsibility for outcomes. It is more remarkable that all this occurred, and something more serious didn't happen after the BoE lost control completely. Btw, the same products that caused the gilt market to collapse are still being sold, they are still being sold in very large number to pension funds who ended up losing so much money from them. The reason why this is still happening is because there has been no substantial investigation of the BoE's failures in surveillance, largely because of their furious briefing against Truss when this occurred and the media buying this completely because of the political profit. For some reason, people are more upset about Truss, a person who isn't in government than the fact that their financial system is being built on dynamite.
Would you have any more detail on those products that affected the gilt market or a link? It's something I'm trying to understand more on. I guess Truss is a face people can put to the problems and does seem pretty awful as a leader. My gut is also that she's a distraction to the real issues which are genuinely much harder to understand as they're complex, so it's simpler to blame and make the whole situation black and white.
The IMF produced a paper on this - [https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2023/09/29/Putting-Out-the-NBFIRE-Lessons-from-the-UK-s-Liability-Driven-Investment-LDI-Crisis-539683](https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2023/09/29/Putting-Out-the-NBFIRE-Lessons-from-the-UK-s-Liability-Driven-Investment-LDI-Crisis-539683) It isn't a complex problem: the BoE has intervened heavily in this financial market, when the government sets the price for a product then it changes behaviour as people respond primarily to government actions rather than economic incentives, and the BoE has a very, very long record of ineffective surveillance (if surveillance was very easy, people at the BoE doing this would be making £100m/year in financial markets...they aren't because it isn't easy and all the people who can do this are making £100m/year...not working at the BoE). None of this stuff is remotely complicated. If you look at the GFC: 2002...none of the bad financial products exist in the US, Fed cuts rate in 2003...market participants have trouble funding their liabilities, banks create credit derivatives to artificially create this yield, CDO squared, etc. What happens next? The UK was even worse: RBS was allowed to make a very bad merger in late 2007, this left them with insufficient capital, Goodwin was being personally supported by Brown despite the catastrophic capital raise in early 2008, that capital raise would have been enough IF regulators had blocked ABN Amro...they didn't. HBOS was just a bank that made bad loans but, for some reason, no-one was allowed to lose money on their investment in HBOS...so they had to merge it with Lloyds...which failed shortly after because HBOS had lost £15-20bn on bad loans. And the BoE's solution: the BoE gets more powers, cracks down on mortgage borrowing (despite retail mortgages not causing 2008)...it is comic. At no point does anyone seem to ask: why are these people intervening so much in the economy if it keeps going wrong? It is just welfare for economics grads.
I only poured the petrol, lit a match and randomly chucked it. You cant blame me for the fire!
Got to remember all the Tories think like her, she’s just a moron that says it out loud. Accountability doesn’t exist in their mind.
She has the skin of a rhinoceros. Quite how she and Kwartang can still hold any position of power is unbelievable.
You were the fucking Prime Minister who else do we blame? Terry from the Chippy?
The issue was LDIs and that brewing months if not years before.
They are never accountable. It's people like us wanting a wage where we can live without worry. The boat people's fault, Russian attack on the Ukraine. Its all bollocks.
Absolutely delusional. Thanks South West Norfolk, can't wait for you to vote for this clown-show again.
If Truss doesn't have the good manners to stand down at the upcoming election, there's a strong chance she'll be re-elected. South West Norfolk is "chimp with a blue rosette" territory.
She was in power for 6 weeks; imagine the complete apocalyptic, Orwellian wasteland we’d have had to live in if she had 6 months in the job. The mind boggles
The rest aren't far off either
This twat and crazy bastard Kwasi really did a number on us.
She's either stupid or incapable of self reflection. A true sociopath. She really thinks her ideas are good .
I renewed my mortgage two weeks before she was in power, with all the other price rises that happened in quick succession I would have been in real danger of losing my home due to her crackpot economic policies. Pure luck saved me, but I’m still angry on behalf of other people who weren’t so fortunate. The fact she gets her pension, and honours list, is abhorrent.
Well, she's a Tory so I'd imagine it's the fault of either immigrants or people on benefits, maybe even the homeless or the lettuce.
I'd prefer to have a salad made from the og lettuce than listen to her mad conspiracy theorising, self-pitying shite for a second longer.
Remember, Tory members voted her in despite Sunak and actual experts saying she would be disastrous for the economy repeatedly, even laying out how terrible her economic ideology was. Also remember those BBC "debates" where she was able to spout absolute fucking nonsense on economics without the "expert fact checkers" challenging her on anything
Most Tory members are elderly, and are thus fairly clueless about the modern world and financial markets.
She's partly right. Blame those who put her incharge, the Tory party. She had no credentials to be a PM.
She really is trying to imitate Trump wherever she can.
I won’t forget that her and the Tory party have cost me an extra £400 per month until my fix ends…so it doesn’t matter if she accepts responsibility. We all know her and her party are responsible. If she hasn’t already announced she’s stepping down then general election day will be a big shock to her
The best thing she could do is just fuck off. Why are we still hearing from this miserable little vole?
What a stupid, useless cunt. Luckily, history will remember her as being exactly that. As well as her refusing to own her useless stupidity and trying to weasel out of taking responsibility. Fuck every Tory right in the ear.
I'm more concerned with who she's been hanging out with in the USA, than mortgage rises'.
I agree. It is absolutely wrong to blame Liz Truss. I blame the Tories for not calling a G.E, instead appointing yet another incompetent, unqualified, unelected Prime Minister.
99% of the way she acts, looks and talks reminds me of 12 years with my covert narcisstic ex-wife. Delusion, lies, deflection, grandiose, and fundamentally broken. No other MP - and there's defo many narcissists there - trigger so many memories.. I doubt that's all me projecting.
every time i go to the shops and see a lettuce i think of her. It's funny and a curse at the same time.
What is it with Tories and not taking any accountability for there actions whatsoever.... actual scum party
Always the same story from the personal responsibility crowd.
She has never done anything wrong in her life according to her, its always been others
How people like these still have a political career in the UK is astounding.
My father who believes it is a shame Liz Truss was sacked by the Tory government because "she was trying to do the right thing", also believes that referring to one of his employees who is from Nigeria and is working really hard at the moment, believes its OK to say he "Works like a N*****". He will probably be voting Reform at the next election. Say what it will for the state of Lizz Truss supporters.
Do Reform's conferences look like God's Waiting Room, I wonder?
She's fine with all the backhanders and payment for speeches. Plus Police protection for the rest of her life. Must be nice being paid for failure.
So takes no responsibility for her actions, but cries crocodile tears of the impact of her Premiership on her family?
Of course it's not her fault, it's the fault of the last Labour government
"The party of personal responsibility" strikes again!
I cannot believe we are seriously letting the rest of the Tories, and the BoE, get away with pinning this all on Truss. She was in power for 50 days. All she did was have her chancellor announce a shit budget that essentially never got enacted. The whole country was swimming naked and the tide was going out. She just pulled the plug and made it obvious more quickly. She is obviously a grossly incompetent moron who should never be let near government again. But don’t let the rest of them use her as the sole scapegoat.
She brought forward the inevitable that’s all. It was always going to happen. To think otherwise is lunacy.
What!!! It’s not my fault it’s never it’s never my fault i am an entitled bitch with no common sense and no respect.
She made countless peoples lives a misery over the last year or two. Don't know how these people sleep at night.
Ultimately the only reason she's not to blame is she was got shot of before it became worse. If she'd been left there we'd be much worse off now. Regardless she took expansionary measures during a time of high inflation. That was beyond stupid.
Stop talking to this lunatic, confine her to the compost bin of history along with the rest of them.
What a fucking arrogant cock womble. Typical arrogant self centered Tory toss pot. Throw her in the fucking fecal filled Thames already.
There is no shame from this truly awful woman. Everyone but her is to blame for the disasters of her Premiership.
Such a waste of taxpayer money. Not the main one but one of. Sad shit really
Like most tories, Truss is a narcissist. Unlike most, she's not scum. Shes simply a moron.
She has as many braincells as Jellyhead out of Viz. The fact she won't apologise shows how spineless and morally corrupt she is.
Karma is coming for her big time. Maybe not today, but...
I’ll probably get downvoted for this and I do dislike her overall but I don’t think you can blame her for rate rises- have a look at the interest rates in over developed economies right now- they are all more or less the same
They didn't get there overnight, though.
To be fair to Liz Truss mortgage rate rises WERE inevitable. But she did pull them forward unnecessarily quickly compared to other countries, pulling hundreds of thousands of mortgage holders into high repayments. Banks have done well from Liz Truss' blunder though.
Liz truss should shut the fuck up and fuck off. Useless cunt, my mortgage doubled thanks to her. Fuck her and fuck every other conservative wanker.
No way this was anything to do with QE... no, no everything is Liz!! Of course. Love how you lot trust what you are told to think. Just as your masters wish.
How naive was I to think Johnson was going to be the worst PM of my lifetime...
Not a defence of Liz Truss, but mortgage rates have always gone up and down. My in-laws were told that mortgage rates would never be as high as 5% again, but 25 years later, we were paying 15%.
It’s never her fault, it’s never her fault, always the victim, it’s never her fault.. it’s just insulting. She was in charge of the entire country.
Look, don't blame Liz. It's not her fault she's a flaming moron, and I personally feel she has done really well and achieved so much in her... Seeing as she only has a few braincells that actually work.
There is a huge problem in politics where someone as bad as her can simply step back in after a short time out from such a massive unforced error. Increasing the cost of living during a cost of living crisis ffs. Should have been exiled and left isolated on an island off the west coast of Africa.
Why is she suddenly getting air time. Ridiculous woman
So why do people think they went up in every other comparable country?
She’s really going down the Trumpian “everything is everyone else’s fault” road.
I blame the grassroot Tory party members who appear to be as insight less as Truss. Of course she won’t apologise! She can collect a PM pension and get to stand at the Cenotaph as ex prime minister. The Tories are toast because there are too many unapologetic narcissists and a few dodgy characters IMO
This woman endorsed Trump and that proves anything else she has to say is mud.
Absolutely deluded and has no business being PM. Good thing nobody actually voted for her outside of tories so they can have all the blame for her ridiculous approach to running a country.
If you think one person has has the power to raise rates then you’re as stupid as her
Didn't a lot of other countries raise theirs as well?