What is it about recent Conservative PMs and weird advisers?
The latest is this guy, Liam Booth-Smith. Liam's fame claim is being born on a northern council estate to a single mum.
He's into fashion posing in biker and denim jackets.
Other nutters have been Steve Hilton who padded around Downing St barefooted and 'crazy man', Dominic 'Dom' Cummings who just launched a new political party.
Evidently, Rishi is enamoured with Booth-Smith because he comes up with 'ideas'...
One 'idea' was to persuade the PM to ice a red velvet cake and give it to the BBC commentary team on Test Match Special.....
That won't get the Dame's vote Rishi!
According to the Times, this sort of cleverness has made his chief of Staff indispensable!
Incidentally, Chiefs of Staff are now de rigeur...Felicity Buchan has one.
The Dame is thinking of making her errant son, Ludo chief of staff: he's useless for anything else and often has bonkers ideas.
I grew up on a Council estate in a single parent household. Nothing like this ever came my way. But there again, my mum did not believe in distinguishing her children on account of lone parenting. She despised Gingerbread and those who participated in it. She did not want her children stigmatised. Was mother wrong?
ReplyDeleteNo, your mum just didn't do 'playing victim'
DeleteTories plotting to oust Rishi in order to save the party | Sky News https://news.sky.com/story/rishi-sunak-mocked-in-leaked-whatapps-as-grassroots-tories-vow-to-go-to-war-with-partys-liberals-12973419
ReplyDeleteThat’s grassroots conservative supporters saying they want to oust Rishi Sunak and "go to war" with the liberal wing of the party. In leaked WhatsApps obtained by Sky News.
DeleteTheresa May, Boris Johnson and David Cameron telling Rishi Sunak not to axe the northern leg of the HS2 rail network.
DeleteMore than 30 Tory MPs have signed a pledge not to vote for any more tax rises.
DeleteTories attack Rishi Sunak’s reversal on net zero https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/23/the-worst-kind-of-culture-war-tories-attack-rishi-sunaks-reversal-on-net-zero
DeleteThis could be ann interesting Tory conference. The reason, of course, being that this is where the battle over the party’s soul will be played out. While Sunak will be bobbing between rival factions – attempting to appeal to Thatcherites, Red Wallers, New Conservatives and what’s left of the One Nation caucus – the real drama will be far away from the main stage. Liz Truss and Nadine Dorries (who both have tell-all books coming out shortly) are rumoured to be speaking at fringe events, and Boris Johnson might even make an appearance. Everyone I speak to is expecting one thing: trouble.
DeleteOne Member of Parliament said the subplot of Tory conference — told in unsubtle speeches, fringe events and drinks at hotel bars — was the battle for the future of the party. Another told Bloomberg that Sunak was already a lame duck.
DeleteA group of Conservative MPs representing the North of England has set out a manifesto demanding a dedicated Cabinet minister for the region.
DeleteConservative Democratic Organisation (CDO) tonight (1 Oct 23) threw a black tie gala dinner. it was the performance of CDO President Lord Cruddas that raised the most eyebrows. Cruddas, a former Tory donor and longtime thorn in the side of CCHQ, decided to give a ten-minute welcoming speech that attacked the current party as ‘corrupt and anti-democratic.’ The peer – who takes the Conservative whip in the House of Lords – even told attendees to stop funding his party until democratic reforms have been achieved.
DeleteThere is so much open infighting in the Conservative Party at the moment!
Tory London Assembly member Andrew Boff is ejected from Suella Braverman's conference speech after heckling her for talking 'trash' about 'gender ideology'
Delete21.49. "Infighting" and toxicity is the order of the day in the Tory Party.
DeleteIf Corbyn, Abbott and Dent Coad were standing on a Labour ticket, there would be more of the same in Labour. Under Starmer, the Party shafted those ultra left, Marxist, Antisemitic, irritants.
What gruesome looking louts beside the Prime Minister. Hopeless. Incompetent PR
ReplyDeleteNot worth whipping it out then?
ReplyDeleteBlue on Blue action
ReplyDeleteTory mutiny as backbench MPs demand government cut taxes in 'unprecedented intervention'
DeletePriti Patel attacks attention seeker Suella Braverman
DeleteSunak rejects Gove's call to cut taxes before election
DeleteFormer Brexit minister Lord Frost and ex-Brexit Opportunities minister Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg are to team up at an event to heap pressure on Rishi Sunak to change his key economic policies. The two former ministers and critics of the Prime Minister will be keynote speakers at an event entitled "Restore Conservatism" at the Tory conference in Manchester.
Delete‘Britain is one of the most successful multi-ethnic, multi-racial democracies in the world!' Michael Gove, on the controversy from Suella Braverman's Washington speech
DeleteWhat benefits has the country had from Brexit exactly?
DeleteBrexit Wars part II: Tories fight Tories who plot British exit from Europe’s human rights treaty
DeleteGay Tories complain to whips over Suella Braverman speech
DeleteYet more Blue on Blue action to report:
Delete* In the Sunday Papers this morning, Grant Shapps announced a plan to send troops to Ukraine to train the Ukrainians.
* Sunak knocked him back this afternoon. It isn’t happening.
Cabinet ministers are already preparing for the next leadership contest. The Sunday Times and the Mail on Sunday had interviews with Kemi Badenoch, the business and trade secretary, and Suella Braverman, the home secretary, respectively. Badenoch and Braverman are two of the favourites to succeed Sunak.
DeleteTax cuts?
DeleteThe Government cannot cut taxes:-
(i) it cannot afford to do so. We are paying eye watering amounts of interest on government borrowing. Borrowing has gone through the roof in recent months.
(ii) Monetary policy requires reducing the rate of inflation. Reducing inflation is far more attractive for the basic rate tax payer than a penny in the pound off income tax; unless you are Jacob Rees Mogg; and that self interested libertarian can afford to pay more. Tax cuts would increase inflation by putting more money in to the economy and could result in an interest rate rise. It would not necessarily stimulate growth, at this time, as some suggest.
(iii) Tinkering with the supply side to stimulate growth any this time would be economic madness. Just as stimulating the aggregate demand in the economy when there is no money to spend is not a great plan.
* Rishi Sunak suggests Nigel Farage could rejoin Tory Party
Delete* Nigel Farage backs Liz Truss as she calls for dramatic tax cuts - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JR4Kbhm6Udw
If there is one thing this conference is showing, there is a clear, inexporable shift to the populist right continuing in the Tory Party. Some of the things leading Tory figures come out with now, we just wouldn’t have predicted or seen even in 2019. This is not a party that is going to react to defeat by shifting back to the centre. I cannot see anything other than a “hard right” attitude prevailing in the coming years. It is fertile ground for populist gobsh*tes like Farage to take control
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