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Liz Truss has betrayed conservatism The PM is making a solid case for Labour

You turn if you want to, Kwasi. Leon Neal/Getty

You turn if you want to, Kwasi. Leon Neal/Getty


October 3, 2022   8 mins

The past few weeks have been a liminal period in British politics; one in which we have been presented with real political choices for the first time in a long time. The great spectacle of the Royal funeral achieved what state funerals are expressly designed to do: reassert the unity of the British nation in a shared, sacral ritual of belonging, beyond sterile rationality, as the tribe interred its fallen chief with great pomp and ceremony. But more, the fundamental contours of British politics were exposed by the near-simultaneous accession of both the King and Liz Truss.

In King Charles, we have a post-liberal monarch who furiously rejects the marketisation of ever more aspects of human life. There are, in his writings, elements of the “Tietjens Toryism” of Ford Madox Ford’s Parade’s End, whereby the paternalistic concern of the central character, the “last surviving Tory”, for social harmony and widespread prosperity delineate the point at which “the High Toryism of Tietjens [meets] the extreme Radicalism of the extreme Left of the Left”.

Yet on the other, baleful side of the ledger, we have been foisted with a career politician who seems to view the laziest Left-wing caricatures of Toryism as a political roadmap: a pure zealot of unrestrained capital with no vision of the good beyond libertarian think tank pamphlets and a burning faith in the might and power of the market’s invisible hand. Alas, Truss’s faith in the markets is not rewarded by the markets’ faith in her: the invisible hand has already reached down to flick her from the history books.

Her plan for massive borrowing relied on the faith of international opinion that it would be amply repaid by her simultaneous tax cuts for Britain’s very richest, and an economic boom occasioned by vague promises of future reforms. To pay for her budget, and for its unintended consequences, the Government now looks set to slash spending on the infrastructure and research and development projects on which long-term prosperity depends. Unfortunately for Truss and for the country, the international markets, the IMF, the Bank of England, and those notorious Left-wing radicals the Financial Times and the Economist recoiled in horror. When even the Telegraph warns that the ”Peronist policies” of a “a careless, ideological government” set on “a course of sheer madness” put “this country in serious jeopardy”, we can be certain that we are in a new era. There are fashions in economics as in all things; outside the Conservative party, the rest of the world has firmly rejected the Seventies dogmas that brought Britain decades of stagnation and underinvestment — even in a far rosier international climate than the one we currently inhabit.

It is like the story of The Monkey’s Paw: after so long demanding a Conservative leader committed to bold and decisive action, the one the party chose was a suicide bomber. The only questions now, surely, are how much harm she can cause the country in the time remaining, and whether she will bring down the Conservative party with her. Because Truss forgot that the British public also has a vote. Dreading an economic winter harder than anyone has previously experienced, the voting public looks to have decisively rejected Trussonomics, and will deliver Labour the greatest parliamentary majority in British political history. The story of the past few years, from Brexit to the 2019 Conservative landslide, and now Labour’s coming victory, is of a British public desirous of radical change, and of a political class struggling to comprehend what this means, let alone how to deliver it. The Conservatives were elected on a simple mandate to reform Britain’s failing economic model and slash our current, record-high levels of immigration; instead, Truss is doubling down on both.

It is a matter of great, cosmic irony that in the same week Truss lost the Red Wall with a platform encapsulating everything the Brexit vote was against, Keir Starmer won it back with a postliberal message, centred on direct investment in state capacity, public services and home ownership through the simplest supply side reform, housebuilding. The libertarian think tanks who so gleefully rushed to take ownership of her budget when it was announced, must now take ownership of the results: they have destroyed the party they have hollowed out and stripped of any vestiges of Tory thinking.

Though a disaster for the Conservative party, the mini-budget was, apparently, a triumph for the IEA, the free-market think tank which has long advanced this ideology — as well as having groomed Truss and Kwarteng. And as the party has been warned time and time again, what they have cooked up is as repellent to ordinary voters as it is to traditionalist Tories.

The ideologues have crashed Britain, and the Conservative party, into a cliff, and the party now requires time out of office to relearn Toryism from first principles, shorn of the libertarian accretions that have driven it to chaos and the edge of extinction. The wreckers must be entirely driven out from British conservatism, in whose stolen clothes they have made mischief for far too long. But until then, there is no Tory case for voting for the Conservative party. A party that puts its own short-term survival above the national interest has no business running a country.

It is the tragic irony of British conservatism in 2022 that just as the only reason to now vote Tory is to own the Cons (like the IEA’s Julian Jessop and Kristian Niemitz welcoming Truss’s push for massively increased immigration), so does the only means of restraining the self-destructive zealotry of the economic liberals now seem to lie within the Labour Party. Some of the warmest responses to Starmer’s conference speech, in which he warned that “decline is not inevitable” and promised that the Labour Party is now the party of reindustrialisation, national self-reliance, home ownership and support for ordinary people came from Tory commentators aghast at Truss’s radical liberal vision.

It is those Tories representing the party’s paternalist social conscience who have been most struck by the contrast between Truss’s wrecking ball and Starmer’s softly postliberal vision. For as Gavin Rice of the Conservative Centre for Social Justice think tank observes, “Starmer just laid out a postliberal Brexit: controlled immigration, pride in community, democratic control, buying, making and selling more in Britain and the potential of active government. Tories shouldn’t be allowing them to control this turf.” But this is the path they chose, and when the voters punish for them for it, the party only has itself to blame.

It is remarkable to observe that Truss’s mentors in the IEA still found time to release a paper — Taking Liberties: Why postliberals are wrong about personal freedom, by Jamie Whyte — denouncing the rival postliberal trend in conservative thought: the very same political philosophy whose faintest echoes have rewarded Labour with the prospect of a historic landslide. The paper did not gain much traction, true: it was a poorly argued mishmash of philosophical sophistry against an amalgamated strawman version of very distinct political tendencies. But that they thought it necessary to release is in itself indicative of where the intellectual energy now lies within conservatism, on both sides of the Atlantic.

Yet the paper presents a fascinating insight into the worldview of a crankish doctrine the British public so visibly and overwhelmingly rejects. Throughout, the author rejects any notion of a common good, the essential building block of both modern postliberalism and traditional Toryism, associating the idea with compulsion at the hands of the state. So, the author writes, postliberals “believe politicians should take a view about the good life – specifically, the postliberals’ traditionalist view – and use the powers of the state to make sure that people live it”, in what he describes as a “proposed way-of life authoritarianism”, and a “regime in which politicians use state power to make them live ‘the good life’”.

To reach this conclusion, the author conflates the two very different American and British postliberal strands of thought, currently at war with each other through a heated exchange of open letters in the American Conservative. He adopts the framing of the harder-edged, American postliberalism’s vision of the Catholic-administrative state to condemn British postliberalism, which is in truth a conservative variant of socialism, infused with a traditionalist Tory discomfort with modernity, and drawn from our nation’s distinct historical path. British Postliberals, like other social democrats, do indeed believe that the nation’s good as well as prosperity would be enhanced if everyone were to be given support by the state to settle down, form families and own their own homes: this is, or was, a very basic tenet of Toryism, too. But this is quite a different thing from state compulsion: there will be no roaming squads of tweed-jacketed postliberals forcing otherwise happy singletons to marry, and frogmarching them into suburban semis.

But then, even this very basic expression of the common good is a vision of hell to the radical IEA liberal, who warns that “policies that cause more people to marry, perhaps by way of tax incentives, can still harm them. For being in a good and sound marriage involves forgoing other sources of happiness. John might also gain happiness from travelling the world alone” or “from seducing strangers at nightclubs”. Indeed he might. Yet reordering the British economy, and the lives and prosperity of the British people, around our hypothetical John’s mission of global seduction is simply not conservatism in any form, and a party that can prioritise this philosophy over the national good fully deserves the disaster coming its way.

But even as the paper asserts that the postliberal claim that liberalism leads to social atomisation and the construction of obstacles to the formation of family life is false, it argues against state support for those who wish to do so, in the seeming belief that helping those who wish for a secure and settled domesticity to attain it will somehow impinge on John’s absolute freedom. We should be clear: a postliberal government would not prevent John, or other liberals, doing as they wished with their own lives; it would instead simply support those who wished for the very basic goods of home ownership and domestic comfort and security to attain them. Yet even this is apparently anathema to the IEA, and we must now sadly assume, to our own notionally conservative government.

Coercion by global market forces is, simply, no liberation. It is this exact vision, of the entirety of social life from the family to the nation being subject to and torn apart by the destructive power of the unrestrained market, that postliberals as well as British voters reject; and it is precisely this outcome which liberals in their purest form, like Truss and the think tanks which formed her worldview, try to summon into being through ever more painful rites of destruction and self-sacrifice. If earthly salvation has not yet been attained, then ever more of what society holds good must be hurled onto the flames: this is neither politics nor economics, but the frustrated religious impulse that drives all liberalism.

Like communists, who wave away the misery and destruction every attempt to apply their vision in practice has so far entailed, free market fundamentalists like Truss and the think tanks around her assert that the only problem with their failed vision is that it has never yet been properly applied. Instead, guided by Tory pragmatism, postliberalism rejects fantastical visions of the future in favour of a future partly shaped by the forms of social and economic life that existed before capitalism: a world which was far from perfect, but whose failings are known and therefore capable of being effectively ameliorated.

But as it stands, there is no home for postliberal Tories, always wary of the free market as a force destructive to tradition and social order, in the Conservative party that now exists: instead, we must be grateful that when given free rein, the libertarians have discredited their doctrine as electoral poison in a few short and tumultuous days. Just like the state funeral, Truss’s accession was itself a great symbolic moment. It marked the nadir of Tietjens Toryism as a philosophical tradition within the Conservative party, and the total victory of a radical form of economic liberalism which, like an alchemist turning gold into lead, has transmuted 2019’s electoral landslide into disaster. If any Tory case can be made for Truss, it is a purely accelerationist one: that the catastrophe she has brought in tow may finally exorcise Thatcher’s unquiet ghost, and allow the party — or whatever form of conservative politics succeeds the party that put her into power against so many warnings — to reflect upon what Toryism actually means.

But until then, it is Starmer’s Labour, which learned the lessons of Brexit and 2019, that has rejected radical economic liberalism and pledged to deliver the common good. Certainly, there is still space for him to lose: just as the Conservatives failed to restrain their economic liberal extremists, so must Starmer restrain the extremist social liberals in Labour’s ranks whose views the ordinary voter deems equally strange and repulsive. But on basic bread and butter policy, the contrast between a Labour party pledging to build more homes, and a Conservative government about to lose many Britons the homes they already own is absolute.

If they achieve just this one aim, let alone their promises to deliver a Brexit that works for the entire country, or to return manufacturing capacity to British shores through state investment, then Labour deserves to win the landslide victory the Conservatives chose to squander. In choosing Truss, the Conservative party chose to make the Tory case for Labour.


Aris Roussinos is an UnHerd columnist and a former war reporter.

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Brendan O'Leary
Brendan O'Leary
2 years ago

It’s two years from an election and barely a week since the budget.
The pound has already recovered. The dollar continues to be up against all other currencies, not just the pound.

Am I overreacting by suggesting that the media has hugely overreacted?
Perhaps in a case of wishful thinking.

Brett H
Brett H
2 years ago

Overreacting? I don’t think so. The media are like the mad dog that barks at every passing car.

Walter Marvell
Walter Marvell
2 years ago
Reply to  Brett H

A truly dreadful teenage rant. The worst article I think I have ever read. Labour fit for power??? Did you listen to Starmer’s speech? We will be a neo GDR; Labour spit on wealth creation and enterprise. So why does the author have a tantrum over the Truss 60bn bailout and government spending? Did you rant at the true authors of the impending Great Depression?? 900bn QE? 400bn Lockdown?? No – we get the usual pant wetting over a now gone 2bn tax cut. Pathetic.

Rasmus Fogh
Rasmus Fogh
2 years ago
Reply to  Walter Marvell

Truss flagship policy caused a run on the pound, 10-20% drop in polling numbers, a blooming backbench rebellion *and* sharp condemnation from both the IMF and The Economist. It had to be withdrawn within the week. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the underlying economics, surely that shows a disastrous incompetence.

Walter Marvell
Walter Marvell
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

I 100% agree that Kwazi was drunk with flee and made the most ill considered ill judged pol speech in decades! If he had waited until after the next int rate rise to cut income tax then they would have been saviours – helping us ALL on gas for 60bn and 80bn on tax. The Bank would have been blamed for mortgage hysteria! Inept. But this article lashes out the very idea of encouraging private enterprise and wealth creation!!! It sings the praises of a UK State and its elite which is 99% responsible for the impending and inevitable Reckoning. We have sat on a ticking A Bomb since 2008. To ignore the madness of the furlough/covid 400bn giveaway and QE 900bm & savage Truss for not presenting her full budget is just comedy central is risible journalism. But the MSM drink deep on declinism & are screaming with panic at end of their enrichment via property bubble. Go away and blub. Dont waste our time singing the praises of a party wedded only to a corrupt and failing State.

Rasmus Fogh
Rasmus Fogh
2 years ago
Reply to  Walter Marvell

A lot of us are in favour of “encouraging private enterprise and wealth creation”. But cutting the top rate is unlikely to help much except, just maybe, a bit in the very long term. And whatever the timing, deciding to give to the richest and finance it by borrowing / welfare cuts, in this extremely difficult situation, is unlikely to be well received by anyone – except those who pay the top rate.

Walter Marvell
Walter Marvell
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

Yes. I agree that the 45p tax cut was a political mega gaffe. Again – it was just a symbol of a bigger broader philosophical belief – better expressed in the far more important income tax cut for all, IR45 refirm and the bonfire of the suffocating EU regulations . The 45er was an irrelevance economically. But a disaster politically. There is a desperate battle in our battered society to preserve the idea that the private sector, entrepreneurship, individual responsibility and wealth creation are the very source of public good. That idea has been utterly trashed by the London media and pro EU governing classes for 20 or more years. Lockdown was the moment when the hostility of their warped Statism was unmasked. They have gorged on a rigged property bubble – mass uncontrolled migration + no house building – so the Reckoning for their follies has been deferred. The State finances have been obliterated by not just the Four Horsemen biggies of Banks, QE, Lockdown & now Energy Bailouts. But bungs everywhere – from 60bn in housing and tax credits – have further made us more of a pre 1989 East European State than a free enterprise society. We are in a death rattle. Truss is making a tiny squeak in favour of the alternative. But it looks as if the die is cast. Lets reconvene when interest rates are at 5%. Then an irrelevant silly tax cut to 600000 richies will be long forgotten.

Tony Buck
Tony Buck
2 years ago
Reply to  Walter Marvell

Free enterprise ? The Tories have only managed to create a Casino Economy based on Financial Services + Arts, Leisure & Entertainment (& a pitiful gig economy).

Very late-Roman ! – rather like the Tories.

And the process began c.1985, under the “Great Lady” herself.

Walter Marvell
Walter Marvell
2 years ago
Reply to  Tony Buck

Correct. Our economy is an odd and ugly mish mash with the global City and so many firms dependent on cheap labour from East Europe. But I look to the forgotten core – the entrepreurial SME sector which gives employment to more than most sectors. It was horribly squeezed by the unthinking uncaring Blob. And now – like the MMT State – is debt laden and hamstrung just as the madness of State- created energy hyper- inflation hits. I believe in the enterprise sector not the myth of a free market. And this sector will be thrown again to the wolves if the progressive ‘State First’ Labour fraudsters are ever let into power.

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
2 years ago
Reply to  Tony Buck

Industrial economies require vast amount of capital, infrastructure, property, plant and machinery, technology, and updating as well as maintainance and large labour forces which equal low returns on the employed, or rather , deployed capital. It is a most worrying post Luddite myth of delusion and denial amongst so many on this medium that the profitability and return on capital in service industries are somehow ” worth less”. AND it is these Luddite moaners whose pensions, investments and life insurance savings are deploying THEIR capital…. to deliberately choose lower returns?

Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

Laffer curve, and the UK’s top rate is on the wrong side of it, with the highest top rate of tax in the G7.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Ian Stewart

Top rate in the G7 doesn’t make us a country to invest in. I think she was on the right track personally.

Tony Buck
Tony Buck
2 years ago
Reply to  Tony Conrad

Pity the IMF and the markets disagree with you.

Roy Mullins
Roy Mullins
2 years ago
Reply to  Ian Stewart

Less than 2% of earners pay 45% tax rate raising more than a third of income tax. If we could attract more high earners so that eg 2 1/2 % of earners were at this pay level we’d raise a lot more tax.

Tony Buck
Tony Buck
2 years ago
Reply to  Roy Mullins

Obviously we can’t and never will.

Especially with the City in decline because of Brexit – a decline that this latest debacle will speed up noticeably.

Rob J
Rob J
2 years ago
Reply to  Ian Stewart

https://twitter.com/georgeeaton/status/1576927537912954880?s=46&t=FLVcC9hSPVnjnriPhy20kQ

The UK’s top rate is not near the Laffer danger zone, and generally there’s more or less zero correlation between personal taxation rates and economic growth. (The things that determine growth are not under immediate government control.) There are ethical as well as self-serving bases on which to argue for a smaller state, but don’t pretend that higher growth is a convincing one of them.

Rasmus Fogh
Rasmus Fogh
2 years ago
Reply to  Rob J

Hear, hear!

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

The worst bit is the borrowing. Aren’t we still in debt for the enormous amounts Boris borrowed re: Covid? Apart from that I think her ideas are sound. She didn’t promise it would work quickly. It wasn’t a quick fix but a sensible long term plan. Instant miracles are always suspect and can just be election winners. There lies the weakness of democracy but it is better than a dictatorship which we were approaching in Covid with Boris. They haven’t even given her a chance to lead and have gone into the usual rut of turning on their leaders before she has hardly taken a breath.

Andrew Martin
Andrew Martin
2 years ago
Reply to  Tony Conrad

And remember it was Starmer who insisted on even longer lockdowns. Surprised Truss didn’t repeal the personal tax allowance freezes. I think that would have gone down well. Reducing the state too would be a good idea, those 60,000 jobs in the civil service a start…. they still need baggage handlers at the Airports.

Glyn R
Glyn R
2 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Martin

It would be extremely foolish for us to forget. We also have the present day example of Labour governance in Drakeford. No one should be allowed to forget how appalling Drakeford was during the pandemic hysteria. No matter how bad it was in England, the extreme absurdity of Drakeford – and SNP Sturgeon – made me feel a tinge of gratitude for spineles Boris and the Tory government. They were bad but could have been so much worse.

Tony Buck
Tony Buck
2 years ago
Reply to  Tony Conrad

Yeah – but AFTER the markets trashed her policy !

Even Corbyn wouldn’t have walked into that one.

Tony Buck
Tony Buck
2 years ago
Reply to  Walter Marvell

The state has certainly been both very corrupt, and alarmingly failing, under the Tories, this past 12 years.

Walter Marvell
Walter Marvell
2 years ago
Reply to  Tony Buck

The useless Tories have not commanded the UK State for any of its 12 years. The dreadful Lib Dems sabotaged the first years. Then Boris and May simply bowed to the more powerful para state and technocracy constructed by Blair/Brown. Power has been diffused from the Executive and handed to a supposedly neutralTechnocracy like the Bank or PHE. Did they sort illegal migration? Counter wokery within the State? Take on the Treasury Orthodoxy?? No. They failed totally. But blame for this systemic failure lies as much if not more with the vast dysfunctional Blob.

Gordon Welford
Gordon Welford
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

Thing Thatcher and the 364 economists.Who was right in the end ?

Rasmus Fogh
Rasmus Fogh
2 years ago
Reply to  Gordon Welford

Thre are other things one could think of: Thatcher and the poll tax? Or Norman Lamont? Being stubborn and ignoring what other people think is only an advantage if you happen to be right.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

I don’t know the IMF has drifted a lot in recent years and cannot be relied on. The Economist is on the left socially and in the middle economically. Maybe their left drift on social matters has effected their judgment on monetary things?

Roy Mullins
Roy Mullins
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

Hardly incompetence. It just that governments can’t do anything that conflicts with globalist ESG ideology. I was astonished how quickly the market reacted to the politics of the reduction of the 45% tax rate even though the economic impact would be insignificant. The power of the globalised markets scares me – governments whether right wing or left wing deviate from the ideology at their peril and are basically powerless. No wonder so many are thinking that their vote makes no difference.

Rasmus Fogh
Rasmus Fogh
2 years ago
Reply to  Roy Mullins

I know the feeling. I have often felt like that about the EU. But governments are supposed to deal with reality and get the best they can out of that. Reality is not always nice, but coming from a small country you learn to appreciate governments who take the cards they have and play them well. Doing something disastrous and then complaining that reality was at odds with your desires is not a mark of competence.

Roy Mullins
Roy Mullins
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

How do you know what is approved by globalist ESG rules and why should you have to follow these rules ? Boris of course did nothing (so he didn’t break these rules) after his unforgiveable brexit.

Rasmus Fogh
Rasmus Fogh
2 years ago
Reply to  Roy Mullins

For the same reason I obey the speed restrictions when driving. Some make sense and some are silly, but all of them will get you fined if you break them. That is reality, like it or not. If you can find a way of breaking the rules that is not harmful or unfair and that will not get you fined (as cyclists often can), then fine, but moaning about the unfairness of the rules is not a sensible reaction to a speeding ticket.

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

Mindless compliance, and that is the real enemy of our freedoms: speed does not kill, collisions kill, and if either party were travelling faster OR slower, the collision would be, as a matter of empirical facts of physics, impossible.

It the state told you that hopping on one leg in Tescos every second Friday of the month, whistling the Bulgarian national anthem , would reduce your car fuel consumption, would you comply?!!!

Andrew Martin
Andrew Martin
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

The organisations you quote are all part of the big Blob. Since when has it been the IMF’s right to comment on political issues? You’ll find they are the same bedfellows as the Bank of England. Just a shame the Tories can’t sack Andrew Bailey whose incompetence has no equal.

Richard Calhoun
Richard Calhoun
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

The only part of the flagship policy seems to be a temporary reinstating of the 45p tax
It will of course be re-visited … for the UK to prosper we must have low taxes and a small state giving the people the space for their innovation and entrepreneurism
@richardcalhoun

Last edited 2 years ago by Richard Calhoun
Graham Duffey
Graham Duffey
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

The Economist is a Leftist propaganda vehicle.

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
2 years ago
Reply to  Walter Marvell

You forget that while the economic impact of the paltry £2,000,000,000* was small, the political impact was huge! KK’s champagne swilling party had zero economic impact but politically it was KamiKasi! After all the CP is a political party first: economics, although a major part is secondary.
* the paltry £2bn could have been given to the 20 million at the bottom: ie £1,000 each: in a family of 5 that’s £5,000! A drop in the swill bucket a millionaire but a Godsend to a poor family!

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
2 years ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

You’re advocating for communism. No surprise there.

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
2 years ago
Reply to  John Sullivan

..bit of a leap there I think? I certainly believe in localisation and subsidiarity: democratic socialism too.. but state ownership of all the means of production of hoods and services? Eh.. no!
The inescapable fact is that left to their own devices the rich/powerful will exploit the poor and ‘appropriate’ everything. And so redistribution is an absolute requirement of any democratic government. Why? Because 90% of the voters, whom they are supposed to represent need that to happen so they can live a decent life. It’s the system we live in.

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
2 years ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

you so love to quote from that famous philosopher Testiclese…

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
2 years ago
Reply to  Walter Marvell

What you said.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Walter Marvell

Unfortunately Unherd seems to delight in feeding us with writers that challenge us. After a while though it gets a bit too much as there are hardly any good writers chosen in the last year or so who speak common sense. Maybe they are trying to shock and unsettle us foisting these writers onto us.

Tony Buck
Tony Buck
2 years ago
Reply to  Walter Marvell

GDR ? What are you on about ?

Did Starmer propose the creation of a secret police force ?

Jeanie K
Jeanie K
2 years ago
Reply to  Tony Buck

As head of CPS he hinted that the police do nothing to stamp out child rape gangs in Rotherham, Oldham, Rochdale, Telford, Oxford etc etc.

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
2 years ago
Reply to  Tony Buck

yes! The GestaPlod and the Metropolitanazi Plod

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Brett H

Isn’t that overreacting?

Tony Buck
Tony Buck
2 years ago
Reply to  Brett H

The barking dog has forced the British Government into a humiliating U-turn, exposing Truss as a poseur posing as Thatcher.

As well. of course, as a Blunderer even worse than Cameron

Jeremy Smith
Jeremy Smith
2 years ago

BofE just moved in to save pension funds.

Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
2 years ago
Reply to  Jeremy Smith

The BoE ‘saved’ them from the pension funds own incompetent risk management, which the BoE had been warned about 5 years ago – and they did nothing. As a former risk manager I’m stunned this wasn’t addressed years ago.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Ian Stewart

Can’t you be the Chancellor Ian?

Nick SPEYER
Nick SPEYER
2 years ago
Reply to  Ian Stewart

Ian. It was hardly a secret! And an intervention of some £3 billion to date is totally insignificant. The lefty media and lefty organisations are jumping on everything they can.

Andrew Dalton
Andrew Dalton
2 years ago

The pound recovered fairly quickly – although whether it’s dead cat bounce remains to be seen – but the media is still talking as though it’s at the low point of the Monday morning after the budget.
All markets that I pay attention to have been crazy these past three years. If I knew what I was doing, I could have made some serious money out of them. Unfortunately I don’t but I wouldn’t be surprised if those in the know did some opportunistic speculating.
I would say the media being disingenuous is perhaps the least surprising event of the past week.

Rasmus Fogh
Rasmus Fogh
2 years ago

I’d suggest that Truss is probably done for in either case. You only get one chance to make a first impression.

First, during her leadership campaign, she let out a press release proposing to save a *lot* of money by cutting public sector salaries ourside London – only to withdraw in the face of criticism and complain that the people quoting her own press release were misrepresenting her. Now we have her proposing a cut to the top income tax rate, to be financed partly by borrowing, partly by extra austerity. Which has just been withdrawn in the face of criticism. All this at a time when government borrowing is at a record high, when the courts the NHS and other public agencies are creaking and faltering under the weight of increased workload and ten years of austerity. And when people worry about being able to afford heating and eating both, and unions are making major strikes to get compensation for inflation.

What does this say about her compassion, her sense of reality, or her political skills? I doubt people are going to forget this.

nigel taylor
nigel taylor
2 years ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

It beggars belief that an airhead like Truss who is incapable of stringing more than a couple of soundbite sentences together should end up as prime minister via the foreign office. She displayed ignorance of the Eastern Ukranian position when dealing with Lavrov , naieve stupidity when promulgating reductions in pay of those working in the Midlands and North and unparalled weakness in allowing the showboating chancellor to announce tax cuts which hadn’t been discussed in cabinet.
Dom called her crackers ;he was right she’s deranged. As for the present incumbant at No 11 words fail me;he should be packing as we speak,his reputation as a sound finance man is irretrievably broken.

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
2 years ago
Reply to  nigel taylor

Dom called her crackers”
You actually typed and posted that. ‘Dom’ is the embodiment of crackers.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
2 years ago
Reply to  nigel taylor

If we had had that genius Dom in charge we would still be wearing masks and on vaccine 9.
Fortunately he is now in the ‘pit of eternal stench’, as he so richly deserves.

Carl Valentine
Carl Valentine
2 years ago

A more sensible comment at last, keep it up Chas

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
2 years ago
Reply to  Carl Valentine

Thanks Val, praise indeed!

Mr Kaneda
Mr Kaneda
2 years ago

Strange how they repeatedly compared to USD, as opposed to eg Euro. Its almost as if they wanted to make it seem worse than it actually was..

Last edited 2 years ago by Mr Kaneda
Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Mr Kaneda

Yeah a lot of deception goes on in the media. An Englishman is as good as his word vanished long ago.

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
2 years ago
Reply to  Tony Conrad

definition of irony : ” My word is my ( UK Government) bond”…..

Frank McCusker
Frank McCusker
2 years ago

Said recovery was of course a direct result of the BOE intervening to counter the antics of the govt

Walter Marvell
Walter Marvell
2 years ago
Reply to  Frank McCusker

Correction. The BoE intervened because – unbeknownst to us – the ‘reformed’ post 2008 Crashed City and Bank – had encouraged the City to play the derivatives market..with our pensions! Simply unbelievable. Madly under reported. Kwazi was the foolish catalyst or trigger – but not the cause of the 45bn injection. We had better read up LINs and re watch The Big Short. Yet again the 30 year fundamentals of our system are exposed as deeply flawed. Casino City. Eco nuttery. Propertocracy. Authoritarian & murderous Public Health Bureaucracy. Zero interest Lalaland.

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
2 years ago
Reply to  Walter Marvell

And the space-cadet loonies at the BoE were about to embark on quantitative *tightening*, at a time when it was obvious to a 5 year old that the UK would have to borrow more to finance the mitigation of high energy prices.
Yet the usual armchair finance ministers think the BoE is the good guy in all this. Delusional.

Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
2 years ago
Reply to  Walter Marvell

Spot on Walter. Frank is rather poorly informed. The pension funds and the BoE have been playing fast and loose on their risk management scenarios.

Michael Davis
Michael Davis
2 years ago
Reply to  Frank McCusker

I suspect the reason for the over reaction is that the guilty party is the BOE
undercutting the Feds rise of 75 points the previous day meant the pound was certain to fall out of bed, the only question is why they did it
i hate to think it was deliberate by the blob

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
2 years ago

Yes.. you would then have to concede that the catastrophe that is CP Conference is itself an overreaction to the media overreaction! And where lies the market ‘overreaction’ in this quagmire?
And indeed has KK himself overreacted to the CPC in his U-turn and did Liz Truss overreact when she threw him under the bus yesterday? The logic would seem to be that if everyone is overreacting then no one is really overreacting ar all! It’s a conundrum is what it is!

Last edited 2 years ago by Liam O'Mahony
Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago

I think the media are overreacting as usual also. I thought that the Chancellor’s ideas were good personally. We are fighting for our lives and they are trying to limit how much we have to spend on heating and have cut taxes to heat up the economy and to help the ordinary people.. That is more in our pockets. Cutting tax for the rich will help our economy and will attract investment into our nation. What has happened now is a huge scare for any new investors to set up in Britain as they need security not a too and frowing of leaders and the government attacking it’s leaders yet again. Have we forgotten that Starmer doesn’t even know what a woman is?

Last edited 2 years ago by Tony Conrad
Andrew Martin
Andrew Martin
2 years ago
Reply to  Tony Conrad

The same ideology is there when we remember Dennis Healey’s tax the rich until the pips squeak. His 86% tax rate created the Brain Drain to America. The Country never really recovered from that and went into terminal decline until the coming of Thatcher. What I find frightening is that behind Starmer’s centre left beliefs lies hard left activists hell bent on carrying out Healey’s mission again.

Tony Buck
Tony Buck
2 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Martin

They don’t need to – if you want to destroy capitalism, leave it to the capitalists.

Jeanie K
Jeanie K
2 years ago
Reply to  Tony Buck

There is nothing wrong with capitalism, it makes money and brings it into the country. The problem we face is from globalist corporatism.

Bill Tomlinson
Bill Tomlinson
2 years ago

It doesn’t really matter much whether Truss is right or not.

The inescapable bottom line is that she has almost certainly lost the Red Wall.

Without it she will probably lose the next election, or at best scrape in with a tiny John Major -ish majority, which will leave her emasculated (or should that be efeminated?)

Richard Abbot
Richard Abbot
2 years ago

I hope the critique of the Economist and FT as left-wing was intended seriously not sarcastically. Those two publications are left-progressive to their very core.
The right of a government to govern as it pleases it being stripped away before our very eyes. Truss’s accelerationism will demonstrate to everyone that globalists – whose mouthpieces are the Economist and FT – now run the show, and elected governments can do nothing without their express permission.

Last edited 2 years ago by Richard Abbot
Jeremy Smith
Jeremy Smith
2 years ago
Reply to  Richard Abbot

Not to be pedantic but LT was elected by the Tory base not the country as PM. So, when you bang on about “globalist” be honest enough to point out the obvious.
And globalist will not vote in the next election and wipe out the Tory Party.
P.S. Truss can govern as she pleases – but why do you expect foreigners to pay for it?

Last edited 2 years ago by Jeremy Smith
Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
2 years ago
Reply to  Jeremy Smith

What does one expect when one receives a PM from a group of people sitting on their settees in their ” leounge” sipping ” ‘ hearl grey” or at the ” 19th” of some intra M25 golf club? Selection by Pooter….

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
2 years ago

…one expects, dear boy there’ll be more Earl Gray for the deserving rich! And lo: it came to pass!

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
2 years ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

Duplication due to censorship.

Last edited 2 years ago by CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
2 years ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

Earl GREY, whose most famous and magnificent utterance was probably:-
“The sea is ours and we must maintain the doctrine that no nation, no fleet, no c*ck-boat shall sail upon it without our permission”.

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
2 years ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

no… Thick sweet dark tea in mugs, from green boxes or polished buckets date stamped ‘ 1912’ forever remembered, sanctified, remembered and used,….nicknamed by the Septem Juncta in Uno ” Depotea” …. and to which an addiction as an antidote to tough times remains for life!!!

Kevin L
Kevin L
2 years ago
Reply to  Richard Abbot

My understanding is that, under our constitution, government does not ‘govern as it pleases’. It is subject to constraints imposed by the cabinet, by parliament and by the voters.
the prime minstrels belief that the government can do as it pleases is what got her into trouble.

Gordon Welford
Gordon Welford
2 years ago
Reply to  Kevin L

It did during the Covid pandemic and look what happened then.That caused a lot of the financial chaos now

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
2 years ago
Reply to  Gordon Welford

..indeed: and much of the current financial chaos was caused by the Truss virus as well!

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Kevin L

It came out so quick that maybe it should have been thoroughly discussed by the cabinet first?

Andrew Martin
Andrew Martin
2 years ago
Reply to  Kevin L

Seemed to work for Tony Blair

Roy Mullins
Roy Mullins
2 years ago
Reply to  Richard Abbot

I couldn’t agree more. If any government does anything against the globalist ESG D-E-I narrative the brainwashed compliant media will do all they can to bring them down. ‘Western’ governments have no independent power any more.

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
2 years ago
Reply to  Roy Mullins

..if you play on the international stage you must abide by the international rules! If you want to apply your own rules you need the former Albanian or North Korean playbook!

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

We do not need to be ruled by international rules. Our rules are influenced more by democratic systems not the EU or people like Gates and Schab.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Roy Mullins

Strange how globalists have taken over the main media. How much are they paying them?

Roy Mullins
Roy Mullins
2 years ago
Reply to  Tony Conrad

Globalist ESG ‘woke’ group think has taken over education, the media, the institutions, the civil service, all large corporations and most MPs – spurred on by international organisations such as WEF and UN . I think ESG is perhaps the most significant as its difficult to get investment unless one is prepared to conform to woke ESG principles as out government has just found. We don’t want to be always ruled by international globalist rules but in practice we certainly are.

Tony Buck
Tony Buck
2 years ago
Reply to  Tony Conrad

To support capitalism is to support globalism.

Tony Buck
Tony Buck
2 years ago
Reply to  Roy Mullins

Well, they haven’t had any power in Britain since Thatcher and Howe sold the country to the markets.

And now the markets have bitten her successor and tribute-act.

What goes round….

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
2 years ago
Reply to  Richard Abbot

“The right of a government to govern as it pleases” – what? Are you serious? Whatever happened to the notion of “Representation”? Surely it should be government.. for the people (ultimately) by the people?
And what happened to Freedom of the Press? You sound like all that must go in favour of tyrannical authoritarianism!
Not sure I’d welcome that??

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

You are right but that doesn’t mean we have to obey globalism as you infer in your previous piece.

Tony Buck
Tony Buck
2 years ago
Reply to  Tony Conrad

We have had to ever since Mrs T abolished our exchange controls in 1979.

Will Will
Will Will
2 years ago
Reply to  Richard Abbot

I went off the both the FT and The Economist and their take on things when I worked in capital markets. They both supported the ERM.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Will Will

Yes they are not a patch on what they were. People still thing they are the experts though.

Katharine Eyre
Katharine Eyre
2 years ago

“Starmer just laid out a postliberal Brexit: controlled immigration, pride in community, democratic control, buying, making and selling more in Britain and the potential of active government….”
Talk is cheap. Does anyone actually believe that, once in power, Labour will/will be able to get any of this done? You must be kidding.

  • controlled immigration? You will not stop the dinghies and giving France more money is not going to do anything. Sending rejected asylum applicants back to their home countries? Good luck with that. Rwanda – a non-starter. The problem will get worse and no one in the UK (or in any other country where illegal immigration is top among people’s concerns…i.e. more or less everywhere in Western Europe) has any control, and any Labour government claiming it has the answers is lying. So we can knock that one on the head right away.
  • pride in community. How can the government restore pride in community? Surely this is a bottom up thing that has to come from the people themselves? The government can be as “active” as it wants…there are some things that are permanently out of its reach.
  • democratic control. I think the lesson from the past few years is that democratic control is a mirage. Yes, the British people voted for Brexit and got it (sort of)…but haven’t we just got the starkest demonstration that de facto control is also exercised by irrational markets, unaccountable, politicised international bodies (the IMF lost whatever respect I had left for it) etc.

I do think what we will see is Labour sweeping aside the Tories at the next election but the voter turnout will be historically low. I think there will be a lot of people (like me) who wonder what the point of voting is, as your own democracy and political system has less and less power to determine what actually happens in the end. People want control, but there is very little control to be had.

Jeremy Smith
Jeremy Smith
2 years ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

People want control, but there is very little control to be had.

Sure, what are you going to do about Blackpool? Make Spanish/Greek/Italian vacations illegal?!
What do you suggest?

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
2 years ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

You forgot to consider the word “controlled” in relation to Immigration. You appear to have read it as “eliminate”. If you have a labour shortage and immigrants are often fit, keen, resourceful young men then joining the dots on that one is surely easy?
If you’re problem is they are unskilled then hello! Ever hear of training? During WW2 with men at the front women were trained in jig time to do skilled work. Joining the dots there is also less than rocket science.
If your problem is xenophobia I can’t help you!
Ireland has accepted a very large number of immigrants in recent years (as % of population) and studies show they have greatly improved the country’s economy. It’s not all rosy for sure: we too have a housing crisis finally being addressed but not enough and very late. That does mot negate the argument however: it merely confuses the issue.

Katharine Eyre
Katharine Eyre
2 years ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

As the other day Liam you are completely wide of the mark. I did not mean “eliminate” at all. But – logically – if you can’t stop the dinghies coming then immigration can never be “controlled”. I was relying on the readers of my comment to at least “join the dots” enough that I didn’t have to expand on it.
Ireland, due to its geographical location, has a much smaller problem with this kind of uncontrolled immigration. Which is basically the luck of the draw and nothing really to do with high morals. And I was reading int eh Irisah media a few weeks ago how there were concerns about lots of illegals coming over the Irish Sea within the scope of the CTA because they were fearing deportation to Rwanda if they stayed in the UK. That they were now taking up all the resources in RoI which were needed for Ukrainian refugees also didn’t seem to go down too well so you can stop with the smug retorts on that front.
Finally – why on earth should you reward people for breaking the law? Why should illegal immigrants (which is, I assume, what you mean when you talk about “fit, resourceful young men” seeing as that is the right demographic) get the benefit of jobs and training when other people complied with the law and jumped over all the legal hurdles? Even if you need people to fill jobs, it is asking for trouble with voters to rely on illegal immigration for this. As a citizen I have to comply with the law, pay fines if I don’t get my tax right, park my car wrong etc. I don’t get a reward for breaking the law and I’ve been paying taxes and working for 20 years. Rewarding people that “just walked in” causes huge resentment which will spill over at some point. Now it’s your turn to join the dots! If jobs need filling, you want people with an appropriate skills set coming in which you can then give specific training – the host country should have control over the selection…not the immigrant. Surely this should be a matter of common sense?
And do not ever, EVER assume that just because I am against illegal immigration and for controlled immigration that I am xenophobic.
Sorry to say it but what you are presenting to me is a kind of “Irish Logic – Greatest Hits”. Again.

Last edited 2 years ago by Katharine Eyre
Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

I wish that was always true but unfortunately it isn’t. I found Poles were particularly good workers. I do not have experience of others but I suspect they are a mixture like everyone else.

Andrew Martin
Andrew Martin
2 years ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

There’s a difference between 5 Million and 55 Million. Why is there 5.6 Million inactive people of working age in the UK? More jobs than applicants.

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
2 years ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

… not many in Dunn and Co bowler hats, terylene suits and orange sashes?

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

One kind of thinks they will be up to their socialist/marxist ticks if they get in.

Steve Murray
Steve Murray
2 years ago

What a pile of absolute twaddle. Aris has demonstrated in previous articles that his grasp of UK politics is at best “academic” but in this article he gets so much wrong its almost impossible to begin to unpick it.

At the very least, making presumptions about how the public will vote in (probably) two years time is a gaffe no self-respecting commentator should make. He’s also mightily confused about what constitutes Toryism. He refers to a “straw man” in his ramblings but fails to consider he’s set up a whole crowd of them in his haste to weigh in on the back of media reactions.

Truss has got work to do, that’s clear enough, but Aris has very little concept of her beyond a caricature. Citing “unrestrained immigration” as a policy plank makes him look like one! Her intention is to attract qualified and ambitious people to invest their skills in the UK where skill shortages are holding us back, not allowing the kind of free-for-all that Labour induced when last in office. How could Aris get something so simple and so obvious wrong? It’s just one example among a multitude of schoolboy rrrors.

Last edited 2 years ago by Steve Murray
Jeremy Smith
Jeremy Smith
2 years ago
Reply to  Steve Murray

Her intention is to attract qualified and ambitious people to invest their skills in the UK where skill shortages are holding us back, 

What PM has ever rejected PhDs in Math/Physics from moving to UK?!
She has made it clear (you refuse to accept it) that she is going to increase migration for agriculture.
Supply side reforms means more migration – but I could be wrong as Truss seems quite delusional.

Last edited 2 years ago by Jeremy Smith
Billy Bob
Billy Bob
2 years ago
Reply to  Steve Murray

Aris has numerous times described what he means by Toryism, you’ve either missed or ignored it. To put it simply it’s the policies that looked after families, industry and the countries traditions, essentially to conserve things. It’s as the party was before the turbo charged economic liberalism of Thatcher changed it beyond all recognition.
Boris was elected on a platform of levelling up and much more financial distribution. The fact the Tories have now put a PM in place who believes in the exact opposite will no doubt see them heavily punished at the next election

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

Thatcher changed us from the sick man of Europe to a time of prosperity. I think you are reading the past with rose coloured spectacles. Go a lot further back and you may be right.

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
2 years ago
Reply to  Tony Conrad

Prosperity for who? Seeing as my grandfather was able to buy a house and raise a family of 9 on a single bricklayers wage, whereas I have younger family members now who can’t even afford a family home (let alone children) despite both partners working full time seems to imply this prosperity hasn’t been forthcoming for a lot of people

Desmond Wolf
Desmond Wolf
2 years ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

Yes exactly. My understanding of Thatcher’s general economic impact is that she created soaring unemployment and hollowed out manufacturing (breaking communities in order to make us more dependent on cheap labour from abroad), while fritterng away all the money made from North Sea oil and state sell-offs on ineffective tax cuts. True, overall GDP rose, but in an unsustainable way that began the process of breaking Britain down into a state of stratospheric regional and generational inequality that breeds crime, disillusionment and alienation – very conservative!

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Steve Murray

I could harly understand what he was trying to say personally.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
2 years ago

“the landslide victory the Conservatives chose to squander”.

Precisely because of their absolutely pathetic, even hysterical response to the great Covid Scamdemic
.
However would Labour have reacted any differently? No sadly, even worse! Of that we can be sure.

Thank you Cummings creature and buffoon Boris, you names will live in infamy forever.

Jeremy Smith
Jeremy Smith
2 years ago

Boris was elected by the Tory base as their leader. The same people (quite few comment here) that endlessly bang on about honesty in public life, personal responsibility, gravitas, integrity, dignity, competence…

Last edited 2 years ago by Jeremy Smith
CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
2 years ago
Reply to  Jeremy Smith

Agreed, they made a terrible mistake.

JJ Barnett
JJ Barnett
2 years ago

Shall we just cut out the middle man (and the tantrums) and let the media run the country? Perhaps the BBC can fill all the cabinet posts, and select a Prime Minister from a shortlist of media folks approved by their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion team?

It seems that is what they want. Having successfully dispatched with one Prime Minister, they’ve got a taste for blood and now they’re going to try it again. Which is not a defence of either Boris or Truss incidentally, but this frenzy is disturbing, and it reveals a lot about who is actually running the country …hint: not the people we elect to do so.

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
2 years ago
Reply to  JJ Barnett

Yes: shoot the messenger! Then all will be well!

JJ Barnett
JJ Barnett
2 years ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

That seems like an obvious mischaracterisation of my point, no?

The role of the press is not to try to run the country over the heads of the citizenry, nor to collude with power (be it state or corporate) both of which they seem to do a lot of these days.

The role of journalism is to hold power to account. That means to seek out the truth, and to report to the people what the powerful are up to.

These days the press seem to think their role is to stand next to the powerful and shout their messages to us through a megaphone, like the clerisy of the establishment. And to make sure that if the people err in selecting someone that defies elite consensus (even in a small way) then to act as shock troops and wage war on them.

It’s bizarre to watch, and it’s completely destroying western nations. The press switched sides and joined the ‘elite’ against the people. Not all of them, but most of them, and certainly most of the “mainstream” corporate media. This became super obvious during Covid when they took vast amounts of money from either the government, or private entities like Gates’ foundation, and then busily did PR for them instead of doing their job.

Truss has managed to enrage this class of people by being insufficiently deferential to the agenda that has been governing this country for the past few decades (no matter which party we elect). In fact they seem to be trying to destroy her simply for standing in the way of the ‘chosen’ Davos candidate, Rishi Sunak.

Again, this is activism, not journalism. And the effect of it is to distort reality, hamper truth finding and civil discourse, and disenfranchise the people.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  JJ Barnett

I think Truss has visited Davos as well but not as much as Prince Charles who actually spreads their views. I wonder if he will own nothing and be happy?

JJ Barnett
JJ Barnett
2 years ago
Reply to  Tony Conrad

Yes, she definitely has.

I think they all want to be in that club, but the club prefers the Sunak and Osborne types to the Truss and Baker types.

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
2 years ago
Reply to  JJ Barnett

I heard the exact same complaints from the left whenever the media ridiculed their latest useless pick for leader in the past.
It seems to be a common theme of both sides to blame the papers whenever they show up the incompetence of “their” side

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

The BBC a messenger? A messenger of what? Deception and bias no doubt.

Will Will
Will Will
2 years ago
Reply to  JJ Barnett

They media gave New Labour a very long honeymoon period (pretty much until Blair resigned). They also liked Cameron for some unknown reason.

JJ Barnett
JJ Barnett
2 years ago
Reply to  Will Will

Yes, well that’s likely because in a bygone era the job of a journalist was a trade. It was considered a career, and approached as such. Newsrooms recruited from the working classes, and understood their role to be investigating and reporting. The income for this operation came from the public, so they ‘served’ the public.

Compare that to today… most media outlets are consolidated under major corporate umbrellas, with all the conflicts that arise from that managerial and advertising pressure. The employee type drifted from career ‘trade’ journalists to affluent recent graduates. This is in part because as the media consolidated and became a corporate entity (serving advertisers, not the public) they came to be run by affluent coastal liberal types …and unsurprisingly they wish to work and socialise with the same types …and so they hire more of ‘their kind’ who then fill up all the admin and HR posts too …and then hire more of ‘their kind’.

So essentially the western media was already beginning to coalesce around positions to the [social] left of the nations they served, due to changes in the profit and ownership models. What they have now is a kind of messaging hegemony as they were so efficient at colonising all the important media. A good example I think is the Guardian; formerly a truly pioneering paper, set up to be independent so they could do the really brave investigative work. Over time the paper got colonised by upper middle class liberals who began the “more like us” recruitment drive, and then today the Guardian is so radical and far from it’s consumer base that it can only stay in print due to the very lucky fact that they exist off a private endowment. So they went from using their financial independence to root out truth, and speak truth to power …to using their financial independence to remain in print, despite alienating most of the public due to shouting at them instead of power.

Surreal! …but no wonder they like Blair and Cameron. They’re all the same people. They’re all from the same social milieu.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  JJ Barnett

A good treatise. So true. Well done.

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
2 years ago
Reply to  JJ Barnett

I think you’re overthinking it personally. The demise of local newspapers (largely due to social media taking all their advertising funding) closed off an entry route into journalism for many working class youngsters. Now the only way is often through an unpaid internship at one if the major papers, which for obvious reasons is only available to kids from wealthier backgrounds.
Over time this has led to a generation of journalists who have had exactly the same upbringing, and as such have almost identical outlooks and opinions. Unfortunately the more this happens the less inclined those with differing views will be to join the profession.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Will Will

They like woke people so it figures. Cameron did more damage than anyone in my view.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  JJ Barnett

Boris did mention that he would cut the BBC’s priveleges but I think Covid overtook him. That’s all he had really after the first partial triumph of Brexit.

Andrew Martin
Andrew Martin
2 years ago
Reply to  Tony Conrad

Boris only thought about one thing. His Wife was the thinker

Barry Trevers
Barry Trevers
2 years ago

Sorry I just see Labour as unelectable. Starmer is as blank as an empty sheet of paper. The real reasons we are where we are, are down to the Lockdowns & Net Zero. The single biggest Elephant in the room is the maniacal adoption of the notion that the climate is changing in a bad way. As the WEF boasts, ‘They own the science’. That should have everybody alarmed!! Alex Epstein’s ‘FOSSIL FUTURE’ is the only escape, along with the WEF being jailed for what they have wrought upon us!!

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
2 years ago
Reply to  Barry Trevers

Sadly, Labour is not unelectable – anymore than Biden was.
A huge percentage of UK (and US, and worldwide) voters have been completely brainwashed by the Long March. They think anything not to the left of Castro is “ultra-extreme far right”.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  John Sullivan

Truss is considered far right because she honours the family and doesn’t believe in transgender and believes a woman is a woman unlike Starmer.

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
2 years ago
Reply to  John Sullivan

So the fact a majority would currently go for Labour rather than the Tories isn’t because the Tories have descended into a s***show and Labour look more stable by comparison, it’s because the voters are too stupid to vote the correct way and don’t know what’s good for them?
I’m guessing you voted Remain in the EU referendum, as that’s exactly the same excuses I heard for them losing as well

Carl Valentine
Carl Valentine
2 years ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

Go on my son…..

polidori redux
polidori redux
2 years ago

“If they achieve just this one aim, let alone their promises to deliver a Brexit that works for the entire country, or to return manufacturing capacity to British shores through state investment,”
I do not support the Tory Party, but this is not a Labout Party that I recognise. I will sit-out the next election.

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
2 years ago
Reply to  polidori redux

Labours current policies are closer to what I’d vote for but I don’t believe Starmer would enact them.
Truss’ policies are a long way away from what I’d vote for and I believe she’ll pursue them with vigour.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

She has done a U turn on lowering taxes for the rich but business in the UK pays the highest tax out of the G7 nations not really encouragement for investments.

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
2 years ago
Reply to  Tony Conrad

I don’t think a few percentage points on the tax rates would sway too many large businesses. I’d wager the cost of premises, materials and staff, whilst an availability of skilled staff, good infrastructure, incentives for R & D and a wealthy market to sell products to would be of much higher importance

Carl Valentine
Carl Valentine
2 years ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

Agreed but Truss an KK were probably offered jobs by the hedge fund bosses like Osbourne et al were.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  polidori redux

Labour are not a party for investment in private enterprise. What they mean by investment is probably nationalisation paid for out of our taxes. If you are old enough you will remember how the nationalised industries continually striked and held us to ransom. It was only Thatcher who broke the deadlock in the end.

Matt M
Matt M
2 years ago

“Starmer just laid out a postliberal Brexit: controlled immigration, pride in community, democratic control, buying, making and selling more in Britain and the potential of active government.” 

Did he really say something about controlling immigration? I couldn’t see anything beyond this commentators tweet.

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
2 years ago
Reply to  Matt M

Very few on this forum are interested in what Starmer actually said. Much more fun to put words in his mouth, aspirations in his mind and forecast a disastrous future with Labour in government. You’re just trying to confuse the issue with real facts. They don’t want that! You’re spoiling the fun!

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

It would help if he knew what a woman was.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
2 years ago

For twenty five years the focus of economic policy has been on buying middle class votes by artificially inflating house prices.

The media go along with this because the media class is middle class. Starmer will continue down the same road because his version of the Labour party depends on middle class votes. Liz Truss will go along with it – she’s already promising to pay the gas bills of people who are quite able to pay them themselves.

Therefore both parties will continue the money printing and immigration, pushing rents up and wages down.

So it doesn’t matter what Starmer says at a party conference or how radical Truss tries to be in other contexts. Until we have a politician willing to confront the need for radical housing market reform our economic decline will continue.

Walter Marvell
Walter Marvell
2 years ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

Precisely. We live in a Propertocracy in which the London governing class have for 20 years made the rigging of property & maintenance of a bubble their number one priority. Zero interest rates and 100k per annum in untaxed unearned wealth for their class. The dunce Baily has done his best to hold interest rates down but – tough cookies – the Reckoning us now here. The media hyenas are no doubt scrambling to re mortgage their 1.5m homes bought for 350k interest free and on 0.9 now. So of course they are screaming hatred at Kwazi for causing the End of Days. Well suck it up London. Propetocracy has caused massive regional intergenerational and social inequality. The very thing you pontificate about in your groupthink FB rants too. – but did everything to cause with your brick and mortar greed Twenty years is long enough. Now it is time for the Great Depression you conspired to engineer.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Walter Marvell

I see you are full of hope.

Andrew Martin
Andrew Martin
2 years ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

When are the Tories going to change the Police Service into the Police Force?

burke schmollinger
burke schmollinger
2 years ago

A month ago the papers were talking about how “Diverse” and historic the new UK government is.

Now they all write it’s a Disaster of historic proportions.

I understand “Go woke, Go broke” but this has to be some type of record.

JR Stoker
JR Stoker
2 years ago

Remarkably bad article, just a teenage rant with no thought, no originality, no analysis.

Please spare us this sort of filler. If you can’t say anything thoughtful, don’t say anything at all.

Will Will
Will Will
2 years ago
Reply to  JR Stoker

I had difficulty understanding it didn’t enjoy it all.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Will Will

Ditto.

D Frost
D Frost
2 years ago

Might we give her– say– two months in office before declaring that everything she has done is a failure?
The level of journalistic (if that’s the word I want) hysteria over Liz Truss has convinced me that she must be on to something good.

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
2 years ago
Reply to  D Frost

Surely that’s the kind of logic that pervades fake news and misinformation sites? ie “do the opposite of what the experts recommend”!

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
2 years ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

Fake news, aka “anything I don’t understand”.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  John Sullivan

Some of the so called conspiracty theories are proving eerily true.

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
2 years ago
Reply to  John Sullivan

Yes: probably…

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

Your total faith in them might be your undoing one day. Things are not what they used to be.

Andrew Martin
Andrew Martin
2 years ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

What experts?

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  D Frost

You could be right but don’t believe what the MSM say.

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
2 years ago

“The paper did not gain much traction, true: it was a poorly argued mishmash of philosophical sophistry against an amalgamated strawman version of very distinct political tendencies”
Much like this article then. Absolute hogwash.
Aris Roussinos should have stuck to war reporting. Perhaps he has not noticed, or forgotten, that the UK – never fully recovered from the 2008 Global Financial Crisis – has just blown £500b on a completely pointless, deranged attempt to “control” a mid-level respiratory virus? That we are under attack from a globalist far-left cabal of social justice warrior cultists who have completely invented a ‘climate emergency’ on which they have only just begun to blow hundreds of billions, perhaps a trillion, more? That vulnerable people could freeze to death this winter if the cost-of-energy crisis resulting from the insane response to the war in Ukraine is not mitigated?
Last week’s budget was ham-fisted, yes, but no amount of slick “communication” would have tempered the predictable reaction of the usual MSM idiots. The country is around £2.4 trillion in debt, over 100% of GDP, and the ‘cost’ of abolishing the 45p tax rate less than £3b – but, as Roussinos is no doubt disingenuously ignoring, there’s plenty of credible evidence to say there would actually be no cost, that tax revenues would actually increase in the mid to longer term.
And as for Starmer – anyone who advocates assigning the slightest credibility to anything that cardboard clown comes out with deserves nothing but ridicule. BLM? White Privilege? Trans Rights? Net Zero & Great British Energy? Nothing but wilfully disruptive neo-Marxism in action.
This is gutter ‘journalism’ which I believed was beneath this author. I was sadly mistaken.

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
2 years ago
Reply to  John Sullivan

Of the piece was one-sided you’d be critical of it and rightly so. Unfortunately your own comment is even more one-sided so now we have to be critical of you! It never ends…

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
2 years ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

The only thing that never ends is your puerile nonsense. “We”? Do you imagine yourself as some kind of royalty?

As ever, you fail to make a single point of substance.

Tom Watson
Tom Watson
2 years ago

“There will be no roaming squads of tweed-jacketed postliberals forcing otherwise happy singletons to marry, and frogmarching them into suburban semis.”
Don’t be so pessimistic!

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Tom Watson

One cannot force morality. We have freewill to choose.

Prashant Kotak
Prashant Kotak
2 years ago

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a Truss fan (notwithstanding she and Kwateng have reversed the latest bits of IR35 which I am very happy about), but this article is kinda missing the bigger picture.

The crisis that Truss and Kwateng face is only seemingly of their own making – all governors across the developed world, no matter who they are or of which political hue, are going keep facing, over and over, crises of this sort, over the coming years – with concomitant narratives built around each, which are in reality… nothing to do with reality.

The Lord God Himself (or Herself as the case may be) could turn up tomorrow as the UK PM or the US President, and they would’t be able to help, let alone make a ‘V’ shape recovery out of the current trajectory. A two decade global depression is now baked in. The chain reaction is already underway. There is nothing you can do.

Prashant Kotak
Prashant Kotak
2 years ago
Reply to  Prashant Kotak

And I stick by my guns, notwithstanding my opinions will come across as totally unhinged – as bonkers as that of any current fully paid up Labour member. I think there is one more ramp in economic activity coming which will reverse current economic narratives for a short period – before the mother of all depressions engulfs the globe. But that will save Truss’ bacon – she will comfortably win the next election. This is not anything to do with anything, certainly not governing competence, it’s just luck with timing.

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
2 years ago
Reply to  Prashant Kotak

I know we are a small country but we just had a give-away budget paid for out of tax surpluses in Ireland.. we consider ourselves to be among the ‘developed’ nations.. so not ALL developed countries are struggling as badly as is the UK. Then we are in the EU which may be a factor??

Mike F
Mike F
2 years ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

Or it could be that Ireland has the lowest Corporation Tax in Europe, and increased it’s take by 50% last year, thus providing a quarter of all tax receipts.
Meanwhile of course, it costs 60 Euro to see a GP and I don’t know how much if you turn up at A&E without a GP’s say-so.
I love Ireland, and would happily live there, but it’s essentially a tax haven.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
2 years ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

Probably a disfactor in the long run.

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
2 years ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

You’re the EUs tax haven. The day that stops Ireland will be broke (again)

Colin Baxter
Colin Baxter
2 years ago

Load of nonsense

Matthew Powell
Matthew Powell
2 years ago

How exactly will Starmer increase housing supply, whilst undoubtedly sticking to high immigration numbers and opposing planning reform?

Every local election Labour promise to oppose any building in my area. It took ten years of battling through the planning process for there to be any new housing built at all.

Last edited 2 years ago by Matthew Powell
Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
2 years ago

I could see Truss and Starmer in ” Downton” Truss turning down beds and laying fire grates, and Starmer as an insolent under butler….

Bruce Crichton
Bruce Crichton
2 years ago

Coercion by global market forces is, simply, no liberation” – there is no such thing as coercion by global market forces.

This entire screed from you is Marxist drivel.

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
2 years ago
Reply to  Bruce Crichton

If acceding to market forces means you win or lose an election I think we can legitimately use the term “coercion” don’t you?

Last edited 2 years ago by Liam O'Mahony
Martin Terrell
Martin Terrell
2 years ago

No the best of rants on UnHerd. The comments are better. There’s an adult discussion to be had about how we create prosperous and fair society. What is the difference between post-liberal and neo-liberal and is there a difference when the country is broke, and nothing works properly. And the idea that Starmer offers anything new is absurd – green taxes, mass immigration, mass housebuilding – how does that serve the common good?

Perry de Havilland
Perry de Havilland
2 years ago

With all due respect, Aris Roussinos’ notion of “conservatism” is the same old failed Blue Blairite orthodoxy.

Allison Barrows
Allison Barrows
2 years ago

What on Earth would you know about conservatism, Aris?

Frank McCusker
Frank McCusker
2 years ago

The Conservatives are no longer conservatives – they’re extremists. They get away with this unhinged stuff because they hide behind the banner of “conservatism”.

John Sullivan
John Sullivan
2 years ago
Reply to  Frank McCusker

Name something “extremist” about today’s Conservatives – other than their penchant for neo-Marxist globalist totalitarianism.

Jonathan Sidaway
Jonathan Sidaway
2 years ago

A bit under-edited; Paul Embery’s Spiked piece today on similar topic more concise. AR has been v interesting in the past abt the conservative uses of the state; here, the projection of what he’d like to see onto the Labour pty struck me as so wishful as to be adolescent. EDF, a state energy entity similar to that proposed by labour last week, is not working well. And as to immigration, internationalist parties can be trusted no more than neoliberals.

George Trikos
George Trikos
2 years ago

While there have been many valid angles in this article, the astonishingly simplified and selective understanding of British conservatism struck me as a huge disappointment.

I understand that the author, whose articles I have previously read and recommended, does not hold classical liberal arguments convincing. Still, his almost visceral hatred of free-market liberals made the otherwise valid point of disagreement collapse. Moreover, rejoicing the someone else’s failure (which I always find morally suspicious) and shallow portrayal of the whole intellectual tradition (liberal conservatism) have made this article so weak.

The author linked current market turmoils exclusively to Truss’s policy announcements and failed to mention a single (even recent) historical factors that brought the UK into this position, but there is more fundamental neglect. He simply failed to appreciate that the individualistic and free-market stream of the Conservative party has much deeper philosophical roots than is present throughout the text. No mention of Michael Oakeshott, his scepticism and the corresponding validation of market-friendly solutions as part of a broader, tradition-loving philosophy. No mention of Friedrich Hayek and his involvement with the IEA (which the author presented almost as an institution of no intellectual rigour or history).

Finally, there is an essential argument on the side of Conservatives that the author could have raised had he approached it more deeply:

It is not the market reforms that have possibly led to such turbulence in the market but the manner those reforms have been presented and introduced. A careful conservative would understand such subtleties; Truss has failed to appreciate the power of sequencing and properly developed communication strategy.

Had the author taken conservatism seriously, he would have at least observed that point of view.

Last edited 2 years ago by George Trikos
Billy Bob
Billy Bob
2 years ago
Reply to  George Trikos

I suspect that the writers political positioning of being centre left financially and more conservative culturally (apologies to him if I’ve got this wrong) is much more in keeping with the British population at large than most on this board, who seem to be much more of a market knows best persuasion.
Although strangely enough they’re rather critical of the markets currently after they made Truss look the fool

Matty James
Matty James
2 years ago
Reply to  George Trikos

Hayek was a liberal not a tory. He even wrote that himself. And his philosophy has been destroying both the tory party and the country for the past 40 years.

George Trikos
George Trikos
2 years ago
Reply to  Matty James

Hayek argued that he is not *socially* conservative, but his political philosophy and economic theory are congruent with British *philosophical* conservatism (scepticism).

Yet, these two things are not the same. The former refers to individual stances on personal liberties, whereas the latter refers to epistemological issues (human cognitive capacities and use of knowledge in society).

For instance, I can be socially liberal but philosophically conservative, leading me toward small-state and free-market policies.

Someone else can be both socially and philosophically conservative and still affirm minimal government.

British conservatism is much more about philosophical scepticism and personal conservatism. Historically and practically.

Jeff Cunningham
Jeff Cunningham
2 years ago

I wish there was a way I could “opt out” of ever seeing this guys essays again. I’ve read about seven or eight of them now – since I subscribed to Unherd. And not one of them has ever given me even the tiniest kernel of an interesting idea, or piece of useful information, or even said much of anything I could agree with – and mind you I don’t like reading “choir articles” as a rule.
In this one I stopped about half way. I hadn’t noticed who wrote it when I started or I wouldn’t have. Isn’t this the wrong venue for this guy? I mean, his opinions are legion in mainstream publications everywhere. What’s he doing on Unherd?

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
2 years ago

I always enjoy Aris’ articles personally. Some of his foreign affairs ones have been extremely well written and informative, and I suspect your reason for disliking him is because you don’t agree with his politics domestically.
Rather than asking why he is on UnHerd, perhaps a better question to ask is why are you? If you are unable to finish reading articles you disagree with perhaps one of the many echo chambers on various other websites would be more preferable, whereby you only have to read people you already agree with?

Richard Calhoun
Richard Calhoun
2 years ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

In fairness to Jeff … it is a dire article … promoting in essence the State as our guide and mentor.
Primacy of the State only leads to one place … totalitarianism … just check out where the EU is heading

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
2 years ago

It isn’t proposing the state become an all powerful beast akin to communism, merely that leaving everything to “the market” isn’t having great outcomes either.
Why can’t the government step in and build houses? Or put up more funding towards research and development? Or offer state support to key industries such as energy? After all who has benefitted more from their North Sea oil, the Norwegians who kept the bulk under national control (and now have a $1 trillion slush fund) or Britain who sold their off to the highest bidder?

Raf Makda
Raf Makda
2 years ago

I was hoping to come up with some kind of witty comment in reply to the article. However, I think the simplest thing is to just say it’s pretty high up the list of incomprehensible, pretentious and laughable drivel I’ve read in a fair while. Although, I would like the author to explain more about the ‘time before capitalism existed’

Steve Gwynne
Steve Gwynne
2 years ago

I personally think you are misreading Trussonomics here Aris.

Essentially it is a dash for national growth to make Britain more competitive and lean on global markets with the recent repricing intending to facilitate exports and import substitution with the use of low tax enterprise zones.

The rhetoric is largely a pushback against the encumbent narrative entrenched by the remainer elite that the role of government is to resolve every problem including autumnal tomate blight.

Members of Truss’s Cabinet like John Redwood might be libertarian but they also hold national economic resilience dear and close to their hearts.

I think Aris you’ve been caught up in the cynical declinist groupthink of the remainer media who simply want the pretense of a Blue Labour government to win enough red wall support to rejoin the neoliberal EEA.

Last edited 2 years ago by Steve Gwynne
James Kirk
James Kirk
2 years ago

The old story of ‘Cry Wolf”. The villagers poured out with their pitchforks several times only to find no wolf and blamed the boy for wasting their time. Like many fables and parables perhaps it should be looked at differently. Perhaps the men of the village made so much noise the wolf made itself scarce. Now the wolf is back. It’s hungry. History blames the boy, not the noisy villagers.
Similarly now, the villagers, blissful in their noisy ignorance, reject the wolfish tax changes they perceive rather than the wolf itself. Starmer’s Labour.

Stephen Quilley
Stephen Quilley
2 years ago

The whole effing Tory party betrayed conservatism. They’re not brave enough to reject woke CRT and gender craziness in schools and across the public sector. They’re not intelligent enough to defend traditional family values, They don’t have the cunning or nous to follow through on the victories in the North and Midlands with a really new kind of political economy based on the maximum distribution of private property; libertarianism for families; a libertarianism of household livelihood. I say bollocks to all of them. If you can get taken in by Mermaids, and Stonewall and Pink News – you’re about as conservative as Robespierre.

Sidney Mysterious
Sidney Mysterious
2 years ago

It is always fascinating that the socialist left-wing always predicts the Universe’s demise without waiting but always creates its conditions without regret.

Richard Calhoun
Richard Calhoun
2 years ago

What goes round comes round !
The naivety of this ‘article’ astounds me … to believe the ‘State’ is to be our guide to prosperity after our experiences since WW2 is ignoring the malign results of the State’s interference in our lives.
The primacy of the ‘State’ as against the freedom of the individual leads to only one destination … socialism controlling our lives … just check out the EU and Germany this last 20 years and see where that has landed them.
A gigantic mercantilist state, for that is what this post liberalism is all about, would inevitably fail as it is failing now in Germany and the EU
Mercantilism has no moral compass … witness again Germany and the EU as fine examples.
@richardcalhoun

Last edited 2 years ago by Richard Calhoun
John 0
John 0
2 years ago

The fake conservatives are everywhere now — using theatre on tiny things to pretend, and selling out to big government on important things.

Bruce Goodwin
Bruce Goodwin
2 years ago

All very interesting but libertarians are going to be very upset at the notion Truss is one of them. And what on earth is a postliberal? We seem to be obsessed with these tags nowadays.
I think this article entirely misses the point. We spent two decades operating under ’emergency’ monetary intervention when governments and electorates got used to the idea that any hair-brained policy (net zero) or crisis intervention (lockdown) could be met with a blank cheque. The tide has gone out, crisis is upon us and we’re bickering about appropriate epithets. This Govt has a tough job and yes it needs to do a much better job at messaging.

Phil Rees
Phil Rees
2 years ago

In the past I have enjoyed some of Aris’s articles but this must rank not only as his worst but one of the worst I’ve read anywhere. I really can’t be bothered listing the reasons, the whole thing is just rubbish.

James Kirk
James Kirk
2 years ago

Nowhere do I read the mini budget between the lines admission that we can’t afford tax cuts yet without cutting government spending. No politician would dare not subsidising this winter’s fuel bills or not putting the triple lock back in place. The 19% basic rate next April? We tip waiters that much. A big rise in tax thresholds would have helped all. The NIC increase was a mistake but admitted that tax was needed to rise to help pay the ever hungry NHS.
Starmer’s first budget will hold up the overdraft letter and squeeze the middle class and business until the pips squeak. He’ll have the mandate to do it. For how long? Look what Biden has done to the USA in so short a time. No honest pundit can claim he’s an improvement.
It seems unhealthy to me for Labour to get in without lifting a finger. Like letting them get behind the wheel of a car when they haven’t got a clue how to drive it.

Paul Rogerson
Paul Rogerson
2 years ago

The opposite of the truth. Neoliberalism as practised since 1979 is not a betrayal of Conservatism, merely its inevitable apotheosis.

Roy Mullins
Roy Mullins
2 years ago

And Labour will not betray conservatism ???

Juan Manuel Pérez Porrúa
Juan Manuel Pérez Porrúa
2 years ago

Why Social and Economic Dimensions of Ideology Are Intertwined. Flavio Azevedo, John T. Jost, Tobias Rothmund, and Joanna Sterling.
Social conservatism combined with economic conservatism. It seems PM Elizabeth Truss’s views are well aligned to the views of the Right in most countries, including the views of the so-called populist Right.
While there might perhaps be some theoretical case for separating the economic aspect and the social aspects of policy (such as the much hyped political compass), the fact is that a positive attitude towards free markets (economic conservatism) is most often combined with social conservatism, whereas social progressivism is almost always associated with economic progressivism. That is, most economic conservatives are also social conservatives and most social progressives are economic progressives.
The obvious implication for practical conservative politics is that economic conservatives, most of whom are social conservatives anyway, must stop trying to appeal to almost-nonexistent socially progressive but economically conservative voters, embrace the social conservatism most believe in anyway, and find some mutually acceptable compromise on economic policy with more economically progressive voters who nontheless value social conservatism more than economic conservatism, all the while emphasizing the deleterious social consequences of the welfare state to win over new constitucencies. In other words, practical conservative politics must follow the course that it has successfully been following for many many years now and that has yielded so many electoral victories all over the world.
“…Go together like a horse and carriage /This I tell you brother /You can’t have one without the other…
…Try, try, try to separate them / It’s an illusion / Try, try, try, and you will only come / To this conclusion…”

Last edited 2 years ago by Juan Manuel Pérez Porrúa
Tony Buck
Tony Buck
2 years ago

There were many on the Left hoping that Jeremy Corbyn would overthrow British Capitalism, then were disappointed.

But wait… here came Trussky, infiltrator extraordinaire, to do the job !

A miracle, I call it.

Andrew Langridge
Andrew Langridge
2 years ago

The biggest mistake is being made by those (not least it seems by the PM herself) who think that Truss is Thatcher mark 2.Thatcher was a social conservative as well as an economic liberal, and these aspects of her ideology were often in tension, for example in her opposition to Sunday trading and the National Lottery.

Tony Thomas
Tony Thomas
2 years ago

I don’t understand a word of this. Is it me?

Malcolm Webb
Malcolm Webb
2 years ago

“ return manufacturing to British shores through Stare investment”
Which planet are you from?
As for “getting a Brexit deal for everyone “ – good luck with the Remoaners on that.
The very last thing this country needs is a Socialist prescription for our problems.

Robert Eagle
Robert Eagle
2 years ago

Truss = the Tories’ Corbyn. Except of course that the electorate ensured that Corbyn wouldn’t get in.

Katy Hibbert
Katy Hibbert
2 years ago

The IMF, the Bank of England, and those notorious Left-wing radicals the Financial Times and the Economist recoiled in horror. 

The author is trying, and failing, to be sarcastic. However, those institutions are solidly Remoaner leftard, just like the author.

Graham Duffey
Graham Duffey
2 years ago

The author extols the virtues of the saviour Sir Starmer, saying how his utterances have wrestled back the Red Wall. He fails to espouse any policy that Labour have put forward to save the country from the wicked Tories.
Maybe that is because Labour has no policies beyond preserving the status quo of the last 25 years that have led us to our current state.
The sheer venom of 99% of all media towards Truss shows that she should stay the course. Drive a stake through the heart of the permanently failed Left and bring a new dawn to British politics.
It was only just over 2 years ago that the Conservatives won a massive majority. With courage, communication and commitment there is no reason why hopeless Labour cannot be put to the sword again.

Last edited 2 years ago by Graham Duffey
Tony Buck
Tony Buck
2 years ago

It’s very amusing that the people who cheered on Thatcher when she turned Britain into a globalist hell-hole, enslaved to the markets, are now enraged that the globalists and markets have scotched Truss.

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
2 years ago
Reply to  Tony Buck

Whilst I find it deeply uncomfortable that faceless money men have been able to so quickly derail the policies of the elected government (even though I disagree with the tax cuts proposed), it does bring a wry smile watching two people with an almost religious belief that “the market” will fix all our problems being hoist so publicly from their own petard

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
2 years ago

Has anyone considered the possibility that Liz Truss might still be a Lib Dem Remainer? ie a Trojan Horse in the Conservative Party with the sole aim of wrecking it? ..or is that a bit too conspiratorial? ..and what if she has done a deal with Starmer to do so in return for him bringing in PR which is the Lib Dem’s holy grail? Maybe I should stop listening to David Icke??

Jeremy Smith
Jeremy Smith
2 years ago

Get out the popcorn and enjoy the show!
If the polls are only half right the Tories will be wiped out and rightfully so.
Although I do hope Mark Francois remains MP, he is quite funny.

Last edited 2 years ago by Jeremy Smith
polidori redux
polidori redux
2 years ago
Reply to  Jeremy Smith

You sure know to bombard a forum. You have reminded me to ask Unherd to make provision for a blocking, or muting, facility.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
2 years ago
Reply to  polidori redux

Give him a chance, he has only recently returned from exile In Luxembourg.

Jeremy Smith
Jeremy Smith
2 years ago
Reply to  polidori redux

Feel free not to read them.

Frank McCusker
Frank McCusker
2 years ago
Reply to  polidori redux

Hi snowflake

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
2 years ago
Reply to  polidori redux

Shoot the messenger and all will be well!

polidori redux
polidori redux
2 years ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

I have rewritten this to read:
” He is not a messenger. He is a waste of space. I am surprised that you cannot tell the difference, Liam.”
Those who upvoted my original version are entitled to remove their upvote.

Last edited 2 years ago by polidori redux
Milos Bingles
Milos Bingles
2 years ago

I hope this is the end of the Tories for a generation. They have destroyed our public services and now they destroying the economy. We need sensible leadership not populists. We need to finally lance the boil of this Brexit Government.

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
2 years ago
Reply to  Milos Bingles

Firstly Liz Truss voted to Remain.
Secondly, what has this got to do with the referendum?

polidori redux
polidori redux
2 years ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

To some people, Brexit is the cause of all the problems in the world.

Jeremy Smith
Jeremy Smith
2 years ago