Meanwhile, In The UK…
You didn't need to be a political scientist or any sort of expert on Downing Street to know that Liz Truss's fleeting tenure at No. 10 represented an existential crisis for the Tories.
I vividly recall a few pitiable attempts to excuse the fast-moving debacle that was Truss's stint as prime minister. Contrarian types tried to paint Truss and her star-crossed, go-for-growth fiscal plan as victims of an establishment conspiracy, but it unraveled so quickly, and her response was so undeniably hapl
I’m a Brit and have been watching this shxt storm going on for many years. The Tory party is an embarrassment, far too many knighted and titled idiots in positions of authority. I’m a fan of Rishi but the rest of them are just embarrassing. We desperately need a government of competence but can’t see it. So glad, as a family, we have no mortgage, no loans and all our excess assets are in US assets. At some point in the next 6 months sterling is going to collapse.
We, too, I fear are headed in the same direction, just a year or two behind. Our Tories have similar goals and there are no available adults here to turn to. Maybe the British tradition of a faithful Nanny is real a great idea still. Most of us never had one.
I am also a Brit and whilst I think Sunak is competent, he is also tainted and that’s reflected in the polls. The labour leader Keir Starmer is competent, so a labour win in the next election will be good for the UK. In the meantime sterling continues to strengthen on the back of higher UK rates, which is a car crash in waiting. Most of my assets are also in USD and it certainly has been painful with sterling up +6% this year versus the dollar. Sterling has now gained almost 20% since the LDI crisis last year!
The UK is exhibit A when talking about the failure of post-capitalist laissez faire economics (supply-side Thatcher-nomics): offshore anything that can be offshored, privatize the safety net, promote and protect rent-seeking behavior, and exploit every loophole in campaign finance laws (such as they were and are) to shovel the gains to the top 1 percent. At this point in that slow-motion disaster, the only thing likely to save the country is an existential crisis on the order of the Great Depression (a US analogy but applicable).
I neglected to add the insidious, not-to-be discounted role in all of the above played by the Murdoch empire.
+1 on that.
It’s obviously a feedback loop between idiotic voters and the Murdoch empire but, well, there’s not much that can be done about the voters.
And, sure, the elite takes a share of the blame too. They make their disdain too obvious. Unless they’re truly desperate, people will spit on your free healthcare and safety net strengthening if you’re offering it with a sneer of superiority plastered on your face.
But, still, Murdoch weaponised that natural hatred of the elites (and did much to expose the disdain and then reinforce it by making his viewers/readers act more and more appallingly).