The new prime minister is.....

[SueEllen]

Most people can't tell a 3k suit from an M&S, and he markets himself as a man of the aspiring classes. Now if he had 50 3k+ suits that would be profligate. But having few but high quality pieces of clothing is a good choice and economical too. You should buy clothes on price per wear, i.e. if you love the item and wear it lots its price per wear plummets, unlike that H&M crap you wear once or not at all.

You don't walk around a muddy field in £500 shoes however rich you are, you have the good sense to wear boots.

[ladymuck]

You don't walk around a muddy field in £500 shoes however rich you are, you have the good sense to wear boots.

Louis Vuitton?

[splitbrain]

Appearances matter, like it or not.

Sunak is undoubtedly slick, polished and would probably represent us better on the world stage, where he would be in equally polished company with the likes of Macron and Trudeau (and Obama if he was still around). Truss comes off like a broomstick with an awkward face, doesn't really have any physical presence or gravitas whatsoever. She'd be a walkover.

As far as policy goes and the actual business of running the country, I doubt there is much in it. Both leaning ever rightwards to court the membership. Truss is the more liberal of the two, or just the most opportunistic much like Johnson was and will go wherever the wind blow to advance her career. Sunak is if anything, a man of conviction but he is the most hardcore tory I can think of, *ever*. Some of the stuff he has written papers on with heavy nods to his stanford professor is just downright scary, extreme free market rightwing thinking. Sunak bangs on about freeports all the time (Which truss has also been doing now..) but his writing on Charter cities is hugely worrying. While I like Sunak as a person (more than truss) his economic ideology is far too much to the right for my liking, I don't think people realize how rightwing he actually is.

Truss is going to win this thing, but one thing I cannot understand is why more has not been made of the affair she had in the mid 2000's with an MP? The Daily Wail swept it under the carpet quick but none of the other rags have mentioned much on the topic. If team Sunak wanted to sink to that low (ish) then they could start briefing about it, it would be an easy win for them but with some backfire possibly. People don't truss cheaters (didn't stop Johnson though, but he was a bloke with a reputation...) so that would surely change wavering minds. Perhaps Sunaks team is keeping it in the back pocket but now would be the time to deploy being as voting starts in a few days.

[jamesbrown]

Stuff

This seems to be a common misconception among those who haven't read much about Truss. Pretty much everyone who's ever known Truss and has written about her paints a picture of someone with convictions. There's a big difference between changing your mind and not having convictions and the superficial reading of Truss frequently mistakes these two things. She's more dangerous than you think and she is completely different from Sunak, as well as Boris for that matter (whose views famously do change with the wind). Here's an excellent write-up from David Gauke, not exactly a fan, politically (it's behind a paywall, but you can register and get the article free).

https://www.newstatesman.com/comment...mble-liz-truss

A choice quote:

There is a thread that runs through Truss’s career – her youthful republicanism, her libertarianism, her desire to take on the education “blob” as a junior minister, her difficulties with the judiciary, her dismissal of concerns about a no-deal Brexit (about which we frequently disagreed in cabinet), her support for Boris Johnson, and her current criticism of both Treasury orthodoxy and the Bank of England. She is by both temperament and conviction a rebel, an anti-establishment figure wary – even dismissive – of authority and received wisdom. She sees herself – and here the echoes of Margaret Thatcher are unmistakable – as an outsider who is bolder and more ambitious than the risk-averse, defeatist, privileged, establishment men whom she finds so condescending.

[xoggoth]

his economic ideology is far too much to the right for my liking, I don't think people realize how rightwing he actually is

That just swung me Rishi way.

[malvolio]

A choice quote:

And that second quote is a bad thing?

A lot of the dissatisfaction with the current government is the lack of ideas an progress in addressing all sorts of key issues, form the economy to the unions to the farrago of disaster that is the NHS. We need a disruptor, and preferably another Thatcher rather than another Bliar. I would have thought a group like us would be happy to consider someone who would not have allowed the Treasury to keep IR35 on the books for so long, much less allowed it to deteriorate to the almost unworkable mess we have now.

And no, Truss won't address IR35, that is too minor an issue. But she may well take a cudgel to the Treasury and, as a side effect, HMRC.

[jamesbrown]

And that second quote is a bad thing?

I am saying that Truss is easily underestimated. For those who hate her politics and are hoping for the comfort blanket that she's weak, changeable and easily persuaded by boring centrism will, most likely, be disappointed. Unlike Johnson whose personality was hopelessly suited to being PM and where calamity was easily predictable and predicted by many (myself included) from the very start, Truss is much less predictable and is more likely to get stuff done, whether you like it or not (but if she's calamitous, it will be proper ). The analogies with Johnson, May, Sunak etc. are wide of the mark with Truss. She both scares and delights people who've worked with her, depending on perspective.

[WTFH]

Louis Vuitton?

No thanks, these are what I use:
https://www.aigle.com/uk/en/p/parcou...8425_brun.html

Do the job perfectly well.

[SueEllen]

No thanks, these are what I use:
https://www.aigle.com/uk/en/p/parcou...8425_brun.html

Do the job perfectly well.

Too practical for Rish!

[ladymuck]

No thanks, these are what I use:
https://www.aigle.com/uk/en/p/parcou...8425_brun.html

Do the job perfectly well.

I have a pair of those too!