In Liz We..

[ladymuck]

Surely the headline should be "All Trussed Up"?

[d000hg]

Same. I felt Sunak's more business like approach with not much good news was a better option than have it all from Truss but obviously it wasn't a popular one. Don't think she's the worst person for the job though so lets see.

Don't forget that after spending weeks deriding Rishi's plans to intervene in the system as "unconservative", and promoting tax cuts as the better route, she's now planning to announce plans to cap prices on Thursday which is a massive government intervention.

Wait until she'd got the votes then do the thing Rishi wanted.

[jamesbrown]

Wait until she'd got the votes then do the thing Rishi wanted.

Actually, if you'd listened closely, she derided "hand outs" and really didn't say anything critical of Labour's price-cap policy (that I recall). Obviously, a price cap is not a "handout". Rishi, on the other hand, was likely to extend his existing policy of "hand outs". You can argue about whether a price cap is very Conservative or "free market", ASI, IEA etc. (obviously, it isn't in a functioning free market), but you cannot realistically argue that it was Rishi's policy, because it wasn't.

Energy isn't really the test as to whether she'll stick to her principles, I think. Without something dramatic on energy, no one would be left listening. That is pretty much the only thing ordinary people are talking about - there is real fear out there. Will she stick to her tax cuts and borrowing when inflation is rising, the markets are tanking and there's (further) enormous pressure on Sterling, though? That is going to be the more interesting test of her principles...

[jamesbrown]

On energy, there needs to be a serious effort to reduce demand too. A more sensible price cap would factor that in somehow, perhaps putting a cap on unit costs below a certain usage, but that is more complicated and doesn't really deal with the problem of businesses. But including all households and all businesses in an unconditional price cap is going to be really expensive and won't address demand (rather, the opposite). Price is one issue. Limited supply (blackouts etc.) is a different one.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Worry not, probably not "hasta la vista, baby" but more like:

[dsc]

On energy, there needs to be a serious effort to reduce demand too. A more sensible price cap would factor that in somehow, perhaps putting a cap on unit costs below a certain usage, but that is more complicated and doesn't really deal with the problem of businesses. But including all households and all businesses in an unconditional price cap is going to be really expensive and won't address demand (rather, the opposite). Price is one issue. Limited supply (blackouts etc.) is a different one.

I keep saying to everyone talking about price caps, read about the French EDF, they pretty much went bust due to being forced to sell well below market price, then gov had to step in and bail them out. I agree that lowering demand is the only sensible option, but it must be done at top level and has to be serious, otherwise people will be sitting in their homes "heated up" to 16degC, doing washing once a month and still paying twice as much as they were last year.

[jamesbrown]

I keep saying to everyone talking about price caps, read about the French EDF, they pretty much went bust due to being forced to sell well below market price, then gov had to step in and bail them out. I agree that lowering demand is the only sensible option, but it must be done at top level and has to be serious, otherwise people will be sitting in their homes "heated up" to 16degC, doing washing once a month and still paying twice as much as they were last year.

Right. However, I don't think anyone (currently, in the UK context) is talking about a price cap without a funding source. It will be funded either by: 1) the taxpayer; or 2) the billpayer (over a protracted period) with the immediate source probably coming from gov't backed loans. They cannot simply freeze the wholesale price of gas (the "nuclear option") without funding it. But one upside of freezing the wholesale price of gas is that there would be no need for a broader windfall tax on electricity generators. Ultimately, though, someone needs to pay for it (taxpayer, billpayer or generators or some combination of these) and, separately, we need to reduce demand.

[NotAllThere]

After the worst PM ever, we now have the worst PM ever. To be succeeded in a couple of years (maybe) by the worst PM ever.

[SueEllen]

After the worst PM ever, we now have the worst PM ever. To be succeeded in a couple of years (maybe) by the worst PM ever.

We may get a Labour government and do a US so we get the most boring (and senile looking) PM ever.

[Paddy]

How many people think of this when the hear Truss?