It is very hard to learn lessons from Britain. We tend to exaggerate British virtues. Except perhaps for Winston Churchill most British MP's and other leaders have not been any better than American ones. I go back to the 18th century and find a good leader, Geo. III, according to a new book by a most respected British historian, Andrew Roberts. He found that the Americans, especially Tom Jefferson, lied about the supposed crimes of this king. About 26 of 28 charges vs. His Majesty in the Decl. of Independence were lies and propaganda. Men like Oliver Cromwell and John Churchill, duke of Marlborough, were actually scoundrels, the one loved massacring the Irish and the other betrayed his lawful king to whom he had sworn allegiance, James II. Forget the Brits!
7
Liz Truss' legacy ---- A punchline
46
As historian Michael Beschloss commented a couple of days ago, England won the day. Truss was gone in 44 days for her incompetence. And how many years have we been stuck with Trump??!!
250
I’m not sure at all that Truss’ spectacular incompetence has not fanned the flames of sexism and set all women back. There are still far too few women in leadership positions so when women like Tuss and Meloni in Italy are among the very few who rise to the top, we all look unfit for leadership positions.
42
So, the Brits will put up with incompetence from Boris the clown, but they get irate about incompetence from Liz Truss or Theresa May? Interesting.
124
An American comedian, Larry Miller once observed about remarrying a woman you once divorced. It’s like getting a carton of milk from the fridge, smelling that it’s turned sour and putting it back in the fridge and thinking maybe it will be better tomorrow.
Returning to BOJO wouldn’t be much different!
103
Americans need to take notice. This is what is happening to our Republican Party. If you think things are not good now, they can get much worse with a bunch of power crazy dunces. So be careful for what you ask because Republicans are no panacea. They spell doom.
146
Boris Karloff? Boris Badenov is more like him.
42
Don’t kid yourself Maureen, ALL politicians - not just conservatives - will do (almost) whatever it takes to cling to office. They are all narcissists to some degree who are convinced that we the public actually need them. (Trump of course takes this truism to a whole other level.)
As for Boris, the “moral outrage” he engenders is largely because he is as bold-faced in his lies and hypocrisy as a the typical American politician. His great “scandal” involves deceiving fellow lawmakers about some parties that violated COVID restrictions. But Boris - like Luz - actually resigned from office when his own party told him they had had enough. I only wish we in a America had to deal with such morally compromised politicos!
59
The British commentary I thought was revealing was that “ This is what you get with low quality people in leadership”. Isn’t that what’s happening in the GOP, whose leadership consists of conspiracy theorists and people who can’t even express a coherent thought?
106
Mr. Oborne asserted that “today’s Conservatives, by contrast, cling to power for power’s sake,” and that “their obstinacy is ensuring the ruination of Britain.”
Substitute Republicans for Conservatives and USA for Britain and there is absolutely no difference. Fascism is on the rise here and all Republicans concern themselves with is holding on to power and perks. What a dangerous and pitiful group of men and women they are.
72
It has to be said that this is a 90% English fiasco. The Orangemen in NI contributed by giving Theresa may the votes she needed to form a Government but this is primarily an English-created and sustained problem within the Tori Party.
Wales, Scotland and NI are just being dragged along.
What in the world has happened to England?
27
More important events around the globe, and here at home, than the machinations of the UK Conservative party. The bigger story across the pond, besides the Ukraine war, is the new Prime Minister of Italy.
42
Take heed Republicans. Trickle down nonsense, vastly incompetent election victors and blustering rhetoric are seeing their day come to and end. Post covid trauma, the sound of
nuclear saber rattling and economic hardship has voters on both sides of the proverbial pond in a less forgiving mood.
59
Always rely on Maureen to turn everything into a soap opera. Why bother with the fact that 2 of the 3 contenders are people of substance and one of whom steered UK economy through the pandemic and warned explicitly of the risks of pursuing these policies. Reminds me a lot of your commentary leading up to 2016.
19
A small north Atlantic island with a king who heads a government and runs its church, is politically unstable and possesses weapons of mass destruction. The inability to manage currency nor inflation, coupled with a history of warmongering - has raised concerns from Harare to Quito. First Iraq, now this. After Falkland, should Canary Islands worry?
Given the long and deep history of wars, brutality, slave trading, predatory lending, concentration camps, Victorian hospitals, warm beer, pebbly beaches, and looting of other nations' assets (Elgin marbles, Star of Africa, Kohinoor) - the concerns and worry seem justified.
Not much comfort is derived from a Scotland wanting to secede, and Northern Ireland and Wales wanting independent status. The curious vote to exit a common market and stop free movement of people is portentous. Not of good things.
The nation is at rock bottom. Literally. Massive failure to innovate since Led Zepplin, Pink Floyd, or the Beatles. Monty Python: gone. Monarch worship: all time high.
Serious devotion of thought to sanctioning the nation and to forcible removal of nuclear arsenal - seem neessary. All across sub-Saharan Africa, people are asking: How is a nation, run by a king, filled with soccer hooligans, live nukes, a rusting navy, and a market where Chicken tikka outsells fish and chips - to be trusted? Bloody natives. It is just up to the rest of us, and show them how it is done.
62
Shameless. Tokeepquoting Winston Churchill who was only interested in preserving his country'sself-interest and by extension, that of his own.He went to any lengths to do the same.
As for Rishi Sunak, he didnt stab Bojo in the back. The scandals were not somebody else's fault.
As for Rishi Sunak's wife, she did not pay UK tax on her considerable foreign income, but paid UK tax on UK income. She is understood to have paid Indian taxes on the same (0.93% shares in Infosys,founded by her millionaire father), as she is an Indian citizen (India does not allow dualcitizenship). It is not a good look but it is not a simple case of tax evasion.
24
Boris returning would be an outrage — he is still under investigation for his Covid transgressions, and for those who criticise Sunak and others for resigning in July and precipitating Johnson’s resignation, might Sunak et al have simply said enough is enough when Chris Pincher’s (haha) habitual sexual harassment, and Boris’s knowledge of it, came to light? Boris Johnson has vast charm but, it seems, a mighty faulty moral compass.
Thank you for including the Dudderidge WhatsApp message, which is nauseating but perfectly encapsulates the Conservatives’ clubby assumption that they’re entitled to whatever, regardless.
24
If these latest developments kill English humor, we're all in big trouble. If not, let's have a few laughs at the expense of stuffed shirts everywhere. Clearly, the financial district and the Murdochs will have their multiple opportunities to express the baronial sides of the fantasy, but i can tell you going in that the Queen's funeral was good television. The latest episodes of, "Cover This Up Before Tea" ?? Not so hot.
14
This piece is hinting that Winston Churchill was a “good guy”. How about exposing the true morally reprehensible Churchill who let 4.3 million people die, and showed no remorse when confronted with the fact?Instead he asked “is Gandhi dead yet?” Yeah that Churchill.
26
Seems as if the fingers are all pointing at the people in office, but how did they get there? Turn around and look at yourselves those of you that voted for Brexit, and then put these wonderful people in place to run the country, just like you wanted them to do. You asked for it, you broke it, you own it.
56
I don’t agree wit be the parallels between BoJo and DJT. Boris had some parties while Trump held rallies that killed people - Hermann Kane and others. Boris may silly, but he’s not evil like the Donald
39
Boris' Brexit bashed the British economy and its standing in the world. The thought of bringing back Boris is balderdash.
25
Why would anyone what Johnson back? Don't most Brits realize Brexit was and is a horrible idea?
36
The Truss debacle is entertaining. Next Sunday what happens in Brazil if Bolsonaro (a Trump on steroids) loses and starts a civil war should scare every democracy-loving person on the planet… because it could easily happen here.
22
Conservatives around the world don't care if they burn it all down as long as they can preside over the ashes while accumulating power and riches. Although I do have to admit that the Brits are not quite as criminally corrupt as the MAGA GQP in the US.
39
"British conservatives are becoming as shameless as American conservatives, willing to put up with any outrage to keep their posh offices and perks."
In British and American conservative politics, it really comes down to GREED, the intense and selfish desire for wealth and power.
41
Sounds like the Brits are learning a lot from the Colonists on this side of the Pond. How sad.
16
“She didn’t understand that you couldn’t simply borrow money from the future.”
Well said. Alas we here in America have been doing just that for the last 30 years ! ( Both Democratic and Republican administrations bear responsibility, I might add) $33 trillion at last count!!!!
11
The Duddridge quote is priceless. Dudders, indeed.
5
Underlying a lot of the grubby power-grabbing behavior, here and in other countries, is the assumption that the political system is robust enough to accommodate it. The Idea is that you can engage in all this selfish, destructive extremism, while the 'grown-ups' take care of the real job running the country.
We've run out of grown-ups. The responsible people who tolerate noisy self-absorbed show ponies while being actually dedicated to the greater good have been decimated. This nonsense is the result.
23
Why hasn't the word "conservative" transmogrified into a curse word like "liberal"?
We need some new nomenclature.
DJT was about as conservative as a 400 pound hog digging into a slop trough. Not.
The goal of conservatives these days is to preserve, protect and extend the status of the wealthy and the mega-rich and to hornswoggle the working class. It is working.
They criticized an activist Supreme Court, now they cheer an activist Supreme Court.
They attack immigration that occurs through various means, all the while employing "illegals" in their businesses, on their farms and accepting kind treatment from immigrant doctors/nurses.
They promised balanced budgets and restraint on "reckless spending" and supported DJT adding trillions to the national debt.
They looked the other way while police officers were brutally attacked at the Capitol Building on Jan. 6, 2021. This is the part of law and order?
They said America should act honorably in overseas involvements (wars) and then let DJT set up a pre-programmed, pellmell defeat run from Afghanistan.
They watched from the sidelines while American manufacturing and other businesses escaped these shores for China and Asia generally and did or said next to nothing.
Somebody, somewhere, find me a conservative. A harder task than Diogenes' search for an honest man.
As another commenter posted, there are no conservative ways to deal with actual problems, only ways to create more complaints about the success of our nation.
49
Well Mo, you put all my thoughts into words. Now if only our own “conservative” party (read radical right wing extremist party) would suffer the same fate. I hope the Tories go down in flames when they decide to have a real election.
18
Once it was said that the sun never set on the British Empire. Today, the deeply diminished “ little England “ of Boris and Brexit finds itself a laughing stock as it heads into a chilly dark winter. Not only has it lost its beloved Queen, but like our own deluded Republican Party, it has completely lost its way as it sinks deeper into a madness of its own making.
20
I heard that Boris was booed on his flight back from the
Caribbean. Let's hope that's a sign.
18
The last sentence sounds familiar.
1
Maureen, your crack that British conservatives are as “shameless” as American conservatives is misplaced. British conservatives are the party in power. The party of American conservatives has not had power in Congress since 2019, and the Executive since 2021. In the face of the voters seemingly about to reinstall the Republicans in Congress, it is the liberals that are running away from their record of the last two years. Their denial of their record, and their distancing from Mr. Biden, smacks of a “shameless” bid to retain their “offices and perks.”
5
I bet the Brits yearn for the years of stability that Mutti, Frau Merkel, provided them. Brexit isn't all that it was made out to be.
10
"‘I’m flying back, Dudders, we are going to do this. I’m up for it.’”
How can anybody take seriously a country that elects leaders who talk like P.G. Wodehouse characters? It's too bad the Welsh, Scots and Northern Irish are also being dragged down by this farce.
20
..."Mr. Oborne asserted that “today’s Conservatives, by contrast, cling to power for power’s sake,” and that “their obstinacy is ensuring the ruination of Britain.”... Equally true of today's American conservatives [or whatever we should refer to them as].
10
“Power for power’s sake.” Isn’t that what Great Britain has been about for centuries? Isn’t it what the British Empire was all about? Isn’t it what Brexit was all about? Isn’t it what sovereignty is all about and what empire is all about and what states and statespersonship are all about, always? Isn’t it what monopoly and duopoly (e.g., any basically 2-party system) are all about? Isn’t it what American elections are all about? Isn’t it what even local school board elections are all about? Isn’t it what America more broadly is all about?
Yes, there’s always talk of a higher, or at least better-sounding, purpose, like national security (financial and military), but doesn’t it always boil down to this: Those with power want to keep it, rather than have to share it (and actually have to cooperate) with somebody else who has it, too, simply because. . . having to share it exercises muscles we prefer to let atrophy. I.e., egos and laziness rule, with us humans.
Am I being too cynical?
What seems worse than our specie’s age-old lust and greed for power (for power’s sake) is an entire human society that effectively OKs lying. When that’s where you live, you’re totally, irretrievably sunk.
That anybody is willing to say either Johnson’s or Trump’s name as a possible head of some or other moderately powerful nation state is terrifying! Such language should be—no, is—an unmistakable sign of insanity.
20
“He said, ‘I’m flying back, Dudders, we are going to do this. I’m up for it.’”
Clearly Johnson has never really left “the playing fields of Eton.” This is a game of hubris for him and nothing more, and if he returns to Downing Street it will be ordinary Britons who pay the price and not the millionaire Tory members and donors. This is all about him (sound familiar?) and nothing about the welfare of the beleaguered country.
22
Hard to feel sorry for a country that sees Boris as its best option.
17
One assumes that rule of law will take care of greed for perpetual power in a democracy.
But BoJo and DoJo Trump can never be entrusted with the exercise of power as they are corrupt populists who are remorseless in their abuse of power.
24
One very big difference is that the Conservatives are a surprisingly broad church, mainly centre-right, hi-jacked by ideological far right economics. Also surprisingly diverse with their MPs even if the membership is predominantly wealthy, white and old(er).
A slim majority of the party are fiscally conservative (small ‘c’) while socially liberal-ish.
When asked about his religious beliefs on the hustings, former PM, David Cameron replied that was nobody’s business but his…
Here in Aotearoa we have ‘conscience’ votes, without the whip. Acts like Homosexual Law Reform, Gay Marriage, Euthanasia and the ban on conversion 'therapy’ passed with cross-party support and solid majorities across the spectrum.
14
The UK will muddle through.....somehow. Always does.
Still has some of the smartest people on the planet - politicians excluded.
And remember Europe is in a bit of a shambles itself.
In Australia we've had 8 Prime Ministers since 2007 - 4 conservative, 4 Labor - while the one that lost in an election in 2007 - not stabbed in the back - had been in power for 11 years.
Democracy - it's not pretty. With 24/7 news and social media its downright ugly.
10
Was the Truss affair was a bad thing? The fact that a leader proposed cutting taxes on the wealthy as a solution (to anything) and was shot down in 44 days seems like a good thing. Our Republicans love the idea of doing nothing except cutting their donor's taxes, and we can't get rid of them in 44 days or even 44 years.
15
The United Kingdom consists of England, Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland. It seems to me that we should look toward strength and competence. At the moment strength is in Scotland. Prime Minister Truss isn't up to the task.Scotish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is doing a fine job.
Replace a Truss with a sturgeon!!
Seems simple enough to me.
10
I always suspect that the totalitarian nations of the world are gleefully manipulating our free and open processes to destroy the morale and devotion to competent leadership in free Western democracies... by paying extremists in our own countries to pursue their extremism.
10
Whether it's Xi and the Communists in China, BoJo and the Tories in the UK, Putin and United Russia in Russia or Trump and his MAGA election deniers in the US, the 21st Century world seems like it's completely rejected morality or any other virtuous character traits. Instead, morality and other virtues have all been replaced by selfishness, hypocrisy, malicious lies, cruelty, greed, lust for power and shamelessness.
19
Interesting that as Churchill was altruistically stepping down, Ayn Rand was selfishly penning "greed is good." Now, nearly 70 years hence, Churchill is quoted and Rand is followed - what a puerile little mess CINO's (conservatives in name only) are making of political stability.
11
No, Ms. Dowd, You can borrow money from the future provided you have a future. We do it all the time.
Britain can't now and will never again be economically strong having committed the mass financial suicide pact called Brexit.
11
How the UK and US are different: UK, bad leader resigns. US, bad leader refuses to leave the stage. Maybe there's hope for not-so-Merry Old England yet....
10
It’s what Putin wanted—a weakened Britain in turmoil.
18
Trump started with Reagan.
And Boris Johnson started with Thatcher.
18
If Boris returns, he will not be dealing with the status quo as he left it. He faces a depressed, dejected, and defeated electorate. Why would the voters trust him? He cannot flip a switch to heal the rifts within the country or his party. He, too, bears responsibility for this mess. Unlike Churchill, it is so obvious that Boris, not Britain, comes first. After one round of scandals, who doubts that there won’t be more? And, how crass can you be to put your country in jeopardy just so you can return to power? Et tu, Boris?
18
Probably a bit of schadenfreude from this side of the pond, given the disfunction of American politics in the last six years ( or more).
That being said, the GOP could use a few more daggers under the togas in their own right as far is I’m concerned.
15
"I'd happily reduce my salary by half, make sure my benefits are cut, end Medicare and Social Security for my aging parents, and pay a lot more for my kid's college education as long as inflation is low and rich people can get a big tax cut" said no middle class or working class American ever. But if you tell those same people that those are REPUBLICAN policies and they come with a nice dose of white supremacy and xenophobia with a side of religious fundamentalism, somehow all those middle class and working class white voters embrace that. "We absolutely love the Republican plan for fighting inflation" they say, when they abhor the plan but like the side benefits which the Democrats just refuse to give them.
38
The British people will have to make tough sacrifices, but not to worry. The politicians who got them into this mess will be just fine.
7
Great Britain will never get over losing its empire. By the mid 1960s after WW2, almost all of it was gone, but the illusion and arrogance of British superiority is still strong.
Membership in the European Union was a way to soften the blow. Embracing the citizens of their former empire was another possibility, lost down the black hole of racism and the bitter self-destructive selfishness of its working class. Workers switching from Labour to Conservative and supporting Brexit are just part of a drowning nation’s futile attempt to resist going down the drain of history.
The arrogance and the refusal to face facts led to Truss and her downfall. More of the same to follow. I have almost lost hope that Britain can come to its senses.
7
The 'just when you thought we couldn't do any worse than Boris' chorus kicked in, making his successor look much worse by comparison, we have much to be thankful for here at home.
That same thing could have happened to us, and many think it did, but Biden turns out to be a good president, and with the swift movement of events these days (the world economy; the environment; Russia and China more dangerous than ever; new germs a-comin' this winter, etc), he may possibly turn out better than good, while Truss, sadly if comically, will be lettuce forever.
17
This is not about men vs. women in leadership roles; this about competence vs incompetence. And the conservatives have taken the "Great" out of Britain beginning with the fiasco of "Brexit" and have been going downhill ever since. Seems to me those who wanted to turn their back on the E.U. were living (much like conservatives in the U.S.) in a complete fantasyland of a past where how GREAT it was when the U.K. stood alone in creating it`s vaunted Victorian Empire. A nostalgic yearning for a return to past glory and power long gone. What they have now is a series of clowns long on hyperbole; and pathetically short on either reality or solutions/ answers to real world problems. IF they really cared about the British people; they would call an immediate election and be done with it. But that won`t. happen!
13
Re Johnson’s come back, a snide aside:
It will save the costs of redecorating the PM living quarters since 44 days was not enough time to launch a redo.
5
Liz Truss's failure lay in her extreme far right policies. Tax cuts for corporations which could have only poured gasoline into the raging 10 percent inflation that was stoked by Putin's war and burned a gaping hole in Britain's budget. The markets were terrified and panicked. She and her advisors were reckless rookies, like bulls charging into a china shop. Their ideology, like the extreme far right party's voodoo economics, is a totally failed policy and it has been proven time and again. Reagan slashed taxes for corporations and billionaires,and inflation soared. He created a huge hole tax revenues that had to be plugged by reversing his tax cuts. Paul Volcker saved the extreme party and their backsides, by raising rates to an unprecedentedly high level to crush inflation. It caused a severe recession and that was unavoidable but the economy recovered. Then GHWBush's inaction caused another recession in 1990. Dubya cut taxes and the dot com crash caused another recession.He did nothing and the recession lasted for 3 years. But soon after his policies crashed the economy causing the great depression of 2008. Obama mended the economy. It took a few years, then Trump added 2T to the deficit and crashed the economy again in 2020. This time 20 million jobs were lost. A quick response from the democrats in congress stopped the backslide. Biden's 2T stimulus added back 12 million jobs very quickly, restoring the economy. It is a pattern of the ultra far right tanking the economy.
22
But what does it mean? Gender whatever, Truss put forth an agenda that led to her demise, and the possible re-emergence of Boris Johnson, which was his plan all along as supposed by Dowd. I can see it, but it will end in tears, if it happens, and a Labor government regardless.
3
The best characterization of Truss came from a British commenter who said that when she finally got power, she barged ahead with proclaiming her tax cuts would solve all problems because "her copy of 'Atlas Shrugged' said so."
In that, she resembles American Republicans to a T. Many have read little beyond Ayn Rand. Look at Trump's needless tax cuts that added $7 trillion to the debt and produced no discernable growth. (Trump flapped his gums a lot about his great growth, but objectively it was not much, especially not in jobs .)
15
The Tories have to paraphrase the great 17th century statesman Oliver Cromwell, 'been here too long for any good they may have ever done and by the grace of God they need to go'. Having said that, the opposition Labor party while perhaps the lesser of two evils, has not completely purged the antisemitism of its Corbyn wing from its within its body politic. One hopes that its current bevy of heretofore lackluster center left leaders will show the courage to finish that task.
3
Elections should take place as soon as possible. The Tories have failed to bring economic stability, Labor may well succeed using moderately socialistst methods. The UK must re-enter the EC, If not, Scotland and Northern Ireland vou;d well ;eave the UK.
the TrusMd Ytudy vould not relate tp the population snf demonstrated a poor understanding of economics.
The new king put it best when Liz Truss met with him a second time in a few weeks when the bond market went haywire: "Back already? Oh dear, oh dear!"
7
The parallel here?
The GOP and trump of course.
trump flamed out after one term…a term too long, and his ‘party’ - the conservative and naive party, struggles to maintain the people’s mandates in stiff headwinds.
And the party continues to nominate criminals for public office: trump, Nixon, Agnew.
And they continue to dissemble individual rights and liberties - women’s reproductive rights seems to be the top motivator this cycle.
Remember, you get what you vote for…one hopes.
8
Unfortunately republican voters don’t vote for improvement and better lives. They vote against the other side never realizing the ‘other side’ is usually is fighting for them to have life improvements and better lives.
9
Boris Johnson and his supporters are often compared to Donald Trump and his supporters, but there’s a crucial difference in one quarter.
We hear from time to time that Trump’s supporters are “in on the joke” and are thus backing him for their own purposes without illusions. No doubt Johnson’s supporters are in on the joke. Johnson himself clearly is. However, Trump inhabits the joke without being entirely in on it. That’s uniquely disturbing.
13
Jeesh! Brits' attention span is as short as that of us here across the pond!
Don't they remember how bad things were under Johnson, and his predecessor, and the one before that?
The problem is not the person the conservatives choose to lead them. As in the United States, the problem is conservative political philosophy itself.
Why haven't voters on either side of the Atlantis figured this out? It's so OBVIOUS!
8
There's a US precedent for Boris' choice of successor. GHWB, being investigated for Iran-Contra, surprised many with his choice of Quayle for VP. Made sense if Quayle served as a poison pill.
4
Each of the last 6 extreme far right party presidents and their party have caused a deep recession. Trump's in 2020 was the worst and he was the most incompetent in history. If McConnell and McCarthy take over in November a big recession is guaranteed in 2023.The will blackmail the democrats and default on government debt this time to cause the recession.
5
I’m old enough to remember that marvelous call to public service by John F. Kennedy at his inaugural, “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.” British Conservatives like Republicans here have turned that inside out in a blatant endorsement of self-serving greed and lust for power. Liz Truss revealed just how bankrupt that policy is as the financial markets trashed her incompetent attempt to bankrupt the nation. To embrace the return of BoJo there and The Don here would only result in an economic calamity like the Great Recession or worse. Voters may be unhappy with the global inflation, but to embrace these kleptocrats is an illusion that hides disaster.
8
She became PM because approx 82,000 conservative party members chose her. The runner up (Sunak) got approx 60K votes. The UK had 47 million electoral registrations as of March 2020.
Truss wasn’t able to carry out a “mandate” because she didn’t have one - except from 82K people. What hubris on the part of Truss, her enablers and supporters - to think they could impose their extreme ideas on an electorate of 47 million people who did not vote for them.
6
“She didn’t understand that you couldn’t simply borrow money from the future.”
The conservatives shut Liz Truss down because the markets freaked out and the conservatives saw the liberals salivating over a chance at a general election. The voters would have made the conservatives pay a price at the ballot box.
The investor class in the US knows exactly what it is doing to preserve itself the same way the investor class showed the UK who is boss.
But the voters in the UK aren’t manipulated by their media and markets whereas in the US the media and the markets control the thoughts of the voters.
4
Conservative mind set in America an Britain is just greedy people wanting it all money. Pay no taxes and let the working poor and poor fight the wars they start. Also the conservatives have a violent side as we saw in 4 years of Donald Madoff Trumps angry and daily filled chaotic state .
4
"Conservative" is entirely the wrong word for devotees of a political philosophy so intent on destroying so many things.
12
Wow.
Just a couple word changes in the final paragraph and you have an apt description of what's happening on OUR side of the pond.
Today's GOP not only clings to power for power's sake, they' re willing to do anything (literally) to make it happen.
Certainly 'Great' Britain is as anachronistic as they come. In fashion the saying is, "so last season."
The Brits are so last century.
They still have a 'royal' family (ugh) to whom they are more than willing to scrape, kneel and bow down to any chance they get.
The barristers continue the habit of wearing silly wigs as though they're auditioning for the latest Monty Python film.
And somehow, in the year 2022, the English still consider the ghastly concoction known as kidney pie to be a highlight of menus nationwide.
I'm tempted to make a snarky comment in regards to the UK's seeming obliviousness to the concept of modern dentistry . . .
. . . but perhaps that would be a bridge too far.
1
What a contrast the UK political system is to so many countries. It works. A politician messes up and she resigns. The bums are kicked out. The Tories will now select a candidate who they think is better. And then the Government will be asked to call for a new general election. And, no issues with wild claims of invalid elections or voting fraud. No absurd 2-3 years of a campaign to choose a Prime Minister, nor hundreds of millions of pounds spent on the election. Money that could instead be spent on fixing things and helping people.
8
Is this the best that Britain's Tories can do, recycling a certifiably mendacious scofflaw who was booted out of office in utterly vilified disgrace less than one year ago?
Applying the word "serious" in regard to the prospect of Boris Johnson's return to the premiership of Great Britain is to raise the definition of "oxymoron" to new heights of absurdity.
What Britain desperately needs now is a general election to rid itself of the ongoing 12-year circus of conservative misrule, arguably the most damaging regnum of British history.
Meanwhile, here in the Home of the Brave.... (At least Boris was never impeached, not even twice, but perhaps you could call his ignominious dismissal the British equivalent of impeachment.)
Whatever, the Anglo world on both sides of the Atlantic looks like a bad late-night comedy routine.
9
So in other words conservatives are not much different in the UK than they are in the US.
6
It's a wild ride from here.
As long as disgruntled Americans and Brits bolster and allow this egregious behavior it will continue.
Just a side note, they do not care what happens to us whether we support them or not.
Civility has died with privacy.
6
Those who backed trump in America and brexit in England did so because they are afraid of the future.
5
Nixon took office in 1968 and the economy started going downhill. It peaked in 1970 after the great work JFK and LBJ did. By 1973, the oil embargo had triggered a recession. Nixon resigned and Gerald Ford made it worse. One of Nixon's disastrous policy decisions, which ended dollar convertibility to gold ignited galloping inflation that would last 10 years.Ford was incompetent and it got worse. Then Ronald Reagan and the extreme far right took the wrecking ball to DC. Inflation soared to 19 percent because of their disastrous policies. They caused a massive budget deficit with their huge tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. The rich rapidly got richer and the poor much poorer in no time(Dizzy Lizzy just repeated that act in Britain). GHW Bush painted blacks as criminals(willy horton ads) and was elected by who else, the extreme far right, who scapegoated blacks. The economy tanked in 1990. Dubya stole the Florida election in 2000(vote suppression). The economy crashed soon after when Enron and the dot coms disappeared overnight. His bank deregulation and housing stimulus caused a bank and housing crash in 2008, and a deep recession that lasted several years.His tax cuts caused a huge deficit like Reagan's. Trump dug the deficit deeper into the hole by 2 T, with his 2017 for the ultrawealthy. The poor got poorer and poorer and poorer under the last 6 extreme far right party presidents,and the rich own 80 pct of the economy. They will crash the economy again in 2023.
7
The great British constitutional authority, Walter Bagehot, wrote that an effective parliamentary system needs a strong opposition. A comically incompetent and unready Labour party gave the Tories easy victories which made them lazy and corrupt, until they are now collapsing under their own weight.
4
This is all very depressing. I feel like the Trumps of the world have won.
5
If the economy hits another crisis as it did in 2020, mcconnell and mccarthy have no clue how to deal with it. The crazies in their party opposed bailing out wall street banks and auto companies in 2008.If they had their way they would have considerably worsened the financial crisis. They are a much crazier lot now than in 2008, if that can even be imagined.
2
This time the Britons are singing "I'll never fall in love again" to Boris Johnson: "But now you've treated me so wrong, I can't take anymore". And Winston Churchill should be gyrating in his grave. Wonderful column!
1
There's not much one can add to this saga of the English conservative party, except to reiterate that they are holding onto to power in English governance, for no other reason than it gives them unfettered access to the wealth of the realm, and to hold onto that they will engage in all manner of chicanery, shame shameless creatures, each and every one of them.
And here in America, our corrupt to the core Republican party is exactly the same.
My fervent hope is that there is something in existence which sets things right, something that needs life and living to be decent and reasonable, and consequently will sooner than later send these abominations into the wilderness, never ever to return.
I used to think that the kind of evil reposing in these creatures (I was going to say, "in their hearts and souls, but they don't have any), could somehow or other be excised, but I know now this is just wishful thinking, so we must help them on their road to nowhere.
4
Comical. Britain has messed up so many other countries. No wonder they self destruct. She wasn’t the most competent-but why was she elected by hat supporters? It is the US Republican Party surrogate in the UK, without the structural advantage. Both are guided by desire for power, not competence!!
5
Johnson haunts the Tories and Trump haunts the Republicans. The members of these parties are like the teenagers in a horror movie: everybody knows they are making bad choices and will meet a bad end, except them.
5
From your writing;
"She turned out to be a stooge for a reckless, unprincipled Boris Johnson, who was no doubt scheming to see if he could snatch back the reins.".
No Maureen. It's too simple an explanation. I'm still back thinking about how Queen Elizabeth died soon after meeting Truss.
I have a very pragmatic distanced view of the British troubles. Right now with world events precarious, I would personally support bringing back Johnson for two reasons; First, he knows what has been happening to assure an effective defense of Britain without a newby failing at a tough time. Second, the next leading candidate is Sunak who came from Stanford where the Bush evil empire torture enabler John Yoo is, of all things, teaching.
Sure Johnson is given to revelry, an insult to stuffed shirt Conservative robots, and that's a plus as having a sense of living life robustly will give him pause not to become a warmonger getting Britain in deep.
1
And not a word about the third candidate, who almost got into the final last time.
Penny Mordaunt is by far the most competent among Truss, Sunak and Johnson. I know that's not saying much.
She has a chance right now.
Dan Kravitz
People may laugh at Liz Truss but the demise of the UK has begun at the earnest at BREXIT. For that, you have Nigel Farage and Putin to thank. It is hard to say if there was any Royals' and Murdoch's, separately, meddling back then. But those speculations are not without merits. Some Royals probably are isolationists. Murdoch is a chaos merchant. So, it matters not the UK looks pathetic in the hands of the Tories - why, while Ms Dowd may want to paint the scene with the it's-the-Conservative-Party's-fault, the Labour Party was far worse. So, the Tories can go back to Boris or give Rishi a try, even a Margaret Thatcher may not save England this time around
Brexit was a big mistake, and there is not a politician breathing air in the UK who will stand up and say so.They need to go hat in hand to Brussels and ask to be readmitted.
5
There is no failed policy that today's Conservatives will not attempt to double down on; Canada's new Conservative Party leader is pushing the same ideas that brought down Truss. And your own Republican Party is flirting with it too.
5
Liz Truss good riddance(brexit too), but everywhere we turn, people on the right's pathway to power is seeking uninformed grievance filled voters-victims to funnel their frustrations into. Of course the most important agenda is still the very rich, to ensure low taxes, no regulation in anything (internet or environment) and stack the courts with judges who will do their bidding.
And so many Americans buy it. Where is Michael Moore who three weeks ago said the Dems would win the house and the Senate back? Quiet for now.
This is why conservatives avoid saying specifically how they will solve objective problems such as gas prices, etc. It is much easier to criticize. And it is even easier to appeal to the low IQ end of the populace with juvenile culture war rhetoric. Thus, they do.
When they actually do implement their "ideas", such as Brexit or what Truss did, it has resulted in economic disaster time and time again. [Also, see the economic mayhem left by Bush and Trump.] Deficits soar when conservatives take power, for example, despite their claiming to be "deficit hawks." Yeah, right.
Specifically: Does any GOP candidate actually say exactly how he would lower global gas prices? The last GOP president, Trump, continually complained that the Fed was not printing money nearly fast enough and continually threatened to remove to the Fed chairman on that basis. But now global inflation is the fault of Beto O'Rourke it seems.
The real problem here is the US has a "low quality" population compared to most Western countries. That low quality demographic is regionally situated where they have disproportionate voting power under the stupid US electoral system.
I don't see myself living in the US three years from now (thank God).
4
So Republicans, being of "Toried" persuasion believe in themselves as Kings and Queens, both kinds.
Everyone should be carefully studying the Corporate Television influence on the election. Unfortunately, it can only be conducted after the election but by then we will likely be ruled by Kings and Queens. Cherish the thought of escaping that rabbit hole.
If ever that wonderful British expression: “ Too clever by half” was appropriate. It certainly was for the 44- day Prime Minister Liz Truss.
I'd like to see Boris Johnson come back into power simply because be was the most articulate voice, speaking for the West against Putin and his disgraceful war against the Ukraine and its people.
2
Conservative politicians from both sides of the Atlantic have embraced hypocrisy as a virtue for self preservation. The UK and the USA deserve better leadership.
4
On a positive note, Truss and her party deserve some credit for so quickly removing someone who is so obviously unfit for the office. If only Americans, Republicans, and Trump had the same sense of duty to country.
3
I recall a definition of conservatism as a philosophical framework whose purpose at the core is to cast selfishness as a virtue. It’s a natural fit for partnering with Libertarianism, which boils down to anarchy for rich people.
Rule of law? Forgeddaboudit.
Frank Wilhoit: “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition …There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.” This seems increasingly true.
115
A sad tale all around. I was in a meeting last night. I was explaining (unsuccessfully) the concept of "binary opposition."
I should have said what you did: Liz squared.
Bravo.
19
From over here, it seems the main political problem in UK is that the Labour Party can't get beyond the post-war agenda that the rest of UK left behind decades ago. Consequently, there's no viable alternative to the Tories, no matter how badly they wreck the country.
10
@Frank O. That is the narrative of the right wing press in the UK but it is not reality.
2
@Frank O you haven’t grasped the fact that the Tories are choosing their next leader in the context of damage limitation. It’s not a matter of whether they will get trounced by Labour at the next election but just how badly trounced.
1
My favorite description of this is that Truss lasted for four Scaramuccis.
56
She said her vision was to cut taxes for the rich and thereby create immense economic growth. Right. Where have we heard that before...
And yet overall spending stays roughly the same.
Same old line whether from a British conservative or a GOP toad.
She spooked financial markets, crashed the pound and sent mortgage rates soaring. All while inflation and energy prices go through the roof.
For some unknown reason bond markets balked at the debt-funded tax cuts she put forward.
The people and the financial markets had no trust in her. She died in 6 weeks. Another conservative toad goes under.
In the US, lies and ignorance keep our toads functioning. We'll die too if voters don't regain some sanity and vote blue. Who knows....
110
Basic needs have changed in most of the world, especially in modern, western societies.
“Food, shelter, and clothing” is no longer an adequate model. There are variations, which include “food and water,” healthcare has been added to some formulations. Healthcare and education to others.
My point in mentioning this is to highlight the grossly erroneous policies of Britain's Tories. Was commonsense the real Brutus to the Tory’s latest Tzar?
13
Maureen shows a great deal of insight when she observes the tendencies of Britain's Conservative Party to cling to power for its own sake and implies that they may be sowing the seeds of their own irelevance. This is precisely what had led to the effective downfall of America's Republican Party. The GOP's paranoic preoccupation with preserving its power base has brought it to the precipice of self destruction. Just as Britain appeared to follow America's example of putting Donald Trump in power by placing Boris Johnson in power, its Conservative party is following its American Republican lemmings into the abyss by placing their party over their country.
72
@ Peter, Dowd is merely relating what others have said. It’s Peter Oborne, the British journalist who is showing great insight, something in my opinion generally beyond Maureen’s reach.
1
The Tories shot themselves in the foot.
If Margaret Thatcher had had to advance her agenda outside the EU like Truss, she might not have had the ability to implement trickle-down policy either.
By giving up being part of the gigantic economic mansion that is the EU - bigger than the US and bigger than China - the UK gave up their backstop.
Now, instead, they reside as a middle power. Independent to be sure, which does have some benefits. But ultimately, the markets are gonna treat you differently.
In some ways it is good for labour.
32
The United Kingdom consists of England, Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland. It seems to me that we should look toward strength and competence. At the moment strength is in Scotland. Prime Minister Truss isn't up to the task. Scottish First Minister Sturgeon is doing a fine job.
Replace a Truss with a Sturgeon!!
Seems simple enough to me.
25
@Steve K sturgeon is only doing a fine job campaigning for Scottish Independence. She is doing a very poor job at governing Scotland which is propped up, grossly disproportionately, by English taxpayers as a result of an outdated formula from the 70s. The irony of this is that should Sturgeon get her way, her party will be the sacrificial lamb.
I have a musing to share. I was just thinking about how our nation's television industry showed so much of the Vietnam war that it helped end it. Right or wrong, I just had a vision of Dan Rather poised in a Helicopter whirlwind swept field crouched a bit talking strongly into a microphone. During the Vietnam war the Television reports every day as I recall, a dozen killed and maybe fifty wouded. That and my Catholic soul made me a Conscientious Objector, to this day, even as uniforms seek to enrage me for decades as the wizard did behind the curtain. That news coverage every evening helped end the war. In wars since, casualty reports were sparse, and not as candid as earlier. Now Television seeks to start a war. How did our nation allow that? Do you know what that means? Our nation is imperiled.
20
General "Westmoreland" fought that war. Now there are American factories in Vietnam.
President Johnson famously watched three televisions in the Oval office at the same time with the three networks on them. He escalated the war, I presume under threats. He did succeed John Kennedy.
5
@PATRICK
Right. Obviously the war fought over competing economic systems (did you think it was about anything else?) was won by our guys after all.
1
Supply side economics is a theory from the same economist that designed the euro currency. He is well respected, having earned a Nobel Prize for his monetary theories. Cutting taxes stimulates an economy, which is not what we want right now. The economies are overstimulated, causing prices to go up. Truss was removed from office for her obvious lack of understanding of supply side economics.
Brexit was a brutal rebuttal of far left extremism in the EU. Elections have since reduced the threat, as the EU made a dramatic shift to the center and the right to avoid the destruction of their democracies. The increasing number of far right democracies in the EU is causing infighting between UK conservatives who feel left out from a growing fascist empire.
4
@M Ford
Unless I hallucinated the last 40 years, supply-side economics in America has been a total failure in achieving anything other than making the rich richer, and everyone else poorer.
113
@M Ford
The percentage of prominent economists--left or right--who support the "Laffer Curve" is basically zero.
For example, see the IGM Forum maintained by the University of Chicago that polls top economists on their views on various topics, including the Laffer Curve idea.
16
That duty to country has left the buildings, both in Britain’s parliament and in our congress is the important theme of this op Ed piece. Thanks Maureen, it’s important to point this out. If conservatives thought that their abandonment of values was unworthy and potentially embarrassing, they’d behave better. Cold comfort in a time of global warming and icy creeping fascism.
39
I keep waiting for a NYT columnist to point out that England is more of a direct democracy than the U.S. is, and look how effective their system is...at causing chaos.
With our checks and balances, it is much more difficult to achieve major changes in short periods of time. But let's imagine how much more damage Trump and his cronies could have done if we had a system like the English one without pesky things like filibusters and 2/3 majority votes for important decisions.
While I agree that the Electoral College is frustrating, it is part of the package we know as "the Constitution" that has served our country incredibly well for over 200 years now. Not that's there's anything we can do to change it at this point anyway.
8
@Paul I would argue that the Electoral College has not served its purpose – since its purpose was to prevent a charlatan (my word) from winning the Presidency. The writers of the Constitution did not totally trust the “will of the people,” who they feared could be swayed by a smooth talker who might not be truly in the best interests of the country. The Electoral College was a way to, in such an extreme situation, override the popular vote. At that time, the Electors were free to vote any way they wanted, an ability since eliminated by laws in each state. The writers were very “state” focused, and this feature maintained some level of power to the states even in a national election.
In 2020, Trump tried every conceivable angle to exploit this oddity of the U.S. Constitution, and almost pulled it off (state laws now prevent such Electoral College independence.) Seems to me that the Electoral College was in fact designed with a charlatan like Trump in mind.
Having failed in its purpose, and with the shift to "one person, one vote," The Electoral College should probably be removed from the Constitution.
Not likely, though. Small states are convinced that it gives them some power. But that's not true. They get their power in the Senate.
24
@Paul
Not sure how the U.S. is much less chaotic than the U.K. at this point, and it will get worse if McCarthy, McConnell and company gain control in November. Our current system is great if minority rule is your thing.
12
@Paul
Actually the electoral college isn't in the US constitution.
it is convention, but not because of your Constitution.
An hallucinatory vision: “Singapore on the Thames”.
Dwindling empire seeks to replicate former colony’s success after its 60 years of independence, a product of patriarchal familial government-led business environment in benevolent democracy of equals and near one party rule.
A logical inaccurate distraction from the road taken in a failed and still dishonest BreXit orchestrated by little England.
To quote one of their M.Ps : Britannia waives the rules. No longer. Global world, for better and worse.
The show continues.
18
Greed is taking down the UK and the USA largely thanks to conservatism, be it legislatively or judicially. Modern conservatism is nihilism. It’s also a highly distilled form of contempt for one’s fellow citizens. I’m not saying Bernie Sanders and co. have all the solutions but Liz Truss, Boris Johnson, Donald Trump, Kevin McCarthy, etc. have zip. Zero. Zilch. Nada.
149
@Randy Savage - especially Kevin McCarthy, a pure politician with no higher ethos than power at any cost. Cut from the same cloth as Mitch McConnell but without the depth.
7
Let me summarize what this subject has me focused on.
My first attention to Britain in past weeks was when Queen Elizabeth died after meeting Liz Truss, the new Prime Minister. It should be focused on. A lazy assumption would be that of foul play by Truss, but, looking further, she was deposed by the internationally allied media. You all always take your own TV for granted as you are addicted to it so it isn't obvious. But now after five years and five Prime Ministers, something looks wrong. As I wrote last hour, it appears someone doesn't want a knowledgable political leader for more than a year. But remember that as leaders come and go, the militaries and intelligence agencies of nations always know complete histories as well as all state's secrets. So if someone doesn't want British leaders to know what is happening beyond a year but the military and MI5 does, our allies, what does that mean? Now think about how this British political disturbance has essentially given power to their military and MI5 just before our own election troubles. Can we deduce anything from that? Maybe. As I wrote, there may be trouble after our election, even a hot Coup, and would Britain come to our aid if the situation called for help from our allies? It now appears they would not, by design having no extensive knowledge by a longer term leader. I'm convinced this British trouble coinciding with our election just weeks away is too coincidental to ignore. Be prepared and hope for peace.
6
@PATRICK
Truss definitely did it. Who could support a truss that failed to hold up any semblance of decency. She definitely did it.
1
Conservatives are not able to govern. Here and abroad they have the opportunity examine problems and come up with proposals to fix problems.
Apparently they refuse to do that or there are no conservative ways to fix problems.
I think it is the latter.
30
@David Bible Conservatives here and in Britain do not want to fix problems. They want power in order to enrich themselves.
2
Elections should take place as soon as possible. The Tories have failed to bring economic stability, Labor may well succeed using moderately socialistic methods. The UK must re-enter the EC, If not, Scotland and Northern Ireland could well leave the UK.
The Truss Ministry could not relate to the population and demonstrated a poor understanding of economic reality.
THIS IS THE BETTER COPY.
12
I expect to vote for a Democrat in 2024, just as I did in 2020. However, the perpetual drumbeat in the Times' comments for vote blue no matter who is not an ultimate solution. Both parties here are captured by their donors, and both we and Great Britain are oligarchies. We have a legalized system of bribery, in which the politicians, the activists who attach themselves to both parties (often trading on their political "service" to become lobbyists for corporations, or even foreign governments), as well as the international banking cartel and multinational corporations (those who have no loyalty to any country) are bleeding us more and more. Although voting in the next elections may save us from fascism in the short term, we're going to have to do much more in the long-term. I don't view this as cynical. If we're going to change things, we're going to have to start with being honest with ourselves and our fellow citizens. The one bright spot I saw in the news today (in contrast to more deaths by gun here), is that Canada passed a law outlawing the new sale of handguns. Thank you for that bright spot, Canada. I've run out of space, but for anyone who agrees we're going to have to do more than vote, I'd welcome their thoughts.
44
@N
Yes, we did pass a law outlawing sale of new handguns. And like most Canadians, I am very glad of it. But there is opposition from the right wing, surprise, surprise. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they reverse the law next time they come into power. Sadly, it seems conservatives are the same everywhere. Guns trump citizen safety, every time.
48
@N
I will vote for Tim Ryan for the U.S. Senate from OHIO,
I most assuredly will vote Democratic in 2024 just as I have since 1992 and in 1964 and 1976.
I do not think that Biden should run in 2024.
I hope his successor is competent and centerist. I am afraid that Kamila could well be another Ms. Truss.
Any socialist methods must be at best short term solutions. I say that when I look at Wall Street every day. All three indices are down most days
2
The British are traditional to a fault. Their form of parliamentary government does not function on the fly, it is not flexible nor easily persuaded to make adjustments. And often reforms are necessary in order to correct past transgressions. Boris Johnson, like Donald Trump, is totally out of his depth in any national leadership position. And the people of the United Kingdom had just better set an example for their allies here in "the colonies" as my British friends are fond of referring to the United States as. Both countries are headed nowhere at breakneck speed.
20
Could it be the bigger financial failure of Brexit which reduced supplies and thus raised inflation even higher than ours may have disturbed Wall street whose reach is international and Britain's loss of wealth may have resulted in media manipulation of British politics? Something is amiss if Britain has had a turnover of five Prime Ministers in five years as though someone doesn't want any one leader to know much.
9
That would leave only the British military and MI5, our military's ally, who would know the secrets of turmoil here and what it is leading up to.
To paraphrase one whole paragraph many Tories believe that Sunak (or any other Conservative) would be wiped out by Labour in two years.
Why wait? Call elections now and have a chance at a future with Labour leading as Great Britain. Get wiped out now. Great Britain is becoming less great every day. The fact that the UK without its colonies and common wealth is really just a small country is becoming evident.
Otherwise Scotland and Northern Ireland should leave.
27
Indeed they should leave. Sooner rather than later. Then we will just have Britain without the Great.
10
@Duffy you’re missing the point. They will never call an election before they have to (they can cling on to Jan 2025 if they wish) because they are putting their own interests ahead of the nation’s.
7
Oddly perhaps, but my respect for the Mother of Parliaments has only grown during the recent upheaval. Truss failed fast and resigned fast. Would that our own system of government were constituted to allow for a similarly quick pivot.
30
@George her dismissal had nothing to do with parliamentary process and everything to do with the internal machinations of the Tory party’s leadership selection process. This is what is so frustrating. 160,000 right wing extremist Tory party members can inflict a nutjob of a prime minister on the rest of us resulting in a new government that will rule without a mandate.
1
Tax cuts for the rich when middle income folks can't both heat and eat during the winter. Coming soon to a country near you. At least Brits don't have to worry about how to pay for their health care on top of everything else. "We're all in this together" said no Conservative ever.
54
@Lori
Tax cuts after tax cuts, all the way back to Reagan.
Seems to me that our income-to-debt ratio should be better than ever, what with all of the stimulus they supposedly bring.
Well, at least we have plenty of extremely well-off billionaires.
8
It takes time to decide something in democracy. But is it OK for the British to choose a stable top leader in such a complicated way? Political vacuum will be created again. Observing from Japan, the confusion of choosing British prime minister can bring about our disappointment at British politics which has long been the model of Japanese democracy.
4
Well, there you have it. More depressing headlines/stories. Another country that can't get its act together for the betterment of all. Just like us under trump.
40
@Jackson
True, if you lose 20 million jobs you will not have inflation.
12
@Jackson
Trump inherited a good economy, then in an “I can do anything you can do better” moment, he juiced it with tax cuts that cost the US trillions.
The cuts did not pay for themselves, but they certainly were popular, especially with the wealthy and corporations who now pay less tax than you or I, as a percentage of income.
This is a bit like whipping out all of your credit cards and charging them to the max—feeling flush is great, but sooner or later, the bills come due.
14
@Jackson Corporate profiteering by raising prices is responsible for our current inflation. No president can fix that.The Federal Reserve is trying to curb inflation by raising interest rates.
2
It was clear from the start (and even before) that Truss was out of her depth as PM. She never seemed sure-handed in the role. Maybe even scarier for Britain is that there's not much depth in the Tory bench either. Does not appear to bode well if Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson represent the UK's best way forward. Likely time for a general election. At least with Keir Starmer there would be competence.
15
Maureen. Timing is everything and people are creatures of time. New York is London. Money is the international nation. This British trouble comes just before our own election. Think bigger. What does it mean here? Is Britain a diversion? Don't roll your eyes, use your mind. What affect would all this British news have on our election? I will remind you Trump is delaying his legal troubles until after the election and is unusually confident. It's a reliable tell from him. Two weeks before the Capitol attack, I remarked to someone that I expected trouble at his Washington rally, and there was. Now I'm warning everyone the fix is in because all the political races are close. Something bigger is going to happen but I don't know what, only that all the signs are something big. The uniforms are getting closer to me here. I'm a bellwether.
29
@PATRICK Nah, more self serving pols fighting for a govt job prior to consulting for our enemies.
You see the elections in England, Sweden, and Italy. You see the protests in in France and Germany. And they all have it wrong. Isn't that something. Wanting to go against a centralized banking system and government both of which don't care about the little people.
But what is the EU. MBA's running all of Europe from Germany, excuse me, Brussels. It also seems the Empire meaning the US has created the same problem there as here. Wokeness has arrived and they the Empire is tearing us apart.
You see it at school board meetings, in elections and "insurrections". It might be undefinable in its weirdness with demands to believe there are 120 genders and eternal guilt. People world wide don't like what they see and have been left behind by this New World Order. Maybe if you want to rule the world they should start making sense.
10
@JoeG
“If Men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and the next place, oblige it to control itself.”
James Madison
It is easy to rail against government. The more appropriate and difficult task is to support a government that applies good governance.
29
@Rick
Where do you see good governance?
I'm supposed to support grooming of children and a war in Ukraine?
It’s interesting that Stephen Moore who was once on Trump’s economic advisory board and Stuart Varney touted what Truss had done about a month ago on Fox Business. The “cavalry was coming’ I.e., the Republicans to do exactly why Truss had done - cut taxes, regulations and public spending. Wonder if anyone has called them out for that??!!
28
The voters behind the conservative party in Britain wrecked the future of their own young people when they brexited out of the EU and denied them full access to the larger labour pool. Young people in the US were similarly abandoned when the voters behind the "gop" party started defunding the tertiary education system across all state governments.
The majority of young people in the US now struggle to pay for a good education and to find affordable housing. This is not a stable base from which you can raise a family, hence the now declining birthrate.
With the lack of affordable housing and affordable child care the birth rate can only continue to decline. Choosing to have a child in such an unstable environment is financially reckless. It is more prudent to get a pet.
Then it got even worse for the women who bear the workers who finance the US Social Security retirement system.
The final blow came when women were denied control over their own bodies by a Supreme Court that is no longer relevant.
That court died with RBG. Young women have even more incentive to leave.
63
So, Liz Truss wilted before the lettuce; I’m not surprised. Do not bring Boris Johnson back!
Thatcher was Great Britain’s Reagan; we here in the U.S. are still suffering from Reaganism forty-two years later, and Great Britain is still suffering from Thatcherism.
Britain needs a general election now (a labour government is possible), and America needs to expand our Democratic seats in the House, and pick up a few Senate seats, too.
58
@Cameron Williams Picking up Democrat seats in the Senate is a band-aid because of our antiquated Constitution. By 2040, it's estimated that 70 percent of the Senate will represent 20 percent of the population. That's marvelous for the GOP that hopes to hold onto power in perpetuity because Constitution will enable them to do so. No need to win the popular vote any more; and if the GOP presidential candidate loses the electoral votes, that can be fixed either by making Trump-like lies or, even better, by crooked secretaries of state swuch as Mark Fincham in Arizona who would decertify the 2020 results.
22
@D Ryan Not everyone wants to pay more in taxes than Jeff Bezos.
@D Ryan Not everyone wants to work hard and finance the war machine. Not everyone wants to work hard and give it away in tax breaks for billionaires. That is not the way it works. Pulled myself out of poverty too but I know that the miracle of my good health and abnormal strong fortitude is not in everyone else's tool box.
1
Peter Oborne is a right wing polemicist , don't listen to a word he says.
Bozzo is far more unpopular amongst the British public than Sunak and will ensure a larger wipeout at the next GE.
The Conservatives have never ever put country before their own interests. Even Churchill was booted out in a landslide before the end of WW2 in favour of his Labour coalition partner, Clem Attlee.
But nobody set in the rot more than Thatcher, a stain upon our society we're still suffering from.
40
@dan
Yeah, but Churchill came back for a second act after Attlee just as Boris and Trump may come back.
1
Propaganda has been around nearly as long as humans have walked the planet, However, I don't think anyone ever understood the power of modern electronic media, put into the control of unaccountable, unprincipled people, to pursuade the general populous to act entirely against its own interests.
31
Does seem the Tories in both Britain and the United States are on similar trajectories.
One great difference: The retired Republican leader sure ain't working on a book on Shakespeare.
44
@Ken Winkes Except we seem to have woken up to the danger of the far right, with Truss being ejected with a 9% approval rating and the Tories on 19%, while Trump and the Republicans are riding high.
12
@JF Well, they are noisy, but still unpopular with the majority. 5 million people voted against him two years ago. We'll see what happens at the next election in a few weeks.
Pray.
2
@JF thank goodness given Joe’s blunders!
The Conservative party in England is the canary in the coal mine of what will happen in the US if the Republican conservatives take power. But Americans are too much in denial to see it.
40
@Cisero I'm still trying to figure out what they stand for, other than revenge, settling scores, and persecuting immigrants. Do they even have a program?
3
Yeah. They’re upset about the gas prices.
1
I am not a conservative, but I would hold that traditionally, conservatives are resistant to change, and if there must be change, it should be gradual or incremental, so as to allow folks to acclimate to the change. When are we going to stop calling these people conservative and call them what they really are - radical reactionaries, determined to pull us all back to a fictional past that never really was.
38
In both coutries (USUK -- say that out loud) the idea, noble as it seemed at the time, of offering up primaries instead of smoke-filled rooms, giving the party members a vote in who would run as a candidate, has backfired with unintended consequences. IF (big if) the voters were dispasssionate philsophers thinking of the collective good, then it might, might have worked. But membership in a political party by definition and practice attracts passionate extremists. The US has had primaries since the debacles of 1968. The UK Conservatives have thrown up the choice to party members since, I believe, 1997. And UK Labour has done so more recently. The result is candidates who tend to appeal to the extremists (Truss, Corbyn, Trump, etc) and not to the country as a whole. I say bring back those smoke-filled rooms (but forget the smoke this time) and pragmatic decisions made by insiders who know the strengths and weaknesses of the candidates through intimate experience. Trump and Truss would never have been put forward by those insiders. I would prefer that the electorate were well-educated philosphers, but that is not to be, given our situation and human nature itself.
15
Larry Kudlow praised Truss’s economic policies for the UK.
So did many Republicans here.
This should be a wake up call to all Americans. Cutting taxes for the rich is not going to help the average person. Beware that Republicans are proposing the same trickle down policies and this Nov do what the Brits did and say NO.
Inflation is a world wide problem and not exclusive to the United States. We can’t afford to allow Republicans to make things worse and in addition take way our freedoms too.
55
@Charms Ganna I say again -- Lisa Kudrow knows more about economics than Larry Kudlow.
1
It is such a sad comment on this modern age that the Churchill quote seems incredibly old and quaint. Can any American imagine any politician putting the country ahead of their personal and political fortunes? We don't have 'statesmen' any more -- we have "public servants" whose definition of "public" starts with themselves, and they are very adept at 'serving themselves' first.
31
@Jim Brokaw Al Gore let the Supreme Court call the election for Bush and I suspect it was to ensure a peaceful transfer of power and prevent the turmoil the US is currently experiencing from happening. That may have been the last time a US politician put country before self.
72
@Jim Brokaw, do you think that Liz Cheney is putting the country above her personal and political fortunes? I’m sincerely curious.
What’s happening in the UK as a result of the Brits embracing their conservatives, should be a warning to us in the United States. For starters, the Republicans have said they will abolish Social Security and Medicare. Republicans IF they take the House will pass a national abortion ban and “Don’t Say Gay” ban!
Is this the America we want?! Vote Blue.
52
@Mari
It might be hard to accept but the best thing that can happen to America will be if the Republicans abolish Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid because that will crush many if not most of the people who vote for a Republican candidate regardless of his or her failings. Personal pain is the only way to get the attention of someone who ignores truth and reason.
9
@A. Citizen
What about those people that don't vote Republican? Are we to be hung out to dry so the minority in the US that seems to have the loudest voices feel personal pain. You are certainly leaving a lot of people in the lurch. I depend on Social Security and Medicare; both of which I have paid into and am not ready to relinquish benefits. You need to do some rethinking.
13
@Patricia Sickler Social Security and Medicare will not be cut. The reason: Republican voters who skew older are collecting it.
It's a cautionary tale for us here. Brexit was the beginning thread to the UK's current disarray.
23
I know Churchill has his detractors, but one of the most amazing, pro-democracy things he ever did was accept the outcome of the July 1945 general election in Britain. When the results came in and the Conservatives had clearly lost, Churchill was in Potsdam, Germany and talking with Stalin and Truman about some important matters. Pretty much the fate of the world, it turned out. The war against Japan was still ongoing.
Churchill packed up his stuff and left Potsdam in the middle of the meeting, leaving matters in the hands of new Prime Minister Clement Attlee from the Labour Party. Churchill had to do it. Had he refused to leave office on the grounds that he was irreplaceable in such circumstances, that would have ended democracy in the United Kingdom.
It would be nice if self-proclaimed conservatives in Britain and the United States today could follow Churchill's example in this way. When you lose, agree to lose.
43
@AR I agree, except for not ending "democracy", only parliamentarism.
(I so love it it when autospell is wrong and I'm right, as I write.)
3
@AR
Only thing wrong with your account is that Churchill left Potsdam in the middle of the negotiations to attend the election result in London and as a result of losing office, never went back.
4
In the U.K. as I read Ms. Dowd's piece. I regret to say this because I've always had a soft spot for the place but it seems, compared to America, like a social and cultural backwater, undynamic, gray, musty, either a look of comic resignation or sad doom on most people's faces.
The Labor Party and the Tories are like two lightweight fighters, neither capable of knocking out the other. They're dancing in the middle of the ring unable to offer an idea or strategy that can truly change things.
10
@History Guy
Why do NYT and its readers take such a pleasure in attempting to run down the UK? We are NOWHERE near the polarisation /cultural/real civil war that is threatening to destroy US politics. (It gives me no pleasure to contemplate such a situation). Truss made an enormous unforced error, based on ideological grounds, and has gone as a result. The likely result is a Labour victory at the next election - and there will be no arguing about the result whatever it is. That is a constitution that operates.
3
The UK seems not only stuck in the past, but to have retreated into the past. As someone whose ancestors came to America in the mid-1640's to escape the monarchy, I was hoping that Britain would finally give up the monarchy upon Queen Elizabeth's death and also move on from the Tories. (Queen Elizabeth reportedly preferred the 1950's to the present, along with the hats). I'm not saying we're doing any better here (we're not), but many of us used to look to Europe for some sanity and dignity while we were losing it here. Now I'm afraid the U.S. and England are among the worst of the western "democracies." With the death of neoliberalism that some historians and others are predicting, maybe we can turn things around?
17
@N And Italy just named Giorgia Meloni, a far-right conservative, as PM. Not very encouraging for democracy here and abroad.
25
So rich for ignorant Americans to criticize "backwater" "dowdy" parliamentary democracies.
This female enjoys more freedoms than ANY American. There are many significant and still evolving freedoms I enjoy per our 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Yourv vaulted stagnent Constitution can't even manage to pass The Equal Rights Amendment.
Canada and other British Commonwealth Countries enjoy a rich legacy of Century old Traditions.l
So much for the state of American Democracy where your Supreme Court relies on an 1845 ruling to remove a woman's right to choose. Who is "stagnant" and "dowdy"?
3
Wouldn't be nice if our former president would have just accepted the results of the 2020 election that was the thing to do because we know it wasn't in his radar to ever admit a mistake or resign? Sure would have been nice for our country.
Truss had the good sense to get out and let the chips fall where they may.
If Boris Johnson returns, it will be their problem and we don't have to worry about what they do. We have enough issues here to focus on.
Comparing Truss' shelf life to a head of lettuce was cute, but cruel. Just like out politics.
21
Look at the Conservative movement in the UK and in the US. They claim to have all the answers. To have ideas to save us all. They are steadfast in their adhering to ideas . Even after they repeatedly fail. All that is bad enough. And then they come up with leaders who make them the laughing stock of the world.
54
What is happening in the UK is a debacle, but both the US and UK will have elections in 2024. However there will be a distinct difference, in Britain it will be a truly democratic process, in America the Republicans will have killed off free and fair elections - they have even stated outright that that is their goal.
68
Scuse me, but Liz Truss was elected, and her successor will be elected by, a tiny minority of voters. They won’t even amount to more than a small percentage of CONSERVATIVE voters.
How in the heck is that more democratic?
It may come to pass that voters in Great Britain intend to show us that they are every bit as easily led as the 74 million in 2020 on our side of the pond. There are words to describe such folks but we won't use them here.
27
Liz Truss may have been tone-deaf and thoroughly incapable of inspiring her struggling fellow Britons, but I can’t help thinking that part of her downfall reflects grief over the death of that other Elizabeth. Where were those feelings of frustration going to go? Liz was the most obvious quick target.
7
@Susan Wladaver-Morgan
The grief was dispensed with in ten days. The British people didn't have a say in it. It was her own party and the markets.
1
Truss nearly crippled the UK economy.
1
The Conservatives have been great fans of Churchill only since Thatcher resurrected his colonial ghost during the Falkand Islands conflict. Then we had the frankly bizarre reenactment of his funeral on the 50th anniversary of his death including his casket (presumably empty). This alone shows what a strange country Britain has become. Would the US reenact Lincoln's funeral or JFK's? They seem to be fond of quoting Churchill to support their cause. Well, I found one that says " Of one thing I am certain, anyone who creates a conflict between the past and the present will lose the future." Substitute the British Empire for the past and the European Union for the present and you have Britain's problem in a nutshell.
41
@Jason Bourne — The original quote was, “If the present sits in judgment of the past, it will lose the future.”
1
@Jason Bourne The empire was long gone and in 1939 it comprised of a commonwealth of some 13 countries. Since then the commonwealth has grown to some 50+ countries all whom wanted in, mostly former colonies. The crown is the titular head of the commonwealth and still head of state of 12, backward places like Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
@Jason Bourne — The quote you refer to Churchill was made after he had taken over as Prime Minister in 1940. It was in response to a movement by some members of parliament to investigate the leaders of the British governments prior to Churchill’s for policies — especially appeasement — that had created the Nazi menace that Britain was then forced to fight. Churchill would have none of it. The exact quote by Churchill, as I remember it, was, “If the present sits in judgment of the past, it will lose the future.”
1
This operettina makes Gilbert & Sullivan's operettas sound serious.
15
Forget the UK, let's concentrate on preventing the US to fall into the same trap by reaching the point of no return regarding its economic and social standing. The British are more concerned and excel at that, with ephemeral stuff and not uncommonly, rejects reality by digging up new lingo. A recent material by the King's College of London, rejected that idea that the country is polarized politically in the same fashion as the US; instead the article refers to "partisan dealignment" to designate the phenomenon. The wages of pedantry is pain.
12
Britain, like most modern democracies, was able to quickly rid itself of bad leadership because, unlike us, they have multi-party a parliamentary system and he "votes of no confidence" rather than suffering the damage to their country until the next election. Might we learn anything from this?
37
@Al M
Yes and maybe more no. She is, as the article notes, likely to be replaced by Boris Johnson or somebody else with the same beliefs and character from the same party.
16
@Al M PM Truss was chosen by relatively few people in the Conservative Party, not the British people at large. Their system is dysfunctional, as is ours, but in a different way from ours. Both our countries are being successfully corrupted, weakened & attacked under the radar by the Russian govt. The Russian govt is successfully working to destabilize peoples of the West alliance & our govts. If we do not defend ourselves effectively, the Russian govt will succeed. Please consider reading Craig Unger's books re the Russian govt.
3
@Al M
Here is the lesson for you to learn. Nothing changed in the UK and won't now because the same Party remains in power. The UK went from Johnson to Truss which was nothing but a lateral move and now Johnson might even return. Parliamentary systems are like Russian Roulette, no matter how many times you spin the cylinder there is always a chance you're going to die.
1
"She didn’t understand that you couldn’t simply borrow money from the future." This is the problem for both parties. Printing trillions, forgiving $500 billion in student debt to be paid for by future generations. No one seems to understand that we can't keep borrowing - $31 trillion and counting! Can someone pass the message to Biden and the democrats.
10
@K M
Or tell the GOP that tax cuts for the rich, more than equal to student debt, do not help the borrowing from the future either.
102
@K M - in Britain's case, they have no natural resources or wealth to fall back on, that's why they couldn't get away with borrowing from the future. Here, we have plenty of oil, natural gas and minerals along with grain to at least pay off some of that debt in the future. Did i forget to mention weed, (marijuana)? That's why it was legalized.. a revenue source.
15
Be glad to. While I’m working on that, here’s little missive for YOU:
Trump ran up at least a third of that $31 bil.
And the 2022 deficit will be roughly half what it was in 2020.
86
Great Britain is in crisis, but no more than we and other Western countries are. There is a rise in "conservative" power hunger all over Europe and even in Russia. Putin is trying to conserve the former Soviet Union, he claims, by trying to grab Ukraine. Which country is next? There is a difference between reactionary and conservative. Few seem to pay attention to it.
22
People get their news in little soundbites, and if they agree, they buy it. And once bought, they continue to look for news that reinforces it. And when faced with facts that disprove what they were sold, they still refuse to believe them.
The British did this on Brexit, were sold lies but still want to believe them. And the same in the US, in the face of facts that say Trump lost, they will not accept them. Those who supported Boris Johnson will continue to do so regardless of the facts
26
@BHVBum - blame people for this for their attention span is less than 15 minutes at best. a marketing strategy known to the corporations for generations.
14
Surprised at no mention of Nigel Farage and the high jinks of the Brexit Party.
Leading up to the Brexit vote, the for-Brexiters ran a campaign well short of facts and replete with lies, exaggerations and false narratives. Farage led this effort. Independent observers asserted that Brexit won because many voters were wholly misinformed.
Subsequently, there was much speculation that Russian agitprop played an outsized role in the pro-Brexit campaign. Anything to rile the EU.
Farage later surfaced with Trump in Mississippi and elsewhere. Trump won in a similar campaign of lies and deceit. Russia was implicated.
Life moved on. The damage still reverberates. The danger grows.
154
@PaulB67 - thank you!
Nigel Farage is a key protagonists in this shambles. He's happy to talk loudly and confidently on matters he knows little about - he's a regular Guy Fawks of British politics
2
Sounds familiar. Republican conservatives have big money for negative ads and that's about it. They will do NOTHING for the regular American during or after inflation except make it worse. And our Constitutional democracy is on the line. Please everyone, vote blue.
76
@Marylee
Agreed.
The culture of thievery grows.
2
Funny. Amusing.
BUT we have an election. It looks BAD for those who believe in a "republican form of government" ('democracy' if you don't read the US Constitution).
The Democratic strategists didn't realize they needed a very good answer for the INFLATION issue OR LOSE badly.
The Trump alliance of midterm winners will try to maul our democracy into something unrecognizable.
Why didn't the 'Dem strats' see the obvious? What would the 'GOP strats' do if they were accused of causing the INFLATION? Why, they'd make up some large and small lies to blame the Dems for any and all inflation.
Again, why didn't the 'Dem strats' do that?
WAIT! They didn't have to make up a lie. It's acknowledged that the pandemic caused rapid demand changes. It's clear that the 'Trump/GOP admin' botched the public health thing re limiting the Covid damage to human health. We hold the world record for Covid deaths! That number and the number of cases and disabilities are twice what they should have been.
The syllogism goes like this. 1) The 'Trump/GOP admin' politicized all the Covid public health measures. 2) The pandemic played extra havoc with the US supply-chain workforce and created a volatile demand-side. 3) The Trump/Biden stimulus payments revived the US economy. 4) The GOP-created time-trigger (damage to the workforce in manufacturing, food processing, ground cargo transportation, and seaport cargo transfer to and from trucks) "BOTTLE-NECKED" and triggered our inflation.
Just sayin'.
23
@Ben Andrews you forgot cutting taxes by way too much. Definite contributor to inflation.
30
@Ben Andrews
Principal causes of inflation: Pandemic and the economic fallout associated with it--and the former fellow's dreadful management of the pandemic made that worse. The Russian invasion of Ukraine--and the former fellow and his bunch encouraged Putin in that endeavor and are still encouraging him. The Fed acted slowly--being the same nonpartisan independent agency that is still under the control of, for what it's worth, an appointee of the former fellow. And, just now, the Saudi and Russian agreement to restrict production and thereby keep prices high--an effort that will greatly help the MAGA crowd in the coming election.
39
@Daedalus
You're RIGHT!
But I don't think I had room IF I'd thought to include it.
Thanks!
2
One word: Brexit. That says everything and will in part be blamed for the economic decline of England.
33
I find the British Conservatives to be very close in thinking and actions to American Republicans today.
I take BoJo to be Trump East. His Great Achievement is Brexit. I don't understand the wisdom in leaving a market of 500,000,000 consumers to be in the economic interests of the UK.
I don't understand how BoJo isolationism works better than interconnectedness. The EU members connect well. They have their problems and fix them; they don't abrogate treaties.
"Do as I say, not as I do." BoJo's mantra.
Unless a PM or president leads a nation with a centrally planned economy, I cannot blame them for inflation. He gets a pass on that.
The worst thing to happen to any nation is the current Conservative philosophy. BoJo and Trump are its poster boys.
47
@Steelchaser Actually Johnson's great achievement was to split the country in half. Running up the national debt comes a close second. And Brexit is still a myth because for all intents and purposes part of the UK (Northern Ireland) is still an EU member and will be for the foreseeable future.
4
"Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour. ' "
Sir Winston, you were right. It was.
Now there is "Lettuce...."
31
Britain has become, depending on your orientation, either the world's largest outdoor museum, or a giant amusement park with a fun house called "Parliament." Either way, its significance as a consequential nation is dissipating even quicker than predicted. Britain is essentially as important as Portugal on the world stage, albeit with lousier weather and much less spectacular seafood.
18
@Jason Shapiro
That kind of inaccurate hyperbole actually does a good bit of harm, as it plays into the MAGA crowds on both sides of the pond. Yep, not an empire anymore. Yep, they are still a vital, important, influential nation. The per capita GDP of Portugal, for instance, is only half that of the UK.
22
@Robert and the per capita GDP of the UK is half that of Ireland. An amazing fact, isn't it?
1
Maureen, how about a column on why the UK---despite their conservative govts at various times--- has had health care for all citizens, the NHS, as centrist policy, since the 1940s? How do they do it? Why do they support it?
And why does the US still not have HC for All, in 2022, despite Obamacare improvements?
We still have medical bankruptcy, millions of citizens lacking insurance, or losing it with a job layoff, and family financial security at risk in case of serious illness or accident. Or high bills for hospitalization after being shot by guns in public places like schools and shops, etc,
What % of our many victims of mass shootings have health insurance? Are they in medical debt for treatment?
Would make an interesting column, if you'd be interested in this crucial topic affecting our lives. Compare/contrast UK ongoing health care system, despite Truss, Johnson, Tories.
Our GOP blocks HC for all, of course, but even some Democrats are careful to not fight too hard for it, so they avoid being snubbed by mega donors, and bashed as too 'left wing' by Fox/GOP. Are they 'regulated' in their free speech?
Yes, your opinions in at least a column on this situation would be interesting, Ms. Dowd.
70
MD does well to end with Oborne. He is right about Brit Tories: "their obstinacy is ensuring the ruination of Britain.” Change is unavoidable. It just happens to be on a faster pace now than I've known in my long life. Perhaps the black death brought rapid, momentous change. Now it's population growth and what that's done to the climate. Lakes and rivers are at historic lows -- some lakes have disappeared altogether. Drought, hunger, migration, war -- all follow this central challenge. Under these pressures, the old order is disappearing across the globe. American conservatives are also trapped in denial of this reality. Change is unavoidable. Maybe we can manage it, but denial will leave us incapable of riding the wave into a greater future.
20
I can't help but think this British Circus was set off by Boris and his Britex Puffery. It eludes to the British Empire and the Rule of or the Burden of the Superior White Man. Still, it seems to have started earlier, With Ronald Reagan and Maggie Thatcher. It starts with the fantasy that if you give the very rich more money they will take the money turn around and do what they never have done and invest in the country and we will all get more prosperous. George H W Bush rightly called it Voodoo economics but H.W. was soon bought off and no imprudent pep was heard from him again. The notion that you can borrow from the future, pocket most of it jigger it and call it a booming economy has been run it against us time and again. Mostly by offering the public the same thing the Lottery does. You too can become rich without offering anything of value. Ours and the British system still depend on a form of Slavery, our current one requires the slaves to pay there own room and board, but at some point, the chickens come home to roost. The world turns upside down and the Party of the Rich elitists becomes the party of the working class. As the Republicans come to the last few cards to play it will become clear that they offer the workers what they always have debit, IOU and a bankrupt country. As the British are showing us our future it will be interesting to see how our Republicans slip the noose this time.
33
@Edwin Cohen
"The notion that you can borrow from the future, pocket most of it jigger it and call it a booming economy has been run it against us time and again. "
That idea about borrowing is, to say the least, incorrect. Nothing wrong with borrowing per se. Who among us hasn't had a mortgage? Trickle down economics was a voodoo program but certainly not borrowing. Please go read something by Keynes. It's wonderful. The conservative economic theories of the 80s have pretty much all been proven wrong.
32
@Robert True, as far as it goes, but isn't it also one of Keynes precepts that you borrow in times of need and pay down in times of abundance? I might be a person of the left who believes that government has a role to play in helping to eradicate past injustices and make sure we don't create any future ones, but that doesn't make me immune to the anxiety induced by the continuous borrowing that has come to dominate our central government. If it's true that borrowing needn't be reckless, it must be equally true that heedless, continuous borrowing is.
8
@Edwin Cohen Interesting reference to the 'white man's burden.' You do know that Kipling was writing about the US's invasion of the Philippines, don't you?
1
I truly hope that the world is about to see a crashing downfall of the British Tory party. They’ve gutted the country- will the voters keep coming back for more?
43
It’s a roadmap for what will happen to the U.S. if the republicans win congress in November.
95
Ukraine likely welcomes the possible return of Boris Johnson to power - a understandable preference in view of his unwavering support but one Ukraine's leadership would be wise to keep under their hats as long as possible considering the former PM's well earned reputation for duplicity and chicanery amongst its defenders across the EU and in the US.
8
"Mr. Osborne asserted that 'today's Conservatives, by contrast cling to power for power's sake,' and that 'their obstinancy is ensuring the ruination of Britain.'" For U.S. readers, substitute "Republicans' for "Conservatives" and "the United States" for "Britain," and you've described today's MAGA-mad GOP.
53
It's hard for the public good to be seen, let alone grasped, above the self obsessed/consumer/spectator culture that possesses our times.
25
@PK
Goes without saying that such stuff is the only official MAGA Republican policy platform, including their principal such program of race and gender resentment and its lies, dehumanization, fear.
By contrast, the party of facts and democracy is the Democrats. Joe Biden has passed significant legislation that will help most Americans, and has masterfully managed the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
41
@PK This is an excellent observation.
At its core I think is the tenet of 'leadership'. Roughly, national leaders had to come to terms with television, which altered the breadth, depth and qualities of how a leader engaged with their constituency. More to the point, how they were perceived. They quickly learned that television brought with it a particular need to perform, 'performance' being in the style of an actor. The "depth" and "qualities" bit is the worry. Quality leaders existed but if they couldn't perform, they had no chance and are now forgotten.
I'm not sure quality leaders--what could be called true leadership--have met the contemporary challenge either. And all of our systems don't bend towards attracting quality leaders, resulting in a dearth of quality leadership.
Much is carnival and circus. I don't think it's a cheap shot to say a national public is now trained for it: that the measure is how a frontperson performs rather than their substance. Add in increased cynicism, and leadership seems now only to be sought in real quality once the carnival has piled up the litter.
How would each of the personalities - that being the new gold or kryptonite in this scenario - of the Founding Fathers change what was produced, if in the same landscape of the contemporary era? How would they change, themselves?
Maybe, too, women in leadership are facing the subsurface vagaries of 'performance'. How does a woman fit into the above contemporary imperative?
5
“'Todays’ Conservatives, by contrast, cling to power for power’s sake,' and 'their obstinacy is ensuring the ruination of Britain.'”
It is scant comfort that our own "conservatives" (i.e., Republicans), aren't the only ones who are willing to destroy their country in order to preside over its ruins.
61
@Vesuviano ....GOP is against HC for All, and even against Obamacare. Many Democrats don't fight for it.
We have medical bankruptcy and millions still uninsured, many losing insurance with job layoffs.
At least Britain has had the NHS, health care for all since the 1940s, even under conservative Tory govts.
Churchill and Thatcher supported the NHS. We need US media to discuss this contrast, as still don't have it in 2022. We have medical bankruptcies putting at risk family financial security long term.
12
To understand the fiasco that was Liz Truss as Prime Minister of Great Britain, look north to Scotland - a country unfortunately married to England by law (but soon to be divorced, I hope). Scotland did not vote for Brexit, has not voted for a Tory government in Westminster for decades, and has, as its head of government, an intelligent, stable woman named Nicola Sturgeon. A majority of Scots have consistently voted for the Scottish National Party, which has no meaningful representation in the British Parliament, and is little more than a joke to the Tories.
Why is Scotland so different from England? That is a long and fascinating story, the essence of which makes me very proud to be Scottish, not British.
123
@Antonia I agree with most of this but should point out that both Scotland and Wales have regional assembly governments and also representation in the UK parliament, the Scots Nationalists having 45 members ho more than pull their weight. I'm not going to quibble over the word 'meaningful', but do you want independence or not?
5
@Antonia Strange that Sturgeon doesn't ever wear an EU lapel badge when she's on camera. And no EU flags on display either. What a missed opportunity to annoy the English.
1
@Antonia Ditto "Northern Ireland" or the Six Counties, as Irish republicans call it.
2
Great Britain's crackup will only be the beginning if they usher Boris Johnson back in.
No good came of either him or BREXIT the first time round -- do they actually think it'll be any better a second?
46
@N. Smith
Remember the adage. Doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results is the definition of insanity.
7
If zombie neoliberalism is followed by zombie Boris, should we worry that zombie neocolonialism awaits in the batter’s box with zombie colonialism next up in the batting order?
Beats calling an election you’re likely to lose, I suppose, since staying in power seems to be becoming as important in England and America as it is in countries that we used to look down on due to what we perceived to be the superiority of our political systems.
I’d use a cricket metaphor instead of a baseball metaphor here if I knew how to do it right.
14
It would be nice if Truss's 44 day debacle, fueled by her blind allegiance to US trained and inspired think tank types obsessed with cutting taxes for the rich, finally puts an end to the Republican Party's love of economic Libertarianism over here, but that is probably too much of a rational outcome to ask for.
84
What did Liz Truss in wasn't her being “a bad communicator, a poor speaker and weak on camera” Optics aside, it was the policy of “trickle down economics “, giving tax cuts for the wealthy, while cutting spending to middle class.
The suffering British saw through this regurgitation of austerity for the masses and prosperity for the rich.
Republicans use the same ruses here, driving up deficits with Trump’s 2017 “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act”, while proposing Senator Rick Scott’s plan to slash Social Security and Medicare.
Republican Senate Nominee in Arizona, Blake Masters endorses privatizing Social Security, while Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson favors moving Medicare and Social Security into Congress’ discretionary budget, thus ending guaranteed and automatic benefits.
It’s the same old tune of “A rising tide lifts all boats” nonsense. The Brits have caught on and now so should we.
166
Despite UK troubles, at least their citizens have had the NHS, health care for all since the 1940s, even under conservative Tory govts.
Tory Churchill and Thatcher supported the NHS.
We need our media to grapple with this contrast, in 2022 of our millions of uninsured, and our medical bankruptcies putting at risk family financial security long term. This contrast should inspire columnists to stop ignoring it and explain it.
23
@Meredith The NHS is being slowly privatized by stealth. Many of its services are already run by private companies for profit. Just like the trains, local government and utilities which partly explains the rampant inflation figures and the poor quality. British capitalism is unlike the US since it relies on cronyism with government officials.
10
@Jason Bourne Yes, Jason Borne, it’s a corrupt system of privatization of public services for profit, like the privatization of prisons, which perpetuates the ongoing subjugation of the poor.
2
Agree, except the conservatives there, as well as here, cling to power for GRIFT ’ s sake. And none other.
Which unfortunately leads to Cake-eating-advice from those who have too much Cake, to those who have none.
And this in turn, leads to very unfortunate consequences for all involved.
You can only push so hard before even a worm turns and bares its steely teeth, as la Noblesse Française learned, losing their heads in the process.
Forced to choose, ‘Cake or Death’, the people chose Death. Theirs.
The Social Contract is not a License to steal. An original intent lesson in Noblesse Oblige for those who would hold power.
27
Maybe choosing Liz as the Tory prime minister did have something to do with her being a woman. I invited a Russian woman journalist to talk to my class in the early 1990s. A student commented that we have very few women in our Congress, while Russia has lots more women in its legislature.
The journalist told the class that yes, while the Russians have more women in its legislature, these are "a certain kind of women," carefully chosen by the male powerbrokers to "do what they are told." She added that she would never be accepted by the power brokers, since: (a) she told the truth; and (b) she could not be trusted because she was "too independent" and not good a taking orders.
But give the Brits credit. At least, they were smart enough to detect and object to trotting out the worn-out old GOP Reagan-Thatcher "trickle down, tax-cuts for the rich economic policy" (wink-wink), which the Tories had Liz promoting at a very bad time in the British economy.
It is the old "blame it on the woman" ruse, since bringing back the clownish Boris, King of Brexit, to push the same fairy-tale reverse Robin Hood policies is no fix.
So the strategy is to keep same old neoliberal "enrich the rich economic policies" that have been proven to not work, but change horses.
The immediate failure of the Liz & Tories' tax-cuts for the rich policy should be a cautionary tale for the GOP in 2022 & 2024. Will it, and if not, why not?
27
@PB Of course, it will not. You assume that the GOP cares about the United States. They only care about their constituents which are their donors (big money, big oil, big pharma, the military-industrial complex, etc). The way that they get elected is that they play up to the worst instincts of their base while also grifting them. Supply-side/trickle-down economics is simply a surreptitious method of taking from the poor (and middle-class) and giving to the already rich. At least Trump simply asks for money directly from his base for his latest fraudulent scheme.
The Democrats engage in some of this as well, but at least they have shame about it and do try to throw a few bones to their voters (which may or may not be the same as their constituents).
Regarding Britain, true believers in Friedrich Hayek's economic principles have done a good job in expanding the wealth gap and degrading social cohesion. The European Union at least offered some level of checks on British economic policy. With this gone, Britain may well go the way of America where the bonds that keeps society together and functioning loosen and falter.
Conservatives have often been shown to be good (enough) leaders. Examples include Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, Governor Charlie Baker of Massachusetts or John Major of the UK. What seems strange, however, is that historically conservatives wished to preserve and protect their societies. Now, the conservatives seem to be radicals veering towards anarchy.
14
@Arif ...
Despite UK troubles, at least their citizens have had health care for all since the 1940s, a long time, even under conservative Tory govts.
Tories, Churchill and Thatcher supported the NHS. It's centrist.
We need US media to start to grapple with this contrast, of our millions of uninsured, and medical bankruptcies putting at risk family financial security long term.
Columnists could stop ignoring it and explain it. Or are they afraid to tackle it?
Even many Dem politicians don't fight for HC for All, afraid of losing mega donors, or getting bashed by FOX/GOP for being too 'left wing'.
Here, it's not centrist enough.
3
@Meredith Thanks for your reply but I am well aware of this. Universal health coverage (possibly with a single payer) is not seen as a left/right issue except in the U.S. Neither Canada's conservatives nor Britain's conservatives would have any intention of removing universal public health coverage. Sometimes they can be parsimonious about funding it but that's a separate issue. Any rational conservative, however, can see that a universal health system provides more value for money than the disjointed system we have.
My late uncle, two of my cousins and one of my in-laws were/are British physicians/surgeons. They have never considered working in the United States because of their disdain of our inherently corrupt healthcare system. Mind you, both my father and I, as well as extended relatives, have made our medical careers in the U.S. We do the best that we can in our broken system. Certainly, we have done better financially than our relatives in Britain, but each day working in American healthcare requires a little bit more of one's soul and one's heart to be ripped out.
13
Liz Truss's grand economic plan for the UK–the one that rattled the UK economy, torpedoed the currency and then triggered a swift and humiliating end to her career as PM–is pretty much the same economic plan that Republicans have for America: deregulating the financial sector, gutting environmental protections, and of course gifting another round of [deep and unfunded] tax cuts for the wealthiest citizens.
44
You can't govern a country where one fifth live in modern 21st century comfort in and around London while the other four fifths live in hopeless poverty everywhere else in England. Now that Brexit is a done deal there's only football and the boozer to distract the millions of Brits living in the de-industrialized North, Midlands and West from the pointlessness of a life on the dole. And they can't all move to London because all the newly built posh apartments there are already occupied by the shopping bags of the world's kleptocrats. The UK is the world champion example of the failures of globalization.
34
@george
With due respect, this is an absurd caricature of life outside London -- four-fifths of the country live in abject poverty? Bristol? Manchester? York? Norwich? Cambridge? Have you been to any of these places? Where are you getting your information from? Yes, the Midlands and the North have suffered since Thatcher from de-industrialization, but to say that most of the country lives in abject poverty is very peculiar...
2
"She didn’t understand that you couldn’t simply borrow money from the future."
Actually, people borrow money from the future all the time. The whole of capitalism (and usury) is premised upon doing exactly that. Millions of Americans and Britons have mortgages. The financial world would collapse if they did not. A mortgage is borrowing money from the future (and a lender of course).
The more searching criticism of Liz Truss (and Margaret Thatcher, whom she followed) is that she failed to understand that you CAN borrow money from the future. One of Thatcher's most famous sayings is "You cannot spend money you do not have." But that is exactly what everyone does under capitalism. It is true that it is folly to borrow money you can never hope to repay, but that it is a different matter. It is simply not true that you "cannot simply borrow money from the future."
22
You’ve got a point, but a mortgage is actually an investment in the future, a way of paying into it.
23
@Robert I agree there is a difference between good debt and bad debt, but all debt is borrowing from the future. I am now in my 60s. In my life I have purchased three houses, in each case taking out a mortgage, all now fully paid off. In all three cases I borrowed "money from the future," now my past. Maybe Maureen Dowd was one of the lucky few who simply inherited her home, but most of us invest in our future by borrowing from it -- and then (as you say) paying into it. I would argue that borrowing from the future to invest in infrastructure is also good debt. I readily admit that living beyond one's means -- or stealing from future generations -- is bad debt.
3
@Robert
And government spending on infrastructure, education, healthcare also invests in the future.
8
Prior to becoming PM, Liz Truss was mostly known for a weird speech in which she railed against ... cheese imports. Long before she became PM, Truss was known to people who worked with her a the "human hand grenade." Seems like Boris pulled the pin on Truss and lobbed her at the UK Conservatives.
23
@Jack Pine
While I had never heard of Ms. Truss before, she appears to be attached to the hip to the pro-Brexit campaigner and right-wing windbag, Nigel Farage, who conspired with Boris Johnson to end Britain's trade partnerships with the EU.
And, like Donald Trump, Farage and Johnson used a perceived immigration crisis as a scare tactic to get Britons to vote for Brexit against their better judgement. Ms. Truss may or may not have been one of the architects of this policy failure, but she did become its messenger.
3
Clinging to power for the sake of power is always a path to demise and destruction. History reveals this time and time again. It won’t change because the conservatives want it to change.
8
No one, it seems, is asking the central question raised by this pathetic mess: who really came up with the "mini-budget" -- a transparent money-grab for the rich--that caused all the trouble? Surely it was not the hapless Liz Truss and her friend Kwasi, all by themselves. My suspicion is that the Tory establishment (ie, London banks and hedge funds) agreed to back her in return for her support for yet another attempt at predatory financial engineering. The mini-budget was a promise kept. When it all went south, and the markets did not react as expected, Truss became a convenient scapegoat, allowing the wretched underlying forces of the British establishment to once again escape scrutiny. It's hard to feel sorry for her, however, given her eagerness to sacrifice decency for her own dreary ambition.
44
@FDH
So adroitly stated! I will add a coda, if I may. I suspect the Republican Party "leadership" was watching the British PM very closely to see if such a program would work here.
But we, like the Brits, have done our share of suffering at the hands of the austerity scolds. They always look for a way to diminish, or eliminate Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, as well as school lunches, child care, etc.
Fortunately, the court of public opinion has been an effective deterent to such folly.
2 good lines found on the web;
Lettuce take a moment to remember the reign of Liz Truss.
Lettuce remember Liz Truss’s short tenure as British leader
Truss couldn't be Trussted.
and
Nothing could truss up Truss.
Truss definition:
"To support or brace something with a truss: I sprained my ankle, and the coach trussed it up. The doctor trussed up the patient's arm."
The UK government is broken.
7
Trusses are used extensively fr hernias! How apropros.
1
Of course, Johnson foresaw Truss's downfall and counted on it. Brexit split and ended up destroying the country. The same situation has been developing here in the States for the past few Trumpian years. I am sure we are all prepared for the return of both Johnson and even worse, DJT.
16
The “western world” is clearly having a serious identity crisis, here, in Europe and the UK; It happens to all of us as we grow , but when it happens to countries and cultures the outcome can be comically catastrophic.
6
@Peter
Only the very privileged would characterize it as "comically" catastrophic.
To the rest of us, it is not funny.
1
The world of finance is on shaky ground, and that is the very thing that has led to Truss's failure. Energy is the Achilles Heel in the world economy, and the Russians are aiming their arrows at it. All fingers point to Putin and his murderess shenanigans. He's playing Russian Roulette with nuclear arms and the world economy. Otherwise, England could run on fumes for years. It has a stable bureaucracy, armed forces, and, although in transition, a homogenous culture. If stability reigns, they will select a good-looking figure head from royal lineage, as Canada did.
Russia, in contrast, has historically retreated into its vast land mass. It's really a barbarous country, not much different than the Mongols of the 13th Century. There might be a glimmer of culture in St. Petersburg and Moscow, but a simmering angst and jealousy overwhelms them. As for the people, they dig in the dirt and plant potatoes. Their leadership only wants them for machine gun fodder.
Your colleague, Paul Krugman, better understands what afflicts England, but he is hesitant to enter those waters as they affect our own shaky financial institutions. To put it simply, if the fossil fuel economy collapses, so goes the dollar and the world economy.
As for Truss, the English have cruel sense of 'humour' (comparing her to a head of lettuce). I am surprised they didn't use a cabbage, but it has a longer shelf life, as did the Iron Lady.
12
Wow!! Boris Johnson in come back mode?
How is it possible that a person like that became PM in the first place let alone potentially having another term? What truly happens behind the scenes? That situation reminds me of another country and another leader.
34
The former UK PM Theresa May asked why it was that only the Tories could produce women PMs. Now we know why. The focus was on gender rather than competence. Our own superbly competent, qualified candidate Hillary Clinton, chose to campaign on her gender instead.
7
"She didn't understand that you couldn't simply borrow from the future." Isn't that what we've been doing ever since George W. Bush blew up the deficit and debt 20 years ago?
32
@Jon Harrison 'Borrowing from the future' is the business model of every bank on the planet and one of the pillars of capitalism.
It was inevitable, but voodoo economics has shorter half life than one could have predicted. Sad to see once great empire being ruled with all avarice, and little wisdom to go with it. Coming back of Boris Johnson will seal the fate, he is worse than Trump as he is a bit smarter and could hang on.
14
Another lovely read, Ms. Dowd. We especially loved your typically pithy take on the swiftness of truss' fall from grace--'anointed by a Queen and resigned to a King'!! But this Saturday pleasure in our household was ruined by the unthinkable--your linking of Boris and TFG as seeming equa;ls in their craven desire for power to "free themselves" from their lunatic acts as leader. Boris Johnson was LIGHT YEARS more palatable than Old 45, despite his goofy English Boys' School rat-pack and always mussed hair. He, like the dear departed Queen (who's formal welcoming of PM Truss would be her final official duty over seven incredible decades as Head of State) had absolutely no time for the goofy salesmanship antics of The Donald. Alas, that won't get him far with Conservatives across the pond this go-round. Pity.
10
Pre-Starmer Labour can take its share of the blame for the UK's mess.
Corbin was so incredibly weak and divisive, he made the Tories seem like the reasonable alternative.
11
There is nothing denigrating to women to understand that a women has every right to be politically inept as any man.
It appears that the disease of power for the sake of power without rhyme or reason can as easily infect the British body politic as it can across the pond. I guess holding on to station in life outweighs any principles, decency or common good.
14
Ever since the 1979 ascendancy of Margaret Thatcher to the position of Prime Minister and the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, the British Conservative and the American Republican parties have been teaching each other ways to be cruel, callous, and clueless about the real-life effects of their policies.
And sad to say, both the U.S. Democrats and British Labour have failed to undo the worst of the right-wing policies.
124
The US/UK conservatives only agenda is greed and power at all cost. Boris created the mess with Brexit and Truss was the fall gal. Trump lost 4.0 million jobs and racked up massive debt.
18
Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
7
@Xavi
Puts me in mind of the closing lines of another of Old Possum's gems:
"We demand a committee, a representative committee, a committee of investigation
RESIGN RESIGN RESIGN"
(From: "Difficulties Of A Statesman.")
I find it interesting that some of the most powerful positions in the world have come to be filled by such inept, incompetent people. And they tend to be "conservatives." Truss, Trump, Marjorie Taylor Green. In terms of tax cuts, allyou have to do is look at Kansas and Brownback. It's all there.
40
@Peter McCaffrey 1 Kamala trumps all of the above.
1
"When I covered Geraldine Ferraro’s run for the vice presidency and Hillary Clinton’s presidential run, it felt as though their fates were tied to gender. If they failed, many women told me in interviews, there was an X through the whole X chromosome, a blot on the female copybook. If not those women then, they would say, what woman ever?" -- I believe that women cannot yet win in America; other countries have been able to accept a woman's leadership -- but as we are discovering, we are a truly retrograde state, and for now, I don't see a woman president. What a shame! And of course, if either woman had won, the R party would have made every attempt to destroy, destroy, destroy... Not sure what will change this
10
@d Why does this self proclaimed most advanced country of the world not accept the historical fact that there have been outstanding women in the modern leadership role without much fanfare: Golda Meir of Israel, Ms. Bandaranike of Pakistan, Indira Ghandi of India and a few others I forget how to list correctly. Interestingly, they were all from countries where women are not necessarily on top of the power list, and yet, they taught us so much, had we ever listened.
1
Perhaps Liz Truss, like Little Red Riding Hood, didn't realize that Big Bad Bojo was laying a trap for her. Like Big Bad Trump is laying a trap for whomever dares run against his endorsed candidates in a few weeks. The Donald and Liz and the Conservatives are in league to change our democracy and England's parliamentary democracy. It's Looney Tunes times in England and America now. Where would you rather live, here in America or across the Pond?
6
Johnson, Trump and Meloni and many more prove people prefer the prospect of cheaper gas, less diversity, less crime to democracy. When democracy means I lose my privileged position, then it needs to go.
15
@David Weinberg Florida and Texas are rather diverse states, for example.
Just give Brexit another fifty to one hundred years and it will start paying for itself.
8
We need real, effective leaders worldwide, NOW, if we are to combat climate change, the only issue that matters. Instead, we have a parade of power hungry half-wits and cruel con men. Mother Nature, who always bats last, is stepping up. What this world will look like 25-50 years ahead should be the key question, and the apparent answer should terrify any thinking person.
16
@MarkS So, an overthrow of the CCP is pending?
If the Brits return the lying Johnson to power as prime minister, it would amount to a case of political masochism.
11
Yep. I think you've nailed it.
5
If Liz Truss had given up after sound judgment and reasoned policies, one could conclude that she might be a sympathetic party. In fact, as in much of the Conservative practice of recent times, Truss simply moved ahead with a plan to 'improve the economy' without either considering its impact or letting any experienced economic minds address its implications. The choice of a policy was made to meet the needs of dogma and not of reality. When the policy of spending without income resulted in disaster, the limited loss of the Chancellor, Kwarteng, was insufficient to meet the exasperation of the public and even of a good many members of her party.
Churchill had his failures, but he was a man of vision who overreached not in dogma, but in his belief in plans which were subject to great risks for great gains. He gambled, but he did not engage in dogmatic fantasy.
The biggest problem with the Tory policies of late is that all too many members of the Party, emboldened by achieving Brexit, have considered winning the popular election some years ago as a license to unrestricted pursuit of all kinds of fantastical goals. The party was elected to pursue Brexit, but the Nation expected cautious guidance from Conservatives. Much of the agenda of both Johnson and Truss has been involved in sweeping change that the populace would not have desired in its electoral voting.
7
Conservatism on both sides of the Atlantic is the bastion of white privilege.
16
In light of the unprecedented immigration to non-European countries, what's the complaint?
@MEM The GOP feeds on falsehoods like yours to get out the vote, and it works. You're going to learn this the hard way. I was a huge fan of Obama, so, no, it's not always a race thing.
As if Scottish nationalists needed any more encouragement....
13
I could copy lines and quotes from previous coverage of this issue. If you have nothing to say, Maureen, write about something else.
7
Women in power will be like men in power: some truly great, some truly awful, some truly ignorant, some truly evil, and most truly mediocre.
18
When is someone going to figure out she was always about just a temporary focus change from Boris 1.0 so that he could come back (2.0) with all past transgressions forgotten?
How are people so easily fooled? Media?
7
@Randy
same in the U.S. with trump. i'm beginning to think voters need to pass a critical thinking test to vate (just kidding)
1
Setting up a woman to fail has been a classic strategy in the corporate world for a long time. When there is no way out, hand the keys to a woman and blame her for the failure that your policies create.
15
@Putinski imagine it wasn't intentional, but putting VP Harris in charge of border policies probably hasn't been helpful to her career either.
12
@MAB
Trump’s border policy is the reason there is no labor for sawmills and agriculture. It’s a reason for inflation and employee shortages. No one can clean up his mess in two years. Talk to people in your back yard, so far from the border you are so concerned about.
2
@Putinski And if that isn't feasible, make a woman the corporate spokes person so that it's her out there taking the flak for the men who fxxxed up in the first place.
2
As John Roberts would say, “money is speech”.
It’s important to understand that Conservatives are grifters and cons.
They are not there for country or people.
They are in it for the cash.
Going down this road always leads to disaster.
Greed is a dangerous drug.
34
It’s almost enough to make one miss Thatcher, who at least believed in things, could handle the job competently, and did not behave like a complete fool or tolerate Cabinet members who did.
Almost.
11
@Robert
. . . Almost, but definitely not quite. Definitely.
5
Ms Truss reminds me of a modern day version of that old reality show "Queen for a Day" followed by an episode f "This is Your Life"
1
Hopefully for the UK, a classic case of the ‘ Dead Boris Bounce’.
1
Don’t be simple. Every government borrows from the future. Most people also do it. You probably did too. Keep your standards up, Ms Dowd.
4
Doesn't anyone see the parallel tracks...including hair...of BoJo and Trump? They are destined to be shaking hands in 2024.
4
The king needs to step in or have Harry run
4
Maureen should be writing about Irish Sein Fein and not about British Conservative Party.
She might be more likely to take you up on your suggestion if you gave her a reason or two.
5
@Trevor Diaz I assume you are referring to Sinn Fein's success both in the North and in the Republic of Ireland, something no other party on the island has achieved. Perhaps you want Maureen to compare the leadership styles of Mary-Lou and Liz? Please explain.
Truss is just an "m and p" shy and "ss" in excess of the doofus who has been lying for the past two years about losing the White House to Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. In addition to each acting without much thinking, they now share the LOSER moniker. And you see, they were both incompetent, a male and a female, thus proving gender had nothing to do with being a failure.
9
Well Maureen, at least you could say we have arrived at a point where a woman can fail equally as miserably as a man.
6
@Here Be Dragons
Perhaps even worse. I don’t recall any PM or President Being hounded out in record time. Like 44 days.
1
Boris wants to come back. But outside of Boris World, everyone thinks he's an idiot. The pound went up when he resigned.
18
@TastetheDifference
boris return will not be good for england, since he doesn't seem to care for the rest of the U.K.
If BoJo gets this job back it will mean the Tories have returned to eat their vomit.
It will be their doom for years to come.
The same can be said about us. If the TIC managed to get back in the White House, we can kiss our republic, as we know it, adios.
TIC ref Twice Impeached Criminal.
17
I am quite enamored of "Dudders" and lets face it, the entire Dursely family. We can certainly hope that Boris will go the way of Aunt Marge, his ego blowing up until he goes floating away.
3
Not usually a fan of Dowd -- she's always struck me as the "I'm in, pull up the ladder" kind of female achiever most of us know -- but damn, "no one believes Truss blew up on the launchpad because she’s a woman" kind of sums it up, even if it means you're cleaning coffee off your monitor.
3
British conservatives have evolved to be more hypocritical and chameleon-like than their US Trumpian counterparts. They are willing to bring back the same guy who was dissolved in a multitude of ethical scandals a few months back.
The never-ending unraveling of the misguided and blunderous Brexit is agonizing to watch, and it will bring down multiple economies, whether they realize it or not.
12
Brexit: The poison that keeps on poisoning.
34
Cling to power for power's sake. That's Trump and the Republican Party. There is no Churchill in Britain and
certainly none here.
17
"It was such a swift fall that Truss was anointed by a queen and resigned to a king."
This makes no sense. The fact that there was a change of monarchs between the beginning and end of Truss's time as PM is suggestive of a long time in office, not a short time. The shorter time a PM serves, the less likely it is that the monarchy would turn over during that time. If Truss had stayed in office for 2 or 3 years, she still would probably have resigned to King Charles.
15
@Jon It's called rhetoric! It's what writers of all stripes do!
1
Not power for power's sake, power for all the goodies power brings for those in power, simple like that. Truss was way too obvious in what the conservative power wanted.. simple like that.
10
The whole lot are a bunch of political jackals. What does that make those who vote for them?
26
Mr. Donald Trump makes Ms. Truss appear a brilliant, competent, visionary, and charismatic office holder.
99
“She didn’t understand that you couldn’t simply borrow money from the future.”
Bully for you, Maureen.
And it’s exactly why the Democrats should lose November’s elections. Stop the outrageous spending which now has our country owing $31 Trillion! and which will be the responsibility of future generations to pay off.
9
No. The Democrats think rich people and corporations should pay more in taxes. It’s the Republicans who cut taxes without replacing the revenue.
168
Not that you’ll care, but Trump ran up a third of that debt, and the recent numbers show that the year’s deficit is half what it was in 2020.
You could look this stuff up, but that’s like asking an eager little kid to look up Santa Claus.
280
@Anne Trump added 8 trillion dollars to the nation's debt by the time he left office. Did you complain then?
43
The problem with Britain on the world stage, is neither Boris nor Liz. It's a problem of a people who do not have a recognition of their place in collective human consciousness, as is today. Britain punches above it's economic weight on the world state, forgetting that it has no foundation for that perch without America's backing. It's main stay is being the financial clearing house for America's economic dominance. It's leaders have mistaken that perch as strength. They jumped into the formula 1 car on the speedway, driving at 250 MPH while their heads are facing the rear of the car. Anyone wonders why the crash?
It was coming a long time. Brexit and the evisceration of the dominance of American Democracy in the eyes of collective human consciousness by Mr. Trump, just accelerated the drive on a fast lane to irrelevance of the British. Britain outside the EU is a dying star and they don't see it! Liz Truss was set up for failure by those who wanted a fall guy to blame for the catastrophe that Britain has become on the world stage, so they can claim it was going well before she arrived with her government diversity idea.
You can be the best with the benefits and acquiescence of many others. You're only good if you have no others who agree with your self perception. Brexit laid bare the emptiness of the British lion suit. Continued arrogance about nostalgia for days long gone from time, will be the final nail in the British coffin. Its coming, sooner than we realize...
20
@Save America
Absolute nonsense. You really should do your homework and see that Britain still leads Europe in technical prowess, we are still the seat of learning with the greatest universities in the world (yes better than Yale or Harvard) and a National Health Service that (despite its problems) is the envy of the world and should be the envy of you guys in the US. Your health care is a disgrace and you cannot call yourself a caring society when you still can't treat the sick with humility, kindness AND TREATMENT for heavens sake. I love the NHS and yes we are going through bad times but the NHS is cherished and neither the Tories or Labour would stand a chance if they even hinted at doing away with it.
Until you figure out how to care for your sick please don't lecture us.
The Tories would be smart to call elections now, endure the loss, and saddle a Labour-led government with the oncoming recession, one that will be sharper than in the USA. Otherwise the Tories will also be saddled with the recession as well, their prospects no better if not worse than they are now.
An election now would also align with the interests of capital, putting state financial management in the hands of the safe Blairites of Labour, while also tagging them, and not the Tories, with responsibility for the inevitable anti-worker effects of recessions, an economic process that is basically a frontal assault on workers as a class. Of course Labour could claim responsibility for the economic recovery, but the damage would have been done. But the Conservatives would be "conserved" for picking up the baton in 5 years for overseeing "the good times" in the 10 year business cycle.
However if the Tories cling to office for another 2 years, cycling through BoJo and whatnot, it would only demonstrate that today's right wing parties, and particularly their MAGA, Brexiter, and "libertarian" Far Right faction that presently drive before them the "center-right" regime players, are out of alignment with their putative masters, particularly with the interests of big monopoly capital.
Presently Jeremy Hunt prepares an undisguised austerity for the people of the UK. The USA will see the same once the Republicans gain the House and Congress passes reactionary economic measures.
23
@Matt
UK watch the US. the US is moving left slowly but picking up momentum. the 18 to 35 group has been mistreated by capitalism. they have no hope. they want something like EU social democracy. i just hope mcconnell and bannon will be alive to see it.
trump is inconsequential, a puppet of bannon.
3
Increasingly it is time for the Brits to admit Brexit was wrong and rejoin Europe. The Empire is dead. The Commonwealth will die with Elizabeth. Time for the Royals to liquidate their stolen lands and get jobs.
15
@Chris The Tory Opera is comical and sad at the same time and yes the Empire is dead. However turning back to Europe would be a catastrophe. Maggie Thatcher rightfully could not understand why it made sense to replace a small London administration with a huge Brussels bureaucracy. (Proof in point : every 6 months the useless European Parliament, with all their staff, moves from Brussels to Strassbourg and then back again, only because France insists).
There is nothing to gain from the fake European Union. There is no European mentality or spirit and the only thing that all European Capitals have in common are McDonalds, Starbucks and Apple Stores.
Britain will rise from their political disaster and hopefully without the antisemitic Labour Party. But you are right about the Royal family. Their wealth belongs to the People, and yes it is time that they start working for a living.
1
Good old Liz truss couldn't even make it to 60 days in office. Well, she can always go back to being a backbencher, while toiling along in the shadows of public service.
4
The virtually unknown 1922 Committee will select the next leader of the UK. What’s wrong with this picture?
6
@Etaoin Shrdlu The GOP would love to have a similar committee in place, here in America. Maybe they would call it the 2022 Committee.
2
Sort of like the Electoral College.
The short-lived tenure of Liz Truss as the PM, essentially proves that the post-Brexit economic policy is tearing the Conservative party apart since David Cameron.
Truss also embraced the notion of “Trickle-down economics” and we all know this macro-economic concept is full of “Fault Lines”. Let’s not forget what George H.W. Bush initially opined during his presidential primary campaign (1980) against Ronald Reagan.
Bush characterized Trickle-down economics as “Voodoo Economics”. Ross Perot also described Trickle-down economics as “Political Voodoo” during his presidential campaign in 1992.
It is what it is: this economic approach doesn’t work.
15
@RCS : I visited the UK for the first time as a teenager in 1967, and my most recent visit was in 2019.
One of the most striking changes is the condition of the high streets. Where you once saw a lot of small, independent business owners in smaller cities, their high streets outside the tourist areas are now dominated by thrift shops and down-market chains.
Prices are high, and wages are low, but there is also a lot of very, very upscale retail and restaurant activity going on.
The UK is the only one of the OECD countries that has less social mobility (the possibility for a person from a poor family to move into the middle class) than the U.S., which is a sad commentary on both countries, especially given our myth of unlimited mobility.
20
TRUE gender equality is when an incompetent, unqualified and entitled WOMAN gets the job!
And Liz Truss did that.
Ironically, I think we’ve reached a milestone ladies…
10
As a Liberal I know that I should not like Boris.
But he has something of the Francis Urquhart in him.
I was opposed to Brexit but I now wonder if it isn’t good that Great Britain is free from the Ultraliberal EU human rights kind of things.
Boris might be a scholar politician who always has a book or papers in his hands and who wants to write about Shakespeare.
And the pandemic parties remind me of college hijinks, and not some violation of some sacred trust.
Boris seems to agree with Francis Urquhart: “We are a fierce proud nation, a nation to be reckoned with”
Labor just has to put a bit of stick about when Boris gets to far out of line.
2
Interestingly, the British public seems to be in large disagreement with your feelings concerning both Brexit and Johnson.
4
"What's it all about Alfie".
There is no such thing as real conservatives in America or once Great Britain, just self serving, dysfunctional, me first, politicians out to rob the piggy bank of Government.
30
Maureen, you had me until... "She turned out to be a stooge for a reckless, unprincipled Boris Johnson...". Aren't you exonerating Truss and relieving her of accountability for her own implosion. Blame Boris! This seems like a perpetuation of the narrative that women are weak and easily made pawns in a male dominated world.
4
To be fair, plenty of male pawns are quite well known. Trump is a Putin pawn, and maintains a collection of sub-pawns of his own. Etc.
1
Power for power’s sake is reflected in every post-Lewinsky vote for a Clinton and post-January 6 support for an election denier.
Look away, look away.
Keeping faith with duty is not just ignored, it’s barely even taught. Ask a young person what their duties are and you’ll be met with a blank face.
Civic duty as curricula evaporates in the presence of rights discussions. Red, Blue, Labour, Tory, no difference.
6
Britain should pick the leader that is most able to successfully steer them out of Brexit and return them to the EU. The pandemic hid the impact of Brexit for a while with its
in-your-face-disaster-right-this-minute but that problem has receded, and now Brexit and its impact is front and center.
13
When the UK voted for Brexit in 2016, I was convinced it was a harbinger of a Trump win. It seemed a perfect example of how voters can be misled by illogical nonsense. If BoJo is brought back I despair of what this shows about the capacity of elected representatives to govern for the good of their country rather than their own personal situation. What percentage of US candidates truly believe the 2020 election was rigged vs. denying democracy to further their quest for personal power? The news these last 7 years brings on a sense of hopelessness that I never felt in my first 50 years.
39
@Julia: and in my first 63 years.
8
@Julia : and in my first 61 years.
2
As an observer from across the pond, I wish well to Great Britain. Yet one wonders whether the hijinks of these gentleman's C Oxford grads remains all these years later. As a scholarship student who worked hard in college, before flaming out to mental illness in both of my stints as a post-secondary scholar, I shudder to think of the mindsets of upper-crust leaders. Do they realize how serious our historical moment is? Churchill, who all of a sudden has critics coming out of the woodwork, wrote a large volume of books on world history. Would Johnson be able to command the pen as Churchill did, or would his review of Shakespeare merely make mockery of the man from Stratford-upon-Avon? After all, Shakespeare came from nothing to have Queen Elizabeth attend his works at the Globe Theater. He was no Marlowe. Because of his humble beginnings, people speculated it must have been Francis Bacon who wrote his sonnets and plays. Apparently a groundling who has no status cannot get any respect, either back then or today.
What about Labour? Jeremy has been derided with all sorts of appellations, usually just to smear the working class. Yet these epithets betray a certain contempt that someone in the House of Lords would have for a scholarship student. Newton himself came from nothing and attended Cambridge as a scholarship student. So many of our leading lights were poor and remain dedicated to the pursuit of truth, knowledge, peace, love and charity. Yet the contempt we face!
17
This is only further proof the conservative ideology is best viewed as a check on governance. The philosophy of "less is not only more but better,"is a short-term fix, or can get us by in dire times, like in war, when governing philosophies all surrender to the need to survive. But then, liberal governance is also adept in difficult times as well. Truss was doomed to fail, not because she was ill-equipped or a woman, but rather because she espoused an ill-equipped philosophy as leader of a modern state. Same for Boris, and most evident in Trump, it points to the absurdity here in America that leaders who are experienced and prepared--like Hillary and Biden-- are tarred by their attributes. She was "wonky" and unfashionably bright to be taken seriously by those who held an unhealthy hatred of her. That she was thoughtful was a detriment to her thoughtless opponents. Biden, we are now witnessing, is "too old", and his experience which is on display almost daily in comparison to his predecessor, is ignored or ridiculed, even as he has been shown to be prescient on so many issues. It isn't so much that conservatives cannot rule, they can and do. In most cases, however, their philosophy gets in the way of solutions, and generally, their rule is followed by more moderate leaders who first must solve inherited problems before disposing of those that occur in their tenure. Bring on Boris! Britain is surely doomed.
15
Mr. Oborne asserted that “Todays’ Conservatives, by contrast, cling to power for power’s sake,” and “their obstinacy is ensuring the ruination of Britain.”
Certainly true about American 'conservatives' too. And in many other countries too. It seems they only want to conserve their power and wealth, at any and all cost.
And the rest of us small creatures have only to get out of the way of these dinosaurs.
29
Truss was BOJO without the charm. hser supply side
economics did her in,
5
England is in trouble regardless who is selected as PM. Remember Brexit!
53
A sad commentary on the Global lack of leadership. Those that could right the ship are nowhere to be found. We are in for just as much of a mess after the midterms and leading into 2024.
9
It appears that of the two British Elizabeths who made big news lately, only one was known for her staying power. The other, not so much.
6
"So it depends on whether the self-preservation group is bigger than the disgusted-with-BoJo group. "
Sounds very familiar. A party devoid of new ideas that reaches for the old ones in different circumstances, likely to set off a global depression.
I don't think Luz Truss sheds bad light on women as much as she reveals the disaster that is a current conservatism, that's not faithful to its core principles.
The world is in desperate need of strong leaders, men or women, who remember who they are serving. Power is great but only if it is used for the good of the country. Would that precept rule on whichever side of the pond you live on.
70
@ChristineMcM -- good comment, thanks. You very pointedly quote Maureen as writing about British Conservatives' self-preservation; then, you go on to say that current conservatism has strayed from its "core principles."
I wish journalists would explore those ideas more deeply What is it about conservatives, certainly those in our own GOP, who place a desire for power above all else? Why does that end of the political spectrum seem to attract the type of person driven by their own self-preservation rather than that of their country ... who invariably place power over principle.
And what are their core principles? Was it in 2020 or 2016 that the GOP didn't even bother to present a party platform?
15
@Mary: It was 2020 and the upcoming midterms. Mitch McConnell repeated said, when asked what his agenda was, that people should vote for Republicans who would then tell them their agenda once they held power. That is, to put it mildly, voting "blind." But secrets have a way of popping out and these MAGA types don't know when to shut their mouths. So brazen with their power and "high on their own supply," they are coming out against the 3rd rail of politics, their plans to cut entitlement programs Americans have paid into for all their lives. But when power is more important than principle, and continues to be unchecked, these anti-government types are proud to announce their plans to work for everybody EXCEPT the people they serve. Partcularly for themselves.
39
@ChristineMcM
I look for your comments and universally agree with all you say. To this comment I would like to add that we are fortunate have Joe Biden in the White House. He is proving to be the kind of leader you described in your earlier comment. He, along with Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Schumer have managed to do a great deal for everybody in a very short time.
12
'Conservative' means 'Autocrat'. The world has changed and the 'good people' (who believe in true freedom) do not understand yet that they have to do more to push back against all the world-wide autocrats, no matter what country - ours or anyone else's. A few will do well, the rest not so much.
29
I've looked and failed to find any explanation for how she made it to be PM. Yes, there are explanations of the mechanics of it, but that's not what I'm looking for.
There is no end of analysis of how Trump made it to the White House despite his obvious incompetence.
But someone in the UK please explain Liz Truss.
17
@Thomas Moore She wasn't brown and of Indian heritage, therefore the olde, white, predominantly male, Tory Party members who had to choose between her and Rishi Sunak- chose her.
7
@Thomas Moore Short answer - both Labour and the Tories changed the way they selected their leaders by giving a greater say to paid up party members. They overlooked the fact that party members are more engaged in politics than the general public and tend to hold their opinions more strongly (or are simply extremists). This is how Labour chose Corbyn (who IMHO was unsuitable because he is a contrarian; his ideology is mostly old-fashioned social democracy) and the Tories got Truss whose libertarianism appeals to the party members described below.. In the 1950s the Tories had more than two million members who came from all classes. They now have perhaps 170 000, (the party is reticent about membership figures) overwhelmingly, white, male, middle-aged and well-off and living in the south of England.
2
When Johnson stood down, the vote for the next leader went, ultimately, to the ~150,000 dues-paying Conservative Party members. In the UK you don’t have to be a member of a party to vote, so most people don’t join political parties, they just vote when the time comes. The people who DO join political parties when they don’t need to are the fanatics and nutters in the fringes. It’s how Labour briefly got Jeremy Corbyn who, thank god, didn’t get his 15 minutes in power (silver linings and all that)…
2
Does any of this sound familiar America? Once it is demonstrated you can be a shallow grasping shill in a democracy, the model becomes viable in every democracy.
59
A tale of two named Liz, synchronicity indeed. Truss was a dupe, a ringer, a place holder, mere camouflage for Boris. She is too young and way too naive to realize the set-up, and jumped right into the fire.
If Boris is anointed, again, it’s the perfect definition of insanity. Of course the same can be said of our version. They are both lifelong con artists and ultimate megalomaniac creatures. Boris is much smarter, vastly better educated, and has that accent. But he and Trump are street fighters, strivers and have hearts several sizes too small.
Go home, Liz. You’ve served your purpose, no shame in that. You were an unwitting tool, and I’m sorry you experienced that. A lesson for all Women, I hope.
Best Wishes, Great Britain. My sympathy, truly.
282
@Phyliss Dalmatian 'that accent', in Britain today, is no advantage to Boris.
8
@Mari
Yes, but it really impresses Americans.
Cheers.
22
@Phyliss Dalmatian Johnson is not nearly as intelligent as you believe. A posh accent and a habit of quoting Latin aphorisms (badly) are proof of an expensive education, not intelligence. If the Tories are stupid enough to choose him - while he is still under investigation for lying to the House - they will be destroyed at the next General Election.
59
Based on lies and hateful hopes, conservatism is not succeeding in Britain. I can only hope the same will happen in the USA. I don't understand how Republicanism can sustain itself when it has no policies, it has no hope for the future of democracy, but is based on religious fantasies and lies. How long can something with such a rotten foundation last?
185
@Jsutton
The self serving corruption of the right in America will last as long as it is taking the wimpy left to hold Trump and all his supporters accountable for their crimes. So far it's been almost 6 years and the last two Garland has spent sitting on his hands on top of a mountain of evidence of Trump law breaking.
the Fed courts are full of Maga/Federalist judges, who recently gave Bannon, guilty as can be, 4 months of house arrest to plan an appeal that will take years to come to court.
20
@alan segal Wait. That court did NOT give Bannon house arrest. It gave him FREEDOM. Pending appeal, Bannon (though convicted and sentenced) is a free man. How long will the appeal process be? By the time he files a second appeal, the public will have forgotten him. I don't believe Bannon will even see one day in prison. This is the form of "justice" we have in this country for the wealthy, who can pay expensive lawyers to delay ad infinitum.
15
please stop referring to Sunak's wife's wealth, and her Indian earnings which she has agreed to pay taxes on anyway
- if the Conservative 'grass roots' dont want him, it is nothing more than r a c i s m.
Hypocrisy, the abiding British vice - E. M. Forster.
18
It probably is racist, but the woman still dodged taxes and lied about it.
6
@Ramesh G
I'm unfamiliar with the tax situation over there. Do other Britons have to pay taxes on foreign earnings?
1
@Robert dont care for billionaire daughter's like her, but that wealth was inherited from another country,
and id say the bar was lowered a little bit when a certain billionaire businessman bragging about his fabulous wealth paid almost NO taxes within the country of his birth :)
2
"It was such a swift fall that Truss was anointed by a queen and resigned to a king."
Uh...
Am I the only reader puzzled by this line?
Normally [I would have thought] being anointed by one monarch and resigning to a different one would be considered a mark of longevity noteworthy for being especially lengthy, not especially short, would it not?
In the UK, at least, changes of monarchs are not frequent occurrences, are they?
Then again, I readily admit I am easily (and often) confused. (Maybe it's the Aspy? It's often the Aspy.)
Am I wrong in this?
11
@smartalek No - you are entirely correct. Being anointed by a Queen and resigning to a King would normally be a sign of great longevity in one's post.
3
@smartalek You missed the point, but then smartaleks often do becasue they're so busy being smartaleky.
2
@smartalek It's noteworthy because the late Queen lived and reigned for such a long time. I'm 68; Elizabeth was crowned a couple of years before I was born. Most of us are still getting used to the idea of a King. Apart from wrecking the economy and damaging the UK's international standing even more than Cameron and Johnson, Truss' only memorable achievements are the brevity of her time in office and the trivial fact that she was appointed by one monarch and gave in her resignation to another.
2
I admit to feeling guilty about my glee at Liz Truss's meltdown. A part of me says, "Am I just eager to see a woman fail? Is it internalized misogyny?" But I really do think I'd be just as gleeful if it were a man who'd failed so spectacularly. I just like watching conservatives mess up.
That said, I have to disagree with Ms Dowd on one point: There are people out there who believe Liz Truss failed because she is a woman. I can't speak to the situation in the UK, but hatred of women is a growing menace here in the US. Extremist right-wing groups are often called out for being racist, but they're also highly misogynist. Racism and sexism go hand-in-hand, and I wouldn't be surprised to find out there's a growing movement of anti-woman sentiment in Britain as well.
23
Katie
Truss failed because she is a trickle-down fraudster, grifter and swindler and cheap opportunist who chose 'fame and fortune' to carry water for British oligarchs and billionaires.
Her gender is irrelevant.
Theresa May was a good Prime Minister, but she wasn't "entertaining" enough for the duped masses craving a "clown" like Boris Johnson and his Brexit trap door carnival act.
4
Maureen Dowd is a perceptive columnist, but ignores the elephant in the room. Brexit was popular because people got fed up with capitalism's need for cheap labor via immigration. Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and Donald Trump just rode the coattails of popular anger.
Brexit was a rejection of Ms. Dowd's commonly-heard lament in an earlier column "Who will do the work nobody wants?" when what Ms. Dowd and the capital markets really mean is "Who will do the work nobody wants for cheap wages?"
Capital markets have captured our respective governments and our media. When we say "Who is going to do the work nobody wants?," why are we surprised to see the likes of Truss and Trump?
27
@Hobbes
This was in no way about capitalism. Brexit was purely a racist, xenophobic, isolationist endeavor.
8
@Hobbes The cheap labour mostly came and still comes from non EU states. We lost a lot of skilled and professional people from our European neighbours after Brexit. Immigration is actually higher than when the UK was still an EU member state.
9
Watching the story unfold in Britain is like watching previews of coming attractions in America.
The Conservatives hopped in the Truss car apparently having no idea where Truss was heading. They cracked up and are now wondering if Boris should hop back in the driver's seat. They apparently never learned that a having a whacko behind the wheel takes them nowhere.
Now we have their American cousins , the MAGA Republicans, pining for Trump to jump back in the Clown Car. Where would they be headed? As Mitch McConnell said, we'll just have to vote them back into power to learn their destination.
I, for one, am getting car-sick already.
124
@Tom Q --- Terrific comment. Funny, very funny...but NOT. Thanks for the laugh, sardonic as it is.
17
Britain was ruined when it “won” the Second World War. Because it lost its immense empire and the tribute that went with it. Food, housing and clothing were rationed until my childhood in the 1950s and 1960s, all resulting from the radical contractions of the British economy, absent its colonial tribute and tithes. So many adjectives like “gormless” could be bruited about the demise of Truss that came with swift ignominy. One hopes that BBC will cast Janet McTeer as Liz Truss in any upcoming dramatisation of the sickening plunge.
12
Politics has always been a contact sport, on some occasions leading officials to come to blows. Arguably, politics in England and America are more combative now than ever, but all the crises we are living through seem worst than ever before. What makes politicians serious about working together for a common cause is war, and, in America, the 9/11 attack, which led Congress to join hands and sing "God Bless America." Not even a pandemic that killed more than a million Americans could match that. And, since politics is an expression of society as a whole, this problem is a lot broader than a few inept or deceitful leaders.
6
This should have happened with Trump. Instead we endured 4 years and continue to endure the rffects of his disastrous Presidency.
57
Boris Johnson can become Prime Minister again after a massive fall.
Donald Trump can become President again after a massive fall.
Will US Democrats take this seriously and actually have a clear, unified strategy and a strong, charismatic leader?
Nope. Progressives can't leave college. Gotta keep the moral superiority and the woe-is-me lifestyle. The world will never turn into Boston. Equal outcomes is for robots.
8
Boris Johnson returning as savior to the mess he made echoes Trump saying:"I alone can fix it."
85
@Diana
one and the same.
10
This is England we’re talking about. They’ve got a deep bench of talent to draw from. Forget Boris Johnson - Britain needs to nominate John Cleese as the next PM. You’re welcome.
27
@Aaron
Would he run as a member of the Silly Party? (Note to comments-it is a Python reference.)
2
Let's Go With Labour!
12
@Reginald V. Wedge
they can nominate Kanye West
1
The puppet master(s) are achieving their desired ends.
1
Rishi Sunak vs. BoJo
is like choosing between
Ramanujan and 'Laurel and Hardy'
The Tories can't be serious!
5
“Back again? Dear, oh dear.” -Charles III. Words for our times.
11
Liz Truss only survived that long because of the Queen's funeral. Politics took a week off.
22
‘She was a bad communicator, a poor speaker and weak on camera. She didn’t understand that you couldn’t simply borrow money from the future.’ Sounds more like Biden than Trump!
6
@Warrick: Trump holds the record for federal debt incurred in 4 years of a presidential term: $8 trillion.
35
@Warrick
Of for heaven's sake! There is absolutely no comparison to be made here except, apparently, from the keyboards of very shallow analysts with no understanding of gravitas.
5
@Warrick
How is Biden borrowing money from the future?
3
If Johnson schemes his way back in, then the next victim will be British democracy. Johnson will use the parliament to destroy the parliament. Very Trumpian.
8
Truss may be a wuss, but BoJo has the mojo!
4
Margaret Thatcher saw the actual state of affairs that others were overlooking or who glimpsed only briefly, thinking that it was immutable. It wasn't a magic spell that she could cast on the economy or god's revelation delivered in her dreams, it was simply, good old fashioned government deficit spending. Cut taxes without cutting government spending. Both the United States and Great Britain (now just Above Average Britain) had low levels of government debt at the time and could afford deficit spending until their debt exceeded GDP, which they did. It's the untold secret behind Reagan's "feel good" years. In contrast to Margaret Thatcher, Lisa Truss didn't look at the actual state of affairs, she was watching reruns from her memory of Margaret Thatcher triumphing, and then imagined herself basking in the same adulation Margaret Thatcher enjoyed after the British Economy rebounded and reinvented itself as a global financial supermarket, just at the perfect time when the world entered a 40-year span of Goldilocks price stability. Let's not confuse our dreams with reality.
9
Ever notice that conservatives do not, perhaps do not know how to smile? The pull to the past is so deep and pervasive it takes conservatives back to a primate level where smiling had not yet broken into human consciousness. Sad, for smiling along with joy is an indicator of hope for the future.
61
@Rose Wonderful comment Rose! Well said.
11
“Conservative”, like “Republican” are descriptors from an earlier time. They no longer accurately describe the organizations into which they have devolved. Yet the public continues to treat them as if nothing has changed.
47
I wouldn’t say that Trump is an ideologue? What ideology?
12
@semaj II
GREED.
Period.
18
@Phyliss Dalmatian
I would say vanity more than greed, but a case can probably be made for every single one of the seven deadly sins when it comes to Trump's motivation.
5
@Phyliss Dalmatian -- And adulation.
2
Loyalty to country and loyalty to democracy have been replaced by loyalty to party and, as you note Maureen, loyalty to the lust for power. The Tories have failed Britain and yet, as our own Trump Republicans, refuse to concede defeat and call for a new election. As democracy crumbles in England so it does across the pond here in the former colonies who overthrew their king, but now seem to want their own home grown wannabe king like Boris to return from exile and smash what remains of the freedom for all that over a million have died fighting to preserve against tyrants who've drenched history in blood.
15
Yeah, political conservatives can be unpleasant.
But what's the alternative at the moment? Supporting liberals whose idea of "progress" is a noxious aggregation of nonsensical cultural notions with which precious few Americans remotely identify?
I long for the center. Is it anywhere to be found?
7
@David H
Actually, I think most Americans identify with the need for healthcare reform--getting the physicians back in charge of treatment would be most welcome, and MUCH less money spent on justifying diagnostic testing and providing treatment... to for-profit insurance companies.
7
@David H
The US is skewed so far to the right, that you do not realize that Bernie is about where the center should be.
12
@David H There is no center. There is only Democratic government or Fascism.
4
Britain and America may be two nations long divided by a common language, but are now united by an inexplicable taste for political insanity.
Both nations haunted (or thrilled) by party over country conservative politicians and their supporters that have seemingly lost their minds, still influenced by their deposed disasterous leaders.
11
Like Hillary, whom you never quite permitted yourself to acknowledge, Liz accurately perceived that structural disaster was imminent. Her response was pointed to capital which Brexit assured would flee, now. Labor resurgence will nail it down hard. Being unpopular doesn’t make Liz wrong, being prescient doesn’t make her foolish, being female doesn’t make her irrelevant. Watch Northern Ireland, where the backdoor is wide open.
4
Thanks Maureen, but let the other shoe drop.
“British conservatives are becoming as shameless as American conservatives, willing to put up with any outrage to keep their posh offices and perks.”
And then there are French conservatives and Italian conservatives, German conservatives, etc.
Why don’t we quit identifying by national origin and cut to the chase…. Conservatism is a scourge upon humanity.
211
@Bach
"Conservatism is a scourge upon humanity."
Political conservatism, as currently constituted in the form of the GOP? Agreed.
But time is on the side of "conservatives."
Generally speaking, the vast majority of us obey the law, pay our taxes, have families and mortgages and financial responsibilities and as we get older, grow more protective of our investments and the things for which we have worked hard.
This is a HUGE advantage for the political right, and it is one that will endure as long as we have politics in this country.
I dare say I have yet to meet anyone (other than life-long tree huggers, God bless them) who has become more liberal as they got older.
6
@David H
The only reason conservatism will endure is that inevitably, today becomes the yesterday you desire to return.
I do all the things you list as a good citizen should. I do not see any reason to go back to a past that already proven to have gotten us into the mess we’re in today.
29
@Bach
Thank you for your reply.
Personally, speaking, the “yesterday” that I long to return to goes back centuries, when they were such thing as boundaries, good manners, and inter alia the clear delineation between good and evil, truth and fiction, and right and wrong — the grotesque corruption of which today is not the exclusive purview of any particular political party or movement.
6
Boris Johnson has done incalculable harm to Great Britain with Brexit. Take away global inflation and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and COVID, and the UK would still be doing poorly. To reward him with another chance would be a staggering blow to the country. It is remarkable how our rotten-to-the-core GOP and their conservatives are both ready to trade their countries for personal gain. When did morals go out of fashion?
16
Truss's gender played no part in her downfall. That inglorious feat was down purely to her ineptitude and an inbred arrogance that would not listen to wiser counsel. She was doomed from the start because her trickle-down economics policies were outdated and discredited historical failures. But Liz knew better than everyone else.
The Tories are imploding and it couldn't happen to a nicer bunch. They've been in power too long and have become estranged from their roots of fiscal responsibility and can no longer communicate their ideas to a cynical public.
Throw in the drift rightward to rabid nationalism, xenophobia and disinterest in the poor and you have a brand that has long outlived its shelf life.
They need to lose power, go on retreat and reinvent themselves, minus the worst of the Brexiteers.
25
The self-preservation group of politicians is always the biggest group of politicians, at least in this century.
6
The death of Queen Elizabeth AND Brexit were the death knell for Great Britain. It’s over, except for the sundering and taking sides. England will exist, but be greatly diminished, no longer a great power and among the first tier of nations. Much like Japan: small, isolated, less populated, very moderate natural resources. The analogy is a very good fit, when the Empire is lost and the people have been extremely ill served by their leaders.
My best wishes, cousins.
9
That’s harsh phyliss.
Remind you they still have a stranglehold on N Ireland and the Commonwealth.
And Japan is the world # auto producer.
When was last time you saw a commercial for a GM or Ford sedan?
1
For sure that Liz Truss had important shortcomings in her communication skills, but what finished her was her robotic fixation on tax cuts for corporations and the rich, particularly in the current circumstances, which would have finished a PM of either gender. Her departure after such incompetence iwill be a tipping point in the public's view of the Tory brand that will not be forgotten, no matter when an election is called. Moreover, the hardships and privations of the coming months will focus voters on the many mistakes made by the Tories over the last decade, most importantly, the disaster of Brexit, which is increasingly acknowledged to have failed abjectly, even by many of those who voted for it. There will be a groundswell of support for the UK to negotiate a more rational relationship with the EU than the current nonsense.
7
Conservatism on paper looks pretty good. It's why they get elected.
Conservatism in practice is a disaster. It's why it always reaches a tragic demise.
Voters haven't received the message yet. They will.
The Dark Ages lasted 500 years.
We've got a long ways to go.
6
Caveat: I voted for Hillary Clinton, in fact, I preferred her over Obama in 2008. But Hillary didn't lose because she was a woman, she lost because she was part of the Bill Clinton saga, hubris, and a terrible campaigner. When I think back over the last 2 presidential elections of Republican winners, how much different the world would be without 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, The Great Recession, plus the Trump Pandemic which not only killed millions but resulted in supply shortages and inflation that exist today. And the blatant criminality of Donald Trump, his administration, and his family. No truer words were ever spoken than "Elections have consequences, disastrous consequences."
15
@dbl06: All of Washington buried its head in the sand about FBI Director James Comey's week before the election stunt with Anthony Weiner's computer that gave Trump victory under the Electoral College travesty.
Hillary Clinton starred when Trey Gowdy grilled her over Benghazi.
2
I agree with that Johnson put Truss's name forward for PM duplicitously, first to block the far more capable Sunak, then to await her downfall and insert himself back in the running, once she failed.
But, aside from odious Johnson, 0.12 percent of British voters (about 172,000 conservatives) voted for Truss, so the average, eligible British voter seems to be hamstrung by the same kind of very powerful, minoritarian forces currently wreaking havoc in the U.S.
Fortunately, with a parliamentary system and no constitution, the British have an escape valve for defenestrating bad politicians; unfortunately, the same can't be said of the U.S.
Calling a general election would allow the British people to decide their representation, rather than a miniscule group of right-wing autocrats.
12
@Deborah The UK no longer has the power to call a general election. They now enjoy fixed terms.
1
In my mind’s eye, I visualize Prime Ministers in England going rapidly through a revolving door.
The last 5 went through in 6 years. That means a little over a year if generally estimated for each.
For an office that has no term limits, and there were 9 who lasted out of the 56 for over 10 years, this is showing a serious symptom. I feel the U.S. is showing signs of greater jeopardy, but none the less, the current rapid changes in society is showing stress everywhere.
5
Who knew that shovelling money to the wealthy via tax cuts and deregulation was bad for the non-wealthy? Please share such wisdom with Americans who vote Republican.
1140
@Robert
Those who vote Republican actually do want the rich to be taxed more. They vote Republican anyway because of the racist, sexist messages spewed by Republican politicians. They're willing to vote against their own self-interest in order to maintain white male supremacy.
73
@Robert
You might think the Democrats would hammer this point home, but on taxing the wealthy, they're just GOP-lite. Before Krysten Sinema became the convenient scapegoat for not eliminating the carried interest loophole, Chuck Schumer fought tooth and nail, for decades, to retain it. It's good cop, bad cop, played out on the congressional stage.
We will never have a full-throated debate in this country on fair taxation because both parties are complicit in keeping the comfortable comfortable.
69
@Robert
Last 40 years the wealth disparity has laid the groundwork for Trump to tell his lies to the maga crowd. To bad they can't figure out who their real enemy is...
18
I believe that what pushed Truss out of office so abruptly was the financial markets' adverse reaction to the first policies she implemented: an unfunded tax cut for high-income taxpayers, and spending cuts. That, of course, is what Republicans in the US have been proposing in every election since at least 2016. I would expect financial markets to have the same reaction to the implementation of the same policies in the US. Republican strategists should be hard at work trying to explain why that would not be the case.
21
@Andy. Republican voters in the U.S. don't care what their elected representatives do as long as they marginalize the people and groups that the so called conservatives feel are changing the culture in ways they disapprove of. They might be upset about the economy, but their primary motivator is the culture wars.
12
In both the U.S. and Britain, the work of politics has been degraded into entertainment, sports, and religion. I don’t see that reversing any time soon.
146
@Just Curious
Religion and entertainment have already merged.
Mega churches and the concert music experience.
It gives you something to keep time to while your hands are raised in fervent virtue-signaling.
19
yes and unfortunately too much of what is called religion is just sports entertainment fantasy politics by another name and is not fulfilling its prophetic role of critiquing power for the powerless.
4
I wish our "conservative" party was as patriotic as the UK's. Both champion dogmatic stupidity regarding economic policy (See Truss, Stephen Moore, trickle down), place self above country and willingly jettison professed core principals for personal advancement within their party. Try to imagine Pelosi, Sanders, Tester or any Dem leader doing so.
Still, the UK Conservatives' core policies are not anti-democratic. They do not deny the vote to opponents or sanction violence for political ends or impose a policy of separating babies from brown immigrants or refugee mothers.
May our conservative party aspire to the ethics of UK conservatives.
12
As someone said, whether employed on Fleet Street or Downing Street, "The Apprentice" AKA "Trump's Apprentice" AKA Boris Johnson, has never allowed facts to get in the way of a good story.
The only good thing that can be said for him is his steadfast support for Ukraine. Whereas his "mentor", Mr. Trump (if he's re-elected by that now dangerously anti-democratic, anachronism, America's Electoral College), would likely abandon Ukraine in a heartbeat.
If these two do indeed regain power, then the forces of evil will be immensely strengthened, either through incompetence and further scandal (Boris) or through vindictiveness and mendacity ("Putin's Poodle") plus a willingness to embrace the Fascist tactics of the world's dictators.
As ex-Secretary of State, the late Madeleine Albright, warned in a prescient column in this paper back in 2018 entitled: "Fascism on the March: can Donald Trump be stopped in time?" - time is running out for democracy. Much of America is sleepwalking into an autocracy, even dictatorship.
Biden must loudly warn of the danger to America from the Fascist MAGA wing of the Republican Party NOW, because soon any alarm will count for nothing.
60
@Michael Northmore Amen to what you posted here Michael.
7
@Michael Northmore You can thank Merrick Garland for our descent into fascism.
@DavidS Thank you Yodagirl, but DavidS I think your criticism of Garland is premature.
If he's to indict and more important, convict Donald Trump, he needs an absolutely cast-iron case against him. Why? Because the real issue is surely finding a jury that is sufficiently unbiased that it can be demonstrably fair? And that may be extraordinarily difficult given all the publicity - except, of course, for those who've been living on another planet these past few years.
And Trump MUST be fairly convicted of treason, mounting a coup, insurrection - whatever the proper charge is. As The Economist weekly succinctly put it: "In a democracy there is no more treasonous a crime than forcibly attempting to stop the peaceful transfer of political power following free and fair elections."
So Garland must get it right - an acquittal could be disastrous for America's democracy.
3
Thank you Maureen for shining a light on the despicable Boris Johnson for those of us who haven't paid close attention to the intricacies of the last British PM election. Backing Truss because he knew she would be so mediocre as to make people nostalgic for him is excellent insight and fits perfectly with what I know of the gross mop-top man... One good line just brought me up to speed...
6
If Johnson and Trump return to power - my God, the mere thought is depressing and dispiriting. Their return to power would expose, brazenly, the sheer rot of Western culture. But when you turn around and face Russia and China, you get even sicker. This is a bad time, indeed.
54
Maureen, you are Irish. You feel elated about the Tories' shambolic dysfunction.
No one has caused more pain and misery in N Ireland than the Tories through the years.
6
We Americans often see ourselves as the only ones with incompetent, selfish, self-serving ideologues as their head-of-state or waiting in the wings to inflict their version of Hell on us. That is our “American exceptionalism” and comes from our own inbred selfishness and myopia. And it is not true.
What is true is that a screeching turn to the hard right has been happening in many countries in our world. One only has to look beyond our borders to find incompetent ideologues being put into positions of power, whether by popular vote, unpopular coup, or popular uprising. It is becoming harder and harder to find reasonable politicians leading their countries and even when we do, those leaders are often confronted with lower-level politicians of opposing ideologies.
Our world is in a big hurt and we must come to understand that merely changing the head will have little effect on the body that is the world’s population.
8
Public service has been replaced by self service. To be conservative today is about conserving one’s privileges. For such Torries and Republicans, the ends justify the means. And those means can be very mean indeed. Many of them have mastered the art of fear, motivating those most harmed by their actions to vote for them nevertheless. Again and again.
34
At least Liz Truss will get her pension as the 44-day PM at the equivalent of $129,000 annually. The wine merchants down the street from #10 will also be happy if Boris Johnson succeeds in his restoration of power. Back to the good old times when Boris had a party during COVID lockdown when he ordered, “More wine, more suitcases of wine”!
8
At least Great Britain can be credited for self-correcting. We weren't able to do that with Donald Trump before he planned and ruined the election and the transition of the presidency. Republicans were too cowardly to make him leave and he still gets more coverage in the press than President Biden. Britain will be fine. The United States won't.
11
@roberta kernan
Yes, Repubs too cowardly. But a new book criticizes Pelosi on the impeachment…. see Politico article, and author interviews.
Title-- “Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congress’s Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump,”
"...Pelosi prioritized political calculations over a thorough fact-finding effort during Trump’s first impeachment
Pelosi squandered opportunities to win support from Republicans who were initially panicked about what Trump’s conduct toward Ukraine would mean for them.”
And “Pelosi shunned the idea of impeaching Trump in public and private during most of his term, describing the process itself as detrimental to the country due to its inherent divisiveness.”
In a way I envy the Brits. Think of all the pain we would have been spared if our country stood up to Trump as England did to Truss. And you know...it was not about her being a woman. She was clearly unprepared and inept. Another thought here, England will probably pull out of their present mess. It's who the English are. Not so here in America. We are hardly a nation to judge another democracy when bit by bit, day by day, our trajectory is pointing to a theocratic autocracy or oligarchy, take your pick. The Marjorie Taylor Green's are emulated. The flip side is that a Nancy Pelosi, because she is a brilliant, experienced, dynamic woman - emphasize WOMAN - is anathema to our patriarchal, misogynistic, and hypocritically Christian (ironically, she's a practicing Catholic) so-called society. And she may be replaced as soon as next January by a male buffoon. So to England, good luck. To us, I have more faith in our neighbor across the proverbial Pond than I do of us woefully confused Americans.
834
Aside from the comprehensive moral, intellectual and economic bankruptcy that is the heart and soul of Trickle-Down Fraudonomics that animates both British 'conservatives' and American Republicans, look at how these swindlers and grifters get power in the first place.
In the USA, the Republicans have consistently dog-whistled White Wonder Bread Society sweet nothings (i.e., law and order !, welfare queens, states rights, Willie Horton, xenophobia, the Birther Lie and endless demonization of the 'other') into the ears of Americans since the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965 to help ensure that the rich got richer and everyone else got a giant bucket of spite.
In Britain, 'conservatives' happily peddled the catastrophic and xenophobic Brexit to the addled masses happy to chew on its isolationist, nativist, backward looking delusions of restoring British empire.
Brexit was one of the greatest acts of political incompetence in modern history, and Boris Johnson was its greatest cheerleader, along with other nihilistic 'conservatives'.
Add in Liz Truss' award-winning Trickle-Down Fraud efforts that put Britain and its citizens in the intensive care ward, and British conservatives - like American conservatives - have yet again proven they know nothing about economics besides greed and power.
“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”
-John Kenneth Galbraith
1528
@Socrates -- with the
McConnell Court servicing
the Highest Bidders what Hope
does Democracy here even Have?
129
@Socrates Excellent quote by Galbraith. I believe any summation of the success conservative movement in Britain and the US must contain the name Rupert Murdoch.
92
@Socrates Cameron called the referendum on Brexit, but he did not support leaving the EU.
8
Brexit, a conservative scam, sunk UK beneath the waves. But at least Truss has a large lifelong pension to keep her afloat.
12
The British were always incompetent administrators of their colonies and Churchill was overtly a racist. Journalists should read the history of British rule and stop praising Churchill whose main objective in the Second World War was to preserve the “empire “ even if it entailed defeat in several battles.
5
An ideologue who put forth an agenda without taking the pulse of her people, her demise was foretold when King Charley remarked "oh, it's you again"[paraphrasing] in a way that indicated he just wanted her gone, understandable since she previously advised he not attend an annual environmental conference where he had formerly played such an instrumental part.
Britain is a parliamentary constitutional monarchy, so it's not axiomatic that a GE will occur, although that seems the most responsible solution. The libertarian Tories will merely re-shuffle again, but will more carefully avoid a jihadist, perhaps re-settling on the perennially described "shambolic" Boris, who entertains the public with his boyish looks and quick wit, despite the sleaze/scandal that sent him packing. They can't risk putting an inexperienced but ambitious neophyte in place, like Penny, or the over-preening peacock Braverman, and the competent Jeremy Hunt doesn't want the spot. Sunak lacks the charm that would more easily forgive mistakes, and a consort who snubs taxes is not a good face for a country to present during a time of austerity with the winter coming.
Tories won't vote for GE, (the consummate grown up, Keir Starmer has too good a chance of prevailing) but will cling to power instead. As David Lammy (shadow foreign secretary) overheard them remark, "turkeys don't vote for Christmas".
5
Though without a constitution.
The US is the only country with a big enough economy to get away with trickle-down tax cuts; and the US dollar is the global reserve currency. Truss was doomed from the get-go.
Still, Americans want to pass judgment on British politics? We would do well to get our own house in order first. And we're not looking too good right now.
285
“… you couldn’t simply borrow money from the future.” That is precisely what the American people by means of both parties have been doing for a century. Calvin Coolidge was the last Republican president to bring in a balanced budget. Bill Clinton was the last Democrat. The current “moderate” annual federal deficit is $1.4 trillion. Works out to spending $3,000+ of borrowed money for each person in the country. The accumulated debt is nigh $100,000 for each of us. Yep, that includes infants. It will never be paid down as the American people have no appetite for the taxes and spending cuts that will required. Given the vagaries of time and tide, default is inevitable sometime in this already dangerous century.
7
“One of the glories of the traditional Conservative Party used to be its readiness to place country before party,”
You could substitute "Republican" for "Conservative", and that isn't the only parallel between Britain and the US. Boris Johnson is Trump-lite and like him is planning a resurrection. We can only hope that neither is successful.
68
The problem with the leadership contest is that MPs wanted Rishi Sunak last time. Because there were more than two candidates, the voting was put to the Conservative party at large and Truss won.
This time I am worried that the Conservative party members will vote again for Johnson. Johnson, like Truss doesn't have the backing of the majority of MPs working with him. There will be more scandals if Johnson wins again. Coupled with the major damage that Truss caused in her short tenure, Labour should win the next General Election.
11
Quote: Mr. Oborne asserted that “Todays’ Conservatives, by contrast, cling to power for power’s sake,” and “their obstinacy is ensuring the ruination of Britain.”
How is the GOP any different? They have no plans to govern, no plans to tackle inflation, etc. Their only goal is to seize power and cram a bunch of laws through that no one wants. Abortion? Banned! Gays? Back in the closet! Minorities? Back to the ghettoes. Non-Christians? Who cares!
361
@Phobos
They're in sink on many levels.
5
@Phobos
And of course, tax cuts for the wealthy and Wall St.
10
Boris likes to think of himself as Winston Churchill. That reminds me of the quote by Senator Lloyd Bentsen to Republican vice-presidential candidate Senator Dan Quayle in response to Quayle's mentioning the name of John F. Kennedy:
"Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy"
If Liz truss and Brexit have sunk Great Britain and made it the laughing stock of the G20, bringing back Boris would turn it into something akin keeping Chamberlin (before his death from cancer) over Winston after Munich and the start of WW II.
15
"Winston Churchill set this standard before stepping down as prime minister in 1955: “The first duty of a member of Parliament is to do what he thinks in his faithful and disinterested judgment is right and necessary for the honor and safety of Great Britain.” Maureen Dowd
Yes, but he got back in and saved the country from further ruin. That's not going to happen if we re-elect Boris!
Patricia Friedberg
5
One of Maureen’s best it years!
“Dudders?”
9
@Daniel Deagler
re "Dudders": Boris was educated at Eton. Those public (i.e. private) schools have a vocabulary all their own.
Johnson has always been Tump's mini-me, just as the British Conservative Party is the MAGA Republican clone, with no dignity or purpose other than the ruination of their respective nations
346
@alank50 -- is it any Coincidence
we Both owe a Debt of Serv-
itude to the Rupert Mur-
dochs of this Planet?
36
@alank50
Boris never styled himself on Donald, he thought DT was 'stupendously ignorant'. And the conservatives in spite of all the shenanigans could never emulate the MAGA republicans. We would never allow any of the crazies on the American right to run for for anything. We don't have anyone in government at any level who even comes close.
26
@alank50
I think you have it a bit backwards. David Cameron, leader o the Conservative party, first promised a referendum on remaining in the European Union in 2010. At that time Trump was a well-known conman in New York with whom those in the know did no business and was he was six years from the presidency.
Apart from being first, the Tories are not as violent and gun-obsessed, nor as delusional about reality, nor as poorly educated as MAGAts.
6
Self-Preservation will win. My money is on Bo-Jo.
Yes, British conservatives are shameless. American conservatives are shameless, liars with some crazy thrown in.
238
BoJo, eh?
2
"She didn't understand you cannot borrow from the future"? Maureen au contraire that is what American politicians have been doing for more than 40 years. And that is why we now have a national debt north of $31 trillion that no sane person believes we will ever repay. But we will have to service that debt and with rising interest rates the cost of that debt service is doubling.
2
Peter Osborne perfectly and succinctly captured the mindset of American conservatives:power " for power’s sake,”
19
The object of power is power. Influence and authority over others. George Orwell.
5
I don’t understand British politics, but then I don’t understand ours either. The closest I can come is tribalism, which in the dim dark past was key to real survival. I think it’s hardwired in, so that in the dim dark present it rears it’s ugly head in ways we haven’t seen recently. I am terrified for our country. The Brits will have to look after themselves.
35
It went so fast, it almost felt like the fix was in.
The only fix was reality: ideology over fact is a guaranteed loser.
Will our Republicans learn?
Our lesson will be much, much more painful.
10
Liz, we hardly knew ye!
3
@reader
We always preferred Liz (Taylor) anyway...
4
At least a riled up crowd of Johnson supporters hasn't attacked parliament in denial of her resignation, yet.
522
He had a glass of wine with a couple of buds-big whoop!
Bring Boris back.
Only he can save “Great Britaly.”
Boris Johnson, Sky News and the Conservatives so destroyed GB that only he can run it now.
Sound familiar?
659
@Bill Brasky I don't think our GOP is promising to fix anything. They're only promising to target the Dems. When the GOP take the House, it's just gonna be hearing/investigation non-stop. They won't even pretend to legislate. There won't be any serious legislation passed in the remainder of Biden's term.
The Tories still control the House of Commons and can pass stuff at will. But this supply-side stuff that Truss and Kwarteng tried to foist upon them was just so tone-deaf to be comical. Do they really want Boris back?
18
@Jeremiah
Add to what you said, there is talk that if Republicans win the House, they will be willing to shut down the government to try to get cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
All the while they have been giving tax cut to the wealthy with Reagan, W Bush, and Trump.
34
@Bill Brasky Yes, it does sound familiar!
With the exception that, at least last time I checked, Boris Johnson doesn't flirt with or directly embraces the world's dictators nor has he directed a mob to assault, say, on GB government's representatives.
9
Not even brits who voted for Brexit deserve a P.M. who says “Dudders”.
32
"Mr. Oborne asserted that 'Todays’ Conservatives, by contrast, cling to power for power’s sake,' and 'their obstinacy is ensuring the ruination of Britain.'”
We can only pray conservatives' death wish does not take democracy with them.
10
Brexit was Britain’s way of saying “we know we can’t return to our imperial past, but gosh we want to.” They deserve this drama and the breakup of the UK to follow.
8
America today is all about money and power--not the common good. Unfortunately this malady has made it's way across the pond. Once again we share more than a common language.
183
The lesson for U.S. voters should be that the current global economic crisis is not tied to whether governments are liberal or conservative.
However, voters will likely do the knee-jerk thing, or at least the swing vote, and punish whoever they see in power. Lucky for the conservatives in England, their government isn't up for election soon.
Unfortunately for anyone that wants to see a long term improvement for the middle class in this country, it is the Dems who are on trial for events beyond their control.
573
@Carmel fruit farmer Exactly the point I was going to make. Thanks for doing the work for me!
I will say that the Tory party selling Brexit to Great Britain was no different than the MAGA idea of making America great again. Trying to return to a past that never existed.
273
Would love to believe that Americans aren’t so stupid as to vote in the very people who will make it worse.
49
@RB
They earnestly and deeply believe that a red wave will make things better.
I just talked with Larry at the park. I mentioned that if the world didn't have Russia, Red China, North Korea, and Iran, it'd be a much better place. Larry quickly said that "Trump got along with every one of them." Indeed he did, Larry.
I had to end the conversation because I could easily detect increasing anger from Larry -- he frowned and his face muscles grew tight -- as he began to open the books on his political views.
Everyone says that you can't change mind-sets, which may be true, but you can plant seeds, especially if you do it wisely.
A mind is a horrible thing to waste.
13
"But no one believes Truss blew up on the launchpad because she’s a woman."
It is indeed a watershed event in the historic rise of women leaders. Until now, the dominant view was that women, by virtue of their inherent compassion and implicit civility, would make better leaders than men. While this theory may be partially true, that many women would be incompetent leaders was never stated publicly. Maybe in muted terms and in private, but never in public.
And, now Ms. Dowd has done the unthinkable. And, I believe this event and future analysis of Ms. Truss's short tenure and quick resignation will only advance women's opportunities in positions of leadership.
13
Her downfall had NOTHING to do with the fact that she was a woman, It was her and her party's policies.
They are beyond abysmal.
The party is supposed to be that of the free market, and the free market let it be known that they had gone too far. They had already gone too far with detaching from their most valued and profitable market (the E.U.) and ever since then have tried to recover.
To go even further than what they had already done and enhance the pocket books of the wealthy even more by extracting even more from the commoner was disastrous and the market said enough was enough.
We are in a stand still position now as the calls for another general election grow louder and louder. IT won't matter if they bring back a former face or present a new one. The country is aching to put in a Labor government as soon as electorally possible.
While we wait on that, lettuce futures look bright.
455
Who got there (in power) first? Who was a set of colonies of who? Who do we emulate whether we like it or not? That's right. Great Britain. Ms. Dowd describes the situation well.
3
It seems that the new generation of British and American conservatives all spend their energies on staying in office as opposed to doing what is needed to run their countries. This has nothing to do with gender but everything to do with ineptitude, greed and outsized egos.
1717
Politics in both countries is not about service, it is about lifelong avarice.
428
@Lesley Gordon-Mountian
So true. Those interested in governing for the greater good or love of country need not apply. Conservatives must be control freaks committed to calculation, manipulation and self-interest to have any shot at winning. Come on back, Boris Johnson! Politics has become a bad joke on the world’s citizenry.
41
@Lesley Gordon-Mountian
Power and greed. The twin towers of conservative policies and actions.
150
"We all knew Margaret Thatcher, and Miss Liz is no Margaret Thatcher."
40
@James Landi And the world had enough of the Iron Lady anyway. Her economic policy was a lie.
27
There is a common denominator between the two, however. The policies of both were terrible for the majority of people in this country, and the impacts of them will be felt for many, many years to come.
17