🇺🇸 Truss Fall

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Ukraine's Charge, Tesla's Trillions, Chess Cheating

World: U.S. says Iranian troops "directly engaged" in Crimea, backing Russian drone strikes (CBS News) + UK says Russian aircraft fired missile near British spy plane over Black Sea (Reuters) + Ukrainians told to 'charge everything' as power grid hit by Russia (BBC)

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FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Truss Fall

After just 45 days in office, embattled British PM Liz Truss resigned yesterday. Her rise to the position coincided with the resignation of fellow Conservative politician Boris Johnson, who stepped down in July.

Reporting from the Right: Who could replace Liz Truss as next UK prime minister? (New York Post)

Reporting from the Left: Liz Truss joins ranks of shortest-serving world leaders (The Guardian)

From The Flag: In recent weeks the UK’s financial system has been in chaos with bond yields spiking and the Bank of England being forced to step in as a stabilizing measure. Truss had proposed steep tax cuts, which were later abandoned, but that wasn’t enough to avoid her ouster. Meanwhile, British inflation is at 10.1% year-over-year, which is a 40-year high. Here’s commentary from both sides.

LEFT-LEANING SENTIMENT

Truss Went Bold, Then Backtracked, Now She’s Gone

• Truss failed spectacularly by putting misplaced trust in the free markets, not because it was a smart move, but rather as “a gesture of political conviction.”

• With the UK government in complete disarray, new Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt has his work cut out for him.

• Truss' decision to fire her finance minister and install Hunt may have calmed the markets, but it undermined her authority as PM.

“Liz Truss Believed in Markets, but the Markets Did Not Believe in Her” Quinn Slobodian, New York Times Op-ed: “The world has just witnessed one of the most extraordinary political immolations of recent times. Animated by faith in a fantasy version of the free market, Prime Minister Liz Truss… (has been) ousted by her own party. Just over three weeks ago, a ‘mini budget’ offering some 45 billion pounds in corporate, income and payroll tax cuts focusing on the wealthy, alongside 60 billion pounds in energy spending support, was announced. … The response to the ‘fiscal event’ was immediate, driving the world economy to its most critical point since the Covid crash of early 2020. The British pound dropped to its lowest value against the dollar, and the Bank of England had to intervene to save contagion from spreading into the pension system and beyond. … Strangest of all, this was done purposefully, in a reckless act of deliberate policy.”

“With Liz Truss Flailing, Jeremy Hunt Must Lead” The Editors, Bloomberg: “Earlier this week, Jeremy Hunt, the new finance minister, pledged to enact steep new spending reductions, scrap much of what remained of Truss’s planned tax cuts and rein in a mooted energy-price freeze… Hunt’s remarks had the desired effect: Bond yields eased, the pound rallied and a sense of crisis dissipated — at least temporarily. … Britain’s Tories only recently emerged from the turmoil surrounding the removal of Boris Johnson… The disarray is total, with no easy exit. At a time of maximum financial and economic stress, Britain’s government is all but paralyzed. … (Truss’) unforgivable error was to embark, as a new and untested leader, on an avowedly radical program of tax cuts and spending increases, blithely ignoring the consequences for public debt at a time of mounting financial anxiety, and putting the Treasury at odds with the Bank of England in its efforts to curb inflation.”

One more opinion piece from the Left: What doomed Liz Truss Rosa Prince, CNN Opinion

RIGHT-LEANING SENTIMENT

Truss Was Correct To Pursue Pro-Growth Policies, Despite Her Failure

• Former Ohio Governor John Kasich says the UK should follow his state’s resurgence as a roadmap away from high taxation and stalled growth.

• Unchecked government spending, and the crushing debt that follows, are a major problem that continues to threaten the economies of advanced nations.

• People rejected Truss’ policies because stability and full employment are valued over economic growth.

“Ohio’s Example for Liz Truss” John Kasich, Wall Street Journal Op-ed: “Ensuring economic vitality is a basic responsibility of any government leader. Liz Truss… was on the right track with a budget proposal rooted in restrained spending and tax cuts—two essential elements for economic growth. … That her plan found such opposition is no surprise. Pro-growth economic proposals are inevitably met with strong partisan resistance. There’s never a shortage of skeptics who scream ‘That won’t work!’ … When I took office as Ohio governor in 2011, I inherited a state in economic free fall. Our job creation and retention numbers were dismal. Industries were packing up and leaving. My team and I got the state’s fiscal house in order with a conservative approach to managing taxpayers’ money and a tight rein on government spending. … Reducing state income taxes allows people to keep and spend more of their hard-earned money. It creates incentives to work and frees up more capital to invest in jobs growth.”

“The New Global Virus Is Runaway Government Spending and Debt” Stephen Moore, Real Clear Politics: “When new British Prime Minister Liz Truss suggested lowering the United Kingdom's highest tax rate from 45% to 40%, along with a 1% reduction in the income tax rate for all taxpayers, the bond markets and the central bankers around the world went stark raving mad. … The tragedy here is that Truss had the right idea. In an economic calamity as Britain has suffered for the past three years, cutting tax rates to increase investment and production in England is a way to reduce inflation and stave off a recession. It was the same ‘supply-side’ strategy that President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher used in the early 1980s to end the stagflation and economic malaise from the 1970s. The ‘supply-side economics’ worked and helped launch a multidecade economic revival in both countries.”

One more opinion piece from the Right: Why Truss’s gamble failed Aris Roussinos, Unherd

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Back to the Future for Boris?

Polling results from earlier this week indicated 32% of Conservative party members would like to see Boris Johnson return as prime minister following Truss’ resignation. He received the highest percentage out of the eleven names that were listed.

In the same survey, 63% of respondents said Johnson would make either a “very good” or “fairly good” choice as PM. That barely edged out Ben Wallace (62%), who serves as a Member of Parliament and the Secretary of State for Defence (YouGov).

Earlier this week, POLITICO highlighted that Truss had a net favorability score of -70, the lowest ever recorded by YouGov — and 17 points worse than the -53 Boris Johnson was saddled with prior to his resignation in July.

FLAG FINDS

Beef Block, Movie Magic, Whiskey and the World

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