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SEPTEMBER 4-5,  2022

HAIL THE NEW P.M.:  Britain now has a new prime minister, succeeding Boris Johnson.  She is pro-American conservative Liz Truss,  the current foreign minister, and I am eager to see her do her Margaret Thatcher stuff.  From Reuters: 

Liz Truss will become Britain’s next prime minister after winning a leadership race for the governing Conservative party on Monday, vowing to press ahead with promises of tax cuts and to deal with a growing energy crisis.

After weeks of an often bad-tempered and divisive leadership contest, Truss, currently the foreign minister, defeated former finance minister Rishi Sunak in a vote of Conservative Party members, winning by 81,326 votes to 60,399.

“I will deliver a bold plan to cut taxes and grow our economy,” Truss said after the result was announced. “I will deliver on the energy crisis, dealing with people’s energy bills, but also dealing with the long-term issues we have on energy supply.”

Truss takes over as the country faces a cost of living crisis, industrial unrest, a recession and war in Europe, where Britain has been a leading backer of Ukraine. She appeared to rule out another national election for the next two years, saying she would win a great victory for her party in 2024.

She succeeds Boris Johnson, who was forced to announce his resignation in July after months of scandal saw support for his administration drain away.

He will travel to Scotland to meet Queen Elizabeth on Tuesday to officially tender his resignation. Truss will follow him and be asked to form a government by the monarch.

Long the front-runner to replace him, Truss will become the Conservatives’ fourth prime minister since a 2015 election. Over that period the country has been buffeted from crisis to crisis, and now faces what is forecast to be a long recession triggered by sky-rocketing inflation which hit 10.1% in July.

Foreign minister under Johnson, Truss, 47, has promised to act quickly to tackle the cost of living crisis, saying that within a week she will come up with a plan to tackle rising energy bills and securing future fuel supplies.

She signaled during her leadership campaign she would challenge convention by scrapping tax increases and cutting other levies in a move some economists say would fuel inflation.

That, plus a pledge to review the remit of the Bank of England while protecting its independence, has prompted some investors to dump the pound and government bonds.

Kwasi Kwarteng, widely tipped to be her finance minister, sought to calm markets on Monday, by saying in an article in the Financial Times newspaper that under Truss there would need to be “some fiscal loosening” but that her administration would act in “a fiscally responsible way”.

Asked if he would be finance minister following Truss‘s victory, Kwarteng told Reuters he didn’t know.

Truss faces a long, costly and difficult to-do list, which opposition lawmakers say is the result of 12 years of poor Conservative government. Several have called for an early election – something Truss has said she will not allow.

Veteran Conservative lawmaker David Davis described the challenges she would take on as prime minister as “probably the second most difficult brief of post-war prime ministers” after Conservative Margaret Thatcher in 1979.

COMMENT:  My main concern is her foreign policy, and I think we can be confident that she'll maintain a strong bond with the United States. However, there is instability in the British government, with many observers giving Truss only a small chance of surviving politically in the next two years.  The dread fear is that the far-left Labour Party might win an election, placing the British-American alliance in serious peril.

On the other hand, with the United States giving the appearance of weakness, wokeness and foolishness, it is possible that Truss, no pushover, could emerge as the de facto leader of the free world.  Margaret Thatcher never reached that status because Ronald Reagan was such a strong president.  But Thatcher was a firm ally who gave additional strength to the Reagan Revolution.  Right now, there's room at the top of the free world. 

September 5, 2022       Permalink

THOSE WHO TELL IT STRAIGHT:  Niall Ferguson is a conservative historian who is always worth reading or listening to.  He brings an unhappy message, but we'd better take it seriously.  From CNBC: 

Historian Niall Ferguson warned Friday that the world is sleepwalking into an era of political and economic upheaval akin to the 1970s — only worse.

Speaking to CNBC at the Ambrosetti Forum in Italy, Ferguson said the catalyst events had already occurred to spark a repeat of the 70s, a period characterized by financial shocks, political clashes and civil unrest. Yet this time, the severity of those shocks was likely to be greater and more sustained.

“The ingredients of the 1970s are already in place,” Ferguson, Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, told CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick.

“The monetary and fiscal policy mistakes of last year, which set this inflation off, are very alike to the 60s,” he said, likening recent price hikes to the 1970′s doggedly high inflation.
“And, as in 1973, you get a war,” he continued, referring to the 1973 Arab-Israeli War — also known as the Yom Kippur War — between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria.

As with Russia’s current war in Ukraine, the 1973 Arab-Israeli War led to international involvement from then-superpowers the Soviet Union and the U.S., sparking a wider energy crisis. Only that time, the conflict lasted just 20 days. Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has now entered into its sixth month, suggesting that any repercussions for energy markets could be far worse.

“This war is lasting much longer than the 1973 war, so the energy shock it is causing is actually going to be more sustained,” said Ferguson.

Politicians and central bankers have been vying to mitigate the worst effects of the fallout, by raising interest rates to combat inflation and reducing reliance on Russian energy imports.

But Ferguson, who has authored 16 books, including his most recent “Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe,” said there was no evidence to suggest that current crises could be avoided.
“Why shouldn’t it be as bad as the 1970s?” he said. “I’m going to go out on a limb: Let’s consider the possibility that the 2020s could actually be worse than the1970s.”

COMMENT:  We wait for President Biden to officially name Ferguson as an enemy of the state.  A MAGA type.  Semi-fascist. 

But he's a smart historian and he could be right.  Things have become very unstable in many parts of the world.  A strong United States is called for, and it isn't what we have.  How would you like the world's most important nation to be run by Kamala Harris? 

Dig those trenches.

September 4, 2022       Permalink

SEPTEMBER 3, 2022

ARE THE LIBS LOSING?  On the dullest news weekend of the year, we bring you an exciting new poll suggesting that liberalism is in decline.  We stress, as we always do, that this is just one poll, a snapshot in time, and may or may not be accurate.  But it's fun, and it's always delightful to be told that we're winning.  From the New York Post: 

With the fall midterm elections less than three months away, fewer voters are identifying as liberals, according to a new survey.

A Morning Consult poll released Thursday found that just 27% of Americans self-identify as “very liberal,” “liberal” or “somewhat liberal,” down from 34% who chose one of those descriptors in 2017.

Meanwhile, the number of voters identifying as “moderate” or saying they “don’t know” has jumped by four percentage points each — 24% of voters said they were moderate and 3% said they didn’t know in 2017, while 28% and 7% gave those answers in 2022.
Fewer voters are identifying themselves as liberal, according to a Morning Consult poll.

The percentage of self-identifying conservative voters has only risen slightly, from 38% to 39% over the last five years.

Within the parties themselves, a shift to and from extremes has also been visible.

The recent survey — which was conducted among 750,158 registered voters — found that the number of Democrats identifying as liberal has dropped from 60% to 55% over the past five years, while Republicans identifying as conservative has jumped from 70% to 77%.
In general, minority voters have been leaning further away from left-leaning extremes, with only 42% of Democratic black voters saying they identify as liberal, compared to 52% who said the same in 2017. A similar decrease was seen among Democratic Hispanic voters, with 61% identifying as liberal in 2017 and 52% saying the same this year.

While the percentage of moderates among black and Hispanic voters has risen in both parties, an overwhelming number have leaned conservative over the past five years.

The poll found that 66% of Republican Hispanic voters identify as conservative, up from 48% in 2017, while 58% of black GOP voters hold the same political view, up from 37% five years ago.

Fewer black voters identify as liberal or very liberal, according to a Morning Consult poll.

The survey was released as Republicans predict a “red wave” in the November midterms that will allow them to take back the majority in the House and Senate.

However, a Politico-Morning Consult poll released earlier this week found that Democrats currently lead Republicans by four percentage points on the generic congressional ballot.
The same poll found that voters trusted Republicans more to handle issues like the economy, jobs, immigration and national security. Democrats were more trusted on issues related to health care, climate change, education and voting rights.

COMMENT:  Not bad.  If this is all true, Republicans should be doing well.  However, remember that the Republican Party works hard to lose elections. I guess it's their version of the work ethic.  The formal campaign starts Tuesday, the day after Labor Day.  The conservatives have two months to run a campaign that will take back both houses of Congress.  Discontent with the president is high, but he's not on the ballot this year.

We've said it before:  The GOP must put forward a program.  "This is the problem.  This is what we'll do about it."  Right now the Republicans are seen as a negative party.  We know what they're against.  They're against the Biden administration and the overall cultural drift of the country.  They're grim.  Americans love optimism and a plan going forward.  The optimistic leaders are usually the winning leaders.  Recall Ronald Reagan telling us that it's morning in America.  That's what we need now.  Republicans, lay out the future.  You'll do well.

September 3, 2022       Permalink