# Liz Truss tries to lead the UK {and resigns as of 2022-10-20} **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [September 5, 2022, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liz-truss-tries-to-lead-the-uk-and-resigns-as-of-2022-10-20/970992 "2022-09-05T14:06:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 30
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2022, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liz-truss-tries-to-lead-the-uk-and-resigns-as-of-2022-10-20/970992/581 "2022-10-24T15:44:51Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Made a new thread… > > > [@](#): > > > > Are the bookies giving odds on how long he’ll last? Still, first non-White PM, that’s one for the history books. How 'bout a “Someone tries to lead the UK omnibus thread”? ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2022, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liz-truss-tries-to-lead-the-uk-and-resigns-as-of-2022-10-20/970992/582 "2022-10-24T16:17:30Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > My impression at the time—and again, my knowledge of British politics is very shallow—was not that Labor was excessively leftist, but that it had no coherent messaging on Brexit and Corbin himself was ambivalent. Bit of both, really, Labour didn’t have a clear stance on Brexit (because, like every party, they were divided on the issue), whereas Boris stood as the great flag bearer of Brexit. Corbyn was also seen as a dusty old leftie who felt like a throw back to the 1970s, and nobody wanted to go back there. The Tories have often done well in elections by painting Labour as hard left, even if many of them aren’t. Blair, of course, was fantastically successful at shedding the old ‘leftie’ tag, but he had to literally rebrand Labour as New Labour to do it. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2022, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liz-truss-tries-to-lead-the-uk-and-resigns-as-of-2022-10-20/970992/583 "2022-10-24T18:43:26Z")
Yeah. I don’t really think for a minute that they would call a general with intent to lose as a long term tactic, because there are monumental egos at play. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2022, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liz-truss-tries-to-lead-the-uk-and-resigns-as-of-2022-10-20/970992/584 "2022-10-24T18:55:37Z")
> [@Love\_Rhombus](#): > > Everyone’s favorite mop-top isn’t an option anymore: [Boris Johnson pulls out of Conservative leadership race | Politics News | Sky News](https://news.sky.com/story/boris-johnson-pulls-out-of-conservative-leadership-race-12728576) Yep. Looks like my crazy hypotheses was wrong. unless… ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2022, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liz-truss-tries-to-lead-the-uk-and-resigns-as-of-2022-10-20/970992/585 "2022-10-24T20:25:21Z")
Yeah, unless he plans on sealioning from the wings continually until the party runs out of alternative leaders and he has to make a show of magnanimously coming back even though he really didn’t think he should. ---
**Author:** ![FurloeRoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@FurloeRoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FurloeRoth)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2022, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liz-truss-tries-to-lead-the-uk-and-resigns-as-of-2022-10-20/970992/586 "2022-10-24T20:36:02Z")
I think this really is curtains for Al. Sunak will stay until the next election. If he somehow wins, then there’s no opening. If he loses, is Johnson really going to want to be Leader of the Opposition for four whole years? That is actual work. You have to know your brief and stuff, and you get hardly any of the prestige or trappings of power. And after all that he’d be 64 years old the next time he could be PM. Sod that. ---
**Author:** ![UDS1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e47774/32.png) [@UDS1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS1)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2022, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liz-truss-tries-to-lead-the-uk-and-resigns-as-of-2022-10-20/970992/587 "2022-10-25T00:31:19Z")
> [@Dead\_Cat](#): > > Actually I think that’s the one way they could lose the election, if they bring that up as an electoral issue. Win the election first, then maybe look into that, would be my advice to them. On one level, this would be a popular position. As others point out, the view that Brexit was a mistake has been the majority view for some time. A poll published this week suggests that in a rejoin/stay out referendum, 54% would vote to remain and 34% to stay out. But it would be a bitterly divisive position, and Labour are not going to adopt it. Labour’s current position is “make Brexit work” and, while they don’t go into detail, most people already understand that that means “less performative divergence from the EU purely for the sake of it; more dispassionate analysis of whether and where continued alignment is in UK’s interest”. Unlikely that they’ll go into much more detail before the election, but after the election they’ll move strongly in that direction, as the obvious and only way of alleviating the economic and political harms of Brexit. They won’t move to rejoin - that’s a long-term project, at best. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2022, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liz-truss-tries-to-lead-the-uk-and-resigns-as-of-2022-10-20/970992/588 "2022-10-25T01:23:26Z")
> [@FurloeRoth](#): > > I think this really is curtains for Al. AI? [more text for Discourse.] ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2022, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liz-truss-tries-to-lead-the-uk-and-resigns-as-of-2022-10-20/970992/589 "2022-10-25T01:37:31Z")
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. He reportedly is known as Al rather than his middle name of Boris to family and close friends. ---
**Author:** ![UDS1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e47774/32.png) [@UDS1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS1)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2022, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liz-truss-tries-to-lead-the-uk-and-resigns-as-of-2022-10-20/970992/590 "2022-10-25T01:40:00Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > AI? Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is, and has always been, “Al” within his family. It was when he was in secondary school that he began to use “Boris”. Thus those who have known him from childhood call him “Al”; everyone else calls him “Boris”. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2022, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liz-truss-tries-to-lead-the-uk-and-resigns-as-of-2022-10-20/970992/591 "2022-10-25T08:51:11Z")
> [@carrps](#): > > Interesting name for it. Kinda like “cleaner” and “carer,” right? 😉 “Cleanser”, I think you mean. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/xu2ib2r5aDw/maxresdefault.jpg "Tribunal") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xu2ib2r5aDw) (Christ, that’s disturbingly close to reality these days…) > [@Stanislaus](#): > > Meanwhile, let’s take a moment to hoot and holler at Nadhim Zahawi, who has spent the last 24 hours twisting and turning so much you could now use him as a corkscrew. I believe at one point he welcomed our new insect overlords. > [@Smid](#): > > Labour has a long record of shooting themselves in the foot, but I think they can’t do that this time. Oh ye of little faith… ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2022, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liz-truss-tries-to-lead-the-uk-and-resigns-as-of-2022-10-20/970992/592 "2022-10-25T09:47:57Z")
She’s just given her farewell speech outside No. 10, basically saying she was right all along. > Rather brought to mind this Wodehouse quote: > “It was one of the dullest speeches I ever heard. The Agee woman told us for three quarters of an hour how she came to write her beastly book, when a simple apology was all that was required.” ---
**Author:** ![Smid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/838e76/32.png) [@Smid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smid)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2022, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liz-truss-tries-to-lead-the-uk-and-resigns-as-of-2022-10-20/970992/593 "2022-10-25T11:21:54Z")
No blubs this time? I’d feel much more sorry for the likes of May blubbing if it was something selfish rather than her having been stabbed in the back by the ERG and Johnson. We all know Johnson is incapable of any form of sorrow so it was no surprise he didn’t blub. ---
**Author:** ![bobsmom101](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobsmom101/32/2867_2.png) [@bobsmom101](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobsmom101)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2022, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liz-truss-tries-to-lead-the-uk-and-resigns-as-of-2022-10-20/970992/594 "2022-10-25T15:05:10Z")
And now this from the person who almost wrecked the UK’s pension plans: From today’s **Sacramento Bee** : “The good news for her is that for her trouble, Truss will receive a pension and an annual $130,000 expense account, the Washington Post [reported](https://dailychatter.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4&id=6249bcb685&e=6bc53fcb2f). The irony is that her premiership ended largely because her botched plan to cut taxes on the wealthiest individuals and corporations and hike spending on energy subsidies and other programs ballooned public debt and threatened to destroy the country’s pension system, as the Associated Press [explained](https://dailychatter.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4&id=1ee47c09c4&e=6bc53fcb2f).” Sooo – y’all think she will turn it down??? ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2022, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liz-truss-tries-to-lead-the-uk-and-resigns-as-of-2022-10-20/970992/595 "2022-10-25T15:13:53Z")
I don’t get how that’s “ironic.” ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2022, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liz-truss-tries-to-lead-the-uk-and-resigns-as-of-2022-10-20/970992/596 "2022-10-25T15:57:35Z")
Because within hours of the mini-budget being announced, there was a very real risk of major private pension schemes going broke as a result of the effect of the market’s reaction on government bond markets, until the Bank of England rushed in to buy up their bond holdings, at staggering levels. But her pension and allowances are guaranteed. ---
**Author:** ![Smid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/838e76/32.png) [@Smid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smid)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2022, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liz-truss-tries-to-lead-the-uk-and-resigns-as-of-2022-10-20/970992/597 "2022-10-25T15:57:41Z")
> [@Cervaise](#): > > I don’t get how that’s “ironic.” She gets a pension for ruining the rest of the countries pensions. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2022, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liz-truss-tries-to-lead-the-uk-and-resigns-as-of-2022-10-20/970992/598 "2022-10-25T16:33:22Z")
> [@bobsmom101](#): > > an annual $130,000 expense account What kind of ongoing “expenses” did she incur as a result of being Prime Minister for 45 minutes or whatever? ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2022, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liz-truss-tries-to-lead-the-uk-and-resigns-as-of-2022-10-20/970992/599 "2022-10-25T16:39:32Z")
> [@bobsmom101](#): > > Truss will receive a pension and an annual $130,000 expense account, the Washington Post [reported](https://dailychatter.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=a2e22d7f24f6d1e3464d05be4&id=6249bcb685&e=6bc53fcb2f). There’s the solution to Britain’s economic woes. Give everyone a turn at being Prime Minister, and then they can collect the pension and have an expense account. I’m sure that’s enough to live comfortably, even in London. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2022, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liz-truss-tries-to-lead-the-uk-and-resigns-as-of-2022-10-20/970992/600 "2022-10-25T16:40:10Z")
The [UK government explains](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/public-duty-cost-allowance/public-duty-costs-allowance-guidance) the reason for the Public Duty Costs Allowance: > The costs are a reimbursement of incurred expenses for necessary office costs and secretarial costs arising from their special position in public life. The allowance is not paid to support private or parliamentary duties. The PDCA is in addition to any constituency office which they may maintain as a Member of Parliament. The PDCA allowance is paid from the Cabinet Office vote and administered by the Cabinet Office Finance Team. I think most former PMs served for a good deal longer than Liz Truss. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liz-truss-tries-to-lead-the-uk-and-resigns-as-of-2022-10-20/970992.md?page=29) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/liz-truss-tries-to-lead-the-uk-and-resigns-as-of-2022-10-20/970992.md?page=31)