Who is in line for new, new PM?

Do you think Sue Ellen would have the nerve to apply?

Or will Boris Ewing step out of the shower? 

I could see it happening, perhaps, some way down the road, when enough time has passed for enough people to have let his faults and transgressions slip from their working memory, and I believe this was his plan; but Truss turned out to be rather more immediately and indefensibly useless than he had hoped for, and I can't see him getting back onto the ballot so soon. Especially with the Privileges Committee investigation still ongoing.

The issue isn't who can win the next election for the Tories. That just isn't going to happen.

The new PM has to save the party from oblivion and make sure they have at least 200 MPs after the General Election.

That is the best they can hope for now.

If Labour can survive Corbyn, the Tories can survive Truss. But it won't be easy.

He he

Ooh that is very good, needed repeating. So I did it

Labour need a clear message though. We don't know what they stand for other than 'not Tories'. Their representative couldn't answer the question on a manifesto this morning - why aren't they ready with this? They should have been prepping for this moment for years (it's not like they've had much else to do other than infighting).

If he actually stands Boris should fairly easily get 100+ MP nominations. In that case he beats any of them if it goes to the members. So, I predict Boris.

I say this partly because I see the names of the MPs nominating each candidate will be kept secret, so for example ministers who resigned from his government can still nominate him this time with no public charge of hypocrisy. 

If it goes to the members without Boris the non-Sunak alternative will win. 

Sunak's only path to victory is for him to get the most nominations, for Boris to get < 100, and for him to do a deal with the second-placed person where they withdraw even if they too have > 100. 

But they are being Tories. Is there any difference between Cameron's policies and those proposed so far by Starmer, albeit he hasn't mentioned too many policies yet? A sheet of paper between them politically

Starmer is very boxed in on policies now that he's shown he approves of "the markets" setting economic policy. The same "markets" that didn't like unfunded tax cuts and massive unfunded spending (via the energy price cap) also won't like any extra spending by Starmer on whatever policies he wants, and of course "the markets" are predisposed to dislike Labour administrations anyway so he will immediately be facing a drop in sterling and interest rate rises. So far all he's got to counter this are windfall taxes but that's just a one-off that doesn't address the year on year deficit. Also his promised repeal of strike legislation is very likely to rebound unless he also commits to increasing all public sector wages in line with (high) inflation which "the markets" will hate - public sector and other strikes have been a feature of all the past Labour administrations I can remember. 

Interesting that Truss is being condemned for libertarian economics when in fact what did for her was the staggering unfunded cost of the energy price cap (up to £200bn) which is the closest thing to Corbyn's "People's QE" that's ever been tried. 

As much as it pains and disgusts me to so say it, I'd put money on Johnson returning. And It'll be a dire as Meg Giry's return in Love Never Dies.
He will gloat and bask like a pig in mud, whilst evading all the issues and fracturing society even further.

The markets knew the energy cap was coming and that absolutely wasn't the issue it was the massive unfunded tax cuts funded by more borrowing with no apparent plan to pay for it and cutting out the OBR which spooked them and led to the current disasters.

I think people have forgotten why Johnson went. His poll numbers were already behind Labour and had a string of terrible by-election losses. They wouldn't have moved against him no matter what scandals had engulfed him if they thought he was that much of an electoral asset.

Bringing Boris back isn't going to shift those polls that much. Plus his hearing over misleading the House of Commons is still to come, that could easily suspended from Parliament.

The tax cuts were also all known before too, plus the decision not to increase corporation tax, all except the 45% upper rate reduction which had a cost of £2bn, a hundred times less than the energy package potentially. The Truss energy package was the single biggest welfare programme in the history of the country and Tory MPs boasted it was 2-3 times more generous than any other country had implemented (it was). It was open-ended and had no maximum cost. All the tax cuts put together were trivial compared to it so the tax cuts themselves absolutely weren’t the problem. The lack of an OBR assessment and a failure to announce spending cuts at the same time were problems. The Hunt energy package is now the same as Starmer’s. It is still creating a massive hole in the finances (around £60bn) and neither of them will tell us how that gap will be plugged.

Exactly, what was the point of the mass resignations, the endless leadership contest and then Truss unleashing economic disaster if they're just going to turn around and put the liar back.

I note how much crossover there is between Johnson and Truss supporters. They hardly have the best record at this.

It seems like the pitifully few Tory Mps with any morals are threatening to resign the whip if he gets back in.

www.theguardian.com/culture/2022/oct/21/trevor-noah-daily-show-recap-liz-truss

Only problem with this suggestion: I don’t think Paddington’s views on immigration align with the Tories.