Thread by @queenchristina_

A thread on #Trussonomics, from @paulwaugh's excellent piece below. Will extract some "highlights" (ie horrifying facts) in this thread. Please read and RT, so people understand what we're facing. (1) link.news.inews.co.uk/view/61b4e3a63…

If there was any doubt about the human cost of the “cost of living crisis”, Dr Karim Brohi had a reminder of just what it looked like. At the weekend, the trauma surgeon tweeted: “Multiple admissions for attempted suicide overnight, again. ‘Jumped because can’t afford to eat’.

Dr Brohi said that people trying to take their own life was just one of manifestation of the “financial pressures we see”. Domestic abuse, more alcohol related injuries, even “multiple jobs leading to tiredness and accidents”, were all wrapped up in debt and economic hardship.

When Sunak appeared on BBC Radio 2, he was told the station had been inundated with listeners’ worries about the bills looming this winter. People said they were rationing time in the shower, the elderly were using candles at night, parents were going without food – in summer.

One Tory MP, Kevin Hollinrake, even said Truss’s refusal to give “handouts” would lead to some of the most vulnerable being put “on the streets” and made homeless. Yup, a Tory MP said that.

Michael Gove has said “I cannot see how safeguarding the stock options of FTSE 100 executives should ever take precedence over supporting the poorest in our society”. Yup, Michael Gove said that.

Stuart Adam of the Institute for Fiscal Studies told @paulwaugh: “Almost 90 per cent of the [National Insurance] giveaway goes to the richest half of households.”

The Treasury will be giving the top 1% of mega-wealthy people around £1.3bn – that’s more than the Truss plan will give to the entire bottom 60 per cent of earners (£1.1bn)... In this brave new world of Truss-tastic tax cut arithmetic, one per cent equals more than 60 per cent.

One City financier told @paulwaugh sterling may soon become a target. “Inflation is out of control. For the last few months, there have been whispers of a sterling crisis, an old-fashioned 1960s crisis.”

Just seven weeks ago, Rishi Sunak was the Chancellor. It was telling that this week, he gave his first real hint that Truss’s economic plans were so irresponsible that he simply couldn’t serve in her Cabinet.

politics is all about priorities. And Truss may test to destruction the British public’s appetite for being told the wealth of the top one per cent will somehow, one day, trickle down to them.

Thanks to @paulwaugh for this clear and deeply sobering analysis, and apologies for clumsy paraphrasing/misquoting. Last night I dreamt I was in a boat in a storm and everything on the boat was wrecked. Please tell me what we have done to deserve a Prime Minister like this.