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So it looks like we are heading for austerity mk2. 22bn sounds like a lot. But if we spend 1100bn and borrow circa 180bn a year in the overall scale of things what’s the issue? We obviously need a rethink / higher taxes but is it really that gloomy an outlook?
40 odd billion lost to the HMRC every year because of Brexit ( and rising) Why don't we start there?
I thought the Brexit loss in GDP was more in the region of £85bn per annum, but I may be wrong.
Seems like a good place to start, though. Whatever the numbers.
I believe the GDP numbers were above 100bn per year, the figure of 40bn, is taxes lost to the exchequer . Either way, austerity mk2 surely holds the country back again?
Yep, going by his speech just now it sounds like the British public will be paying for all this again.
All this recent stuff coming out about cronyism and recent appointments doesn't fill me with any optimism either.
We all knew this was coming, the Tories knew for almost 3 years that they were heading for likely electoral oblivion so all long-term thinking went out the window as they tried to cling onto power and worry about the mess after the election. There were plenty of quotes from anonymous civil servants in the last year along the lines of "They're just smashing things up now."
Also, the worse that people think the situation is now, the lower expectations will be and the more credit Starmer and Reeves will get assuming the economy and public sector haven't completely collapsed by the time the next GE roll around.
So it's both at least somewhat true and politically advantageous, which means we'll be hearing this line regularly for the foreseeable.
I guess we knew there would be some tax increases, it's where and how we wait on. They pledged no more vat, ni or income tax so that doesn't leave much. Iht and pensions were/are the next piece to look at. Those don't fit with the message that October budget will feel hard though so they?
We have 2 months more waiting.
Fuel duty is the obvious - but not politically palatable - one.
It's been frozen since 2011, then it got further cut by 5p/litre in Covid, that was never put back, that's £50 billion lost revenue in the last 12 years.
And given the rise in EV / hybrid use, the whole thing probably needs an overhaul anyway.
I already pay income tax on my modest pension, why not tax the better off.
What about a super car tax, Range Rover tax.
There are people who's annual bonus makes my lifetime earnings look pitiful plenty of scope for taxes their.
They are mid blue Tories and I am sure the founders of the Labour Party will be rotating.
I believe the GDP numbers were above 100bn per year, the figure of 40bn, is taxes lost to the exchequer . Either way, austerity mk2 surely holds the country back again?
I was looking at it from the POV of £100bn lost 'in' offset by c. £13bn 'out' that we no longer contributed.
But if it's £85bn or £100bn or £40bn and we're looking at Austerity Mk2 versus just clawing back what we chucked away to zero advantage...
I know where I'd be heading - Brussels.
In office but not in power.Same old same old.
Starmer and Reeves are wrong, we should use MMT and spend more, Richard Murphy said so!
Fortunately the austerity doctrine has proved to be so successful over the past 15 years that we can now just discard any opportunity to change and just keep doing the same thing again. I believe they call it grown up politics, although to me it looks more like a dogmatic adherence to continued failure.
Starmer and Reeves are wrong, we should use MMT and spend more
I could quibble with the statement that you 'use' MMT, but instead I'll just ask - do you have a better idea?
Two years ago Liz Truss had a mini budget with tax cuts galore, look how that ended.
She prioritised tax cuts to the money hoarders not the general public, and was still based on cutting services and investment to pay for them. But it is quite amusing how desperate you are to try and tie the economic failures of the past 15 years to MMT rather than the economic policy of austerity and cuts and that was actually in place and is now being continued.
I'm not tying it to MMT, as that's not been used by the UK as a standalone way of managing the governments finances, the main crux is that any budget will be worked up by an entire department, it will be reviewed by the OBR, it will then be graded by the world markets, it's not a couple of cabinet members on the back of a fag packet, well Truss' mini budget was, but that was their downfall.
My slightly draconian approach would be to start with getting rid of non dom status and they requiring everyone who holds a U.K. passport to be liable for U.K. taxes wherever in the world it’s earnt. If you want the benefits of being a U.K. citizen and passport holder then should should be liable for tax. I’m happy to have a lower rate for overseas earnings but the principle should be upheld.
Two years ago Liz Truss had a mini budget with tax cuts galore
There's a massive difference between cutting taxes to give money to people who already have plenty, and spending money on infrastructure and services, which puts money into the hands of people who will spend it, which means that most of it comes back to the treasury eventually.
I'm not seeing the relevance of the Truss budget here. I think the US Inflation Reduction Act is a better example of how a government is attempting to reduce its deficit through infrastructure investment.
Should we accept that we aren't prosperous enough a country to have some of the nice things we used to?
It seems to me that we are enjoying public and private luxuries in goods and services, that far outstrips any genuinely useful work we do. That applies collectively and as individuals.
Rubish there's plenty of money it just needs a fundamental redistribution of wealth. have you not noticed that the poor have been disposesed while the rich prosper and the services people use are run down so that private enterprise can make profits.
This country has been run for the benefit of the well off it's time to change things.
Fuel duty is the obvious
fuel duty is a generally regressive tax (high earners spend a lot less of their income of fuel, comparatively), so its a tricky one for labour to hike.
It seems they're going to cap tax savings on pension contributions, which will presumably be a double-win - you'll get more tax up-front out of savings that are made, and you will discourage savings among high earners, which will make people spend more (boosting the economy). Everyone having less money in 30 years time is not the current governments problem
Keir Starmer in his garden speech today " ... short term pain for long term growth ..."
LOL! Didn't we hear that somewhere before?
We will all be dead from the short term pain, let alone waiting for the long term growth!
If this "short term pain" has become unbearable, I can only foresee Labour as short one term govt.
To imply that the few "rich" is going to bear the burden of tax is a rather good publicity stunt but this will only buy some time in govt.
Not much has changed and it's just typical day in office.
There are many reports attributing 2,500 deaths per year to Margaret Thatcher. I hope someone has started the counter for Keir Starmer and that all the folk on this forum that were saying "Keir Starmer might be saying that now but it'll all change when he gets into power" are pleased with themselves.
Should we accept that we aren’t prosperous enough a country to have some of the nice things we used to?
Yes, there is a lot of truth in that. It is not the country it was 30 years ago so the average person will be worse off. Of course that is not helped by higher % of income going on rent/mortgage due to ridiculous house prices but I am sure Starmer has a plan to sort that out, he just hasn't mentioned it yet.
There were a few of us who were predicting how Starmer's government would pan out and it is going as we said. He will be out in 5 years time as quite rightly people will ask "what was the point of that" and go back to the tory party they voted for before.
I hope someone has started the counter for Keir Starmer and that all the folk on this forum that were saying “Keir Starmer might be saying that now but it’ll all change when he gets into power” are pleased with themselves.
We will all be sweating from our backside or having wet fart soon when the monthly bills arrive.
It's both bizarre and depressing: Reeves and Starmer are gaslighting the entire country with this "black hole" nonsense. There's no such hole and any basic understanding of economics works makes that plain to see.
Ever since the narrative the country had "maxed out its credit card", politicians have lied constantly about how the countries finances work, and what is possible and what is not, this is especially true how the Tories dealt with the threat of an anti-austerity Labour Party under Corbyn, insultingly taking about a "magic money tree", which incidentally, did magically appear in 2020. The same applies to Reeve's "black hole" excuse.
The fact is, Brexit and Covid have compounded the damage of a dysfunctional economic system. There's nothing left to asset strip now and this has resulted in very persistent inflation among many other problems. Inflation needs to be addressed by removing currency from circulation; however, it will be the workers and the poor and vulnerable who pay for it because they are the least well position to oppose it.
I don't think there's any ambiguity here: this is managed decline and unless there's radical social change, which in this country would look like a revolution, it is here to stay.
It is not the country it was 30 years ago so the average person will be worse off.
I'm not sure that's demonstratably true. General standards of living have risen massively in the last 30 years - we have the internet, nearly everyone has (much larger) tv (with more channels), food and clothes are way cheaper than they were back then, cars last a lot longer, are faster, more comfortable and use less fuel, people live longer, more diseases are cured and so on. Housing has certainly got more expensive (and so you're likely to be "worse off" than the equivilent worker was by that metric) but almost everything else is cheaper and more widespread.
take 10 years ago as your market and you might have had a point (although general progress will have wiped a lot of that out too).
requiring everyone who holds a U.K. passport to be liable for U.K. taxes wherever in the world it’s earnt
This is what the US does, pretty much.
I already pay income tax on my modest pension, why not tax the better off.
The thing about tax is everyone agrees that someone else should pay more of it. And the top one percent of earners already pay 30% of the total income tax revenue, so one has to be careful when saying "the rich' don't pay 'enough".
Things like pension tax reform seem reasonable though - a huge number of people are saving 40% on their contributions for future income that will probably be taxed at 20%, which seems a little unfair.
My slightly draconian approach would be to start with getting rid of non dom status and they requiring everyone who holds a U.K. passport to be liable for U.K. taxes wherever in the world it’s earnt. If you want the benefits of being a U.K. citizen and passport holder then should should be liable for tax. I’m happy to have a lower rate for overseas earnings but the principle should be upheld.
There are double taxation deals in place with a lot of countries... I pay a crazy amount of tax to the Spanish government on my Spanish income... But as I've 'already paid it' I can offset it against my HMRC liability.
Non-dom is different though... It allows, for example the super rich to domicile themselves in the cayman Islands as a boiler plate company and pay no tax what so ever. It should be abolished.
There are literally buildings full of essentially PO boxes where various 'shell' companies are registered.. Google do it, Facebook do it, I'd bet my last penny Elon Musk and a lot of politicians do it aswell.
Reeves and Starmer are going to pay the price for being so elusive about their budgetary plans pre-election. They were so far ahead in the polls they could have been a bit more up front about their belief in the need to better balance the books (as they put it). Instead, they are increasingly looking like they are manufacturing a crisis and their remedies are going to annoy more people than they need to.
This is what the US does, pretty much.
The Philippines too.
No, this is not a good tax system.
If the govt can only think of using the tax system to manage the economy then they are bankrupt of ideas.
Rubish there’s plenty of money it just needs a fundamental redistribution of wealth. have you not noticed that the poor have been disposesed while the rich prosper and the services people use are run down so that private enterprise can make profits.
Yes.
Looking one step beyond the money, what does this mean and how does it fix things? Genuine question for the economic minds here.
Is the idea that less spending on luxuries by "the rich" mean the labour requirement to serve that reduces, forcing people into other roles?
Should we be aiming to collapse demand for people servicing MTB suspension at £120 a go, so the techs are pushed to work in things like green energy?
And the top one percent of earners already pay 30% of the total income tax revenue, so one has to be careful when saying “the rich’ don’t pay ‘enough”.
The gist of your link seems to be that plenty of very wealthy people pay disproportionately low rates of tax.
@kerley, you seem to be delighting in the likelihood of getting the Tories back in 5 years time, and denigrating people who voted Labour. I'll just point out that the only real choice we had was Tory or Labour, and of those two, however disappointed you might be today, we got the least bad. Do you actually have any constructive suggestions?
Rejoin EU.
3p/litre tax hike on fuel per year throughout this Parliament while a full road pricing strategy is worked through.
Plus the thing about non-dom and I'd probably also go after the likes of Starbucks, Amazon etc.
There we go, I've fixed everything. What do I win?
UK Government spending is now about £1tn annually. £22bn is 2.2% of that. Any spending has to be balanced out and MMT does not fully account for this. What kind of an economy do we want? Currently, we have one where wealth is spread quite un-evenly (demographically and geographically). Highly mobile (for capital and labour) and based on trade (rather than production, for example).
To re-distribute wealth more evenly would (inherently) mean taking money away from one part of the economy and putting it elsewhere. There are pros and cons to each approach.
'The rich' are much more likely to save or buy imported luxury goods eg Mike Lynch's Italian-built boat whereas the poor are much more likely to spend money on domestically produced goods. So, if you want to stimulate the economy you give more to the poor. Sadly, Starmer and Reeves seem set on the opposite.
He's recommited to income tax and VAT, so it's CGT, IHT as the obvious targets.
A massive streamlining of tax legislation as a whole to make it harder to avoid would be just as/more effective.
If you accept that government spending must be limited at some magical figure, then the obvious ways to "raise" revenue would be introducing a land value tax but in a land-owning aristocratic nation that would be akin to a revolution. Corbyn tried that and look what happened there. Another one would be addressing tax havens and offshoring wealth, but again, the rich call the shots in this country and so you'll never see either of these implemented in any meaningful way.
Things like pension tax reform seem reasonable though – a huge number of people are saving 40% on their contributions for future income that will probably be taxed at 20%, which seems a little unfair.
Surely that isn't the unfair bit? If people only saved 20% tax on their contributions, but expect to pay 20% when they receive the pension as income, then a pension becomes nearly pointless? Might as well not have a pension, take the money, pay the tax and stick it into savings*.
The unfair thing is that the government incentivises high earners to put away a whopping £60k per year, which is a massive and unnecessary amount. I think the increase from 40k to 60k last year was just a bodge to keep doctors working, but I expect and would agree with the annual pension allowance being slashed to say £20k.
*Yes ok there is a small difference in that the individual gets the investment returns on the 20%
It's a shame we can't have a tax on land that forces it to be used for productivity, so that in order to avoid paying tax you would need to put it to some kind of economically useful purpose. Revolution by who? What are a couple of hundred wealthy old white people going to do against 65 million normal folk?
Surely that isn’t the unfair bit? If people only saved 20% tax on their contributions, but expect to pay 20% when they receive the pension as income, then a pension becomes nearly pointless? Might as well not have a pension, take the money, pay the tax and stick it into savings*.
Is that what happens for most people though? Given that most don't pay higher rate tax. Ultimately it's deferred income plus return on investment so I don't really see the problem with deferring tax in the same way.
I expect and would agree with the annual pension allowance being slashed to say £20k.
I don't think that's likely - £20k is not a huge amount to save in a pension, especially when it's taxed on the way out 20k in is the equivilent of £30k per annum out - which is less than a lot of final salary pensions (ie its less than a teacher might expect to get, if they work a full career full time)
Is that what happens for most people though? Given that most don’t pay higher rate tax.
Fair point. I guess I am living in the past where the state pension was way below the personal allowance and it allowed pension income to be largely tax-free for most. It felt fair if the rate you save on pension contributions is 20% higher than what you will pay on later income (so a highly simplistic world where higher rate taxpayers generally retire and pay standard rate on pensions, standard rate taxpayers retire on pensions below personal allowance).
Pensions are generally a bit of a mess all around really. Not how anyone would set things up if starting from scratch.
Start at the top, remove all loopholes for those that can afford a good accountant, and tax the hell out of large inheritance, second homes, large tax dodging corporations etc etc.
If that's not enough then by all means ill not grumble if I'm next in line to take a hit, but I'll be dammed if I pay more whilst those that have millions in the bank don't feel the same amount of pain as the rest of us.
I don’t think that’s likely – £20k is not a huge amount to save in a pension, especially when it’s taxed on the way out 20k in is the equivilent of £30k per annum out – which is less than a lot of final salary pensions (ie its less than a teacher might expect to get, if they work a full career full time)
It isn't a huge amount, but it feels like enough. Why should the government continue to offer large tax breaks beyond that point? If you can afford to save more for retirement then you are still welcome to do so by sticking it in savings/investments, but you don't need to keep getting the tax break on the extra money.
Unfortunately final salary pensions are a bit of an irrelevant benchmark nowadays.
It isn’t a huge amount, but it feels like enough. Why should the government continue to offer large tax breaks beyond that point? If you can afford to save more for retirement then you are still welcome to do so, but you don’t need to keep getting the tax break on the extra money.
because they still want to encourage people to save for their retirement so they're not dependent on the government during their latter years. Encouraging saving is something that governments need to do, otherwise people don't do it. At some point people have enough cash not to worry about falling back on the goverment (so you don't need infinite amounts of tax benefit)
because they still want to encourage people to save for their retirement so they’re not dependent on the government during their latter years.
If someone has enough income that they are currently able to put away £60k (gross) per year, surely it is on them if they blow it all and end up living off the state pension in old age? Why would it matter if they did?
Why do people with that sort of income need tax breaks to encourage them to save?
the poor are much more likely to spend money on domestically produced goods.
i think you might have that arse about face .
the poor are more likely to spend their money on cheap imitation shite from China than stuff made in Britain due to the costs
see Clarksons explanation of how much it costs to produce a quality sausage in this country vs importing from abroad
To answer the OP, I would also abolish stamp duty, which just seems silly (why should moving house be taxed?) but replace it with some form of significant annual tax related to property size which can be adjusted by number of people living there. So a family of 4 people living in a 2 bed house pay peanuts, a couple who own 3 large houses pay loads. There would be some form of credit/rebate against this for people who recently paid stamp duty. I haven't figured out how rented property would be treated.
There is no need to balance the books. All governments run deficits most of the time and you can pump money in to a point to stimulate demand. At some point inflationary pressures take over but we are a long long way from that point.
Very basic stuff.
If someone has enough income that they are currently able to put away £60k (gross) per year, surely it is on them if they blow it all and end up living off the state pension in old age? Why would it matter if they did?
Why do people with that sort of income need tax breaks to encourage them to save?
the £60k thing is a bit of a red herring. If you're earning enough to tuck away £60k you're likely to be paying 40% or 45% tax rate in your earnings, but you're also highly likely to be paying at least 40% when you withdraw your pension - so the net tax saving is pretty marginal. The biggest benefit is the 25% lump sum - I've never really understood the benefits of it, but if you capped the lump sum at some figure (say 25% or £250k) you could probably abolish the annual cap and have almost no impact on the overall tax rates - if you've saved enough to be getting a £50k pension, saving any more is pretty pointless.
so that in order to avoid paying tax you would need to put it to some kind of economically useful purpose
this would be the end of the ability to preserve land in its current form for future generations - ie national trust, woodland, SSSIs, that sort of thing. Not sure that's a desirable outcome
There is no need to balance the books.
It depends which books you're talking about. The spending and taxing pledges made by the previous govt for day to day spending commitments is currently what the BoE have financed, and was voted into law by the previous parliament. The spending part of that has been overspent by £22bn. and last figures that are easily google-able say that HMRC raised more money that they were expected to - there's a bit of hedge/emergency funding, but the Tories already burned through that, but if say the Dept. of paperclips is already overbudget, are you going to give it more? Or tell it to stop spending money on paperclips?
He sounded like the builder who says you need a completely new roof after you’d called him in to clean the gutters.
By now we have all lost count of the number of black holes he has found in the country’s finances.
Was the £22bn shortfall the same as last week’s £22bn shortfall? Or was it a completely different £22bn? After a while all the numbers start merging into one another.
Another way of looking at it is. Why would a Labour govt go to Parliament to ask it to pass an amendment to the budget to create the £22bn to cover the arses/embarrassment of the previous Tory Treasury team?
This. Plus by setting low expectations now, he can pave the way for a bit of "actually, we were able to come up with something better, aren't we great?!"
It's a better system of Government than the previous lot who promised 40 new hospitals and sunlit uplands and magic unicorns for everyone and then delivered huge piles of shit. At least if you're promised shit and you get shit, it's realistic; if you're promised shit and you get some nice compost, it's regarded as an improvement!
if you capped the lump sum at some figure (say 25% or £250k)
It is already capped at £268,275.
If people only saved 20% tax on their contributions, but expect to pay 20% when they receive the pension as income, then a pension becomes nearly pointless
The above tax free lump sum means you get a free 6.25% uplift in the scenario where you are basic rate in/basic rate out. There is a risk due governments changing the rules in the interim...
£20k is not a huge amount to save in a pension, especially when it’s taxed on the way out 20k in is the equivilent of £30k per annum out – which is less than a lot of final salary pensions
This isn't comparing like-with-like - the final salary pension pays out every year. £20k in a defined contribution is more like £660 per year (using 3.3% withdrawal rate - more UK-centric version of the '4% rule')
Where’s rone and Ernie?
Give them time.
They’ll be along soon enough to tell us all how they know best and everyone else is wrong.
Don't you just love it when people lack the ability to offer a coherent argument and instead rely on personal attacks?
I haven’t figured out how rented property would be treated.
The landlord will within a few minutes of finding out how much it is and how much they will have to increase the tenants rent to capture this additional cost.
Starmer and Reeves are wrong, we should use MMT and spend more, Richard Murphy said so.
Seriously...
Come on.
There is no black hole. It's an utter nonsense designed to do what is going on in this thread - justify needless austerity.
But no worries - it will backfire because austerity ends with one set of outcomes.
Lower growth, ruined economy and devastated communities.
Starmer and Reeves have got terrible advisors.
Lol at anyone who believes in blackholes in government finances - which by the way were not a feature of campaigns until last year - needs to spend a bit more time understanding spending and taxation.
Get a grip.
Give them time.
They’ll be along soon enough to tell us all how they know best and everyone else is wrong
Amazing.
Enjoy your wreckless government then.
It's fine by me.
Got to giggle at the Centrist's hanging to the last thread of Starmer's credibility as he walks the country into austerity.
The hypocrisy is staggering if this was the Tory party - no one would buy it.
Not at all.
Also the amount of non-MMT economists are starting to pull apart Reeves' shocking grasp of economic toss.
https://twitter.com/D_Blanchflower/status/1828454957785199047?t=CYgvDBOknt150E9ka_aPvQ&s=19
https://twitter.com/DanielaGabor/status/1817501624782205345?t=EI_K6v7828Ic93nD4T9__w&s=19
I am of the view that there's still benefits and tax breaks which the richer half of society benefit from, and increasingly so.
I would start by flat rate of tax savings on pension payments, removing the higher benefit to higher rate tax payers, and limiting overall pension pot size. Make all pension payments salary sacrifice.
I would really tighten down on inheritance, probably reducing overall limits.
Then the richer people would spend more on goods and services, benefitting the economy overall.
Starmer and Reeves have got terrible advisors.
They have a chance with the coming budget to tax the **** out of those in the country (business/private) who have seen their wealth increase at an obscene rate over the previous 14 years, otherwise Labour are dead in the water/busted flush/stuck pig or merely utterly ****ing pointless
A massive streamlining of tax legislation as a whole to make it harder to avoid would be just as/more effective.
This I completely agree with.
Why Income Tax and NI? Why not merge into one tax, with a more progressive set of levels, and far, far fewer tax breaks for individuals.
Companies the same, but with rewards built in for investing in training people, innovation, stability and sustainability.
You may be right Revs, I was just paraphrasing Keynes, Prest and Coppock. Think beer, fish and chips.
the poor are more likely to spend their money on cheap imitation shite from China than stuff made in Britain due to the costs
I don't think you are allowed to sell cheap imitation anyway in Western world. Do you mean cheap OEM?
If you are referring to cheap imported clothing then perhaps a better choice is to get everyone to wear same clothing like those in the Victorian era. Those clothing last longer and repairable.
see Clarksons explanation of how much it costs to produce a quality sausage in this country vs importing from abroad
That's because farming is out of fashion for the young. Not enough food produced then the only option is to import, otherwise starve.
The unfair thing is that the government incentivises high earners to put away a whopping £60k per year,
If you are a really high earner, the pension taper takes the tax-free pension contribution down to £10k per annum, the same as if you had started to draw down from your pension fund. The threshold is £260k and £2 is lost for every £1 earned above this.
The annual allowance was increased to £60k so that those workers in the public sector on final salary schemes where they would accrue £2k pensionable income per year (equivalent value £40k contribution at 20x multiplier) did not gat a tax demand for the excess contribution above £40k value. In the private sector, where there is a REAL pension pot, with REAL funds, those lucky individuals could pay this tax demand from the pension pot automatically rather than find the money themselves. In the public sector, where there is NO pot, the individual would have to pay it themselves from their own savings.
So you are a senior civil servant on, say 125k per year. You accrue 1/43 per year in the alpha final salary scheme - that's a value of £2907 income at retirement per year, value for tax purposes is x20 or £58.1k into the civil service "virtual pot". Take off the £40k annual allowance, and you will have a tax bill to pay on £18.1k, at 45% tax relief - which is a £8.2k cheque to write each year. Hence the increase in annual allowance to £60k so that this annual tax bill is not needed in most instances.
Messing long-term investments such as pensions is tempting due to the size of the pots involved, but politically damaging. The tax free allowance might be a source of income, and the limit will be frozen so fiscal drag can play its magic part. But look elsewhere for big changes.
Got to giggle at the Centrist’s hanging to the last thread of Starmer’s credibility as he walks the country into austerity.
As a fully paid up member of the fanatical centrists (trademark pending), i enjoy reading on here how governments are always wrong, the experts in places like the BoE, the treasury, etc are all inept compared to the select few posted who have never been part of those experts brought in to be part of supporting a budget/department/etc.
As for credibility, as per Occams Razor, when a politician is delivering hard truths rather than what the public want to hear, as a brand new PM and government, wouldn't it be easier to stand up and tell the country it's all good, tax cuts are coming, more investment is coming and so on, rather than deliver a negative speech on the upcoming budget, why would it be easier on them to support austerity rather than spend, spend, spend?
Fortunately the austerity doctrine has proved to be so successful over the past 15 years that we can now just discard any opportunity to change and just keep doing the same thing again. I believe they call it grown up politics, although to me it looks more like a dogmatic adherence to continued failure.
Yep,like some old bloke once said:
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.
The only success is that people still seem to believe the lie that you need austerity.
Paying public sector workers properly (not just with claps) and taxing and withdrawing benefits from wealthy boomers. Bring it on. Sound choices if you ask me.
It's the 70's again. but with less money.
Net cash flows from the ONS.
See how there's nearly always a 'black hole' ? (Using their own dismal terminology) The government runs on deficits.
If you've believe the government runs like a house-hold, there's no helping you and no amount of evidence you will ever believe.
Crack on austerity. But know you are using Tory framing for your argument and expect things to deteriorate.
We've heard all Starmer's words before literally coming out of Cameron and Osborne.
Wish I hadn’t started this! Think my point was 22bn sounds a lot to a lay person but is relatively insignificant in the scheme of things. Feels like the start of Cameron’s austerity measures that were painful and largely pointless politics. If they wanted a positive agenda they could have said we have 1100bn to spend which is a bit less than before so let’s not go crazy.