Only the totally brain dead – most of the electorate – have thought that the country’s finances have been in a good state at any point since 2008. They were not great after 1997 but the illusion of robbing Peter to pay Paul was sold well by Grinner Blair. There is nothing honest about charlatan Starmer. He lied to become Labour leader. He lied to get elected. Now he is lying at every opportunity. Two tone deaf Mancunian tw*ts have announced that they are going on a 12 date tour. Starmer has yet to claim credit for this. He will probably get free £1,500 tickets for the second gig. The two tw*ts will fall out on the first night and there will be no second gig – he will just have to roll with it and slide away. When he was doing his monologue from the Downing Street Rose Garden, they should have been playing D:Ream in the background – but they banned Labour from using it.
https://globalhealth.usc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/2016_chernobyl_costs_report.pdf I'm guessing you have a different number in mind? If you're referring to the Brexshit estimate, looking forward to seeing your evidence.
The letter quite clearly mentions the Economic and Fiscal Outlook (EFO) March 2024, a document produced by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) on 1 March 2024 and published on the government website. In this 168-page document, which Rachel Reeves or Sir Keir Starmer could have readily downloaded, it shows that extra public sector borrowing for 2024/5 was estimated at over £12.7bn (Section 1.18) as a result of measures already announced by the Chancellor of the day including National Insurance cuts, pushing the total borrowing to £20bn. Public Sector Net Borrowing (PSNB) is stated as £114.1bn (4.2% of GDP) for this year (Section 4.67). Astonishingly, this has been falling as it was £128.7bn in 2022/3 and is forecast to keep falling. The difference between the current year deficit of £46.9bn and Public Sector Net Investment (PSNI) £67.1bn seems to be around £20.2bn estimated. Sensible people ignore the OBR as their estimates are usually useless but the idea that Labour had a “fully costed manifesto” at the election are for the birds as they have never fully costed anything in their entire existence. The estimated migration figure for 2023/4 at the time this was published was +675,000. Rayner had better get building those million new homes quickly – what a shame she plans to build them in places that the migrants do not want to live: London is almost exempt.
The orignal comment was that the letter was proof that Kier lied, it proved nothing, regardless of what the OBR figures were.
The public sector pay rises do not amount to £20bn, or at least those that have been announced to date do not. Reeves has currently spent £9bn on her union friends. The pay rises for the railway communists will not be paid by the government (i.e. the taxpayer) as they are employed by non governmental entities – but those entities get subsidised by the taxpayer. When the £22bn figure came up originally they had not given the union cronies a pay rise yet and they quite clearly stated that it was what they had inherited from the Tories. Paul Johnson at the Institute for Fiscal Studies pointed out that Reeves was being disingenuous about this ‘black hole’. He pointed out that there is £6.4bn of hidden debt for the Home Office spending on ‘asylum seekers’ and that there has not been a departmental spending review for three years so there are no accurate numbers for any government department. Johnson does state that he thinks that Jeremy Hunt cut £20bn from N.I. but that is a total cost forecast until the end of the 2028/9 fiscal year, which assumes increased offsetting receipts from growth.
Just a happy coincidence that the day that Labour came out with their ‘black hole’ claims was the day that the letter was published... It does seem to suggest that Labour had simply not bothered doing any homework so their “fully costed manifesto” was a pack of lies. Five years of Two Tier Keir will abruptly end in 2029 despite his continual references to his ten year programme of renewal. His Chancellor might not last until November if the markets do not like her first Budget, although the Bank of England would probably bale out their former tea girl.
If Sunak had not cut national insurance which was absolutely bonkers, it would have filled the £20B black hole, but he was doing it to win votes, so didn't care and brushed it under the carpet. Sunak was probably told don't worry about it, take the gamble that it's a vote winner, if not Keir inherits the problem, which is exactly what's happened. Personally I don't care about the £20B blackhole but trying to put the blame in Kiers court is disingenous of anyone trying to do that. The problem was created by the tories not labour and that's all we need to know really, what Keir did or didn't know about it is just the mushroom cloud of the nuclear explosion that the tories created, Keir now has to pick up the debris and we are going to have to suck it up and get on with it.
There are plenty of different people pointing out various pieces of evidence that show his claim to not know about it was misinformation. They, and anyone else that chose to look had full access to the figures. Even stretching it, he certainly had the information at the time they paid out their additional money, so in the unlikely event his claim has legs, he was reckless to the point of incompetence.
They seem to have forgotten about Sadiq for now. And ULEZ. And trans people... Seems like they were just following whatever they were told to be upset about.
