Off Topic Starmer/ Reeves: last man standing

If you spend like a drunken sailor, the bills will come in.

Reeves, and her boss not only welcomed the giant blowout of money on having people sit at home for a year, and on huge energy subsidies, they demanded more of it, and did so on record in the HOC .

Spending has to be cut. It will happen sooner or later, as it did in the late seventies, which is the last time any government raised the rate of income tax. And once they start,they can't stop, which led to the ridiculous spectacle of. 90%+ tax levels.

Spending has to be cut. God only knows Hunt, and Sunak before him, were hopeless, but they seem like bastions of rectitude compared to this individual.

Her budget will have the same connection to truth and reality as did her C.V..

 

I watched her speech, hoping for something. But got nothing. She said nothing of substance and answered questions with nothing. I genuinely have no idea what she hoped to achieve. I turned the tv off feeling even more certain she and her boss do not understand what is needed. Just really depressing.

 

It definitely seemed like a softening up speech to me,
Trouble was she contradicted herself so many times.
We are also trillions in debt

 

There shouldn't have been a speech. It should have been the budget, which is already late.

They might "understand", but they cannot act. Huge tax rises are inevitable. Money has been hosed around ,without condition, all over the place. You can only borrow so much and then the markets will start to look and say "no thanks". The point of the speech was to try and kid the market that we are a good credit risk, and it will have failed badly. Eventually, they decide that there is better debt to buy.

That is the point we are now at and we have been here before, but this time there is nearly four years of a zombie government before anyone can even attempt to try and get some balance and incentive into the economy.

 

Good to hear common sense is prevailing. Economists have been saying for months that tax rises are needed.

 

They have been saying tax rises were inevitable, which is different . They have also been saying the spending must be cut. Urgently. They have been saying that a lot more.

Raising taxes is the only way now, as they absolutely refuse to make even timid cuts to anything, even bloated QUANGOS performing no vital roles.

The markets have been badly spooked by this last year. Most gild yeilds are higher now than when Truss was PM, and they were only that high then for a few weeks. Reeves has had well over a year, and every single indicator has reversed in that time.

This is not common sense from Reeves I'm afraid, Common sense would be a reduction in spending, some at least. Income Tax rates have not risen since Labour had the UK bailed out by the IMF. It is a terrible thing for the economy, and they will raise them again.

You can't tax your way to growth. No economy in the world has ever achieved that.

 

My take. People need services because they don't have money to pay for them. Efficiencies yes, austerity no. You can’t austerity your way to growth because people need to be safe, stable and well and it costs anyway if they aren’t. So they have to tax more and be bold about it, If they don’t tax wealth though they tax people who in turn spend less and do less, so tax wealth. If you don’t it’s simply playing politics and hoping for the support of donors and the printed media. If there isn’t significant change you’ve lost that anyway so raid the selfish greedy ****ers.
It’s fair to say that they said they wouldn’t do this but in reality they need to do it. The electorate always elect liars though it seems and Reform are ahead in the polls which amplifies that. Maybe vote for the most honest instead who are probably the Greens and Lib Dems currently.

 

The issue for me is not the inevitable tax increases, it's the pledge in the first place that they wouldn't do it.

The economy is knackered, has been for a long long time and we don't have a magic money tree, there is no quick fix. No doubt the Tories and Reform will have the pitch forks out but they would have needed to increase taxes too.

Badenoch pointing out recently the likely tax rises and breaking of promises on one hand while refusing to rule out reversing any rax rises should they come into power on the other. Even she knows it is needed.

 

Oh Dear

 

The tories wrecked the economy and won't get any where near being re-elected. Reform will waffle alot, but their figures won't add up. Labour have another year to turn things around. Hopefully more trade agreements can be reached to help our economy.

 

It's all a bit of a mess, the manifesto was always going to come back to bite Labour on the arse, they should have just been honest from the start and would have still beat the Tories in the election. Now they are coming across as totally incompetent , Starmer will hang on to Reeves as long as possible as usually when the chancellor goes the PM is not far behind them.

 

Reform propose an interesting policy on limiting interest bank of england pay to commercial banks. As usual economist disagree on whether this would be good or bad. Interesting other countries have done something similar recently. Moderate forecasts suggest a £10bn pa saving could be had without being aggressive. Savings like this need to be explored imo.

On a personal level I dont mind paying more tax. I simply dont trust Labour to spend it well. Sadly you cant juat keep pouring money into the NHS, for example, without significant reform. It, and other public services, were designed for different population needs. Nobody wants to say it but we need to rethink our needs in 2025-2055 and rebaseline.

 

It is not as simple as that.

By far the biggest problem the UK economy has is the debt. By far.

By far the biggest element of that debt incurred in recent years is the Covid debt. And then the energy subsidies. £1/2 Trn.

This is not " the Tories wrecking the economy". They were poor enough mind, with too much spending and not enough control. But even they had inflation at 2%+ and growth over five months.

And remember this. That Covid spending was not only welcomed by Starmer and Reeves, they wanted much more, and demanded more on many occasions. Ask yourself why they never mention this, and where we would be if they had been calling those shots then.

Spending has to be cut. No other way out. But they will raise taxes instead then that will stifle spending. A recession is definitely on its way. Then they will have to raise taxes again. It never, never, ever works.

They don't know what they are doing, and are finding that being in government is different to changing slogans.

 

Agree on the first sentence but not the 2nd. The 10 year plan is the other good policy. They’ve found pockets of good practice and made it policy. I think those reforms will make efficiencies but without losing quality. But it will take time. It’s why I hope Labour launch the wooden man and his puppet master. Consistency combined with good policy is worth longevity, but they need to be led well.

 

tories will be back in power in some form in the next election, that kemi badenoch has something about her and with starmer and reeves getting more and more unpopular they will turn to her in desperation

 

Incompetence ?