National Politics 🔴 The Labour Party

Marston Road yellow said:
Wasn’t the plan to borrow more money to cut tax for the wealthiest???
Trick(le) down economics

I can’t see how borrowing money at an eye watering rate to get less back in revenue has any hallmarks of a good economic policy.

It wasn’t even a good idea in principle let alone practice. It brought down her premiership and made her and the chancellor a joke.

I’m not surprised that you are once again defending the indefensible.
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Tell the class which of these were "bad"?

Scrapping the 45% rate.
Reducing basic rate by 1%
Cancelling the NI rise that was due.
Scrap the corporation tax increase.
Raising the Stamp Duty threshold to £250k. (£425k for first time buyers).
Freeze energy bills at £2500.
Prioritising key infrastructure projects.
Creating investment zones with tax breaks.

Then tell the class which ones are still going ahead under a completely "new" government.

IIRC the aim was to have growth running around 2.5% .............. where are we now? 0.9% and waiting for it to get far worse this week.

Reeves and Starmer were both trumpeting "growing the economy" as the panacea for us all.

Maybe it wasn`t that mad? 🤷‍♂️
 
Essexyellows said:
Tell the class which of these were "bad"?

Scrapping the 45% rate.
Reducing basic rate by 1%
Cancelling the NI rise that was due.
Scrap the corporation tax increase.
Raising the Stamp Duty threshold to £250k. (£425k for first time buyers).
Freeze energy bills at £2500.
Prioritising key infrastructure projects.
Creating investment zones with tax breaks.

Then tell the class which ones are still going ahead under a completely "new" government.

IIRC the aim was to have growth running around 2.5% .............. where are we now? 0.9% and waiting for it to get far worse this week.

Reeves and Starmer were both trumpeting "growing the economy" as the panacea for us all.

Maybe it wasn`t that mad? 🤷‍♂️
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Tell the class how much less was going to be spent on crumbling schools, the depleted arms forces, essential road repairs, failing public transport, reducing NHS waiting lists, adult social care (that amazingly Johnson claimed he had fixed in his Downing Street resignation speech), .....
 
QR said:
Tell the class how much less was going to be spent on crumbling schools, the depleted arms forces, essential road repairs, failing public transport, reducing NHS waiting lists, adult social care (that amazingly Johnson claimed he had fixed in his Downing Street resignation speech), .....
Click to expand...

Tell the class how the current government are going to pay for the wish list while the economy shrinks faster than an ice cube in sauna? :)
 
QR said:
Tell the class how much less was going to be spent on crumbling schools, the depleted arms forces, essential road repairs, failing public transport, reducing NHS waiting lists, adult social care (that amazingly Johnson claimed he had fixed in his Downing Street resignation speech), .....
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Crumbling schools? If you mean RAAC concrete that was an unknown issue until it started failing.
Depleted armed forces? As per Ukraine war is very different now and far more technical.
Essential road repairs? You know it`ll be a sub-contracted company sending a bunch of blokes out to throw a shovel of tarmac in a hole.
Public Transport............ has been failing for decades, still the train drivers got a nice kick back.
NHS waiting lists......... The overall backlog has dropped from 7.48 million to 7.46 million.......... hardly "tearing up trees".
Social care? What do we have a commission by Baroness Casey, phase 1 2026, phase 2 2028............ the starting point should be getting folk out of hospital to facilitate the flow but there we are! 🤷‍♂️

Roll on Rachels bad news bomb eh? 😂
 
Essexyellows said:
Crumbling schools? If you mean RAAC concrete that was an unknown issue until it started failing.
Depleted armed forces? As per Ukraine war is very different now and far more technical.
Essential road repairs? You know it`ll be a sub-contracted company sending a bunch of blokes out to throw a shovel of tarmac in a hole.
Public Transport............ has been failing for decades, still the train drivers got a nice kick back.
NHS waiting lists......... The overall backlog has dropped from 7.48 million to 7.46 million.......... hardly "tearing up trees".
Social care? What do we have a commission by Baroness Casey, phase 1 2026, phase 2 2028............ the starting point should be getting folk out of hospital to facilitate the flow but there we are! 🤷‍♂️

Roll on Rachels bad news bomb eh? 😂
Click to expand...
Or you could have simply had a go at answering my question (what services would Truss cut to fund her tax give away for the rich?) but no.
 
Wednesday will be quite fun I think.
QR said:
Or you could have simply had a go at answering my question (what services would Truss cut to fund her tax give away for the rich?) but no.
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Wasn’t her idea to super boost economic growth to create tax to fund services?
 
Village-Yellow said:
Wednesday will be quite fun I think.


Wasn’t her idea to super boost economic growth to create tax to fund services?
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As a nation we are skint.

We are currently borrowing £2685.6 billion that’s equivalent to 98.1% of GDP..
8.7% of the taxes you pay are used to pay the interest ( not pay down the debt) on the loans that the government has.

If you borrow money do you not think that there is influence on our country from those that we are borrowing from?
They get to decide the terms that you borrow at.

At some point the government has to make 1 of the following choices to start to balance the books.

Cut back on spending
Raise income

For me borrowing more is just crazy.
 
Marston Road yellow said:
Cut back on spending
Raise income

For me borrowing more is just crazy.
Click to expand...

I’ve always been a strong believer in spending wisely and borrowing sensibly , but alas our governments seem inept .

Still way too much financial waste in our system and money being spent on luxury projects (HS2).

We are in a spiral of stagnant economic growth, leading to a real drop in tax take at a time when we need money to invest in our failing services and the cost of debt is high.

Terrible set of cards to deal with.
 
Marston Road yellow said:
As a nation we are skint.

We are currently borrowing £2685.6 billion that’s equivalent to 98.1% of GDP..
8.7% of the taxes you pay are used to pay the interest ( not pay down the debt) on the loans that the government has.

If you borrow money do you not think that there is influence on our country from those that we are borrowing from?
They get to decide the terms that you borrow at.

At some point the government has to make 1 of the following choices to start to balance the books.

Cut back on spending
Raise income

For me borrowing more is just crazy.
Click to expand...
28% of UK gilts are held by overseas investors which means most of the money “we” borrow is from ourselves.

If we are skint because of our debt to GDP, then the US, Japan, China, Italy, France, Canada and India all are too. Luckily Afghanistan and Congo have pretty low debt to GDP, so perhaps they can lend us some money.
 
Village-Yellow said:
I’ve always been a strong believer in spending wisely and borrowing sensibly , but alas our governments seem inept .

Still way too much financial waste in our system and money being spent on luxury projects (HS2).

We are in a spiral of stagnant economic growth, leading to a real drop in tax take at a time when we need money to invest in our failing services and the cost of debt is high.

Terrible set of cards to deal with.
Click to expand...
To be fair the debt is basically because of COVID

My issue is that we have in the last 20 years had 2 major incidents that have crushed our economy, and borrowing more leaves us really exposed should something else happen.

We need to be frugal, pay down the debt and get ourselves in a position to cope with the next unexpected event.

We should be raising taxes, removing tax avoidance scams and looking at ways to cut waste.
 
RgYellows said:
28% of UK gilts are held by overseas investors which means most of the money “we” borrow is from ourselves.

If we are skint because of our debt to GDP, then the US, Japan, China, Italy, France, Canada and India all are too. Luckily Afghanistan and Congo have pretty low debt to GDP, so perhaps they can lend us some money.
Click to expand...


That is such a simplified argument and judging by how you’ve written it you know it.

Have France got a broken road system? Does Canada have issues with immigration travelling across the Atlantic? Does China have problems with their healthcare service.

Each nation has its own set of issues. Ours are unique to us.

By your statistics 2/3 of our borrowing isn’t from our own sources and so basically we owe 2/3 of our own GDP to God knows who?

Maybe the US is borrowing from Putin/ Russia and maybe that’s why Trump is so happy with Putin?????
 
QR said:
Or you could have simply had a go at answering my question (what services would Truss cut to fund her tax give away for the rich?) but no.
Click to expand...

That is exactly what "wobbled" things.......... she didn`t say she was going to cut anything because the increase in economic growth would have filled the gap.

The OBR, BoE and the markets didn`t believe her.

Now we have a flatlining economy and Rachel sharpening her pencil to stab it in the heart.................. 😂

PS: We aren`t bothered - the drawbridge is up, arrangements are in place and our timing seems immaculate. (y)
 
Marston Road yellow said:
That is such a simplified argument and judging by how you’ve written it you know it.

Have France got a broken road system? Does Canada have issues with immigration travelling across the Atlantic? Does China have problems with their healthcare service.

Each nation has its own set of issues. Ours are unique to us.

By your statistics 2/3 of our borrowing isn’t from our own sources and so basically we owe 2/3 of our own GDP to God knows who?

Maybe the US is borrowing from Putin/ Russia and maybe that’s why Trump is so happy with Putin?????
Click to expand...
You are right. It is a simplistic argument to say that a low debt to GDP ratio makes Afghanistan rich, the same as it is to argue that a high one makes us “skint” and that economies like China, France and Canada are different because you think they don’t complain about their roads.

You can’t think of the largest national economies in the world in the same terms as your household budget. The US national debt is not financed by Donald Trump toddling along to the Bank of Vlad with his passport and asking for a loan. The US national debt is predominantly owed to the US. The minority that is owed to overseas investors is a global mix, as ours is.

If you want to argue that the debt might have compromised Trump on Russia then you’d have to explain why pretty much exactly the same debt didn’t stop Biden backing Ukraine. And given that the UK is the third highest foreign holder of US debt - far ahead of Russia - you’d have to question why we couldn’t just use the mysterious power this gives us (would avoid having to ask Afghanistan for a loan which I agree might not be the best).

If the UK economy has one problem, it is productivity rather than debt. Frustratingly, productivity growth would ease the debt burden that so concerns you and yet the way to boost that is pretty much the opposite of what you’re prescribing, which seems to be cutting investment and shutting ourselves off from the world.
 
RgYellows said:
You are right. It is a simplistic argument to say that a low debt to GDP ratio makes Afghanistan rich, the same as it is to argue that a high one makes us “skint” and that economies like China, France and Canada are different because you think they don’t complain about their roads.

You can’t think of the largest national economies in the world in the same terms as your household budget. The US national debt is not financed by Donald Trump toddling along to the Bank of Vlad with his passport and asking for a loan. The US national debt is predominantly owed to the US. The minority that is owed to overseas investors is a global mix, as ours is.

If you want to argue that the debt might have compromised Trump on Russia then you’d have to explain why pretty much exactly the same debt didn’t stop Biden backing Ukraine. And given that the UK is the third highest foreign holder of US debt - far ahead of Russia - you’d have to question why we couldn’t just use the mysterious power this gives us (would avoid having to ask Afghanistan for a loan which I agree might not be the best).

If the UK economy has one problem, it is productivity rather than debt. Frustratingly, productivity growth would ease the debt burden that so concerns you and yet the way to boost that is pretty much the opposite of what you’re prescribing, which seems to be cutting investment and shutting ourselves off from the world.
Click to expand...
Where did i suggest cutting ourselves off?
What’s the point in worrying about GDP, or government spending if we can just borrow?
 
Reading the news today, suggestions are universal credit and other benefits to be frozen till 2030.
This might prepare the government to freeze tax thresholds at £12570 beyond their current time of 2028 to 2030. I can see pensioners paying tax on their basic pensions before long. Pensions are not a benefit, they have been paid for by taxes and NI for over 50 years in many cases.
I’m waiting to see what the news is too on ISAs. Talk is that the £20000 cash ones will become maximum of £4000pa. Maybe that will mean more goes into stocks and shares ISAs which might be a good thing for British companies
Announcement due at 1230
 
I cannot see a situation where any UK government will leave the tax threshold at £12570 and directly tax the money that they are giving to pensioners. They might as well put a bullet to their head first. Surely there has to be a higher allowance rate for people reaching state pension age?

That year or so of 8% to 10% inflation brought us to this a fair bit quicker than was ever intended. Pay went up and people pay more tax. Unfortunately this included pensioners who are a sitting duck. Like most people they didn’t ask for prices to go up but the chain reaction puts their pensions ever closer to that magical £12570.

There are a lot of people who have not planned for their future and have relied heavily on the state pension. These people do not own their homes but struggled to raise families in the 70’s and 80’s through times of high unemployment and high interest rates. I worked in a financial services environment and saw high interest rates on accounts. It was sickening to see well-to-do customers jumping on National Savings Certificates just as rumours of interest rates falling slapping £30k into the final day of issue.

Strangely enough we sold inflation proof Index-Linked Certificates but they were only available to people of pensionable age. But we didn’t sell many because the poor sods could not afford it. Once these became available to everyone oh boy did the rich splash their cash to get them. The greedy sods had been after these for years. This sort of wealth creation by Thatcher and her mob put Mr & Mrs Ordinary Pensioner well down the wealth list.

There are people in this world who seeing what others have decided they also wanted flash cars, 2 foreign holidays a year and all the latest gadgets made in other countries. Much at the expense of their futures.

It is so easy to blame every government for the mess we are in and we have brought a lot of this on ourselves. But even if we could go back in time could we pinpoint an event that sparked all of this and allowed it to snowball? Covid is only recent. The effects of that will be felt for decades and possibly even by the pensioners of the future who were at school when Covid hit.
 
Well apart from inflation forecast to rise and the growth forecast being chopped it all went rather well..................... 😂 (y)

Still "the world has changed" as Rach said............. guess what? It``ll change every day,week,month,year.

So another 6 months for SMEs to deal with extra costs, making it hard to plan ahead because there is nothing positive to find.......... unless you sell stuff to kill people.

Happy days.
 
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Essexyellows said:
Well apart from inflation forecast to rise and the growth forecast being chopped it all went rather well..................... 😂 (y)

Still "the world has changed" as Rach said............. guess what? It``ll change every day,week,month,year.

So another 6 months for SMEs to deal with extra costs, making it hard to plan ahead because there is nothing positive to find.......... unless you sell stuff to kill people.

Happy days.
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Well I think on that score we give a lot of the stuff to kill people away for free don’t we ?
 
I can remember when you could go out with a tenner have 4 or 5 pints and have enough for chips and curry sauce from the Chinese take away or a Kebab down St. Giles on the way home. Now it’s one pint and the chips without sauce.
 
SSO said:
I can remember when you could go out with a tenner have 4 or 5 pints and have enough for chips and curry sauce from the Chinese take away or a Kebab down St. Giles on the way home. Now it’s one pint and the chips without sauce.
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You get chips with your tenner? Bloody hell
 
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