Is the Chancellor about to crash the economy?

I agree. It took a matter of weeks for both my parents’ estates. I swore the oath at a local solicitors’ office and the whole thing was done by post.

I think probate must have improved again @Badbadbunny . It took 16 weeks for DMIL's to come through two years ago, but DM's came through in about 16 days in September. We were staggered.

I agree about probate.

More fundamental would be to have the same law on house purchase and sale in England and Wales as applies in Scotland, and a ban on holiday lets and second homes in some areas.

Lots of Govt depts need a kick up the arse to help sort the housing shortage. Take probate, it takes several months to obtain probate for no obvious reason, even for the simplest of estates where all the forms are complete and correct, it's still several months. This is the problem with "targets" - they work backwards from the latest possible target to "tick their boxes", rather than actually doing things quicker. Last time I had to get probate, it was closer to a year. They cancelled the meeting to swear the oath, which was bang on the (?) 16 week "target" and then it was another 16 weeks before the next appointment slot. When I was there waiting for the appointment, lots of staff shuffling around, chatting etc., and I was sat there waiting until bang on the appointment time when someone shuffled through to take me to the meeting room - I'd been there 10 minutes and she'd just been stood chatting!

When there's a housing shortage, it makes no sense to have empty houses languishing, unable to be sold, when a couple of government depts are on a go slow.

OK, thank you. I’ll go back and look again.

It's gravely concerning for the country. Every day brings more economic woes.

They’re lucky people are distracted by other news items atm

@BIossomtoes, He's mentioned as steering the programme in the article about stripping environmental quangos of their ability to delay major housebuilding.

Another week and another disaster from Rachel from accounts.

Last months borrowing figures were the third highest since records began. That quite an achievement for a government that’s only 6 months in.

Honestly these clowns are useless.

Despite being a subscriber I can’t find The Times article. This one’s also about John Van Reenen.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jan/17/economist-shaping-rachel-reeves-growth-plans-john-van-reenen

Borrowing up and jobs down

Not much on it due to current media cycle on Trump, US and crime

Me neither, but I read the same article I think. She's now upset Sadiq Kahn and Ed Miliband, so I am warming to her 😂😂

Yes, I am pleased that the Government does now seem to be inolving actual economists with actual experience. Disasasembling the structure of quasi accountable quangos that mire so much implementation of policy in bureaucracy is also a very welcome step, IMO. To many powers have been delegated to bodies that are to all intents and purposes unaccountable to the electorate.

Whether it happens quickly enough to deliver growth in this parliament is another matter; I note borrowing last month was almost 30% higher than forecast (£18bn vs £14bn) which doesn't bode well in terms of an emergancy budgt with more tax rises if the chancellor isn't to breach the fiscal rules she has set herself

Sorry, the newspaper article was in The Times. Behind a paywall, so I can't link it, and I don't know how to find opensource links. Blame my age!

Very interesting link, and thanks, @Tryingtokeepgoing.

Reading the paper this morning, I see its author is an adviser to the Treasury and the Chancellor, and is one of the main proponents for a bonfire of regulation that's hopefully going to speed up planning and development. I had not heard of him before, but am suitably encouraged by such appointments.

I think you’re making the mistake of thinking that because manufacturing as a % of GDP fell from the 80s to the 00s that it fell in absolute terms. And I’m not sure that’s right. As for much of that period GDP grew rapidly, and we overtook both France and Germany. So it’s more likely that the jobs lost were in low value unprofitable activity, and the growth in GDP came from increased productivity from higher value manufacturing and services activity.

Now we have a productivity issue now, relative to our more industrialised neighbours, which is partly that it’s harder to measure productivity in a services economy, and partly that it’s also harder to improve it. Buying better machinery has a positive impact on productivity in a manufacturing business, but a new laptop and printer doesn’t really shift the dial on productivity for a services business. AI could materially help here I think.

blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/mrs-thatchers-industrial-legacy/

It's tragic that's your best comeback.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35414075.amp

But entirely predictable that you don't understand productivity and it's impact upon manufacturing jobs.

*If we look at the history of manufacturing one thing is very clear. Fewer of us work in it than used to. In 1841, it was more than a third of the working population and it remained reasonably steady for 120 years. At the time of the census in 2011 it was down to 9%."

Oh dear indeed. AI …

Oh dear.

I’d like to hear a little more about how the unions of the 70s and 80s attempted to “bring in communism by the back door”?

Manufacturing actually grew under Thatcher

How can that possibly be true when 1.8 million jobs were lost? It’s nonsense.

Manufacturing actually grew under Thatcher, but the unions had made far too many industries uncompetitive - e.g. ship building.

The dockyards wanted to invest in new technology such as arc welding, but that meant job losses for riveting gangs, so the unions said 'no' to arc welding unless there were no job losses. There was no point investing in the new technology unless there would be cost savings, so they didn't bother - but the Swedes, Taiwanese, etc, did invest and took all the business.

You can't blame Thatcher for putting massively loss making industries out of their misery. If the unions hadn't attempted to bring in communism by the back door, then they'd probably still exist.

Maybe you should recognise her as the visionary she was?

All the most valuable companies in the world are design and service based.

Apple - design and services with outsourced manufacturing.

Microsoft - software and services.

Facebook - services.

Google - services.

Tesla - describes itself as a software company.

Nvidia - design and outsourced manufacturing.

It started before Thatcher but it was only in the course of her governments that it became a deliberate policy. 1.78 million manufacturing jobs disappeared between 1980 and 1990.

My seaside town had none of that, it really was just a holiday resort, so such closures weren't the cause. We definitely didn't have any tax offices as I started my accountancy career in the early 80s so knew exactly where our nearest offices were for IR, VAT etc., which were all in the nearby city. The real cause was package holidays along with the lack of "mill closure weeks" from the Lancashire/Yorkshire mill towns in the Summer, which stopped because the mills closed.