To find Rachel Reeves an irritating pain in the neck

@CantStopMoving I'm just not convinced increased corporation tax wouldn't also encourage a leaner workforce.

RR said the below today
“The Labour party is the party” of work, Reeves says. More than 1,000 people a day are qualifying for personal independence payments (Pip), Reeves says. “It is a waste of their potential and a waste of their futures.”

PIP is not an out of work benefit and is supposed to help disabled people with the extra costs of being disabled, including in employment. I personally think her above comments are disgraceful and they actually demonstrate ignorance and lack of understanding of PIP and the problems disabled people face. She could at least just be truthful and say we can't afford to pay for peoples disabilities anymore but to dress it up as PIP stopping people from working is typical politician speak trying to get support from the public to cut payments to workshy disabled people.

I'm actually quite impressed that she's not shying away from the massive mess of benefits.

If the conservatives did this, labour would vote it all down so it's quite ironic we need a labour government to address it.

I think the manifesto promises not to raise taxes have her hamstrung..the usual options aren't available. There isn't the magic money tree they implied existed.

The trouble is that leaves many anti businesses options and so here we are. We are all going to get a shock at the cost of everything after April 1st..

Yes but profit comes after everything else. You have to tax something. You want to drive growth so you want companies to be making money. If you tax employees then companies are not going to be making much profit to tax corporation tax on. Then losses can be carried forward to future years so less tax on those years.

Oooh, the VAT on schools fees starting to bite???

Unfortunately it seems like more of the same.

That's the depressing bit, can things ever change?

Assume this is a joke? She is the opposite.

Rachel Reeves’ benefits cuts will push an estimated quarter of a million people, including 50,000 children, into poverty by the end of this decade, according to the government's own impact assessment.

It is to anybody with any knowledge of basic economics yes. That's the worry and she is the chancellor.

Perhaps go heavier on corporation tax but less on employment tax. Tax profits not costs. Encourage reinvestment of residual profits. I absolutely see no gain in taxing your business for having employees. All it does is encourage you to keep your workforce lean, which means a greater amount on benefits. Surely this is obvious to anyone?

Wouldn't an increase on corporation tax mean less profit though?

The economy hasn't recovered since then, I agree, and I also agree about change. Unfortunately it seems like more of the same.

So do I. I really like her. People need to understand and remember what we lived through the past 14 or so years. They aren’t going to turn all that mess around in the months they’re been in govt.
(Un) surprisingly, it’s the same folks that voted the Torries & perhaps Brexit that complain about the LP.

First , their fear was that the LP was going to “ waste “ all the funds they’d managed to “conserve “ and now, it’s that they aren’t spending as much and cutting back ? People need pick a battle. We either want a working economy or we don’t.

Do you usually refer to women as "bitch" when you don't like them?

Probably best not to halve it to start with.

It was often said about Gordon Brown and continues to be said about Sir Keir Starmer

But regardless she will be judged more I haven't agreed with all decisions made but I like her straightforward approach. Labour told us they shall have to make difficult decisions

This is the thing j don’t understand. I have worked in economics and finance for 20 years. Despite this, I do not feel in any way, shape or form that I would have the experience/ability to be chancellor.

but, if I was, I absolutely would just be cutting business taxes hard. Perhaps go heavier on corporation tax but less on employment tax. Tax profits not costs. Encourage reinvestment of residual profits. I absolutely see no gain in taxing your business for having employees. All it does is encourage you to keep your workforce lean, which means a greater amount on benefits. Surely this is obvious to anyone?

No. The opposite. At present Far too many children are pushed back home to dreadful awful birth parents because of the costs and of foster care and the pressure on local authority finances

Growth has alluded us since 08, we need. radical change & it will take years

Exactly this. Growth halved. Starmer and Reeves will prop each other up even if it gets worse.

It’s been failing since 2012 apparently.

She came into this government and parliament promising growth and the fact that labour would deliver the growth.

Her policies are the exact opposite of growth. The increase in NI, plus the reduction in the band level that it is paid, is going to hit many many companies very hard. It's economic illiteracy at its finest. She needs the private sector to create growth but has just hampered them to do so.

It's the private sector that creates and drives the growth that stimulates the economy. Always has been and always will be.

She keeps backing herself into corners and I can't see her lasting the course. But who on earth is capable of replacing her is another matter. To just replace her with another incompetent chancellor wouldn't help the matter either unless they dismantled her previous Autumn budget and started again.

There are many able and competent people working in accounts, but most do not have and do not claim to have the necessary skills to be a competent Chancellor of the Exchequer.

In fact some notable holders of that office have failed to do so competently, including Rachel Reeves.

Yvette Cooper is a poor home secretary although she is likely to hold onto her job longer than Rachel Reeves. However, she is not likely to make any long-term positive impact, unlike Margaret Thatcher who, whether you like her or not, will never be forgotten by history.

That will be dozens of people annoyed with her then. Literally dozens. Perhaps even 50.
Remind me again what her majority was? Oh yes, she has been an MP since 2010 with a current majority of 12,000. She’ll be quaking in her boots.

And it's been struggling for years - since 2012 - and it wasn't even in her constituency then.