Has Labour crashed the economy ?

Recently, we had reports of lower inflation (maybe interest cuts in the horizon), lower cost of borrowing for UK, small growth over November.
Yet, I have not spotted any thread congratulating "Rachel, from accounts" as some have called Reeves.
At least, she must have a little spring on her steps this week.

Some rumours in various press outlets today that the Chancellor may be looking at cutting costs in an attempt to calm the markets and also there is no headroom for more borrowing.

A mention was made of the Tory review of PIP which Labour may use as a basis for some changes. Apparently annual costs of PIP are currently £23 billion per year and forecast to increase to about £34 billion by 2029 if current trend continues.

You should be able to work as long as you want but raising the retirement age serves one purpose and that's to prevent millions tired and worn out claiming their pension.

Can you imagine police, firefighters, nurses,plumbers, joiners, heating engineers, builders, Amazon workers, bin men, street cleaners, factory workers, teachers etc working until 70.

Many many people don't make 70, many more have serious health problems by the time they reach 65.

So if they can't retire and they can't work....then what.....

@dubsie

"Raise the retirement age....I find that laughable. They aren't many jobs you can work until your 70......it's a ridiculous concept... please get a grip"

Well given the options are:

1. Increase Government debt- which is now no longer an option as Liz Truss found out the hard way and Rachel Reeves is beginning to find out.
2. Increase taxation- which has the downside of harming economic growth as RR has found out
3. cut Government spending.

If you want to cut spending the three biggest areas are:

1. NHS
2. Pensions - state and public sector
3. welfare payments to the 9 million economically inactive.

On pensions the options are:

1. reduce their value (not going to get many grey votes for that)
2. Means test them which intuitively would appeal to Labour but has the secondary impact of reducing the incentive to save for a private pension plus not many grey votes in that
3. increase the retirement age - for example it's already 67 in Denmark and increasing.

What would you propose?

That is other than the usual MN response of let's tax the rich with "rich" being defined as anyone earning more than me but most definitely not me.

Don't be ridiculous back at ya. Are you saying people age 70 are infirm and incapable of using their minds effectively in a job they may have been doing all their working lives and so need to be put out to pasture? Very old fashioned of you.

Raise the retirement age....I find that laughable. They aren't many jobs you can work until your 70......it's a ridiculous concept... please get a grip.

Voted for by the public, delivered (poorly) by the Conservatives and unopposed by Labour. Many people are to blame for that shambles! Unless of course you are saying the public should never have been given a vote…?

The mistake the Conservatives and Labour made was assuming everyone thought as they did in Westminster. Both parties are complicit in that. Only the Lib Dem’s mounted any sort of a ‘Remain’ campaign. For the other parties it was either antipathy or against (Corbyn and Labour) or small groups of the old guard in favour (conservative)

I think we will just have to wait and see on that. They look like they are giving it a good crack!

Nothing, repeat, nothing Labour does to the economy can ever be as bad as Brexit delivered by the Tories.

It's a change in attitude, a recession was a done deal 9 months ago....if you look at the global metrics you'll see that a global crisis is well underway....the bubble was going to burst and it started in the states....

It doesn't go far enough to mitigate the enormous economic damage Brexit continues to cause to the UK but all sounds perfectly reasonable, although obviously those are opening negotiating positions so there will be room for manoeuvre provided we don't approach it totally unprepared and with a hostile attitude this time.

https://edition.pagesuite.com/popovers/dynamic_article_popover.aspx?artguid=760746ed-c6a3-4e06-a1c6-a7df69f3b3dd

And points 6) and 8) are why point 9) is vital (education reforms). The UK will never compete with the likes of China on price so we must invest in our "human capital". If education remains so dysfunctional and underfunded then we will reap the "benefits" of that for another generation at least and it will make 6) and 8) unviable, even more so than we are seeing now with skills shortages having to be plugged with immigration. It is all interlinked so needs a holistic policy approach like I've set out. Individually some measures would be unaffordable, but as a package they would not because they would cross-support each other with some generating the immediate boost to growth that we desperately need, and others using the money generated from that to improve things further for the future (while still leaving people better off than they are now because there would be growth so salary increases that weren't purely inflationary would be possible for the first time in the best part of two decades).

As always, however, nobody will listen and we'll carry on as we are in terminal decline, swinging from one political extreme to the other with no long-term or evidence-based policy making and people content to fight like rats in a sack over the crumbs and blame each other or whatever today's scapegoat group of people is (I can't keep up) rather than demand our politicians actually run the country competently.

I agree, but this is covered by point 6) and point 8) regarding a long-term industrial strategy (this needs to be led by business leaders and those who understand global economics and international trade so that ot actually works and the money isn't poured into producing products upon which the UK could never compete on price internationally due to labour, fuel and premises costs. We must provide the funding for high-tech or creative industries where we have competitive advantage and can add value. This will also raise productivity and therefore provides the only sustainable way to raise real-terms salaries without generating inflation that negates it) and properly supporting small businesses to grow so that they can export more easily and access funding to grow without having to be sold off to foreign investors.

Thank you. I wish these threads resulting in more debates on policy, ideas, what should actually be done to improve things, rather than pointless mud slinging and "oh, the other lot are worse". We need to raise the bar. Not being quite as awful as another idiot should not be the standard we expect from our leaders.

CGT on main residence would further worsen housing problems and social mobility. Very families could ever afford to upsize so there would be even fewer starter homes available. It would make it much harder for people to move for jobs, even to a house the same size, and would further discourage older people from downsizing therefore clogging up the whole housing chain even further, so I wouldn't be in favour of that for purely pragmatic reasons, which is why the exemption was put in place.

Sorry, posted too soon!

... no seat at the table in determining those standards. That's why Brexit was such lunacy because the other options were a) huge economic damage from decreased trade and tax revenues and enormously elevated costs for importing and exporting (for a country reliant on imports of basics like food and fuel!); or b) being a rule taker, but avoiding a).

b) is better than a). But obviously, to anybody with a functioning brain cell, it would have been better not to give up our very preferential deal and vetos and seat at the table in the first place.

No, the EU does not "refuse to do this".

Yes, if we want to have smoother trade and stop the compounding damage resulting from Brexit of course we'd have to have common standards, to be part of the trading block. And of course if you decide not to be in the EU it means you have no seat at the table in determin

@DoIhavegreeneyes

"Rejoin the customs union and single market"

Rejoining the customs union and single market or the Norwegian model is certainly possible but as you point out the UK would then become a "rule taker" having little influence on shaping future rules.

As for access to UK waters for fisheries then up to 6 miles it is only access to UK vessels, from 6 to 12 miles then EU vessels can still access UK waters - so exactly the same as before Brexit.

The UK does have the right to implement maritime or seabed protection / conservation zones that would apply to all fishing. Indeed kelp and sea grass are way more efficient at capturing co2 than trees are.

@TheWildRobot Says, "Rejoin the customs union and single market. The decision to leave these is catastrophic for the economy in the longer-term "

As I understand it, This the EU refuses to do. Today I read that we have to accept that we comply with all EU regulations on Food including future ones. We will not be part of that decision making for these new rules.
To show 'good faith' before negotiations can continue the EU requires us to abandon the fish in the sea around our shores and cancel the marine ecological rules and safeguards that we have imposed. Spain and France will then rewrite them so they can plough plunder at there will.
This is partly why there have been headlines about a surrender team of 100 working on this for 2 Tier Keir. Another reason is that we are expected to comply with their Court again!
Sorry Robot. but many of us find those conditions too onerous. But I agree with much of the rest that you have written on benefits and ID..

@Nordione1
@mambojambodothetango

The Conservatives managed the economy well up to 1997, Labour initially managed it well for 1997 to 2002 then messed it up from then until 2008 and the Conservatives messed it up after that (not helped by Brexit own goal and spaffing £500 billion on Covid).:

I agree with @TheWildRobot but I'd also emphasise building up our manufacturing industry again, of useful, sustainable things not junk food/gadgets/fast fashion. Decent jobs and skills. There are pockets of this but not enough.

@mambojambodothetango

"I think Labour are being rightly bold and pointing the country in the right direction to grow long term. "

Increasing employers NI contributions is not consistent with growing the economy or the number of jobs:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g7x6p865zo.amp

@TheWildRobot

Thank you for putting together what I think is the best post on this thread - logical and well structured post.

If I could add a small criticism, I think it is a tad underfunded so I would add CGT on principal residence, I would give local authorities the right to receive an uplift in value clause on any planning permission they grant, I would significantly increase the tax on alcohol sold in supermarkets and raise the state pension age by say 3 months every year rather than cliff edge increases.

But thank you for a great post and so much more constructive than the usual posts of "well the Tories did worse" or "look at Liz Truss or Brexit " or "let's tax the rich (with rich being anyone earning more than me)" etc etc.

There's a reason Labour have been in power significantly less than the Conservatives over the years. People don't want their lives messed about with. Plans disrupted for retirement, plans for investment in jobs for the next year for a business, plans to pass on your (taxed) wealth to your kids, plans to pass on a business or a farm as an ongoing concern. Rachel from customer services is messing about with people's lives and should not expect the vote of anyone affected. Which is everyone eventually. (Unless you work in the public sector and don't have kids that might want a job in future. And you will still be affected if farms go under and we have no food. Oh or if Putin invades and we have reduced the defence budget again. Although those highly paid train drivers will be essential during the invasion)