UK officially in recession...

[Startingagainandagain]

Latest stats released show the UK is now officially in recession (Office for national statistic data).

Gaslighting has started in the media by ministers to try to minimise that fact.

Isn't it time to face the facts instead and call a general election?

I know the picture is bleak and any new party in power will need years to try to sort out this mess but something needs to be done...

The UK's decline in the past few decade or so has really been dramatic.

At this rate it'll be civil unrest. We've already got entrenched industrial dispute and rates of shoplifting that in the worst areas are akin to regular looting. People are frustrated with hard work bringing precious little reward and are breaking out in a number of ways.

I don't, but I also don't think labour are in a position to take over at the moment. It is possible to believe both to be true.

Yes.

In fact we the people are doubly to blame because the reason we're not spending enough is because we're not earning enough. Which is also our fault.

After every single gross, negligent and unutterably incompetent decision this this ridiculous, awful, self serving waste of space government has made, for anybody to STILL, after everything we've been through,be deluded enough to say 'well it would have been worse under Labour' is completely unfathomable to me.

@Ursulla there will be no civil unrest. We are a nation of sleep walkers.

That’s what they said about Attlee’s 1945 government. The one that laid the foundation for the society Tories have spent the last 14 trying to destroy. The country was on its uppers and deep in debt then too.

Well let's hope I'm proven wrong then, after all, mine is just an opinion voiced on the internet.

There’s evidence for the issues with the Tories. What is making you think that about Labour?

Tories on Covid - Downing Street parties, late lockdown, useless PPE, millions squandered and contracts for friends, Matt Hancock snogging his mistress in the office, let the bodies pile high.

Tories on Immigration - total failure.

Tories on aging population - decimate NHS, keep triple lock to appease voter base, decimate care system, Brexit resulting in staff shortages in care homes.

Tories on war - Some interesting stuff here - including selling arms to Saudi Arabia https://www.stopwar.org.uk/article/blood-and-rubble-a-decade-of-tory-war/

Hard to imagine a worse shit show.

Cayman Islands, Isle of Man, Bermuda, Switzerland. Anywhere the Tories mates base their businesses.

They'll use the time before a November election to max out what money they can take.

I read somewhere that there are something like over 9 million working age people who are economically inactive (will try to find it and link it, 2.8million long term sick but only a tiny fraction are actually on NHS waiting lists), working age population of the UK is 37.5 million.

Thats a big reason there. The head of the ONS said a big contributing factor is inactivity.

Yup they are pretty self sufficient.

It’s the biggest factor.

The public don’t like to be told they have to work though.

They like to see work as optional, something you do if it suits you and fits in with your lifestyle and causes no hassle, otherwise you’re entitled to live off the state ‘because the corporations should be taxed more, go after them, not me’.

Well tbh whoever is in power is going to have to do more to get people back to work. It’s bad enough having an aging population, can’t afford to have a quarter of the working age population not working either. It’s just not affordable tbh. I don’t think Labour are going to be able to ignore it either, it’s not realistic.

I appreciate the discussion has moved on from the OP...

However nobody seems to have mentioned that the initial estimate of the fall in GDP was only -0.3%, and given the likely wide confidence intervals it is entirely possible that this figure will be revised and we aren't actually in recession.

Soilent Green time!!!

Good point

Re inactivity they really need to sort mental health provision. There is nothing. CAMHS is completely broken and useless so adult services are getting more and more young people needing help. Many are just dumped after CAMHs and not put on community health waiting lists because they haven’t had enough overdoses or aren’t dangerous enough. You only get treated when at risk of inpatient and the bar is high for that. So they just sit at home unable to work trying to overcome mental ill health on their own.

It’s a disgrace.

Are you willing to retrain to fill one of the many thousands of vacancies in the mental health sector, because that's what's needed. People need to take the jobs to fill the voids to clear the lists.

@Dapbag I was going to list all the same but it really isn't worth it. BJ could have run around Downing Street with an AK 47 murdering babies and puppies. Some people will scrunch their eyes shut and stick their fingers in their ears no matter what.

I think it’s more there is no funding for jobs. Have heard of several in the sector unable to get jobs, quite highly qualified yet you can’t see a psych or get any type of therapy at all anywhere on the NHS and it’s way too expensive privately.

I agree with you but how will they manage this? There is an enormous number of people who will try every trick in the book to not stick at a job, and claim everything they can get their hands on. We now award benefits for conditions with no pathology where the evidence is simply the claimant saying they are too unwell to work. That’s going to be extremely hard to row back on. Of course a number of those claimants are completely genuine but this type of claim has skyrocketed to the extent that I’m dubious how authentic an awful lot of them are.

Economic inactivity doesn't automatically mean people are claiming benefits.
27% are of economically inactive people are students.
Many people are of independent means, especially those who retire early.

30% suffer long term ill health - a situation made worse by the long waiting lists for treatment. @DillyD0007854 's post above is sadly very true.

They don’t need to claim benefits to be taking. They’ll be using the NHS, schools, roads, local council, they’re protected by the military, the emergency services are at their disposal, and so on. All without paying a penny.

A lot of those people are those under pension age who have taken early retirement and are not reliant on benefits. The number shot up during and after covid. How will you force them back into work?