Why do we not know how bad our financial situation is?

[Oldncranky]

This is probably a very naive question. Thinking about Labour putting up taxes and the whole "it's worse than we thought" narrative we really all saw coming. (After all, Labour did the same to the tories at the last change!). But I'm seriously pondering why it is such an unknown entity unless you're actually in power? It's our money! Why are our public accounts not public knowledge and easily accessible? We have to provide our personal income details to the state, why does it not work both ways?

Anyone who takes even a passing interest in the news should have known how bad things were.

Well yes, but that's not the actual figures is it?

We heard a lot of "fully costed plans" etc but why are these not publicised? And surely for any fully costed plan you'd need to know the current bank balance - not just guesstimate!

Read the Chancellor's statement and it tells you. Choose to believe it or not 🤷🏽‍♀️

It seems the same every time there is a government change, like kids in a playground, tit for tat. Sick of the whole lot of 'em.

Money is more complicated than that when it comes to Government money.

But there are published plans, published spending plans etc. As well as plans for borrowing, predicted tax take etc

It does seem though that if a Government says they are going to do something, then they should say what the effect of that will be - unfunded tax cuts etc being one such example

Anyone who takes even a passing interest in the news should have known how bad things were.

This. We have a huge shift in demographics, things will only get more expensive. Governments have got away with avoiding the issue because many still think people are having loads of babies for benefits or blame the boat people.

I’ve just been watching a clip of Starmer from just a few months ago talking about a £46bn ‘black hole’. Now they say there is a £22bn black hole and it is much bigger than they expected.

I mean I can't really grumble as I voted for them, and I'm still glad it's them and not more of the same, but it struck me reading the election manifestos- no data anywhere to be seen to back anything up. They do think we're mindless mugs don't they.

I'm with you @Ilovemyshed sick of the lot of them!

In this case even the OBR don’t appear to know how bad things are. They are now launching an investigation into the figures the Tories gave them in March. I don’t think you can expect the general public to be better informed than the OBR and IFS.

Strongly suspect that there might be some changes to make it more transparent, OP.

I agree with you OP. If companies have to publish annual accounts I cannot understand why the government isn’t obliged to be transparent

Let's hope so. They've inherited a shit heap, that's for sure.

We've had massive changes over the last few years, especially Covid when a sizeable proportion of the country got paid by the government for doing nothing in order to keep the population fed in homes. I can't see how anyone could expect the country to be in a good state following that, but am very grateful that they did it.