to think this country must have loads of money to spend as a country...have we found the magic money tree?

[chomalungma]

I'm old enough to remember a Prime Minister telling a nurse that she couldn't get a pay rise because there's no such thing as a magic money tree.

Yet suddenly we can find billions for the pandemic, billions for the green revolution, billions for extra spending on the Armed Forces.

Don't get me wrong. We need to spend this money on this stuff - but how on Earth are we finding this money?

Are we just borrowing it and hoping we can pay it back later?

Or have we found the magic money tree?

All this goes to show is that all the cuts in the early 2010s with austerity weren’t really needed at all. Bedroom tax, people committing suicide, cutting benefits.. It wasn’t actually necessary at all, we can blame Tory voters prejudices instead.

@BubblyBarbara

All this goes to show is that all the cuts in the early 2010s with austerity weren’t really needed at all. Bedroom tax, people committing suicide, cutting benefits.. It wasn’t actually necessary at all, we can blame Tory voters prejudices instead.

Labour's manifesto at the time also included savage cuts of similar levels.

This government is financially illiterate. Different from finding a magic money tree.

@nosswith

This government is financially illiterate. Different from finding a magic money tree.

All governments are as bad as each other. The naivety of people thinking a different one would have done better is ridiculous.

@SoupDragon

I agree. I'm old enough to have lived through lots of different governments and they're really all as bad as each other. History just repeats itself. I despair that we've had a succession of pretty poor prime ministers (and other ministers) over the past few decades. There is a lot of real talent amongst the rank and file of MPs but for some reason the really competent ones never want to become senior ministers. Prime ministers are really all of the same mould and that's a great shame. I'm not a Libdem, but Tim Farron is an excellent hard working MP and would have made a great leader of the Libdems but he was hounded out and only lasted as Libdem's leader for a few months - a real travesty.

This pandemic came at a great time - the country was on its arse before this started. Now they have an excuse to spend away. Total joke.