What Rachel Reeves does next? Surprised no thread on this yet. It's all over Twitter

[Sharingsomewisdom]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13764547/Rachel-Reeves-mulls-tax-hikes-spending-squeeze-raising-rents-social-housing-Chancellor-sees-Government-borrow-3bn-forecast-month.html

Or am I the only one interested what she is eying next? Any comment on the reasonableness or otherwise of Rachel's next focus?

🤨 you realise the state pension is exactly that too. The taxes you pay today are funding the current pensioners in receipt of it ans when you retire the generation below you will be paying for yours.

So don't pick on public sector

How much more wealth will come from dodgy tax claims? Would it make a difference?

Public sector pensions have to go, surely.

You want no public services, go ahead. You can kiss goodbye to healthcare, state education, universities, the fire service, all local authority services. Then where will you be?

Why? They all earn a decent salary. Why not a private pension like everyone else?

Because it wouldn’t save any money. 🙄

outgoing chancellors have been leaving that note for incoming chancellors since Antony Barber in 1964 - who wrote, to his Labour successor, 'I'm sorry old cock, but the money has all gone'. It was like a tradition.

It has only ever been weaponised in the political debate by Cameron & Osborne, as some kind of cover for their austerity project.

Rachel Reeves Hansard March 2014 re winter fuel
https://x.com/drcarolinej/status/1828571069290315813

Next she will put a tax on junk good whilst billing her junk food as expenses she had whilst being in her second home. After all her 6 figure salary is not ebough for her to have broad shoulders and yake on more of the burden 🙄😬

@ilovesooty 🤣I buy it solely to line my parrot cage- it tends to be cheapest for the number of pages.. I should stop supporting them- always explain that I don’t read it!

Anthony Barber was the outgoing chancellor in 1974 (not 1964). Reginald Maudling was the outgoing chancellor in 1964 and he didn't leave a note;

Hansard 1997
I cite the autobiography of my noble friend Lord Callaghan of Cardiff. Writing about the first day that he was in office as Chancellor, he says:

"I was sitting at what had been Reggie Maudling's desk in the ground-floor study at 11 Downing Street. While I was reading the briefs which Treasury officials had prepared against the possibility of a Labour victory, he was in the upstairs flat with his wife, packing their belongings. On his way out, he put his head round the door, carrying a pile of suits over his arm. His comment was typical: 'Sorry, old cock, to leave it in this shape. I suggested to Alec this morning that perhaps we should put up the bank rate but he thought that he ought to leave it all to you."
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199798/ldhansrd/vo970514/text/70514-02.htm

Alistair Darling was the outgoing chancellor in 2010 - he didn't leave a note either - it was Liam Byrne. All this talk of tradition is nonsense as far as I can see. Why hasn't anyone compiled a book of notes?

Got my chancellors muddled for sure

Maudling retained his post as Chancellor under the new Prime Minister and in the 1964 election, Maudling had a prominent role at the helm of the party's daily press conferences, while Douglas-Home toured the country. On the BBC's election results programme, the journalist Anthony Howard said that he believed that if Maudling had been leader, the narrow Conservative defeat would have been a narrow Conservative victory.[17] Upon being forced out of the post by the election defeat, Maudling left a note to his successor, James Callaghan, simply stating "Good luck, old cock.... Sorry to leave it in such a mess".[18]

Up the creek without a paddle.

Has it learned to read yet?

It is short sighted. More tax, less spending money, more cheaper imported goods into the country.

At one time, cheap imports were just that - cheap and useless. Not today. There are some extremely good quality goods sold online by a now well known company. The merchandise I have sampled has not disappointed.

That will affect British manufacturers.

The real danger lies in the fact that if the taxation on companies is high, their profit margin is lowered and pension managers will look elsewhere - mostly abroad - to invest saver's money.

If pension investments cannot produce a good return, the pensions will be lower.

If they do, then there will be even more pensioners on pension credit, and receiving other benefits.

What use is that?

The account in Wikipedia is not correct - Maudling didn't leave a note;

Observer History Books 2006

Political memoirs are more slyly self-justifying. By the time Jim Callaghan described his first day as Chancellor, when his predecessor Reginald Maudling - on his way out, pile of suits over his arm - popped his head round the door of the study and said: 'Good luck, old cock, sorry to leave it in such a mess', the comment (even if accurately recalled) seemed to refer not to the state of the room but to the economy...
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/jul/30/historybooks.features

Guardian 2008

Chancellor of the Exchequer Reginald Maudling, who famously said to James Callaghan, his Labour successor, as he handed over the keys of 11 Downing Street (in a reference to the state of the budget and the balance of payments): 'Sorry, old cock.'
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/jul/06/economics.economicgrowth

The false narrative about a note seems to have started in 2010 - after Liam Byrne left his note.

Everyone: the NHS, education, etc are dreadful! More money needs to be spent on them!

Most people: I don't want to pay any more tax!

Oh Clav, who - apart from you - actually gives a shit whether it was a note or a verbal jibe? It was a Treasury tradition either way.

Every new government says this. I’d like to see proof

Here you go.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/aug/29/home-office-criticised-over-woefully-understated-tory-asylum-budgets

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2npgpz048o

Why not? The private sector abandoned their DB schemes and saved a fortune. Instead of underwriting vast pensions, they pay say 8% of the employees salary into a DC scheme and the employee saves the rest.

That would be discriminatory against women.

?