I'm unbelievably ill informed and stupid.

[Lola247]

Can anyone explain the budget to me in simple terms please?

I am not advocating pay freezes for public sector workers. It is, however, a fact that, as Rachel Reeves said, the pay rises awarded added £9.4billion to government spending beyond what was allowed in the previous budget. That is part of the alleged £22billion black hole. It was Labour's decision to give those pay rises. So no, it is not rubbish. Almost half of the black hole is due to a decision Labour made. I'm not saying it was the wrong decision, but it was their decision, not something they can blame on the Conservatives.

They were much better then. They’ve got in a shocking state in the last 14 years, and funnily enough it’s not possible to sort all that out in a few months and before the budget is even enacted. Your post reads like you think Labour have been in power for the last 14 years - the state they are in now is nothing to do with them at this point.

Why is paying tax such a bad thing? People with assets act like they're being punished for being expected to contribute to society.

Public sector workers have had pay freezes for years.

It's not really true that statement, like at all:

n the UK for 2023–2024:

Teachers received a 6.5% increase, addressing pressures in the education sector.
For NHS staff, the government implemented a 5% pay increase along with two one-off payments averaging over £2,000 per person, a move intended to support workers amidst high inflation and rising living costs.
Doctors received a 6% pay rise,
Police and civil servants, meanwhile, saw smaller increases, with most civil servants receiving around a 4.5% pay raise, topped to 5% for the lowest-paid staff, plus a one-time £1,500 cost-of-living payment.

"These pay rises, costing around £9.4 billion more than initially budgeted, were financed by departmental cost-saving measures rather than tax increases or borrowing, which the government asserted would exacerbate inflation"

You can blame not budgeting for it on him though. They agreed to pay it then didn’t put money aside to fund it. And the OBR has confirmed that neither they nor anyone else were given all the financial details - things are much, much worse than the Tories let on.

The public sector pay increases are not part of the black hole left by the previous Government, because by definition, they weren't left by the previous government.

OK, Cool answer

Anyone except the markets and the OBR you mean?
Markets are happy.
OBR forecast is for growth.

Though I disagree with that poster, this is a really rude comment.

As an American who naturalised here, and is trapped here by the totally fucked family court system and an abusive ex, I am forced to rely on the public services here. I also contribute way more in tax than most people in this country - though speaking of immigration, I have had to deal with loads of government surcharges just for being an immigrant ("hostile environment") despite paying an absolute fucking mint in taxes over the years.

Am I not allowed to have opinions on public affairs due to being an immigrant?

To be fair though, the tories did exactly the same. Before the election, they were STILL beating the "the last Labour chancellor left a note saying there was no money." gong. This is despite the fact that it's been a running joke in the government and every outgoing Chancellor did it to the party coming in since the 1960s!

Reeves gave £22bn as a figure because that was what the Treasury told her was the amount they needed to issue in gilts to cover immediate funding shortfalls. She didn't know the specific figure at that time because Hunt's Treasury had been actively lying about the figures, so how could she trust any of the data she had?

Reeves quoted the OBR's report as saying its forecasts in the March 2024 budget published by the previous government would have been "materially different" if it had been given a fuller picture of the government's spending. Link

This whole fiasco really disgusts me, along with the people claiming that Reeves was exaggerating or that Hunt was just doing what other chancellors have done.

How can this not be misconduct in public office or malfeasance. Cooking the books by hiding spending commitments is something extremely serious and it can massively damage the fiscal credibility of the UK on financial markets.

The complete lack of understanding of economics on MN is outstanding.

Nonsense. Of course you remember. You are trying to abdicate responsibility.
If you didn’t understand what you were voting for, you shouldn’t have voted. Finding out is a democratic responsibility. It’s not the job of ‘someone’ to educate you. It’s your job to find out and take responsibility or else leave the voting to people who can be bothered to do the reading. The information was very easily available.

There was also massive inflation in those years. Previously the Tories argued that public sector pay rises weren't needed because inflation/interest rates were so low, and that's following on from the years of austerity when public sector pay was either frozen or cut. So in effect those 2023/2024 pay rises still don't take those teachers/NHS workers etc to where they would be if they'd been paid fairly and in line with inflation over the whole term of the Conservative government.

Liz Truss is on form.....

this post is what you get when you combine economic illiteracy with blind support for one party.

Did businesses give everyone a bumper pay rise when corporation tax was cut? 🤔

And yet Labour are including them as part of the black hole left by the previous government. So thank you for agreeing with me.

The Tories spent 14 years talking about “the last Labour government” so I think they should probably get more than four months.

She didn’t make it worse. And things may have improved a teeny bit in the last part of the Tories’ 14 years (largely due to fuel rises dropping out of the figures) but they emphatically did not make anything better if you take their whole 14 year term.

Are you arguing that 14 years of Conservative government haven't left public finances, local government and the NHS in a parlous state?

The democratically elected person, Truss, was brought down by unelected institutions in the city who didn't like her low taxation and low regulation budget.

Well, first, she was only "democratically elected" by the 81,326 members of the Conservative Party who voted for her over Rishi Sunak. She did not put her policies to the country at a General Election. Johnson at least had what passed, in the UK's system, for a mandate for his Brexit deal; Truss inherited the premiership and changed economic course radically without those policies ever being put to the public in a general election.

Second, she was not "brought down" by the City. Truss and Kwarteng are full-on, red-blooded free-market believers. They made their policy decisions, and the (free) bond markets reacted to those in a completely dispassionate way, based on the rational self-interest of their customers. Ayn Rand would have loved it. There was nothing political or undemocratic about it, because to ask questions about the relationship between the bond markets and politics or democracy is to commit a category error. There is no cabal of woke snowflakes among international bond traders.

What "brought down" Truss was the rest of the Cabinet shitting their pants over mortgage rates and the prospect of the country becoming insolvent within 48 hours.

Pretending to balance the books by intentionally excluding a cost that you reasonably know will happen is leaving a shortfall!

Public sector pay increasingly lagged behind the private sector during 14 years of Tory rule. That was policy driven. So either Labour continues with that policy or they start to address the problems this has caused for workers in the public sector.

Oh come on.. The Tories (and their supporters) were blaming labour for 14 years!! It's only been 4 months. Do you seriously think labours 'shit show' if you want to call it that has sod all to do with a government that was in power for 14 years?!! How long should we have had to blame the Tories for their shit show - 3 days?

No, not like that. Public services were 8n a much better state. There was a global financial crisis and Britain did far less badly than many as a result of Gordon Brown’s decisions.
And they continued to blame Labour up to, and including, Sunak’s budget response yesterday.