Rachel from accounts has crashed the economy

[Almn0etd]

So borrowing costs are now even higher than when Liz Truss was around.

The economy is well and truly cooked and in a far worse shape now that Rachel accounts is in charge.

Why isn’t this dominating the news cycle? Because it’s Labour.

The Tories were atrocious. Labour are an indescribable disaster for this country, surpassing the lowest of the low bars. Cue Labour apologists who don’t mind being made poorer and having the country destroyed, as long it’s Labour doing it to them.

Whether you like politicians like Jeremy Corbyn, Margaret Thatcher or Tony Benn, they knew what they believed, their statements and actions were consistent and they were rarely, if ever caught out contradicting themselves.
Yesterday's amendment was an elephant trap laid by Badenoch, invoking the grooming scandal in a way that caused panic within Labour.
The three-line whip was an overreaction - having cast MPs out of the PLP for disloyalty already, the government could have focused on other elements and achieved their majority.
As it is, the vote against the amendment can be used against standing councillors and MPs at coming elections.
The MPs who abstained (including every Lib Dem MP) may be criticised but can't now be accused of voting against the interests of grooming victims.
That logic works for fairly invisible MPs but looks very cynical from Cabinet members - which will be felt most keenly by MPs who now feel betrayed.
Labour had some levers to muddy the waters to cover their lack of experience - which would have bought Reeves and Cooper some more time (both look like they haven't slept for weeks) but despite a lot of support in the senior Civil Service that they could have called upon while in opposition, the transparency of government departments will be damning within the next 12 months.
The restructuring of local government - driven partly by there only being 106 people in the country qualified to sign-off LA audits - leading to local elections being cancelled will sow more distrust and makes the government look fearful.

All experienced business people and diplomats know that deals, especially with the Chinese, are made over a long period of time. Your comment sounds naive in the extreme

@poetryandwine LSE is a world-famous institution and is a world-leader as you say. With its alumnae and reputation, it is surprising that it isn't more ambitious and better funded.
STEM funding is exaggerated by spending on hardware that isn't very glamorous and insufficient effort is put into educating the public.
I think many voters would love to know how to research the cherry-picked tidbits quoted in the media.

Indeed.

Say what you will about Rishi Sunak, he was realistic enough to understand that all hope was lost, abandoned ship, and left the mess to somebody else to sort out.

This.

Just saw the latest about more cuts in public services.

i voted Labour and if I'm disappointed by anything it's that Labour are simply being the Tories Mark II. No-one seems to have any better ideas though. Even if Labour generate economic growth it won't pay to fix schools and the NHS now.

Almost like I am not a top flight economist with years of experience.
A bit like our Rachel.

A bit like every chancellor of my life time.

I don't really understand why it matters if Rachel Reeves is an economist or not. It's not an academic discipline I respect (despite personally having two degrees in the subject), Most important and interesting ideas about the economy come from geographers/anthropologists/political scientists anyway, so they're the people Reeves should be listening to. Economic principles result from a really limited view of the economic world, which is probably why her policies aren't that different from the last view conservative chancellor's policies, and why the resultant economic performance is similar too. Her policies are tweaks at the edges, not fundamental changes to our economic system - I don't like her and wish she had used her massive majority to do something more ambitious, but she seems to be to be following standard economic advice.

Although, to be fair to the IFS, if you've listened ti any of their commentary they completely concur about more radical reforms needed of taxes, pensions etc and have many ideas.

It's really the political class that is unable to think reform not economists...

And I fear we'll pay as people start voting for extreme parties to get the moribund politicos to change...

And I agree - Reeves, Starmer, Phillipson - they all have good degrees and work history that establish they are clever enough to be politicians, we don't require specialist knowledge from politicians.

anyone who has been to a third world country knows that a lot of the problems are caused by rich corporations acting without thought for the “little people

Isn’t this exactly how Labour are acting

VAT rises for employers = less employees
VAT on private school places = over crowded schools, not just from the percentage of pupils Labour think will leave private education but from those forced to leave when schools close as they are no longer a viable business

The same with the farming industry. If we lose farms, we leave ourselves vulnerable to not being able to feed ourselves and then we are subject to importing food and that isn’t a route most countries would be willing to take as it relies on so many other variables that are out side our control

These are people’s lives they are messing with

They might think these policies are to “tax the rich” But the “rich” aren’t going to be affected by these policies . They can always leave or afford the extra money staying is going to cost them

It’s the people who don’t have enough money to leave or alter their lives who are going to be affected and not in a positive way

It was on the BBC ten o'clock news last night.

It was the subject of the News Agents podcast yesterday.

What we need in politicians isn’t a degree or PHD etc We need someone who can understand how people think. We need people who understand how to put in place policies that will grow businesses so that they employ more people.

Someone who understands what people want

I thought it was common sense that if you need to raise money from taxation, you reduce taxes

People don’t look too deeply into how to save money on taxes if they see things as fair or good value

It’s when they see tax rises that are punitive that they seek to pay £0

Having people paying privately for education, health means less people to provide education or healthcare for

One place I see that is a drain on funds is the number of people sending money outside the country to support relatives abroad. It runs in to billions. Those billions are not being spent in this country

A 10% fee on these smaller amounts would raise money that would make a difference

Neither was George Osborne. He had a history degree. The economy is tanking because the markets are unsettled in the USA at the moment and therefore the knock on effect

The private sector is contracting due to Labour’s policies

Since they can’t see they won’t change their impact

And "educate yourself" and "it's all part of the plan" and when you ask them to point you in that direction, they say "do your own research"!

I've heard Rachel Reeves also called Dora the Explorer.

Misogynistic claptrap

How are you going to enforce this?

I don’t think you can add a 10% surcharge to every international wire transfer. I transfer money internationally between our own accounts all the time. If a surcharge were introduced, people would find a way to dodge it.

I agree with much of this, particularly the lack of public outreach. It is most shortsighted.

I don’t know what overhead rates are in the social sciences but they are an expensive feature of many STEM grants. I also wonder if STEM tends to have a higher proportion of postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers per grant. That pushes costs up.

The problem with Labour politics is it expects that people will need looking after and rich people need to pay for it

Corruption is the cause of all the problems. But big business has too much power and it's very hard to change things. I don't know if labour can do it. The conservatives certainly couldn't. Or didn't want to.

If labour can't change things we are heading towards the kind of economy seen in some developing countries where there's a small proportion of ultra rich, everyone else gets poorer, and nothing works properly

Unfortunately people just carry on blaming each other for ringing 999 for a non emergency or blame immigrants or other vulnerable, powerless groups instead of blaming those in charge

I am sure that some people would dodge it
But the majority would pay or reduce the amount of money leaving the country to support family members overseas

We have VAT added into our bills on things that companies pay to the government

Why not a 10% surcharge on Western Union type company transfers.
£23.6 billion leaves this country every year in these type of transactions

An extra £2.36 billion income would make a huge difference.

£23.6billion every single year that is leaving the UK economy for zero return

Imagine if that amount was kept in the UK every single year

Is that why they withdrew the winter fuel allowance?