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.

It wouldn’t be looking great for any government because the country’s broken. The Tories didn’t want to win the last election, they were well aware what a poison chalice it was.

I only mention growth because one of the Government's missions was to make us one of the fastest growing economies in the G7. One assumes that Starmer was aware of the economic background when he made that statement, and he must have been clear on brexit because he didn’t come out in favour of remain, choosing to so support Corbyns ‘leave’ position at the time…

"you’ll need to explain the irony to me..I must have missed it."

"I'm sorry but I have neither the time, or the inclination, to fix your economic and financial illiteracy...."

He did come out in favour of remain and backed a second referendum. More untruth. Either you know very little about Labour policy or you’re hoping the rest of us don’t.

I didn’t say that they were on strike, I said they are threatening more strikes. And that’s true! We don’t know that reform is happening, because we haven’t seen any detail. Other than Starmer wanting using the NHS to be like booking a holiday and Streeting to introduce league tables and community diagnosis centres (isn’t that what GPs used to do…?). I actually have a lot of time for him - more than anyone else on the front bench, as he is actually across the brief, and is articulate and not afraid of change.

But even the most ardent Labour supported must recognise that the constant shifting of language, from pledges to foundations to missions to milestones to whatever they come up with next rather than actually give any detail about what they are doing just leads to more cynicism. And there have been plenty of facts on the economy, but no one on the left wants to debate, just chant ‘black hole’ as if it’s magic get out of jail card

Not at all - I know he backed a second referendum, but there was never gong to be one. So of course he was safe to say that. He was nowhere to be seen during the brexit campaign, for remain or leave. I’m sorry if I was wrong about him backing his leader…I was just going on what was reported at the time. I’m not sufficiently interested in him to have fact checked that, so that’s on me :)

There’s no point in debating the economy. It’s fucked.

Well that’s helpful. As the economy is what pays for public service. So on that basis there’s little point in debating them either, as there’ll be no money to spend on them. I like to be a bit more optimistic than that, and hope we can improve both. In fact, we have to improve the economy to improve public services. We are running out of runway to borrow…

We need to spend the money already allocated to public services better. There’s a vast amount of waste in the NHS, that’s why it needs reform. Improvement doesn’t necessarily involve increasing spending.

It was not a golden inheritance for Labour. We all know that.

When the coalition government took over from Labour, it was also terrible due to the crash. They had been slowly grinding it out until Brexit and Covid hit at the same time. Which caused the most damage, is up for debate. We were led to Brexit by people with no plan for what they would do if they won. It was like the dog who caught the car. The covid over-reaction was deeply scarring.

It looked like there was some hope in the summer. Our economy was outperforming our neighbours, inflation was down, and further bank of England rate cuts were priced in. That’s all gone down the plug hole now.

Labour rushed in to do too much without stopping and testing their assumptions. They aggravated a lot of people for little gain, farmers, private school parents, pensioners, WASPI women, etc.

They claimed they would go for growth. They either weren’t sincere, or are surprisingly naive. Growth requires improving productivity and getting a large group of unproductive people back into the labour force. Giving public sector workers pay raises with no productivity/innovation requirements and increasing NICS is insane. The net zero rigidity is also deeply damaging.

One suspects if they had a golden inheritance they’d be wasting it on magic beans by now.

@EmpressoftheMundane there are no experienced politicians or business people on the front benches they are all civil servants no experience of business and no aptitude to learn what a mess and disappointing outcome. The front benches are chippy uncharismatic with less charm that I have ever seen

Do the Labour cheerleaders feel any shame and guilt at all? https://x.com/Telegraph/status/1877832838608801932

"Giving public sector workers pay raises with no productivity/innovation requirements and increasing NICS is insane"

Probably blic sector workers haven't been given "pay rises". Public sector pay has been eroded for years.

Private sector pay has been running well on excess of public sector over the last few years, despite UK productivity being pretty stagnant.

"We need to spend the money already allocated to public services better. There’s a vast amount of waste in the NHS, that’s why it needs reform"
.
Well the Tories have been implementing "efficiencies" in the NHS and other public services for 14 years - so how come it is still so wasteful.....?

As usual people banging on about productivity who do not even understand the term. It does NOT mean work harder

You're beginning to sound like a Tory - lots of waste in the NHS, what's next, undeserving benefits claimants? Could you expand on where all this waste is?

Ironically, increasing the cost of employing people by raising employer NICs probably will raise productivity. Admittedly, this will be accompanied by/ cause an increase in unemployment

That's true, and actually I think both Truss and Reeves have had to deal with a very difficult situation, with perhaps no good way forward. I don't see this as a Tory failure as such, because I think it's been building for many decades, and reflects to a large extent the way globalism hollows out economies.

However - while there was a different reaction to Truss in the economic world, it doesn't look to be like the current approach is likely to be much better, if at all. I do find it odd it hasn't been more vigorously criticized.

I don't think there's nearly as much waste in the NHS as people want to think. The NHS is remarkable (and I've studied this at master's level) for how much care it gets for such a remarkably low per capita budget. Adjusted for PPP, the UK has one of the lowest budgets for industrialised nations (Japan is lower). France spends 26% more per capita. I genuinely do not think much more care can be purchased for the amount that is spent.

You might have studied the NHS but have you ever been on a chemo ward and watched as trays are made up for patients that day

Each tray had a new box of 100 individually wrapped wipes, as well as a bag of chemo

Patient comes in for chemo tray gets taken over to them, Nurse picks up bag of chemo, takes it to the fridge, then throws the chemo in the bin and then gets a new bag out of the fridge

At the end maybe 2 or 3 antiseptic wipes get used

Whole box goes in the bin

When asked why they throw unopened bags of chemo in the bin and why they throw 97 or 98 individually packaged wipes in the bin

The answer was “It’s what we have always done”

Watching on the wards as patients are told they will be going home that day. 2 Nurses come over, get patient out of bed. Strip the bed, wipe the bed down, make up the bed with new sheets then put patient back into bed.

Later when the patient has gone home, 2 Nurses come over, strip the bed, wipe the bed down and make up the bed with new sheets

When asked why they make up the bed with clean sheets before the patient has left and then after the patient has left. The reply is

“It’s what we have always done”

Complete waste of time and money

I suggest that your reading material was written by the NHS. Not by people who use it and agog with the wastefulness

No, it was in the USA actually, so if anything I would expect it to be critical. It may be stupid and wasteful to throw out an entire box of wipes, yes. But how much does it add up to? It's not that there is zero waste. It's that it isn't enough to pay for what needs doing.

Not my experience. Your ward sounds exceptionally wasteful

I agree. And Japanese families are expected to care for family members in hospital, so we are not even comparing like with like.
The inefficiencies are caused by a lack of resources. So patients who could be discharged to care homes or with a care package waiting days, weeks or months for discharge.

@Yalta Or alternatively the chemo bags are individual prescriptions made up by the pharmacy and can not be safely stored until another patient needs the exact same chemo prescription.
HCAs change the sheets in the morning, this usually happens before ward round. The Dr comes round and decides after reviewing the patients obs that they are going home. So patient is discharged and bed is changed again.

The chemo bags on the tray were to make sure they got the correct chemo for the individual and chemo had to be kept in the fridge so making up a tray with a bag of chemo on it at 8am meant it was useless left out of the fridge for the 10am appointment

Sheets weren’t changed daily they were changed only if they were messy or when the patient was leaving

MerryMaker

This wasn’t just one ward

Dh was in and out of different wards, different hospitals in different areas

These were just 2 examples of NHS wastage

I have found the NHS are so busy trying to save pennies they end up losing ££££££s

I cost the NHS £500,000+ because they refused to spend £300 on an MRI

I was in constant pain. I went for fortnightly physio appointments, a consultant who never looked at me once and talked to me like shit
It nearly drove me over the edge
Their diagnosis was I needed a new hip but wouldn’t get one till I was 60

Turned out, after spending 15 minutes with a private osteopath I had been walking/shuffling around with a slipped disc for 7 years. Nothing wrong with my hip

Something the NHS would have found out 7 years earlier if they had let me have an MRI.

Dh’s cancer treatment was made hugely expensive because, even though he had visited his GP over and over to almost daily at when things were getting bad and asking if he had bowel cancer, he was told not to worry himself by going on Dr Google (fil had died of bowel cancer)

Caught several months earlier it would have been an over night stay in hospital and a simple operation.
instead it took 3 operations and 7 months in hospital
1 of those operations we had to pay for ourselves.

When you get appointment letters for dates that have gone and it says on the letter it was sent down for typing after the date of the appointment, and they still typed it up, put it in an envelope, paid for postage and sent it out

Don’t tell me the NHS doesn’t waste money

All I see from them is waste