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.

She’s been put on notice. Any more bad news and she’ll be encouraged to resign citing ‘family reasons’.

She’ll be gone before the end of the week. Or by March when gheb next re shuffle happens. Or maybe to be buy more time, Starmer will offer up the other superstar on his team Tulip Sidiq. The one in charge of tacking corruption, accused of benefiting from the proceeds of corruption.

What a bunch of clowns. You couldn’t make this shit up.

The Tories were actually good.

At what?

I mean if the previous tory PMs said that about you, you were usually fucked.

Also a lot of people who don't expect the Starmer government to transform the UK in six sodding months.

Yep. Some will think it’s going well, including Starmer and Reeves apparently but even they can’t have wanted to make things worse and stall growth

I'm not sure I've seen anyone say otherwise. What posters are surprised by is how much worse things appear to be going six months on.

Bond traders are looking for evidence of near-term improvements to Labour’s fiscal strategy; further tax rises would be disastrous for confidence. But that means Reeves must be prepared to make savings in high-cost, yet politically sensitive, areas such as welfare benefits and the civil service.

They have already signalled this.

If a manager is sacked halfway through the season then they usually call for Sam Allardyce or Sean Dyche

No one sensible expected a turnaround in 6 months. But also no one expected a raft of policies that would take us backwards so quickly. Yet, here we are…

And let’s not forget, one Ministerial resignation after concealing a fraud conviction, one (ironically the Minister responsible for anti-corruption) being investigated for corruption by an overseas government and one who’s had to revise her CV after materially exaggerating her experience. Once could say that that lack of experience has now been cruelly revealed…

For what they did the past 14 years.

Labour's strategy is not one I would advocate. Even if they grow the economy they need to fill the black hole now. Given that public sector pay has shrunk in real terms, I don't see that they had much alternative to the pay agreement. But there's no discussion of how to invest, which is necessary to improve productivity. The trap is that the UK needs investment to grow, but hasn't the money to invest unless it grows. Everyone's terrified of rising spending setting off further inflation.

Total spending increasing (which I'd love to check against inflation, but haven't the time right now) doesn't change the fact that NHS spending has lagged (only the pandemic really affected that) or that funding to local government went down by half under the Tories. That single fact has wider impact: it increases the social care crisis and puts a further burden on the NHS. Council tax needs to be reevaluated as well, but I don't see an appetite for that.

Reeves could use other tax rises to balance the budget, but which ones wouldn't make people shriek?

This isn't so much a defence of Labour policy as a cold bath on the idea that anyone really knows how to fix this problem without upsetting people. There is no painless solution. Labour were so desperate to be taken seriously and not as a Corbynite socialist crew that they straitjacketed themselves into austerity. This isn't an economic blip but a structural problem.

The mismanagement of the Covid pandemic, the disaster of Brexit ?

The destruction of public services - food banks increased from 35 to 2,900 and NHS waiting lists from 2.6m to 7.75m.

If they were doing so well why did they call for an early general election?

Government spending has to be cut. The size of the state is larger than ever and productivity has declined. It’s almost as if the more resources you give to people who are not accountable for delivery, the less they deliver. Who knew. It’s simply a lie to say that government spending has been cut. It hasn’t. It has ballooned.

Cutting net zero gravy train would save billions for a start. Sure, lots of public funds wouldn’t be able to be siphoned off to be given to government cronies, but what’s wrong with that.

Defence spending is now so wasteful that we spend more money on civil servants and pen pushers than on frontline resources.

Welfare spending is an absolute disaster. There are 5 millions working age people not working. Watch them to spring to work as soon as their freebies are removed. These people should be filling vacancies that we import low paid net takers to do. It’s a double whammy to have so many people not working and in welfare because they are too upset at having at work. We then have to pay incomers with their families to do these jobs. People who have no chance of ever being net contributors.

There are rumours that Rachel thieves will be going after disability benefits next.

I would like to see them cut their exorbitant number of civil servants first. Cut the council office workers and the number of advisors they have.

There are lots of good things that happened during the Tories. Renewable energy massively took off, we decarbonised much much faster than our competitors.

Our 2021 unlocking and vaccine rollout went really well.

Criminalised forced marriage.

I agree that the axe should fall first on the Civil Service. Numbers up 100,000 since Covid. MoD with more personnel than our Armed Forces. There surely has to be scope for cutting.

Most voters do not understand basic economics which is why we ended up with the crackhead fantasy economy destroyer Brexit.

Therefore there was zero need for Labour to box themselves in with the commitments they did. Most people hated the Tories and wanted rid of them. Labour would have won without their economic ‘red lines’.

Their problem is they are advised by people in a Westminster bubble who believed the wider electorate understood economics like they did and would be wowed by their plans. No. People just wanted Rishi, Braverman and the rest of the clown show to fuck off.

Now Labour have boxed themselves in unnecessarily. Poor strategy from Reeves. If she goes, Labour have a chance.

"We decarbonised faster than our competitors".... at what cost? The loss of almost all of our manufacturing industry? The cost of buying in the "right" energy sources that generate nothing in still weather patterns. Sorry I think you have got this story epically wrong.

Where are you getting your figures? There are more than twice as many Armed Forces personnel than MoD civil servants.

Sorry Blossomtoes, there are more MoD staff than there are in the Army is perhaps more accurate. The Navy and Air Force are relatively small, and right now the RN can barely muster a crew for a frigate out of surplus personnel. We have a littoral (as in coastal) defence force only.

We don't need manufacturing here. We're better at professional services and other industries anyway.

Decarbonisation has global (less CO2) and local (less air pollution) environmental benefits. Renewables are actually also cheaper.

I do hope you are right, @Pjyid , but I can't say I'm optimistic for your point of view.

Every time green energy is mentioned, all I can think about is Ed Miliband with his ukulele singing away 😂