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.

Any government in the UK would have to do 1 or more of:

1. Borrow
2. Raise taxes, and
3. Public spending cuts

If they hadn't borrowed, theyd need to have done more of 2 or 3.

This was plain even before the election.

@Olderkids it’s scarcely possible to have got that story more wrong! Not Gordon Brown and you didn’t mention the tradition. Weaponised by the desperate Tories and misremembered by you.

ah - it's you again, @Almn0etd
still rattling the cages? what is it? day 3 of your MN stint?

I cannot imagine less of a grasp on reality exists.

I've heard this news a couple times today, but it's being drowned out by talk of Elon and Muslim child abuse gangs 🤷🏾‍♀️.

Like you, I really wish we could move on to the economy and the collapsing NHS.

Rachel from accounts is plainly misogynistic.

criticise and hold to account by all means but phrases like that encourage people to miss serious issues and form opinions on the basis of simplistic slogans that often aren’t correct.

Give her time nobody sans thinks/thought the economy could be fixed in under a year.

Improve public sector productivity? A quarter yes quarter of my council tax goes to pay for local authority pensions. Let that sink in. I'm taxed to fund their early retirement

Her academic credentials are a matter of fact, her professional experience is of debatable relevance, her lack of understanding of how the world actually works is problematic and a bit of humility, some willingness to listen and a dose of common sense wouldn't go amiss. Her sex however is nothing to do with it and to be fair she is as crap at her job as her male predecessors so we have finally achieved true equality.

Referring to her as ‘Rachel from accounts’ as the OP has done in the title is belittling, reductive and inaccurate: it is used to label and undermine Rachel Reeves specifically because she is a woman. It clearly infers that the first female chancellor is somehow ‘less than’ in a way that none of the previous male chancellors have been labelled - they’ve been criticised, yes - but there is misogyny in this specific label. I didn’t realise that it was Lee Anderson (the irony!) who originally made this comment, but that absolutely fits given his character and the values of his party.

🤣👌🏼

Increasing employers national insurance is a clear increase in the costs of employing people. This has been pointed out by lots of people of all political stripes. If your strategy to jncrease tax revenues is growth it's a bit shit if your first budget immediately results in employers hiring less people.

The reason she had to increase this tax is that the Labour manifesto unnecessarily ruled out increasing other alternatives e.g. income tax, employees national insurance, business tax. It was clear the Tories were going to lose so it was unnecessary to do this.

Blame it all on the woman, and use a condescending mock job title for her.

A woman in this position can only ever be Rachel from accounts in disguise. Men can mess it up, inflate their CVs, but we don't belittle them in the same way.

@Quitelikeit yes yes yes. I have been saying this for years!!! We need a thread on this!

A budget that taxes jobs, so that the money raised can be bunged at your train driver mates (who apparently still don’t work weekends) is a bit too “classic Labour largesse” for my taste.

The economy is a bin fire, we need growth just to stand still, and Rachel from accounts does not appear to have the first fucking clue how to achieve it. She is only notable for her utter mediocrity. And she’s pulling that other classic Labour trick of punishing non-Labour voters (pensioners, farmers) whilst wringing her hands and pretending she had no choice, because how dare they.

I agree with pp’s that Brexit has caused tremendous harm to the UK’s interests, but I’m not convinced that the current picture would be wildly different if we were still a member - large EU economies are not exactly flying either, and I’m not aware of any reason that our economy would outperform them either way.

Implies not infers.

It’s not because she’s female it’s because she’s crap: ideologically driven, naive, inexperienced, doesn’t listen. She has much in common with the shite male chancellors before her and Liz Truss too.

@Vinvertebrate and @Mirabai I agree completely. She might or might not be a highly skilled economist but it's absolutely clear she's an incredibly crap politician with zero political nous.

I am unsure what did people think was going to happen? Look at the huge waste of money put into the House of Lords. Then there is the greatest welfare spongers of all, the royal family.
Then you have all the VIP lanes for supplying PPE costing millions that Labour are trying to get back. What about the price gouging for rail tickets.
Don’t get me started on the water companies and their terrible record for maintains the infrastructure.
To top it all off not UK based entities are allowed to influence politics by donating to the politicians.

Then there is the cost of energy, the cost of everything has soared. Tory means thieves and plunderers for a reason.

Absolutly spot on!!!!

and benefits.
Rachel could have done some pretty drastic money raising policies rather than increasing the debt for the next generation to pay.
Policies like drop the inheritance tax threshold to 100k and have 80% tax above that, no exceptions. Extend the deprivation of assets out to 12 or 15 years. Remove stamp duty altogether but levy a monthly charge on all houses based on house value. Charge for missed doctor/hospital appointments. Introduce a pensioners National Insurance contribution based on income. ( The whole funding for the NHS needs to be reviewed. If there is not enough money for the NHS then we need to pay more NI to fund it ).
She should allow regions to set their own corporation tax. That would allow say Cornwall or Northumbria to lower the corporation tax to attract employers.
Instead, she’s hobbled private schools, hobbled businesses, though I do agree with the change to the farm inheritance tax changes.
Anyway, they have another 4 years to get the country on a better direction.

Yep, we’re fucked. Rachel has well and truly fucked the economy.
I cannot comprehend how she actually believed her decisions would improve things. I also cannot comprehend how voters believed her. But they did so that’s on them.
I mean how stupid is she to think that raising employers NI contributions wouldn’t have a knock on effect. On inflation and interest rates.
But maybe she did know and lied …
In the words of Forrest Gump, stupid is as stupid does.
It doesn’t matter how intelligent she is - an intelligent person who does stupid things is not intelligent. Just stupid.

£3 billion to Ukraine
£11 billion to African farmers for climate change

That's nearly 1% of total spend and it's from our overdraft - we wouldn't be borrowing £2 billion today if it wasn't for commitments anywhere but home.

OP what did you actually expect from Labour after the way the Tories screwed the country over for 14 years? Everything to be put right in the wave of a wand?

£29 billion of NI is already going to NHS England, the idea that NI solely funds pensions and benefits being paid now is cobblers thanks to Osborne. Despite that, the NI Fund held £88 billion on 31 March 2024, so increasing employer's NI was just to get cash for other purposes, the same as VAT on school fees and business rates on public school buildings - which will kill them.

Quite. Unfortunately Rachel the accounts assistant with no real responsibility has inflated her CV and we are all paying for it. Maybe she read a book about how to borrow to pay for things but didn’t read the part about having to pay things back?

No issues from me. I would happily give more to see the victory for Ukraine.

What we are missing is an economic plan that actually works. Where the hell is Labour in increasing taxes for large companies who pay almost nothing - Facebook, Amazon etc. instead they are faffing around with winter fuel allowance and increasing NI.