Is the Chancellor about to crash the economy?

[Startingagainandagain]

I will start by saying I voted Labour, but I am increasingly concerned about what the government has done so far.

Today there are warning that food prices could shoot up, the pound is going down, there were big jitters on the bonds market and government borrowing is higher than planned.

More generally Reeves seems to have spooked businesses and they have no will to expand or employ more people.

I agreed that the Tories left a total mess.

But Labour seems to just go from bad to worse and I am really starting to wish she could be replaced by someone more competent to restore some confidence.

I agree with it being time to end browns bofe experiment. So much of what is wrong today can be traced back to origins during brown and Blair’s era.

How do you type this nonsense with a straight face?

Interest rates are not high. They are still below the historic average. They should go up, with any luck.

We're in a bit of a pickle.

Wages are too low for millions of people, who need to be subsidised via UC.

Benefits spending is too high and is bankrupting the country.

Those people on UC either need to accept a lower standard of living or wages need to rise, so that UC is unnecessary.

If wages rise, it will result in job losses and inflation.

Inflation is needed to reduce the government debt relative to GDP, but Rachel from Customer Complaints raised taxes without balancing the books, so we still need to borrow more money. The markets are demanding higher interest rates, so it's creating a doom loop.

The only realistic way out of this problem is a slash and burn approach to public spending:

* UC massively reduced, long term unemployed having their benefits stopped to force them to look for work.

* PIP and DLA removed from all but the most seriously disabled and not available for invisible conditions.

* Civil Service reduced by 10% a year, every year, across all departments - there must be huge numbers of dead wood that can be trimmed with zero impact to output.

* Public Sector pay reduced in real terms via pay freezes and below inflation pay rises.

Personally, I think the government should place the full accounts in the public domain and crowd source suggestions for cuts. People outside the Civil Service will be able to identify huge savings that the Civil Service pretend don't exist.

Perhaps you’re thinking of Liz Truss?

If this could be done why hasn’t it been done already?

Exactly. The Tories had 14 years to do all that - which amounts to austerity on steroids. After all if they’d done it and it worked they’d definitely have got reelected ad infinitum wouldn’t they?

' PIP and DLA removed from all but the most seriously disabled and not available for invisible conditions.'

This is so pathetic...

So you want people with autism, bipolar disorder or any other mental health issues, epilepsy, brain injury, fibromyalgia to be left to rot because you can't see their disability like you can when someone is in a wheelchair or has lost an arm or a leg?

What do you expect these people to do then? die?

I am truly appalled by this type of comment.

Honestly if Reeves now targets the disabled it will the end of her time as chancellor.

PIP has been shown by the DWP own research to have literally 0% of fraudulent claims.

First they came for the pensioners

Then they came for the disabled...

What happens when this Tory 2.0, so called Labour, government runs out of vulnerable people once they have all frozen to death or died of hunger or despair?

Not just the economy, they try to inflict their extreme dogma on all aspects of life. The reason there is so much difficulty in schools is because people like Baker, Gove etc tried to reverse the free-for-all philosophy of the 60s and 70s and they have gone too far! For example the lack of teaching the basics like spelling, grammar etc. has led to some of the hideous parts of SPAG which in some cases are new even to those with good grammar!

I am no politician and this is a pipe dream but I wish that the economy could be scrutinised by a team of experts (non political) who could get it up and running again and give people hope. We seem to go from one disaster to another with neither political parties doing a decent job. So many in our country are beginning to lose hope which is so sad.

Easily, when one has more experience of living under a left wing government.

Fortunately the people running the country realise that this would result in a break down of civilised society.
Any deadwood went a long time ago.

I don't want to see sick and disabled people living on the streets if they dont have family to take them in.

Because whoever does it will never be re elected.

I’ve lived under every left wing government since Wilson’s and it’s utter nonsense.

Cuts to disability benefits are supposedly one of the areas under scrutiny in a deperate attempt to regain control of the economy according to the press. Now is the time to contact your MP to voice your concerns, if you haven't already done so.

Well if it weren't for the disabled we'd all be execs at Goggle with gold leaf bogroll, so maybe it's time ?

Because it is correct.

It’s bollocks. HTH.

I’m probably a lot older than you and lived through it.

Really? I was born in 1953 - you?

Brain injuries and epilepsy are visible and quantifiable conditions.

'Anxiety' isn't and everything is based upon self-declared symptoms.

The country is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. We either cut benefits now or abolish benefits later.

If Labour is "crashing the economy" then how come we aren't all millionaires with our own hospital wings after 14 years of Tory excellence ?

I unwittingly went to a talk last night by one of Tony Blair's spin doctors. She was praising Starmer and had the absolute nerve to tell us (all over 65) that Labour are cutting back on help for the elderly so that they can plow more money into the young, as their the ones that need it!
How she wasn't shot on the spot it beyond me.

This is a balanced and informed post. Thanks

It was Labour who held Truss accountable for gilts/bonds and claimed she crashed the economy based on the performance of that metric. Well by the same metric they accused Truss of crashing the economy, they have now crashed it. So it could be argued that Labour created this mantra of "crashing the economy".