Is The IMF taking Over perhaps just what the country needs

[WaitingInForMyFoodShopping]

Ok bear with me. This sounds like an idiotic thing to say because if the IMF are involved it means the country is officially in a mess and the IMF will slash spending and enforce their own budgets and rules. So anyone on benefits might lose them, NHS funding will likely go down, same for the police force etc

It just occurred to me today that the country is in a complete mess and there isn't really any end in sight.

Headlines today - I didn't read the detail but I am just getting more angry, helpless feeling and frustrated and want 'somebody' who has some balls to step in and say enough. Things change from today. Todays headlines are rising taxes, 1/10 high school kids on benefits, families of migrants can claim benefits from day 1 even if they don't speak english.

Now i will caveat this by saying the housing market does need sorted but lets be honest that's not what they are trying to do here - it's just about raising taxes. I also say there is another articles claiming ' a crackdown on bring families into Britain' - something that made me snort with derision giving the whole small boats/protests going on just now.

I mean lets just get to the point. Does ANYONE think RR/KS are able to fix this mess. I know they didn't cause it. I know they have been in office less than a year but if we give them another year are they able to fix it. I personally don't think so. It is going to need someone very tough to brave the mess and take it in hand (Maggie Thatcher where are you now).
So what are we left with - voting Reform - which I have joked about doing but i don't actually think that is the way to go. That's borne out of desperation. So who is going to fix it then.

AIBU to think a complete reset, painful as it will be by the IMF is just what the country needs?

House prices drop unexpectedly amid property tax fears - latest updates

The ‘ludicrous’ migrant family rule pushing councils to breaking point

One in 10 secondary schoolchildren on disability benefits

When is that Labour can take responsibility? 18 months, 2 years? I’ll come back to the thread then, if the U.K. still has running electricity anyway.

What on earth are you on about? OBR says the national debt is forecast to fall over the next 5 years.

Growth is exactly the same now as pre Election, which the Tories said at the time was a economic boom time!

Really the amount of scare mongering on here is becoming absurd

QE or money printing is also partly to blame too-

Absolutely

Growth is exactly the same now as pre Election, which the Tories said at the time was an economic boom time!

And imo both are shit, we need much stronger growth!

96.3 to 96.1% after 5 years of taxing every penny out of everyone? Amazing.

edit: *everyone who works

Of course they did, nowhere near as much as Covid though.

So if the Tories took years to make a mess and achieve little growth why would you expect any party to change that in 1 or 2 years? Or 5 years?

Put aside party politics which imo tends to lead to a fairly blinkered mindset, I genuinely don't understand this way of thinking.

the base level of economic growth requires people..productive people

Again productivity has never recovered from 08 and then add on Brexit & Covid

It’s insanity to continue to punish those who work and reward those who don’t leading to an ever decreasing pool of contributors

An ageing population naturally has fewer contributors & I don't think anyone expected birth rates to plummet as fast as they did. Some predicted a covid baby boom.

It’s insanity to tax education. It’s insanity to tax generational farms. It’s insanity to keep increasing IHT. It’s insanity to paralyse the housing market with constant kite flying over wealth taxes. It’s insanity to paralyse the jobs market with tax and endless new legislation.

As insane as these may be, it's absolutely more insane to keep the triple lock. Or have created such a huge distortion between housing & wages, to have so much "wealth" tied up in housing. Or to spend millions on housing benefit for private landlords.
Our fucked housing market impacts our productivity.

VAT on education is far too minor to be labelled insane, the vast majority don't care & I say that as a parent who may use PE.

96.3 to 96.1% after 5 years of taxing every penny out of everyone? Amazing.

Does the freezing of the tax bands by the Tories count at all?

It's insane that 52k in 2020 is 66k today accounting for inflation.

Even more insane is that 52k today is the equivalent to 28k in the early 00s

Actually, its driven by lower spending on benefits, more student debt repayments & growth.

Not that you'd acknowledge anything positive.

To be fair labour tried to cut expenses and there was an uproar.

Where should we cut costs?

Voting in a high tax, spend and borrowing party at this point is problematic.

But remember that in 2022/23 the tax burden was at the highest level in over 70 years under the Tories.

Could it be that we have no option but to have high taxes now? Nobody wants cuts if it impacts them, hence higher borrowing.

@EasternStandard which party do you think has a decent economic solution?

If you want to take party politics out of it then taxes were high and borrowing too due to Covid and voting in a party that promises to spend more, and tax and borrow more is problematic, but due to the electorate wanting more.

There isn’t really anything that will stop people demanding more other than an economic shock which is where the op seems to be coming from.

To be fair labour tried to cut expenses and there was an uproar.

Where should we cut costs?

The electorate does not want to acknowledge the reality. Hence why Reform with their low taxes, excellent public services is popular. 🤷🏻‍♀️

@sundayfundayclub
Yes the young are absolutely going to feel the pain of these decisions....And it risks intergovernmental conflict.
My eldest is about to start uni, with what is effectively a working life of an additional 9% tax rate.. And not much hope of secure stable housing and all the difficulties associated with less great state provisions. That life will be very different to mine. And my old age/retirement will be a million miles from.my parents.... It kills me the future for my kids it really does but I don't see that changing.
Why? Because we keep on having the same old tired arguments and refusing to believe that we can't have our cake and eat it. Don't tax this. Don't tax that. Don't cut services, fund this thing, don't remove the triple lock...And all of those arguments are still only about fiscal policy.. Tax and spend obsessions. Meanwhile the Chinese years ago made a strategic plan to capture the electric car industry and have down exactly that.
There is a tipping point of course. History tells us that. Revolutions are born from mass discontent. ..

The uproar was from Labour !

If you want to take party politics out of it then taxes were high and borrowing too due to Covid and voting in a party that promises to spend more, and tax and borrow more is problematic, but due to the electorate wanting more.

We were not in a strong place pre covid though? And of course covid has lead to a sicker population which puts more strain on public services.

Did Labour promise to raise taxes?

There isn’t really anything that will stop people demanding more other than an economic shock which is where the op seems to be coming from.

I agree with this but we are not in this place simply because of Covid, this has been decades in the making. Realistically it started under Thatcher and has continued since then and we have no head room now which is compounded by the demographics.

So the education tax, family farm IHT, pension IHT, jobs tax, fiscal drag of income tax is what? just for fun?

Agree with you there 100%

Yep, Fabian shits and giggles

Actually as soon as I wrote that, I realised they probably are just for fun.

Because we keep on having the same old tired arguments and refusing to believe that we can't have our cake and eat it.

It just goes round in circles.

Yes the young are absolutely going to feel the pain of these decisions...

It's a travesty how we have treated younger people.

What is "education tax and jobs tax"

Reeves has just carried on the income tax th freezes from the Tories.... you were strangely quiet about these?

Like pp said, we all want all the goodies but don't want to pay for them.

I have not read the thread but people go on about how benefits will stop if the IMF step in. I am on benefits. Will this literally happen over night? I am so worried.

@PreciousLittleLifeForms It's very unlikely that it will happen plus France is ahead of us in the queue! 😆

Benefits will not stop if there is an IMF bailout - this thread has a lot of misinformation in it

Well Reeves found it hilarious in this interview when she laughed at a child who said she puts taxes up. So yeh, I think they do find it funny.

https://x.com/RachelReevesMP/status/1962416177247891673?t=shghLgEACeyMpDN1u7oIYw&s=19