Anyone else irritated by the media coverage of budget?

[flymetothemoo]

Clearly, if it was at all possible then Labour would want to spend billions / on public services, fixing everything. The fact that they are having to be so frugal is NOT what they would choose, politically or materially!

Clearly it's the last government's fault we are in this position. And yet Labour are the bad guys, according to the press, and even the BBC and the Guardian are contributing to this stoking of negativity and fear.

What are they supposed to do in terms of the budget?

They must find the money from somewhere. They've promised to protect working people, employees NI, income tax etc. So they have to find it from somewhere. It might be employers, or inheritance tax loopholes, or benefit loopholes.

They are damned if they do and if they don't aren't they?

Interesting.

Quite a stark difference.

@MNISLW Just found updated figures showing a welcome improvement, but as you say a stark difference between new claims and DLA to PIP reassessments:

Assessment award rates for all decisions made over the period August 2019 to July 2024 (last 5 years) (normal rules, excluding cases where an assessment has not been completed) show that:

50% of assessments result in an award for new claims
76% of assessments result in an award for DLA reassessment claims

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/personal-independence-payment-statistics-to-july-2024/personal-independence-payment-official-statistics-to-july-2024#clearance-outcomesawards

A Freedom of Information Act request revealed that Ms Reeves, then shadow work and pensions secretary, was one of 19 MPs to have their cards suspended by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) after failing to show spending was genuine.
And she’s Chancellor? Jesus wept…

@Rockalittle78 nothing compared to the previous Tory chancellor who actually owed £8m to HMRC and then tried to get taypayers to pay for the heating in his horses' stables.

Or the chancellor who literally signed the cheques for Covid grants to fraudsters then when he became PM simply said it was too difficult to try and get the cash back

Come on.

Lets not pretend shes been the only chancellor who has made mistakes.

Can I ask a daft question?

This 20bn black hole in the finances (or whatever the chosen sum is this week) - why does it actually matter?

We didn't finish paying for WW2 until 2006. Heck we didn't finish paying slavary reparations until 2015, so why is there a seemingly urgent rush to repay the covid fuck ups?

As an excuse for RR to carry out her ideology. You are absolutely right of course, there is no hurry, economics doesn't work like that.

I seem to remember people getting very irate when the Tories blamed Labour for problems they inherited.

I can take this one as they say.

If public debt blows out, so do yields meaning it will cost the Govt more to borrow - in layman’s terms.

Exactly - and the reason Jeremy Hunt changed the pension rules recently was to avoid consultants reducing hours or retiring early. It is a very well known issue so if Labour reverse this they do so being fully aware of the likely consequences. The pension tax system is so complex that senior doctors can't plan properly - you can't reduce pension % contributions without leaving the scheme, and the tax due is based on last year's pension performance so you can't predict it. The only way to reduce what does into your pension pot is to reduce hours worked. One of the few good decisions by Hunt and reversing it would be very stupid.

I agree that the reason for speculation and doom-mongering is Labour opening saying it's going to be bad.
Also can't they just cancel HS2? Is it really going to bring over £50 billion of benefit to the UK? Bin it and shurely the budget is sorted!

They’ll go up with low inflation?

You could be right I guess we’ve been used to inflation and interest rates being linked

But public debt is another factor

Get rid of Trident!

In 2010 when the Tories got in they went on and on and on about Gordon Brown and his financial management with the full support of the press. We were plunged unnecessarily into austerity.

Here we are now with, Labour going on as the Tories did in 2010. I think the press and many Labour voters feel sceptical and pissed off.

From my perspective as a small business owner, and talking to a lot of my clients across different sectors, Kier Starmer saying for weeks that the budget was going to be bad, it was going to be difficult, there were going to be tough decisions has absolutely decimated work.

Everyone is saying the same thing - no one wants to spend any money until they know what to expect from the budget as they are shit scared they are going to be financially walloped.

It's causing utter havoc for the entire freelance sector as almost all of us have said it's never been so difficult to get work. I just want the budget to come and go so everyone knows what we're working with

If you look what’s happening globally at the moment - bonds are being sold off. Why? Yes, in part owing to the US election, but in conjunction with revisions as to the scale and pace of Fed easing (and BOE).

In the UK’s case, public sector settlements are prima facie inflationary, so it will be interesting to see how they bake in.

Because essentially they didn’t inherit any. Austerity was ideological with invented problems as an excuse. They inherited an incredibly low level of debt compared with now, good quality public services and an NHS with a satisfaction rating of 70%.

That’s a natty little graph but without proper context.

Nor can you split it along the binary political grounds you would seek to.

When I have time, I shall respond.

That graph looks like the inflexion point proves the exact opposite of what you were saying. The rate of growth of debt was rising massively when red, then slowed and was slowing when blue. Until COVID.

Still massive though.

The blue bars increase every year. The rise in the red bars coincide with a global financial crisis. Austerity was supposed to decrease debt but it continued to increase year on year throughout successive Tory governments, accompanied by declining public services. God knows where all the money went.

Why keep putting up old charts as pp does when we have new records such as this one.

Where’s the chart? I can’t see it.

I’m guessing people can’t see this either

"The UK Treasury has said it will need to take difficult decisions in next week’s budget after higher debt interest payments and pay awards for public sector workers pushed government borrowing to £16.6bn last month – the third highest September figure on record"

I read anything from the media knowing that they’ve decided “these are the words that will get the most clicks today”. It helps. The media is a money making business after all.

There’s no getting away from very high borrowing and low productivity. We want expensive state services but cannot afford them. The top 1% of earners, pay 29% of tax. We don’t have enough people working or working in productive jobs. When we increased our university provision in 2014 we expected to benefit from a better educated workforce. Instead we don’t have enough grads in some sectors.

In 2010, the Tories inherited debt! That’s all anyone talked about. The need to cut back on wasteful expenditure. The big argument was how quickly. Cameron made cuts quickly and Labour, especially Ed Balls, wanted much slower cuts.

As for the press - we have a free press. They can speculate all they want. Labour said what they would not do and that’s lead to interest and, as you might expect, speculation. They have worsened any black hole all by themselves. They might need to understand growth does not happen by over taxing the people that create wealth and growth. In a nutshell we spend too much and borrow too much.

@TizerorFizz

"In a nutshell we spend too much and borrow too much."

A really good and honest post.

I would also add that the two biggest areas of state spending are the NHS and pensions, both of which are increasing every year. Any changes to Government spending without changes to these two areas is faffing around at the edges and will make minimal difference.

In addition the cost of just the interest on the national debt is now greater than the education budget (which is an investment in the future of the country).

In addition the cost of just the interest on the national debt is now greater than the education budget (which is an investment in the future of the country).

Yes and the defence budget

IMF upgraded us today but that was based on the last gov, so I guess we'll see how Labour do with their tax and spend programme