Has Labour crashed the economy ?

[Dbank]

With recent news on GDP and job vacancies, do you think Labour's actions are about to trigger a recession?

I think we will just have to wait and see on that. They look like they are giving it a good crack!

Voted for by the public, delivered (poorly) by the Conservatives and unopposed by Labour. Many people are to blame for that shambles! Unless of course you are saying the public should never have been given a vote…?

The mistake the Conservatives and Labour made was assuming everyone thought as they did in Westminster. Both parties are complicit in that. Only the Lib Dem’s mounted any sort of a ‘Remain’ campaign. For the other parties it was either antipathy or against (Corbyn and Labour) or small groups of the old guard in favour (conservative)

Raise the retirement age....I find that laughable. They aren't many jobs you can work until your 70......it's a ridiculous concept... please get a grip.

Don't be ridiculous back at ya. Are you saying people age 70 are infirm and incapable of using their minds effectively in a job they may have been doing all their working lives and so need to be put out to pasture? Very old fashioned of you.

@dubsie

"Raise the retirement age....I find that laughable. They aren't many jobs you can work until your 70......it's a ridiculous concept... please get a grip"

Well given the options are:

1. Increase Government debt- which is now no longer an option as Liz Truss found out the hard way and Rachel Reeves is beginning to find out.
2. Increase taxation- which has the downside of harming economic growth as RR has found out
3. cut Government spending.

If you want to cut spending the three biggest areas are:

1. NHS
2. Pensions - state and public sector
3. welfare payments to the 9 million economically inactive.

On pensions the options are:

1. reduce their value (not going to get many grey votes for that)
2. Means test them which intuitively would appeal to Labour but has the secondary impact of reducing the incentive to save for a private pension plus not many grey votes in that
3. increase the retirement age - for example it's already 67 in Denmark and increasing.

What would you propose?

That is other than the usual MN response of let's tax the rich with "rich" being defined as anyone earning more than me but most definitely not me.

You should be able to work as long as you want but raising the retirement age serves one purpose and that's to prevent millions tired and worn out claiming their pension.

Can you imagine police, firefighters, nurses,plumbers, joiners, heating engineers, builders, Amazon workers, bin men, street cleaners, factory workers, teachers etc working until 70.

Many many people don't make 70, many more have serious health problems by the time they reach 65.

So if they can't retire and they can't work....then what.....

Some rumours in various press outlets today that the Chancellor may be looking at cutting costs in an attempt to calm the markets and also there is no headroom for more borrowing.

A mention was made of the Tory review of PIP which Labour may use as a basis for some changes. Apparently annual costs of PIP are currently £23 billion per year and forecast to increase to about £34 billion by 2029 if current trend continues.

Recently, we had reports of lower inflation (maybe interest cuts in the horizon), lower cost of borrowing for UK, small growth over November.
Yet, I have not spotted any thread congratulating "Rachel, from accounts" as some have called Reeves.
At least, she must have a little spring on her steps this week.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8r5jkv5g5po

Methinks the doom mongers are getting ahead of themselves. I’ve seen worse economies…

Actually growth was less than forecast and per capita growth is probably still in decline

If she was naive enough to see a slight fall in inflation as her saviour, growth at half what was forecast (albeit from a very low base) doesn't dispell fears of staglation though, does it? Borrowing costs haven't fallen, though that's what she'd like you to think. What has happened is that they wont be rising quite as much...we are still paying higher interest on debt that we were when Labour came into power. Now, the fact that the increase is fractionally lower than it was last week could be good news in terms of still having some headroom under the fiscal rules laid out...but I don't expect it will be enough to make a difference, and it certainly isn't enough to kickstart growth

Germany is in a worse state!!

Unfortunately a large proportion of that tiny 0.01% growth was driven by the hospitality sector which is about to get hammered by the rise in Employers NI and change in workers rights.

Completely agree. Reeves days are numbered - the fact that she has been forced to publicly address calls for her resignation have made that clear.

Note that news is that Badenoch plans to means test pensions, according to her LBC phone in today. Noted.

Hang on. Surely she can’t do that if you’ve paid your NI?!

it’s not a benefit. Like the nhs. We pay for it

I bloody hope not. We just need someone to get on with the job not be ruled by three rich blokes and what they say in their papers.
we’ve had enough instability for the last few years

We haven't paid for our pension itself though. It will be the working people at the age you retire that will pay.

Is means testing the state pension good or bad thing? I can't really imagine it as a fantastic vote winner!!

I understand that it’s not like a company pension where your money is in an account, but I’ve still paid in for my state pension in my NI.

The law can be changed at any time though and there's no pension pot for the state pension, its just paid for by current tax. At some point the state might be unable to afford the huge outlay for state pension, public sector pensions and plus people are living longer. Then they might stop the pension all together. The government should probably encourage people to try and finance their own retirement so it's a shame Labour are going for private pension pots potentially. Seems shortsighted.

Your NI is paying for current pensioners.

Which makes a 4% cut by sunak/hunt even more of a mystery...at an annual cost of £10 billion.... well actually its not, it was done to hamstring Labour or in other words ... us....

Labour aren't "going for private pensions" the huge damage done to DC pensions was by Truss, they still haven't recovered.

I think the whole system will need reform somehow as it is a future massive unaffordable burden for our children. No idea how though. Maybe raising the retirement age?

Re your edit..It's just a rumour at the moment as Rachel Reeves didn't go for private pensions in this budget. She would be very short-sighted if she did end up doing so at the next one. Fingers crossed. The change in the IHT rules will obviously discourage people putting money into their pensions anyway.

I know it goes into the pot that pays out the current pensioners. But I’m buying the stamps for mine