Rachel Reeves can’t win, can she?

[anothervoter]

After days and days of negative press and chatter about income tax going up, complaints on Mumsnet and across the media, today’s reports are that idea might be dropped and now she’s being accused of rattling the markets and making the cost of borrowing increase.

Honestly, genuine question- what can she do?

Yes I have. I reference economic elements in posts. I realise that’s uncomfortable for Labour.

Plenty of discussion by economists and commentators this morning on the radio which you and other pro Labour won’t like either.

You didn’t answer on why you think Germany is not successful, any facts there to back it up?

Because it would be wasted and not used where it is most needed and as the costs of services and materials increase they would come back for more and more and more.
If they took the £50 off everyone (inc pensioners and benefit claimants) and used it to process review, renegotiate contracts, streamline departments and remove all of the waste they could then run services better and more cheaply.

Throwing money at things time and again just doesn’t work.

Someone else answered afaik? Germany was considered a safe bet, they received investment, they also make things and export them which is their biggest strength, bringing in more money than many of their European neighbours after the crash. The UK does not have this anymore. They also enjoyed low interest rates on their debts. I do not think austerity helped them and are again suffering a stagnation in growth. If austerity works in the long term, they should be stronger than they are.

Austerity has been proven to lead to no wage growth, increase in poverty, inequality, living standards decline and this was true of Germany. Austerity, I many add, is contributing to the rise of more right or far right parties because of the lie told about blaming immigration for the lower living standards. People want someone to blame for their reduction on having a good life.

For the record, am not 'pro-labour' other than the fact they have a better track record for the NHS at point of use. I will be annoyed with their mistakes as much as the next person but I will understand and remember that they were left with a poisoned chalice and it takes time and money. They have another 3 and a half years to show us what they can do, if keep making mistakes then they deserve not to be in power.

Actually Labour when they were last in power did actually use the money where it was needed. They improved the NHS at point of use (remember min waiting times etc, brought in by Labour), improved schools, things were working a lot better.

Russian supply of cheap energy is the factor not fiscal restraint. It does mean they can weather what many are seeing with higher need for defence and pensions better than most.

Fiscal profligacy which you seem to prefer also led to the Greek debt crisis.

France are also struggling with over spending.

Germany has been the powerhouse of the EZ for a while. If you’re going to argue they’re not you probably need better info.

Of course she can't win. She's completely out of her depth, she has lied about her CV, and made a whole swathe of manifesto promises that she couldn't possibly keep. Her predicament is entirely of her own making, and we are paying for it big time

As i pointed out, Labour have had more growth in their 16months in power than the 16months prior to July 2024.
They ve also avoided a recession.

How is that "messing up?"

On taxes and taxing your way to growth, Corporation tax was raised from 19% to 25% by the Conservatives, a direct tax on investment, i hope that Labour can bring this down before too long.

So why aren’t they looking to do that now rather than just throwing money out (which is unaffordable).
They’re a joke.

This started with a PP saying no one had been successful with austerity.

You mentioned Germany? but Germany never had years of Austerity, in fact it did the opposite and implemented a fiscal package to stimulate their economy, after 2008.

Thats one reason why their debt to gdp did not increase after 2008, its still around 65%.
Ours went from 65% to around 87% by 2020, yet public services were decimated.
Now they are putting huge resources into defence, again boosting their economy, it'll take time but Germany can never be ruled out.

One thing Labour are doing right is to rule out further austerity.

Germany use fiscal restraint and keep debt lower.

Where other countries blow out with spending. And some of those run into debt crisis issues.

Just going back to this as I don’t think Labour do know this needs to happen.

Labour MPs are likely closer to posts here that higher spending is the answer.

There’s a split but I think Labour’s approach so far hasn’t gone as planned, they didn’t expect to need to fill a bigger hole a year after the last budget.

On CT mentioned below maybe, but I doubt this fits with Labour rn. Someone else might propose it at next GE.

I would suggest you look at what Germany did post 2008, they invested, the UK did not.

If fiscal restraint ie austerity, keeps debt lower, why did ours rocket to almost 100% of GDP ?

The UK messed up with austerity, keeping it for far too long and allowing the benefits bill to balloon, UC, whilst a seemingly a good idea, achieved the opposite of what IDS wanted to do, he even resigned because it wasn't funded as he wanted it to be and the Govt demanded more welfare cuts, especially to disability benefits, whilst giving tax cuts to the wealthy.

I quite liked IDS, until he came out in support of Brexit, another own goal.

Fact remains, austerity does more harm than good. I notice you don't address that despite asking me to.

They are, but they do need money and nobody wants to pay taxes!

Did you not see in the news that NHS pen pushing jobs are going and the money going into frontline roles? Isn't this exactly what you wanted, not to see money wasted and streamlining? So, not a joke after all?

What is a joke to expect it all to be fixed overnight, 14 years of mess.

Labour bash, by all means, when they deserve it.

I don’t agree with that though. As an example Greek politicians decided to over spend and felt the pain of that with the debt crisis.

France is struggling rn with high debt.

But just to move it on a bit what are you wanting? Higher borrowing and taxes?

Agree, we have all read the on here, the posts saying NHS needs reform, so Labour are ditching NHS England, moving more care into the community, closer to the patient.
Opening up more local treatment centres, doing a consultation into adult social care, which i hope will bring it under the pay structure of the NHS.

But suddenly thats not good enough and they are a "joke"

Do people not realise a HCP takes 3 years to train? &we've a Hospital in Norfolk held by props, such is its state of dis-repair, i hope the pp thought that was a joke.

Greece was fundamentally crocked because it was allowed to join the Euro zone, despite it never in a millions eligible to do so.

Europe isn't struggling so much with hi spend, its ultra low growth thats the issue.

As it is here but it wont be fixed by more austerity, Europe could do with altering its green industrial policies, wrecking our car industry, look at whats happening to VW? whilst giving subsidies to Chines EV's... utter madness.

Can you say what you’d like to see, is it more borrowing and higher taxes?

You don't believe it and yet can not show me anywhere where austerity has worked for the greater good?

Ok.

What I don't want is more austerity in the UK, I would say it's never stopped and we are all suffering for it apart from the very rich. Posts on here calling for austerity, when it's been proven over and over again to not work and make people worse off, ugh.

For too long our economics has relied heavily on British people buying things, not what we can offer the world and when austerity hits, jobs are lost, or cost of living goes sky high then people cannot afford to spend, they can barely afford to eat and bang goes a chunk of government money. We need more, more investment, more productivity.

No, because we had that over the last few years, gave us a recession, very high immigration and almost zero growth.

Do you want to see a return to austerity and tax cuts funded by borrowing? because atm thats the only way you'll get them.

We need investment, skills, training, infrastructure, things like the small nuclear reactors, scrap the EV sales targets, stop subsidising Chinese cars, whoever thought up that idea was off their head.

I’m talking about some fiscal restraint. I think that is a better idea than not.

Debt is incredibly expensive so it takes up taxes which could be spent elsewhere, can be destabilising, and is passed to the next generation.

If you want to spend more it has to come from somewhere, debt or taxes?

Taxes. But we need growth. Austerity dampens growth.

Ok thanks for the direct answer.

The problem is even Labour have said you cannot tax your way to growth. Higher taxes will slow growth down.

Politically they’re boxed in on that too, with the manifesto pledge.

No, not taxes into growth, taxes into fixing the country and it's services, never said was growth.
I have already explained what needs to happen regarding to the UK economy in my own opinion, but of course if it were that simple it would've happened already.

If only there was an economic model for taxing and investment?

oh wait....