Starmer's final fuck you to Burnham

[Nowisthetimeforicecream]

If it wasn't for the fact that our collective defence is critical it would be funny that Starmer has announced an increase in the spending in the defence review of £1.5bn since Healey left but failed to mention that he has left £4.7bn of the total £15bn for the next chancellor to fund in the autumn budget.

12 months late and 1/3 of the spending increase is unfunded.

Some might even say Burnham has inherited a spending black hole....

What an utter bastard. A fundamentally decent man, eh? He is not.

Utterly standard way for governments of all strips to frig the numbers and kick difficult decisions down the road.

You mean 'final fuck' to the country...

Starmer and Reeves have always been useless and over-promoted politicians so It does not surprise me. At least we are done with their incompetence.

Probably. "We're cutting the roads and energy projects at the last minute to fund defence but we'll do noithing to address the fundamental welfare spending problem".

Good riddance Starmer.

Starmer has lost what little respect I had left for him.

Starmer and Reeves have been hopeless, but I don’t think Burnham will improve much.

Maybe that makes Reeve's chances of being kept in place as chancellor better. AB can leave her to sort it out. Followed by a series of 'U' turns. bitter recriminations, back downs and resignations ;)

We would have had the problem of how to fund an increase in defence spending whether Starmer stayed in or not.

Burnham has said he will cut welfare to fund it. Hopefully he sticks to his word.

Has he? When did he say that?

In some of his interviews for Makerfield. Although he said almost every combination of things so who knows.

Andy Burnham: I’ll cut welfare bill to fund defence

how exactly Will he cut the welfare bill?

I don't think there is any rational choice left to the incoming Chancellor, whoever it is, but to tackle the benefit/welfare deficit. As I posted on another thread, I rather like the Slovakian policy of funding all benefit uplifts at just 95% of the average wage increase. So the value of benefits decreases relative to wages. If you are going to be a pensioner, save harder earlier. If you are unemployed, you know that your dole will only increase less than average earnings, not the same.

Fuck knows. Hopefully he will tell us soon. He's said no crude cuts so he must mean well thought out cuts his MPs won't vote down.

You don't have to cut the welfare bill. You have to cut the rate at which it grows, so saying that benefits can only rise by 95% of the inflation rate is a brake.

Thats going slow it over a very very long time. We borrow so much of the money we pay out, people grandkids are already going to be paying for the lovely benefits they get today,

Just like a lot of us spent most of our working lives paying back the cost of a war that ended before we were born. It’s nothing new. You’re absolutely right @Papyrophile.

But we do need to do something to stop enlarging access/entitlement to welfare and preventing it from growing any larger. I don't begrudge paying tax to fund essential public services (and FTR, we do still pay quite a bit of income tax, as pensioners).

I'm unlikely to become a significant drain on the public purse anytime soon, on the basis of family medical history: my mum popped her clogs at 89 very suddenly, having not seen a doctor in eight months. My DF is 94 but my SM looks after him assiduously.

That matters less than the fact of cutting it. If you do the maths, then restricting the rate of increase to only 95% (which doesn't sound a lot) but apply the 95% ceiling across the piste for every service and benefit for 10 years, and between that saving and general inflation, you start to save serious money at population level.

However, it also requires politicians to refrain from buying votes with the savings. I am cynical on that score. With some spare money, most politicians want to lavish money on voters.

Apologies, I am old and ugly and cynical, but numerate and literate. The UK needs to control welfare. By any means possible.

Germany has been pretty well governed since 1947 but today they are saying that VolksWagen (which is partially state owned) is about to announce 100,000 redundancies and the closure of four whole factories. Can't compete with Chinese labour rates, or the price of electricity, and can't afford the R&D investment because there are too many pensioners.

Europe needs to find a whole new gear.