That Starmer fella...

The two most prominent public spending thinktanks have now published their responses to the Rachel Reeves statement.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies says Reeves was entitled to feel aggrieved, because some of the details of the spending inheritance were “shocking”. Paul Johnson, its director, says:

Rachel Reeves is within her rights to feel somewhat aggrieved. It was always clear and obvious that the spending plans she inherited were incompatible with Labour’s ambitions for public services, and that more cash would be required eventually. But the extent of the in-year funding pressures does genuinely appear to be greater than could be discerned from the outside, which only adds to the scale of the problem …

Nonetheless, some of the specifics are indeed shocking, and raise some difficult questions for the last government. If the scale of these overspends and spending pressures was apparent in the spring – and in lots of cases, there’s no reason to suppose otherwise – then it is hard to understand why they weren’t made clear or dealt with in the spring budget. Jeremy Hunt’s £10bn cut to national insurance looks ever less defensible. On asylum costs, the decision to effectively stop processing claimants, and to budget virtually nothing for the resultant costs of housing them, looks like very poor policy making. The new chancellor is right to be cross.

And the Resolution Foundation says this announcement will make the budget in the autumn even more difficult. It says:

Today’s assessment looked only at spending pressures in the current year, but many of these, including the extra spending on public sector pay (£9.4bn), will continue throughout this parliament. As a result, even after today’s new cuts to public spending, the foundation notes that the chancellor faces a huge challenge to bring down public sector debt without cutting unprotected departmental spending by more than the £18bn a year already pencilled in to the government finances – or adding to the £23bn a year tax rises announced by the previous government that have not yet come into force.

The chancellor’s challenge in the autumn budget will become even more severe if she wishes to maintain even modest fiscal buffers – or if bad news about the growth or interest rates materialise in the Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR’s) autumn budget forecasts. If the OBR was to mark down its forecast for trend productivity growth by just 0.2 percentage points, it would blow a further £17bn hole in the public finances.

The foundation warns that, when delivering the autumn budget, the government must continue to prioritise its growth ‘mission’ and focus on increasing living standards. Today’s announcements included cuts to some transport investment and £1.5bn cuts to winter fuel payments. If this approach was repeated at the Autumn Budget, this would both hamper growth, and damage living standards.

I just got a 5.5% pay rise, so I'm back on team #StarmerIn

Gideon referring to Reeves as continuity Osborne and "mini-me" is it.

https://x.com/dreoinocleirigh/status/1819474742040318039?s=46&t=gH71Js_LRtXBVO0rVnNykg

🤔

Gideon is a shitstirrer.

So this is where Starmer makes labour the party of law and order I guess

Fair play to him doubling down on calling out the far right elements and not placating them

needs to call it out by name imo.

Genuine question, what do you want him to call them/it, racist or something else?

racism, islamophobia, fascism, terrorism. plenty to choose from.

I thought this was interesting.

Threadneedle Street is now paying 5% interest on £700bn of bank reserves at cost to the exchequer of £35bn a year.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/aug/04/a-simple-solution-to-rachel-reeves-spending-cuts-stop-subsidising-the-banks

Yes, I read that article and wondered why the Bank of England wasn't telling banks to invest that £700bn in the UK economy?

This was a Reform manifesto policy

Phillips proving to be the moron's moron.. WAC..

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/uk-riots-jess-phillips-birmingham-bordesley-green-b2591790.html

“To be clear, all day rumours have been spread that a far-right group were coming and it was done entirely to get Muslim people out on the street to drive this content”, the Home Office minister tweeted. “It is misinformation being spread to create trouble.”
“These people came to this location because it has been spread that racists were coming to attack them. This misinformation was spread entirely to create this content.”

Don't see any problem with what she said tbh.

The actions weren't exactly wonderful, but I don't see a massive problem with what she said either. Racist riots erupt all over the country, scared people catch wind they're coming their way, organise to defend themselves, riots don't happen near them but now you've got a load of hyped up people expecting a fight that boils over. She comments on what happened, is accused by the people that actually contribute to stirring things up with what they say as the consequences of their words are coming to fruition of stirring things up with her words when that's really not the case.

Didn't she post it in response to a clip of a journalist being intimidated? So it read like defence of such behaviour.

I'm sure she got in the obligatory "I don't condone this behaviour, but..." That means you can then spout whatever shit you want, but her spouted shit isn't a patch on what has come out of the mouths of people who have actually enabled the real current problems.

Seeing 'two-tier Kier' a lot in the last day. Is it just because it rhymes? Doesn't make much sense?

It's the latest manufactured culture war bullshit.

Fair enough.

Musk is pushing it on twitter.

He seems very proud of himself.

Cleverly obviously over-egged it given some of the shit his colleagues have come out with over the years (and still do) but, given this was in response to a reporter being threatened with a knife and a group beating up a random bloke at a pub, there should probably have been a bit more condemning in there.

How long before the fiscal buffoons run out of other people's money?

1 Attachment

Interestingly the Scottish govt has actually run out of money after a period of unrestrained fiscal incontinence. Will Starmer have the balls to place Holyrood into special measures?

That is over 3 years, and it's not quite 15%. I think, 5%, 4.75% and 4.5%. Also, the Tories offered 4% per year and that was turned down.

During the years of those pay offers, inflation was running at approx 10% i think.

You know the whole 'other people's money' shtick makes you sound like 15 year old with a picture of Ayn Rand above their bed?