Mailwatch(ed) Forum

This is public spending rising less than planned, isn't it?

NevTheSweeper wrote: ↑Fri Mar 21, 2025 6:49 am If they go on like this, this could be the last Labour government ever to be elected.

Yes, because famously after losing the 1997 election by a record-breaking landslide, the Tories were never elected again because the British public never, ever change their opinion based on context

Economic suicide? 10 year bond rates are 4.67%. Donald Trump is running amok in the international markets, and we're going to have to spend much more on Defence.

As with the hubristic Biden peak, it's very easy to get carried away that you're sticking it to austerity. That got the core inflation too high and put Trump back in, even if it was better than the German approach. Reeves needs to find some more taxes to raise, but the plan is still expansionary at a time when there are constraints on being too expansionary.

Government to plant first National Forest in 30 years
20 million trees are to be planted across Bristol, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and Somerset by 2050.

This sounds good. I know it doesn't make benefit cuts any better, but it's the sort of thing I can imagine getting a nice feel good item on the news in 2012. I haven't watched the news for ages, but I'm guessing it won't get any coverage at all.

Well, this is an interesting piece. I think I broadly agree with the thrust of it, but I’m still a trifle uncertain.

https://theconversation.com/cutting-we ... Gq9m84tamQ

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Fri Mar 21, 2025 10:40 am This is public spending rising less than planned, isn't it?

Not according to the article.

Rachel Reeves will announce the biggest spending cuts since austerity at next week’s spring statement after ruling out tax rises as a way to close her budget deficit.

The chancellor will tell MPs next Wednesday that she intends to cut Whitehall budgets by billions of pounds more than previously expected in a move which could mean reductions of as much as 7% for certain departments over the next four years.

Economists say the cuts will harm key public services, despite Labour’s promises to undo years of decline under the Conservatives. They will be announced a week after ministers unveiled about £5bn worth of cuts to benefit payments, most of which are going from payments to disabled people.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Fri Mar 21, 2025 5:26 pm

Government to plant first National Forest in 30 years
20 million trees are to be planted across Bristol, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and Somerset by 2050.

This sounds good. I know it doesn't make benefit cuts any better, but it's the sort of thing I can imagine getting a nice feel good item on the news in 2012. I haven't watched the news for ages, but I'm guessing it won't get any coverage at all.

It doesn't count along with a load of other stuff Labour have done.

More boasting about the good stuff by ministers
being interviewed wouldn't do any harm.

Levelling with people that the next few years were going to be tough after the fuck up the Tories made is what swung it for Labour on the doorstep not offering uncoated freebies.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Fri Mar 21, 2025 5:26 pm

Government to plant first National Forest in 30 years
20 million trees are to be planted across Bristol, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and Somerset by 2050.

This sounds good. I know it doesn't make benefit cuts any better, but it's the sort of thing I can imagine getting a nice feel good item on the news in 2012. I haven't watched the news for ages, but I'm guessing it won't get any coverage at all.

"Starmer planting trees for migrants to hide in."

Migrants who've ridden into town on the back of his Mum's old donkeys.

Sounds a bit biblical to me

I find myself largely in agreement with David Blunkett on fiscal rules.

https://labourlist.org/2025/03/spring- ... L_LF9UxjcA

Pertinent facts have changed since those fiscal rules were written, it's time to misquote Einstein again...

They've already changed the rules once to allow more investment. Not sure if I'd change them again. Would rather put taxes up but it's easy for me to say from here.

Have they not got some investment they can bring forward? In practice, there are never spade ready projects sitting around ready to go, but it might help if there were at least some sense of more happening in two or three years time. They could do worse than take HS2 towards Crewe.

Reeves has said she won't be a tax and spend chancellor.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c78eg7dp9ypo

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has ruled out "tax and spend" policies, signalling that she will neither raise taxes nor government budgets in her critical Spring Statement next week.

Speaking in a BBC documentary, The Making of a Chancellor, Reeves also warned that the government could not afford the kinds of spending increases seen under the last Labour government.

She is expected to make cuts to some government departments on Wednesday. More money has already been allocated to defence by reducing the aid budget.

"We can't tax and spend our way to higher living standards and better public services. That's not available in the world we live in today," she said.

InDepth: Why Rachel Reeves is feeling the heat

In her autumn Budget, Reeves increased the levels of tax and public spending significantly – paid for largely through extra taxes on businesses which proved highly controversial.

But she is now under pressure on several fronts. It emerged on Friday that government borrowing – the difference between its spending and its income from taxes – was even higher than expected in February.

The official prediction for that month from the Office for Budget Responsibility was £6.5 billion, but it hit £10.7bn, leaving the chancellor with less fiscal headroom.

Oh bollocks.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... data-warns

The JRF analysis rests on a ­realistic assumption that the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) will adjust its forecasts in line with the Bank of England and other main forecasters when it makes them public on Wednesday. The OBR is expected to halve the expected growth rate for this year from 2% to about 1%.

In what it describes as a “dismal reality”, the JRF said its detailed analysis shows that the past year could mark a high point for living standards in this parliament. It concludes that the average family will be £1,400 worse off by 2030, representing a 3% fall in their disposable incomes. The lowest income families will be £900 a year worse off, amounting to a 6% fall in the amount they have to spend.

The JRF also said that if living standards have not recovered by 2030, Starmer will not only have failed to pass his No 1 milestone but will also have presided over the first government since 1955 to have seen a fall in living standards across a full parliament.

If there's a nuclear holocaust he will also be the first prime minister to preside over a 90% drop in population.

Resolution foundation that freezing income tax and national insurance thresholds for two years could £8 billion in tax. Maybe Reeves could consider this.

The Weeping Angel wrote: ↑Sat Mar 22, 2025 11:14 pm Oh bollocks.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... data-warns

The JRF analysis rests on a ­realistic assumption that the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) will adjust its forecasts in line with the Bank of England and other main forecasters when it makes them public on Wednesday. The OBR is expected to halve the expected growth rate for this year from 2% to about 1%.

In what it describes as a “dismal reality”, the JRF said its detailed analysis shows that the past year could mark a high point for living standards in this parliament. It concludes that the average family will be £1,400 worse off by 2030, representing a 3% fall in their disposable incomes. The lowest income families will be £900 a year worse off, amounting to a 6% fall in the amount they have to spend.

The JRF also said that if living standards have not recovered by 2030, Starmer will not only have failed to pass his No 1 milestone but will also have presided over the first government since 1955 to have seen a fall in living standards across a full parliament.

Not the news the government would've wanted. The tax changes they introduced in the recent budget has raised less money than they hoped. The government is failing to deliver on any of their "tinkering at the edges" reforms.

Or they’re dealing with an economic shock called Trump that’s going to give everywhere a cold?