[Politics] The Labour Government

[Surrey Phil]

Another way of looking at this is to turn back to 1945. As with the 2024 iteration, the government were confronted with massive debt left by the previous administration. We can forgive it though because government debt was at 250% of GDP. And yet the best government this country has ever had went on a spending spree, buying up utilities, providing the safety net via the welfare state, and nationalising healthcare to produce the cherished NHS.
This led to a high growth regime and rising real wages for workers which led to the fall of national debt such that it fell below 100% of GDP by the 1960s. If you've been paying attention, government debt has recently surpassed that figure -- and that's pretty much thanks to the Tories inability to run the economy, and all their nonsense about austerity, Brexit, hostility to planning, etc.

And still they pipe on about how they are the party to trust with the economy. If there weren't so many that believed that steaming pile of it'd be laughable.

It’s very convenient to blame a party for debt’s but the raw facts are, that we have just had a once in a lifetime pandemic, which cost all countries.

 

[Guinness Boy]

The Government needs among many things to go after the rich and one other example would be people like Contractors working outside IR35, i think the previous admin bottled it, What say ye? The rich, the non doms, big corporations and those sneaky fuckers who work outside IR35 for the same company time and time again ?

All of that plus rejoining

Going after non doms and the rich means tax rises.

 

[pb21]

Time for Kevin Bridges again to bring a smile amidst the madness

I'm up for invading the Cayman Islands, anyone else?

 

[WATFORD zero]

It’s very convenient to blame a party for debt’s but the raw facts are, that we have just had a once in a lifetime pandemic, which cost all countries.

But I'm not aware of any other countries whose raw facts included setting up illegal fast track programs to award multi million pound contracts to their mates ?

 

[nicko31]

Sign of things to come?

Blimey her career has gone down the pan

 

[Guinness Boy]

Sign of things to come?

GB News presenter Liz Kershaw who threatened to boycott companies who withdrew advertising from GB News but can’t prove she has? That Liz?

 

[jessiejames]

Yep. I think we could probably balance the books by:

a) rejoining the EU and
b) raising taxes

What say ye?

Rejoin EU yes please. A lot of my work is driving in Europe. We don't Chanel hop, it's more of being in Europe for 4 to 8 weeks at a time. Now that the French are starting finger print recognition at the ports it's f#@k us up due to the 90/180 day ruling. One of our drivers has been deported back from Spain on his holiday, due to going over the ruling

 

[Guinness Boy]

Rejoin EU yes please. A lot of my work is driving in Europe. We don't Chanel hop, it's more of being in Europe for 4 to 8 weeks at a time. Now that the French are starting finger print recognition at the ports it's f#@k us up due to the 90/180 day ruling. One of our drivers has been deported back from Spain on his holiday, due to going over the ruling

The unintended consequences of an uninformed vote unfortunately. Who would have thought that removing frictionless trade and travel would have had an adverse effect eh?

Still, at least we’re now in charge of our borders and dealing with the Muzzies.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Rejoin EU yes please. A lot of my work is driving in Europe. We don't Chanel hop, it's more of being in Europe for 4 to 8 weeks at a time. Now that the French are starting finger print recognition at the ports it's f#@k us up due to the 90/180 day ruling. One of our drivers has been deported back from Spain on his holiday, due to going over the ruling

Interesting your predictive text chose the fashion brand over channel

 

[Giraffe]

They’re going to bankrupt us aren’t they.

Rachel Reeves: Chancellor changes debt rules to release billions

Reeves has said the government will change these rules to free up billions for spending on big projects.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[A1X]

They’re going to bankrupt us aren’t they.

Rachel Reeves: Chancellor changes debt rules to release billions

Reeves has said the government will change these rules to free up billions for spending on big projects.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Guinness Boy]

They’re going to bankrupt us aren’t they.

Rachel Reeves: Chancellor changes debt rules to release billions

Reeves has said the government will change these rules to free up billions for spending on big projects.

www.bbc.co.uk

Er, no.

The changes take us back to a previous measure, value assets correctly and measure the current debt rather than a spurious overall position. They’ve been recommended by the IMF, a former senior exec at the Bank of England and a former Tory finance guru.

They allow investment which every sector needs currently. The much vaunted technology start up sector wouldn’t exist without risk based investment.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

They’re going to bankrupt us aren’t they.

Rachel Reeves: Chancellor changes debt rules to release billions

Reeves has said the government will change these rules to free up billions for spending on big projects.

www.bbc.co.uk

“We can’t go on like this. I’ll cut the deficit, not the NHS,” read David Cameron’s poster campaign before the 2010 general election.

14 years of Tory rule later it has risen from 64.7% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2010 to 103% currently – the highest level since the 1960s. That‘s some failure.

I don’t recall you saying this about your beloved Tory party.

 

[Machiavelli]

That's a great summary. Where to make the investments now in a very different world without undoing the good things is the difficult part? I hope it's not another few miles of HS2, we may know more next week. It also reads close to the 2019 manifesto and some definitely didn't like that. I don't think our world has the same idea of collective purpose as existed then.

Agree on your collective purpose point. The green transition is the most obvious, housing another.

 

[Weststander]

“We can’t go on like this. I’ll cut the deficit, not the NHS,” read David Cameron’s poster campaign before the 2010 general election.

14 years of Tory rule later it has risen from 64.7% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2010 to 103% currently – the highest level since the 1960s. That‘s some failure.

I don’t recall you saying this about your beloved Tory party.

Japan 255%
Greece 162%
Spain 135%
USA 122%
France 111%
Spain 108%
Belgium 103%
UK 100%
Portugal 99%
Germany 63%

If anyone opts to make the historical background solely UK party political, Brown inherited just 43% in 1997. The true causes were the 2007 financial crisis and the cost of the pandemic.

 

[Machiavelli]

It’s very convenient to blame a party for debt’s but the raw facts are, that we have just had a once in a lifetime pandemic, which cost all countries.

That's one 'raw' fact, granted. I won't blame them for the upturn in spending during the pandemic, but debt grew either side of that. And they came in claiming that Labour had crashed the economy, 'the cupboard is bare', 'the credit card is maxed out', and so on. Then we had austerity, which INCREASED the debt -- a political choice by the Tories; Brexit leading to more debt, which INCREASED the debt -- a political choice by the Tories; the KamiKwaze budget, which INCREASED the debt -- political choice by the Tories. I could go on and would say 'you get the picture' but not entirely sure you will.

 

[Giraffe]

I don’t recall you saying this about your beloved Tory party.

I gave up on the Tory party when Rishi gave away ridiculous sums of money during Covid. Won’t be going back to them any year soon.

 

[A1X]

I gave up on the Tory party when Rishi gave away ridiculous sums of money during Covid. Won’t be going back to them any year soon.

Wait, so you turned against the Tory party because they decided they wouldn’t see hundreds of thousands of people lose their livelihoods and cause a massive economic crash?

 

[Zeberdi]

I gave up on the Tory party when Rishi gave away ridiculous sums of money during Covid. Won’t be going back to them any year soon.

Yes, you and a significant proportion of the electorate - the Tories lost a lot of their supporters to Reform in the last election as a result of debacles like that.

But thank you - it helped Labour get elected

 

[dsr-burnley]

Japan 255%
Greece 162%
Spain 135%
USA 122%
France 111%
Spain 108%
Belgium 103%
UK 100%
Portugal 99%
Germany 63%

If anyone opts to make the historical background solely UK party political, Brown inherited just 43% in 1997. The true causes were the 2007 financial crisis and the cost of the pandemic.

View attachment 191005

These graphs and figures are all meaningless. The true debt is about (I'm told) two and a half times that figure, but official figures are never produced. Any limited company that produced figures for total debt that excluded finance leases and unfunded pension liabilities, would be prosecuted to the nth degree for producing wildly and deliberately misleading figures. The government makes its own rules, and successive governments need to tell us what the true and nightmareish figures are.

They need to add in the unfunded public sector pension payments, and the undisclosed public-private partnership liabilites, to give an accurate and useful figure of the national debt.