In 2010 when Labour left office the inflation rate was 5%, the deficit in the past year was 11% of GDP and unemployment was 7.9%.
In 2024 when the Conservatives left office inflation was 2%, the past year deficit 4.4% of GDP and unemployment 4.4%.
Growth in Q1 2024 was 0.7% after little change over a year. Growth in Q1 2010 was 0.2% after the Great Recession.
Which was the worse inheritance?
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July 30, 2024
Labour are angry because they can no longer depend on a Thatcher level of inheritance from the Conservatives, which they can use to buy popularity.
Is this the worst inheritance they have ever received?
That’s the nub.
They are also stymied to a large extent because ‘the rich’ are mostly themselves and their corporate friends.
Poor Reeves, casting around for a means and a nice way of saying ‘we will tax the Tories”.
July 30, 2024
Agreed Lynn. With government debt close to 100% Reeves cannot spend like crazy on crazy ideas. The markets would hammer UK borrowing costs. Unfortunately she’s going to spend like crazy anyway so we’re screwed.
July 30, 2024
JR forgets he got elected in 2010 to balance the structural deficit and pay down debt by 2015. Then it was 2017, 2019, 2021 then abandoned. The debt was about £800 billion. Today the debt is about £3 trillion!
Tory party locked in giving away £14 billion each year on foreign aid not knowing how or what the money would be wasted on, also £2 billion given to EU foreign aid to waste on things like exotic fish mating programmes or Spice girl tribute bands in Africa! We could talk about the hundreds of billions wasted on Afghanistan with loss of life, life changing injuries, costing NHS a fortune as well, to run away giving the Taliban £100 million when leaving! Nothing at all to show for this disgraceful waste of life and money, same for Libya but happy to repeat with Ukraine! Did the Tory party not learn from Blaire’s illegal war in Iraq, based on lies in parliament?
JR, the Tory party were a poor Blaire tribute act. I am surprised it took so long for people to wake up. The country is worse for a Tory govt over 14 years in every regard.
July 30, 2024
Well if he had the power and refused to do it then I would stop posting on his blog.
I think you will find that the greatest crime of the woke tories is that they refused to deploy the talent we provided them with by returning Redwood and a few others nine times.
That for me was the main reason they had to be not only sacked but destroyed.
I am still of that view.
I cannot see how we can get people like Redwood into power any other way. And if we don’t we are finished and deserve to be.
July 30, 2024
Lynne,
I think most would have wanted JR. That boat sailed long ago. Osborne, Hammond, Javid, Sunak and Hunt. Not a conservative among them! Leavers systematically ousted. Highest taxation in 75years, billions deliberately wasted and given away with gay abandon and nothing to show for hundreds of billions of taxes.
Look at Snake Sunak’s Govt. not a conservative or leaver among them. All content to betray the nation, particularly N.Ireland, betray Brexit and arrogant to think after years of lies and betrayals they would get voted in! Hunt rejected by all made chancellor FFS! He failed the nation leading NHS. Failed to prepare for covid, costing lives and hundreds of billions wasted. Why is he not banned from office? He demonstrated gross incompetence. Hunt still on TV screen today!
July 30, 2024
What did they spend all that money on; how can you spend that much money without feeling any benefit ?
July 30, 2024
Only those countries recieving foreign aid those invading our shores in rubber boats those making a living on benefits rather than working and parasitic lawyers working against the UK etc feel any benefit, the hard working taxpayer has been bled dry for years.
July 30, 2024
The Insurance industry is going to hammer EVs.
Cold homes deteriorate too – let’s hope Council will have to pick up a massive maintenance bill.
July 30, 2024
@ Lynn Atkinson “Is this the worst inheritance they have ever received?” – iirc the 1964 inheritance was worse.
July 30, 2024
The real disaster happened the year before when the anti-Common Market Hugh Gaitskell died. Shore, a wonderful politician in the most important respects, was wrong about Wilson.
July 30, 2024
Well perhaps but Wilson did at least keep us out of Vietnam. Unlike Blair pointless indeed very counter productive wars and one on a blatant lie.
July 30, 2024
Did not keep us out of the EU.
July 30, 2024
LL is right about Wilson, who applied for Britain to join the Common Market in 1967, on the delusional basis that there would be no loss of sovereignty. Fortunately the French vetoed our application, so for a few more years we remained outside the Brussels empire.
July 30, 2024
The new PM has called it the worst inheritance since World War Two.
BUT in June of this year our Chancellor implied that there would be no problem at all since the ONS clearly showed all the figures ( as they had not done previously?)
ie…the economy was a known known.
Meanwhile Labour is working very hard at becoming the most unpopular government ever!
July 30, 2024
@Lynn Atkinson – Cruella Reeves, feels free to speak in in-exactitudes, she just as with those standing to lead the Conservative Party hates Conservatives. Just as with her predecessors doesn’t understand grabbing ‘tax’ from people isn’t income, it is removal of money from the economy the very thing that causes something to be able to be taxed – she is just continuing her predecessors lust for destruction
July 30, 2024
We are blighted with very very stupid people, manly because most British people hate politics or at least the rough and tumble of it. So we have stood back and allowed the riff raff to govern us – with many notable exceptions not least JR who has taken more than his fair share of mindless abuse not least from from his own side. Personally I can’t imagine how he has managed to ignore it all and soldier on. He should have a George Cross.
We (English) did the same in South Africa. We ran the economy (which fed millions) and left politics to the Afrikaaners. It cost us everything in the end.
July 30, 2024
Yes and it was often said that SA was the Petri dish for everything we now see in Europe.
July 30, 2024
I was disappointed in Jeremy Hunt on BBC this morning. All he had to say was “Rachel Reeves saw the OBR figures before the general election and the Labour manifesto said no tax rises. Now she’s pretending that she didn’t see them and is reneging on election promises.” Instead he flim-flammed over various issues and boo-hooed about being blamed by the incoming Chancellor.
Tory mass immigration caused this. I could not endorse 1.3 million visas in a year by voting for them and nor could many others.
My own area has been transformed (for the worse) before my eyes and this is permanent. Clearly multiculturalism is in crisis going by recent events and the Tories are to blame as much as anyone. This must never be forgiven.
July 31, 2024
Hunt needs to get his act together. Reeves is saying he “knowingly and deliberately lied to MPs and the country about public spending”. She told Sky News Hunt “covered up from the House of Commons and the Country the true state of the public finances”.
“He lied and they lied during the election campaign” In his letter he demanded an “immediate answer” to “conflicting claims” which risk “bringing the civil service into disrepute”, and said that either the spending plans in estimates signed off by senior civil servants were incorrect, or the document Reeves produced to the Commons on Monday was incorrect.
Perhaps he was timid this morning because she is telling the truth and he did deliberately lie, that is what he is defending.
Cancelling the hospitals is extreme from Labour, that commitment was to 2030, I thought they couldn’t go back on large projects like that that we are four years into actually doing.
Reply No he did not lie. He followed official estimates and proposed figures to a fault.
July 30, 2024
Do keep telling the voters how wrong they are, I am sure it’s a winning political strategy
Reply I am not telling voters they were wrong. Only 20% of the electorate wanted a Labour government and only 15% voted Conservative. I was critical of both parties economic policies. Can you not show any independent judgement ?
July 30, 2024
Reply to Lemming
Are you proud that the Labour Government is withdrawing the Winter Fuel Payment from any pensioner who isn’t on benefits, whilst deliberately increasing the cost of energy?
Saving £1 billion pa on Winter Fuel Payments, whilst shovelling £tens of billions pa at the criminal migrants they are encouraging to invade the country isn’t likely to play well in the Red Wall, or anywhere else apart from North London and Davos.
July 30, 2024
£11 billion of our taxes to be given away to foreign countries on climate rot/scam. Corrupt Ukraine still getting billions of our taxes. Buying oil, gas and coal from Russia instead of producing it ourselves!
Manufacturing at all time low since Industrial Revolution, while millions of criminals flood here being supported on welfare! That means the welfare bill is increasing daily! Did Sunak or does Reeves realise this? Is it really difficult to see a 50 foot dinghy being transported to the French seaside each day! If the authorities cannot spot these how do they hope to find alleged traffickers? The dinghy’s are not camouflaged, they also need a traitor or transporter. Where are the engines bought? Snake Sunak happy to give France £500 million of our taxes! Sunak really is stupid. Perhaps the Govt. Could sell the boats back to France so the taxpayer can recoup some of our taxes and it would also help the planet by recycling the dinghy’s and their engines? These dinghy’s have a carbon footprint, manufacture, transport etc. we must reduce at all costs!
Belgium turn their boats around not far from shore, perhaps the French could learn from them? No wonder the French did not see the Germans coming!
Looking at the dud Tory leadership contest, Reform Party is the only solution.
July 30, 2024
A few drones flying over the beaches in France would spot dinghies as soon as they were inflated. The French Government doesn’t want to stop them all; the British Establishment is colluding with the invasion.
Why? I believe a secret deal was reached during the Brexit negotiations that we will take “our fair share” … and the issue would be used to nudge us towards participating in the EU’s asylum-sharing/immigration policies.
July 30, 2024
Seems so.
July 30, 2024
HMG is already operating two fixed wing aircraft ; DHC dash 8 C-GMFX from Lydd and DA62 G-HMGD from East Midlands on every ‘sailing day’ to spot above the channel waters. Likely costs ? £4K per hour.
July 30, 2024
….and we’re still giving money to the EU ….I’d bet, like the tories, that labour wont stop paying EU tithes
July 31, 2024
Suella Braverman is very sensible not to stand, who would want to try to lead the 121 MPs when about 90+ of them are deluded pro EU, net zero zealots & con-socialists.
July 31, 2024
Perhaps Tugenhadhat is the best leader for those 90 who are really Lib Dems; then people can make a real choice about which centre-right party suits them best. Braverman and Patel would have to leave.
July 30, 2024
@Donna +1
July 30, 2024
Excellent comment Donna. You are correct as usual.
Labour detests pensioners believing they are all Tory voters
July 30, 2024
Oh north London is becoming a bit rough.
July 30, 2024
Again we are penalised for working in our 70’s as not only are we robbed of fuel payments whilst prices rise but will be taxed more
He just doesn’t get it.
July 30, 2024
Looking backwards, it is irrelevant, therefore I don’t care. The Tories ‘lied’ to us on tax, migration, resorted to dog whistling when under pressure and then didn’t follow through so why not untruths about the ‘black hole’?
Cameron/Osborne constantly wiped labours noses in it 13 years ago so welcome to the payback.
They now have five years to get used to it and can do nothing.
The important thing is to rethink what a modern Conservative Party fit for 2029 not decades past, looks like/stands for and sells it to the electorate.
Stop talking rubbish about pulling the party together as if that was the problem. Create an attractive right of centre offer being honest you have to move on to Reforms territory and the party will follow.
that means failed centrists like Stride, Cleverley, Tugenhat who were a major part of the problem should get nowhere near running it and, frankly should eat crow.
July 30, 2024
Agree 100% that we can do nothing. Dreadful feeling but it is reality. Would they have to go if they totally bankrupted us? ( Or we’ve reached there?)
I read that a cleric millionaire/billionaire has bought up a Scottish island with a view to creating his own “republic”, complete with places of worship and standing army.
I remember years ago many fusses about pirate radio ships and people declaring “independence” in the middle of the sea.
Wonder how Labour will deal with this thorny one?
July 30, 2024
‘that we can do nothing’ – well the dozing electorate finally woke up.
Now we have another form of ‘we can do nothing’, what happened to the chosen name ‘ever hopeful’?
Will you shorten it to ‘hopeful’?
July 30, 2024
Don’t you ever read the posts?
I was agreeing with what Nigl said!
How would you suggest that Labour is ousted other than sit it out for 4-5 years and then vote sensibly?
Bright ideas on the back of a stamp please.
July 30, 2024
oh dear I had better stop responding to you since you always take the offended route.
Sorry, I don’t even recall what started my touching the nerve.
July 30, 2024
There!!
You didn’t even read and comprehend my answer.
Honestly!
July 30, 2024
Perhaps have Hilary Benn create the civic version of Radio One ?
July 30, 2024
Nigel,
They are not centrists, they are far left New Labour socialists. The narrative intended to take the party ever left taking over New Labour territory. The Tory party is done. 3/4 of the current MPs are pro EU one nation socialists. The socialists have taken over the party. In that regard Osborne and Cameron were successful- they wrecked the party. It would have been better if Cameron and co. had joined the lie dumbs. Sunak handed/gifted Starmer the baton to take our country effectively back to the EU. No one, even Sunak, could be that stupid to call an election without consulting his party, MPs and members, for policy expecting to win. Come on. Sunak had hoped to hand over expecting to keep it a two horse race and come back in 2029. Reform party is the only other choice and the only conservative option.
The Tory party had 14 years and 4 elections to change everything Blaire had done. They Chose not to and decided to build on Labour policy including net stupid to destroy manufacturing in this country and send all jobs east. The unions should be ashamed of themselves for watching the destruction of their members jobs.
July 30, 2024
@Nigl – all the while those pretenders ( I do mean pretenders) to the Party leadership are travelling at a rate to enable their efficient merger with the Liberal Democrats they haven’t a hope. I would question is the Conservative Party management, the CCHQ, along those failed in Government even Conservative?
If they think Rishi Sunak and his Johnson Collective responsibility continuity Cabinet is the right direction, then they don’t understand why they lost and thinking about 2029 is meaningless.
With a few reservations it should be what they call a Red-Wall new intake standing as leader, someone like the man Sunak kicked out of the Party for being Conservative, Lee Anderson
July 30, 2024
Conservative Home has an item on the Liberal Democrat(sarc) David Gauke joining the new Conservative Party, is it because he feels at home there?
He also adds – “No, I shouldn’t have a vote because the leadership should be chosen by the MPs, not the members”.
More of the same is promised. Getting ready for the merger with that lovely Ed Davey, the supporter of the Post Office.
July 30, 2024
Then you are forever the naive newcomer, because you learn nothing from what has happened.
July 30, 2024
If telling voters how wrong they are is a bad strategy why have Remainers been doing exactly that every day for the past 8 years ?
July 30, 2024
20% voted Labour, 15% voted Conservatives (see above): Does it not show a need for a different voting system?
July 30, 2024
No it shows the need for a Conservative Party.
July 30, 2024
@Lynn Atkinson +1
July 30, 2024
Well let’s look at government debt as a % of GDP the Tories since 2010 under Cameron, May, Boris, Sunak from circa 40% to nearly 100% that is really rather more relevant. We now have very high real interest rates too and absurdly high taxes which will kill much future growth and investment.
So what did the Tories spend this £1.8 trillion on? About £60,000 per household. Mainly on damaging or totally pointless things – net harm Covid vaccines and lockdowns, test and trace, croney capitalism and corruption like the PPE lunacy, the post office racket, “loans”for largely worthless degrees (circa 75% of them), corrupt covid loans, HS2, the total insanity of net zero, the appallingly run NHS, benefit fraud, migrant hotel bills, wars on motorists, landlords, the self employed, mad subsidies for EVs, solar, wind, trains, heatpumps…
July 30, 2024
Back in the Thatcher Era government debt was even as low as 25% of GDP. So the uni-party’s Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron, May, Boris, Sunak have increased it by 400% all mainly wasted or spent doing net harm. Then we have government expenditure as a % of GDP currently about 46% over double what it should be and largely spent doing little good or net harm. Often reducing the private sector productivity significantly too with endless restrictions and red tape.
July 30, 2024
I don’t really see why govt. debt should just be accepted as an inevitability.
Too late now but why are govt.s (apparently) totally incapable of balancing the books?
Too many crazy schemes to implement?
Which nobody actually wants!
July 30, 2024
They are not even trying to balance the books! They are like kids let loose in a sweet shop.
July 30, 2024
They are…
And as they scramble stickily up the shelves, greedy mouths bulging, tipping over jars and boxes of countless worth they vow that never again shall the Right taste even a teaspoon of sugar.
Still, we all know what happens to selfish, spiteful children…when the adults come back into the room.
July 30, 2024
Of course the main thing that will kill future growth, jobs and investment are the Labour policies which are essentially the same as Sunak and Hunt’s idiotic policies but even worse. Net zero, big government, more red tape, wars on motorists, the rip off intermittent energy agenda, the self employed, landlords, Non Doms, ever higher taxes, a vast bloated state sector doing very little of positive value…
July 30, 2024
The diversity over merit agenda and other woke lunacies.
July 30, 2024
100%.
July 30, 2024
Precisely. Except you forgot to add the HS2 farce.
We’re left with £80 billion to build a train line from Not-Quite-Birmingham to Nearly-London …… a monument to the folly of the certifiable idiots in the pro-EU Establishment.
July 30, 2024
Indeed. Crony capitalism, moronic stupidity or corruption – it has to be one of these? Not evem any faster door to door as HS trains are only HS if they do not stop much. So longer end connections!
July 30, 2024
I’d approve of labour to cancel the folly of building cycle lanes at a taxpayer cost, increasing daily and estimated at £4billion
July 30, 2024
Bike are fuelled by human food, a very inefficient fuel indeed. Especially for meat eaters. About 90%+ of the energy is wasted before it even arrives at the pedals.
July 30, 2024
Remember, we built the channel tunnel, HS1 and the M6 toll road at negligible cost and risk to the taxpayer. Instead of learning from this, we switched back to nationalising infrastructure building. The result is HS2.
July 31, 2024
I wonder whether the private sector learned a hard lesson? I have never used the Channel tunnel, HS1 or the M6 toll road.
I don’t go to France at all – you have all seen why recently.
The age of rail is over.
I have gone along the M6 for which I have already paid my share, looking at the empty toll road beside it.
July 31, 2024
I’ve used the Channel Tunnel a couple of times, and delays and having to be there a long time before setting up for security checks, otherwise smooth. I use the M6 Toll a lot; my only complaint is that it should have a speed limit of 80 mph. Having to stick to a 70 mph limit on a motorway that is not busy or full of lorries is frustrating.
July 30, 2024
Precisely. I’m sure there were days or weeks where the deficit was zero under the Tories recently. Wow, but totally irrelevant when you have massive debts.
Then look at where the borrowed money was spent and as you say, every reason to get rid of these charlatans.
They were then too frightened to curb benefits, which Labour to their credit have already started, albeit targeting the old and cold who can’t work, rather than young new arrivals who can.
July 30, 2024
You never offer positive achievable politically solutions. Backward looking angry brain dumps belittling people. I guess that’s your limit.
July 30, 2024
At least he has a Brian from which to take a ‘dump’.
July 30, 2024
Lynn – Was that “Life of Brian”?
July 30, 2024
No, pure Nigl inspired. (PS when all the data is downloaded form a computer, it is called a dump).
July 30, 2024
Lynn – and sometimes the download is only worth the other type of dump.
Brain or Brian….got me wondering.
July 30, 2024
How many EU students were the Tories having to provide university tuition loans and maintenance loans from 2010 to 2022?
How much is outstanding?
What % of those graduates are now paying back their 9% graduate tax at more than the interest charge each year?
Taxpayers provided those loans, as membership of the EU Erasmus scheme dictated and now Starmer and Labour want to return to look again at Erasmus – whilst taking £300 a year off £12k pension per year elderly Brits. They could have just taken it back of 40% tax bracket pensioners but oh no, just as Brown took away the 10% tax rate the Labour supporters pay.
Just as Osborne attacked Tory voters in the first six months of 2010 when he took away child benefit from 40% tax payers saving £2.5bn pa at the time. This gave Osborne ‘a highly political flourish’ but he did announce that departments instead of being cut by 20% (Labour) would only be cut by 19% over four years.
July 30, 2024
Good morning.
One can play with numbers all day long and get them to tell things without any real meaning or context. For example. Our kind host gives us an end inflation figure of just 2%. But this was on the back of inflation that was running far higher and, in double digits. So the cost of things overall have been far higher.
We also forget when looking at numbers and dates the one factor that cannot be so easily put into black and white – The Quality of life. With taxes at a 70 year high thanks to the previous governments ineptitude, although one can stick that label on all of them as far back as 1990, (I wonder what happened back then ?) with these set to rise again as Labour set to implement their plan to raid peoples savings to fund their spending plans, we are finding harder and harder to get by.
British people can no longer buy an affordable home as the market has basically pushed them out. This is due to mass immigration and near zero interest rates to keep government borrowing up.
Not for the first time I must say, we are eating our own tail.
July 30, 2024
Well said Mark. As I note below the fact that really annoys Reeves is that Government borrowing sits around 100% of GDP. She knows she cannot borrow more or markets will hammer the UK.
Debt was 35% of GDP in 2007, rose to 75% through the 2008 banking crisis (on Labour’s watch) and kicked on another 15% with Covid spend (which Labour wanted to see higher). The State is now so large and state debt so high that we are going to see quality of live degrade for years to come. Mark’s point – you reap what you sow.
July 30, 2024
Another judgement of which was worse could be the steps that it takes to turn the rudderless tanker around. Only after corrective measures can we come to an opinion of which was the most empty cuoboard.
The initial 2 road plans closure and inner London HS2 halt are welcome, and the pay settlement if it turns out so are long overdue.
So whats not to like.
The Christmas bonus and the Winter Fuel payment are not that bad.
July 30, 2024
Mark B
Indeed, But afraid I do not trust a single word that the Government or opposition say anymore, so many spins, lies, caveats, used as any and all sort of excuses by all Parties, to try and cover their own tracks and incompetence.
Quite honestly I do not have a clue what state the Countries finances are in, all i know is that I am being taxed to death, and will be after death, whilst the price of everything is rising, all government services are failing, and even customer services in the commercial world is now a sad title and joke.
I could go on but what is the point, I get the feeling that nobody in power (past or present) is listening.
July 30, 2024
They only understand getting the sack. You can’t reason with them.
July 30, 2024
So Osbourne’s bastard child the OBR intend to conduct a so called investigation into the accuracy of information provided to it by the Treasury under the then CEO’s watch, Jeremiah Hunt. I nearly fell off my chair reading this Socialist tripe. Yes, Hunt’s a dope but this is a stitch up
Reeves’s Treasury conspiring with her Europhile lackeys at the OBR to invent this fictional blackhole to justify tax rises. There’s a blackhole alright, it’s called a public debt of 4TRILLION DOLLARS caused by both main parties who now couldn’t give a toss about how much taxpayer’s resources they waste.
Osbourne’s OBR was just another layer of unnecessary, expensive bureaucracy and has come back to bite the useless Tories on their scrawny posteriors
July 30, 2024
Well I sincerely hope that all those ( not necessarily elected I think?) involved in handing us over to such a regime as this one….are all very, very worried.
Having said that…my soul shrinks from the prospect of soviet style retribution and now, what with all their global tinkering there are no safe places for them to flee to!
July 30, 2024
“God save us from seeing a Russian riot,senseless and merciless.Those who plot impossible upheavals amongst us are either young and do not know our people or are hard-hearted men who do not care a straw either about their own lives or those of others.”- Aleksandr Pushkin,The Captain’s Daughter (1836).
And that was long before the Bolsheviks removed a whole stratum of society.It’s just the way that great country renews itself!
July 30, 2024
1773
Is there another Pugachev?
Revolutions/rebellions never do much good!
Speaking of which…Marie Antoinette’s head and revolutionary France in deep international trouble for their opening ceremony. But I dare say Pugachev would have enjoyed the trashing of “The Last Supper”?
July 31, 2024
There was also the earlier Stepan Razin revolt;when he was executed,it was said his severed head continued to laugh at the executioner. Shostakovich wrote a powerfully dramatic symphonic cantata to celebrate the event(which I would love to see performed live!)
July 30, 2024
Who’s in charge of our country
July 30, 2024
There is other data to take into consideration such as total national debt, the savings ratio and GDP per head in making an assessment. I would also argue that the policies in place also matter, for example which have changed and are they for the better (lower tax rates) or the worse (net zero targets).
Reeves obviously wants to establish a political narrative to justify tax increases or the removal of certain benefits. But it seems to me that all parties wear blinkers when it comes to an assessment of the unsustainable state of the UK’s public finances.
July 30, 2024
I doubt this Labour government will be any better.
However, both Labour and Conservatives have thrown our money around like a drunken fool buying drinks all round down the pub.
I believe Yvette Cooper is trying to recoup some of the money spent on Rwanda, but I haven’t heard whether we’ll be seeking anything back from the French who haven’t been doing what they were paid to do regarding the boats.
How many millions was that?
July 31, 2024
Last year’s ‘deal’ only about 500 million over three years. Including a detention centre. Hardly ever mentioned but not likely to be in operation until 2026 it seems. Perhaps Ms Cooper should be asked how that’s coming along and how it will work. We should be told.
July 30, 2024
Lies, bigger lies, and statisrics. Whatever inflation was when your party were removed from office it did not appear to contain the price of food in the supermarket or the cost of energy. The latter grossly inflated by ignoring our own sources, grotesque taxation, and the insanity of Nett Zero. The current government are manoevering to line us up for even greater taxation. These high priests of NZ and further incompetence are reported to be intent on subjecting EV owners to the same car tax levels as owners of ICE cars. As most EVs cost more than £40,000 they will suffer the penalty sum on top for the first five years of ownership from new. What do you think that will do to EV ownership.
The grey suits are lining up to lead the remains of the consocialist party in Parliament, all muttering broad church. The only female candidate may have the right ideas but would find it impossible to do anything with the 121 rump of dissidents. They will never prove themselves an alternative when Labour implodes. Face it SJR, the only opposition in a Parliament of 650 are the five of Reform who I suspect will be joined by a few real Conservatives remaining. Once the negativity of 14 years of consocialist in power is combined with what Labour are about to do, the drift to Reform among the electorate will be marked.
Just as Enoch Powell on immigration was a voice in the wilderness, proved to the power of ten in time, so will be your voice on economics. It is just a matter of time as to how long the UK has to wait, but thank you for trying.
July 30, 2024
agricola : “What do you think that [high cost of ownership] will do to EV ownership”
You’re forgetting the current ZEV mandate which will make ices more expensive each year until by 2030 it will be £15,000 per ice vehicle. Followed by a total ban on all new sales.
If you bear in mind that for Red Ed and his comrades in Parliament (just as many in the Conservative Party as in the Lab/Lib Dem/Green Party), the CCC, Ofgem, National Grid, DESNZ etc, no measure or expense is too much when it comes to saving the planet. So it will be considered perfectly justifiable to increase taxes, charges, fines and levies on all private transport. They also need the money let us not forget.
July 30, 2024
PS :
They know very well that CAGW caused by increasing CO2 as a result of burning hydrocarbon fuels is a scam (see Happer & Wijngaarden and IR saturation). It was devised to provide a justification for the impoverishment and subsequent control of Western populations and the policy of curbing private transport is part of this plan.
July 30, 2024
OR.
Well OR I will not be buying an EV new or used. My partner has just replaced her 13 year old sporty Honda Civic with another Honda Civic VTEC Sport. A vote of confidence in a product of marketable quality. I am currently car less, but on the completion of various projects I will buy something suitable for continental touring, used and a tad heretical. The only question is, can I enter and exit my choice. I do not accept being conned by third rate politicos.
July 30, 2024
Morning Sir John,
Obviously based solely on the quoted figures, the inheritance received by the Conservative Party was worse however, the figures don’t really show how the population were feeling at the time.
Labour got in this time purely because The Conservative government had made people feel generally fed up. People felt poorer, saw the way public services were falling apart, the breakdown of law and order and the unsustainable levels of immigration.
Do you think Sir John that, Labour have opened the floodgates for over inflation public employee pay rises? I bet the union barons are rubbing their hands together with glee. It seems Labour are going to fund it on the back of pensioners and the disabled.
July 30, 2024
While the figures the blog quotes were obviously worse in 2010, other figures are worse now such as accumulated national debt as a percentage of annual gross national product; the highest percentage tax burden on incomes for over 70 years; the percentage of people who are economically dependent as a result of being ‘signed off’ as permanently too sick to work is worse and the immigration problem is worse now. However what Labour is making a big fuss about, 22 billion pounds of excess debt is not really that significant as that is only about 2% of annual public spending and under 1% of gross national (or domestic) product and that includes nine billion pounds for above inflation pay rises in the public sector.
However Labour’s choices have been exceptionally bad. For instance,they don’t realise housebuilders need to make a profit or else they will not build and insisting on a higher percentage of mainly loss making affordable homes (on top of extra labour costs and more difficulties in people getting and affording housing loans) will result in less, not more new homes being built. Likewise increasing ’employee protection’ (as well as stopping extra oil production) will result in fewer, not more jobs and adversely affect ‘growth’. Worst of all, at least politically, is Labour choosing to give above inflation pay rises to public sector ‘workers’ who are generally relatively well paid with enormous and protected pensions compared to the private sector while actually cutting the income of most (already relatively very poor) pensioners via stopping their fuel allowances is outrageous. Furthermore giving public sector workers unfunded above inflation pay rises now to prevent strikes this year will while increasing the tax burden and inflation will only cause more public sector pay militancy and industrial action/strikes in future years.
July 30, 2024
A very selective set of figures. How about:
total debt
cost of servicing government debt
legal and illegal immigration
total immigration during period in government
tax burden
Cost of gas, electricity and petrol
Cherry-picking figures is the oldest trick in the book.
So the first cut for people who have paid tax and national insurance all their lives is Winter Fuel Allowance. Not in the Labour Manifesto. Always the way with government. Do the right thing, pay your way, save for your retirement – and you will be punished.
Still, your government had to go so we’ll have to put up with it.
July 30, 2024
National debt is £2.78tn, the population is 67 million.
That’s just over £41,000 each pensioner is liable for on the back of their voting for borrow and waste governments all their adult lives. When will they pay their share, why should it be dumped on the next generation?
July 30, 2024
I’m not paying anything. My vote has never counted.
July 30, 2024
DA
Why not ask your Parents and Grandparents for the answer you request
July 30, 2024
DA “when will they pay their share”!!
Are you actually joking? Their retirement age rose, from 60 to 67 for women of the 1960s. They continue paying in NI for an extra 7 years even though most of them started working at age 16.
The men have to work on an extra two years not claiming their State pension plus paying NI unless they worked for the public sector with a final salary pension the can front end and retire early with police personnel retiring at 55 and some spending as long in retirement as the years they worked.
They lost their tv licence at the age of 75, they are now paying tax on their pension over £12,570 they used to have a higher personal allowance as a retiree to keep them out of that tax trap as their incomes dropped significantly in retirement.
But you go ahead with your false claims they’re not paying more!
July 30, 2024
+1
July 30, 2024
Mike don’t forget Sir John WAS a politician!
July 30, 2024
MT
Agreed and I am sure he did try very hard to get his points across, but few (who were in real power) would not listen, or could not, would not understand, and I believe you could see that JR was getting more and more frustrated himself in his daily postings on here over the last few years.
No surprise he eventually called it a day,
July 30, 2024
Hopefully his blood pressure now under control, and the temptation to kick the cat (only joking we don’t have a cat) gone?
July 30, 2024
@Mike Wilson +1
July 30, 2024
Of course liebour are going to blame the last government, it’s what governments do.
It’s just an excuse to raise taxes and destroy ambition. I see anyone who has been careful and made provisions for retirement will lose the winter fuel allowance, once again the feckless and d
inghy dwellers are prioritised. Can’t say we didn’t expect it after all it’s only continuing where Fishy left off.
Great recruiting sergeant for Reform.
July 30, 2024
Good Morning,
I watched that yesterday, ‘he said…she said’. Both sides cherry-picked. A waste of parliamentary time. All you needed to say was, ‘we told you so’. Labour is going to spend and borrow more and put up taxes, what’s new?
The problem is, those who now infest Parliament think they’re doing their jobs by presenting this theatre. We have real problems, find and tell us the answers.
July 30, 2024
PW +1. If MPs started to be statesmanlike, and talked honestly and clearly about real issues affecting the country, the electorate might be encouraged to give them the time of day. I can’t see that happening though.
July 30, 2024
The electorate wish to know the time of day? Since when?
July 30, 2024
If Reeves was really honest she’d admit the economic fact that hacks her off most: Government debt at c100% of GDP. THis is too high to allow more borrowing year by year. She would like to not have to balance the accounts.
Of course that 100% debt is mainly driven by COVID spend. Labour demanded this spend at the time and if in power would have handed out even more.
July 30, 2024
Covid, excessive benefits, housing help to schemes, bad BOE decisions, energy stupidity, Rwanda, HS2. I’m afraid the list of shame is far longer than Covid.
July 30, 2024
Good points – but I wonder how many of those going to the polls at the beginning of the month knew any of that. As Penny Mordaunt once said: ‘Our communications are sub-optimal [or something like that].’
July 30, 2024
SJR, you say the deficit was 11% in Q1 2010, just before Labour left office. If you mean the trade deficit, there was no trade deficit at that point. According to the ONS, the trade balance (seasonally adjusted and excluding precious metals) was 0.2% in the black.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/internationaltrade/articles/recenttrendsinuktradevolumesandbalances/2010to2024
The ONS shows that this was due to a widening deficit in trade with the EU, where over the years of the Cameron government especially, our imports grew and exports declined as a percentage of GDP. After the disruption of the Covid lockdowns, the trade balance seems to be following the same trend now. One thing this shows is that Brexit did not massively affect trade with the EU, contrary to Remainers’ claims. It was showing the current pattern of trade deficit years before the referendum.
Reply I was talking about the budget deficit. We nearly always ran a trade deficit with EU and a surplus with rest of world.
July 30, 2024
At the end of the financial year (FYE) 2010, the UK government’s gross debt was 69% of its gross domestic product (GDP), £1.1 trillion.
At the end of June 2024, the OBR reported that UK’s government debt was 99.5% of its GDP, £2.7 trillion.
However the Taxpayers Alliance have released a report claiming that when all the Government’s liabilities are included, the real National Debt for 2024 will be £12.1 trillion
https://www.taxpayersalliance.com/briefing_the_real_national_debt_2024#:~:text=In%202024%2D25%20the%20real,will%20be%20%C2%A312.1%20trillion.
The country is effectively bankrupt. There is no serious plan to sensibly cut spending; the Government is still pretending to be a Global Power when they are doing everything they possibly can to destroy our economy with the Net Zero Insanity and our society with mass immigration.
£1 billion to be saved by withdrawing the Winter Fuel Payment from any pensioner who isn’t on benefits. Meanwhile £8 billion-and-rising-by-the-day is paid out just to accommodate the criminal freeloaders the Establishment is importing as fast as it can. When you take into account the whole cost of these invaders, we’re probably talking £100 billion a year.
July 30, 2024
Donna,
Reeves announced they are all to be given an amnesty! 60-90,000. So straight onto welfare and free social housing near you is a good Labour plan! You are not allowed to object to, uk.ding the ghettos near you, Rayner said so.
July 31, 2024
Southport will be delighted!
Let’s have no more ‘we are horrified’ statements from the King up.
This is what they have manufactured in violation of the stated Will of the People.
July 30, 2024
How boring to let facts get in the way.
July 30, 2024
I thought the civil service were supposed to be apolitical.
The attacks on the previous government by Rachel Reeves have been driven by titbits from Treasury officials and OBR apparatchiks. A high prevalence of overpaid Socialists among their number who now delight in assisting government in their zealous pursuit of higher spending through misinformation.
Where were the whistle blowers before the election?
Here’s an idea for Ms Reeves? Cut spending by more then £22 billion without resorting to reverse means tests. Government intervention should be universal or non-existent otherwise there is no motivation to be responsible. We can all have multiple holidays per year and Sky if we know taxpayer will bail us out.
July 30, 2024
It was alleged that 1000 Civil servants were assigned to the Rwanda debacle. The same 1000 should be made redundant – all grades all service lengths. That’s what happens in the commercial world.
July 30, 2024
MT
Just shows how inefficient they were at working doesn’t it,
1000 people to set up a plan which cost £500,000,000 that turned out to be illegal (according to ECHR) and was then scrapped.
Agree sack them, but our new Prime Minister and Chancellor wants to use them for some other project, at even more cost.
Would never happen in a commercial business.
July 30, 2024
You’ve just made me spill my coffee
July 30, 2024
oops … I should start with ‘put your coffee down before my next revelation!’
July 30, 2024
Good to see that Rachel Reeves has scrapped the winter fuel payments to cut down on the pensioners’ CO2 emissions. What a progressive announcement
July 30, 2024
@ Sakara Gold – and will you rejoice also at the extra deaths of those who will now die of cold? Perhaps you will throw a party as not only will CO2 emissions fall but NHS waiting lists too?
July 30, 2024
Yes, a bit colder for us pensioners a bit less CO2. Millions more to reflect come the next GE.
July 30, 2024
oh and those of us who were prudent and have some other pension plus the State one are income taxed!
July 30, 2024
SG
Indeed, but more will probably end up in NHS beds suffering from the effects of the cold.
Yet another take with one hand pay for it with the other policy.
Nothing changes, it just goes into a different account of expenditure.
Meanwhile we spend more than the sum saved on funding foreign aid ?
Great plan. !
July 30, 2024
Why will it cut their CO2 emissions Sakara Gold? What is the relationship between the payment and CO2?
Oh …. it’s because you think they will be priced out of heating their homes effectively this winter. It must warm the cockles of your spiteful little heart that so many elderly people will worry about paying their energy bills, so will turn down the thermostat and, in consequence, if we get a very harsh winter some will die of the cold.
There’s nothing as spiteful as an Eco Zealot.
July 30, 2024
Could I venture to state almost all pensioners, I don’t include those ex-well paid with wonderful private pensions, worry about the power bills most months of the year. Perhaps when the new Labour MPs are expected to agree to their constituents, wrapped in blankets this winter with cold radiators and off to bed mid-evening, deserve to lose the £200. I bet they won’t be shivering like a few million others.
July 30, 2024
Damn those pensioners who refused their full tally of jabs! Still breathing and paying their grandchildren’s school fees, and much else, mostly still working too.
They deserve to be taxed to death.
So says Mr Cold.
I would sell you EV pdq while you can still get £200 for it to compensate; for the list winter payment.
July 30, 2024
I don’t know any grandparents who pay for grandchildren’s school fees. Its a quite different world for the great majority.
July 31, 2024
Whatever the income and assets, pensioners are hard pressed. Well taxpayers are hard pressed. We are all £5 short of what we need, which = disaster.
School fees are critical because you have one opportunity to educate the next generation. In the U.K. this is becoming an impossible task.
July 30, 2024
You missed out the national debt and debt interest payments. Deliberately of course as they don’t support your proposition.
July 30, 2024
Instead of listening to all of this blame game nonsense just get the IMF investigators in – there is a black hole there for sure and we need to know – they won’t be long sorting it out
July 31, 2024
The black hole is on the benches of Westminster. The IMF will not find it. Surely the OBR know about it? It’s their job to know EXACTLY what the nooks will be like in 2029, so a current black hole is child’s play for them.
July 30, 2024
Sir John
I think most people or at least I knew what was coming, but, the last Conservative Government had gone off the rails and needed replacing. The Conservative Party had the option to become Conservative but refused – so what choice did the electorate have?
In practice we have the same party in power just with a different leadership.
July 30, 2024
In an interview of GB News the commentator observed the so-called Conservatives still don’t get it, get why the lost with such a large drubbing. The internal factions are not different side of Conservatism but different divides of the Political spectrum all hell-bent on destroying the Conservative Party. It is/was never about being left or right.
The commentator concluded the Conservative Party like all parties doesn’t have the right to exists and on reviewing the candidate list for the leadership the party is likely to split. Conservatives in the Party will shuffle towards Reform, then the followers of the leadership contenders will merge with their rightful home the Liberal Democrats.
There is on reflection not much that can be argued with that analysis
July 31, 2024
The Lib Dems are left of Labour, let’s hope the Tories try Labour first. Labour deserve them and the Lib Dems need to be wiped out.
July 30, 2024
The National Debt was c. £980 billion when the Conservatives won. Now it is close to £3 trillion. That must make the Conservatives proud.
July 30, 2024
Very proud Rob and they should stand up and say so.
It’s balanced by £3 trillion of Gilt savings assets, entirely sustainable as it is Sterling and obviously rising fast because we have an ageing population requiring savings. We should be proud of the triple lock.
Have you got any gilt edged saving certificates in your pension Rob or in your stocks and shares ISA to help balance your risk. You know when you sit down with your financial adviser and they ask you how many bonds you want in your saving portfolio ?
Balance sheets balance Rob. The £3 trillion is a liability to the government but the asset side of the balance sheet is our savings held by the private sector as gilts.
All entirely voluntarily a political choice. If we stopped selling Gilts and started paying interest on reserves tomorrow everything would continue as before – except that banks would quickly stop getting free money from government.Why would you want to pay welfare to banks rather than people?
And if course Rob as soon as somebody decides not to save, but to spend their income that generates *additional* taxation, causes somebody else to earn an income – more taxation – and then spend – more taxation – and so on. Sum up that geometric series and you’ll find that it matches the ‘debt’ precisely, for any positive tax rate.
Government debt, and the Gilt savings it consists of, are a store of taxation that will precisely pay off the debt each time, every time.
Time to stop fretting about money Rob and start concentrating on the real problems – energy and food security and the lack of productivity due to poor investment and cheap foreign labour.
July 30, 2024
Ah the irony. The OBR now has a big knife firmly between the shoulders of the last government. You should have scrapped it when you had the chance.
July 30, 2024
But you left them with a social-economic inheritance of high illegal /legal immigrants, higher tax burden, higher crime, less local government services, continued policy of net-zero, the political hatred of the ICE motorist, the policy of road restrictions and a fundamental shift in politics to the ‘left’ ….the long-term social costs can be higher than the short-term economic costs
July 30, 2024
Sir John
“Which was the worse inheritance?”
Maybe the highest tax take in 70 years, the highest ever peace time borrowing. The growth of the jobs-for-the-boys Quangos rather than the ‘promised’ bonfire. The refusal to get ‘Brexit’ done leaving the UK able to drift back in and purgatory. The ever growing ‘NHS Lists’ and its increasing money-pit
The there is the 14 year of broken manifesto promises that have just evolved into lies to get elected – which is why it is contradictory to accuse Labour of doing the same.
The we have the laws, the NetZero Laws that do not apply elsewhere in the Countries we are supposed to compete with, the countries that are receiving our off-shoring of our industrial base, the countries we are then forced to import those goods we need.
Then we have a democratically elected Legislator that refuses its job and leaves us tied to EU Laws and Regulations and the ECHR – when did we elect this body as our Legislators when it is the first thing they refuse to do?
The worst inheritance is the UK Parliament, career politicians looking for a quiet life refusing the jobs they have been empowered and paid to do.
I wish for the UK a proper functioning democracy yet our MPs have captured the high ground on that and are refusing its place as part of our freedoms.
Reply You are confusing inheritance with assessment of use of powers to govern. The Conservatives let us down over migration, inflation and taxes, but if Labour had been in power all those would have been worse.
July 30, 2024
The economic inheritance will pale into insignificance compared to the economic destruction planned by Red Ed and his comrades in Parliament (all parties bar Reform), the CCC, Ofgem, DESNZ and the National Grid in the cause of saving the planet by decarbonising our electricity by 2030, as the start of completely eliminating our current 1% contribution to global CO2 emissions by 2050.
The most frightening aspect is that Red Ed and his ideologically driven (“I would never use private medicine”) boss will not U-turn even when the rolling blackouts start.
July 30, 2024
PS :
The National Grid in its 2024 Future Energy Scenario report state that we must decarbonise by 2050 in order to achieve a “fair, affordable, sustainable and secure clean energy system by 2050”.
How can it be “fair” for the Government to cancel the Winter Fuel Allowance (WFA) for pensioners when it is the chase for Net Zero that is the reason for our high fuel costs? The cost of fuel in the US is a third or less of the UK and scrapping Net Zero would save everyone far more than the £200/household WFA. David Turver calculates that £12bn/year is the current cost of renewables, or £400/year per household, a figure which will rise dramatically if net zero electricity by 2030 continues to be the goal to save the planet.
July 30, 2024
@Original Richard – pensioners are the past, they have to pay for their mistakes in voting for the continued lies foisted on them. That appears to be Labours start to build a future, nothing must be paid by those that work only those that are not allowed jobs and made the mistake of preparing for their future. Labours every-man approach is if you are beholden to the State and work you are the cream to rise to the top through bigotry and tax,
July 30, 2024
Reply to Lemming.
What’s so wrong with telling anyone they are or were wrong?
Are we not allowed any more to say people were or are mistaken, and thus wrong.
Why should anyone feel required to apologise for expressing an opinion?
July 30, 2024
I suspect that the next election-winning leader of the Conservative Party is not even in the Commons yet. The present list of runners and riders all are tarred with the same Cabinet (Indecisions). They are all making claims now about what they would do – but how did they actually vote in Cabinet on these topics??
July 31, 2024
Agreed. I can’t see any of the Leadership candidates becoming PM. I can envisage the Party splitting and the merger of 3/4 with the LibDems, to create the Liberal-Conservative Party, and 1/4 walking away or joining Reform.
July 30, 2024
Those numbers will seem like a golden age compared to what will happen by the next GE.
Besides they will not mean a lot with factories closing, food and energy scarcities along with a host of new laws to make us do with what resources are available.
In future the only important numbers will be population figures, and how many people died due to government indifference combined with a lack of food and heat.
July 31, 2024
But the deaths are hidden in the ‘figures’ because of the imports. There is a huge increase in deaths post Covid jabs. The actuaries have all the details.
We should consult them.
July 30, 2024
You can argue about the financial inheritance of the current Labour Government compared to previous Conservative Governments, but I think there is a more important issue.
That is why the Conservative Government in Coalition, then on its own, then with an 80-seat majority, did not promote a conservative philosophy, values and policies to the UK voters and through the education system.
It’s regrettable that we’ve experienced lockdowns, which should never have happened, and the associated spending, and that Quangos, including the OBR, have not been dismantled. Andrew Bailey’s continued tenure despite gross misconduct over inflation is a missed opportunity for change. Fourteen years have been squandered by weak leadership, PMs who were liberals rather than Conservatives and following Labour, not
conservative, policies. Our” Conservative” PMs have sown the wind and now reaped the whirlwind. They are responsible for the next five years of rotten Labour government!
July 30, 2024
+1
July 30, 2024
Morning John hope you are well.
It is all propaganda trying to push the blame onto the Tories so let’s use facts to debunk it. Please forgive me as this will be quite a long post in order to debunk it.
There is no black hole, the budget deficit is the private sector surplus to the penny as the the office of national statistics show clearly here ..
https://new-wayland.com/blog/uk-sectoral-balances/
The absolute truth is a country like Britain can never be broke because it issues its own currency. We are a fully sovereign nation state.The argument here is effectively that the Government can borrow as much as it wants because the Bank of England (BoE) can buy up the bonds even if private investors do not want to hold them. In this vision, all the Chancellor must do is lean on the central bank and tell it to buy the debt. Or the government Simply doesn’t issue bonds at all since it is a left over from the gold standard and as we did before the Mastricht Treaty we just Use the ways and means account instead.
So what are Labour actually saying ? What is their propaganda trying to push ?
“That Britain runs a very large trade deficit. In the third quarter of 2023, it is estimated that the country had a current account deficit of £21.2 billion — or 3.1% of GDP. To finance this deficit, the British Government must sell debt to foreigners. If these sales dried up, sterling would have to adjust downward to close the gap, resulting in a substantial rise in the price of imports.”
They are effectively saying due to the trade deficit we have to run austerity. Which Roger Bootle in the Telegraph and MMT economists have debunked for decades now. Roger Bootle in his white paper how to leave the Eurozone and MMT economists in several white papers over many decades. Bill Mitchell addressed it yesterday on his blog that Roger Bootle and any sensible conservative would agree with in this link
https://billmitchell.org/blog/?p=61890
People who say ( whoever is advising Labour ) – “If you make exporting more difficult you will eventually make importing more expensive as foreign reserves are depleted and borrowing foreign currency gets more expensive (and or the pound devaluates).”
Nope. That’s fixed exchange rate thinking. Bretton Woods ended in 1971
The problem is fixed exchange rate thinking, which comes from mainstream economics and its everything is a veil over barter myth. They are applying fixed exchange rate thinking on floating rates.
In any national economy there is the pile of stuff you can make yourself, then there is the stuff you can get from somewhere else which makes the pile bigger (imports), and after that there is the amount of stuff you have to give to somewhere else which makes your pile smaller (exports).
The only reason to export is because you can’t get imports for promises (currency). If there are no imports on offer, then you may as well keep what you would have exported for yourself – redeploying manpower as needed to other areas. Why of course Brexiteers and Trump pushed more import substitution and more self reliance. As it makes perfect sense to do so.
The obsession with exports by Labour is the wrong focus. The obsession should be with imports and then providing as little as possible in exports to ensure they turn up. Everybody used to know this it is called our real terms of trade but for lost during neoliberalism and globalism.
In reality our trade is balanced. The balancing export product everybody is missing are ‘Sterling savings’ – mere promises. Which tells us that ‘abroad’ is sending us things for nothing material in return – meaning they have no better alternative. Are willing to Send us stuff we actually use in return for hoarding our gilts at the BOE.
Producing for domestic consumption, and imports are what improve the standard of living for UK residents. Not pass through. Not ‘export led growth’. The needs of the country are not the needs of the exporter. That’s why we left the EU, which favoured UK exporters over UK workers. You win in international trade by exporting as little as possible and importing as much as possible. It’s the physical exchange that represents the terms of trade and the standard of living increase, not accumulating foreign coins from other nations.
There is a section of society ( Remainers ) that believes that everything should be sacrificed on the altar of ‘international trade’. Once you realise that exports are a physical loss to the country and imports are a physical benefit that increase our standard of living then you can switch that belief around.
As a major net importer we receive items in return for mere blips on a central bank spreadsheet. That’s not a bad thing. That’s a demonstration that those exporting to us haven’t got anywhere else to send their stuff that offers a more material return. That’s not to say we go mad, just that we can look at things from a different point of view. International issues aren’t quite the straitjacket many believe.
Domestic first and foremost. Imports second with ‘structural autarky’, ie diversity of supply across trading blocs focussed on discretionary items with supply sufficient to withstand a failure of one supplier. Exports very much at the back of the queue.
Where imports of needed items are required (we have no more iron ore for example) then that has to be matched with exports the rest of the world will find hard to substitute. I’d suggest green energy exports would be the best there – synthesised fuels created from the excess generation of nuclear power stations for example.
Back to Roger Bootle and MMT economists regarding Brexit. Who show the very simple fact that In order for exporters and those that choose an export your way to growth model, to keep their market share because their exports have become too expensive and UK Consumers buy cheaper local products instead. In short if imports become too expensive Consumers who only have a set monthly income will change their buying habits and choose cheaper local products instead. Consumers perform their own type import substitution.
In order for exporters to keep their market share because their exports have become too expensive. Exporters to the UK face some tough choices.They can cut wages, cut their staff, cut hours worked or cut their prices. When they cut their prices this moves the floating rate in the direction they want it to move – lower and thus moves the £ higher. The floating rate naturally adjusts.
Labour and their advisors are stuck in a time of fixed exchange rates. There is no living beyond our means with a trade deficit. In real terms of trade we are winning the trade war and thus no need for austerity or trying to blame others. It is just another form of propaganda to prevent tax cuts. As they push the tax payer money myth.
Roger Bootle and Warren Mosler could destroy them in live debate within ten minutes. This argument they are using
” Since imports make up around 33.4% of GDP this would mean a rise in the price of approximately a third of British goods and services. Such inflation would feed through into the system more generally and Britain would see substantially higher inflation. This in turn would mean a decline in real incomes and another round of the cost-of-living crisis. And so the choice for the Government is to impose austerity through tax increases and spending cuts or allow the markets to impose austerity through higher rates of inflation. ”
Would no longer cut the mustard and become a fairytale. Conservatives can take this narrative head in and defeat it. The question is will today’s conservatives ( Remainers ) even want to ?
Hope this helps John and once again sorry for the length of it.
See the Irish after the Brexit vote. They exported to the UK and when the £ plummeted and the Euro soared. Irish exporters were in trouble and some went bankrupt. Never mind lose some of their market share.
July 30, 2024
@Derek Henry – if you backdate the previously unreviewed and unpublish pay reviews – you get a ‘black hole’ a ‘black hole’ that previously couldn’t exists. Then if you get you right arm the OBR to blame the Treasury you are home and dry.
July 30, 2024
There’s no black hole Ian It is a myth. The BBC are lying to everyone.
It is not a household budget, way too many people on the right have fallen for the household fallacy.
The budget deficit = The private sector surplus as the ONS real data chart shows above. If the government Issues £100 into the economy when it spends but then only collects £70 of that £100 in taxes.
The liability side of the balance sheet says the government is running a £30 deficit. However the asset side of the balance sheet shows the private sector has a £30 surplus. The government put £100 into the economy but only took £70 back out of the economy as taxes. The £30 remains in the economy as the private sector financial assets i.e people’s savings.
But you are 100% right Ian the OBR and IFS and BOE ( all unelected ) now run our economy by proxy. They use the household fallacy, the deficit myth and debt myth and push the tax payer money myth to do it.
Conservatives fall for it as they only ever look at the liability side of the government balance sheet and completely ignore the asset side. When you study and take a look at the asset side of the government balance sheet. You very quickly realise that ….
The government budget deficit = The private sector surplus. The national debt is just some of that surplus that has been swapped for a gilt. As households and businesses swap the surplus they hold as cash for a gilt edge savings certificate. So they can earn more interest on their savings.
Pension funds, savings portfolios all hold gilts as they swapped their cash for them. Some people even go directly to NS& I and buy them. The national debt is an asset to us the private sector. We hold it as our savings.
People’s desire to save ( cash ) decides the size of the budget deficit.
People’s desire to hold government bonds ( Gilts ) decides the size of the national debt.
The external sector ( Foreigners ) like to save in £’s. House holds like to save in £’s and businesses like to save in £’s. They all have savings desires. Which balances to the penny the liability side of the government balance sheet. The deficit and the debt – Balance sheets balance.
All it is, is all the money that has ever been issued by the government that hasn’t been collected by taxes yet. The reason it hasn’t been collected as taxes is because people save and don’t spend all of their income.
Read the international best seller – The deficit myth – by Stephanie Kelton. Then you’ll understand the propaganda Labour are trying to pull off here.
Or watch the film – Finding the Money – on Apple TV. That was the number one most watched documentary on there.
July 30, 2024
yes it is probably the longest contribution I can remember, whats your secret….nudge nudge!
July 30, 2024
a great start ‘ trying to push the blame onto the Tories so let’s use facts to debunk it.’
July 30, 2024
No true Conservative Government would have presided over fourteen years of deficits, the highest taxes for 70-plus years, the criminal freezing of tax allowances, the increase in corporation tax, and the shambles of an overly complicated tax system.
And let’s not forget their equally deceptive behaviour in promoting Net Zero, a scheme that can only be described as the biggest fraud for the last 500 years!
They were afraid to face the reality of the situation, tell voters the hard truths and take action to correct the problems. Just how thick are the PMs and Chancellors of the last fourteen years to think they can carry on running up annual deficits as if there is no tomorrow? The only benefit of fourteen years of weak, sloppy leadership and management is that the UK debt will constrain Labour to some extent.
July 30, 2024
No good, no one will listen while they keep shouting the odds about the £22bn (gone up £2bn in three weeks) which was left which they knew about but deny knowing. Liars as well as wreckers now in power. I fear for my money and home as I am a pensioner and have worked hard all my life. Now I worry they will stop the state pension which I paid into for 39 years (more actually but they never told me to stop) and get a smaller amount than those who have retired later on (I get £50+ less under the new state pension). I have also been taxed on my two small private pensions for the last two years so the Tories have not been good to me either. Someone please help. Now I am losing my fuel allowance as well which helped. Thank goodness I know all about cold being born into the terrible winter of 1947 when the coalman could not get up our hill and Mom had to go round looking for twigs to heat the home. No central heating then. All I remember about my childhood is how cold it was.
July 30, 2024
Exactly. You made up your mind to be quick when needing to use the little room it was so cold. And overcoats on top of blankets, waking up to ice inside the windows. Using hot water bottles to stop the beds feeing like an ice-bath.
July 30, 2024
I am not a fan of the man, but someone has at least questioned having a sovereign democratic parliament. Or in my words is the UK a puppet of a foreign unelected unaccountable regime, or does it have legitimacy to be the UK’s a democracy with elected Legislators. It is that simply.
“Mr Jenrick, who quit Rishi Sunak’s Cabinet over immigration, reaffirmed his support for the UK to quit the European Convention on Human Rights, saying: “I believe our people and Parliament must be sovereign.”
There is nothing we need from the ECHR that our own Legislators couldn’t create, then be able to amend and repeal. It is about the legitimacy of Parliament, MPs and our Demcoracy
July 30, 2024
My old hobby horse once more
Reported today
“Chinese hackers were able to access the data of 40m voters after staff at the Electoral Commission failed to update their passwords, a report has found.”
“Hackers were able to access the electoral register for more than a year, and the servers were repeatedly accessed until the incident was discovered in October 2022.”
“Details including names, addresses, National Insurance numbers, nationalities and ages are on the electoral register.”
Government policy is to ensure the State, and those it calls authorities has unfeted access without cause to every part of our lives – so they can go on fishing trips for wrong doing. A government in fear of its people. The ultimate consequence their access gives everyone access both friend and foe. We are vulnerable because government wants it that way.
July 30, 2024
Ian B : “We are vulnerable because government wants it that way.”
Yes, one of the purposes of the Net Zero push for everything to be electrified is to ensure that our national and local grids will become the biggest hacking target in the world to ensure our complete economic and military insecurity and subsequent collapse. We won’t even know who’s in control.
July 30, 2024
@Original Richard – it has recently been stated that the UK has the largest database for tracking its inhabitants in the World, larger than the likes of China, the USA etc clubbed together. Then again EV’s are controlled not by the driver, but the supplier or for that matter anyone the government calls an authority – up pops China again. You get to question the real motive behind the push
July 30, 2024
Liz on form tonight on GB News giving it to the BoE ….she should be PM (with the support of every tory MP)
July 31, 2024
@glen cullen – that the bit missing Tory/Conservative MPs. The current management and leadership contenders prove we will never see another conservative under their direction enter parliament. What is left is a gaggle of Liberal Democrats lining up their merger with Ed Davey’s shower.
Destroyed from within and they still don’t get it