what distinguishes the left is having the correct opinion too early
hopefully a sign of which way the wind is blowing.
UK General Election 4th July
- Thread starter Agema
- Start date
Not quite-- that £35b additional spending pressure is factoring in Labour's plans, and includes elements which certainly weren't part of the gov plan back in March. Things like the public sector pay rise.
But it's certainly true that there's an enormous financial shortfall, the scope of which was kept from the public (and the incoming government) until after the election. The OBR only has limited powers to drill into this stuff-- to a degree it has to rely on Ministers' assumptions.
Well, not really.
The OBR is given the spending plans for the government, and can only crunch the numbers it is given. So if the government leaves anything out, or makes mistakes, or has very vague costings, the OBR has to work with that. Labour's complaint is, in simple terms, that the government underplayed its budget costs to the OBR.
There's a much larger issue going on currently with the OBR. Essentially, the OBR was created to create (semi-)independent oversight of government finances. What this has led to is the government deciding to massage the narrative through controlling the numbers sent to the OBR: in effect, thereby making the OBR kind of pointless. Secondly, Liz Truss had sort of a point (and it's not often anyone will get to say that) about the way the OBR now operates, in that it has turned into a straightjacket for public policy. In order to gain trust with fiscal responsibility, the government has imposed on itself a load of rules, with the OBR supplying the oversight. This now means that the government may feel compelled to either take suboptimal policy to meet the rules, or a significant hit in trust by ignoring / removing the rules.
So it seems that in retaliation of losing the election the far right is now flooding the UK with violent protests. Likely a scheme to claim the left can't keep order and that they need a big strong far right leader to restore the order the far right broke.
It's not necessarily much to do with the election. It's entirely possible it's more to do with a chance event (the Southport murders) coupled with Tommy Robinson about to be jailed again. It's entirely possible it's just the football hooligans got bored because the Summer break is on so they haven't had a chance to beat someone up after the match in ages.
Its possible but given their main argument is that the killer was a refugee and that this wasn't the case it does seem that their anger isn't in good faith, and is in fact artificial.
While most leaders do this to the previous party in power... they have brought a lot of receipts
I also don't think Stamer is fit for this job. He's just better than the last 5 leaders
He's brought receipts for the enormous gap between pre-existing spending commitments and government income, but that gap doesn't make it necessary to cut public services (as I'd interpret 'things will get worse' to euphemistically mean). How that gap is bridged is a political choice, and there are a lot of other options.
I'm not that bothered... yet. The UK is in poor shape. The economy has been stagnant, growth opportunities via EU trade are strangled post-Brexit, debt is high. This does limit options. In terms of national interest, it could be argued that a "trust building" exercise might have benefits, because if the international markets start going cold on Labour, it could make it's long-term work across the administration significantly harder.
However, it's not hard to see that this may be political. In terms of Labour's long-term position, it wants to avoid playing straight into stock Tory attack lines about budget-busting deficits that have substantial public traction. Emphasising how bad it is is also an opportunity to cause lasting damage to the Tories' (undeserved) long-term reputation as the "party of economic competence". Then there's the classic of making short-term savings early in an administration and then loosing the purse strings later so the public feel the benefits most around the election. Cynical, but it often works.
Stamer unfortunately is riding in on the coats of the failure of the Tories. He did little to say much about the policies he wanted to enact and there was little scrutiny of those policies.
If Stamer ends up being an extension of the austerity of the last 15 years, it would not surprise me.
This is presumably going to be a 4-5 year term in office before the next general election. I'm more concerned with that long term, if not also the 5-20 years after it. Austerity will almost certainly fail. It has before and it will again - so it makes little sense for Labour to do it as long-term strategy. A brief spell of austerity might however "buy" increased room for later largesse (whether in political capital, business / finance market confidence, budget, etc.). What matters more is that long-term outcome, as politics already has too much short-term thinking.
So whilst I have concerns, I'd also take the stance of "too soon to say" and avoid knee-jerk reactions to what may just be the early stages of more complex plans.