this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2023
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[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago (3 children)

His plan to fix over a decades worth of spending cuts is spending cuts? The fuck?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The conservatives burn it all down, the liberals preserve the status quo - even if that's ashen ruins.

Perish the thought of building anything - that'll mean we can't give tax breaks to those that need them the last.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

They used lower-case L, suggesting they mean a place on the political spectrum, rather than a political party.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

The Labour Party.

This isn't unique to the UK by any stretch of the imagination, which is why I used the broad terms.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I don't know what he's referring to when he references the health of the economy, because there's no context, nor is the full quote present. But if he's talking about debt as a percentage of GDP, it's over 100% now, which hasn't been the case since World War II debt was paid down past that point in the early 1960s.

Reducing that ratio will probably mean spending cuts or more taxes or both. Both are already apparently happening now. At the end of last year:

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/17/uk-finance-minister-announces-tax-hikes-and-spending-cuts-says-country-is-in-recession.html

UK finance minister announces tax hikes and spending cuts, says country is in recession

Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt, in his hotly anticipated inaugural Autumn Statement, outlined around £30 billion in spending cuts and £25 billion in tax hikes.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Does it say in the article that he is planning cuts? My understanding of it was that he just said he wasn't going to start suddenly spending a bunch more money

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

I may be being overly pessimistic but it reads like speding cuts at worst or spend freezes at best for their term in government to me.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (2 children)

What's the point of a Labour government if they don't change anything?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

Easier to introduce actual policy when you've already gotten in

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Must less stringent than the incoming Blair government, which actually committed to kep to the outgoing Tory government’s spending limits during the election.

It’s a way of defusing attacks from the Tory press about untrammelled spending. There’s still a lot that an income Labour government can do that will be different

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Isn't it funny how something always comes up in the media around election time that makes people not want to vote for Labour?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


The Labour leader will use a speech on the economy to warn that Britain is in its worst economic state in more than half a century and lay the ground for what shadow ministers expect to be extremely tight spending constraints after the general election.

Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, has previously said that Labour will not go into the next election promising unfunded departmental spending pledges or tax rises beyond those they have already set out.

These two pledges have limited how much room the party has to promise to lift government spending in an effort to relieve the pressure on Britain’s stretched public services.

Starmer and Reeves have not yet decided whether they will match the Tory spending plans for at least the first few years of a Labour government, as Tony Blair and Gordon Brown did going into the 1997 election.

Many MPs and members are already angry about Starmer’s refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, and were further irritated by his praise for the former Tory prime minister Margaret Thatcher over the weekend.

Starmer admitted that part of the reason for his comments was to woo wavering Tory voters, as polls show that many people have still to make up their mind how they will vote at the next election.


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