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So decisions CAN be made before the Spending Review
Yes, and even more easily for emergency things where money can be found immediately without having to wait for any cycle.
So goes back to the point about if having children in poverty in the UK in 2024 is seen as an emergency by the government as if they want to start fixing it they can do so.
Removing the cap won't remove that many kids from poverty and even then they will be just above the line so not a lot of difference. If we want a much more equitable society big things that will take a long time need to be done. Better starting those earlier. A few weeks into the new parliament isn't the time for simplistic headline grabbers.
They clearly have a reason for not removing the cap now and I doubt it's because they are worried about a right wing back last given their majority and the implosion of the Tories. According to Ernie even the Daily Fail is behaving.
Communism failed the humanity test too. In theory a fantastic way of doing things (and will ultimately be the way things have to go for humankind to live sustainably), but in the end people couldn’t make it work
MMT is not an ideology. Both political parties currently operate within this system. It's a description or lens of the current fiat monetary system for spending.
Labour and Tories both operate within it - badly. As it stands.
(Keynesian economics is not MMT but does share the concept that if fiscal space can me made and the private sector isn't growing - you could or should expand the state. MMT is the description of how.)
Reeves and Labour are tying themselves in knots over this.
The MMT lens says we can optimise spending without the constraint that we need private money to fund the state.
Basically this whole 20bn argument fails on every level. They are going to make everything worse by using the narrative.
(Which is false by the way.)
Labour have had a long time too see this coming, economist and new Labour MP Torsten Bell - flagged it a while ago. So why he didn't tell Reeves - ahem. Give us a break.
Labour are about discover that messing with the electorate or keeping them in the dark has a downside (certainly through the myth of tax and spend.)
We can blame the Tories for lots of issues for sure, but not for what the current government can spend.
Total horse-shit.
https://twitter.com/StephanieKelton/status/1817200780971024435?t=9BB9Nfw2329rFCYuK0nucw&s=19
They clearly have a reason for not removing the cap now and I doubt it’s because they are worried about a right wing back last given their majority and the implosion of the Tories. According to Ernie even the Daily Fail is behaving.
It's not a very good or practical reason though.
They prefer a good kicking of the left.
Government can spend what it wants any time it wants. (That's covered in parliamentary law through the supplies and appropriations act.)
Any sort of spending review is often just a way of reinforcing the Tory narrative of finite money. (Not saying they don't have to pass budgets. Of course they do but it is only a formality, not a restriction.)
Spending reviews - akin to looking for savings. That process has already been done. Pared to the bone.
Let's face it - being kind - Labour are treading water over all the stuff they've made up to gain power.
You've got the majority - let's start putting things in place please and get on with fixing stuff.
The papers will give you a hard time over debt - so what?
The USA has done well out of vast government stimulus.
Get on with it. Take the bit from Biden and his team that worked.
So goes back to the point about if having children in poverty in the UK in 2024 is seen as an emergency by the government as if they want to start fixing it they can do so.
An interesting idea/thought from a mate earlier.
If estimates are right of £3-3.5bn per year, each month of not lifting the cap saves £250m approx. Just context against the cost of 5 quantum hubs above.
The thought was - for most in poverty, the costs of heating in the colder months are the crippling factor. Heating vs eating, I believe they say. In the 2-3 months that it'll take the taskforce to come to a conclusion - and as I have said I'd be surprised if there isn't a lifting of the cap or similar from that - that's 0.5-0.75bn - or 1-2 hospitals.
Is it an emergency right now or is there a bit of thinking time with lower impact?
Anyway - round and round we go.
Anyone want to comment on Starmer and assisted dying / euthanasia / end of life care? ( See my post on the previous page)
Will he have the moral conviction to see this thru? Will he advocate for it? Will it lose out to legislative logjam or will he push it thru?
For it to go thru it needs someone with conviction to drive it thru
I do not expect this to be a top priority but I do expect it in this parliament.
Let’s hope so. While there are people who need the law changed NOW, and many more who needed it changed earlier (widows and widowers being treated as criminals while grieving is an inhuman injustice), the new laws and support need carefully framing and putting in place, not rushing. I hope Starmer will have the understanding to appreciate how essential law change is, but also how crucial it is to get it right.
Anyone want to comment on Starmer and assisted dying / euthanasia / end of life care? ( See my post on the previous page)
We live in a democracy, Starmer is not the supreme leader, he is one voice on any decision taken on this, and it will be assessed through the appropriate department and their leads before being sent up through the chain to vote if required.
Is it possible that the current anouncements of how bad the economy really is could be laying the groundwork as a reason for a u-turn on the fiscal rules. "We didn't realise it was this bad, so we are going to have to borrow more"?
It’s looking that way, but if they’re going to increase tax it’s not going to be income tax/VAT/National Insurance but ‘wealth’ taxes like capital gains and inheritance tax, which unless you’re Rishi Sunak I can’t see effecting that many people. Not that that’ll stop the right wing press going into meltdown, obviously
cost is less than half that.
According to who?
And you didn't actually address the point, when energy (unit costs and usage) are low is there a significant impact of a 3 month delay?
MMT is not an ideology. Both political parties currently operate within this system. It’s a description or lens of the current fiat monetary system for spending.
Yes it is. The money creation part of MMT is perhaps the least controversial. MMT says 1. Govts that have a central bank, a robust and resilient economy and their own money creating ability (USA, Canada, UK, Japan etc) can probably run a larger deficit that current orthodoxy suggests. 2. The only real measures a government needs to pay attention to are inflation and and full employment, and 3, in order to maintain full employment, should act as the employer of last resort.
It's a macro economic theory, of course its ideology.
The two child cap issue is not going to go away.
Sure, but lets remind ourselves that it's been in existence for 7 years, is a Tory creation and in that time hasn't been mentioned once by any poster on any thread at any time, and all of a sudden it's the thing you're criticising Starmer for not getting rid off? If it walks and quacks...
We live in a democracy, Starmer is not the supreme leader, he is one voice on any decision taken on this, and it will be assessed through the appropriate department and their leads before being sent up through the chain to vote if required.
Oh for sure. But its a big step to have a PM that has that sort of statement on his record. Very significant. gives me hope.
Actually nickc I have mentioned it before. Mo0re than once. 🙂
But you're also a self-described "Deep Green" and you've also said on any number of climate-change threads that the single biggest impact on climate-change any individual can have is the decision not to have children, and yet here you are criticising this govt for not financially supporting parents with larger families. Those two things are incompatible.
Anyone want to comment on Starmer and assisted dying / euthanasia / end of life care?
I will TJ as I agree it's an important issue. It's complex but causing untold misery to many people. Hopefully we can now have a grown up discussion about it realising there is no perfect solution but the current situation can not be allowed to continue. This is exactly the sort of thing we need government to be taking a sober view on and implementing carefully thought through legislation. Hopefully this will be the antitheist of Tory knee jerk piss poor rushed legislation. Go Labour.
End of life care also needs to be addressed, I think it was one of the medical professionals who said on here we need to stop medicallising death, you get to a point where ongoing active medical intervention is almost abusive, not in the patient's best interests and soaks up huge amounts of resources. We need to create a proper end of life care system and not rely on a hotpotch of charitable palliative care hospices.
I think morally, assisted dying has won the case. I'm hesitant to say it should come into law. As soon as you say to one group of people, "you are a special case, and we'll allow it for you" the very next thing is a legal challenge by the next group who also want that ability, and morally you pretty much have to concede it.
Canada has seen their assisted dying numbers go from about a thousand in 2016, to over 13,000 now. It accounts for 4% of deaths. I think here in the UK, we really do need to think carefully.
I'd be really surprised if only 4% of deaths were abusively cruel.
“you are a special case, and we’ll allow it for you” the very next thing is a legal challenge by the next group who also want that ability, and morally you pretty much have to concede it.
Its an interesting point. Under Canadian law there was a challenge to the supreme court who decided under equalities legislation which treated mental illness as a disability that mentally ill folk should be able to access MAID with their mental illness as the reason for accessing maid (canadian name). At them moment there is a stay on enacting this while the government considers this.
In the proposed Scots legislation mental health is not a criteria and the courts cannot expand that criteria was the view from the top legal bods. So what happened in Canada with the courts expanding the limits could not happen here.
Netherlands has very wide limits but for mental illness the criteria is ( to paraphrase) "Intolerable suffering over many years when all treatment options have been tried"
Its certainly a political decision as to where the limits should lie. The scots legislation is "terminal illness of sound mind" so a fairly tight definition
there is also the question of "doctor assisted" or not. The scots law is "not" ie the person has to take the potion themselves
I am surprised Canada is only 4% of deaths. I would expect more under a mature law. Many would be hastening the end by days I would have thought
I'm for it, very pro-choice.
There was an interesting article on the radio though the other day - to have assisted dying, as a choice, we have to get an awful lot better at palliative care as well. Because if the choice is between assisted dying or a terrible death then that's not a choice either.
It didn't make me change opinion but did reframe it for me somewhat.
Palliative care in the UK is generally not bad. There are holes in the net but the general level is not bad at all.
This may be an apt place to drop this video, excellent watch.
Simon Kuper has been a journalist at the Financial Times for three decades - so he’s seen up close how Britain works, and who it works for.
In his latest book, ‘Good Chaps: How Corrupt Politicians Broke Our Law and Institutions’, Kuper chronicles changes in the instincts of Britain’s ruling class - and how corruption came to be increasingly normalised.
What do these elites believe? When did those beliefs change? And who are the people, places and policies that led to such shifts? Watch the conversation to find out
Palliative care in the UK is generally not bad. There are holes in the net but the general level is not bad at all.
Happy to accept that; I have no real expertise, just repeating the comment I'd heard (in the way I'd interpreted it). I don't think it was an anti choice position but they weren't over positive about the provision, and made me think.
Even if it is good currently, there's still then a caution, that we absolutely must not let it deteriorate because there's a safety net of being able to reach for the assisted dying button.
The point is perfectly valid. Provision could be much better and a focus on it would be right as you say. People need a proper free choice not Hobsens choice.
I was more interested in the political ramification given this is a political thread. I can see some of the press being very anti and running scare stories. There will be a backlash from both the estabilised church and evangelicals. Medical professions are split tho probably pro overall. Many tories will be very much against I would think tho it does have crossbench support in Holyrood
Will labour expend some political capital? Will Starmer want to play a role? Maybe its best done as a private members bill if there is someone willing to drive it through? The fact Stramer has said he is in favour of a vote is significant. Will he come out in favour? His line was something like " there should be a free vote in the commons on a conscience vote"
It will be interesting to see how Starmer handles it, would be easy to ignore it but of all the governments his has the most chance of getting something decent through, he doesn't care about the right wing backlash and hopefully and issues with the bishops in the Lords will just accelerate their departure from the Lords.
They can **** right off with the "oh my god there is a missing £20 billion in the finances" bollocks, they’ve known about it for months
They can **** right off with the “oh my god there is a missing £20 billion in the finances” bollocks, they’ve known about it for months
This was widely predicted on this thread.
Oh yeah we all sorta knew about it, that's not really what's boiled my piss so to speak, what's "irked" me is the "£20bn black hole" headlines in all the news papers.....what the actual ****?.........they've known about for a couple of months yet I don't remember any of the so called premier league journalists actually pulling them up about it in the previous few weeks before the election.
But ahead of the election they were fighting what was in the public domain - numbers the tory govt were presenting. We always wondered why Sunak went for a GE out of the blue, maybe this is why.
If you knew there was a big hole in the numbers you wouldn't scare the horses ahead of the election. Using that info post election to justify tweaking borrowing rules and policy variation from manifesto is probably a pragmatic strategy.
I think possibly it's just good politics/positioning, they're really smashing home that "tories left the country in a state" message using very familiar messaging that'll probably work well for a lot of people and which directly counters tory and tory press messaging. It's not true, or honest, but maybe it's a case of hate the game not the player- it's not like the tories will ever hesitate to use the same tactics and they can be brutally effective. I'd like for governments to be able to be completely honest about public finances but I can hardly demand it if it's electoral suicide.
The question is whether they'll use the fictions to excuse cuts etc as tories would, or if they'll use it purely to bash them.
The question is whether they’ll use the fictions to excuse cuts etc as tories would, or if they’ll use it purely to bash them.
You got that answer this morning - yes cuts are on the cards. But then we knew what Labour were going to be like with Reeves as chancellor - increase some taxes (IHT and CGT not a bad thing) and start some cuts (closer to austerity - a bad thing)
All because of the 20 billion "black hole" eh. Guess it will fool most people and the country will be sooo much better off when that hole is gone.
This is all so self defeating and moronic.
The evidence that things don't work is out there - crumbling away. Physical stuff that we use and rely on. Tangible stuff at the heart of society.
That's your clue that things need fixing with government money. Not PFI not future growth - but public money. At no real cost to any of us.
And Reeves is conducting a ridiculous possible set of cuts because of what? Some fictious understanding of how money works. Something that is backed by nothing other than numbers and a promise to pay. Something the government is in control of and has the levers to make it all work.
All money is debt - it can be government debt or private sector debt.
Government debt operates at no real cost to anyone but the surplus that it generates in the private sector is what makes things happen in the real economy. Growth etc.
So the grown-ups (yawn) might be back in charge but good Christ they haven't got a clue how to optimise our economic well-being.
Reeves is a menace - she needs to go - she's obsessed with the Thatcherite way of taxation and spending. The absolute last thing we need right now.
Any right minded Labour voter ought to be seeing this rather than obfuscating with the Tory narrative of finances.
This is not a political chess move either - this is just dumb mechanics.
I caveat this with of course it's early days but you would expect those early days to be primed with examples of solid economic ideas rather than this old-school Tory muck that Labour are throwing around.
On a lighter note. Let's not worry about cuts because the top Centrist commentators like Dunt know what are important political scoring points.
https://twitter.com/antoguerrera/status/1817185728549261631?t=RaGoj4_rIpWa__b29mQNLQ&s=19
Fools.
Some fictious understanding of how money works.
No, political positioning. This is all just to remind the public that the Tories cannot be trusted. In the same way that incoming Tories made a point about the "There's no money left" note.
In the same way that incoming Tories made a point about the “There’s no money left” note.
Good point Nick, Rachel Reeves is simply using the old tried and tested Tory tactic of blaming the previous government for the current government's austerity policies.
It worked for the Tories why wouldn't it work for Labour?
That’s your clue that things need fixing with government money. Not PFI not future growth – but public money. At no real cost to any of us.
Recently had a tradesman cancel on me and all other upcoming work as he'd moved to just doing public sector work.
Made me think, if the public sector is spending a lot, does that mean there's less goods and services available for individuals to buy? Even if that spending is not with money taken from individuals through tax.
On a lighter note. Let’s not worry about cuts because the top Centrist commentators like Dunt know what are important political scoring points.
Whats your problem with that? I thought it was quite funny as it was obviously a reference to this
But ahead of the election they were fighting what was in the public domain
They had access to the OBR statistics and forecasts. So unless their figures are wrong which would prove problematic for the tories then its a difficult argument to make.
Whats your problem with that?
I think he's suggesting that while Reeves and her govt are confirming that they are going to be yet another one delivering thatcherite austerity economic policies when the exact opposite is needed, their centrist supporters are celebrating the fact that Starmer is capable of wearing appropriate clothing when it's raining. It's a perfect allegory for the centrist mindset of frilling round the edges rather than solving the big problems.
But you’re also a self-described “Deep Green” and you’ve also said on any number of climate-change threads that the single biggest impact on climate-change any individual can have is the decision not to have children, and yet here you are criticising this govt for not financially supporting parents with larger families. Those two things are incompatible.
Nic - TJ is big enough to fight his own battles, but I think you are wrong that the 2 child cap discourages larger families and thus is a "green" policy. If there's real data to support that it would be fascinating. In reality:
- I don't believe that most families who would benefit from the policy have an ecconomic discussion about children;
- it ignores the families where family units have broken up and reformed often resulting in a new "larger" family;
- the people who suffer most are the children - who had no choice to be born or not, and which family they would arrive into. Punishing children for the actions of their parents is barbaric;
- creating a generation of ghetoised kids in the very poorest circumstances is not the solution to climate change.
Apparently there is a popular support for a "2 child benefit cap" in society - presumably fueled by media stories 20 years ago about a few edge cases who were exploiting the system. I suspect most of those people have absolutely no idea on what the rules are - e.g. a couple of experienced teachers earning £45K pa each with 4 kids will still be getting their full "Child Benefit" for all 4 kids (£331/month) - living a pretty comfortable middle class lifestyle. But a single parent with 4 kids and a bunch of health issues will have all their benefits capped at £1835/month.
It’s a perfect allegory for the centrist mindset of frilling round the edges rather than solving the big problems.
Nonsense, "Centrists" want big problems solving, they just see the means and the priorities differently to right or left-wingers.
I don’t believe that most families who would benefit from the policy have an ecconomic discussion about children;
Not quite where you were going with it, but I hear conversations from our kids and their friends in their late teens and early 20s where the ability to afford to have kids does affect plans for the future. Not that I think it is a justification for the 2CBC.