We’ve always fixed our interest rate for 4 or 5 years. We’ve always ended up fixing at the completely wrong time.

Our current deal ends in November:-(

tj, how many lost years do you have in mind and how do you envisage the reversal and recovery taking place?

The lost years will be until we get a competent labour government or an independent scotland. Take a similar length of time to get back whats lost. So 4blost years in total.

To me johnson truss or sunak makes very little difference. All hardline tories following absurd policies.

The important thing is getting a long term labour government for england and an independent Scotland and truss imo makes both more likely

Agreed, but I think it will take decade or more to sort this out properly. And that’s counting from when/if the Tories are out. Still hoping for a proper union of nations, rather than full Scottish independence, myself. But all my friends north of the border are set on independence now, and I can’t blame them.

Anyway…

It's our own fault. We just didn't believe in our own exceptialism hard enough … that and lefties or something?

— Ant MacÌomhair (@antonymciver) September 26, 2022

14 lost years of tory government in total will take a decade to get back what is lost. The 4 years just refers to the damage truss will do not what the kast 12 have done

This is serious, we are on the edge of something possibly worse that Thatchers readjustment.

Thing is this has been manufactured by the Tories.. this is not a response to a wider problem or step change in a global economy.

Full Minford.

Full Mogg

Kwerteng seems to be saying he will outline a plan that will show how he will reduce borrowing as a % of gdp. Hmmmmmm.

Now im no economist but that would mean massive growth would it not given how much he is borrowing? Growth that the uk has not seen for a long time in a time of low growth/recession world wide

Hmmmmmmmmm. Do you think its a cunning plan?

Yes to **** off with a massive hedgefund pay off.

10% of Crispins short.

They are literally making it up as they go along, based purely on their frankly insane ideology. It’s like a cult! The Talibanisation of economic policy

It’s just more Brexit bollocks.

No economic forecasts or proper analysis required, no dissenting or alternative voices tolerated, we’ve had enough of experts, you just have to BELIVE and it’ll all be fine

Sunny uplands ahead

They’re absolutely ****ing unhinged, the lot of them!

The important thing is getting a long term labour government for england and an independent Scotland and truss imo makes both more likely

What do Wales and NI get?

This piece from August, which accused Sunak of “desperate” warnings about what Truss policies could do to the £, is doing the rounds among Conservative MPs, I’m told. Tory source: "Those who only backed Liz for their career are quickly realising the consequences of their actions” pic.twitter.com/Je9BRlMKRI

— Adam Payne (@adampayne26) September 26, 2022

Two dog’s

The get forgotten about. Sorry.

Stephanie Kelton piece today.

Now that we have seen the so-called “mini-budget,” there is plenty of speculation about what comes next. As a reminder, the Truss/Kwarteng budget, which was reportedly “fleshed out with senior aides over coffee and biscotti in Truss’s living room in the third week of August,” is a huge gamble on supply-side economics. And it’s only the beginning.

The next shoe to drop comes later in the year when the rest of the government’s fiscal plan is released. With the mini-budget roiling currency and bond markets, many observers expect Truss and Kwarteng to announce massive spending cuts to the public sector in order to “restore market confidence.”

If you remember anything about the Reagan era and David Stockman’s playbook, then you know how this game is played: (1) push through massive tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the rich; (2) claim the tax cuts will “pay for” themselves through higher growth; (3) watch the debt and deficit soar; (4) clutch pearls; (5) demand cuts to public programs as the only alternative (TINA).

Already, some economists are asking whether the mini-budget should be viewed “a Trojan horse for a massive attack on the welfare state.” Such an attack would be politically unpopular. Unless, of course, it could be carried out under the cover of TINA. The economics editor at The Spectator, has speculated that the mini-budget will push the Bank of England to hike interest rates even more aggressively. If they do, she says it might be “a design feature, not a design flaw, of Truss’s plan.”

Now im no economist but that would mean massive growth would it not given how much he is borrowing?

Seems like fairly basic maths. Unless the plan is to reduce it as a % of GDP by the 2050s. Not even sure he can do that.

Now im no economist but that would mean massive growth would it not given how much he is borrowing?

I’m fully expecting still at this point Q/E.

Don’t forget the USD is and has been very strong. It’s day will come for a wobble soon. Euro/USD and YEN/USD all had a hard time.

Market expectations over news tend to drive prices. Market is probably expecting the BoE to act soon.

These things are cyclical too.

Would reducing public spending have any effect on debt to gdp tho ?

Im sure they will reduce public spending tho.

tj – a truly independent Scotland would be economically damaging for both scotland and the shrunken UK.
The UK economy will be permanently scarred by truss/kwarteng; it’s reputation as an honest partner has already been shredded by brexit and the NI protocol.
As for growth, there have only been 9 years since 1949 when the annual growth in UK GDP exceeded 5% – and one of those was the 2021 recovery.
Good luck with your growth plan kwasi…

Imo a independent Scotland will be both richer and fairer but you are right the loss of scotland and its contribution to the uk economy would damage ruk badly but lets not derail this thread. We have done it to death or start a new thread?

rone
Full Member

Against inflation though it’s negative.

True but from experience, a huge amount of people don’t see it. I used to work in a bank branch that had a fairly ageing but well off customer base and you’d get people coming in with their .2% savings accounts and refusing to upgrade to a new product with a better rate because they’d have to pay more tax. Stuff like that. Saving’s always seen as responsible, as a good thing to do, even when it’s negative, and if you tell people they’re getting an extra 1% even if they live off their savings and costs go up 2% then there’s cognitive dissonance or something.

frankconway
Full Member

But…an emergency intervention by the BoE will be seen as a panic reaction

Panic reactions are completely appropriate at this point. If you can keep your head when all around are losing theirs, it’s quite likely you just don’t understand the situation.

kelvin
Full Member

Johnson did untold damage to the UK.

Even for the people who think Truss is worse- and she’s achieve an astonishing amount, in the 19 seconds she’s been in charge- the blame for Truss rests on Johnson, there’s no other scenario when she would ever be in power.

thisisnotaspoon
Full Member

I’d pragmatically take ideologically opposed competence over incompetence any day

Up to a point. But I’d quite like the person that’s trying to shoot me in the head to be a really terrible shot. Johnson would have drunkenly missed, shot his wife, and everyone’d laugh at the hilarious version of that story that he’d tell at his next wedding. Truss will miss too but leave you horribly wounded and then everyone’ll tell you how grateful you should be not to be dead.

.

There will be massive public sector cuts in November… small state ideology.

Civil service
Central gov
Local gov
FE colleges
Transport
Farming support

All other areas including NHS, Emergency Services, Police, Schools etc frozen for three years minimum

Euro/USD and YEN/USD all had a hard time

Maybe. But Sterling fell against all currencies. This is not just about a strong dollar, it is a response to the UK not having a plan to deal with either the economic harm it has imposed on itself, or the wider economic challenges facing all countries right now. The Tories need to move aside now, before they inflict more damage on us all.

Up to a point. But I’d quite like the person that’s trying to shoot me in the head to be a really terrible shot. Johnson would have drunkenly missed, shot his wife, and everyone’d laugh at the hilarious version of that story that he’d tell at his next wedding. Truss will miss too but leave you horribly wounded and then everyone’ll tell you how grateful you should be not to be dead.

Maybe, for the most part government’s of either colour muddle allong fiddling with the margins and neither doing brilliantly or collapsing the economy.

The metaphor I was mulling over was a red bus or a blue train, both aim to get to the same place just with different routes*. Then a Nissan Bluebird pulls up, promises to take you there for free, but once your in and the doors at locked you realise the driver is a maniac and shows you the machete in the glove box.

*Ironically the train required more government investment, so it’s not a perfect metaphor.

Get ready for the attacks on public sector workers from the press. Bankers no limits to bonus to stimulate growth PS pay rises nilled for next 3-5 years to save the economy.

Public and private sector. Workers wanting to slow the speed of their impoverishment will be blamed for the effects of government choices, to try and distract us from just how badly they have handled the last few years.

You think there won’t be more austerity under Truss?

On balance, probably not. I said during the Tory leadership election that Truss was saying that you can have your cake and eat whilst Sunak wasn’t offering any cake.

Sunak might come across as a pretty straight kind of guy, as Tony Blair claimed to be, but imo he is a hardline Thatcherite. As Daz suggested I can’t see that Sunak would have offered the same energy price support package that Truss has come up.

Like Thatcher didn’t flinch when her economic policies caused unemployment to double to over 3 million I feel fairly certain that Sunak wouldn’t have flinched as fuel poverty left millions of people unable to keep warm this winter, and he would have cared about firms going bust about as much as Thatcher did – not a lot.

The evidence is there:

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/rishi-sunak-resists-calls-from-energy-firms-to-freeze-price-cap-at-current-rate_uk_6305cd8fe4b052615d7645d9

On balance I reckon that Sunak’s thatcherite economic policies would have been even more detrimental to ordinary working people than Truss’s.

Obviously no one can know for certain what might have happened under a Sunak premiership, nor will we ever, nor do we know with complete certainty yet how things will pan out with Truss’s economic policies.

The only thing that we can actually certain of, imo, is that both Sunak’s and Truss’s rightward economic thrust would/will make a bad economic situation even worse (from a working-class perspective). And as usual it will be working people who pay the price and make the sacrifices.

Had the news on today and a couple of time I’ve heard someone from a think tank (who funds them they never say) saying about the massove cost of public sector pensions. If you have one I think they are getting ready to steal it off you.

tj – I have no wish to derail the thread by getting into a debate about economic fallout from scottish independence.
northwind – the (inevitable) market panic I referred to has been deferred by the BoE until the next MPC meeting so only nervousness at present.

If you remember anything about the Reagan era and David Stockman’s playbook, then you know how this game is played: (1) push through massive tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the rich; (2) claim the tax cuts will “pay for” themselves through higher growth; (3) watch the debt and deficit soar; (4) clutch pearls; (5) demand cuts to public programs as the only alternative (TINA).

That surely leaves out an important element – that government spending went up under Reagan primarily because of a humongous increase in defence spending? Cuts in public programmes weren’t simply because of tax cuts but also because of increased military spending.

saying about the massove cost of public sector pensions. If you have one I think they are getting ready to steal it off you.

Nothing would surprise me – they seem intent on something…

Radio 4 had a documentary on about the think tanks based in 55 Tufton St

From brexit to austerity to the present sh!tshow they’ve been driving the Tory agenda and slowly gutting the country
Tragic that so many people are taken in by these opaquely funded think tanks & believe that they are on their side

Latest GB Voting Intention (25 September 2022)

This poll was taken yesterday so the first one published since Thursday’s mini budget. TBH I am surprised that the Labour lead isn’t bigger as Redfield & Wilton polls a couple of weeks ago were giving Labour a 12 point lead.

I found this interesting though:

“only 60% of those who voted Conservative in 2019 say they would vote Conservative again”

That is a huge drop in support for the Tories.

TBH I am surprised that the Labour lead isn’t bigger

Average new leader bounce at this point is +6pts , so -3 overall Vs labour is pretty poor
That said in genuinely surprised that Tory vote still claims 29% base- who are these people?!?!

the massove cost of public sector pensions. If you have one I think they are getting ready to steal it off you.

Most people don’t realise that public service pensions are simply paid for through taxation, there’s no sovereign wealth fund or investment vehicle – the reality being that their contributions are long spent and that it is today’s tax payers that are paying their pensions. The running narrative in the MSM that civil servants are ‘enemies of the people’ are are subverting Government when it is they that hold them to account is unsettling.

Austerity V2 is coming – Buckle-up, we’re in for a bumpy ride.

😃

EXCLUSIVE

Labour has a **17 point** lead over the Tories, Yougov poll for The Times finds

It's the biggest lead since Yougov started polling in 2001

Six in 10 voters think Kwarteng's budget was unfair – the worst rating of any fiscal event since 2010https://t.co/D9KWRAzTxA

— Steven Swinford (@Steven_Swinford) September 26, 2022

Dovebiker
Nhs pensions take it vastly more in contributions than they pay out per year. The pensions have already been gutted anyway

Most people don’t realise that public service pensions are simply paid for through taxation

Some are, others are invested.

kimbers

That said in genuinely surprised that Tory vote still claims 29% base- who are these people?!?!

Three I know of…

My sister and bil, it’s all about the triple lock and a huge amount of racism.

A friend down the road, it’s all about living in some utopian past as he sees it and huge dose of racism.

Nhs current workers pay for the pensions of the retired and a tidy sum to the exchequer

Six in 10 voters think Kwarteng’s budget was unfair

I can’t believe it is only six in 10, what is wrong with people?

Wasn’t thinking that they will take what has been paid into pensions, that has gone as said above. I think they will cut what is being payed out no matter what was promised when you signed up.

Nhs pensions take it vastly more in contributions than they pay out per year. The pensions have already been gutted anyway

Whilst you could argue that’s technically true, it is a mischaracterisation. The nhs pension scheme did pay out £4bn to the exchequer last year, just under 10% of the total money collected. At the same time, its liabilities rose by a whopping $100bn. Additionally, the majority of payments made into the fund are from the employer side, and the employer the majority of the time is (indirectly) the government – so the members themselves are in no way net paying to the exchequer for pension provision.