[Tubby Isaacs]

This is public spending rising less than planned, isn't it?

[Crabcakes]

If they go on like this, this could be the last Labour government ever to be elected.

Yes, because famously after losing the 1997 election by a record-breaking landslide, the Tories were never elected again because the British public never, ever change their opinion based on context

[Tubby Isaacs]

Economic suicide? 10 year bond rates are 4.67%. Donald Trump is running amok in the international markets, and we're going to have to spend much more on Defence.

As with the hubristic Biden peak, it's very easy to get carried away that you're sticking it to austerity. That got the core inflation too high and put Trump back in, even if it was better than the German approach. Reeves needs to find some more taxes to raise, but the plan is still expansionary at a time when there are constraints on being too expansionary.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Government to plant first National Forest in 30 years
20 million trees are to be planted across Bristol, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and Somerset by 2050.

This sounds good. I know it doesn't make benefit cuts any better, but it's the sort of thing I can imagine getting a nice feel good item on the news in 2012. I haven't watched the news for ages, but I'm guessing it won't get any coverage at all.

[Abernathy]

Well, this is an interesting piece. I think I broadly agree with the thrust of it, but I’m still a trifle uncertain.

https://theconversation.com/cutting-we ... Gq9m84tamQ

[The Weeping Angel]

This is public spending rising less than planned, isn't it?

Not according to the article.

Rachel Reeves will announce the biggest spending cuts since austerity at next week’s spring statement after ruling out tax rises as a way to close her budget deficit.

The chancellor will tell MPs next Wednesday that she intends to cut Whitehall budgets by billions of pounds more than previously expected in a move which could mean reductions of as much as 7% for certain departments over the next four years.

Economists say the cuts will harm key public services, despite Labour’s promises to undo years of decline under the Conservatives. They will be announced a week after ministers unveiled about £5bn worth of cuts to benefit payments, most of which are going from payments to disabled people.

[The Weeping Angel]

Government to plant first National Forest in 30 years
20 million trees are to be planted across Bristol, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and Somerset by 2050.

This sounds good. I know it doesn't make benefit cuts any better, but it's the sort of thing I can imagine getting a nice feel good item on the news in 2012. I haven't watched the news for ages, but I'm guessing it won't get any coverage at all.

It doesn't count along with a load of other stuff Labour have done.

[Youngian]

More boasting about the good stuff by ministers
being interviewed wouldn't do any harm.

Levelling with people that the next few years were going to be tough after the fuck up the Tories made is what swung it for Labour on the doorstep not offering uncoated freebies.

[davidjay]

Government to plant first National Forest in 30 years
20 million trees are to be planted across Bristol, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and Somerset by 2050.

This sounds good. I know it doesn't make benefit cuts any better, but it's the sort of thing I can imagine getting a nice feel good item on the news in 2012. I haven't watched the news for ages, but I'm guessing it won't get any coverage at all.

"Starmer planting trees for migrants to hide in."

[Tubby Isaacs]

Migrants who've ridden into town on the back of his Mum's old donkeys.

[Watchman]

Sounds a bit biblical to me

[Abernathy]

I find myself largely in agreement with David Blunkett on fiscal rules.

https://labourlist.org/2025/03/spring- ... L_LF9UxjcA

[Oboogie]

Pertinent facts have changed since those fiscal rules were written, it's time to misquote Einstein again...

[Tubby Isaacs]

They've already changed the rules once to allow more investment. Not sure if I'd change them again. Would rather put taxes up but it's easy for me to say from here.

Have they not got some investment they can bring forward? In practice, there are never spade ready projects sitting around ready to go, but it might help if there were at least some sense of more happening in two or three years time. They could do worse than take HS2 towards Crewe.

[The Weeping Angel]

Reeves has said she won't be a tax and spend chancellor.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c78eg7dp9ypo

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has ruled out "tax and spend" policies, signalling that she will neither raise taxes nor government budgets in her critical Spring Statement next week.

Speaking in a BBC documentary, The Making of a Chancellor, Reeves also warned that the government could not afford the kinds of spending increases seen under the last Labour government.

She is expected to make cuts to some government departments on Wednesday. More money has already been allocated to defence by reducing the aid budget.

"We can't tax and spend our way to higher living standards and better public services. That's not available in the world we live in today," she said.

InDepth: Why Rachel Reeves is feeling the heat

In her autumn Budget, Reeves increased the levels of tax and public spending significantly – paid for largely through extra taxes on businesses which proved highly controversial.

But she is now under pressure on several fronts. It emerged on Friday that government borrowing – the difference between its spending and its income from taxes – was even higher than expected in February.

The official prediction for that month from the Office for Budget Responsibility was £6.5 billion, but it hit £10.7bn, leaving the chancellor with less fiscal headroom.