Prime Minister Sunak

She will have to wait until December to be Prime Minister

And the ERG have made it clear that he will do exactly what he’s been told to do by them regarding the Irish protocol.

UN poverty envoy says another dose of austerity would violate the UK’s international human rights obligations and increase hunger and malnutrition.

Need to tax the rich, but Tory govt is addicted to austerity.

Thousands will die from Tory ideology.

www.theguardian.com/society/2022/nov/02/un-poverty-envoy-tells-britain-this-is-worst-time-for-more-austerity

I agree with them Grany but unfortunately there are many people in this country, including Gransnet members, who would be quite happy to see welfare payments reduced, and even in some cases abolished. I don’t know where the idea comes from that the poor, ill and vulnerable are responsible for the fiscal woes.

I don’t know where the idea comes from that the poor, ill and vulnerable are responsible for the fiscal woes.

This is why I keep banging on and on and on about taxation not funding spending. Benefits are not coming out of 'taxpayers' pockets', though that is a really convenient fiction for the right wing and the media to use to whip up hatred of 'benefit scroungers'. If people didn't think they were somehow being cheated by people on benefits, then they might be less resentful of claimants. They might also have a more positive way of looking at how our public money is spent.

I was a hardworking higher rate taxpayer. I suppose now I’m retired I’m a benefit scrounger!

MaizieD

^I don’t know where the idea comes from that the poor, ill and vulnerable are responsible for the fiscal woes.^

This is why I keep banging on and on and on about taxation not funding spending. Benefits are not coming out of 'taxpayers' pockets', though that is a really convenient fiction for the right wing and the media to use to whip up hatred of 'benefit scroungers'. If people didn't think they were somehow being cheated by people on benefits, then they might be less resentful of claimants. They might also have a more positive way of looking at how our public money is spent.

MaizieD

If people didn't think they were somehow being cheated by people on benefits, then they might be less resentful of claimants.

That's the crux of the matter.

What might happen if people became sympathetic to claimants? If they realised that, but for the grace of God, they might become one of them?

It's simply divide-and-rule isn't it? Otherwise how would the status quo be maintained. The state of affairs have to be uncontested and the only way to do that is to divide the public among themselves. We're all pawns in the game.

The right wing newspapers, read by more than 80% of the people who buy newspapers in the UK have a certain agenda.

It is to charge up their readers to hate, to despise certain groups - benefit claimants and asylum claimants are currently top of the list.

This is to distract from reporting any real news about the abject failure of the Tory government.

It is getting a bit difficult for them to blame the previuous Labour Government, in power more than twelve years ago so they need to stiir up their guillible readers to direct the blame for our national failures to the "others"

Not benefits - entitlements actually.

Precisely, * Geordiegirl1*, though I prefer the word benefits to the word handouts.

The Daily Express readers on their Facebook page are loving Braverman’s attitude towards asylum seekers.

I was very surprised by the bleak outlook from the BoE yesterday as a prelude to a very tough winter, no light at the end of the tunnel at all.
Recession into 2024 at least, the worst since records began in 1920 - that means the 1930s were better, that, I hope is scaremongering.

Or it could be that the Conservatives will save us all, like knights in shining armour, just before the next general election.

What is most astonishing is that it is the Bank of England that is making a huge contribution to the promised recession by raising interest rates.

They are either too stupid to understand what they are doing or they are licking their lips with pleasure in anticipation of the misery their action will cause when joined by the tory's austerity programme.

The BoE sole job is to keep inflation at or below 2%.

It seems to me that more joined up thinking is needed in times of economic crises.

The treasury and bank need a strategy. Although, it will be almost certainly not Keynesian.

Meanwhile, a major hedge fund warns of global societal collapse...

fortune.com/2022/11/03/elliott-warns-hyperinflation-global-societal-collapse-financial-crisis/

Dickens

Meanwhile, a major hedge fund warns of global societal collapse...

fortune.com/2022/11/03/elliott-warns-hyperinflation-global-societal-collapse-financial-crisis/

The world's central banks must be implicit in this. The US Federal bank is raising interest rates and others are following suit. I have seen it said that the BoE has to follow the Fed else the pound will fall, but if all it's doing is making inflation worse I can't see any logic in it.

Central banks are using a blunt instrument to attempt to curb inflation, one which only works if there is too much demand (i.e too much money chasing too few goods) in the economy. Which is most definitely not the case in most, if any, of the countries affected by inflation. It is problems with supply that are the cause and no amount of interest rate increases will solve that problem.

Very ironic that it is a hedge fund that is giving this warning as hedge funds are one of the irresponsible actors which have no interest in how their moneymaking actions in the financial markets affect individual country's economies. I did post a link elsewhere recently on an economist's take on this...

You would think that the Tory government and Treasury would have learned some lessons by now.

2010 - 2016 - austerity imposed with the propaganda that we must pay back government debt, but Cameron and particularly Osborne were in fact intent on reducing the size of the state, at the same time their policies did absolutely nothing for growth in the economy.

2016 - we then had the shambles of the May government, where the Tory’s focus was on Brexit to the neglect of everything else, including the economy - still very little growth and cuts were continued despite Mays rhetoric.

Then we arrive at 2019 - and the disaster of Johnson’s corruption and lies.

We finally Brexited and our economy was reduced by at least 4% pa.

Then covid, although there was an almost immediate covid bounce once the lockdown ended.

Putin then ensure the world’s economy stalled and struggled

Then we had the biggest disaster inflicted on the British economy in just 3 weeks by yet another dreadful Tory PM.

But still we have Brexit.

In 12 years

Our economy is broken
Our NHS is broken
Our courts are broken
Our immigration system is broken
Our care system is broken
Our leisure centres are nearly all closing - 75%
Our libraries are closing
Our transport system is broken
Our LA’s are breaking
Our crime prevention is broken
Poverty is rising exponentially.

As tax payers we built up all that infrastructure post war.

The Tories have ruined it all.

Now we are hearing plans to reintroduce austerity. No plans for sensible growth.

The U.K. in just one decade has become a disaster zone

Toynbee in the Guardian today says we should spend our way out of recession (as opposed to taxes and cuts) but she fails to say where the money would come from. If borrowing then we would be adding massively to the debt which we are now paying more for because interest rates have risen thanks to Truss and Kwarteng's useless mini-budget.

Grantanow

Toynbee in the Guardian today says we should spend our way out of recession (as opposed to taxes and cuts) but she fails to say where the money would come from. If borrowing then we would be adding massively to the debt which we are now paying more for because interest rates have risen thanks to Truss and Kwarteng's useless mini-budget.

It is a well tried and tested way of dealing with economic recession.

Used before and after the war.

And worked🙂.

Borrowing for growth is extremely sensible.

What is needed is for the Ukraine war to be settled quickly, that is in the hands of the US, if it escalates into a wider confrontation it could be 5 yrs or more until normal conditions return.

We have become incredibly inefficient over the years, migrants in detention centers instead of working, half the graduates not doing graduate work, adding so much red tape that it makes the lives of doctors, nurses, teachers and many others impossible.
Regulation is important, but not to the point where nobody wants to do the job and the system breaks down, that is happening now and it has to change.

It is true Whitewavemark2 that borrowing to invest for growth is likely to delivery prosperity eventually though it is not entirely tested. Roosevelt did it with the New Deal but he needed the Second World War to finish the job by reducing the power of the US's economic competitors.. It is not simply investment that is needed but systematic change in the management of business, more education of the working and lower middle classes, Ministers whose life experience includes real jobs outside of politics, a long term plan for industrial development and the vision to see the possibilities in immigration and climate change. And getting back to a workable trade relationship with Europe.

MaizieD

What is most astonishing is that it is the Bank of England that is making a huge contribution to the promised recession by raising interest rates.

They are either too stupid to understand what they are doing or they are licking their lips with pleasure in anticipation of the misery their action will cause when joined by the tory's austerity programme.

Are you serious?
Too stupid to understand or licking their lips at the thought of misery?
Give over!