Sunak will soon wish we were still talking about Johnson.

It isn’t ‘the brainless Tories’ who put up interest rates Daisy, it’s the brainless Bank of England, independent of the government thanks to Gordon Brown.

Exactly Germanshepherdsmum there is plenty of blame to be laid at the door of No.10 but interest rate rises is not one of them.

I trust the Bank of England to know what they are doing more than I trust this government. The national debt is now the highest it’s been for 60 years.

Casdon

I trust the Bank of England to know what they are doing more than I trust this government. The national debt is now the highest it’s been for 60 years.

I like to think that they are the grown-ups in the playground

Germanshepherdsmum

It isn’t ‘the brainless Tories’ who put up interest rates Daisy, it’s the brainless Bank of England, independent of the government thanks to Gordon Brown.

The Government has and is able to change the Banks remit GSM and the economy is not a living being. It is a construct of governments. It is governments who use it as an arm's length tool so they can claim they were not to blame.

Putting up interest rates is the Bank’s preferred mechanism for controlling inflation, which is now amongst the highest amongst developed nations.

And that inflation rate is the result of government choices, over many years, from allowing pension drawdowns at 55, Brexit and immigration choices (all have reduced worker participation, a problem even without rising private sector wages, and Brexit has pushed up the cost of imports of essentials), and more recently refusing to cap energy prices until wholesale prices fell, or food price caps and rent controls now.

Inflation cpi just over 8%.

RPI which includes housing costs and the more realistic figure is over 12%.

"Govern Effectively" Parliament is not an extension of government.

EXC with @hzeffman

Labour is drawing up plans to appoint dozens of new peers

Despite Starmer criticism of Johnson honours and commitment to abolish Lords, party insiders say new working age peers will be needed if he is to govern effectively

Grany

"Govern Effectively" Parliament is not an extension of government.

EXC with @hzeffman

Labour is drawing up plans to appoint dozens of new peers

Despite Starmer criticism of Johnson honours and commitment to abolish Lords, party insiders say new working age peers will be needed if he is to govern effectively

That is a completely irrelevant comment to the thread Grany.
Do you have any thoughts about ‘ Sunak will soon wish we were still talking about Johnson’ or not?
If not, why not put your random comments on the threads you’ve started instead?

I agree with grannygravy talking about no confidence in Labour either casdon

Inflation of course is affecting housing in a major way, new house building has dropped by over 50% plummeting to a 15 year low, and figures recently showed that the building industry is suffering a big turndown, largely for two reasons - the first being inflation and the second Brexit.

So the governments manifesto promise of building over 300k houses a year are totally shot, because Truss decided that house building targets were “Stalinist” and scrapped them, and Sunak has not brought them back. So where is the impetus to build houses of any sort especially affordable docial housing, which is usually down to LAs who, without the funding are not even going to consider it

The mortgage market is completely unstable at the moment, the packages being introduced then withdrawn in rapid succession. 6% rate by the end of the year and with homes being more expensive than they have ever been, this sort of rate indicates a real problem coming down the track.

House price falls are inevitable of between 20-30% fall.

Info, from the “I”

Grany

I agree with grannygravy talking about no confidence in Labour either casdon

Can you explain more why it’s relevant Grany? I thought this thread was about Sunak achieving the five pledges he set out or not?

Siope

Putting up interest rates is the Bank’s preferred mechanism for controlling inflation, which is now amongst the highest amongst developed nations.

And that inflation rate is the result of government choices, over many years, from allowing pension drawdowns at 55, Brexit and immigration choices (all have reduced worker participation, a problem even without rising private sector wages, and Brexit has pushed up the cost of imports of essentials), and more recently refusing to cap energy prices until wholesale prices fell, or food price caps and rent controls now.

But, Siope, inflation has more than one cause.
There is 1) demand led inflation, where too much money is chasing too few goods and 2)supply led inflation where supply side problems cause price increases.

Raising interest rates only works to dampen the first type by taking excess money out of the economy (depending on people saving, rather than spending, their money.)

Using interest rates to try and curb supply side inflation is completely worthless.

There is no excess money in the economy as all those people struggling with increased food prices, energy prices and rental and mortgage increases, know very well. All rate rises are doing now is contributing to it.

Neither public nor private sector wages have anything to do with current inflation. Private sector increases have been below inflation, public sector wages have fallen massively behind in real terms and even if public sector wage demands were to be met they would not be inflationary because they won't affect the price of anything in the CPI or RPI 'baskets'.

Next the small boats.

A couple of weeks ago Sunak was claiming that the crossing were down by 20% - but of course we have seen a large resurgence since then and figures are as high as ever.

The 20% drop claimed by Sunak was almost 100% down to the weather. We can all remember the north easterly and storms at the beginning if the year, which would have had the effect of pushing the small boats back to France if they had launched.

Rwanda - will have no meaningful impact by the end of the year as it is still to go through first the court of appeal and then the Supreme Court. The reality is that if it is ever ruled legal, it is almost certainly subject to rules imposed by the law which will state that only certain individuals can be considered for transportation, and these transportations will be carefully considered before permission is granted.

Meanwhile these folk have to be housed and hotels have proved very unpopular so the government has come up with a plan to house them in barges which so far costing 1.6bn over 2 years separate to additional costs to the taxpayer of money to LAs, NHS, etc etc.

The Home Office is failing to deal with these asylum seekers in any meaningful way, so the waiting lists get longer and longer.

Germanshepherdsmum

It isn’t ‘the brainless Tories’ who put up interest rates Daisy, it’s the brainless Bank of England, independent of the government thanks to Gordon Brown.

The only 'independence' Brown gave to the BoE was the ability to raise interest rates to control the money supply.

In all else the BoE is obliged, by the terms of the 1988 Bank of England Act, to make any payments authorised by Parliament. this encompasses all day to day business and the purchase of bonds to put more money into the economy. It has absolutely no freedom at all to query those payments and purchases or refuse to make them.

Maizie I didn’t say I necessarily think the BoE is correct, just that it has a preferred method.

I specifically excluded public sector workers, but since the end of 2021 there have been significant pay rises in the private sector, because of a squeezed/reduced labour force. During 2022, many of these were far above the then inflation rate (some retail, drivers, hospitality) and have added to the need for businesses to raise prices (but I’m also not denying greedflation for some).

Casdon

I trust the Bank of England to know what they are doing more than I trust this government. The national debt is now the highest it’s been for 60 years.

I'm afraid that, in view of its insane insistence on raising interest rates in order to curb spending, when inflation isn't being caused by excessive spending, I don't trust the BoE to 'know what it's doing' at all. It's just driving more and more people into poverty or financial crisis. And, by checking consumer spending, is stifling growth.

When Jeremy Hunt (the man who got the NHS completely wrong when he was Health Minister) says that he is happy for the BoE interest rate rises to push the country into recession then you know we're entering a period of complete insanity.

Neither the BoE nor Hunt should be allowed anywhere near the economy...

A very large proportion of the 'National Debt' is £900billion of QE since 2008. A such it is owed to the government by the government. The UK has been run with a 'national debt' ever since the BoE was established. It'ds nothing to worry about.

What is to worry about is the lack of any meaningful government spending/investment because that is the only thing at the moment that is likely to grow the economy, or even just to stabilise it.

The national budget is not anything like a household budget; households can't create their own money, governments can, and do all the time.

MaizieD

Casdon

I trust the Bank of England to know what they are doing more than I trust this government. The national debt is now the highest it’s been for 60 years.

I'm afraid that, in view of its insane insistence on raising interest rates in order to curb spending, when inflation isn't being caused by excessive spending, I don't trust the BoE to 'know what it's doing' at all. It's just driving more and more people into poverty or financial crisis. And, by checking consumer spending, is stifling growth.

When Jeremy Hunt (the man who got the NHS completely wrong when he was Health Minister) says that he is happy for the BoE interest rate rises to push the country into recession then you know we're entering a period of complete insanity.

Neither the BoE nor Hunt should be allowed anywhere near the economy...

A very large proportion of the 'National Debt' is £900billion of QE since 2008. A such it is owed to the government by the government. The UK has been run with a 'national debt' ever since the BoE was established. It'ds nothing to worry about.

What is to worry about is the lack of any meaningful government spending/investment because that is the only thing at the moment that is likely to grow the economy, or even just to stabilise it.

The national budget is not anything like a household budget; households can't create their own money, governments can, and do all the time.

That wasn’t my point though MaizeD. It was a comparison between the two, not whether either are right or not?

Maizie I didn’t say I necessarily think the BoE is correct, just that it has a preferred method.

Well, it's time it stopped mindlessly repeating it, looked at what is actually happening.

I cannot understand how supposedly competent economists can so utterly fail to see the difference between demand and supply led inflation. Or appear to not have the faintest notion how to deal with the second type...

That wasn’t my point though MaizeD. It was a comparison between the two, not whether either are right or not?

[grin}

And I just pointed out that neither were to be trusted! They're both completely bonkers..

MaizieD

^That wasn’t my point though MaizeD. It was a comparison between the two, not whether either are right or not?^

[grin}

And I just pointed out that neither were to be trusted! They're both completely bonkers..

Which would you trust more at this moment in time though MaizieD - nail your colours to the mast.

MaizieD at the risk of pointing out the obvious - Jeremy Hunt and the Bank of England are in theory in charge of the economy.
Doesn’t help with karma but it seems as if this situation is unlikely to change for awhile.

Grany

"Govern Effectively" Parliament is not an extension of government.

EXC with @hzeffman

Labour is drawing up plans to appoint dozens of new peers

Despite Starmer criticism of Johnson honours and commitment to abolish Lords, party insiders say new working age peers will be needed if he is to govern effectively

What do you mean by "Parliament is not an extension of government". I'm afraid I have no idea what you intend us to understand by that.

It is extremists who immediately tear things, such as a centuries old part of democracy, down. This is done with no regard to the fact that those they say they are helping are often those most damaged by this action.

The thinking moderate will plan forward and minimise the damage caused while still attaining the goal.

I cannot even start to understand why anyone, after the ignorant extremes of the last government, would now rally around anyone suggesting an equally extreme but opposite solution.

They might achieve something if they put as much effort into it as they have in persecuting Boris and spending millions on enquiries and reports and ongoing investigations, the legal profession must be raking it in....there is too much in-fighting for my liking, we need to move on and face the many problems facing the British public, now.

I still can't get my head around the fact that Sunak was at those parties yet he's been airbrushed out of the pictures and is being promoted as squeaky clean. We can't even mention that he and his wife livid in no 11 and now no 10 rent free and never paid any taxes and will receive a massive pension. The fact that the Tories wants us to use pharmacies more instead of GPs, is no surprise because his wife's billion dollar company owns half the pharmacies in the UK.

No wonder he can't fulfil those 5 promises he's probably preoccupied worrying if anyone will hold him to account as well, he and the rest of the government are no better then Boris, they just got away with their fiddling and used him as the scapegoat. The Tories need to go.

We just got to have an election. At moment I haven't decided who I am going to vote for, I just know it won't be the Tories. No one can make anything worse, this country is at rock bottom, and is on its knees in every direction. So who however gets the people's vote , except the Tories, we surely can only climb upwards.