I continue to read the autumn statement documentation and share it here and on Twitter. So, I got to this:
Is Labour going to stick to this? We need to know.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
There are links to this blog's glossary in the above post that explain technical terms used in it. Follow them for more explanations.
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Buy me a coffee!
The change in the scale of the x-axis at 2008 makes this harder to interpret. I suspect the slow drift down is in reality a deeper and harsher cut then it appears.
Interesting article by George Monbiot
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/22/britain-money-bank-bailouts-state-failure
Agreed
Was good that George name checked MMT near the end of the article.
John Boxall
Yes, Monbiot’s article is outstanding, clearly addressing the huge amount of public investment needed after 13 years of bleeding the UK dry. He rightly says “. This, very roughly, is the difference between continued, predatory chaos and a functional, inclusive country”. Last week, I heard Jagjit Chadha of the NIESR in Bristol referring to the public services “crying out for investment ” and speaking of “arbitrary and ridiculous fiscal rules”.
Sadly the readers comments under Monbiot’s article reveal that many are still hopelessly ignorant of how govts fund themselves, as a result of decades of neoliberal conditioning.
Given the blind faith both Tories and Labour have in “fiscal rules” and the “need” for austerity, have either of them quantified when they think the problem will be sorted and austerity can be terminated? No, I thought not. If it’s allowed to run on indefinitely there will come a point where either the people revolt or the only thing left functioning is the government. So, unless we do something about it, it looks like we’re being offered the North Korean model.
All subtleties of economics aside, the govt could not have signalled their intentiones more clearly than they did by bringing Cameron back. They wave him like a big flag-shaped loudspeaker with AUSTERITY printed on it, screaming AUSTERITY! This is like a caricature from Spitting Image, and it’s very deliberate, designed to let a public who know nothing of economics know exactly what they are in for with immediate effect. Cameron is the loud, braying elephant in the room. He doesn’t need a cabinet post with economic control, he just needs to be there, he is the most obvious symbol the govt could ever have used to signify their intent! They don’t try to hide behind ‘one nation conservatism’ or ‘levelling up’, they are now on the most aggressive destruction of the poor since the workhouses and pauper’s prisons were built. They rule with directly signalled intent, and they mean it to hurt. The only question remaining is: is Britain cruel enough to buy it? History makes it clear than it often is. Even Holland just voted in a right wing extremist. This is all going to get a LOT worse before it will get better. I know how Elgar felt when he said the lights all over Europe are going out, and will remain dark for a very long time.