Best Of

A low birth rate is a consequence of greater wealth, and greater female choice. It isnt to do with the cost of having children. There isnt any civilised area in the world that has managed to materially reverse the trend.
Women when given the choice choose to do something else.

The evidence is that people in the UK are now having fewer children than they want. That doesn't mean a return to pre modern birth rates but with lower housing costs and better economic prospects the fertility rate would be higher than 1.4.

That matches with what I’ve seen from personal experience - you can bring up a single child in a 2 bed flat. Even a 3 bed flat - let alone a house - is a big jump in price. Then you have al the other costs. Plus (usually) the mother taking a career hit for each child.

All the childless women I know regret it - and those with 1 nearly always wish they’d had more. And are quite upfront that the cost & space issue was a big factor.

It is worth remembering that the last government also had, by historic standards, a very large majority. Larger than Blair or Brown in New Labour's final term, larger than Eden and Macmillan in the 1955-59 Parliament, larger than Heath, larger than Wilson except from 1966-68.

That didn't stop factions forming. Johnson's messy resignation and Truss' decision to rely on a narrow clique of supporters were largely to blame, but not solely.

Yes, but that was at the end of a long period in office and followed Johnson's ridiculous personality cult and tossing overboard those who didn't swear fealty earnestly enough. Having internal problems in the first years following a landslide victory is rather astonishing.

It's what happens when you have back benches full of social workers. Running the economy is someone else's responsibility.

Social workers who don’t like making tough decisions.

Not convincing. Social workers have been a hate figure of the right for decades. I remember when an older relative claimed that social workers were getting evil children off punishment because someone stole their teddy bear when they were small. And that was in the 1980s.

Actually thet have a shit job even when it goers more or less OK. And the same rightists who complain about their being employed in the first place and condone their understaffing and overwork are the first to complain about them when things go wrong.

I don't know any social workers or have any relatives who are. It's just so obvious.

There is the characature of a social worker and the reality. I wouldn’t want to do it. They deal with the shit bits of the human race, trying to prevent things going badly wrong. And sometimes, when it goes wrong, kids die. And the social workers get blamed, even though it’s the parents that killed the kid.

It's no surprise that most of the well-heeled citizens of PB regard the years of coalition government as a golden age. However, not all share that view. Osborne's exhortation of 'we're all in this together' in regard to austerity was simply not true. Public sector workers, those on benefits and others bore the brunt of repeated freezes or below-inflation rises in their income, not the middle classes or the rich. And it stored up problems for the future, with consequent demands for pay restoration by those negatively affected. Although, to be fair, the rises in the income tax allowance did help a bit.

Yes. I would add that the enormous cuts in capital spending paved the way for 15 years of economic stagnation. It was particularly damaging since borrowing money was so cheap at that time.

It is worth remembering that the last government also had, by historic standards, a very large majority. Larger than Blair or Brown in New Labour's final term, larger than Eden and Macmillan in the 1955-59 Parliament, larger than Heath, larger than Wilson except from 1966-68.

That didn't stop factions forming. Johnson's messy resignation and Truss' decision to rely on a narrow clique of supporters were largely to blame, but not solely.

Yes, but that was at the end of a long period in office and followed Johnson's ridiculous personality cult and tossing overboard those who didn't swear fealty earnestly enough. Having internal problems in the first years following a landslide victory is rather astonishing.

It's what happens when you have back benches full of social workers. Running the economy is someone else's responsibility.

Social workers who don’t like making tough decisions.

There is not a social worker born who lasts more than five minutes who isn't able to take tough decisions. By the time pretty much *anything* gets to social services all that is left is a very difficult choice between at least two suboptimal outcomes. The only exception would be a child living temporarily with a close family member for educational reasons.

Isn't this why they are on Labour's back benches, rather than still social workers? The ones who can hack it are still doing it, the ones who can't have found union activity, follow by political party greasy pole climbing are easier.

On the general ignorance of Labour MPs, I currently have one. He posted on Facebook this week:


The first one is debatable - I mean their budget measures will fuel inflation, make working people pay more tax, and increase the cost of fuel and rents, but I suppose at least he can claim that some of the measures (like moving some of the green levies off electric bills) are attempting to cut the cost of living.

I'd give him the 2nd - they do seem to be trying quite hard to do this (although they are very high mainly because we had a National Covid Service for 2 years, so you'd bally well hope waiting lists started to come down once that had finished).

But to claim the 3rd implies that he has no idea about the difference between debt and deficit, nor has he noticed that Reeves has increased the deficit at every budget, but is pretending that is OK because it's all borrowing for "investment". To cut the national debt would require her to run a surplus, her plans at the moment are at best to only be increasing the debt at the same pace as GDP growth in 5 years time. To claim they are cutting the debt makes him terminally stupid, a liar, or both.

Mind you he is a bloke who put a leaflet through my door a month or so ago, which trumpeted proudly "reinstating winter fuel payments for thousands of pensioners" as one of the six notable achievements of this government, which I thought was an interesting choice of boast.

Even The Telegraph are no longer denying reality.

Time to admit the truth: Brexit has been an unmitigated economic failure

Leaving the EU has reduced Britain’s GDP by up to 8pc, according to a devastating US study

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/11/29/admit-truth-brexit-has-been-an-unmitigated-economic-failure/

Utter bovine manure and clickbait.

The UK has grown as fast as the EU has over time. We've grown faster than Germany in recent years. "Despite Brexit".

The idea we'd be miraculously have an economy 9% bigger than we have now if we were in the EU is utter bollocks.

And yet several studies keep alighting on similar numbers (plus or minus two points).

Germany has, as I'm sure you’re aware, been a notable laggard in recent years due its reliance on Russian gas and Chinese markets, both of which are now busted.

Also the report suggests, “up to 8%” rather than the 9% you seem to have confabulated.

"In the construction of our synthetic control estimate, we use pre-referendum data from 2006 Q1 to 2016 Q1 (41 periods), to obtain optimal weights that minimize the prediction error in the pre- referendum period."

The weights are: "USA: 61.4%, Estonia: 10.9%, Greece: 9.5%, Italy: 6.7%, Ireland: 4.4%, Latvia: 3.4%, Iceland: 3% and Hungary 0.7%".

The theory that, if we had stayed in the EU, we would have enjoyed US-like growth rates wants arguing for, not assuming.

Interesting weighting.
I’m surprised it does not include France, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany which I’d have thought are “most UK-like”.

I would also argue to only include the U.S. North East, if I were creating such a model.

However, once again I’d note that this is the umpteenth study to find for significant economic damage from Brexit.
You and I may quarrel with the weighting here, but at the end of day it’s hard to dispute damage that after all follows what would be suggested by pretty basic economic theory.

Studies based on garbage in, garbage out.

Saying “garbage” all the time is not a credible counter argument. You’re effectively a “Brexit denier”, who chooses not to address the economic facts.

I've given a credible counter-argument, that the data does not match the assumptions.

The UK has outgrown our peers that we were tracking with pre-Brexit.

We haven't kept up with the USA post-Brexit, but we weren't pre-Brexit either.

Why do such a weight of studies disagree with you?
And indeed the great preponderance of economic opinion?

Even The Telegraph are no longer denying reality.

Time to admit the truth: Brexit has been an unmitigated economic failure

Leaving the EU has reduced Britain’s GDP by up to 8pc, according to a devastating US study

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/11/29/admit-truth-brexit-has-been-an-unmitigated-economic-failure/

Utter bovine manure and clickbait.

The UK has grown as fast as the EU has over time. We've grown faster than Germany in recent years. "Despite Brexit".

The idea we'd be miraculously have an economy 9% bigger than we have now if we were in the EU is utter bollocks.

And yet several studies keep alighting on similar numbers (plus or minus two points).

Germany has, as I'm sure you’re aware, been a notable laggard in recent years due its reliance on Russian gas and Chinese markets, both of which are now busted.

Also the report suggests, “up to 8%” rather than the 9% you seem to have confabulated.

"In the construction of our synthetic control estimate, we use pre-referendum data from 2006 Q1 to 2016 Q1 (41 periods), to obtain optimal weights that minimize the prediction error in the pre- referendum period."

The weights are: "USA: 61.4%, Estonia: 10.9%, Greece: 9.5%, Italy: 6.7%, Ireland: 4.4%, Latvia: 3.4%, Iceland: 3% and Hungary 0.7%".

The theory that, if we had stayed in the EU, we would have enjoyed US-like growth rates wants arguing for, not assuming.

Interesting weighting.
I’m surprised it does not include France, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany which I’d have thought are “most UK-like”.

I would also argue to only include the U.S. North East, if I were creating such a model.

However, once again I’d note that this is the umpteenth study to find for significant economic damage from Brexit.
You and I may quarrel with the weighting here, but at the end of day it’s hard to dispute damage that after all follows what would be suggested by pretty basic economic theory.

Studies based on garbage in, garbage out.

Saying “garbage” all the time is not a credible counter argument. You’re effectively a “Brexit denier”, who chooses not to address the economic facts.