Noone has mentioned the Brexit pay squeeze. We're 6 months of a 9 to 12 month period where devaluation inspired inflation outstrips pay rises. Unfortunately this is coinciding with the first year of a newly minority government who need every scrap of their political capital for an alternative mammoth task.
Within a few months I expect the consensus of PB Tories will be that the deficit doesn't matter anyway. " Glorious Brexit " must come first. In fairness to them sharing the cost of national disasters across the generations is precisely what the National Debt is for.
But we are where we are. We're having a sudden 9 to 12 month jolt to living standards which undoubtedly contributes to Austerity fatigue.
The Iceberg on the horizon is what we do to restore competitiveness re the Single Market after we leave. It'll be a mix of things but a period of net pay erosion in some sectors will doubtless be one of them.
Did Boris really witter on about VAT on tampons? Even the hard-core Leavers used to concede that Britain had overturned that, if only to mock it as trivial.
@Stark_Dawning He did indeed write about Tampons. Or tax competition with the rEU via VAT cuts to give it another name. And the EU should agree to that why ? It:s another sign of very Hard Brexit.
The cliff edge is a two way responsibility. The EU have been intent on punishing the UK from day one but that is not shared by individual Nations in the EU who are increasingly expressing alarm as are the business organisations throughout Europe.
I still cannot understand why the EU Heads of Government acceded to yet another highly unconstitutional if not wholly illegal power grab by Juncker when he appointed somebody to lead negotiations for the EU without even consulting them.
I would have thought losing a vote of this significance, considerably helped by his silly mistakes, would have been the perfect time to sack him, or reappoint him as EU representative to the Amundsen Scott base, and get either some big figure in to lead proper federalisation or somebody bland and competent who would use the powers of their office not the powers reserved to Heads of Government.
It's probably too late to rectify their mistake now as well given even if Barnier and Juncker are removed the delusional Verhofstadt, the man who famously said the Brexit vote demonstrated how popular the EU was, would still be on it.
It is pretty basic stuff. In Brexit talks we do not get to pick the team for the other side. Considering that Juncker, Barnier and Tusk are running rings around our team that is probably a bad tbing, but thems the rules of the game.
A lot of our team are arguing about what the objective should be, and playing to the gallery in the Conservative party and tabloid press. Maybe these sorts of things should have been worked out before A50 was invoked. One wonders what they have been up to over the last year.
I can only conclude you misread my post. I was pointing out that by appointing a negotiator himself Juncker was acting illegally, for which he should have been sacked - especially as he has acted like that since the off. Quite what bearing your comments have on that I don't know. Are you saying that because of Brexit the other 27 members should be stripped of their constitutional rights?
Austerity can't be dead long term. We have a national debt approaching £2 trillion and that excludes unfunded future public sector pension and PFI liabilities and are still spending far more than we collect in taxes. Given demographics and our welfare bill things can surely only get worse.
What is always amazing to me is how we obsess about the £350m a week on a bus or even the £2 billon for the DUP deal but at no time during the election or since has there been any debate about the £50 billion this year and in future we will be throwing away on interest on debt. And that is interest at some of the lowest effective interest rate terms in centuries - heaven help us if the rates rose in the future.
That's equivalent to increasing spending on the NHS by nearly 50 per cent - and it's all handed over to the financial sectors. Yet no politician or journalist ever raises it or discusses this planned £250 Bn of spending this Parliament. Yet its rather more material that a one off DUP bribe of £2bn.
The UK has had 7 years of austerity, and is showing no sign of working. How many more years do you require?
The UK has borrowed over a trillion quid during the last decade and is running a current account deficit of £100bn per year.
It shows no sign of working. How many more years do you require ?
So there was no austerity over the last seven years? Then the government has failed to implement it's economic policy.
Comments
Within a few months I expect the consensus of PB Tories will be that the deficit doesn't matter anyway. " Glorious Brexit " must come first. In fairness to them sharing the cost of national disasters across the generations is precisely what the National Debt is for.
But we are where we are. We're having a sudden 9 to 12 month jolt to living standards which undoubtedly contributes to Austerity fatigue.
The Iceberg on the horizon is what we do to restore competitiveness re the Single Market after we leave. It'll be a mix of things but a period of net pay erosion in some sectors will doubtless be one of them.
This is George Osborne's Budget speech from 2010:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/budget/7846849/Budget-2010-Full-text-of-George-Osbornes-statement.html
He predicted that government debt as a share of GDP would peak at 70% and would have fallen to approximately 63% by now.
In reality government debt as a share of GDP currently stands at over 87% and is still rising:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicsectorfinance/timeseries/hf6x/pusf
The Osborne borrow and spend profligacy is the main reason why the UK's current account deficit is running at £100bn per year.