The first cut is the lightest – politicalbetting.com
The first cut is the lightest – politicalbetting.com
UK finances are in a mess. Traditionally, the debate has been between the right, which favours a small-state but low-tax model like the US, and the left, which favours a Scandi-style high-tax but high level of services model. It feels like we are falling between 2 stools with high taxes and poor public services.
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This lady in Kharkiv appears to have had little sleep:
https://x.com/bohuslavskakate/
Seriously the only way to cut things would be to stop doing X, so tell me what things you don't want the public sector to do..
Jonathan Oppenheimer blames slow decision-making and planning rules for lack of investment
...
He cited as evidence the dualling of the A66, a crucial route between England’s east and west coasts, running from Teesside to Workington in Cumbria.
“So long as the UK takes 30 years to do a nine-month project, it’s uninvestable,” Mr Oppenheimer told the Bloomberg Africa Business Summit.
Plans to turn the stretch from Penrith to Scotch Corner into a dual carriageway were launched in 2002, but only partially completed. Further proposals made in 2016 were approved in 2024.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/11/18/uninvestable-uk-takes-30-years-to-do-a-nine-month-project/ (£££)
USD 1.74 trillion this year, of which nearly a trillion is debt interest.
The US deficit was $219 billion in October 2025 alone.
https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2025-11/61307-MBR-FY25-final.pdf
The project is Scotch Corner to Penrith (i,e, A1M to M6) and there is no way that was a 9 month project. It's a 3-5 years planning and 2 year development project...
"My approach would be to tighten up the approach to the economy. For example:
1) Stop this insanity of increasing benefit spending by ending the 2 child cap
2) Give nothing to the WASPI graspers
3) Thoroughly kibosh the rarely mentioned but still floating around 'discussion' about reparations
4) Increase the pension age (not immediately but pencil it in)
5) End the triple lock, it's unsustainable as well as being unfair on the working population of the country
6) Commit to a long term reduction of the deficit with a goal of eventually turning it into a small (few percent of GDP) surplus and seek consensus from other parties to maintain that goal, even if the specific path of reaching it might change
7) End all talk of the madness of wealth or exit taxes. Rich people spend a lot, and when they do, they pay VAT. It's never been easier to leave and work elsewhere
8) Increase income tax. I'm not a fan of tax rises, I instinctively prefer lower taxes, but we do need to raise more money and this seems both more straightforward and less harmful than other measures
9) Embark on a simplification of regulations, include taxation and building regulations, to make things easier for individuals and businesses to get things moving
10) Try and find a way to keep new innovations here. Encourage this with tax breaks (in a time-limited period) for setting up factories and the like in the fields of emerging technology. Re-introduce the golden share so we can retain leading innovations and the workers and businesses pay tax here. Perhaps have extra incentives for locating factories etc in the north of England
11) Collaborate closely with Ukraine to encourage both their and our own drone facilities to be built here. Essential for defence with excellent prospects for export "
Just look at how healthcare works there, with $2,000 x-rays, $5,000 ambulance rides, and insurance deductibles higher than the cash price for treatments. But unfcuking all of that means losing several percent of GDP and several percent more from the S&P 500.
It's been a problem going back at least as far as Lawson. Yes, the budget balanced pretty well in the late 80s, but a lot of that was thanks to transient things like privatisation, North Sea and really favourable demographics. It left us assuming that we deserved lower taxes and higher state spending than is sustainable. Something for nothing, which always wins elections, tends to be followed by nothing for something.
Reeves's hokey-cokey on income tax was painful to watch (and shows why Budget purdah is a good thing.) But once an increase wasn't absolutely essential, it became politically impossible.
And as for cutting waste and unnecessary programmes, ask Reform-run councils how that is going.
I'm watching it back and the BBC commentary is indistinguishable from what was said in the pub. SHOOOOOOOT! Tierney had incredible composure to not put his laces through it.
A lot of our current debt was borrowed at ridiculously low interest rates after the GFC. So a 10 year gilt from 2015, for example, might have had a coupon of 0.2%. When that became repayable this year we obviously did not have the money to repay it so the debt will have been rolled over but at a cost of around 4.5%. A lot of people on here criticised Osborne for not borrowing more to invest and claimed this was shortsighted. This shows how wrong they were. That 8.3% is heading in only 1 direction.
So, we urgently need to cut spending. Much easier said than done of course, especially given the pressures mentioned by Gareth and by me. We need to reduce regulatory costs, we need to reduce the head count in the public sector substantially, we need to stop wasting money on never ending inquiries which tell us the same things again and again (and which, as @Cyclefree points out, we normally ignore). Its a huge challenge for any government and politically it is a particular challenge for Labour. But it needs to be done.
The budget seems to lurch from one crisis to enough having some extra tax revenue makes sense to provide some leeway and some infrastructure investment,
See my argument about councils, best to raise council tax by 10% because that will give the council a few years with some money that can be spent on things beyond social care.
https://x.com/eddieburfi/status/1990902487402926568
(Another thing that Sunak-Hunt left on the carpet for someone else to clean up- the idea that fiscal headroom was there to be spent, like an increase in a credit card limit.)
"They think it's all over....IT IS NOW!!!!!!!
In an age of near constant economic shocks, a healthy stream of consistent government investment is probably more important than ever to underpin demand. The revenue side of the ledger is largely out of our hands - COVID, Ukraine, tariffs.
Of course it's going to near impossible now to generate the growth that can offset 4.5%. That growth should have already been baked in from investment in the good times.
Similarly in my line of work (my Trust is reducing headcount this year by 7% already). What treatments on the NHS do we stop?
6 & 7 are also not cuts. 6 is an aim, but not a how. 7 isn’t simply not a cut: you are actively stopping possible future tax revenue. “Rich people spend a lot” is trickle down economics and doesn’t work.
8 is possibly sensible, but Labour made it a manifesto pledge not to do it.
9 sounds great, but the devil is in the detail. The government are already doing various things that fit under 9 & 10, reviewing the role of regulators and encouraging innovation.
10 & 11 are sensible, but are increases in spending.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/19/keir-starmer-labour-leadership
Good morning, everybody.
And which do you object to - abortions which exist because back in the 60s we had both unwanted babies and back street abortions or creating future tax payers
I would do three things:
1. Decouple electricity prices from gas. A rapid 25-40% drop in prices (based on the Spanish experience) makes the price of everything cheaper
2. A national housebuilding program. Builders have 6 months to start on landbanks or they get seized. LHAs borrow at government rates, automatic planning permission for them. Build never for sale apartments at living rents. Collapse the private sector rentier market, a glut of property dumped back onto the market - prices correct and people have more money left over to go and spend. Will need to invest in a brickworks or 3 and training for builders. Make Construction Cool Again.
3. Restructure the tax code. It's absurdly complex. Make it simpler and raise more revenue by removing the loopholes people like me use. She may not be able to do all of that in year 1, but have something to announce as the rest is developed.
As this budget does at least work on multi-year projections we can then plan forward. We can make savage cuts to the costs of things like health and education by investing in them. We need more doctors, nurses, teachers. Less temp staff and contract managers. Radical idea - hire enough permanent staff now to cut your wage bill. A national directive to make all public sector budgets 3 years rather than 1. Spend money now on staff to save money in years 2 and 3.
We need to borrow to invest. The problem is that we're generally shit at projects, have cash bonfire structures, and have for the last 40 years been indoctrinated that investment = subsidy. Someone needs to snap us out of this. France, Spain, Italy etc have better things than we do because they built them for the public good. They didn't spend £704m writing reports about newts, nor did they say "who will pay for that" every time anyone proposes spending anything on anything?
Best of luck, though.
1) our favourite - NI and IT merge.
2) increase the personal allowance to keep pensions out of it.
3) increase the tax take - via 1) and a bit more in rates for 2)
4) personally - I would add some cliff edge removal. As in get rid of the personal allowance removal.
“Reduce tax on low income workers. Paid for by the well off, and increase tax take to pay for the NHS”
That sounds like something Labour MPs might like to vote for.
In broad terms, we get the politics and politicians we deserve. We vote for Pleasure Island, so politicians strive to give us Pleasure Island.
Same as why we need a law to stop touts buying tickets for events to resell at vastly inflated prices. It's sad, but here we are.
FWIW I think we need to largely get rid of HR departments and their associated paperwork, I think we need to thin out management reducing the layers, I think we need to do our best to avoid meetings that achieve little or nothing. I think we need to apply technology in a way that genuinely improves productivity. I think we need to completely stop the early retirement and back on Monday for another wage routine that seems to have become so common.
In my line of work we introduced a remote empanelling day during Covid. This meant that the jury is selected without being present and the clerk then phones the unlucky selectees to come in the following morning. This added a day to every High Court trial. All too often, being available, this is useful in terms of preparation time. But we can't afford such fripperies or such conveniences. It should have been stopped.
12) reform the subsides and incentives for green energy to make sense. So subsidies switch to delivery of U.K. made products at low prices. Batteries made in the U.K. get the full tax break/subsidy. Batteries made in China with a sticker added in the U.K., not so much.
Same with EVs, solar panels, wind turbines etc.
Since these will be payable on delivered products, they won’t need to be paid out before another election or 2. Building factories takes time….
We'd compromise forever our ability to borrow - our reputation for paying our debts having being a couple of centuries in the making - and wouldn't significantly reduce the debt total over that period.
Meanwhile the pressures to increase spending on the back of the money "saved" would be irresistible.
It would also destroy the City (which provides a substantial percentage of government income) in the process.
And trash pensions.
The annual cost of IVF to the NHS is less than £70m (edit - I will have to check more recent figures, as that one is five or six years old).
- building fires
- inadequate structure
- rampant fraud in construction quality
This is because regulations are a nice pile of paper. Which is ignored because compliance is now virtually impossible. Too complex. So the scum do what they want, and the virtuous try and deliver good work while limbo dancing through the hoops.
Oh, and the scum get the full advantage of their scummery - no cost and no risk. No enforcement…
So we have high costs and rampant malpractice.
My @NewStatesman piece on what must change
https://x.com/johnmcternan/status/1990831632790519882?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
Said article is titled
Starmer needs to go
None of us on the board have the data to come up with precise line items.
But there is clearly unnecessary spending.
Reform are stupid enough to oppose the idea simply because it's about 'renewables', I suppose, but would anyone else ?
Ideally we should grow employment and grow the economy and increase the tax take that way. That’s not going to happen with these fools running the show.
Also the idea that the govt cannot cut spending given its massive spend is nuts. Course it can. It has no will to do so.
Now supposedly spending on justice is at a record high, yet courts sit for fewer days than they used to. How does that work?
- Remove winter fuel allowance & other add on benefits.
- Child benefit for first child only
- End the triple lock
- Cut back the number of diversity officers - there are at least 500 in central government according to a recent FoI request and the number has increased since Labour came into power
- Prescription charges: reduce the number of exemptions and increase payments
- Foreign aid: what actually is it being spent on and which countries
- More charges for council services above the bare minimum
- Stop or drastically reduce funding of lobby groups
- No money in current budget for AD - where is the money for that to come from? If people want it they should pay for it themselves.
- Social care - people with savings need to use those first. The rainy day has arrived so that is what the savings are for.
On the tax side -
- raise income tax and extend NI ultimately combining the two
- add council tax bands at the top end rather than faff around with extra taxes
- Extend VAT - we have more exemptions than many other countries
- Get rid of cliff edges
- Reduce pension tax relief to the basic rate
- Freeze thresholds
Once there is a path to a reduced deficit and growth then can think of reducing tax. But I would make the priority proper investment in infrastructure and high quality competent permanent staff rather than endless locums and consultants.
Labour MPs would have rebelled and the chancellor folded
Had we actually borrowed more to invest (rather than fund current spending), the return on investment over the last decade and a half would with absolute certainty been higher than the annual 0.5% it might have cost, and quite likely more than the current 4.5% or so.
EDIT: CycleFree has now suggested some actual cuts.
"Employment in the public sector was estimated at 6.17 million in June 2025, an increase of 17,000 (0.3%) compared with March 2025, and an increase of 75,000 (1.2%) compared with June 2024.
Employment in central government was a record high at an estimated 4.04 million in June 2025, an increase of 21,000 (0.5%) compared with March 2025 and an increase of 95,000 (2.4%) compared with June 2024; the main contributors to this increase were the NHS, some local authority schools becoming academies, and the Civil Service."
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/publicsectorpersonnel/bulletins/publicsectoremployment/latest
I accept that there are statistical games at the edges here, such as the Academies thing mentioned, but public sector employment is at a record high, whatever @Foxy's Trust is doing.
That controverts a common complaint that Civil Service managers are all generalists who did PPE or classics at uni and don't know anything about the field which they are managing.
AND the Civil Service and its associated bodies/agencies are well aware of the potential issue and have (or had) special training courses for specialists in management. I did a couple of residential ones, very useful then and since. Gave me the basic knowledge and some skills to manage at a low level while convincing me to keep out of anything higher by any means possible. Sure, it didn't prevent all problems, but it did stop the common mistakes made out of lack of knowledge. Moreover, I can see where HR fit into the picture, which is a marked contrast to many people on this site.
The fine detail and specifics doesn’t matter here.
It’s the general principle and perception investors like this have of the U.K. and his general view of the U.K. is quite correct.
Arguing, well he’s not quite right as it’s this round etc etc completely misses the point. We need to attract investors, do things quicker and grow the economy. Taking measures to achieve this is what we need to do.
As an international man, it's great to be recognised
I hear the government is about to (if it hasn't already) publish it's first ever men's health strategy.
(Awaits brickbats...)
I agree it shouldn’t take 20 years but we don’t seem to do investment in the UK - we would rather quietly slowly get poorer
Otherwise, not bad, if looking for cuts. But I don't know what 'AD' is so can't comment on that.
ETA: I was astonished to get child benefit on child three as I thought the two child cap was universal. From a population engineering perspective, you could limit it at some number (or means test - the poor would qualify for other benefits if you removed CB after saying child two or three anyway)
Policy Exchange has some concrete ideas.
https://policyexchange.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Beyond-Our-Means_.pdf
Back then, the countries receiving the most aid were…
“the top 3 recipients of UK bilateral country specific ODA were Afghanistan (£353 million), Ukraine (£342 million) and Nigeria (£110 million)”
“the largest amount of bilateral ODA was focused on the sectors ‘Refugees in Donor Countries’ (£3,690 million), ‘Humanitarian (£109 million) and ‘Health’ (£966 million)”
Planning, sure, but it’s not politically viable to get rid of planning.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/11/16/civil-service-employing-at-least-500-diversity-officers/
suggests why. It actually includes officers in the relevant Government dept dealing with wider policy in this field, so you can knock a lot off because they're not HR diversity officers in the sense implied. And even allowing for that, it is a very broad definition anyway
(a) anyone whose job includes but is not restricted to d.
(b) diversity as in, for instance, diversity, equality and inclusion. So implementing much wider legislation - for instance, that governing discrimination against women
A cynic may notice that it hasn't generated a great deal of growth, even if not a debt crisis.
The UK government has said it will not offer financial support to keep the Exxon Mobil plant at Mossmorran open.
Speaking in the House of Commons on Tuesday evening, Business Minister Chris McDonald said there was no realistic business plan to go with investment.
He said ExxonMobil's chairman Paul Greenwood had told him that the plant was inefficient and would need nearly £1bn of spending to make it profitable.
Hundreds of staff have been told their jobs are at risk as the petrochemical company prepares to close part of the site.
The Fife Ethylene Plant (FEP) in Mossmorran is to close in February, the company confirmed earlier in the day."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy0kxq0zp47o
Just waiting for international whitey day to silence the Reform-types
Put a cancellation clause in it…