Rachel Reeves is determined to keep digging
Published in The Scotsman, July 30, The National, July 30, and the Edinburgh Evening News, August 1, 2024 .
Rachel Reeves says she’s shocked to have identified a £20b fiscal black hole that will require tax increases and spending cuts to fill. Yet there was ample warning from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) and Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) that this was the case. English Labour’s Scottish supervisor, the hapless Anas Sarwar, vehemently rejected there was any black hole, claiming there would be no return to austerity under Labour.
There’s a saying - when you’re in a hole, stop digging. Now we’re stuck for the next five years with an English Labour government that’s determined to keep digging.
Here’s the problem that Labour is either too stupid to understand or is wilfully ignoring in order to placate the City and its wealthy donors. For decades, the UK has woefully underinvested in public services and infrastructure, leaving the economy in tatters and people miserable. Compounding the damage is the fact that England and Wales voted to leave the Single Market, dragging Scotland behind them. So, the economy is tanking due to lack of investment (and Brexit) but Labour is saying we now can’t afford to invest. How does that make any sense?
It doesn’t help that we have a lamestream media that is happy to regurgitate the talking points that politicians feed it, rather than do its job to scrutinise and challenge what these people are saying.
The UK’s inexorable decline can only be reversed if the government starts investing in people and the public services they depend upon. This kind of investment not only pays for itself through additional taxes and spending generated via the multiplier effect, but it’s also the only way to stimulate real economic growth and improve peoples’ lives.
Instead, English Labour will accelerate the UK’s decline. However, there’s a silver lining for Scotland. The UK’s demise will give Scotland an opportunity to create a fairer and more prosperous nation.
Your points on Reeves' cynical deceptions are well made, but a clarification.
England and Wales voted to leave the EU, not the single market for which there was no mandate. Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt both said after the vote that single market membership would continue. The Welsh government and Scottish Tories at least at first backed continuing SM membership. Not only do voters not understand the single market but alarmingly neither do politicians nor the media.
Cabinet members had to have a briefing from civil servants after the vote on this - they had been spouting stuff during the campaign which they did not understand.
N Ireland got a special deal thanks to an international treaty, the Belfast aka Good Friday Agreement. Scotland too has the 1707 Treaty of Union but it and its vote were ignored. It was Brexit that convinced me of the case for Scottish independence. Scots have a very different view of their place in the world and their relationships with other countries which the British (Greater English) government ignored.
Reeves is a liar and incompetent, she should not be in the high office job given to her. Quite simple really.
Is she an economist does anyone know of her qualifications for the job?