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People have tried Spudda’s approach and it didn’t work…..

It seems that there is almost universal political agreement now that the UK’s public servants deserve a serious pay rise after seven years of real pay cuts. But, having achieved that goal another, quite extraordinary, discussion has arisen, which is on how we, a a country, are going to pay for this apparent profligacy. It is as if the logic is that if nurses want an additional one per cent then one in hundred of them mist be sacked or as MP after commentator has said “we’ll be passing the burden to our children to pay the debt”.

This is utter nonsense.

All government pay comes back to the government as taxes. Plus it stimulates the economy and that creates more tax so they actually make a profit. So, just print the money, pay the nurses and watch us all get rich.

Well, yes, except it didn’t work in Zimbabwe, did it? So why would it work here?

16 thoughts on “People have tried Spudda’s approach and it didn’t work…..”

  1. For me the biggest “oh FFS” came when he was asked what went wrong in Zimbabwe; “they printed too much money” he replied.

    Go figure.

  2. Hard pressed nurses are what passes for the middle class in many parts of the country; their working class neighbours can only dream of acquiring those public sector pensions. I’m not unsympathetic (have a number of medics in the family), but pay has rarely been a problem. The Conservatives screwed the election by appearing weak when confronted by the dementia tax backlash – we realised Theresa May was all mouth and trousers. If Hammond now chucks in the towel ahead of the Brexit upheaval, then the Government (and us) are well and truly fucked.

  3. It’s easy to get “almost universal political agreement” when you block anybody who dissents in any way from fawning agreement with your statements.

    To whit, we have actually found something Ritchie is very good at, if not the exemplar of. Even if it is actively harmful to society.

    The political “echo chamber”.

  4. “Well, yes, except it didn’t work in Zimbabwe, did it? So why would it work here?”

    Forget Zimbabwe, it didn’t work in the Weimar Republic, and Hitler built his rise to power on claiming that ‘the Jooz’ fucked up a system that otherwise would have worked. Ritchie is making the same claims here, quite explicitly.

  5. The bellend wants a country without a private sector at all, where we all live blissful lives under the control of a benign curajus state, joyfully taxing us to fvck.

  6. Do the public know that public sector workers can get two different kinds of pay rises, only one of which is capped?

    eg: Are NHS workers getting a 4% pay rise?

    Bernie G. said: “The Conservatives screwed the election by appearing weak when confronted by the dementia tax backlash – we realised Theresa May was all mouth and trousers. ”

    Conservatives have missed many open goals since Brexit. If we are to have government spending to prop up the economy can it at least be in expanding border & customs forces, more port infrastructure and more prisons rather than HS2 and Hinkley C?

    Getting Britain match fit in time for Brexit requires increasing our fisheries protection fleets, shopping the shrinkage in the MoD, etc. There is supposed to be a northern powerhouse but government doesn’t want to give it any work to do (like making armoured vehicles to replace the Army’s antiques). The grossly inflated foreign aid budget is a slap in the face for all taxpayers. The NHS is overflowing with bureaucrats gathering data – could that be because they like selling it or giving it away without our permission?

    On the matter of the size and makeup of government again the conservatives seem to have not realised the situation we are in. Leaving the EU will see heavy responsibilities return to Westminster. Westminster should be readying for this by pushing current responsibilities back to local government. Cutting central funding and making local government raise far more itself will make local government more accountable and could see the state in aggregate growing while the centralised state shrinks.

  7. The experiment has already been done
    It’s called UK Public Spending 2008-2017
    Tax receipts have not caught up with spending.

  8. he’s having a whine about personal credit now with people purchasing cars and how bad it is. by his own logic an increase in personal credit is good for the government as all the credit will be recuoped as taxation, thus enabling the govt to spend on all the stuff he likes – ie more green tat and immigrants.

  9. Ironman obviously failed to spot the subtleties of Dick’s argument. Only the Big Dick knows what is enough.

    Mind you, I would have expected Dick to say their tax rates weren’t high enough, but, hey, opinions, pricinples.

  10. Given the instincts and actions of kings and governments throughout the ages, I think if debasing the currency were the road to prosperity it would have been discovered by now.

  11. Nice CapX piece, Tim.

    Given that the DUP are now on board, I’m not sure what is to stop the government devolving the PRB settlements down to the assemblies, apart from stupidity, that is.

  12. Not NHS, but my ex is a social worker, and her pay today is 2x what it was 15 years ago. 15th root of 2.0 is 1.47. ie, 4.7% pay rise each year.

  13. @jgh and my bet is that neither your ex nor any of her colleagues would have the faintest idea what you mean by the 15th root of 2.0. Guess they could always ask Dianne Abbot.

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