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That’s not a black hole

Rachel Reeves is preparing to unveil a £19bn black hole in the public finances as she builds up to an autumn tax raid.

The Chancellor is expected to blame pressures on the NHS, prisons and schools for the funding gap after asking Treasury officials to prepare an assessment of the “spending inheritance” left by the Tories.

An early assessment from the audit has identified roughly £19bn in “excess pressures” for the 2024-25 financial year alone, Whitehall sources said. This includes funding for higher public sector wages as Ms Reeves prepares to sign off a series of inflation-busting pay deals.

That’s an “I want to spend more”.

19 thoughts on “That’s not a black hole”

  1. In the Marvel Universe, there’s a chap called Galactus. His herald is the Silver Surfer whose job it is to find suitable planets. Thereupon Galactus devours the planet, organic and mineral.

    His appetite is insatiable.

    Sounds like the NHS.

  2. p.s. NHS budget 2016 = £143 Billion. NHS budget 2024 = £182 Billion. Austerity. What austerity?

  3. A black hole is caused by spunking money away that the Treasury ain’t got.

    No doubt Ms. Reeves believes that the Magic Money Tree will provide?

    …Because I certainly won’t.

  4. Locally, the NHS has been galvanized into action as can be seen by the hospital car parks. There are plenty of Mercs there as well, which means the managers are actually coming in, in addition to mere doctors. This obviously means that now the penny pinching Tories are out, everyone’s motivated again after having been starved of cash for so long. 50% pay rises all round!

  5. Wait for the ‘this is not a tax rose’ sophistry

    Nigel will enjoy himself

    Uniparty blue will deny it’s anything to do with them

    Uniparty red’s claims to have fully coated their plans are laid bare as rubbish after 30 days

    The planned raid on our pockets goes ahead

    Meanwhile thousands more illegals come to our shores to reinforce the ones already here suffering police brutality while simultaneously flying world wide owning expensive cars and owning multiple houses back in Pakistan

  6. “Do we want the UK’s universities to go bust?
    Posted on July 26 2024

    I have published this video this morning. In it, I ask whether Labour is really going to let some UK universities go bust, which they almost certainly will if it does not step in to save them? Do they really want to be the party that oversaw the start of the decline in UK education?”

    Well a few “universities” [sic] going bust would probably improve UK education, such as any which have used Murphy as lecturer, academic [sic] adviser or provider of materials.

  7. Questionable technique to announce you are going to authorise an above inflation increase before negotiations even begin.

    Shades of the fish-faced cow and her approach to leaving the eu. Except Reeves really really wants to spend more money while May really really didn’t want to leave the eu.

    .

  8. BF: Yes. Next question.

    Labour *are* the party that oversaw the start of the decline in UK education, it happened in the 2000s.

  9. The “spending inheritance” left by the Tories”

    Perhaps the outgoing chancellor should have left a note saying “There is no money left”…

  10. Dave @ 11.00, I mentioned this to a friend before the election; this is possibly the first time that a Labour government will inherit the kind of hand they have previously left for Conservative governments, which means they will have to start taxing people sooner rather than later and make difficult decisions of the sort normally the preserve of some hapless Tory minister or Nick Clegg.

  11. “Labour *are* the party that oversaw the start of the decline in UK education, it happened in the 2000s.”

    Nah, Crosland and Williams were much earlier than that.

  12. Bloke in North Dorset

    “ The “spending inheritance” left by the Tories”

    They must be the only people in the country he didn’t know the finances were fvcked. They’ve had access to the civil service for 12 months, the OBR publishes its reports and Paul Johnson at the IFS has been pointing out for months if not years.

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