In a letter to MPs on the eve of Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool, Mr Streeting wrote: “This Government is fully committed to an NHS estate that is fit for the future. However, from our first weeks in office it was clear that the New Hospital Programme was undeliverable, unaffordable, and estimated costs had risen by billions.
“Combined with the incredibly challenging fiscal inheritance that the Chancellor set out in her statement on July 29, it has become clear that the challenges facing the NHP, and the wider public finances, are much more severe than we were aware.”
There isn’t any money. Tax is already at post-war high. All that money has indeed been spent. There hasn’t been any austerity, has there?
The New Jerusalem is cancelled in line with our policy of re-writing our manifesto after the election.
Two Tiers for Democracy
The budget for the NHS is about equivalent to the GDP of Hungary.
Perhaps we should get Orbam to run it for us.
Since politicians are treated like Royalty by the NHS they never experience the reality and so are blissfully unconcerned with the UK having a medical system as opposed to something Goebbels would have been proud of…
Tim, how wrong you are. We could have just printed as much money as we needed to fund our NHS properly, as well as removing child poverty and doubling winter fuel allowances and other benefits.
We can also tax wealthy people more, but obviously not in a way that actually impacts me personally, or anyone that supports or funds me. So lower tax relief on pensions (unless you are a public sector worker), higher taxes on people saving / investing (because I don’t have savings that would be affected. Closure of tax avoidance measures (apart from the ones that I benefit on with my limited company and paying dividends to my wife) etc.
This is not inconsistency or hypocrisy, it’s just my definition of ‘fairness’. And obviously what I say goes!
There are no possible adverse impacts of such a policy, as confirmed by MMT and Richard Murphy.
Signed, Richard Murphy.
“This Government is fully committed to an NHS estate that is fit for the future.”
So were the other seven Labour Governments since 1945.
“This Government is fully committed “
If only. But didn’t a previous lot close all the asylums?
One of the reasons I was (and am) so angry about the Rishi Coup is this:
However, from our first weeks in office it was clear that the New Hospital Programme was undeliverable, unaffordable,
This is a blatant fucking lie, and everyone who isn’t a drooling moron (the Foreign Secretary) knows it. Labour simply told a lot of lies before the election, knowing they would offer excuses when in office while focusing on the important business of hoovering up money from wealthy homosexual donors.
Before the Rishi Coup, we had a chance of escaping this dynamic, where the British public is repeatedly abused while being passed between the red grooming gang and the blue grooming gang.
We had an opportunity to regain our national sovereignty, but sniggering Tories decided to blow up their own party rather than do anything for you, white man.
Not only was there no austerity there has been no £22 billion black hole.
Why only £22 billion? Someone I read said that before the election Labour claimed there was a £67 billion black hole. Can’t they make their minds up? Or did they put dear Mr Lammy in charge of the arithmetic?
Mind you a $A67 billion black hole was claimed to exist in Australian politics: does 67 billion have some magic property? Well 67 is a prime number. Is someone indulging in numerology?
Estimates are that the various pay deals they agreed (or caved into the unions on) and other recent decisions add up to around $18 billion so they may well be right about the $22 billion black hole, just lying about the cause
It’s possible to have austerity and spend more if you spend on the wrong things.
No, it isn’t. “Austerity” has a simple and strong meaning in economics.
They didn’t do that – vide the deficit. They didn’t cut spending either.
Nobody in politics uses the word “austerity” in its specialist economics sense unless by doing so they could get some advantage by deceiving people.
You need to assume that when politicians make speeches and campaign they intend that their words have the ordinary English meaning.
Whatever you think the ordinary English meaning of “austerity” is, it can’t possible mean “having the highest ever taxes in peacetime”. What ‘austerity’?
@Chris Miller
That family with a sole breadwinner is suffering from austerity because the breadwinner, despite earning ever larger salaries, spends even more due to alcoholism/gambling/drug addiction. That sort of austerity. The people might suffer from austerity by having to pay high taxes while the government squanders the money leaving little of value to show for it.