After weeks of speculation, the chancellor will confirm at the fund’s annual meetings in Washington on Thursday that next week’s budget will include a new method for assessing the UK’s debt position – a move that will permit the Treasury to borrow more for long-term capital investment.
The change to the debt rule will be welcomed by the IMF, which says spending on UK infrastructure projects should be ringfenced as the government seeks to repair the damage to the public finances caused by the pandemic and the cost of living crisis.
Reeves will not specify while in Washington which of the various debt measures under consideration has been chosen, but the Guardian has been told by a senior government source that she will target public sector net financial liabilities (PSNFL).
Note the weasel word in there, “funded”. PSNFL does not include unfunded public sector pensions. For the obvious reason that if we included those then no one would even dream of borrowing more…..
Unfunded public sector pensions. A euphemism for a Ponzi scheme. Go on, say it ain’t so!
Once the fiddled rules are published I hope someone will do the sums to work out what they would have implied to the budgets of previous Governments.
I suppose the only good news we can draw from this insanity is that the next government of any hue is going to stop new entrants to public sector pension schemes 🙁
The pandemic et al didn’t damage the economy. Ill-advised government measures against them ruined the economy.
@ rhoda
The so-call “cost of living crisis” was also government imposed when they placed sanctions on Russia and stopped the flow of hydrocarbons via the front door.
There is nothing cockwomble politicians can’t fuck up.
Joe, high energy prices are government policy, I don’t know why, because you can’t get growth or control inflation or compete for investment with high energy prices. I know this, and I’m just a notional Lincolnshire housewife. They know it too. They do nothing to make it better, so it must be policy. Why does no media person or opposition pol ask the question and keep asking until the bastards can duck it no longer.
Guido had already revealed that Ms Reeves had been economical with the truth when she claimed to have been English Under-14 Girls Chess Champion. Now it turns out that he alleges that she hasn’t ever been an economist either,.
https://order-order.com/2024/10/24/rachel-reeves-bank-economist-myth-busted/
Mind you she probably remains the only Labour MP capable of elementary arithmetic so she’s probably the sole contender for the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer. (Though you could argue that Ginge has practical experience in housing/capitalism/tax. And there’s widespread experience of baksheesh.)
Has there ever been a more incompetent set of shysters and nincompoops elected to rule over us?
Everything they do is shit and makes us worse off.
Mauritius gets sovereignty over Chagos (why? when were the islands ever Mauritian?) but we pay them to take a strategic asset off our hands. And we promise to deport any illegal migrants to Chagos 5,000 miles away in a different ocean. Meanwhile have the gangs been “smashed”?
Public sector and unionised employees whose productivity is declining from an already low base get huge bungs and bonuses for actually turning up for work. No requirement to actually do the work, though.
Several entire Whitehall departments (Energy, UKRI, Housing, Education to name but a dozen) could simply be abolished and no one would notice.
I could go on. And on.
Not to mention the corruption.
Reeves is going to redefine subtraction. Income 800 billion, outgoings 1500 billion, 800 minus 1500 equals, sticks finger in air, 500! Wey hey!
Rachel Reeves may well have been her CLUB under-12 Champion – otherwise she wouldn’t have been encouraged to enter the National Championship. When I was second-best under-13 or under-15 or under-17, no-one dreamed of encouraging me to enter a National Championship.
Suggestio falsi is not *quite* the same as lying
“Suggestio falsi is not *quite* the same as lying”: oh I dunno. We were taught that there were two sorts of lying viz suggestio falsi and suppressio veri. In English I suppose you could say downright lying vs being economical with the truth.
As for the chess:
https://order-order.com/2024/10/15/investigation-rachel-reeves-british-chess-champion-myth-busted/
@philip – “Has there ever been a more incompetent set of shysters and nincompoops elected to rule over us?”
Have you not being paying attention for the last few years? Why do you think the last lot got such a huge defeat in the last election?
rhoda:
Why is it policy? “The worse, the better”.
They haven’t changed in two centuries. They never will change.
Wire. Lampposts.