Tories ‘deliberately covered up’ true state of public finances, says minister

24 comments

1. I like that this stuff is being spoken about openly but this had better not lead to 4years of blaming each other.

   We need a solid plan to get this country moving in the right direction.

2. How is this not illegal? The Tories actively destroyed the country, then conspired to hide the fact they were working against the interests of the Crown.

   The Luftwaffe or the Provisional IRA could only dream of wreaking destruction on the scale of the Conservative Party.

3. This is comedy gold:

   > Asked on Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips **if he was embarrassed by the “black hole” in public finances**,

   > John Glen said: “**I’m not embarrassed at all**. Government is about taking tough choices across a balanced set of priorities.

   You only had almost a decade and a half to:

   > What we were trying to do was **prioritise working people’s tax cuts** as much as we possibly could

   After rising them to the highest level since whenever.

   > whilst maintaining investment in the NHS, long-term workforce reform plans in the NHS, the first time in its history, and continue to invest in education and public services.

   Good thing you decided to *try* two weeks before election, pity you didn’t *do* during the preceding years.

   > “What we also said in the election campaign is that we had a very rigorous campaign to actually get **more efficiencies in our public services welfare reform**, getting the **number of civil servants reduced**, because **it’s a historic high**, and actually **bring reformed public services**, and **that is the area that this government appears to have very, very little narrative on**.

   After overseeing all above for over a decade, we suddenly decided to do all this just before the election. Never mind, we managed to waste £700 million on a scheme that was never going to work and were **going to** waste another £9 billion.

   Now sitting in opposition and blaming Labour for lying and failing in their promises three weeks into their victory, merrily amplified by some people here screaming of how they are going to raise taxes and are lying to justify what ever it is they are going to do. Before they have had a chance to do anything.

4. >He questioned whether Tory MPs were “involved in this cover-up” or whether they did not know, and as a result “should be grateful that Rachel Reeves is now exposing the true extent of this catastrophic inheritance from the previous Conservative government”.

   Someone had to know or it would not be a cover-up.

5. They’re all lying, tories took over found a note, labour takes over finds a black hole, most of which is unavoidable, 8bn is for the 5.5% pay rise(deserved ) 10bn is for the hotel rooms for asylum seekers(unavoidable, they have to live somewhere). Labour wanted the job and the public finances are just that, they would have had access to civil service reports on budget just like the tories did 14 yrs ago, the truth is neither lot have a clue about what to do and remain popular, it’s impossible.

6. Why doesn’t Labour just say, “We always planned to raise taxes more than we said in our manifesto, but we knew the public would get worried about that so didn’t tell them”

   All parties lie to us. Labour are just the same.

   [https://labour.org.uk/updates/press-releases/rachel-reeves-speech-to-business-leaders-at-rolls-royce/](https://labour.org.uk/updates/press-releases/rachel-reeves-speech-to-business-leaders-at-rolls-royce/)

   *I will never play fast and loose with the public finances – because when you do so, you put family finances at risk.*

   *We have started as we mean to go on:*

   ***I have been very clear that every policy we announce, and every line in our manifesto, will be fully costed and fully funded. No ifs, no ands, no buts.***

   *That is the attitude I will take into the Treasury. Because taxpayers’ money should be spent with the same care with which we spend our own money.*

   *We will fight this election on the economy.*

   *Every day we will expose the damage the Conservatives have done…*

   ***All fully costed, all fully funded; All those ambitions built on the bedrock of economic stability.***

   **But the problems already known about** – [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c100n7djyr6o](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c100n7djyr6o)

   *As such, the IFS says that barring a dramatic improvement in growth, the next government could face three broad choices: to go forward with the spending squeeze for services, raise taxes further or increase annual borrowing, which could risk preventing total debt from falling.*

   ***He added that the next government should not wait until it enters office to “open the books”, adding that they are published and available for anyone to inspect.***

   ***Responding to the findings of the IFS, Darren Jones, shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, said that the Labour party was under no illusions about the scale of the challenge it may face.***

7. This is a great attack line. Every chart can be shown by good things going down since 2010 and bad things going up.

   There has never been a period that shows the greatest hit to public quality of life. Even war periods didn’t have this hit. I think labour should expose it, as already Mail, telegraph and express (and clowns like braverman) are blaming them for the mess. That will get louder regardless of any improvements as time passes by

8. Still a lot better off than what labour did last time they were in charge.. I hate both parties but true story.

9. Labour got elected on hot air, there’s no magic money tree to fund anything they’re promising otherwise Tories would have done it already. They’re following on from what’s already there and distracting everyone from that by making nonsense jibes, hoping no one will notice they’re doing exactly the same as last government.

   There’s no money but they were able to run the economy through a pandemic and energy crisis on a shoestring budget without crashing it.. Inflation hit every country uk is no different

10. They say this stuff after every change of government, Osborne said it and Brown said it too.

11. Of course they did. They have been proved to be lying self profiting assholes. The only ‘metric’ they can claim is inflation is down because nobody can afford to buy anything. 14 years of the top 5% getting richer while the country goes backwards.

12. This is a very tiresome narrative and media blitz. I am glad Stephen bush in the FT called them out on what obviously a pre planned weekend media fest.

    Grow up.

13. Just get on with it…..

    People are fed up with blame game politics.

14. There needs to be a criminal offence created for politicians deliberately misleading or lying to the public, start getting some of these pricks in prison

15. Is this Labour finding out it seriously can not do what it wants. Because there’s no money

16. Not sure about this. They probably did but its a convenient excuse for labour raising taxes

17. This is just them trying to spin for tax raises across the board.

    They’ll just blame each other for the next 4-8 years

18. People acting like this is a controversial thing to say when the true cost of Rwanda only just got exposed

19. The party who constantly got called out for lying, lied. Colour me shocked.

20. Well none of this matters as you’ve promised you won’t raise taxes… hehehehehehe

21. I’m not buying that Labour didn’t know the true state of the countries finances, it’s not like the OBF don’t release reports on the state of the countries finances. And what were the shadow ministers doing, playing on their phones and not keeping upto date on what was going on?

    No one can deny the state the Tories have left the country in, but I think Labour knew it was this bad before the election but sat on it because it would give them an excuse to raise taxes, because if they’d mentioned the need to raise taxes before the election they wouldn’t have won, or at least not had such a large majority.

22. All the Tories are about is tax cuts. There comes a point where someone has to pay

23. What, the lying, corrupt lot that were more about lining their own pockets, and taking money from anyone with a heartbeat. Never!

24. Not sure how they did that when the OBR has all the data and publishes it.