Chancellor Rachel Reeves to reveal cuts to plug ‘£20bn black hole’ in public finances

18 comments

1. This is very odd, they’ve just announced giving a load of money to foreign countries and a lot of their immediate initiatives have been around softening asylum policies.
   One of the first things for Brits though ‘youre getting a load of cuts’. Do they really hate us?

2. How has this black hole formed? We have had huge de facto tax hikes over recent years from the personal allowances being frozen and I imagine an enormous increase in VAT receipts off the back of rampant inflation.

   I would bet stamp duty takings are well up and IHT is probably up too even though that’s only a small pot.

3. It was obvious to anyone with a brain Labour would continue with austerity.

4. There was never a magic cure. Tax rises and more austerity are what we all know are coming.

5. Or you know.. you could tax the rich? It’s not that hard.

6. This is EXACTLY what we were told about during the election period, where we were informed they weren’t being honest about the state of the nations finances. 20 billion is a lot to stomach and feels like a return to austerity again.

7. More false promises. What about the foreign aid? Why give that away when it could solve half of our Blackhole?

8. Wonder which it is:

   1) Tory party hid information from the OBR.
   2) OBR is incompetent.
   3) Labour lied going into the general election.

   A lot of people highlighted the state of the economy was bad and labour were being optimistic but that seemed to be around future growth. Also seems like the cost of certain Tory policies were not necessarily declared.

   Hopefully we find out what’s going on, my guess is a little bit of 1 and 3.

9. They are quickly giving everyone voters remorse by announcing millions of handouts to other countries but cuts domestically. What is actually happening to UK politics? It seems we are screwed regardless.

10. If its austerity, we’re in for a rocky ride. Meanwhile, billionaires just keep on trucking and laughing.

11. “Ms Reeves is expected to say: “It is time to level with the public and tell them the truth”

    But we will only do it once in power because people can do fuck all about it then?

12. Yay! Labour cuts to follow 14 years of Tory cuts. That will really deliver the growth economy that Starmer promised before the election! /s

    Seriously, when are we actually going to actually start investing in Britain again instead of just letting the country rot because “there’s no money” yet there’s 165 billionaires in the country?

13. Any chance of getting a refund on that COVID track and trace app?

14. It’s political playbook. Just like the Tories did. Labour will spend all this parliament blaming all the unpopular decisions on the Tories.

15. Remember the Tories promising more tax cuts if they stayed in power? They knew there was no money but still they lied to the public and gave promises they knew they couldn’t keep.

    It’ll be interesting to see exactly how Labour go about raising the cash without touching income tax and national insurance.

16. This rhetoric is exactly what we heard from the tories when they came in hot on the heels of the last labour government. Which isn’t actually surprising given that they’re both centre right parties and agree on lots of policy.

    Imagine being left with both main parties supporting public services cuts and tax increases.

17. Hell of a lot of leaking and briefing to the Press.

    Thought this was supposed to be announced in the Commons first?

18. It shouldn’t be a surprise. Typical labour of taxing the shit out of everyone. If we thought it was tough before just wait…