#chancellor of the exchequer rachel reeves

[higherentity]

[insidecroydon]

£40bn of tax rises - but local councils left waiting for an answer

CROYDON IN CRISIS: Labour’s first Budget in 14 years made no mention of councils with ‘toxic debt’ or any reframing of the central government’s settlement with local authorities. Political editor WALTER CRONXITE assesses what has been described as ‘a mixed bag’ Boxed in: £40bn of tax rises in Rachel Reeves’ Budget Sad to say, but it looks like Rachel Reeves doesn’t read Inside Croydon. Despite…

[adj4mp]

Rachel Reeves

Chancellor of the Exchequer is the first role I'm looking at that I consider to need a certain level of expertise. Some of this can be gained as part of a parliamentary career, but it also takes considerable knowledge of economics and critical thinking as well as some understanding of philosophy and sociology.

Reeves certainly has the qualifications in all economics and philosophy, the critical thinking is covered by a master's in science, while the sociology is a major part of politics. I knew very little of Reeve's CV before writing the description of the qualifications I think about with regard to that job so that she ticks so many boxes makes me believe my inferences for the job requirements wasn't too far off the mark.

Her expertise and experiences have brought her into shadow ministerial positions for almost her entire parliamentary career. Being new to parliament and pushed quickly into higher ranking roles means her talents were recognised very early on. And given she was even chosen to contest a by-election her skills might have been recognised and wanted by the Labour government under Blair and Brown as well.

Before Parliament her work for the Bank of England at least on the surface level mirrors Sunak though she claims that she avoided the excess wealth that working within the banking system can provide, skipping out on a job with Goldman Sachs an investing banking company. Assuming this is true and guessing that the head hunting took place before Reeve's first political campaign it shows a serious level of forethought and commitment, where Sunak made his millions and left the banking sector after the financial crash Reeves seems to have avoided being embroiled in the worst excesses of that recession adding to her personal credibility for the job.

Her approach and methodology as I understand it is a case of "If we build it they will come" make the foundations good enough and it enables others to build systems upon it. Infrastructure projects, education, roads, the NHS, telecommunications, rail, and more have been somewhat neglected by public funding in recent years and the cracks in those foundations can be seen in all mannor of places.

She is a very promising proposal for Chancellor and I am excited to see her budget.

[reasonsforhope]

Paywall-Free Article

"In one of its first big decisions, Britain’s new Labour government on Friday [July 12, 2024] announced the early release of thousands of prisoners, blaming the need to do so on a legacy of neglect and underinvestment under the Conservative Party, which lost last week’s general election after 14 years in power.

With the system nearly at capacity and some of the country’s aged prison buildings crumbling, the plan aims to avoid an overcrowding crisis that some had feared might soon explode.

But with crime a significant political issue, the decision is a sensitive one and the prime minister, Keir Starmer, a former chief prosecutor, lost no time in pointing to his predecessors to explain the need for early releases.

“We knew it was going to be a problem, but the scale of the problem was worse than we thought, and the nature of the problem is pretty unforgivable in my book,” Mr. Starmer said, speaking ahead of the decision while attending a NATO summit in Washington...

Under the new government’s plan, those serving some sentences in England and Wales would be released after serving 40 percent of their sentence, rather than at the midway point at which many are freed “on license,” a kind of parole.

The even earlier releases will not apply to those convicted of more serious crimes, including sexual offenses, serious violence and terrorism. But Mark Icke, vice president of the Prison Governors’ Association, told the BBC that the plan could remove from the system “between 8,000 and 10,000 people,” providing “some breathing space.”

[Note: And more importantly - breathing space for thousands of people who have been unjustly imprisoned for minor offenses, as well as their families.]

Despite some early releases under the previous government, the strain on the prison system has been relentless. In England and Wales, the prison population stands at 87,505 — very close to the maximum capacity of 88,956 — according to the latest official data...

In its first week in power, Labour has said that it is grappling with a difficult inheritance after years of restraint in spending on public services under the Conservatives. In one of her first acts in government, the new chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, has ordered a review of Britain’s public finances.

Before Labour had won the election, it identified the strain on Britain’s prisons as a potentially major problem. The issue was cited on an internal list of key concerns; others included the strain on the overburdened health care system and financial pressure on municipalities and universities.

The prison population of England and Wales has doubled over the last 30 years, despite a decline in crime rates, and it has increased by 13 percent in the past three years...

Rory Stewart, a former Conservative prisons minister, said that Britain had incarcerated too many people, including for minor crimes such as repeated failure to pay council tax, which is levied by local authorities for municipal services.

According to Mr. Stewart in remarks to the BBC, imprisoning people for minor crimes “doesn’t protect the public. It doesn’t help these people get away from offending. And it creates these violent, filthy, shameful places which our prisons have become today.” The Conservative and Labour parties, he added, had “competed with each other on being more and more ferocious in demanding longer and longer sentences.”

Mr. Starmer has raised hopes among those who want to change that policy by appointing a prominent advocate of overhauling the prison system, James Timpson, as prisons minister. Mr. Timpson, a businessman, has a record of employing former prisoners in an effort to give them a second chance."

-via The New York Times, July 12, 2024

[tomorrowusa]

The New Statesman podcast panel on Friday braved sleep deprivation and provided quality election analysis.

Here's some breaking news. The last of the 650 constituencies was finally decided on Saturday after a recount. The Lib Dems won in the Scottish constituency of Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire. You can add +1 to their existing count of 71 seats in the election.

The Lib Dems felt confident enough to post this even before the recount was complete.

Let's meander a bit around the results.

A fun fact which got mentioned in the podcast above was that constituencies once represented by Conservative prime ministers are no longer in Conservative hands.

Margaret Thatcher (Finchley and Golders Green – flipped to Labour) David Cameron (Witney – flipped to Lib Dems) Theresa May (Maidenhead – flipped to Lib Dems) Boris Johnson (Uxbridge and South Ruislip – flipped to Labour) Liz Truss (South West Norfolk – flipped to Labour)

All the current seats of past Tory prime ministers dating back to Thatcher's time, except for Rishi Sunak and John Major, are no longer in Tory hands.

Outside the UK the role which Scotland played in this election may not be fully known.

I've long suspected that the surge in Scottish pro-independence sentiment since 2010 may have been connected to the desire of many Scots simply to put distance between themselves and the Conservative government in London.

So with the strong likelihood of a UK Labour victory, support for the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) plummeted in Thursday's general election. The percentage of votes in Scotland for the SNP dropped 15% while Labour upped their share 17%.

The SNP held 43 seats in Parliament in London at the time of dissolution in May and had won 48 in the 2019 general election. They now have only 9 seats in the just elected Parliament.

Scotland seems to be returning to the Labour fold after a long break.

In Wales the Conservatives got totally wiped out. The principality is now a Tory-free zone.

According the stats on the House of Commons updated State of the parties page, women now account for 263 of 650 seats in the chamber. That's 40.86%.

Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced his cabinet choices. Most were already known. 11 of the 25 cabinet positions are now held by women.

Who's in Keir Starmer's new cabinet?

Notably, Rachel Reeves is the new Chancellor of the Exchequer – essentially the finance and budget minister. She's the first woman to ever hold this position.

Finally, the closest thing to an inauguration ceremony was Keir Starmer's visit to Buckingham Palace to be asked formally by King Charles to form a government. The beginning of that meeting was released to the media.

[head-post]

UK to give in to EU demands for greater access to fisheries, freedom of movement

Britain will have to cave into EU demands for greater access to fishing and freedom of movement in return for closer trade ties, Daily Mail reports.

During a visit to Brussels, Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves was told that increased access to UK waters for EU trawlers and a youth mobility scheme would be “on the table” in future negotiations.

It came ahead of a summit with EU finance ministers, making Ms. Reeves the first British chancellor to attend such a meeting since the UK left the bloc almost five years ago.

Her presence was meant to be a statement of intent: the Chancellor joined the group of Cabinet ministers who have been pushing hardest for a “reset” of relations with the bloc. She told them that “breaking down trade barriers” would be a key objective of future negotiations to boost economic growth on both sides of the Channel.

Speaking to them, she added:

“In the long-run, Brexit is expected to cause UK trade intensity to fall by 15 per cent. And with goods exports between both the UK and EU continuing to remain below 2018 levels, this is impacting UK and EU economies alike. And so, the reset in relations is about doing what is in the best interests of our shared economies.”

However, ahead of the summit, Spain’s economy and trade minister Carlos Cuerpo Caballero warned that there would be a price to pay for greater market access.

Asked whether increased access to UK fishing waters would be a “red line,” he said:

“There is an element of common understanding that there’s a win-win situation of going further in this relationship between both parties. And we need to engage…on what would be the next steps towards getting back as much as possible to where we were [before Brexit] in terms of those financial economics and trade ties. It’s of course agriculture, it’s of course fisheries, it’s of course migration as well. There are many elements on the table that we will need to discuss.”

Asked whether the youth mobility scheme was also a red line, he added:

“Well, that’s an important element from the EU side we want to put on the table. And that’s one of the areas where I think there is greater value added, also for the UK, to engage constructively.”

UK ministers fear that the youth mobility scheme, which would allow young people from EU countries to live and work in the UK for a certain period, would be seen by Labour as a return of a form of free movement.

And Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has warned it would lead to a rise in net migration at a time when it is already at near-record levels. But Ms. Reeves appeared to leave the door open to a pact, telling a press conference after the summit that ministers ruled out a return to “free movement of labour.” This suggests the government is open to a return to other forms of free movement.

Labour’s election manifesto was not so unequivocal, it simply ruled out a return to “freedom of movement.” Ms. Reeves reiterated the government’s position that Britain would not join the EU’s single market or customs union. But she refused to outline her “red lines” for closer trade ties, insisting yesterday’s meeting was “not about starting negotiations” or “making a series of demands.”

It was about “preliminary work to rebuild trust and relations” and “drawing a line” under the “divisiveness and antagonism” of Brexit, she told a press conference after the summit. More detailed negotiations will begin next year, she added.

Privately, EU diplomats have complained that British ministers have been evasive in telling them exactly what they are seeking. And there is frustration in Brussels at the UK’s failure to so far embrace proposals for a youth mobility scheme.

Labour’s manifesto promised a new veterinary agreement to reduce barriers to food trade, as well as pushing for mutual recognition of professional qualifications. But Brexiteers fear it will entail bringing the UK into line with EU rules and recognising the role of the European Court of Justice in resolving disputes.

Alex Burghart MP, shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster for the Tory party, said:

“It looks like Labour’s plan is to follow EU rules for nothing in return. If the Chancellor wants to improve growth and trade, she should learn the lesson that clobbering businesses with high taxes and unleashing borrowing sprees will make our country less attractive, not more.”

Read more HERE

[eaglesnick]

“Things come apart so easily when they have been held together with lies." -  Dorothy Allison

“Five ways to fix the £40bn hole in UK’s public finances.” (FT: 18/10/22)

“Fast-rising borrowing costs putting UK public finances at greater risk, warns OBR.” (Guardian: 13/07/23)

“Britain’s debt timebomb is about to explode – and politicians are too timid to defuse it.” (The Telegraph: 09/12/23)

“The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) suggested some government departments could see cuts of between £10bn and £20bn – something Labour was reluctant to engage with during the election campaign." (BBC News: 27/07/24)

Given that the above news outlets – along with many others – have been telling us about the hole in UK public sector finances for at least  2 years why does it seem to have come as a great shock to Rachel Reeves?

“Chancellor Rachel Reeves said there was a £22 billion black hole in the public finances as she accused the Tories of covering up the scale of the problems.” (Northwich & Winsford Guardian: 29/07/24)

Either Rachel Reeves does not read official financial reports (in which case why is she Chancellor of the Exchequer) - or she is simply lying. I suspect the latter. This is what fullfact.org had to say:

“The IFS says many of the challenges Labour outlined this week were “entirely predictable”, and during the election campaign the think tank said that a new government would likely see a shortfall of £10-£20 billion by 2028/29.” (30/07/24)

How disappointing that Starmer’s Labour Government has the same relationship with the truth as the Tories - utter distain! 

[domlarkin]

Rachel Reeves: ( British Chancellor of the Exchequer)

It is almost Halloween

And it seems that Rachel Reeves

Is looking more and more like

A witch! Certainly, she frights

The poor and the needy who

Mistakenly thought the new

Labour Government would close

The wealth gap. O when the snow

Falls in winter, certainly

Many pensioners will freeze

To death, while she strokes her cat!

As for change, fat chance of that.

[misspeppermint2003]

Picrew Animated Portraits of World Politicians 4

After three parts at the first day, I made the fourth part of this collection with an image maker. It is also consisting of 12 politicians from different countries.

Dutch FvD party leader Thierry Baudet (left), former U.S. Presidents Donald Trump (middle) & Barack Obama (right)

British Former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg (left), former Home Secretary Priti Patel (middle) & Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves (right)

British Labour Party Deputy National Campaign Coordinator Ellie Reeves (left), Dutch former Deputy Prime Minister Sigrid Kaag (middle) & Dutch former Socialist Party leader Lilian Marijnissen (right)

Dutch former Labour Party leader Lilianne Ploumen (left), British former Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab (middle) & Dutch former Second Deputy Prime Minister Wopke Hoekstra (right)

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15

[tearsofrefugees]

Home Office won’t be allowed to raid aid budget for asylum hotels

Rachel Reeves’ Budget will contain measures to ensure the Home Office can no longer routinely raid Britain’s aid budget to pay for hotels for Channel small boat asylum seekers, i has learnt.

[higherentity]

[insidecroydon]

Three large private schools will cut fees to reduce sting of VAT

Education correspondent GENE BRODIE on how one of Croydon’s biggest eceonomic sectors is adjusting to the horrors of having to charge tax At least three of Croydon’s largest private schools plan to reduce their fees from next January, to take some of the sting out of the Labour Government’s plan to introduce 20% VAT on independent school fees from 2025. Doing their sums: Croydon’s large private…

[feckcops]

Why is Labour still using the self-defeating, discredited ‘maxed out credit card’ analogy?

“Rarely has a lacklustre policy been abandoned for a reason so bad that it threatens to inflict long-term damage on a society. Independently of whether the £28bn green investment programme was the right policy for the next Labour government to commit to, Rachel Reeves’s reasons for ditching it were an undeserved gift to the Tories and a partial vindication of their disgraceful flirtations with an austerian, anti-green political narrative ...

“When your credit card is ‘maxed out’, you do indeed need immediately to tighten your belt. The reason why parsimony works for you, and helps limit your debt, is that you are blessed with an income that is independent of what you decide to spend money on. In other words, if you don’t buy the shoes or new phone you covet, your income will not diminish, and so your deficit will shrink reliably. But the state’s budget is nothing like a credit card. As chancellor of the exchequer, your (tax) income is highly dependent on your (public) spending. Limit your spending and you have limited your income too. This is why the more Osborne slashed public spending in the 2010s, the more money he needed to borrow. By adopting the ‘maxed credit card’ narrative, Reeves endorsed Osborne’s flawed logic and, indirectly, absolved the Tories for the wanton damage they have inflicted on a generation of Britons.

“Austerity, and the credit card analogy that provides its thin veneer of logic, is not just bad for workers and people in desperate need of state support during tough times; it also depresses investment. By hastening the stagnation of a society’s aggregate income, it signals to businesses that they would be mad to put money into building up the capacity to produce the output that society is too impecunious to buy. That’s how austerity undermined investment in Britain and that’s how it will annul Labour’s ambition to draw in private green investments, now that Reeves has ditched her modest green public investment plan, replacing it with wishful thinking that the private sector will, magically, make up the difference ...

“These large sums can be raised, not through Treasury bonds that need to be repaid by taxpayers, but by bonds issued by a new public investment bank – to be repaid from the proceeds of the green enterprises they fund. The Bank of England could also help with an announcement: if the price of these green bonds were to fall below a certain point, it would buy them second-hand – even while selling off its stock of Treasury bonds. This mere announcement would ensure it would not need actually to buy them because investors would rush in to snap them up, thus leaving Britain’s public debt servicing costs unaffected.”

[missyshortformissilelauncher]

This is the current (until like nov 2024) Shadow Chancellor btw

She’s called Rachel Reeves and is only the second women to hold the position and will probably be the first women to become chancellor after the exchequer.

hey why does britain have a "shadow chancellor"

this is a video game boss

[lizseyi]

Labour Government Hails Budget’s ‘Significant’ Investment In Northern England Transport Links

It would not be an understatement to suggest that the recent Autumn Budget – presented to Parliament by Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves on 30th October – was one of the most anticipated for many years, and not merely because of certain major historical milestones. 

While the Budget was the UK’s first to ever be delivered by a woman, as well as the Labour Party’s first for more than 14 years,transport consultants and their clients were also watching the Chancellor’s announcement closely to learn of its implications for the transport sector. 

In the event, transport infrastructure in the north of England was a major focus of the still only recently installed Government’s fiscal plans. Ms Reeves declared that measures including the Transpennine Route Upgrade (TRU) and improvements to the A57 road signalled an end to “14 years of neglect” of the region under the previously governing Conservative Party. 

Hopes of improved rail and road connectivity boosting the region’s economic growth

The Chancellor joined Transport Secretary Louise Haigh on a visit to Manchester on 7th November, drawing attention to the role they believed the aforementioned rail and road schemes would play in better connecting northern England’s people, communities, and businesses. 

As far as rail passengers are concerned, the Department for Transport (DfT) said the TRU programme would turn the main line from Manchester to York, via Leeds and Huddersfield, into a high-performing, electrified railway offering quicker, more frequent, and more environmentally friendly journeys. 

It is anticipated that the improvements will reduce journey times between Manchester and Leeds from 50 to 42 minutes, in addition to taking 10 minutes off the typical journey time from Manchester to York. 

Another important announcement in the Budget from the perspective of transport consultants and those they serve, was the Chancellor’s confirmation that works on the long-awaited A57 link road upgrade would begin within weeks. This £250 million project is expected to “drastically decrease” journey times between Manchester and Sheffield, with two new links roads set to be created. 

“For too long, the north’s transport infrastructure has been neglected” 

The Chancellor stated in light of the Budget announcements: “Investment in our transport infrastructure is vital to delivering our growth mission. Without improvements to our roads and rail, we won’t be able to create jobs and boost business”. 

Ms Reeves said the key northern economic centres would be brought closer together by the delivery of the confirmed improvement works, with the Government “bolstering the region’s immense growth power to benefit the whole country.” 

Meanwhile, the Transport Secretary commented that “for too long, the north’s transport infrastructure has been neglected.” Ms Haigh expressed delight, however, about the Budget’s announcements in relation to the two schemes, which she said would “make a huge difference to people’s everyday journeys – making travelling between these great towns and cities quicker, easier and greener.” 

Our transport consultants at Transport Planning Associates (TPA) stand ready to provide the guidance and expertise that could be instrumental in steering your own projects to success. To learn more about what working with us would entail, please contact your nearest TPA office.