Rishi Sunak and economics

[BillyStubbsTears]

It is odd isn't it Wilts? 5 weeks away from the crowning glory of this Govt's strategic policy, and not a dickie bird about how wonderful it is going to be for the economy.

How refreshingly lacking in boastfulness.

[turnbull for england]

Now I don't pretend to understand it all but seems well explained https://twitter.com/julianHjessop/status/1332748907009478666?s=19

[BillyStubbsTears]

Turnbull.

That Twitter thread says, in much more correct, technical language, PRECISELY the point I've been trying to make.

And here's a thing. The Economist who wrote that Twitter thread isn't a raving Marxist. He is a Fellow at the Institute for Economic Affairs. That's the free-market supporting think tank that developed the economic policies that Thatcherism was based on.

The point I have been trying to make, and this guy makes better than me are so blindingly obvious that no economist would question them, whatever their political outlook.

Which raises the question. If this is such basic economics, why does Sunak say the opposite?

So, what I said at the start of this thread still applies, despite BB insisting on showing his ignorance. There's only two possibilities. Either he does not understand the economics. Or he understands it and he's choosing to deceive the public.

No possible alternative.

[Campsall rover]

By the way BST regarding your Andrew Marr thread yesterday.

What he said was Sheffield, Chesterfield, Mansfield AND those other South Yorkshire areas you cover.
I did not hear it as meaning he thought Chesterfield & Mansfield were in South Yorkshire.
Think you were making something out of nothing to be fair.

Nothing to do with above but i know you are a staunch socialist BST but do you honestly think the Labour Party would have dealt with the Covid Pandemic better than the Conservatives.
It’s so easy when you are in opposition isn’t it. You don’t have to make the big decisions or any decisions.
Whatever the Goverment does isn’t going to keep every one happy. It’s impossible.

The fact is the country was under prepared for such an eventuality and it would have been exactly the same which ever party was in Goverment.

[drfchound]

Camps, I have had that discussion on here a few times.
Prepare for the backlash.
Good that you made the point in your first sentences in your above post.

[wilts rover]

Campsall do you honestly believe that whoever was Labour leader would have ignored 5 COBRA meetings discussing what appeared to be a deveoping pandemic in China, Italy, Spain - and what was required here to deal with it. Like checking travellers arriving at ports an airports.

There is also a reason the country was under prepared. 10 years of Tory austerity (although to be fair Sunk has grow a magic money tree). Included in which was an exercise into how the country would deal with a pandemic - the results of which have never been offically released but from what we know were all but ignored.

Would the Labour leader have given £'billions of PPE contracts to their mates and relations of mates. Or woul they have given them to companies that actually made PPE?

Would Thatcher have dealt with the crises like Johnson, Gove and their cronies? Or Heath, Major or even Cameron? It's not that they are Tories, it is that they are a particular set of Tories whose main skill is lying rather than governing.

[i_ateallthepies]

Campsall do you honestly believe that whoever was Labour leader would have ignored 5 COBRA meetings discussing what appeared to be a deveoping pandemic in China, Italy, Spain - and what was required here to deal with it. Like checking travellers arriving at ports an airports.

There is also a reason the country was under prepared. 10 years of Tory austerity (although to be fair Sunk has grow a magic money tree). Included in which was an exercise into how the country would deal with a pandemic - the results of which have never been offically released but from what we know were all but ignored.

Would the Labour leader have given £'billions of PPE contracts to their mates and relations of mates. Or woul they have given them to companies that actually made PPE?

Would Thatcher have dealt with the crises like Johnson, Gove and their cronies? Or Heath, Major or even Cameron? It's not that they are Tories, it is that they are a particular set of Tories whose main skill is lying rather than governing.

Spot-on, Wilts.  You won't get an answer from them addressing your points of course.

[Campsall rover]

Campsall do you honestly believe that whoever was Labour leader would have ignored 5 COBRA meetings discussing what appeared to be a deveoping pandemic in China, Italy, Spain - and what was required here to deal with it. Like checking travellers arriving at ports an airports.

There is also a reason the country was under prepared. 10 years of Tory austerity (although to be fair Sunk has grow a magic money tree). Included in which was an exercise into how the country would deal with a pandemic - the results of which have never been offically released but from what we know were all but ignored.


Would the Labour leader have given £'billions of PPE contracts to their mates and relations of mates. Or woul they have given them to companies that actually made PPE?

Would Thatcher have dealt with the crises like Johnson, Gove and their cronies? Or Heath, Major or even Cameron? It's not that they are Tories, it is that they are a particular set of Tories whose main skill is lying rather than governing.

Spot-on, Wilts.  You won't get an answer from them addressing your points of course.

Ok clever. First of all I have no political allegiance and would always vote for the party who I think would do the least damage to the country.
It just happens that has been the Conservatives since I first voted in the 1970’s.

How can you possibly know how Starmer would have dealt with this pandemic. Do you have a crystal ball.
No you do not  ONLY BB has one of those.
Anyway Starmer was not leader was he in Jan, Feb & March. We had Corbyn as leader of the opposition.
So do you think he would have dealt with things that would have saved thousands of lives or do you think he would have saved the country billions of pounds. Or maybe both.
Come on please are you living in the real world. No your living in some socialist fantasy world. One that is brilliant on paper but in reality is a disaster.

[i_ateallthepies]

Campsall, thanks for confirming my prediction.  I didn't say anything about the Labour party, I just predicted that you wouldn't give an answer addressing any of Wilts' points... and you've done precisely what I said.

And, AND!  You've been watching what the Tories have done to the country right from the seventies and have considered right through that nobody could do less harm than them??  Crikey O'Riley!

[idler]

It will be interesting to see how history judges this government and ruling party. It has had very little going positively for it and comes across as distant, uncaring and corrupt on more than one occasion.
Whatever your political persuasion could you have faith in many of the most prominent politicians today?

[BillyStubbsTears]

Campsall

If I misheard then I stand corrected.

Regarding management of the crisis, I have said many times that the massive policy error was delaying the first lockdown in March. Given that the virus cases were doubling every 3-4  days at the time, the delay of 7-10 days between being told how bad things were by SAGE around 13-16 March, and actually starting the lockdown on 24 March was a catastrophic error. It meant the number of cases increased 4-8 fold. And apart from that resulting in 4-8 times more deaths than there should have been, it also  meant it took far longer to get the numbers down. So the lockdown event in longer than in other countries. And was lifted when the virus was still at higher levels than other countries. Meaning we had less leeway to stop the 2nd wave.

Would Labour have done better? I suspect so, for a basic philosophical reason. The Tories, ideologically, are in favour of individual freedoms and as little state intervention as possible. Labour, philosophically believe more in societal responsibilities and state intervention.

I've no idea why this Govt lost that crucial week. But it fits in with a political philosophy that prefers Govt not to intervene to limit personal freedoms. Whatever the reason, it was a shocking mistake. Made at a time when other countries were looking at us incredulously and asking why we weren't acting. I don't think Labour would have made that mistake.

Everything else, in terms of management of the crisis is secondary to that decision.

[Glyn_Wigley]

If there is nobody that can truly run the country better than this collection of egomaniacs, spivs and pure incompetents then we're definitely in the shit.

[wilts rover]

Campsall do you honestly believe that whoever was Labour leader would have ignored 5 COBRA meetings discussing what appeared to be a deveoping pandemic in China, Italy, Spain - and what was required here to deal with it. Like checking travellers arriving at ports an airports.

There is also a reason the country was under prepared. 10 years of Tory austerity (although to be fair Sunk has grow a magic money tree). Included in which was an exercise into how the country would deal with a pandemic - the results of which have never been offically released but from what we know were all but ignored.


Would the Labour leader have given £'billions of PPE contracts to their mates and relations of mates. Or woul they have given them to companies that actually made PPE?

Would Thatcher have dealt with the crises like Johnson, Gove and their cronies? Or Heath, Major or even Cameron? It's not that they are Tories, it is that they are a particular set of Tories whose main skill is lying rather than governing.

Spot-on, Wilts.  You won't get an answer from them addressing your points of course.

Ok clever. First of all I have no political allegiance and would always vote for the party who I think would do the least damage to the country.
It just happens that has been the Conservatives since I first voted in the 1970’s.

How can you possibly know how Starmer would have dealt with this pandemic. Do you have a crystal ball.
No you do not  ONLY BB has one of those.
Anyway Starmer was not leader was he in Jan, Feb & March. We had Corbyn as leader of the opposition.
So do you think he would have dealt with things that would have saved thousands of lives or do you think he would have saved the country billions of pounds. Or maybe both.
Come on please are you living in the real world. No your living in some socialist fantasy world. One that is brilliant on paper but in reality is a disaster.

Is it just a coincidence that the countries that have dealt worst with the pandemic are right wing or authoratian ones: us, USA, Brazil, Iran.

And the countries that have done best are liberal or left-wing; New Zealand, Vietnam, Cuba

[Campsall rover]

And the population of New Zealand is about 5 million.

We have 66 million in the UK and are much more densely populated.

[Campsall rover]

If there is nobody that can truly run the country better than this collection of egomaniacs, spivs and pure incompetents then we're definitely in the shit.

Strange how so many traditional Labour voters rejected them at the last election then.

Just shows how incompetent the British public thought they would be at running the country.

[Campsall rover]

Campsall

If I misheard then I stand corrected.

Regarding management of the crisis, I have said many times that the massive policy error was delaying the first lockdown in March. Given that the virus cases were doubling every 3-4  days at the time, the delay of 7-10 days between being told how bad things were by SAGE around 13-16 March, and actually starting the lockdown on 24 March was a catastrophic error. It meant the number of cases increased 4-8 fold. And apart from that resulting in 4-8 times more deaths than there should have been, it also  meant it took far longer to get the numbers down. So the lockdown event in longer than in other countries. And was lifted when the virus was still at higher levels than other countries. Meaning we had less leeway to stop the 2nd wave.

Would Labour have done better? I suspect so, for a basic philosophical reason. The Tories, ideologically, are in favour of individual freedoms and as little state intervention as possible. Labour, philosophically believe more in societal responsibilities and state intervention.

I've no idea why this Govt lost that crucial week. But it fits in with a political philosophy that prefers Govt not to intervene to limit personal freedoms. Whatever the reason, it was a shocking mistake. Made at a time when other countries were looking at us incredulously and asking why we weren't acting. I don't think Labour would have made that mistake.

Everything else, in terms of management of the crisis is secondary to that decision.

I agree we were a week late in lockdown in March. Hindsight eh. They were going on the science presented to them were they not.
How do you know BST that Labour would not have made the same mistake. You don’t.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Campsall.

1) No, it's not hindsight. In this very forum we were discussing it. On the TV every night, they were discussing it. We were saying "our epidemic numbers are two weeks behind Italy's. Italy locked down late because they were caught unawares. So they have had a shockingly bad outcome. Why are we not locking down sooner than they did." It is simply too easy to let the Govt off the hook by saying "hindsight."

2) We don't yet know WHY the Govt chose to delay the lockdown and instead were still talking about Herd Immunity in mid March. That will hopefully come out in the eventual public inquiry. It may be that they got bad scientific advice. But as Maggie Thatcher herself said: advisers advise, ministers decide.

We know for a fact, from SAGE minutes, that by 15-16 March, SAGE was telling Govt that the virus cases were doubling every 3-4 days, and that fatality rates were liklely to be around 1% of all people infected. Simple maths tells you then that if you delay action for a week, you will end up with four times as many cases to deal with and four times as many deaths. Now, maybe SAGE DID advise that we should not lockdown but instead still keep allowing the virus to spread and go for Herd Immunity. But any competent Govt should then fire back the question "Is there nothing else we can do? How come other countries all round the world have locked down by the time there epidemics were getting this bad? Are you REALLY saying we just have to ride this out?" People in HERE were asking those questions, so it would have been staggeringly incompetent of the Govt not to have done. And not to have been speaking with their opposite numbers in France and Italy and Spain whose epidemics were chronologically ahead of ours.

Yet we still chose to delay our lockdown for another week. And it s no exaggeration to say that probably killed 30,000 people. (We had 40k deaths in the first wave, and a week delay led to a four-fold increase in the spread of the virus, so locking down a week earlier would have reduced the peak numbers to just 1/4th of what they turned out to be.

3) Of course I don't know that Labour would not have made the same mistake. I gave you reasons why I don't THINK they would have done. I very clearly said "think" not "know". Please don't put words into my mouth.

4) There is another reason why I think this specific Govt got it so badly wrong. Back in February, Johnson had vanished off the scene, sorting out the messy divorce (the one from his wife who he left for a younger woman after she was diagnosed with cancer). Dominic Cummings was running COVID strategy. If you've ever read his ramblings over the years, he's had a long fascination with advanced data modelling, including the concept of how Herd Immunity is developed. It was reported in the Sunday Times that, as of early March, Cummings's Govt policy was "Herd Immunity. Protect the economy and if a few old people die, too bad." Cummings has never once complained about that being a misrepresentation of his views, and he usually goes off like a Tasmanian Devil if he thinks he's been wronged. Draw your own conclusions.

5) May I throw a question back at you. what would your reaction be if Labor had won the 2019 Election, and a Corbyn Govt had presided over one of the worst death tolls in Europe, and the worst economic hit in Europe? Would you be saying, "Well, I can't see how anyone else could have done better"? Honestly?

[wilts rover]

At last some good news. We have not taken the biggest economic hit in the G20 as we are slightly better off than err Argentina. Well done Rishi;

https://twitter.com/pitres/status/1333719389678542849

[Campsall rover]

At last some good news. We have not taken the biggest economic hit in the G20 as we are slightly better off than err Argentina. Well done Rishi;

https://twitter.com/pitres/status/1333719389678542849

Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.

If this government had not helped the working people of this country with the furlough scheme and all the other other financial support it has given you and your fellow socialist supporters would have gone ballistic at the lack of care that this government had for its citizens.
Now that it has cost the country billions in financial support to save millions of jobs you are moaning that we are apparently in massive debt.

What unbelievable hypocrisy. 

Gordon Brown managed to put the country into massive debt without a pandemic to blame it on.

In fact he had nothing to blame it on. Just his total incompetence at running the country’s finances.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Campsall.

Serious question. Do you TRULY believe what you just wrote? If so, I'm speechless. It's like the GLOBAL Financial Crash never happened. The crash that produced the biggest recession for 30 years and torpedoed Govt finances across the Western world.

Never happened. Brown just f**ked it up on his own.

[Janso]

Campsall, you're awfully partisan for someone who doesn't have any political affiliation.

[BillyStubbsTears]

For what it's worth, I disagree with blaming Sunak for the financial hit from the first wave. He was just left with the consequences of the dreadful mistake in locking down too late. That meant that we had the worst first wave, the longest, hardest lockdown and consequently, the biggest economic hit in Europe. That wasn't the Treasury's fault.

[Campsall rover]

Campsall, you're awfully partisan for someone who doesn't have any political affiliation.

No i do not think this lot in power now are a great Government. Believe me they are a long way off that.
Boris is simply not cut out to be the political leader of this country. I do think he is a genuinely caring person who has the best interests of all the Uk citizens. He is just far too eccentric to be PM.

Lots of mistakes have been made during this pandemic. The worst one as BST quite rightly points out was the initial delay in the lock down in March.

As I said I vote for who I believe will do the least harm to the economy. Which I know is a negative way of voting. I have a great deal of scepticism about politicians in general.  There are some good ones of course on both sides of the house.
Many of them have never lived in the real world and that is probably true of more Tories than the other parties.
What I can’t be doing with is all this hypocrisy that is spouted by those on the left. Especially when they are in opposition. Let’s face it when was the last time they balanced the books? It’s so easy to get it right when they don’t have to make policy decisions.

The country has been going through the biggest health crisis for well over 100 years, something no one alive today has had any experience of dealing with and to be honest we really should probably have had a coalition government while this pandemic has been with us.

No Janso I have no allegiance to any political party. I just say it as I see it. 

[Janso]

Why is there an obsession with "balancing the books" though? what country actually does this? macroeconomics isn't the same thing as a household budget.

[Campsall rover]

Campsall.

Serious question. Do you TRULY believe what you just wrote? If so, I'm speechless. It's like the GLOBAL Financial Crash never happened. The crash that produced the biggest recession for 30 years and torpedoed Govt finances across the Western world.

Never happened. Brown just f**ked it up on his own.

Billy, Gordon Brown was spending money like it had gone out of fashion. Financial crash or no Financial crash. He was wasting money before the crash. Did I dream that one up, no I don’t think so.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Campsall.

That is simply wrong. It's terrifying how people can end up with absolute certainty of something that is so wrong.

In 2007, before the GFC hit, Brown's Govt was presiding over a debt which, as a proportion of GDP, had been lower for only about 10 years in the previous 300.

It's genuinely alarming how wrong you are on this, but you are convinced you are right. Where did you get this idea from?

[BillyStubbsTears]

Campsall. Here is the record of Govt spending as a percentage of GDP for the past 30 years.




Can you honestly look at that and say that Brown was spending money recklessly before 2008?

Of course you can't. So how on earth have you picked up that Rick solid certain idea? And are you prepared to revise it, now you can see the evidence?

[Campsall rover]

Campsall.

That is simply wrong. It's terrifying how people can end up with absolute certainty of something that is so wrong.

In 2007, before the GFC hit, Brown's Govt was presiding over a debt which, as a proportion of GDP, had been lower for only about 10 years in the previous 300.

It's genuinely alarming how wrong you are on this, but you are convinced you are right. Where did you get this idea from?

If you have the figures to prove that then I will hold my hands up. I do know the majority of the press have a Tory bias but are you saying they were blatantly lying?

[BillyStubbsTears]

Yes. I am saying precisely that. There was a concerted effort to hoodwink the population into believing that Brown was a mad spender. Nothing could be further from the truth.

And it's not just me saying that. Here is the country's most eminent macroeconomist, Prof Simon Wren-Lewis of Oxford Uni.  If you don't want to wade through the detail, jump to the last paragraph in that link.

https://mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2012/08/facts-and-spin-about-fiscal-policy.html?m=1

After he posted that, he was savaged online by the Economics Editor of the Telegraph who ridiculed him for saying that Brown wasn't a mad spender when everyone knew he was.

SWL patiently re-explained his argument, with the Telegraph guy getting increasingly arsey. Eventually, the Telegraph guy exploded in a rant online, saying "I'm sick of listening to you about economics. The argument that Brown overspent and that we needed Austerity was never about economics." Or words to that effect.

It was a massive con trick to turf Labour out of power.

[BillyStubbsTears]

The evidence is there in that graph by the way. From 1997 to 2007, the Blair/Brown Govt spent no more, as a percentage of GDP than the Major Govt had done before it. Yet the Tory press relentlessly hammered the message that Brown was an out of control spendthrift.