Angela Rayner leads Cabinet revolt against Reeves’ ‘huge’ Budget cuts
The prime minister has received letters from senior ministers raising concerns about the spending cuts after a number spoke out against the measures at Tuesday’s cabinet meeting.
Some departments are facing cuts of as much as 20 per cent as Ms Reeves scrambles to find £40bn of spending cuts and tax rises before the October 30 Budget.
On Thursday Whitehall’s total overall budget, known as the "spending envelope", was submitted to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) after being finalised by Downing Street.
If we ignore the political theatre and merely focus on the mechanics of it all and particularly the spider's web which is the Office for Budget Responsibility, then it is impossible to see where significant reform would come from. Government is a machine with no intention of being, in its own terms, underfunded.
The tasks the OBR has been given require us to have a close working relationship with officials in a number of Government departments – especially the Treasury, the Department for Work & Pensions and HM Revenue & Customs – in the run-up to Budgets and other fiscal events. We maintain our independence by being as transparent as we can after each forecast about our interactions with ministers and their key staff and about the reasons for the judgements we have reached.
The political squabbles are entertaining, but little else. Significant reform is not even on the table.
10 comments:
It seems that she may want to cut expenditure and raise taxes in the name of avoiding austerity.
No, me neither.
dearieme - yes, muddy the waters by not making sense and just push the slogan, it seems to be the favoured approach.
"Downing Street warned that government departments and public services would have to become more productive"
They've just handed wads of cash to the train drivers and doctors with no strings attached.
It's really odd that they can talk about austerity and black holes. If my family maxed out the barclaycard and then said they needed to borrow more to spend more, "austerity" wouldn't be my first line of criticism.
Labour will do what any government would do, only with more socialist fervour. The departmental cuts will be nominally imposed but not tracked for compliance, and the tax increases will be found to reduce the tax-take over all. And the failures will all be the fault of the Conservatives, somehow.
This does look promising … infighting between the lasses … will it result in lower taxation on us though?
Sam - it is odd. They don't seem to have any great incentive to make sense as long as they slip in the slogans. They can't have both austerity and black holes, but they don't care, it's the narrative and they will be scolded afterwards if they don't follow it.
DJ - it's a pity the rhetoric can be so poor and the media don't at least insist on slightly higher standards where what is said does at least make sense.
Anon - it does look promising, although any suggestion of lower taxation seems to be akin to hate speech with this lot.
I think Ange and Rache should clear their differences in public, in an inflatable paddling pool, with lots of baby oil (or baked beans). Just a thought.
Penseivat
Penseivat - baked beans or mud I'd say. Would Starmer wish to act as referee though?
How the feck is the productivity of a "civil servant" measured?
And do they have another, ever increasing, department counting the number and size of all their correspondance?
Hint :- Hugely increase your productivity by hitting "Reply to All".
Doonhamer - and they will resist any measure of their productivity. I used to make use of "Reply to All", gave them something to do.
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