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BRITISH PRIME MINISTER Keir Starmer has told the UK that the public should expect a “painful” budget because the former Conservative Party Government spent and borrowed much more than what was expected and projected by the State accountants.
The Chair of the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) last month, in a letter to the UK Parliament’s Treasury Committee, said that he and his office were made aware of a £21.9 billion gap in public spending – done so by the former Cabinet.
Today, Starmer told the public that the Government has since learnt that the former Government had also borrowed £5 billion more than was expected by the State’s accountants “in the last three months alone”.
The Prime Minister’s address touched on what the public should expect from his Government in the coming months, as the Labour cabinet find ways to try and improve the finances of the country and the society.
In a campaign named ‘Fixing The Foundations’, Starmer addressed the scenes of rioting that was seen in recent weeks in the UK, the inflated spending receipts and the high borrowing bills, claiming that all were the cause of the former Tory Government.
Starmer said: “Before anyone says that this is performance or playing politics, let’s remember that the OBR did not know about [the overspend]. They wrote a letter setting that out. And they didn’t know because the last Government hit it.”
Watch LIVE: Keir Starmer’s speech on fixing the foundations of our country. https://t.co/xMOpZa1uPO
— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) August 27, 2024
In Richard Hughes’ letter, the Chair of the OBR said that the overspend represented “the one of the largest year-ahead overspends” against his office’s forecasts, outside of the years during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Hughes added, “given the seriousness of the issue”, that he would be launching a review into his office’s previous fiscal forecasts from March to determine whether or not the team were sufficiently prepared for such an event to take place.
The review will also assess the information that was provided to his office by the Treasury and the former Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt.
Starmer also blamed the increased borrowing on the “last Government’s recklessness” said that the former Cabinet had also “exploited” the “cracks in our society” which allowed for rioting to take place in the streets of the UK.
“That’s what we’ve inherited. Not just an economic black hole, a societal black hole. And that’s why we have to take action and do things differently,” he said.
“And part of that is being honest with people about the choices that we face. And, frankly, things will get worse before they get better.”
He added: “If we don’t take tough action across the board, we won’t be able to fix the foundations of the country as we need.”
Starmer outlined that the UK’s Budget for 2025 will be “painful” on citizens. But highlighted that those with the “broadest shoulders” will feel it most – insinuating that high earners will be faced with the largest tax raises.
The Prime Minister also promised a ‘crackdown’ on “non-doms”, or non-domicile citizens, who do not pay similar rates of tax, usually on a very large wealth, to others in the UK as they claim they are not a full-time resident of the UK.
Though Starmer did not go into detail of the coming budget, when pressed on tax raises he said: “I made it clear on numerous occasions that national insurance, VAT and income tax would not go up, the triple lock for working people, and that remains the position.
“I also set out that our plans were fully funded and fully costed. What I did not expect was a £22 billion black hole.”
Responding to the speech today, Former Prime Minister and outgoing leader of the Conservative Party Rishi Sunak said on X, formerly Twitter: “Keir Starmer’s speech today was the clearest indication of what Labour has been planning to do all along – raise your taxes.”
Conservative leadership candidate Kemi Badenoch, who serves as shadow housing secretary, said: “Keir Starmer is taking the British public for fools, but his dishonest analysis won’t wash. He campaigned on promises he couldn’t deliver and now he is being found out.”
Keir Starmer's speech today was the clearest indication of what Labour has been planning to do all along - raise your taxes.
— Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) August 27, 2024
Former minister Robert Jenrick, who is also a Tory leadership candidate, accused the Prime Minister of “shamelessly attempting to rewrite history” and having “laid the groundwork for huge tax rises”.
Starmer also faced criticism from the Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer, who claimed that the public did not vote to endure “more economic pain and hardship”.
“They were told they were voting for change, not voting for things to get worse before they get better. Labour needs to be honest about the fact that they could choose to make things better for everyone if they were bolder and braver,” she said.
Additional reporting by Press Association
Before us irish start getting all uppity about the UK we should remember that we actually don’t have an indigenous economy attall and we are being proped up by companies that have little to zero interest in Ireland apart from there tax breaks. If anything was to be learned from our last crash it should have been to spread out our eggs into many baskets but we did not and now we are extremely vulnerable to any shock coming from any financial market around the world. We are not any safer than the UK.
@Gavin Smartr: You may have really made a mess of that post our Corporation Tax receipts 23bn are predominantly from MNCs , we do have indigenous industries , mostly food,agriculture and CRH/ Kingspan Ryanair and a few smaller global companies in the medical devices arena ….
Can I ask what baskets you think we should have spread into?
@Gavin Smartr: Even our indigenous CEOs and BoDs have little interest in anything but profit.
@Gavin Smartr: our government has as always well thoroughly examined all possible outcomes and are prepared as most governments do. They’re record on housing and health alone are indeed commendable.
@Paul O’Mahoney: 35% of employment and 52% of employment taxes come from multinationals. I would say that’s alot of eggs in one basket if it were to go tiddies up wouldn’t you? As for what baskets I think we should have utilised,well we needed to drive down the cost of manufacturing here through carefully management of the economy as a whole. Yes we have the companies you mentioned but we are outsourcing far to much because of the costs of doing things in house. That’s probably an impossibility now with our cost of living and run away inflation plus our energy costs are stupidly high.
@smatrix mantra: that’s how a business survives profit
I try not to gloat ever , and iam not now if the UK fails it will hurt us all , But education and getting rid of the Murducks gutter press might help in the future
@Robert Halvey: I think the issues for the UK go beyond the tabloids, over the past 10 years it has literally fallen apart, Sunak was paying £40m for the use of VIP helicopter flights , Brexit has been a shambles and the divide seems bigger than ever. Can’t see labour correcting the mess either.
@Paul O’Mahoney:voting is hugely important, iam an irish person who knows the UK let itself down, but guess what every civilised nation has fell down ,a few times but you have friends that love you
@Robert Halvey: the British gov’t have misappropriated billions of pounds over the last number of years.
Involved themselves in wars they shouldn’t have, illegal immigration is destroying the fabric of British society, the list goes on.
Look at what they are doing over there : hailing people for memes on Facebook while machete killers get released after 4 months of a sentence
Their priorities are that of the WEF & King Charles to return Britain to the dark ages of fedalism & complete dominance of the population. This is not ‘by accident’ it is by design.
This budget is just another mechanism to deepen the devide between those that ‘have’ & those that ‘have not’.
@Jim: *jailing people for memes (not hailing, stupid autocorrect)
@Robert Halvey: you are completely deluded, poor thing
@Robert Halvey: TalkTv and the Sun hardly that influential on British society
@Fintan Pox: do you have a job cause all you do all day is comment on here on nearly every story,,,get a life!!!
@Robert Halvey: Every nation gets their press and presidents they deserve.
@Fintan Pox: lad lassie or f, do you even know what the pox is
They could sell nothern ireland to the Abu dabi investment fund
@P. V. Aglue: Why not they own most things in the UK now.
@P. V. Aglue: Right that’s £20 raised, now how would you raise the rest?
@P. V. Aglue: Tripple CCC-
He didn’t address the carnage at the Notting Hill carnival over the weekend. 5 stabbed and 3 fighting for their lives. Several police officers assaulted. He was fairly fast to come down hard on anti-social behaviour a couple of weeks ago, and rightly so . I can’t for the life of me think why he hasn’t come down hard on these people !
@David S: 5 stabbings at the carnival was the lowest since 2017.
@Pat Barry: latest figures are showing 8 stabbings.
@David S: There were 12 in 2017, 18 in 2019 and 10 in 2023.
It’s it marvelous the way everything will be fine just before the next election, great men to work it out, just like our free loaders
I’m not sure it’s quite that bad there. As ever the Tories didn’t invest like they should have done – too short sighted. However dogs bark, cows moo, and Labour raise taxes – until the economy tanks. It’s all part of their normal cycle.
@Derick R M: you “don’t think it’s that bad there”??? Are yiu living under a rock or maybe you only get your informatoln from state sponsored propaganda machines.
The UK is in the brink of collapse. Starmer us intentionally trying to create civil unrest (bit like here in Ireland). This is an attempt to collapse the country.
Our actual budget might not, itself, be as painful but the lead up to it is beyond torture!
They should try internment camps for criminals.It worked great in NI.
@jack: what a ignorant comment
@jack: pity thatcher isn’t alive to see the state the uk is in…it would be golden.
mostly agree with this, but the ability to invest in the public services is hugely diminished by tory mismanagement and brexit.
I blame Fine Gael… oh wait ..
@Ciaran: Fine Gael/tories/same
Good man boris
Did they not Say we go alone as we do not need Europe Brexit coming home to Roost
Tories tried to borrow their way out of Brexit. I think if UK wants back into EU, the EU will demand a lot for reentry, starting with the currency. If they ever want back 6 will be the first thing to go.
I’m sure as good neigbours we can return the favour and give them a loan of say 500 million at a reasonable rate.
@H Woo: They lent us £7bn!
Even Rodney of Fools and Horses with his 1 GCE could see that the highly corrupt Tories,robbed Britain of its State coffers,to enrich themselves and their grubby financial sponsors.Yet Britain appear reeling at their expected tough budget.Its not as if the Tories were hiding this as they were doing this in full view of the British public at the time.Hint:eg the Covid Personal Protective Supplies scandal !!!
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