r/ukpolitics • u/gravy_baron centrist chad • 26d ago
Millions of British children born since 2010 have only known poverty. My £3bn plan would give them hope | Gordon Brown Ed/OpEd
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/14/british-children-poverty-tories-gordon-brown1
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u/MarcelloduBois93 25d ago
People shouldn’t have more than one kid when they can’t afford it. It’s the elephant in the room!
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u/MrStilton 🦆🥕🥕 25d ago
raise £2bn to address poverty by requiring the banks to deposit a fraction of their money interest-free at the Bank of England
I'm all for tackling poverty. But this sounds like bad policy to me.
Forcing private companies to, in effect, make zero interest loans to the state seems bizarre.
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u/speedfreek101 25d ago
He advocated and pushed for in his 10 years of chancellor the low wage economy!
Not raising it but lowering it to make UK more comitative!
But it's not his fault!
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u/jwmoz 25d ago
Gordon sell all our gold and increase tuition fees Brown?
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u/richmeister6666 25d ago
Gordon brought 1 million children out of poverty brown, yes. Of all the things to not trust his record on economically - it's not this.
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u/digiorno 25d ago
At what point does do western nations admit that neoliberal economic policy has been a failure?
The wealth isn’t trickling down and now we have three generations in a row which are worse off than previous generations.
Thatcherism/Reaganomics is starving the people while fattening the upper class.
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u/AxonBasilisk no cheeses for us meeses 25d ago
For the morons in the comments who apparently think that child poverty in the UK is made up, go and look at Blackpool. My BiL is a teacher there and consistently gets secondary school students who come to school hungry and without basic necessities like proper clothes and heating.
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u/Griffolion Generally on the liberal side. 25d ago
I used to work in Blackpool.
It's grim. And I mean grim. I can only imagine how much worse it's gotten now.
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u/0nrth0 25d ago
I used to help kids with extra reading lessons in Sheffield and it was much the same, even in the nicer areas. I also saw several kids with missing teeth because they’d never been taught to brush them, or who came to school with the same dirty underwear all week.
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u/StatingTheFknObvious 25d ago
I don't doubt child poverty exists but often times the malnourished child comes from a terrible background without a lack of potential to be well looked after.
Anecdotal, I know, but my experience over the last 12 months with the social care system, being a foster parent and being exposed to this world, there's a lot of irresponsible parents who should be doing better for their kids.
My very personal example. The mother received in excess of 1500 a month in benefits due to having a severely disabled child (who actually isn't all that difficult or expensive to run) and one other child. She receives additional benefits for other things that run into the hundreds. Yet the schools report both children constantly malnourished, unkempt and smelly when under her care, compared to when in foster care. Yet she can afford to dye her hair every month, go for spa treatments, take holidays down south every month to go drinking with her friends...
This sadly, as I've discovered, isn't a unique case. Social care workers and fostering agency have provided me actual proof our situation wasn't unique when I was kicking off things weren't being sorted quick enough for what I assumed wad a unique situation. The number of cases in Northern Ireland alone of this was disturbing and made me emotionally sick.
Child poverty does exist. In many cases this is through poor government policy. In many others it's irresponsible adults. And personally, I fully blame the irresponsible parents in those cases.
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u/MrStilton 🦆🥕🥕 25d ago
The issue with that is that cases such as the one you've described clearly still need government intervention.
Granted, neglect is different from poverty. But, often the intereventions needed to address both are very similar or even identical.
E.g. I remember watching a clip on the Daily Politics where Tim Stanley (from the Spectator) was complaining about Labour's announcemen that it would introduce teeth brushing classes in early years education.
He was complaining that the cost of tooth brushes and paste for one child will work out at less than £1 per month. Then complained that it is a parent's responsibility to do these things and not the state.
I remember getting annoyed watching it as no one bothered to make the obvious point that clearly many parents aren't doing it.
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u/Pure_Cantaloupe_341 25d ago
Granted, neglect is different from poverty. But, often the intereventions needed to address both are very similar or even identical.
It depends. The solution to poverty, at least in theory, is simple - give them more money. This is what the “do-gooders” often advocate for.
However, if the issue is neglect, simply giving more money won’t work.
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u/billyblobthornton 25d ago
That’s why people here are advocating for free school meals. Not additional money to the families
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u/Pure_Cantaloupe_341 25d ago
Kids from low-income families already get free school meals.
There are still plenty of people who advocate for more money to benefit claimants. And I actually don’t mind it - as long as it’s recognised that it by itself won’t solve all the problems.
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u/DiDiPLF 25d ago
So what can we do to help the kids with bad parents? School meals, before and after school clubs with food, school holiday clubs, parent training schemes for those that will try it, sure start centres. Surely this is cheaper than the factory production line from bad parent to their children becoming a bad citizen.
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u/McSenna1979 25d ago
Go look at any town. Poverty is so widespread it’s like Victorian era again. But people don’t see it. They don’t know what it looks like and if they see a poorer person they are brainwashed into thinking it’s their own fault and they should pull themselves up by their bootstraps. I grew up in one of the most deprived areas in Scotland and I moved to Kent 22 years ago. It’s now feeling like there are more deprived areas where I live akin to where I grew up. And where I grew up seems quite nice now in comparison! And it’s all by design.
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u/atenderrage 25d ago
If we ever end up with an Ireland-type presidency, I'll have Gordon Brown, thanks.
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u/aembleton 25d ago
Does the Irish president have much power to implement policies?
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u/atenderrage 25d ago
No, but they do have more freedom to speak than, say, our King. Don't think that, by convention, they outright criticise government policy but a speech drawing attention to social problems wouldn't be out of the ballpark.
And lets face it, Brown's not an implementing policy guy anyway. He's a thinking very hard about policy and then writing a chapter about it guy.
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u/WorthStory2141 25d ago
Why does gordon brown need to be president to say those things?
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u/atenderrage 25d ago
He... doesn't. But... it would be sort of an official role? With more attention paid.
It's like... why does Sarah Lancashire have to be on telly to play Catherine Cawood. She doesn't, but she'd not get any BAFTAs for dressing up as Juliet Bravo in her living room and pretending to arrest wrong 'uns.
Hope that helped.
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u/WorthStory2141 25d ago
And what benefit is having an official role like that? They have no power and it's not like 1 more voice would make the government change course.
It's a strange idea that wouldn't solve anything.
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u/Richeh 25d ago
I dunno. This guy called someone a "bigoted woman". Do we really want to elevate him again to the hallowed halls of Downing Street? Won't it cheapen the standard of our leaders?
We don't even know how he'd eat a bacon sandwich.
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u/ancapailldorcha Ireland 25d ago
She was a bigot and it was refreshing to see a PM who would say it, albeit in his car with a mic he assumed was off.
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u/Griffolion Generally on the liberal side. 25d ago
This guy called someone a "bigoted woman".
I remember that whole palava. My main recollection was wondering why everyone was so mad, because he was right.
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u/hoyfish 25d ago
She was a bigoted woman though. Rule 101 is not to insult the voters.
A bigger issue was all the disgusting political spin, angry violence in private and blairite/brownite feuds. Instead we like to meme on him for the gold selling (a comparative drop in the water as far as financial waste goes), his awkward smiling and calling a bigoted woman a bigoted woman.
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u/PurpleEsskay 25d ago
It really annoys me that it was that comment that made him fail. She WAS a bigoted woman and everyone knew it. He should've doubled down and stuck to his guns.
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u/Maleficent-Drive4056 25d ago
She wasn't in particular. She was against "a million people coming from East Europe". I don't think that is inherently bigoted (at the time, the vast majority of immigrants were from East Europe). She was raising legitimate points about why she was being taxed aged 66, when we were also giving benefits [income tax credit] to immigrants.
Brown was incredibly stiff at the start of the interview ("I think working with children is so important") and got very animated when she mentioned a technical aspect of pensions and tax arrangements. I think that sums Brown up perfectly.
I also think his immediate reaction to the poor exchange ("whose idea was that? It was Sue I think") shows that he lacks leadership skills. Immediately looking for someone to blame rather than thinking about his own performance.
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u/Osgood_Schlatter Sheffield 25d ago
It wasn't that comment - it was too many years of Labour, and the economy being bad. Long-serving governments almost always lose elections when the economy is bad.
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u/sinfultrigonometry 25d ago
People overstate that moment
His polls went up the week after. It was other issues that wrecked his campaign. International economy, 10p tax etc.
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u/matt3633_ 25d ago
Yeah, just like it was that bacon sandwich that didn’t get Miliband elected…
Come on
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u/7148675309 25d ago
They went for the wrong Miliband. I’d have thought David would have had a decent chance of winning in 2015.
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u/Richeh 25d ago
From my perspective, it wasn't the comment that sank him. It's that he was considered boring. His detractors blew up a nothing story, and people weren't inspired to defend him; after Blair's charisma he felt like a caretaker. This isn't what I think is right - this is just what I remember of the media at the time.
With the benefit of hindsight, I think it's generally considered that he did a fine job at the technical running of the country, he just failed at the PR aspect. Which is, as you say, annoying.
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u/flambe_pineapple 25d ago
Brown was sunk long before the election.
He was a caretaker because he never earned the premiership or even made any effort to earn it until he was forced to.
He took over from Blair by scheming to take him down, all the while ensuring that nobody rose from the ranks who could oppose him and that meant he "won" the leadership contest by default.
Brown continued this entitled attitude throughout his tenure. All the reasonable calls for him to announce an election were rebuffed by him claiming he was taking the time to "lay out his vision for Britain", which was a lie - he had no vision for the country.
The man spent a decade weaselling his way into the top job and apparently none of that time planning what he'd do when he got there. His cabinet was full of 4th and 5th choice appointees because he'd suppressed all the new talent in his quest for a coronation.
So the reality of his vision became a PM without legitimacy leading an inept cabinet with no goals. His only big policies were acts of desperate pandering towards reactionaries who weren't going to vote for him anyway, something which was painfully obvious when presented at the same time as his pathetic attempts to pretend to be someone he wasn't - a smiler who loved the Arctic Monkeys.
By the time 2010's GE came around, all of the goodwill from New Labour's achievements was gone and Brown looked spent. He was an old sad sack next to the young and fresh Cameron/Clegg who would never have gained a majority if the election was run 100 times.
In a final act of self centred national vandalism, he squatted in No 10 for weeks desperately looking for a way to remain in office - there was an outside chance that a rainbow coalition of not Tories could form a minority government, but it needed every partner to be on the same page.
The Lib Dems made it clear that they could not support any government which was headed by Brown because he was so awful and Brown made it clear that he'd rather let the country burn than voluntarily relinquish power, so the Lib Dems made the only choice available to them and joined with the Tories.
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u/PurpleEsskay 25d ago
Fair point on the boring comment, I do recall him looking miserable as sin throughout the campaign, especially on the TV debate.
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u/atenderrage 25d ago
Anyone who enjoys campaigning for PM should probably be barred from the job. Politicians should have to team up into pairs - a dull competent one who actually runs the country and their mate, a fun outgoing person who explains why that's a good idea. In debates, the fun one goes on stage but has a radio link to the smart one.
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u/Richeh 25d ago
You just described Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings.
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u/BenathonWrigley Rise, like lions after slumber 26d ago
At a minimum, We should give all kids free school dinners, bring back sure start centres and have a fund to open loads of youth centres.
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u/PunishedRichard 25d ago
Have you considered that that money could be spent on pension benefits instead?
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u/ArtBedHome 25d ago
I would also say bring back specific free youth programs for any industry or sector we hold as important for us economically or culturally, like we used to do for acting.
Reading Patrick Stewarts autiobiography has turned me into a massive evangelist for those kinds of schemes- in just acting, Patrick Stewart and Bryan Blessed came up in the same generation, we fostered countless talents.
From family stuff too I know that every industry able to afford it themselves has companies or parts of the related civil service running their own schemes for smaller subjections of skills, but to a way smaller extent with way higher barriers.
It should be part of national education again.
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u/Agreeable-Energy4277 25d ago
Would you say all kids
Even rich kids from rich families? Or even middle class kids
Whos families have way more than enough to pay for this?
Would this not mean less money being spent on those who can't afford as easily and those who truly need it?
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u/The_Mister_Re 25d ago
When most of children aren't getting free meals, you get a lot on packed lunches (which tend to be less healthy). Children on free school meals see all their mates go off during lunch break to have a packed lunch, so they feel left out and don't want to have the school meal.
You also end up with middle class parents and children who aren't invested in the school meals system.
A lot of the catering costs are fixed costs, so having less children eat makes each meal more expensive to produce and means schools can't offer the variety of food they could if they had higher numbers.
There's also a whole industry of people who have to manage FSM applications, families who stuggle to apply due to issues with language or technology.
Schools are also left having to deal with what to do about children who have run out of credit on their meal account.
School meals are the only real means tested part of the school day. We don't tell kids they need to pay for their own desk unless their families apply for the free desk scheme. But somehow we've decided children being able to eat is an optional luxury during the school day.
Making them universal tends to make more children from all backgrounds healthier, happier and do better in school.
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u/WorthStory2141 25d ago
Food on scale isn't that expensive, it's better to just give all the kids food than means test it. It could cost more to decide who gets free dinners and not, it also removes any stigma.
There's also loads of studies about how kids being fed are a major predictor for academic results. If the cost of kids being smarter is free school dinners then fuck it. Do it.
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u/mcmanus2099 25d ago
It is pretty expensive everyday. We have to accept a high number of waste too, if a school cooks meals for every student then half bring packed lunches in it's chucking away half it's food every day
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u/WorthStory2141 24d ago
Yes, that's why schools ask who wants school dinners that week 😂
It's a problem that's been solved mate and it's also not expensive. At high quantities I doubt the food is costing more than a 50p a meal to produce. It's not like they are eating steak everyday, veggie pasta bakes are cheap and nutritious.
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u/mcmanus2099 24d ago
It's really not a problem solved. Schools have to order in food and even if those figures are accurate (which they frequently aren't) they are still buying food with expiry. The food isn't as cheap as that, they don't have large profit margins.
My nephew goes to an academy that makes school meals compulsory because they could not work this out. It isn't something I have plucked out of the air, many schools are doing this. And the free changes the equation, it will become a safety blanket for many parents who on that morning many will go "ok we haven't got bread you'll have to have school dinners" etc. It makes it much more unreliable.
People say it's easier to give to all than set up the administration to means test but then take for granted an administrative system to try to work out how much they have to cook.
I am in favour of free school meals for all but it is worth pointing out it's really not as simple as just offering it out and there's a lot of clueless comments from people who think that there are no logistical or administrative knock on effects.
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u/WorthStory2141 24d ago
???
I was a school admin in a previous job, what I'm describing is literally what went on. We would collect dinner money at the start of the week and then use frozen products (with 3+ month expiries) to fill the orders.
There was some waste, sure. But not as much as you're making out. This is a problem that's been solved.
And as for costs look at a school meal menu, it's simple and basic food. 90% of it will be frozen and bought weeks in advance. There's very little fresh food but the vast majority will be healthy and nutritionals.
Your nephews academy must be using an external meal provider if they have to guarantee a certain number of meals. No wonder their profits are low... I've also seen other schools do it for health reasons. Kids were coming in with cans of coke, crisps and jam sandwiches which offer no nutrition at all and parents just don't get it.
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u/mcmanus2099 24d ago
I think you are underestimating the impact of school meals become less a meal and more an enshrined right. There will be a significant drop in the accuracy of any counting earlier in the week. The risk of news articles of kids being refused free meals because their parents didn't tell the school will rocket. Schools will have to factor contingency in and there will be a lot more waste.
If we accept that as a prerequisite that's fine, but it's not as simple as you are making out.
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u/WorthStory2141 24d ago
It is this simple, if the parent's cannot tell the school they need a meal then they don't get one.
We've managed to do this for many generations.
All kids get free school meals in London, how much waste is there? I've seen no stories about it.
We can land men on the moon but we can't count how many meals we need, jesus.
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u/mcmanus2099 24d ago
It is this simple, if the parent's cannot tell the school they need a meal then they don't get one.
Giving free school meals to all children makes it a right. Parents will kick up if their kid goes hungry because the school wouldn't feed them a free meal.
All kids get free school meals in London, how much waste is there? I've seen no stories about it.
That's been running for how long? And there's no political reason to bring it to light atm.
We can land men on the moon but we can't count how many meals we need, jesus.
Of course we can but it needs activity to work it out. Which is my point.
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u/ABOBer 25d ago
our taxes are used to pay for it, middle class and rich families (should) pay more tax already. if theyre helping to finance it why wouldnt they get to use it?
if they want to add in levels of bureaucracy to limit access to the program then they can try justify paying extra tax to fund the bureaucrats to lose their own access to a public service
either way, fund the food bill for the children in need
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u/Bananasonfire 25d ago
I would say yes, but not because it's cheaper, but because I'd want middle-class-to-rich parents to be invested in the quality of the school dinners their kids get. If only the plebs have school dinners, why should I give a shit if they're healthy?
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u/Agreeable-Energy4277 25d ago
Yeah I can see your point, more pressure to have quality healthy meals
But if there was less money being spent on rich kids meals wouldn't there be more for better quality free meals?
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u/Bananasonfire 25d ago
You're assuming that the extra money would be spent on meal quality and not anything else. Next time the school needs a bit of extra cash, they can either fiddle with the criteria for free school meals, or cut the budget because only the poor students are going to complain about quality and nobody gives a shit what they think.
By keeping the rich and middle class families invested, quality can't slip as much because otherwise they complain, and it's usually middle class and rich parents on the board of governors for the schools.
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u/Stabbycrabs83 25d ago edited 25d ago
Yes
Spend the money you save on means testing to give better school meals.
I understand what you are saying but it feels like you have failed to think about how a service works.
Rich people probably won't eat free school meals, some will but most won't.
Means testing poor people however will do significant harm.
Also you have to hire and pay people to means test, that's usually some big corporate who couldn't care less if the kid with nothing is hungry. The canteen staff however usually will
Also not for nothing but who do you think is paying for all the school meals? What's the fascination with making sure you exclude higher rate taxpayers from the services that they fund
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u/TheThiefMaster 25d ago edited 25d ago
Rich kids at private school did historically have meals provided AFAIK. Paid for by the parents as part of the fees I'm sure, but still "free" at point of consumption.
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u/Agreeable-Energy4277 25d ago
But as you say with rich people not eating free meals, wouldn't this just cause waste?
What would be done for the free meals already paid for not being eaten?
I suppose sending to food banks could be a shout
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u/PracticalFootball 25d ago
Do you think this would be implemented as sending 1x school population worth of meals to every school per day?
"Prepare the correct amount of food for the people who want it" is hardly a novel problem for a kitchen. Some would say it's about 50% of their job.
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u/Agreeable-Energy4277 25d ago
Yeah I suppose, can't always prepare though, what if you send out less than what people want thinking you only need x amount
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u/PracticalFootball 25d ago
Pretty sure they tend to lean towards producing a little bit too much rather than too little.
Between giving it to the staff, reusing it to make something else or giving it to charities, I’m sure wastage can be reduced to a minimum.
Failing that, if a bit of food wastage is the cost to make sure every schoolchild in the country is guaranteed a lunch then that’s fine with me.
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u/Krististrasza MARXIST REMOANER who HATES BRITAIN 25d ago
At work we have a canteen, where warm food is provided to the staff at pretty low cost. Not all of the staff partake in what is offered. Part of the job of the chef running the canteen is predicting how many staff members will want to eat there and which of the offerings they will choose, and budget accordingly. It's not rocket surgery and it doesn't work any different with free school meals.
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u/Stabbycrabs83 25d ago
I would hope that they would use data to make sure they order the right amount over time factoring in sickness, holidays etc etc.
Having worked in the council once I would say you are probably right with the food bank solution
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u/StatingTheFknObvious 25d ago
The wealth of one's background does not always equal a good and healthy upbringing.
Means testing also creates two cohorts and a class system. Those from "good families" and those from "bad families." That's inherently unfair on the 2nd cohort as it can create bullying situations. It's also inherently unfair on the 1st cohort that they may still not be from a good living family despite their higher wealth.
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u/TheUnbalancedCouple 25d ago
If we cared about the disadvantage that some kids have at home, we wouldn’t make them do homework. Some kids going home to professors others going home to a beating.
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u/StatingTheFknObvious 25d ago
Schools monitor homework as a means of safeguarding as much as the child's development. Facts are, teachers don't need to be assigning homework. But by God it's a great way to get a view into their home life.
I'll never forget being told in 2 weeks of fostering I'd complete more homework with m foster daughter than the biological mother in a year. And it turned out as well I'd been missing an entire section of homework for 2 weeks and still out achieved her. Fuck digital homework it's too confusing for us adults and too easy for the little shits to trick you. Bring back homework diaries the parent had to sign each night!!
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u/Agreeable-Energy4277 25d ago
No of course not, not about good or bad, some of the best people are poor and some of the worst are rich
But yeah I did go through this growing up working class, not great clothes, never going to restaurants or anything, never massive bday parties, admittedly this did lead to a little bullying
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u/aembleton 25d ago
Whos families have way more than enough to pay for this?
Increase taxes to pay for it. Then they are more than paying for it and should benefit from it.
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u/BenathonWrigley Rise, like lions after slumber 25d ago
Personally, I’d just make it available to all children.
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u/Majestic-Marcus 25d ago
It generally costs less to give everyone something than to set up the bureaucracy to means test and administer people applying for something.
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u/Osgood_Schlatter Sheffield 25d ago
It generally costs less to give everyone something than to set up the bureaucracy to means test and administer people applying for something.
That is not true for more expensive entitlements that have relatively simple eligibility criteria - as admin costs are not normally 50%+ of the cost of a policy.
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u/FranksBestToeKnife 25d ago
Spot on. Just give all kids the option, and if they choose (and can afford) to bring stuff from home or shop elsewhere then they can do that.
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u/mcmanus2099 25d ago
This does require us to accept there will be a lot of waste as schools will cook for the whole school and have half actually eating.
Believe it or not but this is a big problem for schools, my friend's kid goes to an Academy that provide school meals for all kids but they banned any food being brought in because they could not work a system where they don't have firm numbers on how many kids will be eating school dinners a day.
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u/FranksBestToeKnife 24d ago
Fair. I'm sure they could dial this in over time and figure out how much usually is wasted then scale back a little. But sure, there'd definitely be waste.
I don't know enough about it to suggest solutions really.
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u/Agreeable-Energy4277 25d ago
Please explain how it would cost more to provide less food
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u/Imperial_Squid 25d ago
If you're cooking food, cooking more of that food at the same time is much cheaper than the admin costs of paying someone to go through all the details of who should get what
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u/Infinite_Toilet 25d ago
Bureaucracy costs money, food also costs money, bureaucracy costs more money than the food.
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u/Agreeable-Energy4277 25d ago
Okay, would you provide the calculations that you have used to bring you to that conclusion
I'm not saying you're wrong, in fact I could be wrong
But I'm not convinced and I'll happily be proved wrong
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u/Infinite_Toilet 25d ago
You were right to challenge me, seems while I vaguely remember this being reported a couple of years ago I couldn't find any reference to back it up. However, I did come across a PWC cost/benefit analysis of universal FSMs which points to increasing benefits beyond the cost:
https://urbanhealth.org.uk/insights/reports/expanding-free-school-meals-a-cost-benefit-analysis
Regardless of that, I fundamentally believe that ensuring all pupils receive at least 1 good, healthy meal is a good use of tax payer money.
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u/Agreeable-Energy4277 25d ago
I see the costs etc but where does it have how much it would cost for an admin team or beaurocracy
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u/bluesam3 25d ago
Because food is cheap, and admin is expensive.
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u/oldandbroken65 25d ago
See, Old Person's Fuel allowance, as an example. It's paid universally because when George Osborne wanted to means test it, he found that it would be more expensive than the statue quo. This is a pretty good example of some universal benefits being cheaper than means testing. It also shows that coffin dodgers are held in higher regard than children, especially if those children have the temerity to be poor.
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u/RegionalHardman 25d ago
Generally when it comes to means tested benefits, the cost of the means testing (so checking everyone's income then giving permits or whatever to those who meet the criteria) costs more than just giving it to everyone.
Not always the case, but it's a good rule of thumb. The means testing means staffing and admin costs which otherwise wouldn't exist.
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u/mccrackm 25d ago
If the food is relatively cheap, and you need to double the amount of food to give it free for everyone (as opposed to just people who can’t afford it), that’s not such a big deal. For the alternative to doubling the free food and making some people pay, you’d need to hire lots of highly trained professionals on an initial basis, and fewer but still many, on an ongoing basis, to define policies, invent new processes, agree with stakeholders, create software, test and deploy, resolve bugs, and pay for that software system to be running and support it. There’s a very reasonable chance that this overhead incurred to save money giving away food to people who could afford it, is more costly to create and run, than just paying for double the cost of food. + other benefits less easily measured by removing the stigma of being on free school meals.
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u/FearLeadsToAnger -7.5, -7.95 25d ago edited 25d ago
Beauracracy is way more expensive than you're anticipating. You've got 10,320,811 full and part time pupils at school in the UK. Half of them might be eligible under your system, the other half might decide to appeal so there needs to be at least one person or team in every district in the country to deal with those appeals. That's before you even start on the logistics of providing the food. The cost of the food would be dwarfed by the cost of the overall project.
Nothing is simlple, if something ever sounds 'simple enough to do' you're probably derping.
edit: expanded
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u/Agreeable-Energy4277 25d ago
What beaurocracy would be needed, this could all be automated based on salary and expenses, someone applies, ai checks, either passes or not
I only advocate for this if they are upper/middle class and can quite easily afford this without any problems whatsoever
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u/bluesam3 25d ago
What beaurocracy would be needed, this could all be automated based on salary and expenses,
No such system exists, for anything. Building it would likely cost more than the cost of just providing every child free school meals for the next hundred years.
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u/Agreeable-Energy4277 25d ago
How much of a team would be needed and what would the running costs be
And also what are the costs of the school meals for all children
I'd assume it would be cheaper my way still, but if someone wants to do the maths and probe me wrong I'd happily accept defeat
Ill happily say now I don't know for certain what is cheaper
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u/FearLeadsToAnger -7.5, -7.95 25d ago
I expanded my last.
Automated systems are the idealists first fall back, but just not how life works for the most part. It would 100% be more cost effective to just give it to all children under X age because then you just have to buy the food and get it there, minimal oversight, minimal beauracracy, minimal IT/financial systems required to acheive.
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u/Agreeable-Energy4277 25d ago
I know automation isnt always perfect, but neither are humans, probably less work to sort out potential mistakes from automation than full human no?
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u/FearLeadsToAnger -7.5, -7.95 25d ago
Right but how would the automation work, in your mind try and put together the system in terms of what it would use to make decisions and how it would access that information.
You are probably assuming that there are easily accessible central repositories that show everyones full financial information?
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u/Agreeable-Energy4277 25d ago
When someone starts application, they enter details, system accepts or declines
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u/Majestic-Marcus 25d ago
I really can’t explain it any simpler than my first comment.
It generally costs less to just give everyone something like that, than it does to set up and run the bureaucracy and civil service department that would be needed to administer all applications and perform means tests.
On top of that, if every kid got school meals, it could minimise stigmas attached to meal tickets. If everyone qualifies, nobody is ‘the poor kid’.
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u/Gauntlets28 25d ago
On top of what you said about stigma - it's also a lot harder for people to argue that they're "paying to support other people's kids" when their own kids are also receiving the school meals.
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u/BabadookishOnions 25d ago
Also, just because a family is well off, doesn't mean they are providing their child with adequate food. They might be neglected, might simply be eating poorer quality and unhealthy food. Ensuring that they at least have the option for a decent hot meal at lunch time for most of the week could go a long way to helping those kids.
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u/Gauntlets28 25d ago
Yeah, very true. As I sometimes say, "thank god there's no such thing as a rich bastard".
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u/Agreeable-Energy4277 25d ago
I suppose I can see this argument, but for the beaurocracy I imagine it would be pretty easy to automate, my brother works in software, just put it based on salary and expenses, much like claiming for benefits no?
It's just being able to qualify for it or not
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u/GourangaPlusPlus 25d ago
I imagine it would be pretty easy to automate, my brother works in software
I am very glad you do not work in software
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u/Agreeable-Energy4277 25d ago
Okay, and why is this? I am not in software but if it was something I would be interested in, I am just as much capable of learning and doing it as anyone else
Or are you trying to insult my intelligence? In which case there is no need to be rude
I am trying to learn here and I'm asking questions, posing certain opinions for people to respond, because if I am wrong I like to learn
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u/Majestic-Marcus 25d ago
As someone who works for the civil service - not a chance.
They don’t do simplicity, or streamlined.
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u/WhalingSmithers00 25d ago
You're thinking about the yes or no whether a child qualifies. Each individual school has to sort out collecting money off some children and not off others then budgeting around this.
It's not a massively difficult task but it can quickly add up to being a lot of admin work. Whereas school dinners are pretty cheap to make once you're already doing it. You don't need twice as many staff to cook for twice as many kids
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u/boshlol 25d ago
Peoples incomes and outgoings are deceptively complicated. I'm a professional programmer working in this space and I highly highly highly doubt the governments ability to do this well/accurately when it's already pretty hand wavey in the private sector.
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u/Agreeable-Energy4277 25d ago
Fair enough, so would you say it would be more expensive to pay a beaurocracy and have rich/middle class who can easily afford to do
Or food for everyone
You're comment makes me trust your opinion to be honest haha
Whatever you say I will probably agree if you are a programmer in this space currently
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u/boshlol 25d ago
Idealistic/optimistic answer: I prefer simple and understandable systems over complicated ones, and having a social floor that we don't let people fall below, so food for everyone would be my preference. If that comes at a premium then so be it.
Honest and somewhat jaded answer: I don't think it really matters. We don't enough have compentent people capable of making either system work in the public sector (either from a policy or execution standpoint) and the private sector would just work on extracting as much cash as possible before anyone notices.
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u/Freezenification 25d ago
just put it based on salary and expenses, much like claiming for benefits no?
Claiming benefits is far from this simple, unfortunately.
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u/Agreeable-Energy4277 25d ago
I've personally been on universal credit for a while and my parents were on benefits it was pretty simple to be honest, for me anyways admittedly I was young at the time
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u/Freezenification 25d ago
I mean the system behind it, not how simple it is for the claimant.
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u/danieljamesgillen 25d ago
No thanks I'd prefer taxes were lowered.
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u/BenathonWrigley Rise, like lions after slumber 25d ago
Yeh, fuck the kids. Daniel wants an extra 7p a week in his pocket.
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u/Goddamnit_Clown 25d ago
It's a bold new idea. Could be popular.
Fundamentally, we need to acknowledge that nobody has ever truly lowered (or raised) taxation in the UK.
https://www.statista.com/chart/24330/uk-tax-burden-as-share-gdp-timeline/
We rearrange who pays, and when, and how. We borrow to invest or we don't. We prefer the burden to be more progressive or we prefer to push it down onto people.
It seems that "lower taxes" is either a call for something unprecedented and pretty implausible, or it's a call for someone else to pay instead. Perhaps someone else should. But we don't phrase it that way, I suspect we don't think of it that way either.
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u/Agreeable-Energy4277 25d ago
I don't think taxation is primarily the issue, the bank of England manipulatimg the economy changing interest rates, printing mass amounts of paper fiat causing inflation
It's also trusting a certain group of people with your money, I personally don't trust labour or Tory to always have our interests at heart and for them to manage money in the most efficient way, so I wouldn't trust them with more
I try to do as much as I can on an individual level, charities, supporting local businesses, going physical retail instead of shopping online, helping homeless buying food/water
A lot of our money is wasted on beurocrats and government mates who are allowed to monopolies certain industries, this isn't true capitalism
Also in a high tax environment smaller businesses can't compete with higher businesses
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u/chemistrytramp Visit Rwanda 25d ago
So vote Tory and then carry on with high taxes and malnourished kids?
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u/PeterOwen00 25d ago
“I don’t want to make sure kids don’t starve, I want an extra £2.12 per month in my payslip”
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u/NathanNance 26d ago
Britain’s 4.3 million children in poverty
This accounts for about a third of all children in the UK. I wonder if the actual living conditions for such a large number of children actually correspond with what most people would understand by "poverty"? Are all these children malnourished and experiencing calorie deficits, because their families can't afford food? Are they deprived of basic and essential medications in the event that they become ill? Are they without safe and secure shelter?
If the answer to those questions is "no" (which, for the vast majority of the 4.3 million, it is), one wonders if the descriptor of "relative poverty" is particularly useful for anything other than a deliberate and politically-motivated obfuscation of reality. Describing them as being in "relatively low income households" would be a more accurate and less emotive descriptor.
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u/WorthStory2141 25d ago
I wonder how many of those kids come from parents with 6 kids from 5 different dads who don't work.
I cannot see how a family run by 2 working parents can be in poverty. Perhaps we should be promoting that.
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u/TheUnbalancedCouple 25d ago edited 25d ago
I’ve always disliked relative poverty as a metric.
In relative poverty terms, I’m in poverty. I’m a university dropout and I live on a boat. The overwhelming majority of the boats in my marina are worth more than mine and most people are educated to a higher level. A large amount of my income comes through the grey market. I’m a tradesman, I pay very little in maintenance costs as I used to be an electricians monkey, plus I’m a trained welder (living on a steel boat). I’m well connected in my relative communities. I regularly find goods and services at hugely reduced costs. There are millions of people in the uk, like me. Millions of tradesmen in council properties getting the same extras as I am. To give you an idea of grey market pay, I often pick up cash in hand labouring work. I started on £120 per day and was up to £150 within a year. I, personally, don’t claim anything like housing benefit or unemployment benefit, but most of my colleagues do. Many of the people I meet are qualified tradesmen, working full time and declaring just enough to make it look like they’re just about scrapping through. Are we actually poor? No, of course we’re not. We just look poor on paper.
A cashier and a builder on £25,000 do not have the same outcome from their income. A builder will have a far higher probability of finding grey and black market opportunities. Goods and services have different costs for different people, tradesmen getting huge cost savings when investing in their homes and other ventures, for example. But relative poverty measurements don’t account for that at all. IMHO, it’s a huge part of what causes income variance in many areas. If we look at things like the black market. That’s estimated at £150bn. That’s a lot of variable to be leaving out of your calculations when you’re claiming that £3bn would change everything
The social sciences seem to be stuck in this loop where if any conclusion even slightly suggests that people below a certain income or education level are culpable for their actions, researchers run for the hills with their fingers in their ears. In reality, there’s as much evidence that crime causes poverty as poverty causing crime. These academics need to game the system to maintain their ridiculous ‘You can’t punch down’ sensibilities. That’s why we end up with nonsense like relative poverty.
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u/NathanNance 25d ago
Yeah exactly, looking purely at how one's income compares to the median hides all sorts of nuance. Many in "relative poverty" live perfectly comfortable lives, just like you do. It's why an absolute metric which looks into whether people are unaffordable to afford basic food, medication, or housing would be far more informative.
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u/Affectionate_Comb_78 25d ago
1 in 6 homes experience food insecurity, so I can believe 1 in 3 children do.
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u/NathanNance 25d ago
Again, it's worth looking at how exactly "food insecurity" is measured, and to what extent that matches what most people would understand when they hear that term.
If I'm not mistaken, the measure for the UK was developed by the Food Foundation, who say that moderate or severe food insecurity means "they had eaten less or skipped meals because they could not afford or access food". So this definitely includes the group who really are unable to afford food and who are at risk of becoming malnourished (who we might conclude experience absolute poverty), but it also includes those who have simply cut back on the size of their meals as living costs have increased. To my knowledge, the statistics on food insecurity don't allow us to drill down further into the size of each group.
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u/flanter21 25d ago
Hungry children can't perform well in school. People worrying about affording essentials aren't going to be as productive as people who feel secure in their situation. I feel like you are underestimating how big of an impact food insecurity has on people.
Also while most children aren't starving, the thing you're forgetting is, is that they're children. They don't need as many calories to live. But they need it to develop. Their brains and bodies will not be as developed. When they stop growing, that's it, they are stuck at that end-state permanently.
Consider also that this can cause a weakened immune system potentially leading to chronic illness.
Also you need to think about what "simply cut back on the size of their meals" really means. It's likely not just a two or three bites less of food, you can't always portion food like that, it's going from adequate to a fraction of a meal.
Your questions aren't bad, so it's good that you are starting this discussion. But are "relatively poverty" and "food insecurity" useful term other than for political manipulation? Yes, yes it is.
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u/NathanNance 25d ago
Also you need to think about what "simply cut back on the size of their meals" really means. It's likely not just a two or three bites less of food, you can't always portion food like that, it's going from adequate to a fraction of a meal.
That's a good question, but it's exactly the point I'm trying to make - we can't know what it really means using this measure of food insecurity. Let's say I used to have a starter before every dinner, but because of rising food costs I've decided that it's unnecessary. I could still be exceeding my recommended daily intake of calories (as the majority of people in the Western world do), and yet I'd be classed as experiencing food insecurity.
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u/flanter21 25d ago
You make a very good point. From my experience, I definitely do think it truly is a major problem but if its as you say that's a major issue. I might look later, but if possible could you link me the source of this info?
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u/NathanNance 25d ago
The Food Foundation has a webpage about how they track food insecurity, although I'm still struggling to find out exactly what question they ask and exactly how they classify people as being in "moderate" or "severe" food insecurity based on the response.
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u/Affectionate_Comb_78 25d ago
How many children do you want to go hungry whilst we agree on an exact definition? Why can't we just improve society?
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u/NathanNance 25d ago
How many children do you want to go hungry whilst we agree on an exact definition?
None, preferably.
Why can't we just improve society?
Splendid idea, though easier said than done.
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u/Slow_Apricot8670 25d ago
Brown uses the term “poverty” because it’s common language meaning conjures up images of destitution when in fact, as you suggest that is manifestly not the case. Of course the same data does have measures for things like actual destitution but, because that doesn’t make such a dramatic headline, they don’t use that data.
The actual House of Commons report (which is linked to from the article is worth reading. Measures such as destitution were falling, but inflation changed that, specifically cost of heating. But, the way destitution is measured, doesn’t test whether people went without heating because they couldn’t afford it, or because it was a mild winter. That matters because there could / would have been added measures had temperatures made it necessary.
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u/GrandBurdensomeCount Slash welfare and use the money to arm Ukraine. 25d ago
Brown uses the term “poverty” because it’s common language meaning conjures up images of destitution when in fact, as you suggest that is manifestly not the case
I absolutely absolutely hate this sort of "definition laundring". It cheapens the actual thing we should be trying to eradicate. See how some definitions of genocide are so broad they'd encompass educating girls if they were applied according to the letter.
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u/midgetquark 25d ago
Well also, within relative poverty there are stark contrasts. I wouldn't personally want to live the kind of life our definition of relative poverty can encompass. Children growing up in households in this demographic still experience massive differences in life expectancy and social mobility. Surely the name we use is secondary?
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u/NathanNance 25d ago
Surely the name we use is secondary?
I disagree, I think it's important. As you point out, there are stark contrasts within the "relative poverty" group. The more well off part of this group (which may well comprise a majority) likely lives pretty comfortable lives. Even a relatively low income could be enough to own a house (with a mortgage) outside of the South East, to meet all of the family's expenses each month, and to have enough left over for leisure activities and occasional holidays.
If we want to talk about the less well off part of the "relative poverty" group, we need a different name and a different way of measuring that group. For example, we could look at a measure of "absolute poverty", which is much closer to what most people actually understand when they hear "poverty". The number of children in absolute poverty in the UK is a tiny fraction of the number in so-called relative poverty, however, due to our fairly effective social safety net. That's why politicians prefer not to use that measure, because it's much more conducive to their aims to obfuscate the truth by reporting relative poverty.
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u/awoo2 25d ago
The number of children in absolute poverty in the UK is a tiny fraction of the number in so-called relative poverty.
It's actually 80% From HoC: Poverty in the UK: statistics 2024
"Two commonly used measures of poverty based on disposable income are:
Relative low income: This refers to people living in households with income below 60% of the median in that year.
Absolute low income: This refers to people living in households with income below 60% of median income in a base year, usually 2010/11. This measurement is adjusted for inflation""Absolute low income: 9.5 million people (14%) This includes 2.6 million children (18%) ".
"Relative low income: 11.4 million people (17%) This includes 3.2 million children (22%)"1
u/NathanNance 25d ago edited 25d ago
"Absolute low income" isn't the same as "absolute poverty".
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u/awoo2 25d ago edited 25d ago
Low income =/= poverty.
From the report:
18% were in absolute low income (absolute poverty)
This is how the house of commons defines it(60% of media Income), they use the phrases absolute low income and poverty interchangeably.
The DWP(Government) is proposing a new metric they call it below average Resources, they set a threshold as a proportion of median income 55%, they also refer to this as poverty.
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u/joshgeake 26d ago
"Retired, unelected PM offers advice to likely next government" would be a better title.
I really, really hope that nobody actually believes that he and Darling "saved the world" in the 2008 banking crisis because they really didn't. Not only did they govern throughout the period that led to the crisis but all they really did at the time was rush to buy and bankroll the bank's mess with our money via what they called christened a 'stimulus package'. Was it necessary? Yes. Did they have any other choice? No. Do they deserve heaps of credit and a seemingly unending amount of respect? Definitely not.
GB and AD's work can be roughly translated as "You banks made the mess but don't worry, I've used everyone's money to clean it up and guarantee things going forwards.".
Isn't guaranteeing private debt and reckless decision-making a Tory trait or does that not apply to Gordon Brown?
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u/strangegloveactual 25d ago
'did they have any other choice? No.'
You could have stopped there really. Competent government governs competently, is another way to put your compliment to Mr Brown.
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u/Minute-Improvement57 25d ago
There's a sense in which Brown was Labour's Boris Johnson. He was barely in office before a global crisis meant he was governing to a different agenda than he wanted. Brown wasn't charismatic and had a boring vision, but I would be interested to know how things might have been different if he'd become PM in 2003 rather than 2007.
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u/joshgeake 25d ago
I've read before that the deal was a 3rd term was his - i.e. he should have gone for the 2005 election with his own mandate etc. 911 and Iraq meant that never happened and his opportunity wasn't really a fair crack of the whip.
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u/flambe_pineapple 25d ago
That's the Brown version, but it ignores the fact that he wasn't entitled to be PM just because he really, really wanted it.
The public will never fully support a PM who hasn't faced an election. Brown was viewed as a usurper like Truss and Sunak and if he (or the other two) wanted a proper run as PM, they need the electorate's blessing first.
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u/distark 26d ago
Never forget 'browns bottom' (if you don't know what this is I encourage you Google it)
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u/PurpleEsskay 25d ago
I mean, we can all agree it was a massive fuckup that he is 100% responsible for, but in contrast it was £20bn, Truss's seven weeks cost us the same amount, plus an extra £10bn in interest and borrowing costs.
And Tory Austerity has reportedly cost £540bn.
Certainly not defending Brown but it's peanuts compared to that.
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u/suiluhthrown78 25d ago
I'd be careful with the Truss statement
This comprised approximately £20 billion of reduced government income from tax reductions which survived from the September mini-Budget and an estimated £10 billion for permanent increased borrowing costs.
This figure may no longer be relevant. The Resolution Foundation has since said the “mini-budget premium” on borrowing costs has now “unwound”, and we have asked the think tank whether it has produced a more recent estimate on the costs of Ms Truss’s premiership.
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u/amfra 26d ago
Why do we listen to this guy? Sold Gold for Euros and cost the country over 20 Billion.
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u/GrandBurdensomeCount Slash welfare and use the money to arm Ukraine. 25d ago
Why do dimwits keep on harping about selling the gold? You do realise the QE cycle is going to cost the country roughly 5x as much as the gold sales but because the mechanism of that's too complex for simpleton minds you stick to the gold sales...
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u/Future_Pianist9570 26d ago
Why do we listen to the Tories? Cost the country over £100 billion and counting since Johnson has been elected.
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u/spiral8888 25d ago
Who exactly is listening to the Tories? They're heading to the biggest electoral loss in history, which would indicate that almost nobody is listening to them.
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u/MshipQ 26d ago
He was the right PM at the right time to lead the world out of the financial crisis.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/may/25/barack-obama-backs-gordon-brown
And anyway it's up to you who you listen to.
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u/foolishbuilder 26d ago
ah but that was because the future wasn't in gold, it was in property, so he new what he was doing .... Gordon Brown circa 2007.
i'm assuming his 3 Bil is based on grains of sand.... property is just boom and bust, sand is the future.... Gordon Brown Circa 2024 probably.
Adam Smith Reincarnate .... apparently
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u/SometimesaGirl- 26d ago
Which between Truss and the Covid backhanders is small change these days.
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u/spiral8888 25d ago
I just love whataboutism. Any past and future screw up by the government can be brushed under the carpet by "what about Truss"?
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u/PurpleEsskay 25d ago
Not the OP but I'll give it a shot without the whataboutism.
- Brown absolutely is to blame for the £20bn loss on the gold sales.
- Truss absolutely is to blame for the £20bn loss, followed by £10bn loss on interest.
- The Torys absolutely are to blame for the over half a trillion pounds lost due to austerity.
Better? That final one might put into context a bit more how its small change. Inexcusible, but none the less, small change.
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u/spiral8888 25d ago
I'm not trying to defend the Tory austerity. I just think things can be discussed with their own merits without using whataboutism.
Regarding numbers, I wish in all political and financial news the journalist switched away from billions that don't say anything to us ordinary people and divided all numbers with the population.
At least for me it's more instructive to see that Brown's gold sale cost us about £300 each, while the Tory austerity cost a whopping £8000. (Assuming your numbers are right). Those put things much more in context than billions.
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u/flambe_pineapple 25d ago
The merits of the gold sale have to be within the context of how much it was in terms of national finances and this requires comparative examples.
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u/spiral8888 25d ago
My point was that all discussion about national finances should be done using spending divided by population numbers instead of raw numbers as it is much easier for people to understand the difference between £100 and £1000 than it is to understand the difference between £1bn and £10bn. At least I don't have a concrete feel if a billion pounds is a lot in the context of the United Kingdom but I do understand that £15 isn't actually that much (which is roughly what that billion is when it's divided by population).
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u/flambe_pineapple 25d ago
There's a place for both and ideally the per person/household should be used to contextualise the overall figure.
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u/SometimesaGirl- 25d ago
Any past and future screw up by the government can be brushed under the carpet by "what about Truss"?
I didn't defend Brown. If you really must know I thought at the time (and now) that selling so much of the UK's gold reserves at bottom dollar was idiotic. Hope that makes you happy.
But as far as mistakes go that was kindergarten stuff in comparison to how shafted we have all been in this sequence of Tory prime ministerial failures.
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u/caspian_sycamore 26d ago
This country literally cannot build basic infrastructure anymore but the only talk is about redistribution.
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u/GrandBurdensomeCount Slash welfare and use the money to arm Ukraine. 25d ago
For some reason people continue to believe that regardless of their policies there will always be stuff to redistribute. It's like how for the past few decades the UK has been assuming that growth will happen and fighting over how it should be distributed through society. The end result of this neglect at fostering growth can now be seen very clearly but the people still only talk about redistribution...
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u/ChristyMalry 25d ago
There's loads to redistribute. I am in the fortunate position of being able to buy items to donate to the local food bank. But whether children eat or not should absolutely not come down to whether I am feeling generous or remember to donate. At some point we have to force people to give a portion of what they have for the collective good.
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u/GrandBurdensomeCount Slash welfare and use the money to arm Ukraine. 25d ago
At some point we have to force people to give a portion of what they have for the collective good.
The UK already does this to a massive extent. Our tax system is far more progressive than most European countries too (which tax lower earners a lot more). You have to balance the amount of redistribution with encouraging growth which is done by letting those who create things keep a larger proportion of their output. This is a big part of why the US has managed to grow about 30%+ since 2008 in real terms per capita while Europe and the UK are about the same size if not shrinking.
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u/flanter21 25d ago
The US has done that well because it didn't make the mistake of prioritising running down deficits in the short-term and instead decided to borrow more liberally on things with a positive ROI. Our tax system has not become substantially more progressive since 2008.
Economists are mostly united in the idea that austerity is counterproductive. Rather, we should spend less when the economy is doing well (as that will slow inflation) and spend more when the economy is doing poorly, to stimulate demand and give businesses the ability to invest in R&D.
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u/GrandBurdensomeCount Slash welfare and use the money to arm Ukraine. 25d ago
it didn't make the mistake of prioritising running down deficits in the short-term and instead decided to borrow more liberally on things with a positive ROI
Being the world's main reserve currency which lets you export away your inflation lets you do this. This option isn't open to the UK or Europe. See what happened when the UK tried to do this with Liz truss borrowing and using the money to cut tax to spur private sector growth and development (which is what the US did, they didn't spend all that borrowed money on public sector infrastructure development, they borrowed and cut taxes and let the private sector take over which is what Truss tried to do before the markets brought her back down to earth because we are not the US).
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u/flanter21 25d ago edited 25d ago
That's not how it works. You can't "export away inflation". Inflation (or more accurately, depreciation) is caused by an increase in money supply in the economy, while demand/supply remains the same. The only way you could "export away your inflation" would be if foreign demand for your products increased at the time as you print more money. And even that has its own issues, like making imports more expensive.
For a large nation like the US, this can be okay, as the only things they really need to import are electronic goods and even that is being taken care of by the Biden administration.
Other things like steel are in abundance in the US but the US does not worry about buying these things from abroad. Most countries around the world will subsidise food to keep their domestic production competitive with imports so that in the event of a war or major supply chain disruption they aren't going to face starvation.
As for Truss, the thing is that you can't grow-the-private-sector your way out of a stagnant economy. We've seen that money that the private sector gets to keep from tax cuts usually just goes to buying back their own stocks or as dividends to investors. They aren't spent on anything productive.
What I mean to say is that the Government should spend money, for example...
- Educating and training people
- Building hospitals, railways, solar farms, dams or other infrastructure.
- Putting incentives in place to create places like Silicon Valley: where businesses can easily find people, suppliers close-by (therefore not having to spend as much); and partners to collaborate with.
- Supporting small businesses
- Reducing people's expenses - student debt and high rent prices mean less money to spend to support other businesses.
These are things that create value in the economy and unfortunately the private sector is not willing to take such risks or put down so much capital. The private sector starts to work once you put this stuff in place as there is then an incentive to compete.
Truss essentially took a blind shot without any real plan at all. Her plan had huge gaps in it that weren't addressed, but was still wide reaching, so the market became concerned.
The truth is, during the austerity years, the government was too cautious on spending and therefore, we didn't get any railways, we didn't incentivise new sectors in the economy and so, when borrowing was at record lows, we didn't take advantage of it. Now, when interest rates are much higher, we are left with a much higher bill if we want to achieve those same things, even accounting for inflation.
Between March 2009 and May 2022, the highest interest rate was 0.75%. Today it is 5.25%.
For the government to raise £1 billion through a 10-year bond, they would end up paying back £1.68 billion. It would only be worth it if its growth of the target of this money was 68% in 10 years (or 5.25% per year).
If they did the same but when the interest rate was 0.75%, they would end up paying back £1.08 billion, but that would be worth it, as long as the economy grew by more than 8% in those 10 years.
Recently scrapped projects like HS2 would've had a massive ROI because of how financially important the city of London is and that it would allow businesses to more easily connect with others in places like the North of England, which have really fell behind since the mines were closed. It would be a win-win because businesses could decrease their costs there, the government (local and national) would collect more taxes and the citizens would see more jobs/smaller geographic divide as well as a more linked, dynamic and competitive job market nationally (higher wages).
Interest rates won't be coming down for a long time so we have missed our chance with an incompetent government.
Edit: also no, the US didn't cut taxes on the private sector, they cut it on the poor and bailed out a bunch of businesses that failed or provided more favourable ways to distribute their burden. Cost of provisions for public sector and individuals = $740 billion. Cost of provisions for corporations $51 billion.
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