Keir Starmer at it again..

[The Saturday Boy]

Cool, can you show me where it was publicly available that the Rwanda shambles had cost £700m to date as opposed to the widely reported £3-400m please? Or where it was known that they'd intended to spend £10bn on the plan?

The Migration Observatory's latest post on it says it was £318m based on all publicly available information. They're quite clever but if they're looking in wrong place for information you should drop them a note.

The MO didn't include the chartered flights that had been paid and they didn't take into account the cost of Civil Service time. When governments request these types of audits they can ask for certain things to be included or excluded depending on what narrative they want to present. The MO are using numbers that were provided for or by the previous administration.

It will be interesting to see if we get to see the numbers on the £10 billion claim (and the £700 million) but I expect it consists of more than just the cost of actually sending people to Rwanda but will also include all the additional costs of processing and detaining in this country before they are sent there.

 

[Del Woppio]

The MO didn't include the chartered flights that had been paid and they didn't take into account the cost of Civil Service time. When governments request these types of audits they can ask for certain things to be included or excluded depending on what narrative they want to present. The MO are using numbers that were provided for or by the previous administration.

It will be interesting to see if we get to see the numbers on the £10 billion claim (and the £700 million) but I expect it consists of more than just the cost of actually sending people to Rwanda but will also include all the additional costs of processing and detaining in this country before they are sent there.

So the government put out a figure that was incomplete or inaccurate? But couldn't the MO have just looked it up, as I'm told all this information publicly available?

Indeed given it's all so public, why do you need Cooper to release her methodology behind the £700m/£10bn figures?

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

I really don't understand the hostility in here.

We all think quite similarly, no? Yet it gets a bit nasty.

 

[Del Woppio]

I really don't understand the hostility in here.

We all think quite similarly, no? Yet it gets a bit nasty.

I dunno - 4 weeks ago, 100% of us hated the government. Now it's only 50%

 

[The Saturday Boy]

So the government put out a figure that was incomplete or inaccurate? But couldn't the MO have just looked it up, as I'm told all this information publicly available?

Indeed given it's all so public, why do you need Cooper to release her methodology behind the £700m/£10bn figures?

At some point, the new government will publish new numbers about the same scheme. There will then be two different “information publicly available”, the one provided by the previous government and new information presented by the new government. If there is a wide variance between the two then yes, a government will have put out a figure that was/is incomplete or inaccurate, then the politics will start.

The previous governments figures and this governments figures will be counted differently depending on what is included and what is not included and based on different assumptions.

I didn’t say I needed Cooper to release her methodology, I said it would be interesting and I pondered as to why it might be different. I am quite happy to have an argument about nothing in particular, but please don’t make up shit I haven’t said.

 

[Del Woppio]

Expecting Home Office figures and the methodology behind them to come from Yvette Cooper isn't exactly a wild stretch.

My wider point is that Labour didn't 'know everything/had no surprises' ahead of taking office. I brought Rwanda up as an example of that. That's the narrative I'm arguing

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

I really don't understand the hostility in here.

We all think quite similarly, no? Yet it gets a bit nasty.

I don't see nasty here. Critical conversation of each other's views for sure, but not nasty, or indeed hostile. If I have been I will look at it and tone it down because I wouldn't mean it to be that way.

 

[Templeton Peck]

Owen Jones was talking about the 20bn black hole over a month ago. It was barely raised during the campaign. I think Starmer was asked about it once.

 

[The Saturday Boy]

Labour's '£20 billion black hole' strategy

The Chancellor Rachel Reeves is expected to give a statement to Parliament on Monday outlining the state of public finances, including a '£20 billion black hole'. James Heale talks to Katy Balls and Kate Andrews about the strategy behind this: will this speech lay the ground work for the Autumn...

www.spectator.co.uk

4 minutes.

Labour already knew. There might be a few bits and pieces around the edges which are pretty inconsequential but the narrative that Labour have suddenly found a whole host of previously unknown issues is just pie in the sky.

Office of Budget Responsibility put it out there. Institute of Fiscal Studies criticised both main parties during the election for not addressing this issue. They knew.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

That said, you can't very well campaign on a slogan of "vote for us, although bear in mind everything is fucked so there's only so much we can do".

 

[The Saturday Boy]

That said, you can't very well campaign on a slogan of "vote for us, although bear in mind everything is fucked so there's only so much we can do".

But they did.

 

[Johnny75]

Owen Jones was talking about the 20bn black hole over a month ago. It was barely raised during the campaign. I think Starmer was asked about it once.

Owen. Jones.

No way

 

[Walshes Wolves]

On your first day as chancellor you get taken to a big secret room in Westminster where the books are located. It is only at this point you can look under the bonnet at the nations finances and develop policies accordingly.

Well then, it is ridiculous to make financial promises, if you don't know how much money you will have to spend.

 

[Templeton Peck]

Owen. Jones.

No way

I mean...he was right though?

 

[Templeton Peck]

Well then, it is ridiculous to make financial promises, if you don't know how much money you will have to spend.

Woosh

 

[Johnny75]

I mean...he was right though?

Yes he is right there was a £20bn shortfall and neither party was particularly honest but he didn't know the scale he was guessing.

Even a pig etc, etc.

 

[Sniffer]

Social care policy to be scrapped. Winter fuel allowances will now only be for those on pension credit.

I hope they have a plan for social care because kicking it into the long grass isn't a solution.

 

[Del Woppio]

Big old day today. ~20% to junior doctors over next two years, accepted pay recommendations across public sector, scrapped a bunch of projects, means testing the winter fuel allowance and primed the ground for tax rises in October after the first comprehensive spending review since 2021

OBR also investigating the treasury over publishing incorrect, inaccurate or missing data

 

[ROVERT47]

As a recipient of the winter fuel allowance it’s not something I particularly need so if me not receiving it anymore helps to fill the Tory created black hole so be it.

 

[Sniffer]

Ivanhoe line re-opening canned.

Diverting money for capital projects for day to day spending is the economic plan of fools.