Kate Andrews has done a great job in the Telegraph reminding readers that a major source of our current economic malaise – now approaching the highest tax burden since records began 75 years ago – is the cost and impact of the Covid lockdowns, a price which must never be forgotten. Here’s how she begins.
Ideally we’d never talk about lockdown again. We’d consign those draconian years to the history books and get on with normal life.
Unfortunately, there remains far too big a mess to clean up to bury those memories completely. The thousands of children who never returned to school, the millions of people on NHS waiting lists – these are people we must not forget.
But some lockdown legacies are discussed more widely than others. Those waiting lists are a big part of the public debate, rising to 7.6m (and counting) in England.
Lost learning also remains pertinent, as other impediments to schooling this year kept it in the news. Teacher strikes and crumbling school buildings provided cumulative reminders that, between March 2020 and April 2021, pupils were estimated to have had their learning hours reduced by a third.
What we don’t talk about as much are the long-term spending ramifications of the pandemic. …
It suits every political party not to talk about the longer-term spending trajectory Covid has set us on. If you dare look at where we’re headed, it becomes impossible to keep up the pretence that the sums of money we’re spending, or the promises we continue to make, are in any way sustainable.
There’s an irony in political discourse: that as our spending trajectory has gone off the deep end, both the Conservatives and Labour have adopted the language of fiscal responsibility.
This has always been Rishi Sunak’s selling point: that he is ready to make difficult decisions to get the books (somewhat) balanced.
Labour, while light on detail, has largely promised to do the same and has even been willing to take some political pain (like watering down its £28bn pledge on green investment) to show that it is serious about making the numbers add up.
But that language is not lining up with policy. The aftermath of the pandemic has created far greater demand for health and welfare than can be met, even with rising tax receipts that reflect the highest tax burden in over 70 years.
The number of people out of work due to long-term sickness has increased by roughly half a million, taking the total to 2.6 million; the number of people on out-of-work benefits since the furlough scheme has risen to over five million.
Include rising pension payouts and the total nominal welfare bill is projected to increase by 16% between now and 2027-28, according to the Department for Work and Pensions.
Meanwhile, the NHS bill is only going up, set to amount to 44% of all day-to-day public spending in just a few years’ time.
With access to healthcare already so appalling – going into flu season no less – and the ongoing doctors strikes further deteriorating services, it’s near impossible to see how the £13bn promised for social care ever ends up being redirected away from the health service.
These are the practical spending problems that lockdown has created, but they only begin to highlight the financial mess we’re in.
The trouble is, says Andrews, thanks to the lockdowns “we have entered an era where demand for government intervention is sky-high”.
“No one is fixing the roof when it’s raining or it’s shining,” she adds.
Worth reading in full.
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“In science scepticism is the highest calling and blind faith the one unpardonable sin”. In science you question everything otherwise it is Politics, Religion or Social Work.—–The climate cult is all of these and more with not really much in the way of science. (Models full of assumptions are not science)
Anyone who claims to be able to predict the performance of a chaotic system (world weather) is a charlatan at best.
Correct. ——-They cannot and do not “predict”. The models they use are “projections” all based on assumptions. They are not “predictions”.
Well they did ‘predict’ as I recall back in the 1990s/early 2000s until their predictions failed to materialise when they changed the script to ‘projections’ – which were still wrong.
Similarly global warming was replaced by climate change when the warming ‘paused’ then declined.
Consensus = religion.
Evidence = science.
The ‘proof’ of global warming/climate change is consensus, never evidence.
Do they have to prove that you knew it was false information?
Doubtful, they run the Puppet Show. It’s not about truth or guilt, it is about getting what they want.It’s the perfect Fascism; call everyone else Fascist whilst you simply get on with it.
I wonder why on GB News when they are discussing anything to do with weather or climate their go to person always seems to be Jim Dale, a rabid climate activist who is like a hammer that sees everything as a nail. ——–Dear Mr Dale, what is an “illegal opinion”? Is not believing in black holes “illegal”? How about not thinking General Relativity is true, is that illegal? I am truly disappointed with GB news giving this eco fundamentalist so much air time. The only one who seems to interrogate this buffoon is Nana Akua. On other platforms Julia Hartley Brewer on Talk TV reduces the imbecile to a squirming blob of absurdity, which is exactly what he is.———You do not get much more “Fake News” or “Misinformation” than the political pronouncements we get from politicians and their bought and paid for media about the supposed “climate crisis”, which is a political statement and not backed up by any empirical science.
You may have missed that they are all from the Met Office, so are pre-programmed robots.
I didn’t miss it. Trust me I have been investigating this issue since about 2007. But no one needs to do any investigating to know that a different opinion in science can never be classed as “illegal”. —-These people want us all to live in a Scientific Dictatorship, where truth is declared by the Science Inquisition and punishment meted out to all the Heretics.
Following ‘The Science’ isn’t Science.
Science is a mode of enquiry, and results in Understanding.
Having been abroad and there only being TV channels in French, I saw one of their news channels talking about the ‘high temperatures’, and with little that I could understand, I knew they were spouting the usual BS just like the BBC.
Summer 2023 has just been declared that hottest summer ever experienced by man. That they’ve only waited until now to go public with this claim suggests that they’re in sort-of a hurry because people’s memories don’t fade that quickly.
Hottest evah everything! is certainly the 2024 climate change summer hit.
“On other platforms Julia Hartley Brewer on Talk TV reduces the imbecile to a squirming blob of absurdity, which is exactly what he is.”
Andrew Doyle made him look stupid on his Free Speech Nation show on GB News.
Glad to hear it. I never saw that.
And yet no matter how stupid Dale is made to look, he never reflects on that and ploughs on regardless.
Dim Dale runs a climate change company so just like those at the Met Orifice he has a vested interest in the global warming scam. If you challenge Dim to provide facts he just goes off on a rant, which is par for the course for ecofascists.
Just tell him to stop it, changing the climate, and all will be well.
And that Irish guy on GBN is just as bad, can’t remember his name.
I wonder who will be heading up Starmer’s Ministry of Truth.
I’m glad someone listened to Dale so that I don’t have to. I never listen to him. Apart from the weather, there is plenty of evidence that they are being selective with the truth, and you’re right to observe that the absence of written constitution c.f. the USA makes us vulnerable to lunacy from time to time.
There is also the little leprechaun they have on spouting more ecofascist drivel. Perhaps they should put Piers Corbyn up against them.
” Sir Mark Rowley told a reporter in response to a question about Elon Musk supposedly “whipping up hatred” The real hate is from that scumbag who should be hanging from a lamp post who killed those three girls you bunch of cun@ts!
There are some things that are so perverted and so disgusting that they demand we hate them. Demanding that we are kind to everyone, including the individuals who commit heinous crimes, is not kindness. It shames us all.
“Dis- or misinformation is whatever the state says it is. The moral crusade is the war over disinformation with little discussion of underlying policy issues”
Well all I will say to that is: thank god for X. I have been abroad but kept up with a few articles on my phone, ah the convenience of technology.
There are two institutions that are propagating intolerance. Our parliament creating laws to control social mores and our judicial system then taking advantage of it. Politicians lost their credibility some time ago and now our judicial system is following suit. We the voters cannot be exempt from blame as many constantly look to the state and the legal system to address every social problem.
Good point, abdicating responsibility does not lessen your responsibility, it cuts both ways. The war against what they perceive to be mis information is to shut down the discussions about the questionable data against which they have based their agendas. They have abdicated their responsibilities and cognitive thought to computer programs, and cannot be seen to be incompetent. It has parallels to the medieval crises of ” do you doubt the word of god?. In this case yes; a computer is a tool to be used, which unfortunately has turned some into tools.
As long as there a patriots around like us on here who remember how better things were, there will always be resistance.
Those who do not need to be told what to do and when, can think for themselves and don’t go into a catatonic state when the computer goes down or the I phone doesn’t work.
As the police have said “You may be committing a crime if you repost, repeat or amplify a message which is false.”, then let’s report Dale, Ed Milliamp, the Met Office, etc., as their repeated ‘climate crisis’ rhetoric is clearly mis/disinformation, the policies from which pose a significant real threat to the health of the UK population.
And the BBC & Sky for amplifying this bilge.
Keir Starmer is not “threatening freedom of speech”, he is obliterating it.
Otherwise a good article. Denial of reality is a massive threat to all of us, particularly if they criminalise it, and make truth subjective and bend to the will of those in charge – our public servants lets never forget.
Most people know the scientific principle: correlation between two variable does not prove there is a causal link – outside data is needed to provide evidence there is.
However that being so, it doesn’t mean there is no causation.
Few people know that is only part of the principle, high goes on to say… but if there is a causal link there must be correlation. Einstein: a thousand experiments do not prove a theory, it only take one to disprove it.
From 1980 until the end of the 1990s there was correlation between fossil fuel CO2 emissions and global temperature rise (according to the Global Mean Temperature Anomaly). But at the end of the 1990s the two variables no longer correlated, falsifying the ‘theory’ if we dignify it with that word.
Maintain your sanity. Turn off all msm, do not read or listen to msm. It is not fit for purpose. It is the biggest contributor to misinformation!
Certain slurs are habitually used by the Lefties who now rule over us, to silence any dissent. It has become so routine and tiresome that sometimes being called these playground names actually becomes a badge of honour. I predict that it will not be too long before comments or “Below the Line” remarks like these will soon be rigorously monitored by the authorities, who will broke no departure from the party line. Most likely resulting in a knock on the door at 4 a.m.