Data released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on March 13th said that GDP – a measure of national economic output – rose by 0.2% in January, following a decline of 0.1% in December. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said: “While the last few years have been tough, today’s numbers show we are making progress in growing the economy”. And Prime Minister Rishi Sunak insisted Britain’s economy has “really turned the corner” and this was proof his economic plan was working.
U.K. GDP is about £2.274 trillion. That’s £2,274,000,000,000. Let’s be generous to the Tories and imagine that by the time of the next election, the U.K.’s GDP is growing by 0.4%. If I’ve got my decimals right, this means the U.K. economy will be running at a rate of about £9.1 billion a year more than in 2023 supposedly thanks to the economic brilliance of Sunak and his chums.
Now let’s just play a silly game and think about what might be causing this ‘wonderful’ £9.1 billion (0.4%) economic growth. Well, for a start there’s the money we’re paying to support illegal migrants. I’ve done a rough calculation which suggests that it costs us British taxpayers about £50,000 a year for each migrant to pay for things like accommodation in three and four-star hotels with meals, smartphones, pocket money, medical and dental care and, of course, legal expenses to beat our almost non-existent immigration control. So, if around 50,000 illegal migrants come to the U.K. in 2024 (which seems very likely), that will cost us around £2.5 billion We don’t actually have this money. So the Government will have to borrow it as part of the £114 billion it’ll probably borrow this year.
What else can we think of? I know, the cost of our ‘work-from-home’ civil servants who seem incapable of delivering anything of value to the people who pay their generous salaries and eye-wateringly expensive pensions. There are now about 19,260 more of these individuals than there were a year ago. That’s a rise of 4% in just one year. If we assume that each of these creatures costs us around £100,000 a year in salary, pensions, office space (though they’re seldom ever actually in the office), travel expenses, special allowances and amounts of our money they waste on worthless and expensive projects to justify their generous salaries and pensions, then these extra 19,260 public-sector layabouts are probably costing us around £2 billion.
I should also mention the 5.5% pay rise all civil servants will be pocketing this year. The cost of the civil service was about £16.6 billion in 2023. So a 5.5% pay rise will add about £1 billion more to Government spending on things which bring absolutely no value at all to the British economy.
So, just with the billions being wasted on illegal migrants, the cost of ever more unnecessary civil servants and the civil servants’ pay rise, we’ve already accounted for £5.5 billion of the supposed £9.1 billion of a 0.4% economic growth which the Tories would claim is wonderful proof of their economic genius. And, of course, all this money has to be borrowed as, despite the highest rate of taxation since WWII, our floundering excuse for a Government isn’t taking in enough in taxes to pay for its financial incontinence with our money.
Then there are the nine million people of working age, some of whom are rather disinclined to do anything looking like work in spite of a record level of job vacancies. A large number apparently claim they have mental problems preventing them from even looking for a job. There are around 355,000 more benefits claimants than there were a year ago. The average benefits bill for each of these excellent citizens is probably between £5,000 and £6,000 a year. Then, of course, they don’t pay council tax and get huge help with rent and other expenses. So, these 355,000 extra benefits claimants are costing us at least £2 billion a year. We’ve now managed to reach £6.5 billion of the £9.1 billion (0.4% GDP growth) which Sunak would inevitably claim is a world-beating economic success story.
In fact, the total benefits bill, including these 355,000 more benefits claimants, is expected to rise from £147.26 billion in 2023 to £161.79 billion in 2024. That’s a rise of £14.53 billion. Ooops, just the increase in benefits alone is greater than the £9.1 billion (0.4% GDP growth) which Sunak would trumpet as a massive economic success story.
There are probably lots more billions of unproductive money, such as the mountains of our money being used to subsidise useless, unreliable, intermittent and hugely-expensive so-called ‘renewable’ energy (wind and solar), which the bunch of charlatans pretending to be a Government will borrow and waste but will add to the GDP supposed growth number. However just these few items I’ve mentioned so far give us about £21 billion, more than twice the £9.1 billion (0.4% GDP growth) which the less-than-honest will try to paint as indicating a growing economy.
By fiddling around a bit with a few numbers, I’ve managed to find £21 billion – almost 1% fake economic growth – just from a few areas where the Government will borrow and waste money. Yet if we go into the next election with the British economy appearing to be growing at around 0.4%, the Tories will tout this as an impressive economic achievement.
So, please, don’t be fooled by our Government’s “the economy is growing” fairytales.
David Craig is the author of There is No Climate Crisis, available as an e-book or paperback from Amazon.
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Excellent article by David Craig, full of useful information.
When you look at his estimated cost of £2,500,000,000 to be lavished upon hostile alien men who have abandoned their families to break into Britain and scrounge off British Taxpayers, and compare it to the UK Defence Budget for 2024, you find that the government will fund the Muslim Army by cutting the British Armed Forces budget by £2,200,000,000.
In the old days, there was a word for this. Begins with “T” followed by “reason”.
Something else which is growing, according to statistics, is street crime in London. Much like Johannesburg or Lima, wear that Rolex at your peril. Not great for attracting visitors, really;
”On March 28, Thursday, former England cricket captain Kevin Pietersen took to X to voice his concerns about the staggering rate at which street crimes in London are rising.
Resharing a post by @CrimeLdn, which had posted a video of a recent knife attack on a train in London, the cricketer labelled London as “a disgrace of a place”.
“WTAF is this now in London?!?!?! London was once the most amazing city. It’s an absolute disgrace of a place. • You cannot wear a watch of any value. • you cannot walk around with your phone in your hand. • women get their bags and jewellery ripped off them. • cars get smashed in for a quick smash and grab. • there’s this rubbing in the video below. @SadiqKhan must be really proud of what he’s created?!” Pietersen captioned his post.
Data from Watchfinder & Co. last year revealed that between 2015 and 2022, the number of stolen watches in England and Wales nearly doubled, from 6,696 to 11,035.
More than 6,000 of the thefts in 2022 took place in London.
Rowley is the representative for a region of Westminster Council that is near the Middle Eastern-populated Edgware Road neighbourhood of central London.
The borough is also home to a few of the city’s most wealthy neighbourhoods, renowned retail avenues, and many of the tourist attractions that draw in approximately 4.5 million people annually.
It is, however, also the “most dangerous” area of London, according to the CrimeRate database, with a crime rate that is 215 per cent higher than that of the entire city and 265 per cent higher than that of the entirety of England and Wales.”
https://www.opindia.com/2024/03/whats-wrong-with-london-cricketer-kevin-pietersen-raises-concern-over-spike-in-street-violence-in-uk-capital/
The Liberal Progressive virus is spreading across the western world faster than covid on speed. —Symptoms include a slight dizziness at the prospect of punishment or discipline. A brain fog when it comes to attributing blame to individuals for their crimes. Confusion and disorientation by the blaming of society for the behaviour of perpetrators of crime. Vomiting at the prospect of concern for victims. A point-blank refusal to think you need help for your condition.
That clown in the photo and his useless colleagues couldn’t run a bath.
Incompetence > Malice
They don’t become politicians by knowing wtf they’re doing. They become politicians because they don’t know wtf they’re doing.
Remember the Elephant in the room. ———-NET ZERO. ——-Net Zero is a policy designed for growth reversal. It is deigned to lower living standards. It is a policy to restrict growth. The whole idea of Sustainable Development is that the living standards and consumption patterns of populations of the wealthy west are —TOO HIGH. ——Or as Maurice Strong told us some years ago “Isn’t the only way for the planet too survive is if Industrial Society collapses, and isn’t it our responsivity to bring that about”. ——Politicians of both main stream parties speak with FORKED TONGUE.
Stuff the economy.
Let’s say we concrete over the whole country with warehouses. Fill them with cheap immigrant labour. The GDP increases. Large corporates pay their CEOs vast salaries. The tax revenue funds an even bigger administrative state.
So what?
There’s more to our way of life which you can’t price but is being destroyed by Westminster.
The policy settings conducive to high rates of economic growth are well established; low taxation, low regulation, secure property rights, and cheap and reliable supplies of energy. For the past twenty-five years UK governments have followed the opposite policies and predictably growth has slowed and has now ceased. Hunt and Sunak ought to be hanging from lampposts for their part in destroying freedom and prosperity.
I think about 620 lampposts will be needed.
The time-serving useless idiots in the Lords can just be let go.
Now an extra £1.5bn can be added that the prime minister of foreign affairs, Baron Dave of Loserville, has handed to Ukraine. Glory to UKrainia!
I think they’re running a deliberate scorched-earth policy – making it impossible for the incoming Labour Government to do anything differently – even IF it wanted to. Politics is a game to these people: they don’t give a 4X about the devastation they are causing to the lives of “ordinary” people.