The Truth Behind Rachel's Reeve's Spring Statement

The spring statement is supposed to be a boring affair, but these days fiscal events seem to carry more weight, with global events making life difficult for UK finances.

0:49 Benefit Cuts
2:57 Tax and Spending
4:39 Global Shocks
6:04 False Dawns
6:43 Positive news
8:31 Role of Bank of England

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[PaperWallsChannel]

First off, we should stop pretending the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) is some apolitical truth-teller. It’s a gatekeeper for a particular model of economic governance, a model that essentially protects capital markets, undermines state sovereignty, and enforces austerity by design. Its 'forecasts' aren’t neutral; they’re policy weapons.


Notice how “growth” is treated like a sacred word and never questioned, always worshipped. But growth for who? And at what cost? When you cut money from the poorest, you’re not just hurting people, you’re draining the real economy. Poorer households spend nearly everything they get, and they spend it locally, on food, bills, the pub, the bus. That money keeps small businesses alive and wages paid by a multiplier effect “Real economy, real growth.” Take it away, and you don't just kill demand, you choke the whole cycle. It’s not just cruel. It’s economically stupid.


Just look at Ireland: booming GDP, yet ordinary people struggle to afford housing, healthcare, even food. On paper, it's rich. In reality, it's hollowed out. Why? Because GDP growth almost always flows upward to the ruling class, the asset holders, the so-called “markets” and “foreign investors.” Different names, same club.


There’s no honest look at this. No structural questioning. GDP isn’t a measure of people’s wealth. It’s a scoreboard for capital and people are not the capital, not unless we have a National Wealth Program that reverses the roles of and make people the markets and the markets the people. That is a real economic revolution. Turning people into stakeholders of their own economy.


The conversation completely erases sovereign monetary tools. Where’s the discussion of public banking, MMT, or strategic issuance? Japan does it. The U.S. does it. But the UK doesn’t, just kneecapped by design.


The Bank of England is being instrumental in accelerating the decline on purpose or by design. Everyone thinks the markets respond to the Bank of England. No, no! In reality, it’s the other way around. The BOE executes instructions. It takes its orders from the markets and sells them to the public as ‘monetary policy.’ In truth, it’s just the polished front end of a private financial machine. They wear the suit, but the markets write the script


It’s dumping hundreds of billions of old bonds into a weak economy. That floods the market, drives up interest rates, and makes government debt more expensive to repay. Then they act like it's just 'the markets' reacting. They call it “normalisation.” Yes, poverty normalization for tax payers. Complete submission.


This is neoliberalism with a technocratic mask. Investor confidence is treated as a deity because they’re the ones calling the shots. Fiscal rules are cast as natural law, they’re not. The poor are nodded to with performative sympathy, but there’s zero critique of how wealth is extracted, consolidated, and ring-fenced. Did I mention the markets and the super “neutral” BOE?
Worst of all the public is being trained to accept this as inevitable. That is the quiet erosion of civil liberties, when citizens are reduced to spectators of a system rigged against them.


We don’t need more growth sermons. We need economic sovereignty, state-led capital reinvestment, and the political will to challenge this cartel of institutional cowardice.

[flakieflake]

The issue is with cutting the poorest peoples income, is that they tend to spend all of it in the UK economy. The £10 spent in the pub pays the wages of the bar staff, the running costs, and buys the product, this is all then cycled over maybe 10 times, so Reeves reducing the income of the poor by £3Bn could mean a loss of £30Bn to GDP.

[marius.consta]

Thank you for your videos. Always great analysis

[TheNobbynoonar]

My prediction for our Chancellor

More borrowing, more immigration, more tax rises, more hitting the poorest.
None of it will work.

[SN]

1st! One of the best channels exposing neoliberalism

[tseringwangmo]

Yes UK is stuck in a doom loop and will probably never recover.

[einseitig]

The doom loop question is very real.
Labour are fire fighting having painted themselves in to a corner with fiscal rules and adherence to not increasing VAT, Income Tax and (employee) NI.
They are only doing what is best for Labour not necessarily what is best for the country, however, that is akin to the Conservatives.
What is a shame is that there is a failure to correct the very real problems basing our economy on services provides.
Given the rise of Reform this Labour government may only service one term and then back to the Conservatives/Reform and trickle-down economics.

[gabers]

9:21 very spicy Tejvan 😂. I'm learning a lot from your content ATM.

[med]

Keep up the good work, I enjoy your content on the current topics and a deeper dive therein.

[dottyp]

Richard Murphy has just done an analysis of the emergency budget. What is about to happen is catastrophic for the people of the UK and the country.

[pdjhh]

I live in a country that has built hundreds of thousands of homes and house and rent prices have still doubled.

[TheGcpsj]

Surprised you didn't mention the idea floating around of taxing ultra rich. At least 1% on wealth of people who own £10 million

[adam]

Clamping down on tax evasion, really? 😂 They always say this

[QBR]

Surely some of the cuts will send some people back to work who shouldn’t have been off in the first place.

[stephfoxwell]

We've added £2 trillion to our National Debt in just 15 years.
Our last annual surplus was 23 years ago.
Almost £60, 000 of debt for every UK adult.

[frankward]

When the Daily Mail dictates Labour's tax policies, expect the worst.

[MrOharaj]

Net Zero is £150billion a year which represents around 18% of tax receipts. We can cancel net zero right now. The price of gas is at an 11year low - the gov are backfilling the price drops with tax

[ianbird]

How come every Economist, money guru etc I listen to on here has a clear path to solve some of Theeves headaches…..she obviously doesn’t know or doesn’t watch your videos. Great vid by the way

[peterdobson]

Love your approach. All facts, no twaddle. I always learn something new from your videos.

[paulbo]

The OBR was set up in 2010 by Cameron to give him cover for austerity. We really should abolish it and set up an OIR - Office of Investment Responsibility