Our nation is so far up s**t creek economically that we can no longer even afford a paddle. And the canoe goes back on Wednesday.
Yet we continue to spend money we don’t possess because we are run by a Prime Minister who is yet to confess that he suffers from the rare illness of dyscalculia - a failure to understand numbers.
The latest bombshell came with the public sector borrowing – the difference between tax revenues and spending. For August, it was at an unbelievable £18billion. Those who know these things thought it was going to be £12billion.
The culprits were the usual suspects of public sector pay rises and benefit payments. And we will all be a long time dead before a Labour government will do anything about those two – Socialists love making unskilled train drivers wealthy and making sure the idle have an enjoyable and subsidised life.
The other big number in that £18billion was the fact that we had to pay £8.5billion in debt interest, much of which was accumulated through covid when everybody and their wife was paid to do nothing.
That had two effects. Inflation went through the roof and we ran up a £400billion bill which had to be repaid from a country that didn’t have any money in the first place. Thank you, Boris.
In the background, there is even more bad news building up. What about this one?
Very quietly, Labour has been adding to our public sector payroll while across the private economy (the one creating the taxes) it’s becoming even tougher to find a job.
We are days away from almighty shafting that could hand Reform a massive majority - Kelvin Mackenzie | Getty Images
The Office for National Statistics revealed that there are now 6.2 million on the public payroll – more than at any point in the last 14 years, and by 75,000 in a year.
That total includes more than 2,000,000 NHS staff, a record. Incredibly, productivity in the NHS has actually gone down as its numbers have gone up.
Who is trying to make the NHS work more efficiently and effectively, rather than just being a machine that consumes money?
Once again, the ONS has the bad news. The public sector overall was 4.2 per cent less efficient last year than it was the year before.
Is it any wonder that those around the world who are prepared to lend us money want a better return as we are such a risk. The yield on 30-year gilts, as government bonds are known, recently hit a 27-year high.
I used to think that voters weren’t stupid. Clearly, I was wrong in the light of Labour’s general election landslide, but there are some signs they are coming to their senses.
The last poll (it was made by Find Out Now) showed Reform on 34 per cent with Labour on a record low of 16 per cent and the Tories on 16 per cent. The effect on a General Election would be astounding; Reform would have 452 seats, a majority of 264 seats.
The official opposition would be the Lib Dumbs on 52 seats, Labour would pick up 44 seats and the Tories bringing up the rear at 19 seats.
This might all be fantasy land as the poll was taken when Rayner and Mandelson got the boot, but the reality is that Reform has been topping the polls for almost a year, and the most likely next entrant to No.10 is Nigel Farage.
God knows what the state of the economy will look like in 2029. Unless there is some productivity miracle or Trump makes a state visit every week (this week he bought £38billion in tech deals with him) the country looks in serious trouble.
Starmer’s plan surely can’t be to continue at each budget to tax the hell out of the middle classes and hand their hard work to the SKIDS (Skint Idle Dim Socialists).
Were he to do that, the poll showing Labour at 16 per cent will be the reality.