UK sinks to fifth in ESA funding league behind Spain Nearly ten years after Brit astronaut Tim Peake visited the International Space Station (ISS), the UK has slipped behind Spain in European Space Agency funding rankings. At the latest ESA Ministerial meeting, where contributions and projects are discussed, ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher said it had secured €22.1 billion …
The Tories just can’t make up their mind
On the one hand, they want her to resign for saying there is a black hole when the OBR says there isn’t…..
On the other hand, they want her to resign because they claim there’s a huge black hole which she is hiding.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/12/02/the-hidden-13tn-debt-bomb-in-the-budget/
Which is it? Is there a black hole or isn’t there?
Seems fairly obvious to me. The OBR has their model predictions, which are better than guessing, and honest, but still at a practical level its accuracy record is piss-poor. The Chancellor, being democratic oversight, has not just the power but the *responsibility* to add extra margin if she thinks that is wise, to accommodate the huge uncertainty of world and domestic events.
Now, whether the actual outcome will be higher than the model, neither you nor I have a clue. It’s a judgement call. Which is why we have democracy rather than an unelected bureaucracy of experts like some other countries. It doesnt make the OBR stupid, but if you think the models are remotely accurate you haven’t been paying attention. Predicting the future is hard.
For example, the March 2022 forecast for cumulative GDP growth over the next two years, under-predicted the out-turn by 5.5%. Read that again. Yes that’s correct, I got it from the OBR’s own (honest and professional) self-assessment report. They were nearly 3% growth pessimistic per year, *over a period that has included a war in Europe*.
https://obr.uk/docs/dlm_uploads/Forecast-evaluation-report-July-2025.pdf
Read the OBR’s own report. You will learn a lot.
Next time you read a report from “leading economists” that eg Brexit or any other world event will decrease or increase GDP by 0.5% per year, take a deep breath and re-read the OBR’s own data on how ridiculously uncertain economic forecasts really are.
Government statements are irrelevant.
Sterling went down 25% at Brexit. That is an economic relegation. Hence the euphemistic 'cost of living crisis', inflation and enormous energy bills. Not down to Covid or Putin. Whatever it is, we cannot afford as much of it as we used to. They will only be upping military spending because Trump ordered them to, and because they can redesignate millions of on-going civil/admin spends as military - fixing the potholes in a road that goes past a military base, securing the power supply at airports, upgrading the PCs at the MoD - stuff like that. The UK will be running on empty for a generation. The politicians - all parties - are just too scared and too dishonest to admit why.
If you don't contribute or invest enough, then don't expect the benefits. One of the few areas of real engineering and science this country excels at and we give it away to others.
This country produces so little of real utility it's no wonder we're going to the dogs. What we do make is owned by the rest of the world who siphon off the profits, we are just becoming serfs to the oligarchs. Then you get idiots like Forage pretending he has the answers and Brexit would make it all wonderful. This country is doomed if it doesn't sort itself out. We walked away from the one area that worked with us, Europe and now complain when they're not cow-towing to us.
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