Wander round Westminster and everyone’s out for more money, writes Andrew Marr

Wander round Westminster and everyone’s out for more money.

After that revolt, the benefits system needs still more money.

Children with special educational needs deserve more money.

The victims of the infected blood scandal, in the headlines today, are still waiting for much of the nearly £12 billion compensation scheme.

Resident doctors are going on strike later this month, they told us earlier, because they deserve a really big pay rise.

So do lots of other people, by the way.

Reform of the courts system, which may have to shed many jury trials, will cost a billion pounds, we heard this morning.

Defence and the police need huge investment.

The NHS is getting it but - those doctors again - it also wants a lot more.

And that’s just a few obvious causes on one day in July.

So, this money stuff? Where is it coming from?

We’re already borrowed up to our eyeballs already, and taxed to our nostrils.

The official watchdog, the OBR, says Britain now has the sixth highest government debt among the 36 most advanced economies in the world and the third highest borrowing costs.

As a political economy, we are accelerating towards a brick wall.

So how are our political leaders reacting?

Since Keir Starmer doesn’t know how bad the situation will be this autumn, he sensibly didn’t rule out taxes.

But I’m more interested in what wasn’t said.

Let’s go back to the office for budget responsibility, and their report yesterday.

It pointed to our aging population, all those pensioners, and the effects on healthcare and said that this will put our debt as a country up from 94% of output today, to 270% by the early 2070s.

That feels like bankruptcy territory.

The chair of the OBR called it unsustainable.

The triple lock on British pensions, which means they automatically rise by inflation, wage rises or 2.5%, whichever’s the highest, is going to be three times more expensive by the end of this decade than expected.

Again, that’s a nettle someone will have to grasp.

But did the Tory leader raise it? Did she hell.

If she had, would the prime minister have responded frankly to the problem?

Not a chance.

They are all in it together, too scared of older voters to tell us the truth, taking us for idiots.

This is delusional.

Keir Starmer is just beginning to show signs of frustration about this nonsense.

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