The better alternative right now is…
Keir Starmer Labour Leader
- Thread starter Damien
- Start date
The better alternative right now is…
Investing in home insulation is a no-brainer so happy to see it's policy. Hopefully the detail follows because it's really important with these policies and nailing the detail will stop the Tories offering a shit scheme which claims to do the same but ends up funnelling money toward wealthy homeowners who need the help the least.
Yes but there also needs to be thought given to if summers are going to be a lot hotter what about venting heat as well as just keeping hot air in.
Also this idea that if the government had acted 6 months ago they could have insulated 2million homes seems at best optimistic (though unrealistic seems more apt) ... though having acted months ago and having some additional homes insulated would be better than not doing it.
Clearly the government won't follow Labour's ideas but probably best that they put some ideas out there ref cost of living
Price cap policy seems decent, at face value obviously.
Sounds a decent policy to me hearing Starmer and Labours plan this morning.
Especially with the Tories not even addressing the issue.
Especially with the Tories not even addressing the issue.
actually insane how cheap useful policy is, yet it always seems to come up in political circles as a crisis gets out of control.
Great to see Labour offering it.
Worth mentioning of course that, in hot weather, insulation actually helps keep your house cooler by stopping heat passing through your walls and roof. The same things that keep heat in (curtains, good insulation, draft exclusion) are also very effective at keeping heat out. Unfortunately, a lot of the housing stock in this country wouldn't get the full benefit from insulation because of poor building standards or because they were built in the coal-fire days where houses were drafty by design to stop people dying from carbon monoxide poisoning during the winter.
On the second point yeah the 2 million figure is probably something they've pulled out their arses. These schemes tend to fail to deliver because they're not well thought out and uptake ends up being way lower than expected (or because they're token PR exercises which aren't intended to be effective). Often the schemes rely on getting evidence that the work was done by an approved contractor, and there simply aren't enough approved contractors to feasibly do the work. Usually the subsidies tend not to cover enough of the cost for it to be accessible for poorer homeowners, and even if they did, the schemes tend you to require to pay the full cost up-front and claim back through a labourious process. This is exacerbated by the tendency of contractors to use the existence of the schemes as an opportunity to jack prices up. Then of course, many of the people who would benefit most from lower energy bills live in rented accommodation and their access to the benefits of the scheme is dependent on their landlord putting the money and effort in.
Like I say, it's a good concept, but these schemes almost always end up benefitting contractors (especially established and well-connected companies who find it easier to get government certification) and wealthy homeowners who can afford the up-front cost but utterly failing to reach the people who actually need them. Unless Labour announce a scheme which specifically addresses those problems, it would be incredibly easy for the Tories to announce your typical useless scheme, use it as an excuse to funnel public money into the pockets of big companies and wealthy homeowners, and then turn round and accuse Labour of hypocrisy if they dared to critique it.
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Not believing a demonstrable liar. Got more chance of finding a policy he'll actually follow through with in a copy of Viz than by listening to him.
So you'd happily continue with Truss as PM with these ghouls in the Cabinet?
Rachel Reeves expressed her pleasure that Corbyn wasn't PM when interviewed a few months ago and you're so non-plussed by that you're voting to hand her control of the UK economy and think I should too.
Spare me this shite line.
When the alternative is Boris-lite then yes, I'd happily usher Starmer to No.10. Others might want to value philosophical purity above reality.
(FYI I'm a former 'Corbynite' - still a fervent supporter of his policies, but cannot reconcile the fact he gave Boris an 80 seat majority and has, recently, been giving some very questionable views on platforms that are pro-Russia)
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The idea Starmer is as bad as Truss or Johnson is ludicrous and exactly what the Tories want people to think.
So you hold some twat on RedCafe to a higher level of expectation than the person you're absolutely voting to be Chancellor of the Exchequer?
Bit weird, to be honest.
Not to a higher level, I'm not voting for you for any position, just scrutinising your opinions.
Whilst not giving the shiniest shite about the person you want to hand the UK economy too.
I'll praise Starmer when I like what he is saying and doing, and criticise him when I don't (although given that there's either going to be a Labour-led government or a Tory-led one it would take a lot to convince me not to vote for Labour at general elections). I'm happy with this latest policy announcement.
I still find Starmer to be quite a poor and underwhelming leader, but poor and underwhelming is far better than dangerous, reckless, grossly incompetent and hell-bent on stirring up culture wars, hatred and divisions like Cameron (despite his bogus talk about a 'big society), May, Johnson and Truss.
I still very much hope that Labour can become the largest party at the next general election (no guarantees there at all), but fall short of a majority and need other parties namely the Lib Dems to prop them up. Then the Lib Dems can agree to support them and help get their Queen's speech through the Commons, only if Labour make a cast iron guarantee re electoral reform and proportional representation (I don't trust a majority Labour government to make those changes) and also agree to a closer alignment with the EU.
The Lib Dems doing well and winning as many seats from the Tories at the next GE (I think that the number of genuine Labour-Lib Dem marginals can be counted on one hand with fingers to spare) is crucial IMO.
I still find Starmer to be quite a poor and underwhelming leader, but poor and underwhelming is far better than dangerous, reckless, grossly incompetent and hell-bent on stirring up culture wars, hatred and divisions like Cameron (despite his bogus talk about a 'big society), May, Johnson and Truss.
I still very much hope that Labour can become the largest party at the next general election (no guarantees there at all), but fall short of a majority and need other parties namely the Lib Dems to prop them up. Then the Lib Dems can agree to support them and help get their Queen's speech through the Commons, only if Labour make a cast iron guarantee re electoral reform and proportional representation (I don't trust a majority Labour government to make those changes) and also agree to a closer alignment with the EU.
The Lib Dems doing well and winning as many seats from the Tories at the next GE (I think that the number of genuine Labour-Lib Dem marginals can be counted on one hand with fingers to spare) is crucial IMO.
This sums up how I feel in a more articulate way than I could manage, especially the bolded bit.
Well said.
I think we'll end up with Labour and Lib Dems in a kind of coalition at the next election.
Thanks, and your post earlier about how the Tories and the Tory-press want the public to think that all politicians are as bad as each other (they really doubled down on that when scandal after scandal concerning Johnson or his pals emerged) is spot on.
Drum up despair and cynicism with a large dosage of hatred to go with it (I remember the Tories basically running an English nationalist, anti-Scottish general election campaign in 2015 alongside plenty of vicious, personal attacks against Ed Miliband), with the hope that enough voters will think that there's no point changing from the status quo.
Will be interesting to see how this unfolds
They may need SNP involved as well?
Electoral reform should be the price to get the libs on board though - perhaps if SNP are involved this makes it easier as loosing all the scottish MP's from westminister could be the trigger to review MP numbers and PR... who knows possibly even changing the house of lords to a elected system?
I would personally like them to stand on a unified ticket (one candidate per seat and open up the coalition to the greens and plaid as well) with all this clearly laid out in a manifesto rather than cobbled together in coalition talks post election
Not at all - I just ask if the man is a better option than the incumbent, no matter how incrementally that improvement might be.
Yeah exactly, The Conservative party thrives on voter apathy because generally speaking Tory voters will vote blue no matter what.
There really isn’t anything but maybe some cultural values that shows Starmer is better than any Tory tbh. This latest announcement is decent but so was everything he ran in the leadership race and we know how that went.
Labour voters tend to think the tories win by tricking the general public, while at the same time convincing themselves that their candidate is secretly left wing and is only making right wing moves in order to win elections.
Based everything we know so far, the most likely outcome would be Starmer running on better home insulation and then dumping it when in power. People can make the argument that it’s still better than a Tory but seems a bit pointless imo.
Labour voters tend to think the tories win by tricking the general public, while at the same time convincing themselves that their candidate is secretly left wing and is only making right wing moves in order to win elections.
Based everything we know so far, the most likely outcome would be Starmer running on better home insulation and then dumping it when in power. People can make the argument that it’s still better than a Tory but seems a bit pointless imo.
Very good, just one question... "who will sit at the head of the table"?
Any 'Unified ticket', whilst separate parties operate with their own leadership (the in-fighting would be all consuming) is doomed. One of the reasons the two main parties can do battle, is because they do have different strands, even beliefs, but only one leadership structure.
Whilst there are predominantly left of centre views that can coalesce around ideas, actual effective government requires one PM and one cabinet all subject to the same whip.
Thread from Richard Murphy:
Under a PR system I would say whoever the parties involved in the coalition agree ... and for a one off standing on a "progressive alliance" type electoral reform ticket again depends who the parties agree but I think Starmer would be the most likely
Naomi Smith and Best for Britain have been doing a lot of works behind the scenes for the last couple of years on this
https://www.bestforbritain.org/will_labour_accept_sharing_power_to_win
not sure it will happen but would be my personal preference if it did
There's also an element of naivety, with many struggling to accept that actually the Rwanda policy, for example, is very popular with large swathes of the electorate. That sadly includes members of my family up north, despite my wife coming from an African Union member state.
ban on energy cap rising is a good policy. it's basic fecking common sense but it's still good policy. the tories will have to do something or there's going to be trouble.
you won't hear anything from either truss or sunak because they're playing the "who can be most racist and most neoliberal" game to an audience of 100k old white people who hate everything except an image of a country that doesn't exist any more.
btw truss is a horrendous candidate. she's using clinton style rhetoric dressed up in a thatchery vibe. "i've been tough on russia". that's straight from clinton's campaign in 2016. if british politics heads down that road then it's a dire outlook. they're testing it out atm at any rate. "won't play identity politics" as they each proceed to play identity politics.
you won't hear anything from either truss or sunak because they're playing the "who can be most racist and most neoliberal" game to an audience of 100k old white people who hate everything except an image of a country that doesn't exist any more.
btw truss is a horrendous candidate. she's using clinton style rhetoric dressed up in a thatchery vibe. "i've been tough on russia". that's straight from clinton's campaign in 2016. if british politics heads down that road then it's a dire outlook. they're testing it out atm at any rate. "won't play identity politics" as they each proceed to play identity politics.
Banning the cap rising isn't a good policy in isolation. You need to actually work out how to deal with these energy firms going bust as well. The market either needs better regulation to ensure costs are properly covered, or even better it just needs a national green energy company to be established so that there is some state-led (non-profit) competition in it and therefore profits can't get too out of hand.
Given Bulb has effectively been underwritten by the tax payer for months now I don't see why we shouldn't just officially nationalise it rather than give Octopus a £1bn bung to buy it instead.
Sorry to hear that. Yeah a family member of mine has recently got a new girlfriend who isn't white and a certain anti vax tory family friend isn't happy about it(''Well at least he isn't gay'' was the reaction).
I view the labour voter outlook as almost a understandable safety mechanism, it's simply less depressing to believe large parts of the country are tricked by politicians or brainwashed by right wing media. It also mean if this was true then promoting other forms of media or pointing out conservatives lies would be able to change politics, which tbh doesn't seem to be the case. We live in maybe the most socially liberal era ever and far right reactionary politics is still on the rise or in power. The chances are that for number of reasons(economic, geography, age, race, gender, etc)of all which are out of our control, certain parts of the country have very right wing politics.
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this is what they should be doing. take the new energy market into national hands. in the meantime they'll have to subsidize the cost of the energy market. it would be madness to let fossil fuel companies reap the benefits of the renewal market. you can still pay them for whatever ip they may come to possess and whatever else, but the renewable sector when fully operational cannot be a rerun of the oil and gas sector. for a start, renewable will be produced nationally. 100% or thereabouts. if not taking the entire new sector in public control, then yes, establish at least one company that sets a baseline in terms of cost.
if you proceed along this line, then you can make the case for not nationalizing the energy companies as they are because they will be less and less relevant as time goes on which represents a bad investment on the public's behalf. this is only true if you announce your intent to nationalize the new energy economy, though, otherwise you're just being ripped off again.
He has an audience of one. The Daily Mail
Yes, this is the prerequisite! It might happen one day, but our average politician (whatever persuasion) in the UK loves their 'political persona' too much. I am in my 70's so doubt I will ever see it, if you are below 50... well you just might.
I believe the proposal is for government to pay energy retailers the difference if the current price cap is maintained. Hence the need to cost the plan.
To give Starmer some credit, his ability to carrying on talking after getting owned by the interviewer is almost impressive.
To renationalise these industries, I assume the government would essentially have to buy back the operation, is that right? If so where the feck would that money come from?
Neoliberalism is a gift for marketing types. You rebrand a part of the country's infrastructure (rail, energy, telecoms, water, whatever) and you don't have to contribute to its upkeep. You simply suck out as much money as possible for as long as possible and, when the 'free market' (which is omnipotent) goes against you, you simply walk away, blame the economic conditions, and let the taxpayer pick up the bill.
You could borrow it on long term bonds. We did 100 year bonds for the borrowing related to fighting WW1. Obviously the record low borrowing available over the last decade of Tory rule has ended so I am not sure of the exact extra costs involved.
this is free market, billionaire class, logic from 2019.
https://iea.org.uk/tried-and-failed-plan-to-nationalise-energy-in-the-uk-is-a-step-backwards/
has not aged well.
https://iea.org.uk/tried-and-failed-plan-to-nationalise-energy-in-the-uk-is-a-step-backwards/
has not aged well.
Ultra-long dated bonds would be a very tough sell in an inflationary world too. Even when the Russian situation and supply issues are sorted, decreasing short-term inflationary pressures, longer-term drivers like the road to net zero and deglobalisation will keep inflation higher than than the last 10-15 years.
No idea how you'd renationalise Utilities without either being fleeced or becoming an international pariah to whatever degree.
I know little about competition laws but couldn't the government quite easily nationalise a failing provider and then undercut the other providers?