Tbh the fact some people can vote for a anti austerity leader like Corbyn and then vote for we’ve ran out of money Starmer is kind of crazy.
Real end of history stuff.
Real end of history stuff.
Keir Starmer Labour Leader
- Thread starter Damien
- Start date
Keith Starver may be many things but someone who is able to laugh at a joke, I think not.
Labour now saying free school meals will need to be sacrificed as there is no money left.
Reeves said Labour would invest in new nuclear and renewables and insulating people’s homes to bring down energy bills, unpick holes in the UK’s “botched Brexit deal” and do more to help people back into the labour market.
Everything's going to be alright. They're going to renegotiate Brexit and train hundreds of thousands of non-existent unemployed people to become plumbers, builders and electricians .
The future is dim.
Everything's going to be alright. They're going to renegotiate Brexit and train hundreds of thousands of non-existent unemployed people to become plumbers, builders and electricians .
The future is dim.
Wonder how long it will be before George Osborne says Kier Starmer and Tory-Labour was his greatest achievement?
This idea that you can simply say ah, but if we raise taxes here we can afford this spending over here, when UK govt debt interest payments are £115 billion/year (and rising) just seems crazy to me given where we are right now.
It just seems to me that people making those arguments haven't realised things have fundamentally changed and the space to make spending promises - any promise - just isn't there to the same degree it used to be.
I just don't think you can simply bash Labour over the head when they show extreme caution on spending given the terrible, terrible condition of the public finances. They are going to be the govt soon and this will be their biggest problem.
At some level, if taxes have to go up, then probably they will have to go up to pay for the services we already have, rather than pay for new ones.
It's quite simple.
The super wealthy have gained even more wealth over the last decade, while the poorest have become even more poverty stricken. Meanwhile companies with ridiculous turnovers and profits like Amazon and Starbuck in some cases pay an effective 0% tax.
There is space to suggest a change in these loopholes for the already super rich to benefit the country. Some people have Daily Mail / Telegraph blinkers on so don't see it.
If we had done the sensible thing and seized the opertunity to invest heavily in the nation by borrowing when intesest rates where rock bottom as a certain someone advocated, then we wouldn't need to be making arguments about what level of poverty we are willing to accept
Nothing says "we're centrists" like opposing policies brought in by centrists 20 years ago on the grounds that they're too left wing
I am sure you are right that it is possible to raise more in tax, but what I am saying is, when debt interest payments are £115billion a year (a staggering amount when we aren't even technically in a recession) any extra tax money will inevitably have to go on making that number smaller, rather than on flashy new things. Get used to it.
(It is also the case that we will have to find public money to invest in public infrastructure and growth as well, and this means the debate about spending will have to weigh decisions about that Vs helping people in need).
It is going to be incredibly difficult so maybe people need to cut Labour some slack here.
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I agree, and the Tories deserve to be crushed because of it. We wasted a historic, once in a 200 year chance to overhaul the basic infrastructure of the country. We're never getting that again. But the time to do it was in 2008, by the time Corbyn came around it was too late.
I didn't realise child poverty was considered "flashy new things" by some. Get used to it? Really?
The UK GDP is over £2.4 trillion, same as the national debt (due to the last 13 years of Tory mismangement). But the interest payments can be covered by correct and fair taxation, for the reasons outlined in my previous post (the wealthy have prospered, poverty is worse). We need investment in order to grow the economy. Otherwise it is a downward spiral, see 2010 - 2023.
Amazing how fair taxation has become an "extreme" view since 2019.
I don't know how anyone can vote for the Labour Party at this point. Can't promise free school meals, a 2 child policy - I don't think even the nastiest Tories have made policies like this.
I am making a general point about a difficult economic environment constraining choices, not about a specific policy, and that is what you will have to get used to. We are a poorer country than we used to be and we have a lot of increasing welfare costs baked in as the population ages. There’s where your tax rises will go, before you even get to anything else.
Labour are going to be in for a very rough ride and everyone, but everyone is going to be fcuking disappointed their favourite policy, isn’t going to be top of the list. I am almost glad for Labour that expectations are so low, given the mountain ahead.
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We need to grow just as much as we need fair taxation, whatever that is.
And I think you need to cut labour some slack, for the reasons given. And it was the tories who voted against free school meals and introduced the 2 child limit, not labour, so yes, the nastiest tories did make policies like that).
How else are these kids going to learn that the state of the economy is their fault?
So, he's just been given a ringing endorsement from Jacob Rees-Mogg, any of you establishment stooges care to defend this?
Only to observe they're pulling your strings. I guess what we should be doing is taking Rees-Mogg's comment seriously and focus our disdain towards the only people with a chance of unseating the Tories thus leaving a Tory win likely. That'll show those Tory bastards
This is why the Tories win elections because they play the left with the ease a 6 year old plays Three Blind Mice in the recorder. And your fall for it. Every. Single. Time.
"Let's not vote Labour they're no different to the Tories" yet never question why it's the Tories telling you this. Maybe taking Rees-Mogg at face value as you clearly do, by itself answers any questions you have on the subject.
"They're the same as the Tories" it's a very effective pro-Tory election strategy. They're so lucky there's so many on the left peddling that message hard for them.
I mean when had Rees-Mogg ever misdirected the truth for political gains?
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No, I will laugh it off as a desperate move from someone about to lose badly. As should you!
(My memory of the socialist worker type element at uni was what a really bad sense of humour they all had. Glad to see nothing has changed.)
If the disparaging parenthesis remark is twice the length of your point, one of them should be changed IMO.
If Starmer loses the next election would it be the biggest bottle job in political history?
If all of their policies are the same as the Tories, what's the point in voting for them?
You'll remember that the kid starver, Reeves and Streeting were all at Murdoch's summer party recently, along side a bunch of Tories, notably JRM. I don't want to come across as conspiratorial but it just seems very coincidental that a couple of weeks later we have JRM endorsing Labour policy (something they never did while Corbyn was in).
You're laughing at JRM endorsing Labour policy and I'm the one with the bad sense of humour?
I'm laughing at you at letting yourself be trolled by JRM, of all people.You're laughing at JRM endorsing Labour policy and I'm the one with the bad sense of humour?
If your substantive response is to count the number of characters in a sentence, then maybe you need a better one.
Ah yes, the guy who is against Tory policy and sticks to it is the one being trolled. Definitely not the one who's being led down the garden path by the kid starver and his billionaire buddies (including JRM).
Who said it was supposed to be a substantive response? As for the counting, I guess I could have just gone "that's a dumb post", but that felt a bit direct.
This is a new one. 4D chess being played by a government who couldn't buy sand in the Sahara. Maybe apply Occam's Razor and accept that Tories don't mind handing over to Kier temporarily because he's not going to do anything to disrupt them.
In the UK maybe, but the biggest bottle job will be if Trump gets reelected!
At what point does "getting the Tories out" stop mattering? Because that seems to be the only reason anyone can give for voting Labour. And if all you have is "you need to vote for them so that we're rid of the Tories", you don't actually have anything.
We were specifically discussing the 2 child limit in the thread, but OK.
Also I notice you removed the section of my post discussing the level of UK debt in detail. Disingenuous to remove that key comment discussing the self defeating nature of austerity, which actually slows the economy further.
We need to invest in the country wisely and in infrastructure for the long term, not cease all investment in the country when it needs it most. The problem with austerity merchants like you is that you never look past the 5 year election cycle. For example, if we had invested in social housing in 2010 we would have valuable and functioning assets now.
Do we have to get used to this also?
A ‘shameful’ new record as 131,000 children living in temporary accommodation
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...s-housing-social-housing-crisis-b2381452.html
Having any policy that hasnt been U turned on would be progress. The disappointment stems from having a liar leading the Labour party, not specific policies.
There are some people that are so desperate for a win that they're willing to sacrifice all of their morals. It's quite sad really.
The problem with New Labour in government wasn't that they spent too much money per se, it was that their way of funding that spending was fundamentally flawed and unreliable. They geared the economy around the finance sector and service industry at the expense of more resilient sectors like manufacturing, and built their spending plans on the assumption that the finance sector would remain stable and continue to grow indefinitely. Unfortunately, whilst tying our fate ever closer to that of the financial sector, they failed to put in place any safeguards to prevent it from fecking itself and us, despite the fact that it has reliably done so at least once every 20 years since the start of the 20th century.
To my understanding, the overwhelming consensus amongst economists is that austerity measures under Brown and Cameron impeded our recovery from the 2008 crash rather than aided it. For whatever reason, barring the Corbyn years, Labour has spent 15 years ignoring that consensus and insisting that the lesson to be learned from New Labour was that spending money is bad, when the actual lesson was that its bad to create a situation where the state of your economy is largely dependent on whether rich people gambling with other peoples' money decide to do so responsibly.
To my understanding, the overwhelming consensus amongst economists is that austerity measures under Brown and Cameron impeded our recovery from the 2008 crash rather than aided it. For whatever reason, barring the Corbyn years, Labour has spent 15 years ignoring that consensus and insisting that the lesson to be learned from New Labour was that spending money is bad, when the actual lesson was that its bad to create a situation where the state of your economy is largely dependent on whether rich people gambling with other peoples' money decide to do so responsibly.
To be fair to Brown, his initial reaction to the 2008 crash was QE, zero interest rates and austerity, and I think the 'consensus amongst economists' is that this put a brake on the crash at a time it was desperately needed, and he's been pretty well praised for that.
Would Brown have just continued with austerity for another 15 years? I very much doubt it given his record on maintaining growth, but I suppose we will never know.
As for his reliance on services and failure to invest in manufacturing I totally agree. I don't think we've had a government interested in manufacturing since Wilson really, and whilst Corbyn used the term investment a lot don't think that's what he meant.