From Private Eye -
Westminster Politics 2024-2029
- Thread starter Pexbo
- Start date
Blood scandal is one of the worst things I have ever heard.
Until 2022, no compensation had ever been paid to victims of the contaminated blood scandal in the UK. In 2022 Sir Brian Langstaff, Chair of the Infected Blood Inquiry, made an interim recommendation that interim compensation of £100,000 should be paid to everyone currently registered on a UK infected blood support scheme. This was accepted by the government and payment was made in October 2022
My central point seems to have gone over your head, these aren't policies enacted out of need because 'we have no money'. It's playing politics to damn the Tories economic record (largely covid) and try build Labours economic credentials.
Hence the simple lines for the simple masses like 'no money' or the ridiculous lie of having to take away winter fuel payments or face a run on the pound. The last one really does take stupidity of the highest level.
Mainly to do with making sure our existing tax system can be made more effective, making it simpler and closing loopholes (as a tax lawyer, he's well placed to know about them). He's also positive on land value tax (which I don't know enough about to comment on). There are wealth related taxes which can be made more effective, eg capital gains and inheritance taxes. Not a sexy answer, isn't going to make our resident communists happy, but maybe they will actually raise some money.
"Pressed over whether she agreed with Ms Powell's comments about "a run on the pound", Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson told BBC Breakfast: "Had we not got to grips with the public finances overall then there could have been serious consequences for the economy."
However, she added that the Commons leader was "making a wider point about the need to get the public finances under control and the winter fuel allowance was element of that". Source.
That's how I interpreted it when I heard it but I suppose we hear what we want to hear.
I can tell you right now I'd rather a roof over my head than having a bad credit score (which you can also achieve through going into arrears on your rent).
Heaven forbid!
Even if we ignore Powell's blunder interview no one of any credibility agrees that a run on the pound was possible though. The markets didn't signify it, the IFS called it silly.
It's just another example of Labour talking absolute bollocks.
Shit, can't believe I forgot about that one!
It's nothing short of villainy. My brother has Haemophilia B and was infected with Hep C in the late 80s.
Some payouts were made, but these were largely facilitated by the MacFarlane/Eileen Trust. What horrifies me is these trusts were set up in 88', and the scandal continued into the early 90s. They only began routine screening for Hep C in 1991!
Why should someone's line of credit be affected as a result of your actions? If there's a CCJ against you you should absolutely get bad credit, but a landlord getting it through no fault of their own isn't quite the same thing.
If you want a roof over your head move to somewhere you can afford. Don't just stop paying rent.
The cost of people falling behind on their rent isn't always a zero sum game. People seem to forget that.
Yes it really is just that simple, to up sticks and move immediately to a cheaper part of the country.
If you can't afford a mortgage unless someone else is paying it for you, you're a parasite. Stop whining and sell the thing you can't afford.
It does also seem to get forgotten that if renters can't afford their rent, the landlord can get insurance for that and price it into the rent. And if the landlord can't afford their mortgage, they also have the right to negotiate with their bank about repayments while they try to sell the place. Obviously it's not a fun process for anyone involved and definitely best avoided, but it's not automatically going to ruin a landlord's life.
And finally and most importantly, what gets forgotten by both sides is that most rental properties aren't owned by the type of people who have one or two flats where the rent constitutes a form of pension or supplement to their income, they're more often owned by large companies or wealthy individuals who own vast numbers of properties and don't always take great care of them. The big landlords are the type that we ought to be aiming to get rid of, or at least limit, not the little ones who generally take reasonable care of their tenants. A stronger regulator that is there to help tenants and landlords alike wouldn't hurt though anyway. Or even a nationalised letting agency/property maintenance company might be useful to try to avoid cowboy behaviour.
According to Google:
Five or more properties
In 2021, 18% of landlords owned five or more properties, which represented almost half (48%) of tenancies.
And I'd bet the numbers have only inceased since.
Maybe that swamp water you have down south is bad, but here the water is delicious and cures several major diseases.
It’s the landlords mortgage. If they can’t afford to pay it and need someone else’s money in order to do so, it absolutely IS the same thing.
The number of people that get this back to front will never not surprise me.
Indeed. Thank God for Scottish water.
Not particularly surpising. Starmer wasn't exactly starting from a good place, was he? We all know these kind of stats, large swathes of the poplulation fed up with the big 2 parties.
Major - 14.1m votes, 42% vote share, 78% turnout, 33% of registered voters
Wilson - 13.1m votes, 44% share, 76% turnout, 36% of registered voters
May - 13.6m votes, 42% share, 69% turnout, 29% of registered voters
Thatcher 13.7m votes, 36% share, 76% turnout, 33% of registered voters
Johnson - 14m votes, 44% share, 67% turnout, 29% of registered voters
Brown - N/A
Blair - 10.7m votes, 41% share, 59% turnout, 24% of registered voters
Starmer - 9.7m votes, 34% share, 60% turnout, 20% of registered voters
He's just happened to be leader of the opposition at a time when the Tories collapsed and the public are turned off from politics. Nothing to do with him/Labour being particularly popular or having great support. He's going to trend badly historically on lots of things, for him not to would be a miracle.
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Also, he's not going to 'sugar coat' things either... for all those who want someone to tell it as it is, Starmer's your man.
Given all the size and range of problems facing the country, many self inflicted, we are going to need someone who is not going to be frightened off or 'not for turning' as PM. "Talk softly and carry a big stick" is likely to be the epitome of this man.
If you can't afford the mortgage without someone paying it for you then you are a fecking parasite leeching off of someone else's hard work and you should not own the property
Miserable yes, but it is following the trajectory the debt has been on for the last 20 years or so.
Which has been fairly terrible tbf and we should be trying to invert...
It would involve a degree of shock treatment which political parties just aren’t going to engage in. Absent that it requires long term vision to deliver a fundamental realigning of the economy and the state itself. Can you see that happening any time soon?
Taking money out of the economy at this stage would be economic suicide, why would anyone think that would be a good idea?
Good grief. This government is getting just as bad as the five previous Tory governments.
Seriously?
The short-term memory of some is absolutely shocking. Do we need to make a list?
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I mean, it’s obviously nowhere near as bad, and the bar is in hell, but it’s still not good. Every government since 1979 has fundamentally had the same ideology - neoliberalism.
Are you sure?
It's no where near as bad and hopefully, never will be. But the bar for holding the government to account needs to be set far higher than the Tories lowered it to. If Labour don't raise it, then the Tories will just drag it down further when they next seize power.
What does this 'shock treatment' or 'realignment of the economy and state' even mean in reality?
Like I said do we need a list?
- Lebedev
- Owen Patterson
- Illegally prorogued parliament
- Covid contracts & Partygate
- Ignoring recommendations from ethics advisers forcing them to quit
- Wallpapergate
- Ministers conducting business on private WhatsApp group then destroying phones etc
- A general contempt for committees, investigations and accountability
- David Cameron lobbying
- Jenrick helping a buddy save £46m in tax
- Zavawi’s tax issues
- Boris’s loans
And that’s literally without even thinking too hard about it!
Yes we absolutely have to hold government to higher standards than we let the Tories fall into, but to even think about comparing the two at this point is short-sighted at best and deliberately ignorant at worst.
Lammy laugh at the idea of expensive suits while mere seconds before defending Starmer £19,000 freebie’s is incredible.
The worst thing any of them did IMO is to attack the independence of the BBC and cultivate a cabal of awful client journalist lackies that they fed stories to. I can't imagine Labour will be pushing to repair that though.
But then you've also got Windrush and all the dodgy dealings around Grenfell pretty high up the list of appalling behaviour too.