My preference would have been Yvette Cooper. Surprised she wasn't in the running last time.
Westminster Politics
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My preference would have been Yvette Cooper. Surprised she wasn't in the running last time.
No such thing as a perfect candidate, but I would probably have voted for her too.
Leaders come and go, she's 53, so who knows?
Balls to that!
I was really surprised that she didn't stand. Genuinely think she would have been the best candidate.
But then, and I don't know how true this is, a lot of Labour MPs simply didn't show interest as apparently they didn't see the party winning for a while. Our local MP, Tristan Hunt, was a potential party leader in the making. He left politics completely saying Labour were done for a while. Never got an explanation to why they were "done".
He is probably making much more money since he left politics. And nothing like the hassle.
He jumped before he was deselected didn't he? Was threatened by both the left and Brexiteers so he allegedly got a reward as V&A director for triggering a by-election early instead. .
can anyone name three things which labour under starmer, if elected, plans to do differently than the tories? any three significant or transformational policies at all? i can't think of one. which leads me back to the idea that if being electable = pledging to do nothing or not even pledging to do nothing but just doing nothing, then where's the value in it?
That's just the right wing machine pulling the Overton window with all their might. If a left wing party wants to win an election they simply need to abandon left wing policies and thus become a right wing party. Otherwise they'll diligently let us know how unelectable whoever is.
Didn't the electorate do that with foot and corbyn
Considering the absolutely mental performative grieving over here in AUS, it's actually shocking how little UK politics is actually covered. So not surprising.
After 12 years of appalling Conservative government, where they've ripped us out of the EU, shifted us to the far right, demonised essentially all immigrants and helped bring us to the precipice of breaking the country up, I can't believe people are still saying this both sides stuff.
1. Windfall tax on energy companies
2. Ending the Rwanda policy
3. Providing the same rights to all employees from when they're employed
Off the top of my head.
You can think they're not enough, fair enough. You can think Starmer is a vapid twat and again, fair enough. You can also think that he won't actually fulfil his promises and again, I'd say the same.
But to constantly bang the drum that both sides are exactly the same is just inaccurate and frankly a bit pointless.
they're not enough. starmer is a vapid twat. and he won't actually fulfil what little is there offered.
it isn't a both sides are as bad as each other argument. it's a "there's scarcely any difference between what is in government and what wants to be in government" argument. there's been no real opposition over the past few years. all starmer has done is rely upon a decade old government to split itself apart from the inside and eventually take public polling hits. he's done nothing of note. any government in power that long will self-destruct because there become fewer and fewer areas of policy where you can point to someone else and say "not our fault". that's well and good, unless the party opposite doesn't have any ideas about progressive economic policy moving forward.
remember that starmer opposed rwanda because it cost too much. it wasn't a principled stance. he calculated that he either couldn't afford to look principled and so went with economy or that he just generally isn't principled and went with what he thought.
Great post and well said.
Bringing 120 billion from energy companies profiting from the current crisis and bringing it from our tax bills in 5-10 years is very clearly a difference. One that most people would consider more than 'scarcely any difference'.
It may not be enough for you (fair enough) but there's no point in asking for some points and then immediately dismissing them when actually provided. Especially when this forum is not representative of the general electorate and, with respect, I'd say you lean significantly to the left even of the forum's left lean.
I work in healthcare and frankly, the system is falling apart in every possible way. It wasn't necessarily always working amazingly well back under Labour but it worked a whoe lot better than this. Friends who are teachers say the same thing about the education system. I have volunteered with refugees for a long time. Life was much harder for them under Cameron and May than it had been under Labour and has become even more so in the past few years. I don't do much work for the very poorest in society but can only imagine how much more difficult things have become for them. Certainly the number of homeless I see in London and people coming onto the tube to beg has seemingly risen exponentially.
That isn't true about the Rwanda policy (https://www.heraldscotland.com/poli...labour-end-immoral-rwanda-deportation-policy/) and I think shows the issue sometimes with being in our bubbles, as my social circles were all saying the same (no doubt having gotten it all from the same sources).
Not saying that things aren't shit (they are) but I'm increasingly finding myself trying to avoid political discussions on this board because it inevitably descends into how everyone and everything is the same and will never change and what's the point because the labour party are just as right wing as the current iteration of the Tories.
Agreed.
I also think that the NI tax rise cancellation is an opportunity for Labour as its a tax that the Tories agreed with and voted for before they swapped leader. Reintroduction is much harder to attack and provides a possible answer to "where is the money coming from" for future commitments.
So, not trade deal with the US for several years at least, with talks not even underway...but at least the Tories are going to review the decision to privatise Channel 4, giving a modicum of hope they don't trash that too.
https://www.theguardian.com/politic...083f878e710c3f#block-632967a18f083f878e710c3f
In normal times I would agree, after two, sometimes three GE wins most Governments (left or right) run out of steam, and/or 'tales of the unexpected' arise and ministers are resigning on a regular basis, and as you say the public just get fed up with the same faces. However, I would argue that since Brexit and the divide that it drove through the boundaries of (usual) UK politics, the rise of Nationalism, specifically in Scotland and still no change to FPTP, plus the fact that since Brexit, there has been Covid, now there is Energy and what looks like rampant inflation, you could say the country is almost on a 'war footing' all the time. If the public get nervous, and as I referred to previously if Truss is seen to be making a 'fist' of it and dishing out money to people would certainly fall into that category, (even if it's not enough) she might just survive, in fact the Tories might just be the only party that can survive, because they become the 'last man standing' (in a political party sense) sort of thing!
Add to the above that in the background the clock is ticking on net zero and add the change of Monarch and the (even if it's a temporary) rise in support for the monarchy, and I would not underestimate that factor; then all in all we are not living in normal times and 'your turn in the barrel' may be suspended as far as normal/cyclical politics is concerned.
I still argue Labour has to start its run up now to the next GE, to promote some (big) ideas to take forward, not to be just constantly fire-fighting/holding the bridge type arguments, to look for the sunlit uplands and to show how to get there, bring forward polices whose time has come. Give everyone hope and a bit like the Salvation Army(*) turn up on every occasion and bang the drum.
(* no disrespect intended, the SA is and has been a life saver for many people)
Immoral policy
https://www.heraldscotland.com/poli...labour-end-immoral-rwanda-deportation-policy/
Unethical
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-61208118
If hes trying to appeal to as many people as possible then sure shoot down the practicalities and economics of it as well
Oh let us cut the taxes for the wealthy and the corporations, that is new out of the box thinking from a right wing Thatcher regen cnut. Why are they all the fecking same? Not one cnut has anything different to offer than making the rich richer.
Labour or the Lib Dems shouldnt have to promote anything. They should walk into government. 15 years of fascist bumbling chinless wonders doing nothing but making the rich richer should be enough for another party to breeze in.
This woman confirms that she really is a complete moron - Who will save the UK from the madness?
Truss says she is prepared to be unpopular as she sets policies to deliver growth
Sky News is broadcasting an interview with Liz Truss by Beth Rigby, the Sky political editor.
Q: Why is it fair for people to take the pain of higher energy bills when energy companies are making such big profits?
Truss says the plan to deal with energy bills will cost the government money. The government also has a plan to guaranteed long-term energy supply, she says.
She says she would not allow the burden to fall on people and businesses.
Q: But you would rather the taxpayer foots the bill than business?
Truss says on Friday the chancellor will explain how this will be paid for.
The energy plan is likely to reduce inflation by five percentage points, and encourage growth, she says.
Q: Labour’s policy, a windfall tax, is backed by 68% of the public. You are prepared to be unpopular, aren’t you.
Truss replies: “Yes, I am.”
Q: But people care about fairness too, don’t they?
Truss says that is an argument of the left. She says, by keeping taxes down, she will grow the economy. And that will lead to tax revenues going up
Truss says she does not accept the claim that tax cuts will not help people generally.
People care about things like seeing roads built, or getting better mobile phone coverage, she says.
Truss says the UK has had low growth because it has had relatively low capital investment.
Yet the UK has one of the best financial centres in the world, she says.
She says she wants to see that money “put to good use across the country”.
Q: What is your message to people worried about interest rates going up, and about a tough winter?
Truss says her government will be taking every step and straining ever sinew to get the economy going.
We will get through this, she says.
And that’s the end of the interview
Truss says she is prepared to be unpopular as she sets policies to deliver growth
Sky News is broadcasting an interview with Liz Truss by Beth Rigby, the Sky political editor.
Q: Why is it fair for people to take the pain of higher energy bills when energy companies are making such big profits?
Truss says the plan to deal with energy bills will cost the government money. The government also has a plan to guaranteed long-term energy supply, she says.
She says she would not allow the burden to fall on people and businesses.
Q: But you would rather the taxpayer foots the bill than business?
Truss says on Friday the chancellor will explain how this will be paid for.
The energy plan is likely to reduce inflation by five percentage points, and encourage growth, she says.
Q: Labour’s policy, a windfall tax, is backed by 68% of the public. You are prepared to be unpopular, aren’t you.
Truss replies: “Yes, I am.”
Q: But people care about fairness too, don’t they?
Truss says that is an argument of the left. She says, by keeping taxes down, she will grow the economy. And that will lead to tax revenues going up
Truss says she does not accept the claim that tax cuts will not help people generally.
People care about things like seeing roads built, or getting better mobile phone coverage, she says.
Truss says the UK has had low growth because it has had relatively low capital investment.
Yet the UK has one of the best financial centres in the world, she says.
She says she wants to see that money “put to good use across the country”.
Q: What is your message to people worried about interest rates going up, and about a tough winter?
Truss says her government will be taking every step and straining ever sinew to get the economy going.
We will get through this, she says.
And that’s the end of the interview
didn't clock him calling it unethical back in april. somewhat piggybacking on the archbishop of canterbury in the april quote and the one in august comes a couple of months after charles, of all people, had been reported as condemning the move privately. starmer is or was right when he said that the tories use this kind of thing for the sake of division. i'll concede the point on this one.
on the rest, i still see very little difference between starmer and whatever face happens to be leading the tories at any given moment. @africanspur said i'm to the left of most posters here. that's possibly true but i define "left" in economic terms and so does the labour party, in principle. there's a lot of "give him the benefit of the doubt" surrounding starmer's lack of coherent policy formation. a recognition that he has to play to the right wing press but underneath it all he's really much more to the left than he lets on. that may be true but there's no real evidence for it.
the windfall tax is an interesting one. the european union has announced plans to raise 140bn in windfall taxes to fund pricecaps. i think biden has something similiar in the i.r.a. legislation but not certain yet. the difference between labour and conservatives here, then, is that each would keep prices at a certain level but different mechanisms of funding. in principle, starmer would impose a windfall tax. but like many things starmer says, it's light on detail.
i'm not the only one here who's been waiting for labour to come out with some kind of coherent, and costed, policy pledges. they've done something like that after gordon brown shamed them into it. or after they used gordon brown to test the waters. depending on how you view that. but this again moves back to the idea that with starmer you always have to pretend that there's a strategy beyond the surface. and there probably is but it doesn't necessarily mean it's a good strategy.
my problem here is that these are all reactionary policies. reversing things that weren't a factor just some time ago. it's not the kind of transformational policy making you expect from a labour opposition. and if they can't be bold in opposition, then you can almost certainly forget about it happening when or if they get into government.
i'm not trying to promote apathy. or "what's the point". i'm just trying to point out that labour should be standing for labour principles. when it moves from that then it should be pointed out. you'd have to work hard to deny that starmer was basically absent from opposition until very recently and even then only on select issues, being 1 and 2 above. and those things aren't nothing but nor is it the kind of thing that moves a country to change course. the first is temporary and inevitable though i agree with the windfall method. the second is arbitrary. the tories only brought it in so they could have a go at the courts or europe when it failed, which is starmer's own point. beyond these immediacies, what is labour offering? a green new deal? what's the vision?
She’s legitimately stupid.
Tbh it seems a bit pointless to debate the potential of a Labour government, there’s nothing to suggest they would implement any of the polices they are currently running on(Which are already massively different to the ones Starmer was elected on)
It’s just like Tory voters putting in Boris and thinking he will “level up” the country.
The next election will about two people who’s only sincere belief is believing in nothing and have no answers to the rapidly decaying country. It’s all very grim and shite.
It’s just like Tory voters putting in Boris and thinking he will “level up” the country.
The next election will about two people who’s only sincere belief is believing in nothing and have no answers to the rapidly decaying country. It’s all very grim and shite.
I think the main problem is that there is no political will across the wider establishment for anything other than disaster economics. They’re absolutely fine with looting the country for all it has and getting rich by making others poor.
It’s complicated growing the economy, it takes expertise, a lot of hard work and most importantly of all - time. Even if you had someone come to prominence who has all the answers and a clear plan of how to implement them, they would be rejected because nobody wants to take politics seriously anymore. It’s just entertainment nowadays and about nothing more than how you and your associates can get as rich as possible as quickly as possible.
Completely myopic. Growth, Economy. Huge gamble especially without the prospect of a trading agreement with the US and the Lady's Not For Turning attitude.
As I said in the Brexit thread, the trade agreement with the USA is really not that important. There would not be a substantial increase in revenue for the UK. In fact it would highly likely make the trade between the UK and USA worse for the UK because there's no way the USA are going to come out of any negotiations worse off.
What is concerning is that she seems to have no grasp of how economies work, what the people need or anything really. This is particularly worrying when she's in charge of the country. Having a bumbling fool like Boris was one thing but this woman is dangerously stupid. Starmer has to tear her apart in the HoC - is he up to it?
It's economic stupidity, borrowing for tax cuts to buy votes with money half of which will be spunked on foreign-made goods or travel abroad. If we have to borrow for growth we should be looking to improve infrastructure, go completely renewable and improve the productivity of our own industries.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62970803
The Treasury is refusing to publish the UK Economic Forecast by the independent OBR.
Can't remember that happening before.
Spot on.
I mean where do you start with this 
I mean where do you start with this
Read some of the comments on the tweet. UK needs help.
Apparently the Biden administration tweeted they're sick of the idea of trickle down economics just before this aired. I hope he goes to town on her - tombstone style