To wonder what could Starmer do, to turn things around?

@caringcarer

"The previous government let Tata steel fail. It meant they lost the highly skilled workforce. We still need steel so now we pay a premium price to China and pollute more, importing it."

What makes it even madder is that the reasons for TATA steel collapse is higher energy prices caused by the subsidies for renewables and a lack of tariffs on cheaper Chinese steel.

So in short the UK has managed to increase global emissions, close essential industries that feed other industries and lose highly skilled jobs.

With time and further reading I am believing this is really important to alot of people.

Have you seen what happened when they introduced rent control in Scotland?

The drop in NI threshold to sweep more PT workers into its grasp is the most retrograde element. And the admin costs of such measures fall too hard on mom and pop businesses which are probably only marginally viable.

@MarvellousMable

"I don’t understand why they are giving uk tax payers’ money away to other countries, then taxing uk people more. "

The UK foreign aid budget is £13 billion but 30% of that is spent on asylum seekers entering the UK.

The idea on the rest is that by helping improve poorer countries then this will reduce the incentive for the population to seek to move to western countries and also reduce the probability of wars.

Well that's the idea anyway.

The previous government let Tata steel fail. It meant they lost the highly skilled workforce. We still need steel so now we pay a premium price to China and pollute more, importing it.

RR needs to reverse the NIC on employers. Not just the little bit extra but the drop in threshold to I think either £5k or £5.5k from April. Lots of employers who employed a part time worker keeping them.below the NIC threshold will now either make them redundant or reduce their hours.

Single people never rake it in. It's the people with a few DC, especially if one of them or a couple of them have a disability and the parents stay home caring for them so get a caring premium, because then they escape the benefit cap. Some families claim thousands over the benefits cap. Single people no, they are penalised for not having DC.

@noblegiraffe

"Given that people are saying that Farage is going to be the next Prime Minister, perhaps there should be a bit more scrutiny of what he has planned."

Scrutiny of what politicians are promising!!!

It will never catch on...

He lost me before the election and there's no way back for me now.

Quite a bit of this I agree with...
planning reform, definitely, but with limitations on the development/use of prime agricultural land for housing. National infrastructure (power, water, transport) probably needs slightly different rules, but we may need a discussion on the maximum desirable population size.

High quality high density housing.

Social care reform, equally a very high priority, which will make any changes to the funding of the NHS more palatable, and honesty about what can/can't be funded within the context of continuing to advance medical science and improve surgical techniques -- which is a global race; for the next 25 years, this is likely to be very costly.
Rethink Net Zero targets and timetables... BMW claim to have a breakthrough in hydrogen fuel cells which may render EVs obsolete
Delay free prescriptions to retirement age, retaining the option of the annual Rx pass for those who need multiple drugs every single month to keep them at work.
Reduce Corporation Tax and minimise business/HR compliance burdens, especially for SMEs -- leaving vital health and safety measures untouched.
Time limit most benefit payments to 12 months, except in hopeless situations, but with better provision for reskilling and upskilling while the benefits are payable.

Much of the pension reform is largely done with auto-enrolment, but no opt-outs before the age of 55, and we need the rules/guidelines need to remain fairly steady instead of being tinkered with every two years.
Pensioners with income above the tax threshold to part-pay NI on their earnings over the equivalent to 2/3rds of NMW towards NHS and future social care needs.

Rejoin the Customs Union, Interpol and Erasmus, with a free pass for 18-30 year olds to move between countries to wherever they want to work or study, but without any benefits except basic or emergency health care.

I don’t understand why they are giving uk tax payers’ money away to other countries, then taxing uk people more. Can someone please explain how this is supposed to benefit uk people, whether tax payers or not?

Why aren’t they sending our money to our schools, emergency services and hospitals instead?

Those who are calling for a general election now, who do you want to run the country instead?

The Tories? Seriously, how bad do you want our public services to get? Labour might not be able to work miracles, but at least they don’t seem to see the NHS as a cash cow for themselves and their donors. I wonder if any of them will be brought to justice for the Covid corruption scandals?

Reform, with the support of Trump and Musk? I can’t think of anything worse. They couldn’t care less about us and we would soon find that out the hard way.

The Lib Dems? They may not be a disaster, but they might not exactly be able to fulfil their election promises either. The last Liberal PM to lead a majority government was Herbert Asquith, who took office in 1908, but was later forced to form a coalition government with other parties (sounds familiar) and then to resign in 1916. So they’re a bit of an unknown quantity.

I think Labour sadly probably need to engage the right wing media in some way like Tony Blair did, if they are to gain popularity.

I suspect they're front loading a lot of their unpopular policies, in order to put distance between these painful decisions & the election.

Thus far I support most of what they've done

Given that people are saying that Farage is going to be the next Prime Minister, perhaps there should be a bit more scrutiny of what he has planned.

I want to see genuine innovation, vision and creative, radical thinking to solve the problems we have.

I don’t see any of that. It’s all just tinkering around the edges. Labour adjusts everything a bit one way and the Tories come and adjust a bit in a different direction. It’s same old, same old.

Go now, don’t keep clinging on to the end of the year..

Labour need to deal with

immigration

incentivising entrepreneurship

creating opportunities for young people to get into work

more affordable housing not filling the country with housing people can’t afford

sorting out social care

sorting out universities

And what about social cohesion? Whatever those in their ivory towers may think, importing hundreds of thousands of young men with prehistoric attitudes towards women and zero desire to integrate isn’t actually a great idea. Even if they pick fruit. We need to get back to expecting people to see coming here as a privilege, not a right.

@noblegiraffe

"It was in the Reform election manifesto but I don’t remember anyone talking about it."

Well to be honest the fact that Reform's election manifesto was £150 billion underfunded meant that I pretty much glossed over this tax raise.

@LittleBigHead

"But a load of idiots make that impossible"

Well for a start there is the question of whether they would even want us back.

It was in the Reform election manifesto but I don’t remember anyone talking about it.

Drop all ‘woke’ nonsense. Everyone is over identity politics and policing of speech.

So you don't think that Starmer should resign or call a GE. Good! We are in agreement!

His job

So essentially looking to be in the EEC, not the EU.

If the referendum had been on Maastricht, then we might still be in EEC

With Reform resurgant, though, I don't see this happening. We just have to make the best of the hand we've got.