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

Labour indeed didn't win, it was just that people didn't want the Tories anymore. I live in a Labour city and it's a f-g joke. Immigrants get everything but the long time x generation of this city get treated like crap. And that's coming from someone who's grandfather was an immigrant! The best thing Two Tier Kier can do is resign, he's a plague on this country.

My DD works in Neuro, before that she spent a few weeks on Vascular, agree totally.

Its a shambles.

She is under huge pressure to discharge clinical unfit patients to make room for new ones & shorten the waiting list.

My criticism with Labour is the WFA, that was just stupid and is something they should reverse and bring in for higher rate tax payers only.

That would have made it pointless. It wouldn’t have raised enough money.

Good news if true, but the IMF is out of step with the markets if it think that there will be 4 interest rate cuts this year. It will be positive for business and many individuals if there are however :)

If they had done, they may well have found themselves in opposition.... again... which is doubtless why you wish they had?

The vast majority workers haven't been affected by the NI increase, so why do they feel hoodwinked over this? in my exp, they don't.

Employment has stood up & if they get a slightly lower pay rise, it's not as if something has been taken off them.

My criticism with Labour is the WFA, that was just stupid and is something they should reverse and bring in for higher rate tax payers only.

Well really if we don't want the entire NHS to fall apart we basically have 2 options. Either
1 ) we fund and sort out social care
2) we kick out people from hospital as soon as they're medically ready whether or not they have a care package sorted.
If this isn't done we will continue having people die from a lack of medical care as there is nowhere to treat them due to space being used up by those with care only needs.
To be clear I'm not advocating for number 2 here. But is kicking someone out with nobody to look after them REALLY any morally less awful than having to refuse medical help to someone else? Id say it's pretty similar really.

That’s why removing employees NI was / is a good idea. It begins breaks the immediate link between paying NI and and entitlement to a state pension. Because if you’re not paying any NI then over time it’s easier to make the case that not everyone is entitled to a state pension, and then means-test what ever the state pensions becomes by reference to the various income tax thresholds.

An while we are at it, simplify all means testing by then linking it to the tax free personal allowance level, and if needed tiered for the various income tax rates, with entitlement to different benefits being removed / reduced as income tax band increases. Sure it’ll need some finessing, but it’d be easier than the Byzantine complexity of the current system.

Personally, I think reversing a new tax cut and being straight about it is much better optics than the feeling a lot of people have that they were hoodwinked into voting Labour and the party has gone back on the spirit of if not the literal interpretation of their promises.
No one likes to feel they've been conned.
And as for the Tories having a field day - do me a favour. Labour have spent the last 14 years carping about everything the Tories did before discovering that things are not quite as easy when you've got to actually come up with the plans not just criticise the plans of others.

Agree, it has to be the no1 priority for the Govt, they say it is....... but again, it requires huge amounts of money.... the objectors to the NI rises, wont say where the money comes from, just spout DM scare headlines.

IMF upgrades UKs growth forecast to 1.6%, mainly driven by Labour additional spending on infrastructure.

The social care tax or something similar is desperately needed. Lack of social care for the elderly is literally KILLING the NHS and also plenty of our citizens sadly.

The Tories would have had a field day if Lab had opposed the NI cut, they would have had to defend why they were denying a substantial pay rise to millions of workers during a cost of living crisis.

"There would have been complaints" is a huge understatement.

You'll have to get a job with the Tories 2029 election team and advise them that if they want to win the next GE, telling the public "We will raise your taxes" is a winning slogan.

Teressa May lost her majority with a far smaller tax rise promise on Social Care, which Labour called the "Death Tax" or similar.

The way you re talking, you'd think Reeves doubled NI, its increased by 1.3%, which a lot lower than the 2% predicted.... NI is now also payable on a lower limit of earnings.

RR could have reversed the NI cut the Tories had introduced just months earlier.
There would have been complaints but it would have made more sense and would probably have been easier and quicker to implement.
But Labour showed their inexperience by painting themselves into a corner with their election promise of not raising taxes for working people.
By introducing raised employer NI they have stalled growth, hampered small businesses and gone back on the spirit of their election pledge in one fell swoop.
0 out of 10.

So whats the alternative? would you have borrowed? cut services? or raise taxes on employees instead?

Our public services from education to health to councils services cannot carry on as they have for the last 14 years.

Considering Sunak cut NI by 4% which costing the Exchequer he has little credibility, he did this without providing the funding for it, other than to say the Disabilities benefits bill would be cut!

Employees got on average an £800 pay rise by this cut, if they now have to have a slightly lower pay rise, then so be it...

Of course, the other way of looking at it is millions of women who did not pay their full stamp - or even nothing - still got/get pensions. My mum stopped working when I was born and she has always had a state pension.
This is a problem largely in the past, but it won't help I suppose.

@Alexandra2001 I work for a huge multinational. That's the figure we've seen.

Thank you for the clarification on the old/new pension split @BIossomtoes. Guessing that the people (mainly men I suspect) fortunate enough to have had defined benefit or index-linked pensions were/are not affected too badly but that the hardship is experienced by older women who didn't work full time while their DC were very young, or who fell victim to unfair divorce settlements. DM worked until she was 78 in adult social care, latterly PT. I think she had about £50 per month from the NHS pension to top up a pre-2016 pension.

But if you put it on employers it feeds through to employees in lower wages or higher product cost. If the company cannot raise it's product cost because of overseas business competition then it goes bust.

It's effectively a stealth tax.

The lie of Labour was that we could have better services but no one was going to pay higher taxes. Now they are stuffed because they promised the better services but have realised they can't do it without raising spending, and therefore taxes, because borrowing has been cut off by the markets.

Sunak said this was going to happen, but everyone called him a liar.

That's why there people need to be put on notice now for the changes in the future. I'm nt talking about pulling the rug from under people's feet now or even in 10 years time, but anyone in the workforce aged under 40 should have time to start and make arrangements for when they retire.
I'm just talking about pension top-ups, not the actual pension.

There will be more on the lower pension than the modern one which was only introduced in 2016. Anyone reaching state pension age before that is on the old one, ie everyone older than about 73.

A £100m.... friend of ours runs a company employing 150 people, his additional NI costs will be 100k....

The Ni increase is 1.3% plus payable on a lower amount now, approx 2/3% are you seriously telling us your companies wage bill runs into the 10s of billions ???

@Katypp @Papyrophile I absolutely agree in principle but what will they do with the pensioners who didn't save? They can't just let them die. It's like saying we will abolish unemployment benefits because people should save when they can: I don't disagree in principle but we can't leave people to die because they are useless.

I agree on benefits but pensions are not a "Benefit" they are not a safety net, the NIC may not be a savings scheme as such but the implication has always been that you pay your NI and in return get a pension.

You cannot suddenly just take this away....

They've fucked the economy with the employers' NI rise. My company needs to find £100m. We're slashing jobs. All because of Rachel from accounts' shit choices. You cannot trust Labour with the economy - just a shame the recent iterations of the Tories have also been awful.

@taxguru forgive my ignorance - will this be addressed by new worker's right bill? Employees responsible for employer tax due to payment method seems a clear tax dodge.

On phasing out pension credit, I agree in general. It exists because of the changes that happened a few years ago when there were two tiers for pensions. Older pensioners (my late DM) received about £30pw less than the 'modern' pension so it was a means to level the playing field. But there can't be many people left on that now.