AIBU to be fed up with all the Keir Starmer threads

A comment based on first-hand knowledge.

More of these, please….

Then again Labour seem to be rapidly losing ground. The only saving grace is you did it straight away so have a while left.

Has any other new gov lost support so quickly?

100% this

The Tories are desperate.

I completely agree with you but I'm not a fan of this government as I'm left wing. I also think they should have been more radical in their approach and fully taxed the wealthy.

The reason we have extremists coming into power, is because there's no radical solution to the status quo. The left does not provide an alternative to our current economic and structural model.

Deregulation, austerity, wealth disparity, lack of investment, fat cats, privatisation, low wages, erosion of workers rights, cheap labour..this has been going on since Thatcher. People know they're being screwed but feel powerless to bring about change.

It’s been a tactic for a while, just go for bot / HQ from any Labour pp to keep the site with that view only. Getting suspended or banned might not feel worth the post after all

No, I don’t read the press. The press is increasingly irrelevant, as is mainstream media in general.

As for the budget… it’s not the “tax rate”, it’s the “tax-take”. It’s completely counterproductive to increase the tax rate in such a way that impairs the economy so that the tax-take falls, and any extra tax you do get is swallowed up in extra interest payments on government debt resulting (in part at least) due to falling confidence in the UK economy. It’s a lose-lose scenario.

The election was a perfect time for a reset in our taxation system; five-years to do something radical starting with the autumn budget, and address that wealth has been increasingly concentrated in the very rich over the past decade… the very wealthy horde more than they spend compared to the less well-off, and this trend has had a depressing effect on the economy. Seek to redress this somewhat, and you have your stimulus that provides the tax revenues to fund public services.

However, there are lots of vested interests (the mainstream media being one, with whatever residual power they may have) that don’t want this!

The level of debate and discussion about politics on MN is very low. But I think it always has been.

Most MN posters on politics hold entrenched, party pris views. They don’t take balanced positions and, whatever they say, they don’t generally voice genuine criticism of their own side.

When the Tories were in there were endless threads slagging them off in vitriolic terms. Now Labour are in you get the same.

There seem to be two broad effects. Many Right posters are frothers. They fall into doom-mongering very quickly. Many Left posters are so convinced of their and their favoured politics’ moral superiority that they become very self-important and they see any other view as the work of sinister forces.

It’s all quite entertaining though.

You’re missing the point. I didn’t expect - as most people didn’t - Labour to turn the UK into a utopia in six months. We knew it was a long-term project. It’s that so much of what they have done so far is to actively make things worse… and they don’t really have a vision or plan to speak of. I deal with government policy as part of my job, and they have been less competent than the last lot so far (with the possible exception of the Truss debacle!)

Do you think the press has anything to do with how you perceive them? You don't seem to know everything they've done or are planning to do.

Blair made an agreement with Murdoch and had a much more favourable press. We were in the EU and the economy was in a much better state. Public services were better, there wasn't a housing crisis and he hadn't opened the floodgates.

I'm wondering what your take on the budget would be. If you don't agree with how Labour have chosen to raise money, what do you think they should have done?

It’s less than 30% who are satisfied… there are quite a few don’t knows!

I voted Labour. I really wanted them to succeed, as i want a better and more prosperous and flourishing country for me and my children.

However, I didn’t vote for them with any great enthusiasm. People were yearning for something fresh and different, and accepted that what we had was broken and needed a reset. I wished Labour had responded to that feeling, and been bold and visionary. Yet, they didn’t… They were
cowards, and allowed the Tories to tie them into a straight-jacket as they bent over backwards to say how little they would actually change. Their message was basically an incredibly bland “vote for us… we’ll be more competent than the current lot”. There were no big ideas, no acceptance that we needed whole scale change, no particular vision other than trite sound bites. This was why they got far fewer votes than Corbyn in 2019 in my mind - despite winning - and believe me, I am no Corbynite! Yet I voted for them, hoping my pessimism was misplaced.

But it sadly seems it wasn’t, and we’re reaping what we’ve sown… a Government who had 14 years to prepare, but were so absorbed with the pursuit of power for its own sake, they don’t seem to really have a clue on what to do now they actually have got it. There has been none of the energy and passion of Labour in 1997… I know things don’t happen overnight, but it feels like nothing is happening apart the day-to-day political routine. Where’s the plan? Where’s the action? Where’s the vision? There just seem to be mis-step after mis-step.

I just love the hoary old ‘six months’ argument.

The negative data is coming thick and fast now - you want to wait another six months, really?

Many cannot afford that luxury.

Saw that ES - rightly so.

When the only argument posters have left to fall back on, is to accuse others of being ‘bots’, they really are scraping the barrel.

You’re in a minority who think he’s going well. You’ll just have to get used to views different to yours.

No, it's just stop the incessant whining and behaving like a cheap version of the Sun.

The current govt have had 6 months to clear up the crap that they'd been handed. The world has moved on in that 6 months and you expect a miracle.

I really don't know what people like you expect

70% are dissatisfied. It’s odd that some posters go on about ‘bots’ when only 30% agree with them on how well he’s doing

Mnhq just delete those posts now, finally.

So anyone who dares to be disappointed with the current Government should just leave… One thing I’ve realised over the last few years, is that many on the supposedly liberal and tolerant left are every bit as authoritarian and intolerant as those on the far-right, often more so.

I'm interested to hear your nuanced non partisan take on things.

It’s depressing that those championing Labour seem to be die-hard partisans who see the world in childish “goodie” and “baddie” way… with their side being supremely righteous and competent by definition, with anyone who dissents being a minion of the evil “far-right”. There doesn’t seem to be any capacity for nuance or self-reflection… It’s a one-way ticket to national decay, and then electoral oblivion in 4 years.

For info.

UK consumer confidence fell sharply in January to the lowest level in more than a year as a spike in government borrowing costs and warnings of job cuts took a toll on economic sentiment. The GfK consumer confidence index — a measure of how people view their personal finances and broader economic prospects — fell 5 points to minus 22, the lowest reading since the end of 2023, according to new data.
FT

’No one says we are in a good place’
We agree, at last.

Labour are, however, making matters, much, much worse. I will continue pasting media pieces in support of this assertion.

No, I am not a teacher - I am in finance, and generally speak of issues where I have direct knowledge (unlike others, evidently). Please feel free to ask me questions where you have a knowledge gap, and I would be happy to help.

Please advise your professional background, so I can do similarly, thanks.

the coverage is of a Deloitte survey son not un partisan. The point is surely that no one says we are in a good place but really would we have been in a better place with those good for nothing scoundrels still in government? We need to have a bit of a reset. Thanks for marking my post btw, are you a teacher? I suspect not..

A very weak post from you.

Please re-read the Guardian piece.

Err…. surprise surprise - cutting costs is always top of any Finance Director’s list, scarcely a novelty, and certainly not in recent history.