To think few lives have improved due to Labour’s policies

I agree we’re living through what looks like a period of low to no growth in a lot of countries - it needs an exceptional political response and instead why we’re getting is the splintering of the democratic consensus in the middle ground.

Well, what it definitely doesn’t look like increasing employer NI on them…I’d suggest that Labour start listening to policy economists and business people in this area. No sign of that so far.

Most policies any government could enact would make things worse before they got better. It doesn't matter which colour of govt it is.

There are no "good" options is what I'm trying to say.

I don't mean that to be doom and gloom, but this has been on the cards for a while. Many govts all over the world have failed to address it because no-one likes being told that the good times are coming to an end. Our global markets rely on constant growth. Any logic will tell you that sooner or later that's going to fall over. Unfortunately for us, we're living in the times when we're starting to see that bubble contracting.

What would incentivising companies to hire under 25s look like?

Exactly, it’s hardly unknown, no need to make it much worse.

Well idk the gov could’ve incentivised hiring under 25s rather than making it more expensive across the board if they’d foreseen the AI related job losses people have been talking about increasingly urgently for 3 or more years now.

Policies still exacerbate issues though, as we’re seeing rn.

How do you create more jobs in that landscape?

AI can absolutely be utilised to increase productivity of companies - which in turn creates more jobs (other economies are doing it!) but if your government’s polices mean that actually employing more people has become economically unviable, that’s not going to happen 🤷‍♀️

we are in deep trouble - Labour has done absolutely nothing except impose additional costs on the private sector. Across all of the political establishment we are heading for a French style political crash and either a populist right or a populist left coalition.

it remains to be seen whether Labour will eat its own tail first and attempt that populist left lurch.

I agree that there are many factors in this debacle, difficulties etc but Labour ignored expert policy advice time and again. Few policy economists thought the NI rise was a good idea.

@HoskinsChoice

We have hopefully learned from the Waspi women debacle that any future change needs very careful planning. For that reason, there will be no imminent significant changes.

That's not how it works in government. In a decades' time, they'll be virtually no staff in government who were around when the womens' pension rules were changed and most will have little knowledge of WASPI's. The "new guard" will be younger civil servants/politicians who don't know much about the changes and probably can't be bothered to research properly and will just do what they want without proper experience/knowledge as to what's happened in the past. So, the same mistakes WILL be made. Political history proves it time and time again.

@Bagsintheboot finally a rational post!

@HoskinsChoice would you accept a pension age of say 74/75 if they kept the triple lock?

This is so sad. My husband has a small business and let his lower paid, younger go. It made more sense to hire someone with more skills as the wage difference between them and the kid whose wage had to rise under Labour was so little. He also won’t hire unskilled now to train them up, no point.

The long and the short of it is that we have too many economically inactive people (including pensioners) being supported by too few workers. There has been severe underinvestment in public services for decades, from many successive govts.

It's not an issue one single party can solve. Regardless of who's in power, we're always going to have a top-heavy aged population. It will take decades to bring our hospitals, roads, schools, public transport etc up to where it needs to be, assuming we had the money for it.

This isn't a Labour or a Tory issue. There is no palatable fix. We could import more immigrants to boost the younger working population, but that's unpopular. We could remove the triple lock, but see above.

We're - by which I mean all people all over the world - in a period of contraction and adjustment after the excesses of the boom years. It's not going to be pleasant.

Why? Depends on the business and the type/number of employees. Some small street shops/cates etc will have seen almost a 100% increase in their employee NI cost with the rate increase and threshold lowered, even after the employment allowance increase. And they are exactly the kind of business that probably can’t absorb the increase with their profit, because they simply don’t run at that much of a profit in the first place.

In addition, in other industries, with regard to AI - if the UK appears to be losing more jobs to AI than other similar economies, then we have to ask why and look at the issue holistically. It’s entirely possible that AI use is increasing in UK job markets precisely because of the higher associated costs of having actual, living breathing, employees.

“The government's own independent forecaster says that by 2070 the amount needed to fund the state pension will be equivalent to 7.7% of GDP - 50% higher than right now.”

“That is quite an ask of taxpayers when other claims on the public purse are also projected to soar, in particular healthcare spending - largely for the same group of older Brits.”

Future workers are future pensioners. By protecting pensions now, we are protecting them for the future.

But you don’t have future workers if you aren’t investing in young people….look at our birth rates, it’s why successive governments have relied on immigration to boost growth.

If you honestly think that today’s young will have the same pensions and NHS model as today’s pensioners then I’m not really sure what to say.

The government were forced into a u-turn over a relatively minor change in the winter fuel change

I think it’s ridiculous that households with an income of 70k still qualify.

It would be political suicide too

And this is the doom spiral I mentioned upthread. People vote for their interests & more older people means voting for policies that favour them. We already have more over 65s than under 15 yr olds. As I said it is not sustainable & every politician knows that.

I am a freelancer and have lost work as a direct result of Labour's taxation policies. They are driving small businesses into the ground.

Future workers are future pensioners. By protecting pensions now, we are protecting them for the future.

Perhaps the answer is more means testing around pensions. Whatever happens, in order for them to make changes, they would need to give the public significant notice (many years) so that we can prepare. We have hopefully learned from the Waspi women debacle that any future change needs very careful planning. For that reason, there will be no imminent significant changes.

It would be political suicide too. I would never vote for a party that intends to get rid of the triple-lock. The government were forced into a u-turn over a relatively minor change in the winter fuel change. I would hope the country would grind to a halt with protests if any government attempted to attack our pensions. It impacts almost every single person in the country. It is too big to be so blasé about the loss of the triple lock.

Corbyn was crap on Brexit, and I haven't forgiven him. Cameron did campaign for Remain, but as you say, he bloody called that disastrous referendum in the first place, and just arrogantly assumed it would go his way. I do remember repeatedly hearing Starmer on R4 at that time making very sensible and what seemed at the time like utterly irrefutable arguments about why Brexit was not a good idea. And now I think he's doing what he can to repair the damage, while knowing he can't just get us back to where we were, unfortunately.

I really dislike Corbyn, but again the electorate have to take some responsibility for Brexit.

Why don’t you share yours?

Back to Asia. I won't say exactly where. They have dual citizenship.

Corbyn never wanted the EU in the first place. He is on record for being against it in the past. It is not surprising he remained neutral as I suspect privately he was for Brexit. We didnt have a strong anti-brexit party, if we had, maybe we would not be in the shit storm that we are in. So I agree, Labour are just as much to blame for Brexit. They were in opposition, it is their job to oppose and challenge. They didn't do that. Corbyn was an absolute disaster for this country because of this. I dread to think what state we'd be in now if he was still Labour leader.