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

@Vinvertebrate I agree with a lot in your post but I truly hope you are wrong about Farge being PM. I can’t wrap my head around people voting for that.

that and increasing minimum wage, which puts everything up, including insurance, business rates and utilities, to name but a few ‘hidden’ costs. I’d wager you either don’t work or work for a government organisation. If you work in private business you’d understand how labour are doing what labour always do, which is nicely ducking up the economy. Last labour gov. Got rid of manufacturing at quite an alarming rate, a number of multinational businesses left the UK moving over to countries like Turkey. (This is what happened to the huge multinational company my husband worked for). Now he’s just waiting for his current company to move over to the US. We’re currently having to decide if to move over to the US (He’s been offered a job over there already) or he accepts redundancy. My boss is currently restructuring our work place, effectively our team will be made redundant and then come back as self employed ‘consultants’. We need more manufacturing and more economic growth. Without private businesses all the billions of taxes collected will significantly reduce, which over time has a huge impact on government spending. Conservatives got a lot of things wrong, but they at least understood the importance of business. Don’t forget austerity happened largely because the last labour government went on a spending spree, and thought it would be a jolly good idea to increase our national debt and sell off our gold stocks…whilst hammering business with higher Business rates etc

Fiscal drag which is massively underestimated will be part of this. And inflation of course.

@EasternStandard what exactly am I glossing over?

More unemployment because of Labours daft changes. Waste of time. They're toast.

Crazy isn't it? Polanski level economic theory from the Chancellor of the fucking Exchequer.

@Frenchfrychic no because they didn't increase the personal allowance any marginal rate gets swallows up in taxes

No you’re glossing over Labour policies and their impact. I think they’ll struggle to keep shifting blame on this and from below might reverse policy.

"they have killed the job market stone dead *

Well no , Rachel said by raising the national minimum wage more people would have more money to spend and support small business. Which in turn creates jobs etc.

All I know is that our income has doubled in 8 years, but we have never felt so skint. Everything is so ridiculously expensive and everyone seems utterly miserable.

I think the only people who have benefited are those on min wage who have retained their jobs and those with more than two kids and on benefits. Everyone else has been royally fucked.

I completely agree and I'd say that Thatcher defeating the trade unions and the sell off of council houses began the drain down to turning this country into a dog eat dog, selfish place where people depend on making money from buying and selling houses and fleecing others by being landlords. Also through turning a blind eye to corruption (like the Tories who wanted Brexit because EU law was about to stop them hiding their money overseas, nothing to do with little weakling Cameron trying to stop his MPs stabbing each other in the back).

Other countries have higher taxes but they spend the money on infrastructure and policies that benefit all, look at the rest of Europe but people addicted to their big cars and houses are too biassed to see. And here's a government tracker which offers data and not just hyperbole:

https://fullfact.org/government-tracker/

Can't wait for Farage and his bunch of crooks, it'll be just like Brexit which 60% of the UK now thinks shouldn't have happened and which is largely to blame for our economic woes. It'll be fun (not) to watch.

We are actively worse off, but we are higher earners (FT) so I suppose that's "progressive" to the parasitical tendencies on the left. We are also selling two of our rental properties, so that's five adults finding somewhere new to live.

Politics has not made any sense under this Labour gov (or the previous Tory one, tbf). Conservatives used to be in favour of low tax, small state, personal responsibility whereas Labour taxed more heavily, but invested in services and looked after those who are dependent on the state. Despite this, the most recent Tory administration relied on fiscal drag to inflate revenue, did nothing to make tax less punitive for business and was too frightened of being called "scum" by ruffians like Grangela to undertake meaningful NHS or welfare reform. The current Labour government is taxing people like true socialists, but utterly failing to improve the lots of those who rely on income or healthcare from the state.

They also have a disturbing 'forked tongue' tendency, e.g. talking up NHS waiting list improvements caused by simply crossing people off, pointing fingers at MC parents as the reason SEND reform is needed while stripping children of legal rights and offering schools derisory funding to fill the gap, assuring everyone they know what a woman is whilst sitting on the ERHC guidance that gives them protection in law. None of them are honest, credible or talented. On an individual level, I back Kemi as the most talented and charismatic, but the Tory "brand" is so toxic now that she has no chance of being PM.

I have zero expectation that Reform will improve matters for anyone other than their billionaire paymasters, but equally I have every expectation that Farage will be PM in a few years. The two main parties only have themselves to blame for that - Labour had one job in 2024: be less shit and corrupt than the Tories. Despite this low bar, they catastrophically failed.

And big part of our lack of growth is the demographic changes and the money allocated to fund that.

@EasternStandard I think you misunderstood me. I’m sure the NI raise has impacted some jobs, one difference in the aftermath of the 08 crash is that we didn’t see huge unemployment and a market correction to certain businesses as we have in previous recessions. I think some of that is playing out now.
And I just don’t believe without a raise that jobs would not have been lost.

A huge part of the problem is our productivity never recovered from the 08 crash. Little investment by the government or business into people and infrastructure. The super low interest rates hid a lot of this though, people didn’t notice their wages had stopped growing. Now the shit has hit the fan and people realise they are poorer. Plus we have the unprecedented demographic change of an ageing population and a complete lack of planning for it. It’s a complete mess & as I said I’m not sure how you fix it now. Taxes will keep going up just to cover costs & debt, improving things will be a pipe dream.

I think you’re not looking at the cause and effect of the policies implemented by Labour. Some did warn NI increase would be a jobs’ tax, and other policies on top.

Tbf it’s probably a surprise to Labour too, which is more concerning.

Big moves today to roll back the NMW increase business esp small business are saying it's not sustainable.

They've killed the housing market too. Lots of houses languishing on the market, lots of people's lives on hold as they can't

The housing market has been impacted by the rise in interest rates and also it’s ridiculous to think house prices can keep going up. Logically prices need to stop increasing as they had during the years of super low interest rates.

Economies turn on a sixpence when you, for example, make employing people or the process of buying a house too expensive.

They seem to have killed the job market stone fckn dead.

Yeah, I keep hearing anecdotally how tough it is out there if you need a new job or a new contract.

They've killed the housing market too. Lots of houses languishing on the market, lots of people's lives on hold as they can't sell.

@EasternStandard But AI was impacting entry level jobs before labour got into power. And hospitality was also suffering, look at pub closures.
I just don’t believe keeping the taxes as they were would mean jobs wouldn’t still be lost. Business wants cheap labour & cheap costs.

There has to be a part of the puzzle missing. Lots of other European countries have higher social security taxes on employers to offset pension & healthcare costs so it cannot be that alone. Maybe it’s a culture thing?

I have to sell my rental property due to the new tax laws so my tenants have to move and pay higher rent elsewhere

It was always going to be hard for Labour because the economic trajectory was against them.

Economies don't turn on a sixpence. They inherited a large debt pile and a cost of living crisis and its hard to do anything about the fundamentals in the short term.

What they can be criticised for is lying before the election on tax rises, which has effectively hamstrung them in terms of raising money, punching down on the poor by attacking benefits to the disabled and pensioners, having no plan to raise growth and creating huge policy messes by U turning all the time.

The Labour manifesto is no longer a promise to be kept to improve the country, but a problem to be managed so they stand a half chance of winning the next election.

It was probably always going to be like this.

@Sandysandytoes years of mistakes from both sides. I’m not into partisan politics.

So Thatcher selling off council housing, privatising utilities.
Blair - NHS mistakes, immigration
We never recovered from the 08 crash & the Tories completely mishandled their time in power.
Brexit
Obviously it’s not all on politicians, the electorate needs to take some responsibility too.