The Left have a become a snivelling self-righteous mob, busy bodying around, trying to shame others

He is definitely the establishment because of his political and finance background - and his education.

He was an MEP for two decades and has now been an MP for two years after standing for election eight time. He worked as a trader. He went to a fee-paying school as a kid.

Yet he portrays himself as anti-establishment by being outspoken and provocative and making sure he has a good one-liner or two to support or bash the latest national talking point as required. What a clever chameleon he is.

Boris Johnson was exactly the same. I wish the two of them were just permanently employed as Have I got news for you hosts and not allowed to do any other jobs tbh.

I certainly hope so. Unfortunately people seem to be getting more and more hysterical about other people’s voting choices and not appreciating the fact that people are entitled to choose for themselves who they vote for.

This is insanity. It’s not what any left wing person I’ve ever met believes.

I think it must be satire - or a pissed off former Stasi operative who from calling the shots then found themselves unemployable.

This is insanity. It’s not what any left wing person I’ve ever met believes.

Why? Worried what your friends, family and neighbours would make of your voting intentions?

At the very least it would eliminate the shy Tory/Reform phenomenon that keeps cropping up at the ballot.

This is a terrible idea.

You’re not alone in that.

You say you used to be left wing. When you said it left you behind, I thought you meant causes like social justice and gender stuff left you cold. But, you seem to actually dislike socialism which has always been left wing. So... I'm very confused now 😂

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/tories-squandered-130bn-of-taxpayer-money-since-2019_uk_665c2a0be4b003ee36a06035

https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/100WastesDossier.pdf

More specifically the desire to keep that wealth to oneself.

I have and I have no idea how old Blossomtoes is but I do know from reading her posts for years that she has wisdom.

We can all be wrong. I can still be amused by the exchange and the rude arrogance.

Are you me!! It’s far easier to spout all day on immigration or some of the stuff from the opposite end of the political spectrum than have to actually ‘do it’ , whilst bearing in mind ‘all classes’ , business, budget and funds available - all on a GDP that’s down around7% post Brexit, and a load of people between 55 and 67 drawing down on pensions and paying zero in NI ( and little tax in plenty of cases too) -

this working class thing gets me too, who is defining this? Is it income based or profession based - is the local builder on £70 to £100k working class because he isn’t posh and gets his hands dirty whilst the junior teacher on £33k is middle class? Not all working class are poor and desparate and plenty of on paper middle classes are on similar or lower incomes and struggle too - there are some working class people for whom you could give the moon on a stick and it wouldn’t be enough , because ‘all ‘ they are hearing is the ‘we are fed up of immigrants’ ( and they don’t just mean those arriving on boats-they mean anyone even 2nd generation ones) - and in my personal opinion plenty of the far left pander to this ‘not listening to the working class’ - you can’t just keep putting up minimum wage forever or expand tax reductions more without it impacting across the board, apart from the immigration issue what is it they actually want .personally I would like to see some benefits for those paying a fair whack of tax like the free childcare hours coming in ‘regardless’ of income - and I’m a centre left voter - as it is people on what sounds like a high income can be worse off due to tax and lack of benefits than someone on considerably less and paying a lot less tax.

Labour have bought in some good things that do help the working class , the new rental rules, they are building more, including some council houses and more shared ownerships- renationalising rail, breakfast clubs, free hours from 9 months( started under Tory’s) quite a few others things still at legislation stage. You can’t only do so
much at a time, the country isn’t a bottomless pit.

One reason a lot of tradesmen/Reform types don’t like it is that as someone with a business myself it’s noticeable that HMRC are far more on the boil - and the old cash in hand brigade don’t like it.

I agree with Labour if they get tough on piss takers- ironically some on the right not keen on that too because whilst having right wing views on immigrants , plenty are piss takers themselves and contributing as little as they can and have been for years- and that’s all ends of the income spectrum.

Not intended as such, but not unforeseen.

If you increase renters' rights, then it's obvious some landlords will throw a wobbler. Some may even sell up, and then there's a question wrt whether that makes things better or worse for ordinary people (do rental prices increase, but sales prices fall, or something else)? The only definite thing is that people who rent have better protections.

You increase national insurance and of course that creates a burden on business. My direct experience is that that is overstated - my own business' main cost is staff (very roughly, 50%). The net effect roughly works out at about 1% of turnover or around 3% of profit. Though it's straight out of my pocket, I think additional rate tax payers paying a few grand extra a year is a price worth paying for a fairer society.

And so on and so forth (I could write you an essay on VAT on school fees, for example). The point is that, if an ordinary punter like me has a rough grasp of these considerations, then you can guarantee that goverment departments and ministerial advisors do too. It's the nature of the game - you pull one lever to try to fix things and it risks fcking up something else. That's why there are no easy answers to anything, and why the likes of Reform and the Greens - who peddle simple solutions to complex problems - are not imo serious people.

Of cousre, you understand all that @Northermcharn, because you're such a smart cookie. you just choose to ignore it.

It seems pretty obvious to me that better rental and employment rights benefit working people. If you think they don’t, perhaps you could explain why - and why landlords and employers are so furious about them.

Yeah it’s really cool to be racist now! I love it. I don’t have to hide my racist views now. Thank you Reform!!

And yet they can still be wrong.

I've been on MN years and one of the funniest things for me is when the odd poster pipes up and tells @BIossomtoes to 'do some research' or that she 'doesn't understand' a political point.

It's like when some lacklustre comedian tries to take the mickey out of Bill Bailey or a 20 year old 'influencer' points out that Mary Berry has been 'doing Victoria sponge wrong' all these years.

@BIossomtoes has understood and forgotten more about politics than pretty much anyone else on here has ever known.

Has the left wing left you behind, or have you become more right wing as you age? It is so well know that people drift to the right with age thay there's even a BBC bite size revision course on it!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zd9bd6f/revision/4

Again with the stereotypes. I'm left wing, so its 'posters like you', now is it? When I've not said a word about Reform voters on this thread and I'm GC.
Of course left isn't thinking men can be women (check out the Communist Party manifesto if you doubt it) and not caring about the working class.
It frustrates me more than I can say that GI has been adopted by some left wing parties and therefore become 'a thing of the left'.
To me the prioritisation of a tiny group of men over the rights of women is the antithesis to what the left should be about.
However it would be ridiculous to decide on the basis of this one deviation from what I see as left wing values to turn to the right. You don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
As far as caring about the WC are concerned, what does that look like to you?
Because what I'm seeing at the moment is a right wing party with a bunch of policies that will make things worse for less advantaged people going round saying they are listening. But listening with very selective hearing, as the only thing they are interested in amplifying are immigration concerns.
Concerns about access to health, about low income, insufficient affordable housing, poor employment rights, rights for women are either ignored, blamed on immigration, or exacerbated with proposals to reduce rights, protections and services lower income people disproportionately depend upon.
Labour may not be performatively listening, but I'd take the renters rights act and enhanced employment protections over Reforms proposals any day when it comes to making a real difference to WC people.
(And I am WC, so by your reasoning, I should be listened to!)