Burnham has won. More turmoil?

HRTQueen. I don’t agree Boris Johnson love’s being in the centre of politics.
..............

Love's?

She's pretty much the only Tory tbf.

I don't - she's my favourite Tory. Only partly because the rest of them are a blur.

Don't forget Kemi!

There's Kemi for one.

And er.... well ... did I mention Kemi?

What senior Tories? 🤣

You think Liebore will last that long?

I don’t agree Boris Johnson love’s being in the centre of politics

I wouldn’t put it past him to join Reform

but I don’t think senior Tories would welcome him back, well not now

Please, no Johnson! Not again.
I already struggle everytime someone mentions Corbys regarding Labpur and Starmer. Who cares what Corbyn thinks? He was such a bad opposition that Johnson won!
At least Starmer won an election.

No way would Johnson contemplate a return. He knows being King of the World involves a modicum of work and a shedload of scrutiny now. Once bitten, etc.

Boris Johnson might well return. He had a remarkable Teflon quality. Had he been as capable at delivering he would have been the full ticket.

My point is criticism is inevitable. It’s how you deal with it that makes a PM. Too accepting and people smell blood. Starmer had these technocratic defences which people did not like. And so he looked thin skinned

They aren’t terminal for a politician. Look at Trump.

Well in that case, I expect Boris Johnson's return in 2029.

Neil Kinnock said that he himself was Marmite and John Major was Marmalade. People love or hate Marmite. People like Marmalade or they don't ...but nobody hates it. Thus Major beat him.

So it is with Farage and Lowe. Some people love them of course. But 70pc of the people will plump for nice toast and marmalade candidates. The trick is knowing which one is best placed to stop the Marmite people.

But labour can beat them and we have done and we will. reform is shrinking. It’s reached its peak and Farage knows that you can see it in his face and the others. They’ll only ever appeal to a small minority.

If you want to say there are a lot of young people who aren't in work, education or training, that is a valid point. There is no need to bring personal bias into it and present it as fact. There is no need to bandy about meaningless figures because you believe they bolster your point when, as SadirOflfTyr demonstrates, the truth is more nuanced than you'd have us believe. I would add to the list of the economically inactive unpaid carers, an addition which certainly negates your insinuation that people are lazy, too choosy about what they do and very quick to pretend to be disabled.

The issue with industry is that Chinese overcapacity and subsidy make the UK not very competitive. I think we all have to wake up in the West about the “free market”. Our largest competitor in China is using state subsidies to launch highly con industries which are producing too much, which is why the drive for exports. That isn’t free market economics, we are have the piss taken out of us by being this open economy with low tariffs.

If the UK wants manufacturing to return, then there needs to be some acceptance that finance and government subsidies is part of that. It also needs to nationalize some elements like energy which are making us even more uncompetitive.

If you are on the right these are difficult arguments because it means understanding the UK is going to be a much more mixed economy in terms of what the state does and what business does. That has implications on tax… I hope Labour does not repeat Reeves’s mistakes on small business and NICs.

Whoever becomes Chancellor may get more power to make change than in generation. I will be really interested in Burnham’s pick.

Yes to both your posts.

I know that's what it includes.

I answered a question.

What's your point?

In that statistic we do have a staggering number of 16-34 year olds economically inactive because they're on long-term sick. About half a million, mostly with them claiming MH reasons or ND.

So the idea they're going to leap into action for a factory job when the taxpayer is paying for them to do nothing seems unrealistic, which is the idea from a particularly poster I was responding to on this thread.

There are also many thousands of people in their 50s who are struggling to find jobs.

The real concern are the NEETs, young people who are not in employment, education or training. There are now over a miion of them. This should be a national priority.

Yes I understand that. I was just responding to the previous poster’s comment that we need to make software in this country again.

The wider point still applies regarding use of cheaper labour from overseas and impact of IR35 on a flexible workforce in the IT industry as a whole.

Economically inactive includes:

1. students who don't work during term time
2. Stay at home parents
3. Early retirees
4. Those of independent means
5. The long-term sick

No-one on IR35 was writing commercial software for the open market. They were building in-house systems, mostly for banks. I work for an actual software company (18k employees) and we do not, and have never, used contractors for software engineering. Contracting is very heavily used in IT services, which makes sense, but not in software, where the load is broadly constant - if it isn't it means you aren't releasing new product/improving old ones and are circling the drain.

Working age population so 16-64, 21% are economically inactive so out of work and not seeking a job.