Starmer says we are going to have more money in our pockets (new year's speach

Which is essential if we want any hope of returning to anything like prosperity.

Wasn't that the kind of deal that Teresa May was trying to get through Parliament, but was blocked by members of all parties. I seem to remember she had several attempts but the majority of MPs either voted against or abstained.

No, she was rejecting SM membership.

We never voted to join the EU. We voted to join the EEC which was all about trade. It morphed into the EU without any vote, i.e. free movement of people, European courts, etc. The ideal result of the referendum would have been to wind back to where we started, i.e. trade agreements and limited restrictions on trade, with maybe some kind of free movement for genuine workers. So many mistakes and outright lies have been made by politicians over the decades re Europe and that's why Brexit happened. Just look at Blair opening the doors without restriction to the newly admitted Eastern European countries in the noughties - most of the larger EU countries imposed restrictions, but Blair insisted on a complete free for all. I think you can trace the Brexit result back to Blair for that one as it caused all kind of problems. Blair was even warned by other senior ministers as to the potential problems, but lied about the numbers likely to come and just batted away the objections.

Yes, it was. Starmer, I think, abstained on that one. But then the Wilson government faced the same challenge - two thirds of the party wanted to leave in ‘75…

There’s also the small matter of how soon is too soon for parliament to ignore the result of the referendum and do a ‘U’ turn. At a democratic level, we (the population) voted in a referendum to stay in ‘75, and to leave in 2016. Do we therefore need another referendum? Does the public, or for that matter Labour or the conservatives have the appetite for that? I’m sure they don’t have the appetite for rejoining without a referendum - the far left and right would have a field day.

Wasn't that the kind of deal that Teresa May was trying to get through Parliament, but was blocked by members of all parties. I seem to remember she had several attempts but the majority of MPs either voted against or abstained.

I'd actually have preferred Corbyn to be PM. At least he had some original ideas about how to solve some of the country's problems and was wanting to do different things. Starmer hasn't a clue, nor does Reeves and Raynor is outright dangerous. Then we have the Milliband clown who's happy to bankrupt the country and make us reliant on unreliable energy sources. The only shining light at the moment is Streeting who is at least saying the right things about the NHS - whether he'll be able to actually change anything is a different matter.

Really

@Getmeonaflight i was being sarcastic.

Wow! What an incredibly enviously spiteful comment.

Starmer is a proven liar. He's wrecking our economy that was showing good growth until Labour took over and now it's 2 quarters of downward trend thanks to RR and her anti business anti growth budget.

They'd let us rejoin the single market and customs union as a first step, which would at least mitigate the worst of the damage being done to our economy and compounding every year that it continues. This would be the first priority of any competent Government if they had any genuine desire to raise living standards in the UK.

Don’t forget the increased water bills! We don’t all get free flats and houses, free clothes and free transport like Starmer on top of a decent salary.

The whole problem we have is too many believing what politicians say without any scrutiny of how they will do it. We have sound bite elections and voters fall for it. No detail. Very little was worked on in advance (hence the big gaps) and they don’t know how to stimulate growth, let alone articulate policies to achieve it.

One huge reason for this is deep down, grass roots Labour still thinks business is the baddie. The ones who must be punished. They don’t realise that this punishes all the workers, customers and suppliers too. If puts up prices and makes jobs dicey. Why on earth they didn’t see this is crazy. Now we are told we will be better off! How? In 2025? They have no growth. They have promised lots of expenditure. Where’s the money coming from? Oh. I know! More borrowing - now that reality is a black hole. One our DC won’t thank us for.

Blimey 🥺

lol the Tory's are so far to the left it's beyond a joke!

So the economy which had started to bounce back in the early part of 2023 has now gone into decline. It would be wrong to place the blame for this at Labour's doorstep as it was in motion beforehand however raising NI in employers will definitely not help and the fastest growing G7 economy Labour promised (and which they desperately need to fulfill their promises) is not only pure fantasy but we will be doing well to get any growth.

Secondly tax burden is now at a record high of 38% and you really don't grow economies with this level of tax take.

Starmer says we are going to have more money in our pockets

We meaning Starmer and his mates. The rest of us already have less and will have even less.

Great post. We desperately need politicians with the necessary backbone to reverse the disastrous Brexit.

Will the EU have us back?

Great post. We desperately need politicians with the necessary backbone to reverse the disastrous Brexit.

This is spot on 👏

Carers got a £10 Christmas bonus too That's TEN WHOLE POUNDS!! Enough for the carer and their caree to really live the high life for a whole day - maybe be they could recreate a spa day with a bottle of Lidl showel gel, two Asda essentials flannels and a bottle of Lambrini. And have an actual shower using fairly warm water. Oh the opulence.

What do you think they stand for? It all sounds like commonsense to me

Ed. Sp

Starmer appears to be living in cloud cuckoo land. I'd love to hear the policies based upon which he is making these assertions.

The electorate were told the focus would be growth yet he has let his chancellor produce the highest ever tax raising budget in history. Inexplicably directing the majority of this tax at businesses therefore stifling any prospect of growth.

Many forecasts of the effect of the budget have been produced (OBR, IFS and others) and all credible sources agree its effect is to lower growth, decrease employment, lower productivity, increase inflation, reduce future payrises for employees. reduce desperately needed business investment, and keep interest rates higher for longer than would otherwise have been the case.

We would have been better off with no Government because pretty much every measure this one has taken has had a negative effect, in an already dire situation.

Meanwhile there is no plan, apparently, to generate productivity increases so that living standard can rise. Higher taxes absolutely hammering people and nothing built into the budget to cover even maintaining public sector spending at current levels in real-terms for the rest of the Parliament so doubtless this won't be the end of the punitive taxes.

Then, in return for some of the highest taxes in the world higher earners receive services that would be an embarrassment to a developing country so there is zero incentive to work hard. Oh, and they'll have 40% of your pension in tax as well, thank you, once the lack of anything resembling a health services results in an untimely death.

And to add insult to injury, the new taxes just imposed which will further lower UK living standards equate to less than the tax revenue being lost annually as a result of Brexit, so were all totally unnecessary if we had a Government with the backbone to take steps towards reversing that decision (and undo its worst impacts as the matter of most urgent priority).

It must be very inconvenient having such a large grey animal accompanying you to every meeting and studiously pretending you cannot see it while it squirts water all over the room through its trunk.

He is a liar , he and Labour are utter bastards and I’m glad I didn’t vote for them.

@Kitte321 That is right and we are sleep walking into it. The Right are on the rise. They don’t need much encouragement.

The only people who are better off are doctors and train drivers who work a full week. No one else has got their pay rises. Everyone else is worse off. Depends where the base line is though.There are a few prices stabilizing due to relatively low inflation but we’ve taken the massive hit already. The taxes we pay aren’t going down.

Looking on the bright side, some people can look forward to improved job security due to all these children entering/re-entering the state system instead of wondering whether their schools are going to close due to the falling rolls from the huge drop in the birth rates.

But they're generally some of the lowest paid women in society. I can see how an improvement for them where they may have a job and even some discretionary spending would not matter to somebody on the other end of the social divide.

The estimate of the % of the population of school aged children who will move from private sector to state as a result of the tax on private schools is 0.1%.

Hardly going to mitigate the declining birth rate!