Why don’t Labour get it?

Not everyone earns enough to be able to save though. Duh!

we’ve wrecked the economy”…

The economy was up the shitter before labour were elected...

Because when you started paying 39 years ago people lived on average 10 years after retirement and there were 5 working people for every pensioner. Now people are living around 22 years after retirement and there are 3 working people for every pensioner. This was made worse by the slew of early retirements in the 90s and 2000s.

You have a short memory then! Remember the note left by the last Labour government to the Conservatives, when Labour got voted out? I’m assuming you probably weren’t even born then, so I will enlighten you…

When the last Labour government were voted out, they left behind a note that read “sorry, there’s no money left”. I expect Starmer’s government will be leaving a similar message for the next government when they inevitably get booted out at the next election and it will be something along the lines of “sorry, there no money left, and we’ve wrecked the economy”…

We need more cross-party decision making instead of them sniping at each other

Absolutely, it will take years for any change.

The government employs tens of thousands of civil servants - I'm sure they can do more than one thing at once. A billion here and there is what is needed to make the difference.

But there aren't enough jobs so if you wanted to reduce unemployment by 1-2% it would involve spending money, hence why I think it's an odd area to focus on.

But without positive affirmative action to get more tradespeople we'll always say that.
Importing labour just means we don't train our own people.

Can we talk about social care crisis & NHS spending?
NHS is running badly (not helping people who could get back into work) because of lack of social care for many existing patients. Hospitals are literally blocked with high needs patients who need social not medical care. Only we don't call it "bed blocking" any more.

The best solutions I see to solve social care are plans like Theresa May made (8-9 yrs ago) or LibDems proposed a penny increase on income tax > 25 yrs ago, to better fund social care... and the public repeatedly rejected.

Whatever economic mess exists now, voters brought it on themselves.

ps: I volunteer to help pension age people so therefore know female pensioners who never paid a lot of NI, and are doing ok or better financially. They worked PT or not much at all, they supported a male partner to pay NI & that guy is now long gone. Financially strapped pensioners is not something I encounter.

Because even if someone has been on the scrounge their whole life they still need to eat? We can't been the lazy feckers just starve at pension age.

How many Ibuprofen should I take in order to go to sleep for ever?

Before I crippled this country I paid my 39 requisite years for the full basic state pension. I also lived within my means and have some savings. I also paid some free-standing AVCs and have a little private pension of £80/90 per month.

If I weren't here living off the fat of the land it would save the country money.

Totally agee!

I would add that why should people that have never paid in or paid very little get a pension.

The government employs tens of thousands of civil servants - I'm sure they can do more than one thing at once. A billion here and there is what is needed to make the difference. Or just put VAT to 25% then we could afford all the little bits of wastage.

We need more cross-party decision making instead of them sniping at each other. There are no simple answers and all politicians need to be honest about this and accept that improving the country will require compromises. See Tories sniping about benefit cuts (even though they propose deeper cuts) or Reform quietly shelving their £80bn tax cuts. None of that actually helps the UK.

Just like calls to “tax the wealthy”, cutting or scrapping the triple lock feels like another grab from this government by people who have worked hard throughout their lives and as a previous PP stated, have trained and educated themselves to not have to do minimum paid work. That’s not the way to run an economy. The majority of us contribute. Productivity in this country is so low. It’s not just our governments that are not performing, neither are the workers.

They could stop allowing big multi billion pound companies paying wages that are so shite that the government has to top people up with Universal credit!

Every time they suggest cuts in welfare or increased tax for the affluent people protest, remember winter fuel allowance? My parents got theirs reinstated so book an extra holiday! Everyday someone on Mumsnet is claiming they will leave if taxes go up, and they are the high earners (taxing houses worth more than £2m is the latest complaint despite it not even being announced yet, normal people don’t have £2m houses!)

So what? That can still be reduced.

It's an odd thing to focus on with all the more pressing issues...

We can't have low taxes and good public services. With the changing demographics and the lack of investment since the 08 crash (which we never recovered from) I'm not sure if we can have good public services with high taxes.

So what? That can still be reduced.

@Bumblebee72 but unemployment isn't historically high?

The idle vote labour - that is the reason.

It isn't binary 100% or nothing. Of course it can be reduced.

Unfortunately I don't think there are enough of these 'lazy skivers' for it to make much difference.

All Starmer wants to do is screw anyone who gets off the a==e to look after themselves and support immigrants and the idle
His increases in Ni corp tax and wages have resulted in enormous redundancies
A guy I know has moved his company that employed 104 people to India
They are deranged