Andy B’s speech

Dementia is the biggest cause of death in the UK now. It kills more people than cancer.

Labour is still in power though and gaining in the polls. How people felt about Starmer's speech is irrelevant at this point. He's gone.

The speech made by Keir Starmer was proclaimed as being very good too just a year ago and look what happened to him.
I do worry that Andy Burnham is making a lot about dementia care because his father died from it but there are other terrible illnesses that need funding such as research into brain tumours.

The speech made by Keir Starmer was proclaimed as being very good too just a year ago and look what happened to him.
I do worry that Andy Burnham is making a lot about dementia care because his father died from it but there are other terrible illnesses that need funding such as research into brain tumours.

Also proposing PR is very much laying the groundwork for a Labour Lib Dem correlation. Although it did make me chuckle when he said that a change to PR was needed to make sure a divisive party couldn't take a majority on 30% of the vote which was much has been aimed at Starmer, who did just that.

Reform would benefit massively from PR? There's a reason the main two parties have been anti for decades.

I think it was more aimed at the party your dog votes for.

Also proposing PR is very much laying the groundwork for a Labour Lib Dem correlation. Although it did make me chuckle when he said that a change to PR was needed to make sure a divisive party couldn't take a majority on 30% of the vote which was much has been aimed at Starmer, who did just that.

Roll back on Brexit and social care are basically Lib Dem concepts - so he is smart and already taking the LibDem voters with him. Which essentially means the Tories/Reform coalition aren’t going to win.
I also agree with devolution but they will have to take more of the tax pot from earners for that to actually work.
Also social care - it won’t be just funded by a triple lock amended to a double lock. The numbers don’t work. What we need is a nationalised social care programme with it being a proper protected long term career to be a carer, more like a nurse. That then means less reliance on immigration for that role too. But the reality is people will still need to top up their care, if they are able to. It should be free up to the state pension amount. We need it because without it the NHS will 100 per cent fail in the next few years. The NHS is unproductive as it is having to double up for the failures of the care sector. Just like deprived schools aren’t working because they are having to double up for the failures of families/underfunding of social services/underfunding of child mental health services.

This is such a refreshingly, thoughtful, articulate post.

This is such a refreshingly, thoughtful, articulate post.

This is such a refreshingly, thoughtful, articulate post.

It's a significant achievement to speak for more than an hour without an autocue or notes, to write the speech yourself, to bring some of your audience to tears, to have most of your audience on their feet several times, and to cry and recover. I am in no doubt that he is fully behind every word and I love his willingness to be straight with people, especially on Europe. I loved the way he named our contributions to the world - trades unions, the co-operative movemen - patriotism based on achievements, not the shallow 'we are the best' we hear too often.

As a lifelong Labour voter from a Conservative-voting family, I am currently at logger heads with Labour over the trans rights issue. But lots in his speech is what I would wish to see - publicly owned utilities, polling reform, moving closer to Europe, fully funded social care, devolution.

Had I not been brought up in a northern industrial city in the 1970s, I don't think I would understand the rejection of neo-liberalism. I headed to London in 1979 and watched the decline in my home city during the 1980s while I thrived in the capital. Whole areas of my city have been in poverty ever since, with little well-rewarded work available. There has been no recovery from deindustrialisation.

Funding his vision is going to be a challenge though. And, while intellectually I may be Labour, instinctively I want a small state, prize entreprenneurialism, laud hard work and self-reliance, and respect wealth generation. So I have reservations about his vision but think it is right for the times.

The list I posted up thread about 15 minutes ago.

It also made whole communities jobless with no prospect of employment because their traditional industries were closed down and not replaced. It sold off the utilities that belonged to us all and that we all depend on so they sacrificed maintaining the assets for shareholder profit. It caused house price inflation and the rise of private landlords many of whose mortgages are now being paid by the taxpayer via housing benefit. It caused many families to live in expensive, substandard homes because council houses were not replaced.

Sorry. I don't understand what list you mean. Apologies.

No. The ones I just listed.

Well yes, because that is what he's said. But he hasn't said he wants to take us backwards to the 1970s. Or the 80s. I think perhaps maybe read what he has actually said rather than what his critics are trying to frame it as.

I think some are rattled because his speech has gone down well with many across the political spectrum.

He's not a Blairite. He was a Blairite when it was politically expedient for him, just like he Corbynite when he was Shadow Home secretary. How he seems to rocked up at a 70s celebration event.

The failures of Labour and Blair? I could give you a long list. Devolution and the Iraq War for a start.