Anyone actually excited about a Keir / Labour govt?

[roarrfeckingroar]

I'm typically a Tory voter (one nation Conservative, just right of centre, nothing radical) and gender critical, so I'm wary of a Labour government. I worry they'll leave the country worse than it is now.

However, I absolutely agree we need a change. Things can't get much worse, can they? Idiots like Boris and Truss have made a mockery of what I understand of the Conservatives - namely economic competence - and I can't vote for them this time. I don't know who I will vote for.

Listening to LBC this evening, I hear a Labour MP talk about how Starmer is offering an "exciting programme" of change and I just don't buy it. Maybe he will he better, maybe he won't, but my real question is is anyone genuinely excited about Labour, or just looking forward to the back of the Tories?

@zonder and Northampton and Woking, also both Tory- the council thing is not specific to a party - its more due to total defunding centrally

I agree. The individual councils can't work with a system where central government gives them less and less money every year. I have no idea why some people on this thread can't see that.

Yes, but Birmingham is the biggest and probably the most recent. Councils from
3 political parties have gone bankrupt in the last few years - but most of them are Labour. All of them are concerning - I’m not happy with how things are right now, there is no realistic solution that is going to magically transpire. Bad eggs in all parties and all are infighting. I love that I live in a democratic country where we can discuss and debate freely - but I just want a competent, honest and hardworking party in charge……

Well no because this thread is about getting excited about labour and how they are going to more competent and do better....but they aren't are they. Which is my point, they should of taken the opportunity to really show people they are better but they haven't. How can you get excited about more of the same.

It won't be more of the same. They won't be giving big tax breaks to the rich. Maybe they will try to fix the NHS. Maybe they will try to fix the lack of funding in schools.

It isn't that there is no money - it is simply that the conservatives have a brand of politics which aims to make the rich richer and everyone else can just struggle. It is how they spend the money.

You just have to read back a tiny bit on this thread to see that no council is immune from caving under the lack of funding from central government. But aside from that why should someone be put off by a Labour council going bankrupt when it has happened to Tory ones?

This with bells on.

Covid measures cost £300 billion.

Covid measures cost £300 billion

Is that before or after you’ve subtracted for fraud?

Much of that fraud that was, it seems, nodded through by Sunak.

Exactly, they can't help themselves, that's why we only let them back in for a short period of time, to remind us how bad things can really get.

At least they will abolish university fees, oops sorry, they have already done a u turn on that one! 😂

Keith, the life time pension allowance can apply to everyone but me! 😂

Yes I am looking forward to a change in government and life (slowly) improving for the majority of us, money being invested fairly, I hope money being collected fairly and a government that is competent, respects the public. isn’t destructive and so self serving

but I don’t feel that excitement as I did in 1997. Blair/Brown with their team around them had a vision for the UK that Labour now sadly lacks

No. I dislike Keir Starmer and despite having always voted for Labour, I will not be doing so in a future election given the current policies and his leadership. Labour used to be for the working class and the aspiring middle. Not anymore.

@MyopicBunny yes and that’s the stupidity of the policy. The school that we send the kids to will brush it off. The parents will still pay the fees and the kids will still be in the public school system.

Small independent schools where budgets are on the edge for both school and parents, will close and the kids will end up in the state system. The wrong consequence because of a nasty, stupid policy.

The difference might be that in many areas of London the average speed was already less than 20mph, so the difference is less obvious.
Of course London has the massive advantage of a functioning public transport network making car ownership far less essential than in other parts of the country.

But Jeremy Corbyn.

One way we could be excited about Labour is that they could well fund local government better.

That's a vote for Tory then. Your dislike for KS is more than your dislike of this Tory government despite having always voted for labour?

Its the same consequence as the Tory government's decision to increase employer teachers pension contributions by 40% in 2019. But oddly I don't remember anyone getting exercised by that.
The teacher pension increase also applied to state schools and was of course not funded.
The interesting thing about this is that the teachers pension scheme is unfunded and so the money contributed to it goes into the same tax as general taxation. So the current government effectively increased the tax paid by all schools, but no one seems to want to talk about that. I don't understand why that is.

Go for it @Christmasisover, vote Tory, friends of the working classes. Well done. Class piece of analysis there.

I’m not. I really dislike him. But I won’t vote CP so just got to suck it up.

Yes, @Sluj , I am elderly and was a young adult in the 1970s. I think your post hits the nail on the head. I know there are people who will tell me that Margaret Thatcher got in in 1979 because she was oh-so-wanted and had promised to sell off council houses (had she, then?) and I will add that another reason was that people felt they didn't want any more of Labour at that point.
So, no, not excited, but interested to see what happens.

Labour run bham Council went bankrupt because they decided not to pay females the same bonuses as their male counterparts aswell an IT project budgeted for £19m spiralling to £100m. Thats not tories lack of funding. That's just sheer incompetence and thats my point that they are no more competent than the tories. And to say they are in the face of evidence like this and Wales well...

I must say how much nicer Birmingham is now that the council has introduced low traffic areas for much of the city centre. I had cause to visit in the run up to Christmas and it was noticeable how much more peaceful the city centre was and how much less polluted. An excellent initiative from the Council, that hopefully will be replicated elsewhere.