Thread 47 Sunak : The Ship of Fools sails on

[DuncinToffee]

The countdown to the General Election continues

Previous thread https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5082182-thread-46-sunak-dont-rain-on-our-parade?page=40&reply=135651872

We know from the party saga that Starmer is good at playing the long game, might the same be happening here?

And we won'tbe seeing any headlines saying "Sunak was told not to say that the Civil Service supported that figure"

Top story on BBC right now

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-69088663

Even Dan Hodges of the Daily Mail is calling it out https://x.com/dpjhodges/status/1798268202830713341?s=61&t=xKCXjKa1-S6Ks0nSd_LXGg

Listening to James O'Brien on LBC and a lawyer has called in to suggest that Starmer is indeed playing the long game and allowing Sunak to give himself enough rope as it were. God I hope so.

I remember when my mum was waiting for her transplant, that feeling of helplessness was awful, private health care wouldn't have helped her, it's not like you can just buy an organ is it? The NHS saved her life.

The tax lies story has also been sent out as a notification on BBC News

The point is that we are political geeks pouring over the news.

That headline will have moved on within x hours (anyone want to do a sweepstake as to how long? )

Whereas floating/swithering voters will have absorbed the print headlines blaring out from all the newspaper stands - even if they don't actually buy the papers

The media coverage is so unbalanced. It winds me up to the point I’m thinking I need to disengage from all political stuff. The coverage of the Russian hacking of the NHS is a good example. Apparently Victoria Atkins (minister for health and social care) is ‘supervising’ things. In past times and if Labour was in government I’m pretty sure the minister responsible would have been absolutely slated for allowing it to happen.

Ever read how ears work ?

If there is a dripping tap, then EEG traces show that at some point the ear simply stops sending the pulses converted to electricity to the brain. It's not your brain doing the filtering. It's the ear.

Once again, there's no need to actually research this or provide the slightest iota of proof, but I suspect the same happens with the dripping tap of propaganda. Peoples senses simply stop generating the same impulses.

This runs counter to the Goebbels argument, of course. But then the Goebbels argument was only ever about making sure Goebbels did well. Something extremists should bear in mind.

I watched it last night. I thought it was boring. Sunak was tetchy and Starmer was polite and a bit dull.

I don't think it will have changed anyone's mind.

May possibly be something in the giving Sunak enough rope, just heard Rachel Reeves saying he lied last night, BBC radio London has been reading out the letter re the costings, dunno might be wishful thinking.

Bbc radio news reports civil servants calling him a liar contradicting sunak on the £2k tax rise

Wow.

More or Less on R4 this morning explained that as well as probably being an overestimate due to assumptions which don't bear scrutiny the £2000 estimate was for a four year period in total. Ie £500 per year.

As they said, like saying your salary of £25k will be £100k and in the small print of your contract the £100k is explained as being over 4 years.

I just have years of cynicism and disillusionment as to how easily a population is manipulated (especially since 2014).

Hence my pessimism. I'll be delighted to be proven wrong.

Maybe Starmer is playing the long game.

FWIW, I think that Labour will still win a landslide - and what's more, won't need a single Scottish seat to do so (in that their majority will be far greater than the 57 seats that Scotland sends to Westminster).

I personally don't think it matters if Sunak "wins" the debate. The fact is he's got to persuade people he's going to do what he says, very difficult after the past 14 years.

I think so. Well I hope so.
He knows what's coming in his manifesto. Maybe he's going to hoist Sunak on his own petard at the next debate

I share a degree of pessimism with you, the £350m to the NHS lie as a prime example.

The 'politicians lie' line is too readily accepted

Agree. What is he winning exactly.
I guess it demonstrates that the government expects the public to be taken in by easy sound bites like the £250 million for the NHS. Even though that was refuted on multiple occasions it still gained traction and stuck. They did it because they knew they wouldn’t really be challenged by their puppet media and even if they were the damage is already done.
Somebody on Reddit said they thought Starmer muttered ‘prick’ under his breath at one point and that there was real animosity going on. KS looked rattled and I wonder if there’d been a gentleman’s agreement back stage to keep things civil. This would explain why he started off polite and measured with lengthy waffle, and was then roundly attacked.

Scotland had the same message during the Indyref: that "independent analysis" had proven that independence would cost everyone something like £3,000 (can't remember the exact figures)

What wasn't explained was the assumptions: that a) Scotland would still spending on the same things that the UK does (eg on Trident), b) that Scotland would make the same economic decisions as England (eg that austerity works ), c) that transition costs assumed that there were no civil servants or infrastructure currently in Scotland and would therefore have to be set up from scratch and d) that it was over 10 years and per household.

But it stuck

The sad thing is that it will now be even more expensive because of the clusterfuck that is Brexit (as it was always Scotland's intention to join the EU - and contrary to claims there isn't a "queue" and anyway, there is always the option of EFTA/Single Market in the interim). So it will be much more complicated

Ugh, the amount of times I've heard 'Labour will raise your taxes by £2000' this morning from a huge variety of media, followed by, almost in a whisper 'apparently it's not true.'

All some will hear, and believe, is Labour will raise your taxes by £2000 and that's it, might as well put it on the side of a bus.

Why on earth didn't Starmer immediately shut it down last night instead of allowing Sunak to say it x1000?

Would shutting it down have made any difference?

The client media, or is Sunak the client? would still be repeating it this morning.

Does anyone know how much Sunak has raised each families taxes by during his time in high office? (not per year of course, but per 5 years).

Well the four year freeze in personal tax thresholds - first announced by Sunak in 2021 - has been the largest tax rise in 50 years.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/oct/06/rishi-sunak-responsible-for-biggest-income-tax-rise-in-at-least-50-years

I am wandering off topic but I was reminded of this -

Freezing thresholds while cutting rates transfers the tax burden from high to middle-income Britain. Sticking to plans to freeze personal tax thresholds is in practice funding any basic rate cut. This effectively shifts the tax take from high earners (who gain most from rate cuts) to low and middle earners (who gain little). Or put it another way – cutting the basic rate while going ahead with freezing the income tax personal allowance is a tax cut for the top fifth of households, being paid for directly by the bottom four fifths, as the next chart shows. It’s levelling down, not up, in tax policy land.

https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/comment/the-coming-tax-reshuffle-winners-and-losers/

I don't think public speaking is his forte at all. Long term legal projects and planning strategies for sectors, probably. He isn't really very punchy or memorable or succinct enough to be the face of the party. I think Raynor would have been far better last night. Starmer would flounder badly in front of NF (far more forceful than Sunak) so am actually glad in that respect that it is her fighting him off.

Its interesting isn't it. Because he clearly is very effective at bringing people together and getting them to work on shared priorities.
I think that is more important than "winning" a debate but unfortunately based on Boris I'm not sure the electorate agree.