Sir Keir Starmer declares gifts and freebies totalling more than £100,000 - the highest of any MP

[TealTraybake]

Perhaps the Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire needs his freebies because MPs aren’t paid enough. Or perhaps he’s just the knight commander of the most astonishing hypocrisy.

Nope. One of those was in the manifesto. The other I think has issues. Neither tell us much about the coming budget.

What’s the screw up, please?
Accepting gifts before the election which are within the rules? It may look a bit odd, but screw up?

Has issues? Do tell.

As to the budget, tell me - what fiscal measures would you consider as ‘painful’?

A fairly major political screw up I’d say, resulting in the PM now being even less popular than Rishi Sunak. Surely that wasn’t intentional?

They set themselves out to be a government of service, and not like the last lot. It was entirely foreseeable therefore that the press, who like to knock anyone down, would be looking for any signs of ‘sleaze’. And guess what, the government made it fairly easy. That’s the screw up.

I’m surprised I have to explain that - are you a labour minister or strategist by any chance ;)

But they haven’t yet achieved anything - other than a massive own goal which shows them to be exactly as grabby as the tories were, and hypocritical to boot. Oh, and enacting a policy that they were vehemently against when they were in opposition.

Rayner on TV this morning was cringeworthy. On and on about how she’s “working class” and “transparent “ but no explanation for why she feels she should get free clothes and holidays (other than she didn’t go on holiday with Sam Tarry. For “a couple of days” Which was actually 5 nights. At a £2.5m apartment that she declared at £250 a night. And Sam Tarry just happened to be there at the same time. And stay in the same flat 🤦‍♀️)
She knows literally nothing about housing or house building. If people are not buying, the major house builders will not build. End of. Simple as. They are already moth balling sites because the negative messages re: the economy stop people buying. And, despite what she seems to think, there is nothing she can do to make them build. It’s business (which she has never been involved in and quite clearly, does not understand). When asked how many social houses would form part of these new 1.5m homes, she had no idea…..”a big wave” No business, EVER has formulated a business plan on a target of “a big wave”. And these clowns are running the country?
I think Labour are about to discover that the electorate are a lot more savvy than they gave credit for.
And please. Don’t start with the Tory “whataboutery” I agree, they were also awful but it is already quite clear that Labour are not going to be the “saviours” they professed to be. Same shit, different coloured tie,

😂

Since being in, they ve brought forward better renters protection, abortion clinic safety (both bills scrapped by the Tories) started the process to nationalise rail, a water pollution bill, settled the Junior Doc strike and the train strikes, both strikes wrecked productivity.
Given Nurses and Teachers a 5.5% pay rise which will help retention and put more money into the local economy.

Made real progress on relations with the EU.

What did Sunak do in his last 12 months in office?

Well said.

Rayner, an unqualified diversity hire.

Oh you again lol!!!

???

Presumably others share my view?

Ignore

Mn can't be the only site that's committed to going on about how well Labour are doing. It can't be that removed from everywhere else

All that 'progress' and Keir's approval rating is still lower than Rishi Sunak. Quite some 'honeymoon' period wouldn't you say?

Settled industrial action by simply rolling over and setting up new demands in the future.

Well done.

She knows literally nothing about housing or house building. If people are not buying, the major house builders will not build. End of. Simple as. They are already moth balling sites because the negative messages re: the economy stop people buying. And, despite what she seems to think, there is nothing she can do to make them build. It’s business (which she has never been involved in and quite clearly, does not understand)

You certainly don't.

Of course the Govt can get builders building, they just need to up the amount they give to builders/HA to build SH etc.

Do you think builders fund SH build costs themselves??? levies certainly don't cut it.

ATM its far too low and HA are reluctant to build or buy existing stock as the costs are too high for them.

Yet again, Tory austerity.

The WFA decision has issues. It’s obvious it shouldn’t be universal. It’s also true that the cut off point seems low. However more means testing costs money…
so…issues. It’s not a perfect policy.

The popularity thing has come about because of shit stirring by the press, not any cock up the government has made. That’s my point.

The costs to settle are far far less than not settling, just as was done to settle the barristers strikes.

What about everything else i mentioned.

Cancelled Rwanda.
Dealt with riots.
Deported some people with no leave to be here.
Introduced exclusion zones around abortion clinics.
etc etc
Not bad for a few months.

I wrote ‘It’s ok, I understand that you just don’t get it. Happens to us all. I will spell it out for you.
A prime minister who campaigned to clean up politics must be whiter than white.
And that, he most definitely is not.’

For you to twist that

1. By not including the context of what I wrote but editing to bits that suit you
2. By referring to a phrase used every day by many people in this country and implying racism

is embarrassing for you. I would say 6th form-like in your writing, but the teenagers I know are far more intelligent and articulate than that.

Still, no surprises.

Whilst I don’t disagree that it appears that every party is fond of accepting goods and services that the electorate find highly objectionable, I really do think it’s ridiculous to start a new government on the back foot like this.

All completely avoidable and shows considerable lack of judgement in the first days of new government. Then pre empt the budget with dire warnings, without highlighting the positive impact your party is going to make for the future seems extremely poor leadership as well. No balance was given.

But the freebies situation is just own goals all round.

Yes, Cancelled Rwanda, we all saw that coming, an easy thing to do......and replaced it with......'smash the gangs' and a new chief of the Border Force who said 'smashing the gangs won't stop the boats'.

Yeh now it's finally said. It won't work

Easy to see beforehand but somehow people believed it

Plus deaths and crossings going up, and stuck with 'smash the gangs'. It's not a positive

Unfortunately, I do. And no, section 106 sales make up a small proportion of what the major house builders do. If a site is not viable, it will not be built. And if people are not buying houses, the sites won’t be viable. Major house builders in general want no more than 20 stock plots. Nation wide.
You seem to be confused. Section 106 means that, very often a small proportion of social housing is included in a new build site. If the rest of the for sale houses won’t sell, none of it will be built. It makes absolutely NO financial sense for the government to incentive major builders in this way. How much would they have to pay to get Barrett’s to build a scheme of 100 houses, 30 of which are social, but 70 of which they can’t sell?
If the government want growth and more social housing, they need to build it themselves. Rayner just doesn’t yet understand that.

Probably replaced with Albania…

Even Amnesty International think 'smash the gangs' will contribute to deaths

“The Government’s ‘smash the gangs’ slogan and its security-heavy approach is contributing to the death toll"