Labour isn't working - Thread 9

[TheNuthatch]

A chat thread for those who don't like this Labour government.

The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.

Previous thread
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5407977-labour-isnt-working-thread-8?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

Thing is, the people this article talks about are not far right! Most of them are from strong red wall constituencies and are definitely on the left. What they are is disillusioned, left behind and bloody angry that they have been done over by the party that has had their support for years. You can't really say that there is a rise of the far right, it's just now people are waking up to the fact that a Labour government is a pile of shite. Maybe it took someone like Tommy Robinson to wake them up, but a really do not think so many people can all of a sudden become far right, it's more they've moved from the left.

Thanks @twistyizzy 👩‍🎓

According to figures as you say 11,000 left Indis in the year up to Jan 2025.

The ISC also report in the year prior to that there were 13,000 less private school pupils.
( I imagine due to impending taxes, col, The doom of a Labour Government and the wealthier leaving for countries that support them )

So that’s a total of 24,000 less pupils
Assuming most stayed here and switched

24,000 x £8000 = £192,000,000/year needed to educate those kids that parents were paying for themselves

£192 million !!!!

Yep. Its batshit isn't it, and also must be costing the state £££. Yet Mums earning over £100K and actually need that childcare get nothing.

I remember having to actually explain why my dd with SEN was much better off with me (stable and happy mother of 3, 30s at the time, ex SEN teaching assistant) than she would be in an environment that made her regress, being cared for by a 19 year old with no children, studying for an NVQ.
Best thing I ever did, I don't regret it.

Even a limited company doesn't have to become VAT registered unless they are above the VAT registration threshold of £90k per year.

They say that the reason London taxis are excluded is that most self-employed drivers in London are above that threshold already.

I can't see that they could reduce that threshold only for taxi drivers. If it's brought down for everyone that will affect all sorts of small businesses.

I remember reading in the papers all the academics extolling the virtues of childcare. How it leads to good outcomes, etc.

When I dug deeper, it was clear that this was true across the population as a whole. But the data was very spikey. Children with competent mothers did better at home with mom the first 3 or 4 years. Of course socialising in their neighbourhood with peer families as humans gave always done.

On the other hand, results for children with incompetent mothers were catastrophic, thus making it better on average to put the whole population in daycare. Apparently, just targeting children at risk would have been stigmatising.

I managed to stay home a long while with mine. Some sort of income tax allowance transfer with my husband would have been very helpful.

Yes, you can get an idea of how this plays out with something as measurable as the number of active words a child is exposed to in a day, the highest by some margin with an engaged parent (15-20,000) lesser and variable amounts based on childcare settings (8,000-14,000) and by far the least with a depressed/ neglectful parent (2000-4000).

So you can see why children lumbered with poorly functioning parents do better in childcare but to suggest all children do better in childcare makes invisible the rich environment that children can have with their parents alone and acts to diminish the value of that environment.

We did a mix with our two. DH was the one who was initially the SAHP, and then very part time once the youngest was 2 until they were in school. When they were 2, they went to preschool for 2 mornings a week. Once they got 15 hours' funding, they went for 2 mornings and a whole day (IIRC!). They loved preschool, but also had a good amount of time with DH (the 'fun' parent of the two of us!).

Turning to VAT on taxi fares, I can't imagine that many taxi drivers are VAT-registered. I've seen many taxi drivers' tax returns, and hardly any earn much over the personal allowance that they declare. Whether this phenomena has changed with the advent of card payments in taxis, I don't know! However, if it hasn't, they won't earn enough to become VAT-registered anyway.

Although it’s means tested
of course it is 🤣🤣🤣
it’s not for the likes of us !

and was even when they had those voucher things when mine were young. We subsidised kids at nursery and we’ll be subsidising others if we don’t die and end up in a care home.

Presumably enough taxi drivers are operating as limited companies rather than sole traders. I remember a lot of that under Gordon Brown.

If they are, they will be registered for that specific purpose, so govt could apply different vat rules to all companies registered for that purpose.They could tell all limited companies registered as taxis/private hire to register for vat with zero threshold?

I’ll out myself
Mine were all at nursery from 11months
I needed to keep my registration
When the twins joined their brother at nursery my salary was less than their fees but because my salary was too much I got no financial support

Absolutely. We pay for childcare for parents who don't need it, yet we don't pay it for parents who are net contributors 🤯.

It’s just not even remotely logical is it.

I wonder why the birth rate per woman is dropping? Its a complete mystery 🤔

It's due to our Welfare state being so skewed towards 'needs based' rather than 'contribution based' - more so than any of the supposedly socialist European countries.

It all sounds lovely... until you actually work through and understand the consequences.... which Labour and their supporters never do.

And those supporters still whinge 'but the UK is rich, we can afford it' without any concept of what the UK's wealth actually is or where it comes from... or that it must be created anew every single year as they spend it.

We’re struggling with this now, in terms of state dependency. It skews behaviour.

Yep. All in the name of "fairness". Well fairness can fuck off when you have a government who actively attacks the people who contribute.

But that's what they want. They want more people dependent on the state as those people are then more likely to vote for them. If you have people who are independent and don't need the state then you lose votes.

Absolutely although Wales might trip Labour up on this method, years of power and just complacent on that. It looks like the swings will be pretty big.

Anyone know anything about this?

I saw Stride bringing it up in media rounds this morning. Iirc, new information has come to light that donations were made and a discussion was had not to declare them. Although later they were rumbled and they declared it as an accidental oversight. But obviously the revealed discussions throw that defence into the air.

But, I was half way into a bacon butty and only had one eye on the telly.

I've just read the DM article. Covered in a few of the newspapers today.
Sounds like there's a book out soon which may not be particularly helpful for Labour.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15118175/Call-police-probe-claim-PMs-aide-Morgan-McSweeney-hid-700-000-donations-boost-Keir-Starmers-political-career.html

Does it strike anyone else as convenient, that this has come out just as Labour need a fall guy to cover Starmer's arse over the Mandelson affair? It had been hinted that Mc Sweeney was on his way out, maybe they're going to pin more sins upon him.

I always think Kier Starmer terrified whenever he's questioned about anything - like he's got something to hide.

Yep. He's always got that Deer in the headlights look.