Labour isn't working - Thread 10

[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/5411817-labour-isnt-working-thread-9?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

Lol..my house was all greens at one point! Have a fab holiday

Lovely!

We’re so bad with decorating. I wouldn’t be able to tell you the name of a paint if my life depended on it. Well apart from 90’s magnolia, if that’s still in the shops. I can’t stand significant house upheaval and workmen etc. So I try to to load up with book shelves and plants. That does the trick. Well.. for me anyway!

Oh this old thing, I've had it years! Don't you remember it 😂.

Your trip sounds incredible. Hope you have the best time. You've had a stressful few months so enjoy every second. I adore Greece - all of it.

I'm very much the same. This is all being done before I move in. Carpets too.

There was that breakthrough in the treatment of Huntingtons disease. Good news!

Yes! That was very good news.

Ah, best case scenario!!

Gene therapy is such an amazing tool it still seems completely sci-fi to me. It looks like there are other treatments for Huntington's coming down the pipeline too.

On the plus side, at least he notices; I sometimes think I could climb Helvellyn in an evening dress and DH wouldn't say a word.🙄😅

🤣🤣

"Asked if this might alarm bond markets, Burnham said: “We’ve got to get beyond this thing of being in hock to the bond markets.” One Starmer ally scoffed: “Markets, what markets?”"

Whatever criticisms there may be of Reform, and their lack of government experience, they have plenty of business experience among their leaders. People who know that if you need money you need to either create it or make a convincing, persuasive argument to someone who might lend it to you. And to pay attention to the conditions and constraints under which potential lenders are operating.

Long careers in the lower echelons of government and SPaDs etc are thin on the ground (also Oxbridge degrees).

Right, getting beyond the bond markets is ridiculous. Where does he think the money is going to come from? What does he think will happen to the lending rates when he demonstrates no knowledge or plan to forgo them?

😂😂 You and Isabella Stratton 💪

Very true.
Burnham is doing himself no favours making comments like that.

And, at the same time, setting the bar of expectation higher - promising more 🤯

Perhaps it’s all a well-orchestrated Labour Party Ploy, to help Starmer look like not such a bad option after all..

(yeah right!)

😂 If only they were that clever and organised.

😂😂😂

There is a bit well Rayner’s out we need the scaries on again. Ok go with Burnham and his ‘what bond markets’ and tax

🤔 Well that would be rather clever if they had the competence to pull off the spectacle of a worse option and if the party faithful and the electorate recognised the perilous state of the finances enough to see the nonsense that Burnham is shilling.

There’s an article in the Spectator about Mahmood. It’s broadly supportive and positive. But there’s one paragraph about surrounding leadership events that caught my eye as being interesting, altogether plausible - and funny in its own grim way:

Labour’s party conference will be dominated by the battle for the deputy leadership between Lucy Powell, a close ally of Burnham, and Starmer’s candidate Bridget Phillipson. ‘Welcome to the most expensive deputy leadership contest ever,’ says one loyalist cynic. ‘So far we’ve created a new country [Palestine] and are preparing to overturn the two-child benefit cap in the hope that wins it for Bridget, who will lose and is no good anyway.’

It feels like this unnamed cynic also needs a link to the hedgehog hospital. 😁

🤣🤣🤣

I can see the force in that argument. Whatever else Reform is or isn’t, it’s directed by people who instinctively understand the importance and risk of markets.

Burnham and the great majority of Labour is foolish to think we can operate outside of huge market forces.

The difficulty, though, is that Reform is courting working class voters, many of them in the poorest constituencies in the country, with high unemployment, poor health indices and large numbers of benefit claimants. Reform has no realistic means of making change to the welfare bill and holding onto these voters.

The markets will continue to hammer us if we carrying on writing cheques like a three-armed spendthrift, whether Reform or anyone else.