If Starmer and Reeves fuck this budget, Labour will be out of power for ANOTHER generation.

[Ozgirl76]

I was hopeful when Labour came into power - I hoped a calm sensible bunch of economic policies that would help to level things out a bit was on the cards and given that they had so long to prepare, I assumed they would spring into action and at least have some plans.

But now I’m just reading more articles about the huge swing towards Reform and I can’t believe it’s coming to this.

I actually live in Australia but I run a business in the U.K. and we have just had a second term of a very boring and sensible labour government over here who aren’t fixing things yet but they aren’t actively making things worse and I just think, it is possible to have a Labour government who don’t actively hate the richer people, but also are trying to work towards a more equal society.

What do you think is causing the main swing towards the right? Is it all the immigration stuff? Surely that can’t be everything?

No they were clearly smirking at Starmer I’ve watched the video again and again.

I am on the fence and a homeless voter at the moment.

The fact that Starmer’s interest and ultimate goal is not to look out for the people of the UK, but to be seen as some sort of hero on the world stage. Only for him to be humiliated on the world stage in front of everyone is absolute class! Not the big hero or as important he likes to think he is! Just an egotistical narcissist with a grandiose impression of himself and likes to think he’s better than he really is. I’m glad he was brought down a peg or two.

But if you want Starmer gone, you must at least have his replacement in mind?

As for humiliated on world stage, you are funny. Did you watch more than that one bit of video?

This 100%

Actually who do you have in mind to replace Starmer? Or maybe you don’t want to replace him. Maybe you are happy with some lifeless narcissist running the country into the ground. I’m not getting into arguments about who I would like to replace him because at the moment they all seem as bad as each other.

And yes I watched a lot more of that video than just that one clip!

There are a series of incredibly urgent extreme measures that now need to be taken to rescue us from sliding into the economic abyss. We have been overspending well past our means for decades, and 8 million immigrants since the Millennium hasn’t been enough to ‘fill key roles’ apparently. Our entire system is running like we’re paying off a loan shark - the more we pay the more we pay and the more we pay, without a thought as to whether we can afford it.

Labour got the public addicted to benefits and feeling like work is optional rather than something they need to do to survive. We have ever growing numbers of people who have got inside their own heads and checked out of society due to ‘anxiety’ or neurodiverse conditions, who want instant and incredibly expensive support which is far from guaranteed to even have much of an effect. Skyrocketing numbers of SEN children needing benefits, school placements costing tens of thousands a year, and taxis. Everyone seems to want diagnosing with something or be pushing for investigations into fairly nebulous symptoms. They just blame billionaires if you bring this up.

We need a party who aren’t afraid to make radical and unpopular changes with the understanding fixing these issues will take a good 10-15 years to see any kind of change.

We need to slash benefits, end unemployment benefits after 6 months, deny benefits entirely to able bodied under 25s, and instil a notion that being expected to move or travel for work is not a human rights breach.

We need to aim for net negative numbers in immigration and cap student visas to only the brightest students. We have far too many universities so if they go bust who cares.

We need to urgently examine council budgets so they’re not just a social care tax. It isn’t reasonable to spend half the budget on the elderly and SEN.

No requirements for new mums should stop once the free hours kick in. It should be the norm to work rather than claim.

Harsher policing and stop treating everyone as ‘vulnerable’. A 6ft crackhead screaming abuse is not ‘vulnerable’. Cells where drunks and druggies are thrown into for a week to dry out after making a nuisance of themselves, rinse and repeat if needs be. Sick of lunatics on spice staggering around our town centre threatening young people, the elderly and women.

Economic policies to create growth rather than just tax tax tax.

Ah ok, never mind.

Yes never mind 😂

Quite!
I saw this invoice this morning for a heart transplant.

Also this from a Reddit sub:
“I can attest. I live in the US currently, I’m a dual citizen, and this year my healthcare premium is $1,200/month plus they have something called deductibles here: my plan has a $4,000 deductible. That basically means that you cover the first $4,000 in any medical costs out of pocket for the year before the insurance pays for anything. No, I’m not joking. This is the system that Obama brought in instead of trying for universal healthcare back in the 2010s. It is a disaster. I have some health issues so I do end up owing that $4,000 every year, on top of my monthly premiums. Needless to say I can’t own a house or save with these kinds of monthly expenses. They are crippling. Now, if you work for an employer who provides healthcare it will cost less, but only the lucky few, think top 10% of jobs, will have a company pay all costs. Most companies now make employees pay something each month, usually a few hundred dollars, and the companies may opt for plans with higher deductibles than $4,000, deductibles can go up to $20,000, though most are between $5,000-$10,000, and employees may be on the hook for much if not all of those deductibles in return for the company covering premiums. Confused? Terrified? That’s the American style system. It is an absolute nightmare.”

Farage has made it clear on multiple occasions that he’s not seeking the US healthcare model. He prefers the French one.

While there may be legitimate criticisms of Reform (and every party) it does not help to create false positions and then lambast them for ‘holding’ those positions. Because when it’s made clear that they’ve never suggested what the critics are saying they suggest, the critics are the e ones who look stupid.

Funnily enough the French healthcare system is itself moving to an American model.
Here are some examples:

What's also worth looking at is how different the healthcare system is now compared to 30-40 years ago, right here in France.

When people say we had the best healthcare system in the world (or close to it), that's not an exaggeration.

Since then, access to care has gotten worse. It's become incredibly hard to find a general practitioner who's taking new patients, many hospitals have either closed down or lost resources, seeing specialists has become difficult, the quality and amount of reimbursements have decreased... we're increasingly moving towards an American-style system, based on private insurance for reimbursements, so that the wealthy can afford care that's become inaccessible to others.

Healthcare workers are mistreated and underpaid, seeing their working conditions deteriorate and commercial logic taking precedence over patient care.

We're selling off our pharmaceutical companies, which, in any case, have largely outsourced their production, leading to constant shortages...

No, the French healthcare system isn't doing well. And more importantly, it's not getting better. And this is due to political decisions, which didn't start under Macron, of course, but certainly haven't changed since. We know what these political decisions are: they're the same ones implemented every time politicians try to destroy a public system in order to privatize it so their friends can make a killing off the backs of the French people: first make the system unworkable through absurd decisions and budget cuts, so that people have no choice but to turn to the private sector, then they can say that the public system doesn't work properly and needs to be shut down.
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In Toulouse, access to healthcare is getting more and more complicated. The doctor you were lucky enough to see 3 months ago has disappeared, others aren't taking new patients, and the only ones available in under 2 weeks barely take the time to see you. For specialists (if they even agree to see you), you're looking at 6 months, unless you go to big groups where the consultation results are variable.
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The French system is in decline, it's a fact. It's not a lack of awareness, it's quite the opposite: the awareness of knowing what we had—the best healthcare system in the world (at least top 3) in the early 2000s—versus what we have now: a shortage of care throughout the country and chilling stories of patient care every month in the press, with bottlenecks and deaths in emergency rooms, and in parallel, unacceptable working conditions for caregivers.

Everyone I know in the hospital system tells me the same thing: it's not "going to collapse," it is collapsing.

Our political elites have methodically destroyed, for 25 years, the finest legacy of the post-war era: Social Security and equal access to healthcare.

Yes you’re right @EasternStandard - Australia is suffering from many of the same issues as the U.K. - high col, incredibly high house prices are the main issues. But what I will say is that our general infrastructure does seem to work. Healthcare is good, accessible, free for those with low means and still a reasonable price for people who can contribute.
Schools are pretty good.
We have some things like compulsory superannuation (pension basically) which firstly employers contribute 12% of your salary towards and you can also add to. State pension is means tested.
We do have a high benefits bill for various disabilities but even though we have a labour govt they have said “it’s too high, it can’t continue we are doing something about it” and basically people have gone “yeah fair enough, it would be nice to have everything we want but clearly the country can’t afford that”

It was similar with borders. There was bilateral support and general public support because the seas around here are treacherous and whole boats would be swept over and people would die and the govt said “this cannot continue” and made some very strict rules. We treated illegal immigrants quite harshly (putting them on Christmas Island in detention centres) but it did mean the boats almost stopped overnight. The govt made it very clear - if you come here illegally you will never be allowed to stay legally.

We do still take a lot of asylum seekers but they have to go through the process fairly.

I think part of the problem with U.K. Labour is that they still seem like a party of student politics, rather than pragmatists who see that compromises are needed. They seem to hate that they need the involvement of the middle and upper classes but the politics of tax tax tax have never worked well before and it’s no different now.

Has he explained how the UK will move to a French system and how Reform will fund it?

I wouldn’t know. I just know that he recognises the NHS is broken and unsustainable. So wants to move to a European (French) style (not US) system.

So if people want to critique it, do so on the basis of what he actually wants to bring in. And be prepared to admit that we can’t afford our current approach. Then we might get somewhere.

Now, it may be that the French system is also flawed (see PP above - not read in detail be clearly there’s a good debate to be had) - but then, in a civilised discussion, sane people who actually wanted to fix things rather than engage in sound bite point scoring would turn to looking at the German approach, the Irish, the Polish, etc to find a reasonable solution.

But the British don’t do that. I guess for many it would require too much engagement. But it would help if the strawmen could be burned so we’re all talking about reality.

Yes it’s very student politics.

It’s interesting that a lot of what you list would be decried as too right wing here - the asylum system and strict border control, pensions, a different healthcare model, tax rebates or actual subsidies for private education and health insurance (if that is still done), small charge on medical stuff.

You can read posts on here how that sort of stuff goes down. Plus you have a court system that is your own, the EU is struggling with the ECHR rn and looking for change.

What do you mean IF. The PM and Chancellor are totally out of their depth it would be a miracle if they got anything right.

France is as bad and Germany is in a mess too in terms of government competence, although it doesn't have the same soaring level of debt. At the last US presidential election the choice was between a senile old man and a maniac.

Is it globalism? The WEF? The shadowy elites who get together and decide how the world should be run? Who knows? But not a single government these days seems able or willing to run the country they govern for the benefit of the citizens who actually live in it, they are all too busy trying to save the world - or control it.

@EasternStandard youre completely right - both our political parties are very centrist. So although we have Labour now, there’s a broad consensus on things like borders which compared to the U.K. is very right wing. Even things like expecting people to pretty much look after themselves is more right than left.
When we have changes in govt there is never all that much of a change. Tinkering but no wholesale change.

Healthcare and schools are only good if you live in the right postcodes.
For many people in UK, neither is good.

Saying the infrastructure works well is a misnomer if it's postcode dependent.

I live in NE and our schools have worst outcomes in England and I have no access to NHS dentists around me. I can't even get a doctors appointment.

Sorry @twistyizzy i was referring to things that worked well in Australia.

@ApathyCentral

Now, it may be that the French system is also flawed (see PP above - not read in detail be clearly there’s a good debate to be had)

As a user of the French system I'd slightly caution what's in some of that pp especially as one story claims to describes the situation somewhere very adjacent to us and I've not heard of it being that bad.

There's no doubt the French system is under a lot of pressure, is creaking and is not as good as perhaps as it was but just as in the UK there are those here with an interest in painting the situation as perhaps being worse than it really is...

Could you get a Dr or dentist appointment around 2007 out of interest?

Er...have you forgotten who was leading the country before Starmer ?

I lived in a different county so it's not comparable

We were actually starting to grow the economy, "green shoots" and all that, before Reeves got power. All she's done in the last year has damaged the economy with a series of utterly stupid mistakes. Labour would have been better just "steadying the ship" and not making any big changes. After all it's exactly what Brown did in his first term - basically left things alone and growth continued, then in his second term, he made lots of changes and the shit hit the fan. Reeves' NIC hike was fundamentally stupid, illogical and was obviously going to harm growth, employment, etc - a fool could see it, but she's obviously not even as bright/capable as a fool!

Anyway, back to the thread, Labour WILL be out of power for a generation now anyway as the damage has been done. Reeves has no ability/ideas to turn it around.

Everyone very quickly forgets that brexit guided by the Tories left a 40 billion quid a year hole in public finances and that hold has to be filled.

But nobody is allowed to mention that.