Labour isn't working - Thread 22

[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
www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5448743-labour-isnt-working-thread-21?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

Hard agree.

Gosh guys you move fast. I need to read back and catch up. I made it to the gym this morning at 7.30am. I never do that! Had quite a productive day work wise. Feel done for now though and can't stop yawning. Can't believe we're on page 18 of this thread already!

‘Earlier this year, Ms Siddiq resigned from her ministerial job in the Treasury following an investigation by the Prime Minister’s ethics adviser into her links to Ms Hasina’s regime, which was overthrown last year.
She came under scrutiny over her use of properties in London linked to her aunt’s allies.

Although Sir Laurie Magnus concluded that Ms Siddiq had not breached the Ministerial Code, he advised Sir Keir Starmer to reconsider her responsibilities.
Ms Siddiq chose to resign, saying she had become “a distraction” from the Government’s agenda.’

So Keir Starmers ethics advisor told Starmer he really should ‘reconsider’ her responsibilities. He wouldn’t have done that if Siddiq was clean. That doesn’t mean she’s guilty in the Bangladeshi case - however it does help one believe that she’s not particularly ethical.

Shes denied it all. Shocker.

https://www.irishnews.com/news/uk/labour-mp-tulip-siddiq-says-corruption-verdict-against-her-flawed-and-farcical-HYOJQZXXQRP5VIUJYLEVCM6HS4/

Peston also saying he felt he was misled…it looks like they’ll hang on til May but I can’t see how they could ever recover this.

To repeat what I said up thread, she did not receive anything even vaguely resembling a fair trial in Bangladesh. The Bangladeshi courts are known for being corrupt, politically influenced and lacking in due process, notwithstanding the fact that their constitution is supposed to guarantee the right to a fair trial. In this case, the lawyer Siddiq instructed to represent her was placed under house arrest and faced threats to his daughter. Siddiq alleges that she was not allowed to know the charges or the evidence against her. I don't know whether that is true, but it appears to be consistent with the experiences of others in the Bangladeshi courts.

I have no idea whether Siddiq is innocent or guilty, but I wouldn't condemn anyone on the basis of a verdict of the Bangladeshi courts.

The Labour party rarely removes its leader.

Blair and Brown were both destabilised by Cabinet resignations, but Blair remained as leader for another year and Brown did not go until he lost the 2010 election. Jeremy Corbyn is the only leader who has faced a formal challenge. This came after Leave won the Brexit referendum. He survived the challenge comfortably.

It may be that things are changing and Labour will vote out a leader, but I wouldn't hold your breath. And I don't see any sign of Starmer choosing to stand down.

Agreed

But she also did not attend her trial. The courts might be corrupt, but she did not follow the procedure.

I don't know about Bangladesh, but here the judges always issue a warning that the defendant must attend their trial, otherwise their barrister might withdraw and the trial will proceed in their absence with no legal representation and they wont be able to put to the jury their account of what had happened. She didn't attend.

Some very high profile barristers, including Dominic Grieve, have expressed concerns.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/25/uk-lawyers-condemn-bangladesh-trial-london-labour-mp-tulip-siddiq

Just catching up

Interesting to see others have expressed concern

I don't claim to be knowledgeable about Bangladeshi courts! However, when the previous prime minister was sentenced to death - since commuted - I found myself wondering how legitimate their systems are

i've actually been wondering that since the charges were first brought but it's hard enough keeping up with our own politics!

So I can't say I want to condemn Tulip on the basis of what has allegedly happened.

agree, it's not at all a party political issue. Doesn't matter who it is, I would be questioning the validity of all of it.

I can't imagine it would have been safe for her to attend her trial?

Failure to attend trial is an offence in and of itself in the UK, but the defendant is still entitled to representation even if they do not attend. Their barrister will only withdraw if they have not been adequately instructed. And, given the state of the courts in Bangladesh, no-one in their right mind who has been accused of an offence should attend their trial, particularly if the charge is a political one, as was the case here.

So how will we know what happened? No one knows.

Is she guilty or isn't she? Was it all a fabrication? Will she return to the cabinet?

The only known fact is that she chose not to attend.

Or maybe she felt she was unable to attend, and as you say no one in their right mind would do so.

But she's still in limbo here.

It doesn't help Labour and Starmer.

@ChardonnaysBeastlyCat "Is she guilty or isn't she? Was it all a fabrication? Will she return to the cabinet"

I wouldn't be surprised if it was a fabrication based on the fact that she was a British politician. Being a politician might have just made her an easy target.

The thing about never knowing, this is honestly what worries me about the state of Britain at the moment. Many countries are so deep in corruption, it feels like the citizens don't really know what's going on

my ancestors come from that kind of country - arguably better now but who really knows?

I don't know how you ever get rid of that kind of corruption once it's been embedded.

I'm afraid, even if she has done nothing wrong, I don't think she should be able to participate in UK politics. Certainly no question of being in the Cabinet. But she also had issues prior to this - something about a nuclear power deal IIRC.

Maybe there's always been more corruption going on in UK politics than we will ever know. My mum thinks it's currently the worst it's ever been but I don't know how much of that is down to having more knowledge.

I'm not really sure what kind of information was available if you had questions about government and transparency in the 60s for example. And obviously she didn't grow up with a 24/7 window into what was happening, like what she has access to now.

like me, she also feels that Boris Johnson brought a sense of general chaos to everything. he couldn't be bothered with the actual mechanics of making the country work well

I feel like we saw some of that with him being London mayor.

Perhaps Sunak did some work on stopping that chaos, but I had pretty much tuned out by then.

actually typing all that makes me wonder why I tuned back in!

Everybody is obviously innocent until proven guilty and this is certainly the case of her as well.

And it seems she would be risking too much if she'd tried to clear her name in court there. It's an impossible choice because it does leave her in limbo.

Sorry, I mean chose not to attend because it wasn't safe, so clearly it wasn't really a choice but necessity, because she had no choice if she wanted to be safe.

I agree with your mum @emeraldroulette that the UK has slipped into normalised corruption within the last 20 years, and it's a huge loss. A lack of trust brings an enormous cost - and I agree that you can never get it back once it's gone.

We're certainly seeing it with this government, with the deceit towards the electorate and corruption in their own business. I do think this government are the worst ever. I think that it's because the Conservatives viewpoint is pragmatic but fundamentally decent. Labour people don't seem to really get it, so with no compass of their own - and mistakenly thinking "they do it, why shouldn't I?" - they breach important boundaries.

Look at the difference between Jeremy Hunt and Angela Rayner's stamp duty woes - which Labour voters don't see any difference between, but which are fundamentally on different sides of the boundary:

1.Jeremy Hunt bought 7 flats in a single transaction in 2018, which meant the transaction was treated as a commercial purchase, which had lower stamp duty rates than residential property purchases and was exempt from the higher rate for additional homes.

Now I'm sure that Hunt knew about the SDLT rules, and the lower SDLT due was a factor in him buying 7 flats instead of say 5.

But that's within the law, and how it's meant to work! It was effectively a business rather than residential transaction, and that's exactly why that rule was added - to encourage people to act in a certain way. The only way he could have paid more stamp duty would be to artificially buy in 2 separate transactions, or else buy a different number of flats - which would be ludicrous. No one is required to arrange their affairs to deliberately make themselves liable for maximum tax.

2.Angela Rayner sold her share of the family home to her under-18 year old son's Trust, and continued to live in it part-time in a 'nesting' arrangement. If she had sought advice on whether that house counted for the 2nd house SDLT rule, she would have been told it still did. In addition, despite (erroneously) claiming that the house shouldn't count as hers for SDLT, she claimed it as her main residence to avoid council tax on her London grace-and-favour flat. A schrodinger house!

Hunt took advantage of subtleties which were intentionally designed into the law - no moral issues with that - whereas Rayner seems to me to have been deceitful in order to avoid the intention of taxes which other people have to pay. That's fundamentally different.

And then politicians of both sides have encouraged the loss of personal responsibility and honesty towards others in society in everyone. It started with Gordon Brown's tax credits, then there seems to have been a much reduced focus on catching tax evasion - which seems to have been on the Conservatives' watch . And now people have practically been encouraged out of work and onto Welfare - and even onto benefit fraud ("everyone else is claiming, you might as well") with ballooning benefits and cliff edge disincentives to work.

It almost seems deliberate.

And it's a huge, huge loss.

Despite mn threads still being pro Labour the polling is dire for them post budget

In a big blow for Sir Keir Starmer, Labour are now less trusted than Liz Truss - who oversaw the mini-budget - on the economy.

The poll found 57% think the chancellor broke Labour's election promises, while 13% think she did not

And more.

Very pleased to see this. The majority of the British public haven't been fooled by their lies. Their comms are still shambolic.

Lammy adamant jury trials shouldn’t go in 2020. Now this. Really sad it’s happening.

this is also a madness. The figures are just staggering. But who is going to do anything about it - certainly not Labour.

Britain’s gold-plated public sector pensions bill has now passed £200,000 per household, analysis reveals.
State workers have built up £5.8 trillion in inflation-linked retirements, up from £4.9 trillion in 2023-24, projections from Neil Record, former Bank of England economist, show.
This has increased the debt to £203,000 for every UK household, up from £173,000 last year.
It comes after Chancellor Rachel Reeves launched a £4.7bn salary sacrifice raid on workers’ pension pots, but left core public sector pensions unscathed.

The thing about breaking manifesto pledges is that I’m not actually bothered by it! I’m realistic enough to understand that circumstances change - pandemics, wars, etc.

That said, if you are going to be daft enough to keep jumping up and down saying “We will stick to our manifesto!” don’t be surprised when people make a deal about it when you (inevitably) do.

I'm not that bothered either about breaking manifesto pledges that were manifestly (see what I did there) ridiculous. No tax rises to hit hard working people? Then they bluster and wriggle and put VAT on fees (I venture to suggest that many parents of indy school students are working people) ; so called 'Mansion tax' - ditto ' tax on savings - again ; increased taxes on dividends.

It's the deceit of it all that angers me.

@strawberrybubblegum it's interesting that you feel that way as well

I can't help thinking that politicians simply got away with more in the past. Tony Blair has said that the FOI act is his biggest regret. That's quite an admission, I gasped when I heard him say that. Although this business with the OBR has got some other politics behind it.

About the state providing more and more, perhaps I am naive but I genuinely thought that would have started out of concern and then wasn't supervised properly. Also, I think the Tories want to get away from the very old imagery, like Norman Tebbit comments about getting on the bike and to work and Theresa May kept on talking about their reputation as the nasty party, as if I was still a teenager. I found that surprising because I see it as being so long ago but I guess it takes a really really long time for political parties to shake off an old image.

And if you mention any kind of reform of the welfare state, my mum goes into a panic and I have to remind her that the word is reform, not remove. But she remembers terrible poverty in a much more visceral way than I do. One of her 80 something friends was telling me that he gets cross with people talking about better days in the past, because life is so much better now. And I totally appreciate that they are talking about times when I didn't even exist so they have a much deeper well of experience on which they can draw.

It does feel as if we're dealing with massive complicated problems and no party has the will to sit down and unravel it in a sensible and kind way.