Labour isn't working - Thread 27

[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.

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He thinks he's going to be an international statesman earning big bucks I suspect.

Starmer the charmer? I doubt it. He’s more likely to talk about himself in that appalling self-satisfied way that he has, and in his irritating nasal monotone too.

He’s welcome to earn whatever speaking to people but great if it’s not at us.

Are we up to date on the mandleson could be a Russian asset ??

I’m not sure Russia needs to plant any more assets, Labour are doing a fine job of returning us to 1970s soviet inspired economic policies as it is!
the min wage, UC, benefits and public sector workers mean the state is setting a huge percentage of people’s wages, higher than ever before.

Morning, thanks to a neighbour's banging gate, I am up ridiculously early. 🙄

Some wilding differing voting intentions polled by More in Common for the Senedd elections compared to those last produced by YouGov. It's going to be interesting to see how the chips fall.

Morning. Grr at the banging gate. How annoying.

YouGov are way out with their polling now when compared to all the other pollsters. May will be fascinating.
I was in Wales last weekend. If I lived there, I would vote for the party that pledged to scrap the 20mph speed limit. Its infuriating trying to get from A to B, and I'm no speed demon.

Morning, enjoyed the sun shining yesterday but back to rain today. Labour’s social media posts get offered up to me and my goodness they are bad. The messaging is so off base, they deserve to be wrecked in any election.

They really do struggle on that.

We've got snow this morning :-(

I hear you on the SM comments. I was looking at replies to Kemi on IG. So much more positive than KS. His posts are awful.
Zia Yusuf has done well on this morning's interviews. Reform announcing their shadow cabinet on Tuesday. Yusuf expected to be home office, Jenrick chancellor.

Snow would be an almost welcome change from the interminable rain we have in the "sunny" south.

So-called rebel Labour MPs are apparently lining up John Healey, the Defence Secretary, as a replacement for KS - and IMO, he would be a better candidate than Burnham would have been.

That said, the longer KS demonstrates his ineptitude at just about every public appearance he makes, even Mr Bean would be an acceptable PM.

I was just listening to an interview with Ian King. He was asked how the markets would react if someone from the left replaced KS. He said the risk premium applied to Rayner or Milliband by the markets would be 50 bps. Thats half a percent on UK borrowing.

This is appalling behaviour from Labour. £36K to dig dirt on journalists. (Reported in The Times, but free to read on BBC).
Sources told the BBC the US public affairs firm's report included information about journalist Gabriel Pogrund's Jewish beliefs and claims about his ideological position.It also claimed, the sources said, that Pogrund's previous reporting, including on the royal family, "could be seen as destabilising to the UK and also in the interests of Russia's strategic foreign policy objectives".Pogrund is currently the Sunday Times Whitehall editor, and was named Political Journalist of the Year and News Journalist of the Year at the 2025 Press Awards.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0ljzzk62kyo

So our current national debt is £2.9 trillion, and this government have been increasing borrowing by an extra £150bn per year. But the 0.5% increase would only apply to new borrowing.

So for a start that's £750million for the brand new debt (ie extra 0.5% on £150billion - assuming a left wing government doesn't increase the borrowing even faster).

But presumably we also need to re-issue some of our debt each year, as the gilts mature. Does anyone know what percentage of our £2.9 trillion debt needs to be re-issued each year? i know that gilts vary: from a few years right up to 50 years.

Anyone know how it's split, and how much we need to re-issue each year?

If it's 10% (eg if 10 year gilts make up most of the debt) then an extra 0.5% would cost us £1.45 billion extra each year. That's in addition to the £0.76 billion on the new debt- so an extra of just over £2bn per year.

If it's 20% (eg 5 year gilts make up most of the debt), that goes up to £3.6 billion extra per year on debt interest.

Pretty sure Rayner or Milliband aren't worth that cost...

The papers are full of the news that real terms GDP per capita has fallen in the last 6 months, as well as unemployment going above that of the EU block for the first time, and youth and graduate employment particularly hard hit.

Basically, the economic consequences everyone has been warning about and the Left have pretended wouldn't happen in their redistributive, socialist utopia.

I almost wonder whether the UK needs to get the Left wing experiment properly out of it's system. If someone from the left replaces Starmer and goes "further and faster" then the consequences will be undeniable by the time the next election comes.

It will be pretty painful. But there are very difficult times coming, and a definitive move away from the left following clearly disastrous consequences to their policies might give the UK more of a chance of survival than a continuing pull in that direction. Thatcher got her mandate after left wing policies caused havoc in the 70s. Perhaps Kemi needs the same.

This is so worrying. Anyone who has dc who will be looking for a job soon should be concerned about Labour.

Yes - Labour are so stupid, that they are merely compounding some of the global meta trends right now, such as the rise of AI.

And, let’s be clear, AI is impacting recruitment and headcount, now, today. There is no question of that - I would be happy to expand.

The unemployment figures are very worrying. Up a full percentage point since Labour took office.

I can't find a % of reissued vs new borrowing. The DMO forecast for new plus reissued for 25/26 is £309 billion.

I see those on Facebook. The comments / reactions are overwhelmingly against Labour. They've lost the electorate good and proper.

It is, and I agree Labour are compounding the issue. I saw a quote in the Telegraph when the growth figures were out on how it was a good thing that companies wouldn’t do the easy thing and reach for staff, ie don’t employ someone but replace them.

Watch those my adult dc is so stressed / MH is suffering they can’t find work threads rocket. It is massively concerning.

I'm seeing in my work - AI is starting to genuinely be used and useful now, not just 'trying it out'. And not just off-the-shelf productivity tools - actual business-specific use of AI. I'm expecting this to be the year it will become very visible.

I think I'll make it to retirement OK, but I feel very unclear about how to guide my DD into her own career. It worries me a lot. The only thing that's clear to me is that 'OK/average'' absolutely won't be enough any more. Whatever our kids do, they're going to have to be outstanding at it.

I'd welcome you expanding with your own views and insight.

Ah, good find! So £1.5billion, plus £0.7 billion extra on new debt. So about £2.2b extra on servicing debt. It's a lot.

Yes, with youth unemployment of particular concern - up 1.5% YoY to almost 16%.

China stopped reporting theirs when it hit 20%….

Interesting, thanks - agree, some of the business specific AI is now accelerating in terms of its utility.

In other areas of finance, it’s resulting in the need for less people - particularly in back office - head counts are already being reduced, and recruitment frozen. In my role, I can probably do almost 50% of an equivalent role already. And the quality of the AI is really improving (I was sceptical initially).

And those who believe it will only impact white collar and not blue, are mistaken I believe - look at Musk who is not alone in pouring funding into robotics r&d.

Ocado has been using picking robots for quite a while now. Fascinating to watch. Not great if you list your job because of it.

We're outright banned from using AI at work (law firm), though not every firm has taken the same approach. It's a disciplinary offence if we use it for doing our work.

I wonder about the careers I should be advising our kids to follow as well. They're Y7 and Y8 at the moment, so potentially entering the workforce at the end of the parliament term / just after, if they get an apprenticeship rather than go to sixth form. Worrying.

Yes any suggestions welcome. Middle dc is looking at engineering, computer science or maths at university. Hard to know which if any is the better call.