Labour Isn't Working - Thread 30

[WaffleBomb]

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/5506586-labour-isnt-working-thread-29?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

@SpaceRaccoon i'd be interested in your views but this is a difficult conversation to have on here.

It really is. I've never been anti-immigration, I'm an immigrant myself, but there have been major policy changes and other shifts over the last few years in the UK and Europe, be they Boriswave immigration, the Syrian refugee crises, or just the growing numbers of asylum seekers generally.
And we have at the same time seen a rise in some fairly shocking violent and sexual crimes that would have been very rare before.

So things have shifted quite substantially, but I feel like a lot of people don't see it or don't want to see it, and therefore assume you're just being racist, when it's really not that at all.

There is also a lot of this holier than thou attitude on MN.

Lots of posters claiming to be high rate tax payers who are unhappy they pay too little tax.

Who knows,
maybe they really are. The cynic in me doubts this very much.

@ChardonnaysBeastlyCat I have provided the link to pay more tax on a couple of those threads

No response at all.

Absolutely.

@SpaceRaccoon i've recently started to speak more freely about my experience of living near one of those hotels in London

People may not like it, but my lived experience is valid. I haven't yet said it to my new friend in my current area. She's very bleeding heart but she also seems to have lived a very sheltered life

I don't know - perhaps it's sheer luck. She also moved from London. Londoners as a whole must be okay with all this, judging from their voting patterns. I suppose if it pisses you off, you just leave. But soon there won't be anywhere to go.

@SapphireCasino there's some people I can speak freely to, but I literally think I'd be ostracised by friends where I live now, probably by no coincidence an area that has been not at all affected yet, and only seen the positive side of migration to date (ie extremely low numbers!).

And I doubt myself sometimes - I wonder if I've become radicalised by X algorithms or something, or if I'm seeing things too negatively. But then I read of another gang rape, and.. I don't know. I voted for Corbyn's Labour in 2019 ffs. Maybe covid drove me mad.

Yet, when asked why they don't pay extra to HMRC, voluntarily, which is perfectly possible, always have some excuse or other. Easy to virtue signal until such facts are pointed out! 🙈🤣

I voted for Corbyn's Labour in 2019, trying to stop a hard Brexit. Haven't voted Labour again!

The LDs are my natural home, but they don't know what a woman is, so 🙄

Oddly, I’ve found myself, as a Tory, less bothered by the subject of asylum seekers than some Labour colleagues and friends. I think the answer is that as soon as Labour felt the heat over it and started to make ‘crack down’ noises some of those who support Labour believed they should fall into line.

If the Starmer replacement changes tack on asylum I’m sure the Labour faithful will revert.

It’s amusing how bendy left-wing principles can be.

Glad I'm not the only one! Not that Corbyn seemed that keen on the EU himself, but there we are. We got Boris and his wave and our hard Brexit.

Bendy, but always more virtuous than all other voters combined!

Starmer is a man of principles, don’t you know - and if you don’t like them, he has others….

@SpaceRaccoon I'm not going to hijack the thread

Just to say that I think people who aren't affected often don't believe what the problems are

I've started to realise that as I'm not white, sometimes people are more willing to listen to me without automatically going into "racist" mode - though obviously Braverman, Badenoch etc get that comment made to them a lot - I have no way of knowing what people say about me behind my back of course

I'm generally not in favour of trying to discuss politics in everyday life. But there's a few asylum seeker hotels in Essex and I know what there is to be worried about.

based on my experiences in London, which also include helping out at homeless shelters - a fair number of asylum seeker will end up at those - and you see for yourself the links between criminal gangs and asylum seekers, you hear the false promises that lured them here - you learn all sorts of things. And I realised that actually I can silently fume about the comments made about people who go on demonstrations - or I can just tell people what I know. And my experience is just one experience.

and I would only share that with people I know well, so hopefully they know I'm not a racist. Or anti immigration. We need it. But not in the way we have it now.

that's always the worry with political parties. How they do detail is so important. But you never find out what that's going to be until they are in place.

Oh, of course. Virtue is Labour’s middle name.

The occasional ’what’s wrong with socialism?’ threads on here are always a laugh. As soon as someone asks what socialism actually is the left-wing on MN start defining it by ruling out anything bad or embarrassing.

So the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics wasn’t socialist at all. Neither is the Socialist Workers Party. The Labour Party is socialist, but not Blair or Mandelson or anyone else associated with the party who’s tarnished. Higher taxes are a socialist measure, apparently, but only if spent on approved causes. Controlling public spending is definitely not socialist. Nor is the reality of policing and maintaining public order.

Left-wingery in the UK has just become a set of ‘virtuous’ fashionable views that change with the wind.

The highlight of this morning’s broadcast round was when Lewis Goodall on LBC asked Heidi Alexander why a dumb retweet made Polanski unfit to lead a political party while appointing Mandelson as US ambassador did not….

Excellent question. How did she answer?

She fudged it, naturally.

Starmer had made a mistake and apologised, that he was effectively lied to, and that he has not criticised the Met...

So predictable.

The worst personal decision - and one rushed and pushed through - that’s been made in many, many years by a PM is washed away by an apology, the sacking of a good civil servant, an appalling display of economy with the truth in the House of Commons, and arm twisting of his MPs. But a stupid retweet is worse and unforgivable.

I detest Polanski. But Starmer is something else. As are lapdog Labour ministers.

Labour are so odd about Starmer.

I can only surmise that they believe he’s the best amongst them, and/or the rest realise it’s a poisoned chalice…

Winning the 2024 GE clearly came as a surprise to them - they are still not ready to govern…

I’m don’t think they were caught unawares by winning. They knew they would win. They were caught unprepared by the difficult task of government after having settled into a game plan of shouting insults at Tories and pursuing student fantasy politics.

This is not a grown up or serious government. It’s a government of badly behaved political teenagers.

Fair.

I rephrase - they won, in part, owing to outrageous falsehoods - particularly on fiscal policy, and immigration.

No, these are not serious people - not one ounce of commercial acumen amongst them. Simply in hock to the back benches and unions.

Yes. And they promoted huge lies about the Tories. Not just political over-claims or criticisms, but massive lies about corruption and nepotism.

Modern Labour really is shit.

Modern Labour really is shit.

At least the majority of the public realise that now too. It was like shouting into a void in 2024, particularly on MN.