Defence Secretary John Healey resigns and calls out Rachel Reeves

[Fillies4DeclanRice]

John Healey has become the latest government minister to resign, basically saying he cannot do the job of keeping the UK safe because Labour's economic model is in such a mess.

His resignation letter effectively says the government needs to spend far less on welfare benefits and net zero, and start taxing less and spending more on defence.

This is total chaos now.

As long as we have a tax system that punishes income hard over wealth we are going to have some generational conflicts.

And we won’t have a productive economy

Gutted, John was my line manager when we both worked in the TUC press office. Such a shame, he is a great guy.

And quite, today’s pensioners were - believe it or not - young and working and paying tax which contributed to the pensions of the pensioners of the day.

Some did but not all. And the vast majority haven’t paid in enough vs what they take out. It’s why demographics matter, I’m not sure why you are struggling with that?

There are now more over 60s than under 25s, just think about it…

This in spades.
I respect Healey for what he has done ; he has acted on principles and it’s a shame that there aren’t more like him. Same also to Al Carns.

I'm certainly no Labour voter but I have to respect the integrity and principles of Healey. In a world where all politicians are dismissed as crooks and liars, it's good to see that there are still some decent honest politicians.

The downside of course is that decent honest politicians don't last long.

100% it's a sad indictment of them all

Well now you mention it, why on earth are taxpayers coughing up for free childcare for people earning nearly £100,000?
Take that away and maybe pensioners on less than £12,000 would be slightly more sympathetic.

Not only that - anyone really can access the free childcare. They don't need to be working. So can eg. sit at home watching Netflix after putting their kid/s into the childcare that tax paying mugs other people are paying for.

Isn't it only 15 hours if not working, and then for the benefit of the child rather than the parents? More like playschool when I was a kid to help kids be ready for school.

Nursery actually does not benefit children other than the most deprived. Parents should get their children school ready (toilet training, being able to use cutlery etc)

Over a million pensioners with incomes over £60,000.

Approx 77,000 pensioners with incomes over £100,000

So a lot more than "a few thousand".

An an aside, there are approx a million workers earning over £60k who either opted not to claim child benefit or liable to repay it. So basically the same number of pensioners with incomes over £1m. If it's worth doing for child benefit, then it's worth doing for state pension!

So basically taxpayers are paying people who cannot sufficiently toilet train their own children to send their kids to nursery so other people have to be paid to do it do it while simultaneously removing the 2 child benefit cap so they can have more children they can't care for effectively? The last thing deprived children need is more siblings.

Like Libdem MP, Tim Farron who was a short term leader of the Lib Dems but got hounded out due to his Christian beliefs! He's exactly the kind of political leader we need and I believe the Lib Dems could have continued to gain seats and could well be in power had he still be in post during the covid, trust, Sunak and now Starmer shambles! He's a brilliant local MP in Kendal, very hard working, etc.

Yup, you've got it!

Correct except for one bit missing..

So basically taxpayers are paying people who cannot be bothered to sufficiently toilet train their own children to send their kids to nursery so other people have to be paid to do it do it while simultaneously removing the 2 child benefit cap so they can have more children they can't care for effectively?

I didn't mean those kind of things. More socialising etc

They could also save money by banning first cousin marriage.

The problem is that the government were elected on a good manifesto more or less. The problem is that too many MPs were elected on that manifesto and then through selective hearing it just completely ignoring it have decided that they like all the social policies but don't like any of the things ( or people) who are going to pay for it. They also have wafer thin majorities and are desperate to keep their seats by keeping ( in a lot of these places) the Gaza independents at bay. That means fighting for removing the 2 child benefit cap for families who have multiple children in families with no one working, not banning cousin marriages, the terrifying Islamophobia blasphemy law ( in a country where, as you say people like Tim Farron and Kate Ford were basically hounded for being Christian) and couldn't care less about things like defence or supporting business, innovation, skills and properly funding education- just appeasing unions by increasing teacher pay but leaving schools budgets exactly the same so they have to pay the increases by sacking support staff and having fewer resources. The problem isn't just the Labour leadership but the whole Labour Party. You have to be someone with a mountain of a personality and an iron will to just keep your own party under control before you even start with the job of government .Decent people and people who are pleasers and ditherers can't do that.

I think Labour have forgotten the fundamental motto of put your own oxygen mask on first. If Britain is going to survive as a successful country do that first. Then worry about all the weak and vulnerable and the rest of the world coming here etc. It is the tail wagging the dog.
Economy first, security and defence, education, housing, health and preventative health. And the message to the population that you have to survive yourself and develop a backbone and resilience.
The luxury beliefs and liberalism is a symptom of good times, not bad ones.
The constant flailing around chasing minority political issues is completely missing the fundamental point of what matters most. It is like they lost the underling value system that holds up a Western country, basics first, then luxuries.

The most common grouping for women giving birth now is women in the managerial and professional occupations. AKA solidly middle class. Birth rates tend to go up in line with family income. So the stereotype of most large families belonging to the feckless unemployed isn't true. It's more a hangover from the sort of propaganda put about in the Victorian era. Of course you can probably find a large family full of dreadful people where noone works. They do stick out. But it is not the norm for lower income people or large families.

Basically most people, including people in low incomes are doing what they have been told they should do for decades and "not having more children than they can afford". However this has now sparked a new criticism/crisis which is selfish parents/young folks who don't want to upset their delicate life of partying etc to have kids leading to demographic collapse etc etc. I think that's doom mongering, but we do probably want people to have children and we want those children to have a good start in life. You don't have to be poor poor to restrict the number of children you have. Housing is very expensive and insecure and families can be one job loss from disaster. So even families not claiming child benefit (and working, paying taxes etc) might hesitate to have a much wanted third child because if anything DOES happen they won't be able to make the numbers add up in the 2 child system. So people aren't having as many children as they would like to have.

Again, that might not be a problem if you think the global/UK population needs to reduce. But there has been much panic over birth rates and we will need young people in 20, 30, 40 years. Replacing declining populations with immigration is now politically difficult. Labour has reduced immigration massively and there are still complaints on here that they have done nothing, we aren't being listened to etc.

Apart from that, while of course some people take the piss there is an attitude for some that everyone except them is out to take them "for a mug" and exploit them personally. Often combined with a mild glee at the thought of punishing people doing this. That isn't the way society or a functioning country works. Let alone defends itself. And today's children will be the ones defending the UK in the future so probably good they are healthy, educated and feel like their country did something for them.

For Some reason they won't do that. I just cannot think why.

@Persephonia1966 - the whole of the middle and upper classes will be benefitting from £300 billion transferred to them by the baby boomer generation.
Many people having several kids are those who know they will be getting an inheritance? So they can plan now to have kids as their retirement is going to be funded by their parents generation. It is not necessarily their income that is dictating the choice to have children but the expectation of a later buffer.

Asset managers have been going on about the massive wealth transfer and how to encourage people to invest it in growth opportunities.

The thing is Government needs to encourage people to both work and actively invest to grow the economy. Not to sit tight and just get taxed through the roof. Nor to label passive income as a negative. Passive income invested by all in the local economy and the country is a good thing. Asset wealth needs to be put to work (not sat in huge houses doing nothing).

Someone on the radio was talking about a Defence Bond to invest in. Those are the kind of things we need.

Unfortunately socialists always think of money and income and passive income as a dirty thing which obviously it is not. Making money work throughout society and investment is incredibly important.

They were a generation of their time much like you are now. The kids being born now might absolutely hate you in a few decades time simply because you could heat your home and have access to clean drinking water and free air. The temerity of you to be waking around sucking in big gulps of air when the kids of the future will be charged to do so. You absolute disgusting boomer making use of free/affordable resources.

I agree. Passive income is something I know absolutely nothing about. Compound interest? What? I had thousands just sitting in my current account doing nothing for decades. What an idiot. In five months I’ve made £600 (currently) through prudent investments and I feel like a complete tool. Passive income is incredibly important as is entrepreneurialism but of course the socialists have now thrown all those ideas to the wall and those people are now scum.

No that is not true. You've made that up.

Women in blue-collar (routine, semi-routine, and manual) occupations have the highest average number of children per woman. 1, 2, 3]

While the total volume of births in the UK can appear high in certain professional fields—simply because sectors like healthcare, corporate office administration, and education employ the vast majority of the female workforce—individual fertility rates are significantly higher among blue-collar workers. 1, 2, 3, 4]

Direct Comparison: Professional vs. Blue-Collar Fertility

Metric / Feature 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]