To wonder if Labour actually will be any better?

[Baabaagreysheep]

I think like most people I am keen to see the back of the current bunch, but I am not confident that anything will massively change for the better. Maybe that’s a bit pessimistic, but I feel that while some things will improve some will get worse - and some sort of at the same time, so I’m expecting my salary to go up but also my workload to go up!

Thinking back to when Labour were last in power it was another world, really. Interested in views.

@Tinkerbyebye - oh & Wales. I see this as a constant comparison but it's not the same. Wales is devolved but not autonomous. Whitehall still pulls the strings. And no one anti Wales ever mentions free prescriptions, free hospital parking, lower student loans.

I think with the economy in its current state Labour won’t be able to spend much extra money. Adding more on income tax isn’t going to help - income tax is high enough already - but the non-Dom changes and things like increasing dividend tax and ensuring pensioners pay NICs will help.

But apart from these changes, any other spending increases will have to be paid for from cuts elsewhere.

I don’t think Labour will be able to make big changes but there intention would be to working towards making a fairer country and that’s no bad thing.

I don't claim to have all the answers, but we do need rid of the Tories.

They are as ideologically opposed to the NHS as they always were, they just (barely) pretend they aren't.

How people cannot see through this I don't know.

They don't. They have driven healthcare into the ground the past 13 years. They have presided over deaths of vulnerable people through universal credit.

That's enough for me to vote tactically for whoever will get them out.

We might as well give Labour a chance. At least I could get healthcare whilst they were in power. I've waited nearly a year for a first consultant appointment and I am still on the waiting list, quality of life deteriorating.

Winston Churchill was drunken racist who plagiarised piles of quotations. Getting a bit sick of his (probably not even original) nonsense being trotted out as some sort of divine gospel.

I too am unhappy about Labour’s current stance on things like Brexit and gender identity bollocks. I hope as they are very focus group reliant (as are all the main parties, I expect) that their stance may change on these things as public perception shifts. Still don’t think those stances are too terrible or important enough to stop me voting for a change in government. To me that’s the priority - get the Tories out before it’s too late.

Labour obviously aren't going to come in with a magic wand and they'll inherit such a disaster that yes, I expect there'll be plenty of opportunity to say it's no better/not better enough. Remember how we got here though.

Every time this topic comes up there is a parroting of 'but all they do is criticise' and 'they have no ideas - they're so wishy washy'.

All Labour's ideas and in many cases details of how they will be funded, are laid out clearly on their website. Just because you've not bothered to look into what's out there doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

The aim is to negotiate with the EU to "remove red tape" on imports, exports and rules of origin.

This absolutely 100% will not happen because it’s basically the central pillar of the EU’s economic model. The whole point is that joining the EU means you have access to sell your good and services to every single EU citizen without being disadvantaged by living in a different country to that citizen. If the U.K. can negotiate this then we’re basically back in the EU without paying the subscription fee. They will laugh us out of the shop as it will thoroughly undermine their entire being.

If Labour think that is remotely achievable then they’re pulling your chain and hoping you’re not bright enough to catch on.

As an ex-Labour Party Member I was impressed by the Tories willingness to spend vast sums on furlough to avoid social unrest during covid. Also the putting rough sleepers in hotels. Labour wanted us restricted and locked down for even longer. Ditto the SNP.

But they are devloved, and the devolved areas of Wales are below England in every major Metric.

Yes we have free prescriptions, but we also have a shocking road network, that had tens of millions spent on a solution to be shelved by Welsh Labour. They have also shelved many many essential road upgrades for rurtal communties, leaving them languishing.

We also are the first country in the world to introduce a 20 mph speed limit, which has been estimated to cost the econmy 5-7 billion over the coming years.
Care workers will reduce on average 5 visits per week due to the increased commutes between patients.

I know first hand, many business have moved from South East Wales, acorss the border, due to Drakefords inherent hatred of the private sector and his obsession with state owned/ controlled entities.

I live here, and I know how Welsh Labour has driven Wales into the ground.

Between 1997 and 2010 Labour was continuously in government. Here are Labour’s top 50 achievements during those years.

1. Longest period of sustained low inflation since the 60s.
2. Low mortgage rates.
3. Introduced the National Minimum Wage and raised it to £5.52.
4. Over 14,000 more police in England and Wales.
5. Cut overall crime by 32 per cent.
6. Record levels of literacy and numeracy in schools.
7. Young people achieving some of the best ever results at 14, 16, and 18.
8. Funding for every pupil in England has doubled.
9. Employment is at its highest level ever.
10. Written off up to 100 per cent of debt owed by poorest countries.
11. 85,000 more nurses.
12. 32,000 more doctors.
13. Brought back matrons to hospital wards.
14. Devolved power to the Scottish Parliament.
15. Devolved power to the Welsh Assembly.
16. Dads now get paternity leave of 2 weeks for the first time.
17. NHS Direct offering free convenient patient advice.
18. Gift aid was worth £828 million to charities last year.
19. Restored city-wide government to London.
20. Record number of students in higher education.
21. Child benefit up 26 per cent since 1997.
22. Delivered 2,200 Sure Start Children’s Centres.
23. Introduced the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
24. £200 winter fuel payment to pensioners & up to £300 for over-80s.
25. On course to exceed our Kyoto target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
26. Restored devolved government to Northern Ireland.
27. Over 36,000 more teachers in England and 274,000 more support staff and teaching assistants.
28. All full time workers now have a right to 24 days paid holiday.
29. A million pensioners lifted out of poverty.
30. 600,000 children lifted out of relative poverty.
31. Introduced child tax credit giving more money to parents.
32. Scrapped Section 28 and introduced Civil Partnerships.
33. Brought over 1 million social homes up to standard.
34. Inpatient waiting lists down by over half a million since 1997.
35. Banned fox hunting.
36. Cleanest rivers, beaches, drinking water and air since before the industrial revolution.
37. Free TV licences for over-75s.
38. Banned fur farming and the testing of cosmetics on animals.
39. Free breast cancer screening for all women aged between 50-70.
40. Free off peak local bus travel for over-60s.
41. New Deal – helped over 1.8 million people into work.
42. Over 3 million child trust funds have been started.
43. Free eye test for over 60s.
44. More than doubled the number of apprenticeships.
45. Free entry to national museums and galleries.
46. Overseas aid budget more than doubled.
47. Heart disease deaths down by 150,000 and cancer deaths down by 50,000.
48. Cut long-term youth unemployment by 75 per cent.
49. Free nursery places for every three and four-year-olds.
50. Free fruit for most four to six-year-olds at school.

What have the Tories achieved in the last 13 years?

There is no chance of "hard left Labour" in Government. Starmer is a centrist as are most of their policies. By contrast we have quite a right wing version of the Conservatives at the moment with pressure to become even more so (Braverman).
I'm more scared of the risk of a Fascist Government than I am of hard left in the current political climate. Globally we are seeing a lurch to authoritarianism/far right politics and it is terrifying

Amazing! It only took 3 pages of the thread for a PP to emerge from 1950s America. The "former East Germany" was controlled by a totalitarian dictatorship. Keir Starmer's (relatively centrist and obviously so) Labour Party hardly warrants a red scare. This is the sort of childish hysteria that alt-right media feeds its viewers and you lap it right up like nodding donkeys!

Why do world events justify what goes wrong under Labour but never under any other government?

The truth is that we’d be where we are whoever had won the last election, with or without Brexit.

Their policies are window dressing in this way

The truth is that we’d be where we are whoever had won the last election, with or without Brexit.

You cannot know that.

If Labour think that is remotely achievable then they’re pulling your chain and hoping you’re not bright enough to catch on.

Oh come on. After 13 years of the Tories pulling the chains of ignorant racists for votes? They were right to bank on them not being “bright enough to catch on”.

Labour is trying not to frighten those voters before they get into power. Nobody has been honest about Brexit, and nobody will be honest while its architects and engineers are in power.

All Starmer has to do is wait a year into his term (or more, or less, but we all know Brexit isn’t going to get any better, only worse) then explain to the electorate what a clusterflip Brexit has been and that this [whatever] is what has to be done to prevent us sinking entirely into the financial sea.

I've waited nearly a year for a first consultant appointment and I am still on the waiting list, quality of life deteriorating.

Me too, for 2 problems. But I'm in Wales, where health is an entirely devolved matter and policy, expenditure and organisation are the responsibility of Welsh Labour. I'll be waiting a good while yet, going steadily more lame snd blind.

These are some recent comparative figures. "In England, about one in 20 patients on the list have been waiting more than a year, in Wales it is nearly one in four.
In Wales, 7.9% of waits are more than two years - in England, it's just 0.04%."

Yes, there are free prescriptions, but no medication will do anything to alleviate my conditions. Well, maybe opiates for the pain, but understandably no doctor will prescribe me opiates for 2 years plus.

But he needs to be in government to do that.

What a great post. We are in the exact same position and I feel exactly the same. Me and my husband have been having serious discussions about one of us going part time, we would have less childcare bill, would be able to receive some child benefit and our lives would be less stressful. It just doesn't pay to work.

VAT on private schools will allegedly fund £1.1 for improvements to mental health service provision. Another apparently 'fully costed' plan - Rachel Reeves providing pure entertainment gold as ever.

No. The Truss disaster that completely undermined any confidence the rest of the world had in the UK economy couldn't have happened under anyone else. And they knew she would do it, she, of all of them did exactly what she said she'd do. The party let her for the benefit of a few people who go very very rich(er) as a result.

Sunak has been able to unravel some of it, but so much long lasting damage was done, just by that.

Why do you think your workload would go up under a Labour government?

The original move towards a greater emphasis on coursework and away from exams was something introduced by the Conservatives in 1988, not by Blair and the Labour Party. 🙄