To ask what you expect from Labour when/if they win the election?

[Welovecrumpets]

Just curious. I’ll be voting for them reluctantly but I’m not really sure what can or will be done about the state of the country. It seems we’re skint so they’ll just have to tinker around the edges.

Higher taxes seems like the easy no-brainer solution to get more public funds to improve services. But it isn't that simple.

Look at how many women who operate on a fine balance of the benefit of work, relative to the cost of childcare and the difficulty of balancing work and life responsibilities, for whom an increase in tax may be the tipping point to withdrawing their labour completely.

And those who continue to work as they approach retirement and decide to pull the trigger early because more is raked by the government.

People with desirable skills, our police, healthcare workers and teachers, who are often poached from Australia, etc look at their increased tax burden and decide it isn't worth it.

How about those people who are consequently disincentivised from taking promotions or growing their business because it's more tax and trouble than it's worth?

It may seem like a moral imperative to increase tax on those who earn more but it has to actually work, not just make you feel like it's working.

Well said.

Only at the start just after they took over from the Tories. 12hr waits were almost unheard of for most of it. If they did happen it was usually during peak flu season which was a couple of weeks in Dec/Jan when we had winter pressures not 52weeks of the year pressures.

I can only hope you're right, frankentall, but didn't suggest Corbyn himself would be made PM ... just that Starmer may be seen as an "acceptable face" to enough voters to avoid the "anyone but Corbyn" situation happening again

And BTW I agree about a seeming element of "Stockholm Syndrome" among those who appear reluctant to acknowledge what the Tories have done; I just don't personally believe that Labour are capable of doing better, which is why I'm another left with nobody to vote for

Edited to add the Rwanda scheme isn't pointless at all; just look at how much the Tories' lawyer friends will be making out of it

Its almost as though some haven't noticed that the main theme detectable in the results is GTTO.
Oddly parties that apparently don't know what a woman is, seem to have done rather well yesterday.

So, despite claiming to be a low tax party, the Tories are presiding over the highest taxes since the war. But none of it's their fault - they ARE a low tax party but they have had to put up taxes because......er.........some bigger boys made them do it and then ran away.

Well it's the Thatcher legacy - never own any decisions, never say sorry for anything and it's only ever a crime or a bad thing if you get caught. Makes sense.

😂😂Poster hasn't named anyone so how could it be libel? "I'd like to sue you for libel - I am a thief so I assume the remark applied to me ....only it's libel....."

I think you best have a lie down.

Fine as long as the tax increase IS on those who earn more. The tax thread needs to be raised to £20k, and tax increased for those who earn over, say, 60k. At the moment those with a state pension and a small occupational pension have a chunk taken out of the latter, and if the threshold remains unchanged until 2028, pensioners on lower incomes will suffer.

We have seven million more people in the country since then and the population age pyramid looked less top heavy.

I criticised the spending during Covid and energy support I remember this site being very pro the spending, I reckon some cross over still there with the same posters.

Did you support that spending?

What did people expect? Of course we’d see it in taxes

And yes Labour can tax more, pp asking for it they may see it

I know it's a very low bar and not very aspirational but it's extremely hard to see how an incoming Labour government could be worse. I mean just not following policies that direct taxes straight to their mates who syphon it all off to offshore tax havens would be start surely?

No. It. Isn’t.
Stop with this nonsense. I’m in Wales. It’s fine. And where it isn’t it’s more to do with Tory cuts than how the Senedd spend the remainder.

I agree with this because there is no more money. Not unless taxes get raised even more. The only policy I can find of Labour getting more money are VAT on school fees and the money from Non Dom's has already been grabbed by Hunt for his NI cuts so that money is gone now, been spent. Last time Labour were in power there was a booming economy compared to now.

Right, well then that's your decision isn't it - just don't expect any sympathy from anyone about being "poor" when you have admitted to being a high earner but are choosing to live in central London!

Yet Labour haven't said that they will significantly increase funding for anything.
Reeves is ex-Bank of England with tunnel vision of balancing the books and that's it.

This exactly! Everyone was very happy to get their furlough and free Covid tests and vaccines, but seem shocked that at some point, it's all got to be paid for!

It's a ridiculous over simplification to say we're paying for covid supoprt. The alternative to it would have been a serious risk of civil unrest or even more covid deaths by leaving people with no source of income or forced to mingle and spread the virus - as usual the free market works fine until something like covid intervenes. Already extremely rich people actually got richer during Covid - but of course it's us ordinary folk who need to pay for it all, just like we had to pay for banking crisis. WIth any luck the tide is turning as people realise that austerity and high taxes under this Tory government are part of a long term ideology to take from the poor and give to the rich.

Yep. Anyone saying it was too much got it in spades

Relentless demand for direct payment or whatever

No economic reality then and I doubt now either.

Angela Rayner cannot be sacked without the consent of Labour members, we voted for her. Obviously people don't like a "gobby" northern woman and a working class woman at that. Bloody snobs the lot of them.

As you can see from comment above, they still defend the spending "'cos Covid". Clueless.

@Marjoriefrobisher Odd you didn't mention this while you were claiming to be terrified about potential libel actions

So I think the clue for the strugglers was in the use of the term « identifiable individuals» wasn’t it?
you can criticise the government perfectly well without making silly, intemperate, unsubstantiated accusations. So why not do it?

People want better services but not higher taxes. If you look at countries that have better services, they often have much higher taxation, you can’t have everything.
I will be happy if they give workers more rights and get rid of zero hours contracts. Worker’s rights seem to have really been eroded. When I started work it was very rare for a company not to offer sick pay, now it is quite common. I think sick pay should be a basic right.
I am surprised at a lot of answers on this thread, are there a lot of tories posting?

Of course there is money

Do you think Thames Water would be in the state it is if shareholders hadn't taken the profit out.

Do you not think Children's Services would benefit from the £300 million a year profit made by private providers ?

It's all about choices

@cardibach really? I'm in Wales and see Labour wasting money on stupid vanity projects such as the airport, the farm for the Greenman festival, the M4 relief road that they scrapped, £2million for WiFi in A&E plus getting over £150 million taken back because they didn't spend it but spent the whole financial year bleating about being underfunded from Westminster. Then there's the £30 million on the 20mph scheme that they are now backtracking on.