To think that with over 1million pensioners in poverty, removing the WFA makes Labour the nasty party, who tell blatant lies?

[TealTraybake]

And hypocritical lies at that. Just a few months ago Labour ‘vowed to be the party for pensioners’

‘Nearly 1 million people aged over 66 in the UK are living in deprivation, according to government statistics, the highest number since comparable records began.
Labour, which analysed figures from Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) records, has vowed to be the party for pensioners, with plans to insulate millions of homes and reduce energy bills. It has also “committed to retaining” the triple lock which guarantees annual rises to the state pension’

I understand the WFA should be means tested - but the current threshold is far too low. Food prices have gone up. Energy prices have gone up. Some pensioners need that WFA 🥺.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/16/nearly-1m-uk-pensioners-deprivation-official-figures

The country wont go bust, I don't think, but the price of understanding what it costs to dodge that speeding bullet is likely to be painful, IMO.

Teachers and NHS have do have secure work and, sorry to say it, few of you have contributed enough, or taken any risks to build a business and create new employment

First of all it's not true that such work is secure.

Secondly, the nurses help get the workers back on their feet to help businesses turn profit and teachers educate the workers.

The WFA needed means testing out of the hands of wealthy pensioners. Tying it to pension credit, which supports the very poorest doesn’t do that. Instead it punishes those just above the threshold who are just as much in need. It’s lazy and lacking in critical thinking on the part of the chancellor and on this showing I’m dreading what’s coming in October.

Whopping pay rises to train drivers and junior doctors, and if the interview I heard this afternoon with a spokesman for the BMA is anything to go by, if they don’t get what they want going forward, they will strike anyway. Labourare dressing up austerity as ‘fixing the foundations. It’s bollocks. They are wolves in sheep’s clothing. The Tories were shower of shit but they didn’t pretend to be anything else.

In all honesty, it's not nurses and teachers who deliver a population... it's parents. This is MN, it's about parenting.

Yes I heard the BMA statement. Labour have removed a law to make it easier to strike, promised growth without knowing they can do it and have people expecting above inflation rises each year.

They seem to be setting themselves a trap, and us too.

I haven’t made read much about the train drivers so won’t comment on that but agree with doctor pay rises.

The challenge (for any political party), is having a healthy population and effective transport both encourage economic growth. So on the one hand it’s plausible to argue they’re just giving in to every demand. On the other there’s a case we don’t get out of this stand off and poor economic growth without it.

Definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and hoping for a different outcome and all that.

The BMA are absolute lunatics these days. Many Medics are leaving them, they don’t represent them anymore. For example extreme trans ideology has taken hold there, as it has in all unions. One would think that a profession based on biological fact would escape the carefully polished claws of extreme trans lunacy. But it has not. Starmer has enabled the unions to unleash. Not good.

Doctors study for many years and should earn well, for the responsibilities they shoulder. No problem with that at all. I am just not convinced that doctors should be the pinnacle of society.

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/sep/07/bma-cass-report-gender-identity-services

few of you have contributed enough, or taken any risks to build a business and create new employment.

We’ve contributed just as much as someone in the private sector on the same salary. And nobody who’s an employee has taken risks to build a business and create new employment. Most public sector employees in backroom functions could have earned more.

I think thats a brilliant achievement

And the Conservatives are on the record in Hansard prior to the crash calling for more deregulation of the bank, so would have done worse on this.

I respect people who have built up businesses with their own money and who treat their staff well. But let's not pretend the majority are like that.

Last I looked, banks and mortgage lenders were private businesses. As indeed are hedge funds. I repeat: it wasn't NHS staff, teachers, police or even train drivers who caused the 2008 crash.

But let's not pretend the majority are like that.

Have you ever worked in the private sector? Or only public sector

And the manner in which the WFA has been means tested signals that, as with the Tories, the ‘understanding’ of that cost will continue to fall on those least able to afford it. Same shit. Different party colours. For ‘fixing the foundations’ read ‘more austerity til the pips squeak’.

I have worked in a SME and been treated like dirt, thanks. Promised bonuses, met the criteria, then denied said bonus. Expected to work well over contracted hours for little more than NMW at the time. Zero flexibility for staff, but 100% flexibility demanded from staff.

I have friends who are in the private sector and it's clear that my experience was not at all unusual.

Fingers crossed @Rosscameasdoody !

One of the main issues for me is the type of person who becomes an MP these days. Once upon a time, most had done other work before entering politics. Too many now do the PPE degree, prior to becoming researchers and then SPADs, where they nurture their contacts until a safe seat becomes available. On the Tory benches, there are far too many financiers. They know everything about the political hussle, and too little about how ordinary people get a living.

Here in the rural SW, the public sector is mostly education, medicine or military with a leavening of police and justice, plus a rather large prison. The rest of us work in leisure and hospitality, retail, care or trades, agriculture and horticulture.

There's a lot of self-employment, increasingly including high intellect freelance type of creative tech work that can work globally and live anywhere with decent broadband.

Who would have thought the leader of the Labour Party, would be a Sir? Height of hypocrisy right there. The irony. He’s fcking over low (but not that extra £3 low) income old people, women (those 2 demographics for sure), disabled (pledge abandoned), self employed, land lords, many homeowners, people that have saved for their old age, and who knows who is next. I await the budget with dread.

We know we need money but not this way Starmer. Not this way. What he’s done to date, unforgivable and more to come.

I've only worked for SMEs and this does not hold in my experience

I respect people who have built up businesses with their own money and who treat their staff well. But let's not pretend the majority are like that.

Then again you put forward a case for the public sector for being better than sometimes described on here.

I’ve worked in the public and private sectors. Many years in both. Without doubt the public sector is an unimaginable black hole of disappearing tax payers money. Every single day. It’s actually shocking.

Tone deaf. What Is wrong with Sir??

https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2024/sep/18/keir-starmer-100000-in-tickets-and-gifts-more-than-any-other-recent-party-leader

Not unusual at all. I worked for a private PR consultancy as an accountant director for a couple of years and it was my experience too. I left because I was expected to manage staff in a way that I felt to be unfair. Obviously I took a pay cut to return to the public sector.

Maybe he needs to chat with Dave M or Alistair, see how to do his job properly.

@TealTraybake Keir Starmer got his knighthood on merit, unlike very many people recently elevated to the Lords by Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. Aren't you upset about that at all? If not, the hypocrisy is yours.

All of them are awards from a bygone time. They need to be overhauled and renamed. No one of any genuine substance or morals, would accept such a thing.

Knight Commander of the British Empire. Is he having a laugh?

No no Keir you’re meant to be a Socialist!!! Not just down the posh pub in North London or amongst your comrades - but as leader of the Labour Party.

Still more Hypocrisy. What can we do.

Please don’t try and defend the indefensible.

Actually not on merit, he got it just because of the job he held. It mattered not whether he was good, bad or indifferent at the job. He was always going to get it. What he didn't need to do, knowing he had ambitions to 'lead' the labour party was accept it.