Time for a new PM and Chancellor?

[Whenwillitgetwarm]

I wrote this on another thread but feel it should have its own thread.

Although I voted Labour (the current Tory’s are too insane), I think it may be time to swap out Starmer and Reeves. If this is done early, there’s enough parliament time left to bed a new PM and Chancellor in.

They both lack ideas, seem confused, no vision etc. They had 14 years to think up workable plans. Coming in and throwing their hands up saying there’s no money so they can’t do anything is very poor. They want to continue austerity on the sly. They indulge in stupid culture wars like VAT to rob Peter to pay Paul (and Paul won’t see a penny anyway). They have bad advisors and are arrogant. It looks like they are just excited to have the job titles and don’t know what to do.

Get a top two who will come up with a bold plan. We’re in the gutter so there’s opportunities to deliver quick wins. They don’t always need funding, simple policy changes can make big and quick differences. If they gave each department a target to deliver one quick legislative win by Christmas, we’d start 2025 differently.

Unfortunately we’re stuck with two people who can’t believe their luck, and who are afraid of the Daily Mail, Murdoch, some loud Redwall types and bots on X who wish our country economic harm. They are weak.

If Labour were a football team, there would be fans screaming for Starmer to be sacked now.

This is not about getting rid of Labour. I believe there is talent in the wider party, much more than in the Conservatives who hollowed out their party under Johnson. Nevertheless I just don’t think Starmer and Reeves should have their roles.

I'm not sure how the trebling of tuition fees, the closure of Sure Start centres or the scrapping of the EMA helped young people either.

I think you need a much more concrete link than "there was still rationing when they were born and this may have affected their health" to justify making this particular generation untouchable. That seems tenuous at best.

@llizzie sorry. I forgot to make one final point.

The Tories introduced the flat rate State Pension in 2016.

The Pension Credit ceiling is always going to be just below the flat rate SP.

So, in the long term Pension Credit and all the associated benefits that come with it, will effectively be abolished for all but the most disabled pensioners and those who haven't paid enough NI credits because they haven't worked for long enough and haven't claimed benefits whilst not working.

I'd remove Bridget Philipson in a heartbeat for direct and significant loss of credibility. Easy replacement. Starmer however is still under review.

You might be interested in this article. People born after the war are less healthy than those born during or before it.

“Even with advances in medicine and greater public awareness about healthy living, people born since 1945 are at greater risk of chronic illness and disability than their predecessors.

“With up to a fifth of the population in high-income western nations now over 65, increasing demands for health and social care will have huge implications on government spending.”

www.theguardian.com/society/2024/oct/07/baby-boomers-living-longer-but-are-in-worse-health-than-previous-generations

Yes nurses and paramedics pay for their training!! And they work for free during placements. It’s a disgrace. I trained as a nurse and we got paid for all the hard we did during our training. Until they started this degree nonsense (everyone needed a degree to be a nurse and the lovely enrolled nurses got put in the trash can). Now they are adding an apprentice degree. Same slave labour.

@PandoraSox it's interesting isn't it but really makes me worry about the future health and longevity of children and yp today - all the UPF, refined CHO, artificial sweetners/colourings/preservatives, etc etc

The war-time generation were remarkable in so many ways

This is the point I was making about the age of pensioners being relevant.

I completely believe this. My parents lived to be 99 and 97, my dad was in great nick to the last and my mum’s health was excellent until she was 90 when she developed dementia. Even then her physical health was better than many people younger than her, it was a stroke at 95 that triggered rapid deterioration. I’m definitely less healthy than they were at my age.

Not just me, it's been identified by thousands of people.

And near their bifold doors opening onto a nicely furnished patio and garden?

No-one is begrudging them the coffee machine. They are simply suggesting that the distinct overall impression given by that advert is that the people concerned can definitely pay for their heating without a WFA.

Why is it either/or? I suspect a hefty proportion of those who contribute to food banks are Labour voters.

There were few clothes, strict rationing, The decade after the war ended was a struggle, but they bore it to be free of people like Hitler, to give us freedom, not just the military, but the civilians. We owe those civilians who kept Britain going a debt of gratitude, not facing hypothermia.

Nonsense. No-one was "bearing" that decade to be free of Hitler, he was dead, and his allies were very thoroughly defeated. Simply living through that decade did not give the rest of the country freedom. In fact, you could argue that the reverse happened given that colonialism was going strong. People kept going through the postwar decade because, well, what was the alternative? It's not as if they could have opted out other than through committing mass suicide.

I was alive for a bit of it, no-one owes me anything, thanks.

I think you'll find it's party infighting by a man who wanted her job. Nothing changes just the greedy hypocrites change colour.

I think you’ll find it was someone who was sacked because she just wasn’t very good at her job.

Absolute rubbish. If your precious Starmer and Reeves had announced that the WFP will be the last this winter and that from 2025, after debate in Parliament on whether to continue to pay the WFP, that would be at least giving the disabled notice. It will make no difference to the present Government if they had given notice, instead of wallowing in the glee of removing it for millions of pensioners and disabled people.

It isn't even just that though, is it? I know how many pages the DLA has to fill in from experience. I mentioned that in my post because the excuse Ms Reeves gives is that there are millions of people who are not claiming means tested benefits who could and they should apply for them. THEN she doesn't give them time to apply for the forms, fill them in with help from professionals, (otherwise they will not be acceptable), return them and wait for the civil servants to go through them, about 30/40 pages of applications from what Ms Reeves says is ''millions' of people 'missing out'.

If Britain had not fought back, and Hitler had won the war, he would not just have power over Europe, but he would add the British and French territories to his German territories and would NEVER have given them self rule. He would have Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, South Africa and other African countries and many more. Hitler and his Stormtroopers would have decimated the natural resources, continued to plunder their museums and works of art.

Hitler died by his own hand in 1945. He was beaten, his officers on trial, and many fled.

There are programmes on TV now which show just how the people born before and during the war suffered for years afterwards.

You could have had their diet if you thought they were healthy because of the war rationing.

Never read such a lot of rubbish before.

And the ones who make use of them.

What next? Will this gaggle of geese Government announce a great rise in the state pension to equal the personal tax allowance, so that all pensioners will pay tax and NONE will have to apply for means tested benefits. They will all be on the same pension, except, of course, those who have carefully saved for their retirement and have been employed all their lives and paid into a pension scheme.

Then the labour government will have to do something else to make everyone equal, like put extra taxes on those who have worked and saved all their lives so that EVERYONE IS EQUAL AGAIN.

Then people will see it is useless to work and save, and all will wait to be kept by the state, by which time factories will have closed, those with brilliant minds, whose parents sent them to private schools to escape the knife attacks, will take their brains and money and leave the country.

And the labour government have made it worse, because there was the tax free extra winter fuel payment.

As I said before, you think it is enough, try living on it.

I will repeat to you what I replied to someone else. One thing leads to another.

I have no doubt that they will announce a great rise in the state pension to equal the personal tax allowance, so that all pensioners will pay tax and NONE will have to apply for means tested benefits. They will all be on the same pension, except, of course, those who have carefully saved for their retirement and have been employed all their lives and paid into a pension scheme.

Then the labour government will have to do something else to make everyone equal, like put extra taxes on those who have worked and saved all their lives so that EVERYONE IS EQUAL AGAIN.

Then people will see it is useless to work and save, and all will wait to be kept by the state, by which time factories will have closed, those with brilliant minds, whose parents sent them to private schools to escape the knife attacks, will take their brains and money and leave the country.

So let's try again.

People born in 1924 were able to vote in 1945. It is not whether they were able to vote for the labour government, but when they started paying national insurance that is important.

People born before them were able to vote. They saw the attraction of a free health service and pension. People born after those of 1924 paid National Insurance, and those people thought they would have a pension when they retired. Why would they not? The prospect of paying national insurance for their future was very attractive.

The National Health Service Act and the National Assistance Act were in 1948. The school leaving age was 15 on average, but children could leave before then, at 14, to become apprentices.

That means, that the people born in the early 1930s were working and paying National Insurance in 1948. By 1953 more were working and paying National Insurance.

They were told they no longer had to pay for medical treatment, (and assumed they didn't need to save for a pension) ,so they didn't, except that the then Labour government actually embraced a two-tier system and offered private wards and private rooms.

That is why there are people who rely entirely on the state pension, and that state pension is just £3 above the limit for claiming pension credit. Those are the pensioners who will lose the help they had with paying for heat and light, and cooking, and face a very bleak winter.

Why should you worry? If you are one, or married to one, that WFP is now keeping the train drivers warm, and lit, with hot food in their bellies and £70K a year.

But people received the winter fuel payment, didn't they, and it was tax free.

When you are cooking up a lovely hot meal in a nice warm kitchen in a nice warm house, think about the pensioner with a mobile heater, a kettle, and maybe a microwave to warm the baked beans up. Baked beans are good for them, of course, all that lovely protein, and maybe they will be able to go out and buy some bread and scrape to eat with it, always supposing they can actually move their frozen body out of bed.

Crikey @llizzie you had a busy night!