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.

The huge profits made by the energy companies are taxed, and I believe the intention was to increase that tax to pay for the WFP.

I think Starmer and Reeves have earmarked that for the trade unions' next pay rises.

Why didn't your disabled adult son receive the allowance? Did he not get the cold weather payment either?

I did. It was a lot more than the £200 people are talking about. Now, of course, the disabled have to be at rock bottom to claim it.

@llizzie what’s your issue with trade unions ? Why is collective bargaining a bad thing ? Fighting for decent working conditions etc ? Can never understand why working class people would dislike unions..

There was no money issue. If there was a black hole - and the week before they used that term there was news from scientists about research of black holes on the TV several times, and the labour party locked onto that word and used it - why would they now be talking about spending 22billion? How could they pay the doctors 22%, and the train drivers?

Starmer knew from the treasury all the time he was leader. There is no black hole. Anyone who believes that will believe anything. He won't be screaming black hole for long when he starts his nationalisation programme.

Disabled people under pension age don't get the winter fuel payment and never have.

You are getting confused with the cold weather payment, which is paid to people on means tested benefits only.

My DH has been on DLA/PIP and contribution based ESA for years and has never had a cold weather payment, because those benefits are non means tested.

You may be thinking of the two Cost of Living payments that were made to people on disabilty benefits.

Please do not ridicule me when you obviously do not know the facts.

If disabled people were in receipt of DLA before it was changed to PIP they continue to receive the DLA for the rest of their lives.

DLA is increased each year. Mine does, and I don't think I am an exception. You can also apply for an increase in the rate when your disabilities get worse. There is a top limit though.

Last year I received the WFP and the CWP and cost of living payment. It was considerably more than the £200 this government is giving to the very poor.

I have never had means tested benefits.

Are you a pensioner?

If disabled people were in receipt of DLA before it was changed to PIP they continue to receive the DLA for the rest of their lives

This is simply not true. Only people who were 60 or 65 ( can't remember which) are eligible to stay on DLA*. Everyone else has been or will be transferred eventually to PIP.

*Eta just checked. Only people born before 9 April 1948 can stay on DLA.

www.citizensadvice.org.uk/benefits/sick-or-disabled-people-and-carers/pip/before-claiming/if-you-get-dla/#:~:text=For%20everyone%20else%20aged%2016,'indefinite'%20award%20for%20DLA.

I haven't ridiculed you btw.

I don’t know about black holes in other areas of public sector spending but there is certainly a black hole in education spending.

For example the school estate is estimated by the national audit office to require £5.3 billion in annual funding to bring up to a safe standard. Spending under the Tories was only a fraction of this, the school rebuilding program was cancelled, and after 14 years of neglect we now have some schools that are too dangerous to enter. So there’s a hole in funding that needs filling https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/condition-of-school-buildings.pdf

Then you’ve got special needs funding for councils. “ in the number of EHCPs meant local authorities were projected to spend £12bn a year on Send support by 2026, compared with £4bn in 2015.” https://amp.theguardian.com/education/2024/oct/08/special-educational-needs-funding-england-schools-send

So there’s two areas which desperately need billions in extra funding which needs to be found from somewhere.

I’m sure there are critical failures in other areas I know less about - prison building springs to mind.

Claiming there’s no black hole in public finances just smells of bullshit to me.

@PandoraSox is correct. My son receives PIP and is currently in his final year at university. Last year he was working part time.

He became disabled after age 18 and is not eligible for any means tested benefits, so no cold weather payment. I don't blame you for not understanding this, the system is ridiculously complex.

Your daft ‘latched onto the phrase’ nonsense makes this a bit silly. It’s an established idiom for these sort of situations, nothing to do with science news using the phrase. And the OBR confirmed there was spending made and committed which they had no knowledge of.
As for strikes, there’s a cost to not settling, and it’s massive. The pay rises were in line with independent pay review body recommendations in most cases.

Well we must hope that this wonderful labour government will be able to put everything to rights, won't we?

We will all be equal - equally poor.

The cold weather payment was not means tested.

You are not listening to us. The cold weather payment is payable to those on means tested benefits ONLY and always has been:

Eligibility
You may get Cold Weather Payments if you’re getting:

Pension Credit
Income Support
income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA)
income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)
Universal Credit
Support for Mortgage Interest

https://www.gov.uk/cold-weather-payment

https://www.ageuk.org.uk/information-advice/money-legal/benefits-entitlements/cold-weather-payment/

For the avoidance of all doubt here is the cold weather payment legislation, originally introduced in 1988

www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1988/1724

None so deaf as those who do not wish to hear.

Because the rise in NI was meant to be used for things that it then couldn't be, because the Tories used it to pay for electioneering tax cuts for the wealthy before the election. Who do you think pays for pensions and WFA? Working people, who have been hammered for 14 years while pensioners have been protected. If they have a pay rise that stops doctors upping and leaving for Australia, then fair enough. Pensioners will get an enormous bonus in April due to the triple lock, due to the 11% inflation rate we all had to suffer through.

I have to leave this stupidity. I don't like where you are sending this thread, because none of your post makes sense.

What working people have been ''hammered'' for 14 years? In what ways were they 'hammered'' for 14 years.

How have pensioners been ''protected''? Do you really think that 2.5% rise in pension was more than any worker in any other profession/factory got less than that? Protection means guaranteed, not that it was more than anyone else. The pensioners have 2.5 rise and the doctors 22%.and train drivers 14% backdated over three years 2022 - 2025. In 2024-25 their salary will be £69,000.

What sort of protection have pensioners, when the WFP has been taken away and given to train drivers? Was that done so that the train drivers would accept their pay rise knowing it came from pensioners?

And there will be more strikes from junior doctors, and the nurses have rejected their offer.

Already trade unions are preparing for more demands. Starmer promised change, didn't say what he would change before the election. How can people be so stupid as to vote for someone who doesn't say what he will do?

Starmer promised one thing in his manifesto: that he would speed up the illegal immigration processing. If there had been a faster way to process illegal immigrants, don't you think the last government would have done that? Starmer certainly sped up the process, didn't he? He just let them ALL IN. Now they have no winter fuel worries. Those illegal immigrants, the majority of them undesirables (and my best carers are from abroad, so don't tell me I am against immigrants, I am not, just the illegal ones), who are housed in hotels, with 3 squares, no council tax, no energy bills, and £50(all but £1?) a week pocket money creating a cost of £4m a day and £4 billion a year. In the less than 100 days in power 5,000 immigrants came illegally by boat up to August - a month!

They are able to have benefits denied pensioners who miss the pension credit by £3. Illegal immigrants have been virtually welcomed with open arms - without guns at the moment, but who knows? The death toll this year has been more than any other.

What was it about Keir Starmer that made people vote labour? What did those of you who voted for him see in his manifesto?

After these short weeks of complete unnecessary wounding and dividing the population, what are you hoping for in the budget, or have you fallen for the old chestnut that you will have to ''tighten your belts'' '' bite the bullet'', and all those things which politicians have been telling the electorate from as long ago as Queen Victoria when they haven't a clue what to do?

Starmer, a week in power is telling us he had no idea there was such a large black hole, and that everyone will have to pay dearly to restore the Treasury to full working order before they can expect the pennies from heaven he hopes eventually they will have.

The local elections next year will be a revelation to look forward to.

What working people have been ''hammered'' for 14 years? In what ways were they 'hammered'' for 14 years.

Public sector worker - you know, unimportant people like doctors, nurses, teachers, having had over a decade of below inflation pay rises which are therefore pay cuts.

Disabled people who are in work but who rely on top up benefits.

Those working people, the ones you are unable to imagine because lack of empathy stunts the imagination.

How have pensioners been ''protected''?

Pensioners have been protected by the triple lock. This means pensioners get 2.5% only if inflation is below this. By contrast, working people in the public sector had years of pay rises capped at 1% when inflation was above this. Because inflation was so high last year, pensioners will be getting a whopping rise next April. Contrast this with nurses, who have got 5.5% after a decade of having their pay effectively cut - since 2010, pensioners have not had an effective pay cut once.

Train drivers have not been given pensioner money. Read up on how the economy works. You are making yourself sound uneducated.

Illegal immigrants (that is, people who have no valid claim to being here) do not get housing or benefits. Someone coming here in a small boat to claim asylum is an asylum seeker. It is not illegal to come here in a small boat to claim asylum - international law is very clear on that. You may wish it to be otherwise, but that is the law.

Your rhetoric on migration is straight out of the Reform playbook, which makes me very suspicious of your motivations, and you clearly do not understand the numbers. There's a link here which does not support your contentions: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53699511

I hope you spend your time away from this thread reading up on politics, economics and the legalities of international migration.

I assume that as you listen to bible readings at night, you are a Christian?

I do wonder what Jesus would think of some of your views?

In that report the French seem to blame us for our "loosely monitored job market" so may be we need to change that and have ID cards introduced.

I'm Dutch. ID cards wouldn't bother me at all, as long as they weren't the intrusive version that contributed to the demise of the last Labour government. And as long as they were physical ID cards.

I am.

I’d say the French have reason for this claim but Germany have ID cards and the same issue as here

Well, that is up for debate.