First 100 days

[Iwishicouldflyhigh]

whoever you voted for, what are your thoughts after the First 100 Days?
I didn’t vote for Labour, but I was quite excited in their first few weeks as Keir got his head down and I was excited fir change.

Now I just feel deflated. Same old….freebiegate, nitpicking, infighting. A bit depressing really.

i don’t even think there was a decent alternative really….and that’s even more depressing!!!!!

I'm unsurprised by their performance so far. Arse covering and inconsistency. Just proves we have a woefully inadequate political class that are in it for themselves rather than us, the electorate. They have no idea how to generate wealth - which is what this country needs. But none of our politicians seem to know how to do this as very few of them have actually worked in commerce. This is not particular to Labour. I'm just surprised that people thought they might.

The most egregious tax rate is the £100k-125k band. Introduced in 2009, and the threshold unchanged. A marginal tax rate of 62%. So for every £1 you earn in this band, you take home 38p.

It has been an unmitigated disaster.

I rather suspect that Reeves will fudge a manifesto pledge or two on 30th.

That should make things interesting.

I hope for your sake you can afford to heat your home this winter. There are many pensioners like my mum who have small saving pots from a house sale 15k, she rents and that's gone up massively and this savings pot will run out eventually.

She was the generation of women who stayed home did part time jobs later in life, shafted by society, she lives alone my dad died 4 years ago and had severe mental health issues so never made a decent living.

She is holding onto her savings as she is petrified that her landlord won't accept her when she has to switch to benefits.

So that extra fuel allowance really made a difference. Every single person is living under unique circumstances so be kind. Unlike labour who are heartless twats.

Plenty of money for the unionised public sector though.

No doubt the public sector will create a huge fuss if they can't take their full tax free pension lump sum they were expecting, they are the ones likely to have that amount of pension.

They attacked the policy of removing it from everybody. That was the Tory suggestion.

Why do you hate nurses?

No, they didn’t. That’s just wrong. They railed against the Tories supposedly planning to cut the allowance for “some” OAPs. See this tweet - from the Labour shadow who then removed the WFA as soon as he was in office!

https://x.com/darrenpjones/status/1726503349036748968

Of course the Tories didn’t cut WFA at all.

Interesting pensioners are now bearing the brunt under Labour

Not so many of them are likely to have a large enough pension for it to affect them, unless they get paid an awful lot more than they say they do. Does it only matter when it affects public sector?

As I understood it, that was the suggestion. Certainly Labour’s impact assessment was based on all pensioners losing it. The Tories didn’t do it, no, but I think t( knowledge of a coming election probably explained that.
As I’ve said (repeatedly) I do agree the cut off is too low.

Pensioners bearing the brunt? Because of one isolated policy which takes a pretty small amount of money from some pretty rich pensioners? And yes, I’m aware they aren’t all rich, and yes, the cut off is too low. But to say ‘pensioners are bearing the brunt’ is utter nonsense.

If we have a cold winter, be prepared for some pretty tough headlines.

A number of old folk live alone, with limited social contact, and they are invariably the last to complain of hardship.

It’s a vindictive policy, which, will raise the square root of FA, when all is said and done.

It’ll save the money that would have been issued. It’s not a ‘raising’ measure. Like I said, I think the threshold is too low, but the very vulnerable are still getting it. Many, many more won’t miss it. But some action for the few affected would be nice. It’s not ‘pensioners bearing the brunt’. It’s a small group of pensioners being disadvantaged, and lots of other vulnerable people are similarly disadvantaged in other ways. Maybe the budget will address matters.

That’s the wording from the tweet, let that Labour MP know you object to his phrase.

Interesting to see it’s Labour after all who have done it after using those words.

Whoever said it, it’s nonsense when addressing this one policy in isolation. Why so tribal?
UK pensions are low compared to many other places, the triple lock is important and the cut off for WFA is too low. However, the last 14 years have eroded standard of living for many groups. Pensioners aren’t bearing the brunt because of this one policy.

It’s very, very difficult not to draw the conclusion that Labour are only targeting their non-core voters for extra taxation.

’Wealthy pensioners’
’PS parents’
Landlords (a hangover admittedly)
Investors/savers

And yet, the unionised public sector….

Call me cynical.

So the Labour MP was speaking nonsense?

Ok good to know.

As I said let him know you object to the wording.

My view is the same as Age UK. Labour have got this wrong due to the hardship it will cause for 2.5m pensioners

It will exacerbate conditions and increase falls too.

I’ve read that four times and don’t understand. Does what matter?

Train guards will receive a £300 bonus for working a five-day week as part of a new deal signed off by the Transport Secretary.

Ah, so that’s where the WFA has gone.

Right, got it…

All in all - I think they have done a good job. Settling the public sector disputes is a huge bonus & the start of getting the NHS viable again
WFA being means tested is surely fair, except some gradation just above the poorest or a reintroduction if there was a harsh winter would have helped with the messaging.
Initiating laws to protect workers & stop dumping sewage in rivers etc - all v.good
Not worried about hospitality to football or Taylor Swift concerts but balked at the designer suits & glasses & was appalled at a 3 month stint for his son in an 18m penthouse (Declared at 0.45% yield - yeah right!)
Still appalled at removing our ECHR articles 2 & 14 by applying VAT to education - & the clear discrimination this will have on SEND kids which will likely also breach UK law on age & disability discrimination.
...and could do with being a bit more upbeat although clearly they are laying the blame on the Tories for their upcoming harsh budget
...and just relieved to get the toxic Tories out, - Tax fraud, non declaration of assets, economic incompetency, culture wars, racism, shit-show brexit, sex pests, lying to queen (or everyone basically) partygate, destruction of all public services, illegal prorogueing of parliament, blaming refugees etc etc - they should never get anywhere near power ever again

There’s a lot to unpack in your post, as they say.
I’m not confident that you can justifiably pin all
of it on the Tories however.

What I can say is, 5000+ days with Brexit and a global pandemic, versus 100+ days so far.

I might be inclined to keep your powder dry.

Unpick all you want but it's hard not to pin the failed (& inhumane) Rwanda plan, Jenryk's cash for favours, PPE Medro (£200k), £370k to settle Priti Patel's bullying claim (not to mention Raab), Liz Truss 37 days to crash sterling & £60billion pension fund liabilities, 15k on BJ's Mustique holiday, £24k wedding reception, 90k on food & gifts £200k on wallpaper after Theresa May left it like a "crack den", Zahawhi sacked for non declaration of 4.5m?, Jeremy Hunt not sacked after he "forgot" he owned 7 flats, Tractorgate, ...I could go on & on & on ..but difficult not to pin the whole shit-show entirely on Tories....but Keir had a beer & he went to watch Arsenal err ok