To be worried about what the Labour government will do next?

[Scenicgirl]

Let's be honest, Labour has been a massive disappointment for this country, pissing off the pensioners with taking away the WFA, the farmers, NI changes which impact employers, immigration etc and today refusing compensation to the WASPI women after they ridiculed the Conservatives when they didn't commit to a solution. Don't we deserve better than this constant shit show of lies and deceptions which were clearly spouted out purely to gain power?
For the 1st time in my life, I worry about where we are heading.

They aren't making adequate provision for SEN, or any child that leaves indy for state. Many LAs (Surrey, Bucks etc) saying "sorry 0 places for in year transfers". They arrogantly assumed most parents would suck it up because they refused to engage with sector so therefore don't understand it, as evidenced by the many subsequent exemptions (although those don't go far enough).

😻

You have made the lack of competency of the previous lot relevant with your wild assertions that somehow Reeves is not qualified to be chancellor. She is. Whether she is a good one or a bad one remains to be seen but she is at least as qualified as many who have been in the job before. So you should be interested in previous tenures as it might give you some much needed perspective. Whether you like it or not, the total shit show of the last fourteen years does have a bearing on what the current government can do now and it can't be neatly put in the past just because it suits someone's politics. You can't ignore Kwarteng and Truss's 'contribution' because they crashed the economy and we are paying the price now. Nothing to do with my politics, just important facts. But hey, why let silly facts get in the way eh?

you call shafting the poorest as making ‘tough decisions’?
Is that you Rachel in Accounts?

Rachel in Accounts lied about everything; she even pretended to be a chess champion which was another lie.
These people are ruining our country and they and you make me sick.
Thank god only another 4 years of this shit show before they get shafted into oblivion.

Most politicians don’t have “qualifications”
for the ministerial jobs they do. It’s hardly worth mulling over. RR has little experience of business - that’s pretty evident. She could, however, make an effort to understand the current business climate, but she didn’t bother. It’s lazy and myopic. She should have evaluated what extra taxation on business could do to potential growth. It’s stopped it in its tracks. Business now doesn’t trust Labour. Labour have demonstrated the unionized state jobs are what matters and business that generates just about all the money is stuffed. So where she went to uni is a pointless discussion. She doesn’t understand budimess or the economy. She understands his to make a political point and please her friends.

Thank you for your useful advice regarding getting some "much needed perspective". I will endeavour to do so as you suggest of course. You argue so persuasively.

It is relevant when Daily Mail fangirls are referring to her as Rach from customer service and the likes. It is ridiculous. Whether or not she has business sense is another matter and of course it is important. But her credentials are as good as any predecessors and that's just fact.

I make you sick? ODFOD

So much misogyny in this thread.

StrindbergsSonata
You can't ignore Kwarteng and Truss's 'contribution' because they crashed the economy and we are paying the price now. Nothing to do with my politics, just important facts. But hey, why let silly facts get in the way eh?

Apart for those people who remortgaged in the month or so after the Mini-Budget, the long-term impact appears to be negligible:

NIESR
One year on, what are the longer-term impacts of the Mini-Budget?

https://niesr.ac.uk/blog/truss-kwarteng-mini-budget-one-year

Kwasi Kwarteng budget September 2022
Long-term impact 0/5

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/oct/28/tax-cuts-economy-uk-budgets-rachel-reeves

It's difficult to get a sense of where you are coming from. I appreciate you admire Rachel Reeves and are excited about the "E for economics" in her degree and her university. But she lied. And perhaps she is lying at the moment and will lie again.

She's also putting in place cold hearted policies which raise no money and which may lead to farmers commiting suicide and pensioners freezing. She doesn't seem to care. Every rightminded person should be horrified and also disappointed that Labour are now the nasty party. And yet that's the second time you have mentioned the Daily Mail like it means something and is some sort of argument in support of why Labour are doing this. You haven't provided any cogent reason why anyone should support this government or RFCS so far. You've just made rude comments about people who bother to engage with you.

If you can't understand my posts, just don't read them. You were the one who started with 'Rach from customer services' which got my back up because it smacks of misogyny and she is just as well qualified as any of the previous chancellors. You won't acknowledge that and seem to want to whitewash all the harm done by their predecessors. The jury is out for me but I'm giving Labour a chance. They are only 5 months in and they can't possibly be any worse than the Tories so they deserve a shot. The thought of Badenoch as PM makes my blood run cold. I can't be bothered responding to any more of your posts. Your viewpoint would need a few more dimensions to be of any interest to me.

She did work in customer services though as it turned out. I say that just to have the last word after you grandly swept off in a huff. Off to read the Daily Mail I expect.

StrindbergsSonata
Whether or not she has business sense is another matter and of course it is important. But her credentials are as good as any predecessors and that's just fact.

Jeremy Hunt co-founded a multimillion pound business which was sold for £30m (he owned 48%).

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/huge-increase-in-migration-returns-and-illegal-working-arrests

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8062/

www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-statistics-year-ending-march-2024/how-many-people-are-detained-or-returned

The Tory party weren’t busting a gut to process and get people removed, so it’s not difficult to surpass their efforts

Every single government does harm as well as some good. They all make mistakes. They neatly all borrow squillions to appease the population. Covid was the worst but we have a £5 trillion liability on public sector pensions so raid your kids piggy bank for that one! (Source LSE). We have unsustainable borrowing and it’s not just caused by one or two governments. It’s all of them. The only way out is growth. RR thinks you stimulate growth by taxing business and essentially not being business friendly. She has no idea because she’s wedded to outdated party socialist politics. Our children will be bearing the brunt of this.

The link shows voluntary returns going up to year end March 2024. That's the most cost effective way for the tax payer

Well Starmer the granny harmer, Rach from customer services and their lying crew seem to be getting a lot more negative comments on the Guardian from their readers, so things must be going south.

The lying B**s are going to destroy this country in the next 4.5 years and if Starmer mentions the 22 billion pound black hole again I think peoples heads will explode. Its becoming comical now every single answer to everything he says the exact same thing, he like a wooden top stuck record.

Returning to a fascinating thread.

I admit, I am always astonished by the strength and certainty of convictions posters purport to hold. My politics are much more pragmatic.

I was fairly horrified by the previous Government's behaviour especially the Truss interlude, and was relatively happy to see Labour elected in July on the grounds that they could hardly be any worse. For the record, I don't think they are worse, just poor in a different direction.

Withdrawal of WFA for me, and people like me, seemed perfectly sensible. There will probably have to be some tinkering with the income level at which it was withdrawn, but had they set it at £1 more than the £12,570 at which tax starts to be payable, then I would have found that quite reasonable.

I don't think wealthy venture capitalists buying agricultural land to dodge IHT (and I am distantly acquainted by reputation with several, because I live in an area that they like) should have been allowed to turn generational farming families against the policy out in such numbers. Thanks to the IHT shelter value of agricultural land, values have risen to such an extent that a modestly profitable farm has to have 400+ acres to achieve an income of £60k pa. If the IHT bill is £400k, payable over 10 years, that leaves the farmer with £20k of income, or rather less than 40 hours pw at NMW. Similarly with inherited businesses.

The heritability, or not, of pensions and their inclusion in estate value for IHT purposes is IMO an own goal. People need to save whatever they can for their old age because the SP is, we have been explicitly told, going to represent a smaller % of whatever you/I will have in retirement. Most people start planning in their 30s, and changing the rules every single year doesn't give anyone confidence to make long term plans. For the last nine years, the advice has been to spend your defined contribution pension savings last and cautiously; suddenly, it makes more sense to hold on to your large family home long past the time when you should have downsized for your own comfort and wellbeing, because the asset is more secure.

My view is that Labour have boxed off their options by refusing to increase any of the major taxes, and are distorting the economy's functions by doing so. An increase in the basic rate of income tax, right from £12,570 would have been quicker, clearer and far fairer.

I was talking academic credentials as it was being claimed that she wasn't a real economist with the 'Rach from customer services' jibes. She did Oxford PPE, as did Hunt et al and she also did an MSc at LSE. As I stated, business sense was another parameter entirely.However, Hunt's fucking over of the junior doctors eclipses anything else he did or didn't do in my book and speaks a lot about the character of the man.

I did not state that ‘this’ was a fake post. I stated that the initial post read like Conservative Party boilerplate, and that remains my opinion. I don’t recall anyone on the thread supporting Labour to the extent you mention. Certainly not me.

I object to cherrypicking - the many people being snarky about RR’s Oxford PPE degree, failing to mention her Conservative counterparts who share it and, more importantly, failing to mention her MSc from LSE. That’s one of the most rigorous, mathematically orientated Economics degrees in the world.

Several posters on the thread, recently including @EasternStandard and @TizerorFizz have made substantive criticism of Labour that I more than halfway agree with though think the roots of the mess were laid earlier. Whether I do agree with someone’s political ideas or not, I respect them if they are well reasoned and in the spirit of the common good.

I don’t disagree with any of that @Papyrophile.