To wonder what could Starmer do, to turn things around?

[B0xes]

He was elected on fewer votes than Corbyn with very lukewarm support, the Tories lost that election, Labour did not sweep in on a tide of public approval, they just benefitted from peoples anger at the Conservatives. Since then, Starmers approval rating has tanked. He seems to have gone from one ill judged move to the next and seems totally tone deaf in speeches. Can he turn it around? What would he need to do?

@Alwaystired94

"and again, voting for parties for policies that aren't funded is a stupid idea. Whether thats Reform or any other party. "

I fully agree with you and it's not only stupid but damaging to the economy, future generations and interest rates.

But that said most voters fall for it and it gets candidates elected!

Resign

they agreed to the recommendations for public sector pay awards. this was needed unfortunately due to years of this not being done.

@taxguru

"We need to tax the people who are the richest and give benefits to those who are the poorest. Simples."

Except taxation is already at its highest since 1948.

Increasing taxation halts economic growth and if you means test the state pension then you reduce the incentive to save for a private pension.
Again the left really need to look at the secondary impacts of their ideas or simply stop doing ideas.

There are so many people out there and on here, who begrudge people who have paid taxes for 40 years or more, some sort of comfortable existence in their old age. Its a return to Victorian era thinking.

Or we could have equality between the age groups, where an OAP on £50k pays the same taxes as a 25 year old worker? Instead we have pensioners who pay less taxes on the same income levels AND get state benefits (pension) on top! How is that fair? We need to start looking after and incentivising our younger people, i.e. today and tomorrow's workers rather than forever shafting them more and more, otherwise the "workers" will beggar off abroad and our economy will further deteriorate, not to mention, pensioners will struggle having fewer and fewer workers to look after them and pay for them. We're rapidly approaching the end-game of the pensioner ponzi scheme.

@Thegoatliesdownonbroadway

"There are so many people out there and on here, who begrudge people who have paid taxes for 40 years or more, some sort of comfortable existence in their old age. It's a return to Victorian era thinking."

Well life expectancy in 1948 was 66 for men and 77 for women whereas today it is 79 for men and 83 for women.

The current pension scheme represents a transfer of taxation from the younger generation to the older generation with the older generation having more wealth than the younger generation.

It's hardly fair is it especially when there is no way that the level of benefits that today's pensioners receive will be available to the younger generation when they retire.

Very convenient for them. It saves them a drubbing. I suspect a number of those would go LibDem or hung.

It’s only recently that pensions have been dubbed “benefits”. Start means testing and the link with qualifying years of NI contributions will have to be removed. Anyway it would be electoral suicide, particularly for the party with the oldest voter base.

@BIossomtoes

"Very convenient for them. It saves them a drubbing. I suspect a number of those would go LibDem or hung."

Actually on current polling a lot of them would go to Reform which neither the Tories or Labour want.

LibDems are struggling a bit poll wise.

I think it might be a good thing if Reform took control of a council or two. Let's test how well they run things.

But I think they have little chance of winning overall control of any council in reality.

Completely agree. I’d love to see a couple of Reform councils, it would finish them off for good.

He needs to start representing the working classes - not big business and those on benefits. He doesn't need to spend more he needs to stop the exploitation of the public sector by big business. Get academy chains and private exam boards for example out of schools. Stop private drug developers being able to slightly alter a cheap drug, patent it and sell it back to the NHS at a huge cost. There are far too many snouts in the trough!

I remember my great aunt and all her cronies, in the 1970s, all in their 80s. I think life expectancy if you make it through childhood has always been in the 70 to 80 range. What has changed is a huge reduction in childhood mortality. Which is great, particularly since we need more young people.

I think they need to get rid of national insurance and increase taxes across the board to make up for it. There's no sense in landlords / pensioners/ anyone else who gets their income from non-work means paying less.
Cancel free prescriptions and in fact all OAP benefits except (other than pensions) for those not on low incomes. Then that money needs to be invested in social care. If we could clear the hospitals of people who have no medical reasons to be there then we could stop people from dying in corridors, or while waiting for an ambulance that never comes (because it's stuck outside a and e and can't offload it's patient because there are no beds as they're taken up by people with social care needs)

This is very true. My mum was one of seven, born 1906 to 1918. Five of them were over 90 and two over 100 when they died. Her grandfather was born in 1851 and died aged 93.

The young aren't young forever. They will be the old one day. Perhaps we can scrap the old age pension and the old can charge the young to use the infrastructure which the old have built.

@Thegoatliesdownonbroadway I don't really understand your thinking here. You think the elderly should be the one group who are exempt from having to help fund the changes needed? Why?

Cancel free prescriptions and in fact all OAP benefits except (other than pensions) for those not on low incomes

But all that costs money to administer. Simetimes it is cheaper to have blanket benefits. For example, in Scotland and Wales there are no prescription charges for anyone at all.

Millions of pensioners pay income tax. I don't know why people think they don't.

By freezing to death for the common good?

Yes of course they do @PandoraSox as they should if their income is over the threshold but they don't pay NI. And they get lots of funded benefits that plenty don't need.

Ridiculous comment. Theres a pretty wide margin between paying their fair share (like every other group is expected to) and "freezing to death for the common good"

You look at the data already held in various Gov.uk databases and base your eligibility criteria on information that's already known. Far better and easier than creating a new criteria that's going to need a building full of pen pushers to administer.

Hence why I suggested using the higher rate tax threshold £50k or the £100k threshold where the personal allowance is tapered away. Then you can use the HMRC database to determine who is eligible and who isn't, as HMRC already have that information - they need it to charge H/R tax on people with income over £50k and to remove the personal allowance for those with incomes over £100k.

Don't re invent the wheel, work with what they've already got.

I can kind of understand why Labour removed the WFA for those not on pension credit as it's very easy to administer as they can link it to the pension credit database with minimal administration. Of course, there's extra admins needed to deal with the influx of new claimants who never previously claimed pension credit despite being eligible, hey ho! Win some, lose some!

But they don't pay NIC, which is just another tax. I agree with others than NIC needs to be scrapped and income tax increased instead to level the playing field a bit.