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?

Agree, it has to be the no1 priority for the Govt, they say it is....... but again, it requires huge amounts of money.... the objectors to the NI rises, wont say where the money comes from, just spout DM scare headlines.

IMF upgrades UKs growth forecast to 1.6%, mainly driven by Labour additional spending on infrastructure.

Personally, I think reversing a new tax cut and being straight about it is much better optics than the feeling a lot of people have that they were hoodwinked into voting Labour and the party has gone back on the spirit of if not the literal interpretation of their promises.
No one likes to feel they've been conned.
And as for the Tories having a field day - do me a favour. Labour have spent the last 14 years carping about everything the Tories did before discovering that things are not quite as easy when you've got to actually come up with the plans not just criticise the plans of others.

That’s why removing employees NI was / is a good idea. It begins breaks the immediate link between paying NI and and entitlement to a state pension. Because if you’re not paying any NI then over time it’s easier to make the case that not everyone is entitled to a state pension, and then means-test what ever the state pensions becomes by reference to the various income tax thresholds.

An while we are at it, simplify all means testing by then linking it to the tax free personal allowance level, and if needed tiered for the various income tax rates, with entitlement to different benefits being removed / reduced as income tax band increases. Sure it’ll need some finessing, but it’d be easier than the Byzantine complexity of the current system.

Well really if we don't want the entire NHS to fall apart we basically have 2 options. Either
1 ) we fund and sort out social care
2) we kick out people from hospital as soon as they're medically ready whether or not they have a care package sorted.
If this isn't done we will continue having people die from a lack of medical care as there is nowhere to treat them due to space being used up by those with care only needs.
To be clear I'm not advocating for number 2 here. But is kicking someone out with nobody to look after them REALLY any morally less awful than having to refuse medical help to someone else? Id say it's pretty similar really.

If they had done, they may well have found themselves in opposition.... again... which is doubtless why you wish they had?

The vast majority workers haven't been affected by the NI increase, so why do they feel hoodwinked over this? in my exp, they don't.

Employment has stood up & if they get a slightly lower pay rise, it's not as if something has been taken off them.

My criticism with Labour is the WFA, that was just stupid and is something they should reverse and bring in for higher rate tax payers only.

Good news if true, but the IMF is out of step with the markets if it think that there will be 4 interest rate cuts this year. It will be positive for business and many individuals if there are however :)

My criticism with Labour is the WFA, that was just stupid and is something they should reverse and bring in for higher rate tax payers only.

That would have made it pointless. It wouldn’t have raised enough money.

My DD works in Neuro, before that she spent a few weeks on Vascular, agree totally.

Its a shambles.

She is under huge pressure to discharge clinical unfit patients to make room for new ones & shorten the waiting list.

Labour indeed didn't win, it was just that people didn't want the Tories anymore. I live in a Labour city and it's a f-g joke. Immigrants get everything but the long time x generation of this city get treated like crap. And that's coming from someone who's grandfather was an immigrant! The best thing Two Tier Kier can do is resign, he's a plague on this country.

Well, the number of immigrants in your town is not Labour's fault, is it?

Which town are you in?

In what way do think Starmer is a plague on the UK? I am not his no.1 fan, but "plague" seems harsh.

This makes sense.

@Alexandra2001

"I agree on benefits but pensions are not a "Benefit" they are not a safety net, the NIC may not be a savings scheme as such but the implication has always been that you pay your NI and in return get a pension.

You cannot suddenly just take this away...."

I agree that you cannot simply take away the state pension via means testing. Besides it will be the biggest disincentive to saving in a private pension that will mean that ultimately the it costs the state more (a secondary impact that Labour are woefully incapable of spotting).

The easier solution is to put up the state pension age quicker. One solution I saw in Denmark is that they put up the pension age by 3 months every year rather than the cliff edge changes seen in the UK.

@BIossomtoes

"My criticism with Labour is the WFA, that was just stupid and is something they should reverse and bring in for higher rate tax payers only.

That would have made it pointless. It wouldn’t have raised enough money."

The simpler solution would have been to make the WFA a taxable benefit. A lot easier to implement and with no cliff edge changes.

Maybe not the current Labour government, but Brown/Blair opened the flood gates for Eastern European immigration when they didn't impose the same kind of controls/limits that other major European economies imposed 20 years ago.

Yes it is Labour's fault. This problem was created by Tony Blair, that's well documented. When Labour were in opposition, they blocked every attempt to deal with the issue.

I'm not a Tory supporter BTW, but the left wingers in the UK & EU are destroying their respective countries with ridiculous immigration policies.

We need immigration. The Tories had 14 years to improve infrastructure and services to accommodate that fact. They failed to do so.

the left wingers in the UK & EU are destroying their respective countries with ridiculous immigration policies

Eta: So why didn't the Tories do something about this?

@Alexandra2001

"Agree, it has to be the no1 priority for the Govt, they say it is....... but again, it requires huge amounts of money.... the objectors to the NI rises, wont say where the money comes from, just spout DM scare headlines."

Social care would indeed require huge amounts of money. Personally I would have preferred it to be a charge on a person's estate when they die.

It's unfair in the taxpayer to pick up the cost of social care of an elderly person only for when they are deceased for the value of the estate to pass to say their children.

If the children don't like this then they can look after their elderly parents instead and avoid the charge.

@PandoraSox

"We need immigration. The Tories had 14 years to improve infrastructure and services to accommodate that fact. They failed to do so"

Can you tell me why we need immigration when there are 9 million economically inactive people in the UK. It is insane to pay people benefits to be economically inactive and then import labour to do the jobs instead.

The country would benefit economically, socially and environmentally from having less people in it through greatly reduced immigration and a lower than replacement birth rate.

You might be willing to write off 9 million economically inactive citizens as unemployable but I'm not.

We need highly selective immigration in the short term. In the long term whilst we have so many long term unemployed/sicknwe need to address this. Where things can be done to get long term sick back into work like metal health support that should be prioritised. We need to refocus the education system to stone people wasting thousands on shit like “gender studies” and incentivise qualifications in high need jobs/increase straight from school training in these areas.

We need to move away from being a service industry economy. We need more concentration on being a self sufficient country. The world over the next 50-100 years is going to get increasingly hostile we need to be able to be as self sufficient as possible

As I said, they tried and were blocked by Labour.

You might be willing to write off 9 million economically inactive citizens as unemployable but I'm not

9 million economically inactive does not mean 9 million unemployed!

Latest figures:

In August to October 2024, the number of people aged 16+ in employment was 33.77 million, and the employment rate for people aged 16-64 was 74.9%. Employment levels increased by around 409,000 over the last year, with the employment rate remaining at the same level.

The UK unemployment rate was 4.3%, and 1.51 million people aged 16+ were unemployed. Unemployment levels increased by around 110,000 over the last year, and the unemployment rate also increased.

9.34 million people aged 16-64 were economically inactive, and the inactivity rate was 21.7%. Both inactivity levels and the inactivity rate fell slightly in the last year.

I am (mostly) "economically inactive". I draw no unemployment benefits, nor am I registered as unemployed, nor am I looking for work. There are millions like me.

How were they blocked by Labour? The Tories had a majority.

We need to move away from being a service industry economy. We need more concentration on being a self sufficient country. The world over the next 50-100 years is going to get increasingly hostile we need to be able to be as self sufficient as possible

I absolutely agree. We need to undo the damage that Thatcher did when she destroyed all our industries. I don't know how that can be done, though.

If the children don't like this then they can look after their elderly parents instead and avoid the charge.

That’s what happens now. Social care in care homes and at home is means tested. The only thing not taken into account at home is the value of the house because you’re living in it.

Assisted dying. Just in time. Pensioners won’t starve. They’ll be euthanised.

Starmer really doesn’t give a fuck about UK citizens. He cares about aid for Ukrainian (oligachs), admitting huge numbers of illegal migrants, money for Chagossians, aid to Africa, compensation for Irish terrorists. None of this was mentioned at the election. British pensioners and workers are beneath his contempt.

The next four years are about implementing the transfer of wealth abroad, the destruction of what is left of our industrial base (oil and gas, auto-motives especially) and the ruination of our energy and food security.