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?

It’s impossible. All the infrastructure has gone. It seems pretty insane to me that we now import so many things that we used to make but what do I know?

Invade France. People love a bit of jingoistic flag waving. The Falklands did wonders for Thatch

Proper change takes time and the right wing media wants us to believe Labour are awful.

Of course the media wants the Tories back, it's better for them plus they're all mates aren't they.

People with money have more influence.

I would love to see the following;

Rejoin the EU.

Bring essential public services back under Government control.

i.e. why is the government paying up to £17,500 per week to private companies to look after some of the most vulnerable children in these so called Solo Units. They should build more.

And why are local authorities paying £700 + per week for 1 elderly person in a care home on average.

All care home and fostering should be undertaken by not for profit charities. Or the government in house.

Looking after children and the elderly should not be done for profit, it's unsustainable.

There might not be much money to be made but it is about more than money. This idea that we offshore everything worked when we were either friends or part of the bigger boys gang. We're not anymore and this makes us vulnerable when we're so dependent on potentially hostile states.

Nothing is impossible.

It’s probably a good idea for a few things, off the top of my head energy and food security for example

Don’t hit the farmers with taxes though, that won’t help

OK. 🙄

I agree with this.

The things he needs to do to turn the economy around will be political suicide for him from those that voted Labour. So the choice is focus on the economy but very quickly lose political support or focus on giving voters what they want but face continued economic decline (which will lose voter support in the long run).

I agree with several posters (that will boost the economy) namely:

Reform planning rules to build more houses
Cut taxes funded through cutting spending (I would except education as it's needed to create a more productive workforce).
Biggest savings to be made by increasing the retirement age quicker but this is definitely political suicide.
Join the single market asap
Cut energy costs especially for industry which pays double the price for electricity compared to the EU average- this can be done by having the renewable subsidies paid out of general taxation rather than being put on energy bills.
Tariffs- which if you want green credentials could be linked to the CO2 output of the other countries. It's ridiculous that industries are being closed in the UK due to tax and energy costs only to reopen in more polluting countries like China. But this will increase inflation.
Council's get a proportion of the value uplift in granting planning permission for everything but especially housing.
Make sure that it doesn't pay more in benefits to be long term sick than unemployed.
Whatever you do - don't increase national debt anymore.

Most controversial reduce the population by cutting legal immigration, birth rates already below replacement etc (less people = less pressure on infrastructure, services and resources). Again this will have an inflationary consequence.

He could cure cancer and the headlines would be that he has destroyed the British pharmaceutical industry.

True! 🤣

The headlines thing is interesting, some do think he’s great if it wasn’t for that

Their policies have hit growth and that’s no good thing

Having just read the thread from the OP whose husband is going to earn over 100k I would say remove the cliff edges of benefits/childcare/tax and disincentives to earn over this.

Thar thread is full of people who earn over 100k so put more money into pensions, go part-time and do whatever is needed to ensure their taxable earnings don't breech 100k. How does that help productivity? Not to mention that these people contribute the most in terms of tax snd then are begrudge a couple of years of the childcare that most people get. (And I earn 20something K myself so no personal skin in the game(.

We should also expect parents to pay for their own kids when they can. Typically when families break up mum finds she can work a couple of days, get all her rent paid /most of her childcare and not be much worse off than she was or if she was full time. Any money from non resident parent (usually dad) "doesn't count" or affect benefits and is just extra.

If a separated parent wants to claim benefits then claiming child maintenance from non resident parent should be mandatory. This should be paid into a government account by the non resident parent and reduce the amount of top up benefits the taxpayer is paying. Non payment should be akin to non payment to HMRC. Just because you don't want to be with your partner anymore why should the tax payer take over paying for the kids? Parents who are self sufficient£jot claiming benefits can make what arrangements they like between them.

The housing crisis is an emergency and pre-fabs should be thrown up like they were after the war. The government can't afford to shell out every increasing amounts of housing benefit and a quick increase in affordable social housing could get that bill under control. There should be affordable modest options for everyone that wants and those on housing benefit.

To be fair I think that Starmer's intentions are very good and that genuinely he wants to make life and the economy better for the majority.

The biggest problem is deep economic inexperience / knowledge and the inability to see the secondary impacts of Labour policies for example the NI increase on companies is a tax on employability and not profitability of companies.

You consistently write the worst takes possible across threads. It's almost amusing.

What could KS do?
He could fuck off?

To add on headlines they also pick up and reflect back public mood. You get more clicks and profit by meeting demand

I know a fair few think he’s doing well on here but many feel differently and the media will show that

I think we need to renationalise things like rail, power and water?
Why are private business and other countries making profit from UK essential services?

Need to create more jobs, good paying jobs. Easier said than done.

Build more housing, increase supply reduce demand reduce cost.

Reconsider out of town developments, everything is out of town, traffic goes up and wonder why town and city centres are dying.

None of these things are a quick fix and the man's barely had 5mins

And be replaced by who?

Labour have a massive majority (so won't be going anywhere until 2029) and as inexperienced as Starmer is, he is a lot better than the alternatives in the Labour Party by a long way.

That would be the worst thing he could do. He's not there to be popular he's there to fix the country.

@Needspaceforlego

"I think we need to renationalise things like rail, power and water? "

And where does the money come from to pay for this?

Most controversial reduce the population by cutting legal immigration, birth rates already below replacement etc (less people = less pressure on infrastructure, services and resources). Again this will have an inflationary consequence.

OK, so the birth rate will continue to fall, and the percentage of the population who are retired will increase year on year.

Now, who’s going to do the work? Who’s going to harvest our crops, provide our medical care, provide personal care for our elderly, educate our children, collect our rubbish, clean our streets, keep our supermarkets stocked… Perhaps reducing legal immigration wasn’t such a good idea, after all.

Who's going to do the work??
The 1.2m young people who don't have jobs.

Who would win?
I'm no KS fan or labour voter but the tories were decimated in the general election not even a year ago .

This in spades