Is anyone better off since Labour

[Luckymum20]

I am not just talking financially but feeling optimistic about the future for children, old age.

With the £22 billion debt now pasing £50 billion.

The increase in Council tax (that they said the wouldn't do). OAPs raid on pensions and no Winter fuel relief. Changes to finance regarding care homes. Utilities up. TV licence up. Food costs up...

I know minimum wage has increased but all costs have increased by a greater amount!

In 2021 minimum wage was almost 30% lower than it is now...

So I ask. Is anyone actually feeling better off, optimistic and pleased with this Government.

Also the October budget of likely to bring more stains on the 'average working man"

YABU - change will happen. It a good thing.

YANBU - not good

Tv license goes up annually.

CT goes up annually.

WFA was mainly reversed.

Food inflation has always existed but inflation has gone down overall.

Government are not responsible to council tax but our Tory council were told they couldn’t raise it as much as they tried.

Im not on NMW.

I feel better off because of things like sure start centres being re started and asylum cases actually being processed and people removed if they have no right to remain. Better than the political point the Tory’s set up by putting them in hotels instead of processing the claims and then complaining about the cost.

Im not Labour supporter (I’ve swung vote Labour, LD and Tory) my whole life but I certainly feel we have people who actually want to make positive change in charge right now rather than people who can only spout 3 word soundbites.

Smash the Gangs?

That's a 3 word soundbite

Labour tanking the economy, that impacts us all

https://www.investmentweek.co.uk/news-analysis/4516105/uk-gilts-truss-ousting-levels-reeves-speculative-market-marred-decisions-former-government

You're questioning why the government doesn't just wave a magic wand and emulate what private schools offer across the state system? Really?

They are asking why Labiur aren't improving state schools. Its a fair Q.
If you make all state schools across the UK good enough then most people wouldn't use independent schools.
Instead they choose to destroy 1 sector without improving the other one.

But do you understand that if more people were paying for private education, the state would have more resources for state school education?

No they don't. They just buy into "tax the poshos" school of thought.

Tbf to Labour they have historically been more committed to raising standards of the state education system than Conservatives. We've yet to see it in this parliament but it is early days. It's extremely naive to think our state system can offer anything like the small class sizes of the private system.

Well
I have two DC with disabilities,one is signed of sick permanently through the doctors and social services.he will never live independently.
So I was so relieved the labour back benches stopped the cuts to benefits.
My youngest DC is also exactly the same ,but not claiming as younger .
I've also two ,in full time work doing very well for themselves.
It's such a massive worry that another government will get in and make the cuts to benefits that labour nearly did

I’m not keen on that slogan either!

Bit I’m glad to see that KS has put in a deal with France after years of fart arsing since Brexit. Also a deal with Iraq for returns too.

The Rwanda deal cost £700m for what would be 200 people processed there.

That article doesn’t give enough detail IMO. The markets lost faith after Truss budget hit we haven’t seen the same with inflation currently. It’s not just all about 1 thing but as much as so don’t agree with all Labours policies or decisions and think their comms suck - I do feel like they are actually doing rather than just saying.

But it’s been a year so I’ll reserve full judgement at next GE when I decide who to vote in - it won’t be Reform and after the latest Tory party it won’t be them either. The pool is narrowing!

I've seen what some of the selective state schools in London are like...it is not impossible for the select few who can afford to live there and get the same education free but it is a complete postcode lottery largely based on being a millionaire who can afford to tutor heavily.

You still haven't told me how you find the £4B to educate all the children leaving independent schoola if all those schools cosed. Or how them all closing would enable better funding of state schools. Or what your educational work is that gives you the right to critique mine.
Or why you support the taxing of children's education. Or why you support taxing of SEND support.

But this is why we have a two tier education system which is failing many in society. Education for all needs to be properly funded through more tax. If all children are better educated and better able to provide a positive contribution to society it will be better for all of us in the long term.

yea it is a pipe dream but because no one wants to pay for a better society- everyone thinks they pay too much tax (even though most people are very comfortable whether they acknowledge it or not)

I don’t want to pay tax that is wasted and hate seeing people (rich and poor) taking advantage of the system, but we have to at least get the debt down to make any difference. But no one wants to pay for it, and that’s why we end up with blaming immigrants for all the problems in society rather than austerity

That's a good point about the progress of AI. So many jobs will become obsolete and and we're only just at the beginning.

You know the VAT isn't going on state schools though? So it's closing schools and displacing children and putting more pressure on state for no benefit to state schools?
This policy just makes independent schools MORE elitist and widens the gap.

Yes was it David Cameron who proudly boasted about one of his children being in the state system. He would be there nodding along when talking to concerned parent about the difficulties their children's state school were dealing with. It turned out his child was at the most exclusive state primary school in the country where only millionaires could get anywhere near!

Yep same as Starmer.

Inflation has not gone down overall. It was 2% when Labour took office. It's now 3.8%.

I don't feel as optimistic now as I did at the time of the Election. I believed Starmer and Labour when they said they would Smash the Gangs. Of course they haven't in 12 months, that was not real. Very worrying that they do not even have a policy to do anything about slowing down the rate of immigration, not a plan at all. They have nothing to say to us. Don't tell me about "one in and one out" and the French LOL.
The tax raid on farmers and similar small businesses was a mistake it will not help growth and the VAT on private education was vindictive. The politics of envy. Well supported here on MN with cries of we can't afford it so why should they!
The new Rights for Workers is already making employers reduce their businesses when the ambition was for GROWTH. Remember the speeches by Two Tier Kier and photographs of half the cabinet in hard hat and hi-vis one place or another.
I don't see a plan. I certainly don't see a plan to get Labour through the next GE unscarred.

But you’re looking at this through a personal lens. That’s why we’re in this situation now - everyone else wanting someone else to take the hit to their benefits of or to pay more tax, never themselves.

The cuts proposed by Starmer were so mild in comparison to what will need to be done when the IMF are called in - why were you opposed to them? Because you don’t see the need to make spend less, or because someone else’s benefits need to be cut instead?

You do realise they will have to be cut at some point? The welfare budget is totally unsustainable and the system will collapse, and then no one will benefit. I wish more people understood the gravity of what we’re facing.

@Thortour

I fear how stupid the electorate is and the massive amount of money going in to discrediting Labour in the press and social media.
I genuinely believe there has been a concerted effort to infiltrate Mumsnet with anti Labour posters.

I'm not even a Labour supporter any more but I can see how true this is. Starmer's arse had barely hit the seat at No.10 before this site erupted into a chorus of righteous outrage at how he'd failed to instantly solve all the problems that the Tories had spent 14 years creating.

Then of course, the idea of raising any tax, from anywhere, to help solve them will be like "AHHH SEE! LABOUR TAX AND SPEND! LABOUR TAX AND SPEND!"

I have no sympathy for Starmer because he deliberately and consciously got voted in on the lie that our problems could be solved without changing anything significant or structural. So now he can suffer the consequences of that lie.

But the dishonesty of the right in setting up the electorate for Reform in 2029 is so transparent it's ludicrous. They could at least have waited until the government had had time to do anything, suffered some failures and become a reasonable target of criticism.

Unfortunately I fear you're right about the stupidity of the electorate and it will likely work. By 2029 the dominant narrative will have Labour, and the "woke left" more generally, responsible for everything that has gone wrong over the previous two decades and a complete erasure of the role of those who were actually in power for most of that time. Especially with the right wing alternative having rebranded from Tory to Reform, so people can be convinced they're not just voting for the "old right", but rather doing something radical and sticking it to the man . . . by voting for a party ruled entirely by one multimillionaire banker to destroy public services, decimate workers' rights and turbo-charge inequality.

We are definitely better off, my OH finally got the pay rise that Tories had been trying to get out of. He had no pay rise for 3 years whilst CoL had risen massively, all because Tories were trying to break them.

No pay rise whatsoever? Really?

Break what?

What do you mean by ‘OAPs raid on pensions’?

If you are a pensioner and unlucky enough NOT to die before 6 April 2027, any unused cash in your private pension pot after that date will in future be included in your Inheritance Tax calculation.

What it means is that, when taking account of house prices, the estate of virtually every pensioner who owns property will face an IHT bill.

It's a change that Labour has kept very quiet about for obvious reasons.

Why waste time we don’t have apportioning blame?

At the 11th hour with the clock ticking down, we don’t really have the luxury of quibbling over who’s at fault. It wastes precious time we don’t have and doesn’t solve the problems. That’s where we need to direct our focus and energy. We spend so much time arguing over whose fault it is and none in discussing solutions!

Many people were perfectly aware Starmer wasn’t going to fix anything. He couldn’t even if he wanted to - look at the recent welfare tax revolts. But we desperately need to make drastic changes and very few in the political class have the will or courage to do what’s needed.