To think few lives have improved due to Labour’s policies

[Sandysandytoes]

I knew they wouldn’t benefit me - but I thought they might help some people.

Train drivers have more money but other than that I’m struggling. I’ve lost my job as a direct result of their policies, it would be nice to find some positives.

YABU = my life had improved as a result of Labour’s policies.

YANBU = it hasn’t improved or has got worse

It's going to take a while to undo years of tory erosion of public services

I dont recieve benefits. Don't use public transport. Don't have kids. Bills are rising, i live alone. My work has removed a lot of our benefits and no pay rise as their costs have increased and they are trying to save jobs. People are taking on extra work as theres no money to hire. I applied for a promotion which is now on hold because of money. Minimum wage increase will increase cost of everything. Im very worried I won't be able to afford my house soon, the renewals that have come through so far have gone up £10 a month

Youth unemployment in the UK is now higher than anywhere else in Europe. Do they not have AI pressure too?

How will they do that while eroding the private sector?

You can see the impact on here even for business closures and job losses.

Allowing unfettered building on green space is one of the worst things they could have done. We only have so much and once it's gone, it's gone. Do they have no thought about the long term effects?

They don't even care about the displaced wildlife, or protected spaces, or the mental health of those who also benefit from them.

Tbh, apart from all the other crap, things like this stress people out, feeling that nothing is safe or sacred. Living with that ever present threat is horrible.

I think everything needs to be seen in comparison to what the conservatives ruined and what Reform would make even worse especially for women

The choice is this, you either keep what we have (had), a low wage, ticking over, economy. Where large numbers of workers are reliant on the government (tax payers) to top up wages, because a minimum wage is not a living wage.

or

You pass responsibility onto employers to pay higher wages, reduce the reliance on government (tax payers) to top up wages. Which leaves workers with more money in their pockets to stimulate an economy, and reduces the reliance on government.

The second option is painful, and takes time but is about long-termism. The first option is less painful, but leaves the economy stagnant.

You can’t raise salaries, and, cut government debt (allowing money to be invested in other parts of the public sector), whilst simultaneous keeping the Status Quo.

About 8% of land in the UK is built on, that includes public buildings and Infrastructure. There is plenty of space for more housing, but, when did you last see an application go in without a protest?

”solve the housing crisis” whilst at the same but at the same time saying “bit don’t build near me, or, on any land that isn’t currently built on” doesn’t equate.

Not all Green-Belt land is bio-diverse, and great for Wildlife .. head off to some Grouse Moors, and marvel at the almost compete lack of wildlife, and a raging monoculture.

The problem is that the housing stock we build at the moment is low quality, cheap shite (to be completely blunt). When new developments are built, they are often outsize to the settlement they're developed in. One village near me, pop. ~600 ish, had a site of 500 houses developed. That's not sustainable growth. These developments also aren't integrated properly and don't come with additional infrastructure like doctors, schools, shops, or other things you might need when you double or triple the population overnight.

We're also unbelievably inefficient at how we use our current housing stock. There are hundreds of thousands of holiday cottages. We've seen a steep fall in intergenerational living and a large rise in families living separately, creating higher demand for housing even though the number of people is the same. There is a severe lack of accessible housing for the elderly and disabled. We have so many properties sitting empty, either because they're holiday or second homes, or because they're bought up as speculative investment by overseas individuals / companies. We don't regenerate brownfield sites properly.

All of the above needs to be addressed before we keep building on farmland, in my opinion. Nothing wrong with building new houses, but the way we do it in this country is completely disordered.

You have to stay away from the tabloids and look at the bigger picture, happened to see this, the government are doing loads, since when did the Tories ever do this? Rebuilding takes time.

www.gov.uk/government/news/british-research-expertise-to-deliver-faster-cancer-diagnosis-and-cleaner-energy

The tabloids aren’t SMEs. Look on here even at the impact of Labour’s policies.

Full time minimum wage is 23800? Multiply that by 2 is sufficient if you add in child benefit and free nursery and if we had reasonable rents everywhere.

The problem is a lot of people choose to work part time and fathers are not paying for their own kids.
If you keep making these social problems the problems of private sector employers they just won’t do business here or will just stay very small and not expand. That is highly unproductive.
The streets are a mess etc, there is loads of work available to sort out the mess. People not in work should be getting hand outs if they do the work required. An organised country would be putting everyone to work.

Are you suggesting that the Government seizes ownership of Holiday Cottages, second homes, and unrented commercial properties ?

There are lots of new homes, that are well built.. the narrative that they are all cheap and low quality just isn’t true.

You can’t build the Infrastructure until the houses are there … no point building a school, or a GPs in the middle of an uninhabited field.

Where exactly did I suggest that?

Taking about the inefficiency of our use of our housing stock no more means I think the govt should seize property than I do that divorced families should be forced to reside under the same roof with a grandparent.

You'll put your back out if you reach like that.

So .. if you don’t take these properties away from people, to reassign them as available housing stock, what would to do to improve the “efficiency” of useage?

A combination of disincentives to leave properties empty for extended periods of time (such as second home / unoccupied council tax supplements which we're already seeing), education on the detrimental impact leaving properties empty has, limits on the levels of holiday cottages or second homes which can be had in any one village / town so the levels remain balanced, prioritisation of sales of properties to buyers who intend to reside full-time in the area, provision of alternative holiday accomodation like redeveloping empty hotels and brownfield sites...

Not sure why anyone would jump to "govt seizing property!!!" when there's a tonne of other options out there.

I’m sorry you’ve lost your job but I’m constantly amazed by people who think the economy and society can be turned around in 18 months. There are no quick fixes, magic wands, or obvious easy trouble-free solutions.

I work for a charity that does so much for those suffering deprivation. We run youth clubs, teaching youngsters to cook from scratch, we have a dedicated group for LGBT+ youth. We support the lonely community with lots of affordable activities and much much more. Thanks to the raising of the minimum wage and employer's contribution to NI, we've had to cut our support by half as we can't afford the wages. NI is costing us an extra £35,000 a year. So those most in need are back to struggling thanks to Labour.

No, it can't be turned around in just 18months, BUT their policies have made some things an awful lot worse!
For example, the NI payments for each employee have gone up by over £900 a year.
Then the minimum wage from young people was increased... More and more businesses now think that it is more efficient to employ an older person with lots of experience, rather than a young person with no experience and nearly on the same wage.
Both these have had major impact on the unemployment figures, especially the increase in youth unemployment.

It took 10 years to get the country in a better place after the last labour government and then we were hit with covid and the Ukraine invasion.

Do you have a young adult dc looking for work? I think people wouldn’t be so blasé if they didn’t feel immune for whatever reason.

The trouble is @ExtraOnions they aren't building on the moors, or the mountains, or other inaccessible green spaces. They are building on the very green spaces that ARE more easily accessible to human populations, especially those without the use of a car.

Every application gets objections but it makes no bloody difference, the public are powerless and this impacts on people's quality of life.

We are also waiting on hearing why Streeting, when granting an immediate and generous payrise to junior doctors, didn't stipulate a no more strike action clause.

I can't believe Labour voters are still using the timeline argument. 18 months is actually way longer than we should expect given how many years Labour had in opposition. They should have hit the ground running if they had spent as much time planning and formulating policies rather than finding dirt on the Tories.

It's not jealousy. The PP isn't saying, "I want what those rich people have." It's a desire for justice, fairness. I too am focused on the lives of the majority. And it'll be difficult to improve those lives when the money that might do it is being hoarded by a tiny, tiny minority.

And it's not just about the money, actually. It's about the principle of what kind of society one wants to live in. You seem to be saying, "If the lives of the majority were better, I really wouldn't care if things were set up so that the super-rich could get even richer."

I would. And it wouldn't be envy. It'd be that the structural values of such a society would imply that happiness is all very well, but what really matters is wealth.

@EasternStandard
Do you have a young adult dc looking for work? I think people wouldn’t be so blasé if they didn’t feel immune for whatever reason.

I do, yes. Two.

It's certain that economic circumstances have an effect on employment prospects, but the main thing that matters is the now-prevalent idea that businesses have no responsibility or duty to offer regular, predictable employment to anyone. Employees are there to be turned on and off at will. They don't matter - there's always another one who'll show up for ten hours a week at minimum wage, for a few months at least. Just keep 'em turning over, and the shareholders will be happy.

Two things about minimum wage - and why it's failing to help young people get a start in life.

1. It's calculated on the basis that you can live on it if you work full time. But most minimum wage jobs are not contracted as full time postions.
2. When minimum wage was first introduced in 1999, sums were done to figure out how much you needed to live on, if you worked forty hours. The answer was about a tenner per hour, for people 18-20. If that amount had kept pace with inflation, that would be about twenty pounds an hour today. It's in fact less than twelve right now.

I don't know if Labour can change both corporate culture and the basic economics, but I am absolutely sure that neither the Tories or Reform have any intention of doing so.