To think Labour is not the party of the working people.

[pinkpalmleaves]

I voted for Labour as I believed their election pledge of being a party for the working people but genuinely I can’t think of one thing, since they’ve been in power, that they’ve done to help me (a single working mother on around £42k a year)! I get zero help from UC, these mystical breakfast clubs don’t exist, people aren’t employing people due to their ridiculous NI implications, they aren’t building affordable housing, energy prices are insanely high and all they talk about is grants (which won’t affect me as I live in a flat)! Genuinely I can’t think of one thing that they’ve done to help working people in the middle. Why are Labour sticking their heads in the sand? Why do they refuse to help the squeezed working class? They are stopping this economy from thriving - as
nobody can afford to spend anything extra (treats, holidays, meals out etc etc)!

It’s not hard,

And yet no government has managed it in almost 2 decades.

Labour are certainly not doing it now. They can’t even see why it’s not working.

You don't even have to use money. You can use status. If anyone who owned a business that employed 5 new people in a year full time got to have a sticker that let leave drive in the bus lanes, it would motivate behaviour.

It's self fulfilling. Anyone who wants to be a politician is the wrong type of person to be a politician. There aren't many jobs you can get where the only requirement is you spent 4 weeks telling people you won't be as bad as someone else. Hence why governments of anyparty tend to be useless.

The rest of the developed/Western World is indeed in trouble, just like the UK. But Labour are managing to actually make things worse rather than better. When you're in a hole, stop digging!

I agree. The nearest we've had to a genuinely honourable party leader recently is Tim Farron who was Libdem leader for a very short time. He was hounded out because of his Christian beliefs!! He's a very popular and hard working politician in Kendal/South Cumbria. Not only would he have made a popular LidDem leader, he could well have led to another coalition, and in today's polarised political landscape, could well have been close to winning a GE seeing how Tories and Labour are so unpopular these days. But, no, the people with real power behind the scenes decided they didn't want a practising Christian so hounded him out!

I agree Tim Farron seems very honest and upstanding.

SMEs employ more people than the larger organisations. If every SME took on another worker, we'd zeroise unemployment overnight. Not only that but it would also make a dent in the divide between London/SE and the regions, as in lots of regions, there are virtually no big employers, but lots of small employers. All the incentives/grants/support has been given to large employers for the last couple of decades which has caused even greater deterioration in the regions and fueled the growth, house prices and labour shortages in London/SE and a handful of other big cities. Take off the shackles and let small businesses soar.

It was Farron’s homophobia that was his downfall not his Christian beliefs.

It's far more than that. A small UK business that gets an order from, say, the EU has to think about more than a bit of paperwork. They may have to register for VAT in the customer's country for example. They will have to research laws/regulations in the customer's country as regards any restrictions on what can be sold into it. Etc.

What homophobia?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jan/10/tim-farron-regrets-saying-gay-sex-not-sin

Cynical, but oh so true @Dragonflytamer .

Yep

We used to be in the customs union and single market. The single market means that all operators within that single market follow the same regulations with regards to products sold. So we don’t have chlorinated chicken and someone buying British ham in Italy knows that the pig has a happy life an welfare was upheld etc. because we left the customs union we now need to prove that our ham comes from happy pigs via vet certification etc. the paperwork is endless. Why do we do this? I’d imagine because Boris wanted to let Americans sell chlorinated chicken and other stuff deemed not fit for human consumption by the EU to the UK.

When we were in the customs union there were no duties or tariffs between us and other EU counties. Now goods have to be declared at the border (both when imported into the UK and imported into other countries from the UK) and tax paid at that point. Previously as a UK business you’d buy loo roll from France, they’d send it to you, you’d pay UK vat on your VAT return. Now that VAT has to be declared at the point of entry to the UK.

When people talk of a ‘hard Brexit’ they mean leaving the customs union and the single market. A soft Brexit (where the UK would remain in the single market and customs union) would have been much less damaging but Boris didn’t want that.

And that ladies and gentlemen is one reason why Boris is a massive idiot.

"That's what people are saying." Make your mind up, are you Richard Tice or Donald Trump?

@Bist

When people talk of a ‘hard Brexit’ they mean leaving the customs union and the single market. A soft Brexit (where the UK would remain in the single market and customs union) would have been much less damaging but Boris didn’t want that.

Boris was VOTED IN at the GE to achieve a hard brexit. Prior to that, May had tried several different "Lite" versions but Parliament refused to approve every single one of them as the Remain MPs wanted to stop Brexit by all means. The end result was therefore that we got a worse hard Brexit. Well done MPs! If the MPs had voted for one of May's softer options, we'd not have ended up with the hard Brexit that the voters at the GE voted for, just to get it over with as voters were fed up with the political delays and MPs trying to scupper Brexit.

The VAT one is the killer for SMEs. I used to have a large number of suppliers in Germany - not one of them ships directly to the UK anymore because they don't want the hassle of having to register to HMRC for VAT. Previously of course I just paid German VAT, exactly the same as if I was a local buyer. Ordering parts from Stuttgart was no different to ordering parts from Basingstoke and the shipping was the same (flat rate shipping across the EU - anyone remember that?).

As a result, we now have to buy from UK distributors rather than direct from the manufacturer - this substantially increases costs and reduces choice. No doubt this is great for the distribution companies and specialist importers that have sprung up, but it's bad for the manufacturers (in Germany), and the SMEs and consumers (in the UK).

And of course that's just for a product manufactured in the EU (which attracts no duty due to the EU-UK free trade deal). The problem is much worse for products manufactured outside the EU, going to an importer in e.g. the Netherlands (most stuff from the Far East comes into Rotterdam), and then to the UK. You frequently end up paying double duty (the Dutch one and then the UK one) and obviously the distributor also takes their margin. Big companies can deal with this with accountants and customs agents, SMEs can't.

It has MASSIVELY increased costs and reduced choice (because so many suppliers now simply refuse to ship to the UK full stop).

Many of these suppliers are simply not geared up to ship outside of the EU, and even the ones that are say that the UK makes it particularly hard compared to e.g. Switzerland or Norway or the US (well, pre-Trump tariffs anyway).

Yep agreed. May’s proposals were much less damaging. You do wonder how many people really understood what they were voting for in government. I mean David Davis really seemed to think we’d hold all the cards, when that was always laughable.

I think you’ll find it was the ERG that scuppered May’s proposed deals.

Are you actually insane? Do you know how much full time nursery costs? I can’t believe
anyone earning £80k gross could afford to splurge £4 k a month on nursery fees
for 2 kids!

Because May's deals were useless.

Let's not relitigate the shitshow of Parliament's performance at that time. The fact Labour are thinking of reopening this particular can of worms is the worst idea they've had so far in a period of really really crap ideas.

Even if it improves the economy and results in growth? I thought the right were all moaning about the lack of growth?

Did you mention the word ‘gross’ originally?

Did they not suggest it was anybody earning <£45k. So not bricklayers, roofers, plumbers. Not teachers etc.