To think Starmer will be gone by the end of Friday? Or will it be Monday evening?

[SingleSexSpacesInSchools]

Whoever you are voting for today, it's probably not Labour - they might loose 2,000 seats.

How long exactly will it be before he resigns?

I agree with you that no system is perfect. However I don't believe FPTP is actually all that democratic. I suppose I was thinking in terms of a country like Ireland which has STV/PR. Now I know that country is in permanent coalition these days, but the domination of one or other of the main parties there was not a good thing in the past. In fact, now with coalition and support from even individual members at times needed, keeps the Government on its toes and reflects a lot of the concerns of the electorate which might not otherwise get a hearing. It's just an observation, and as you say, no system is perfect.

None of what you’ve posted at length is evidence of anything. It’s an account of what politicians tried to do. It doesn’t tell us anything about Starmer’s success or talents. We may as well suppose that Trump rolls his eyes when Starmer is mentioned. In fact I’d put good money on Trump thinking Starmer’s a constipated loser. He certainly appears to think badly of him now.

As to Charles’s speech, are you seriously trying to say that the King going to Congress and charming them was a Starmer success? I personally doubt that Charles read out a single word written by Starmer. And even if he did, it’s like saying that QEII’s welcome reception abroad for many years was the successful achievement of Thatcher.

Political stability in Labour’s case, will simply mean more pro-welfare, anti-growth policies.

No - best keep them preoccupied so that they can’t do any more ‘dumb shit’.

Where do you get 75% from?

There have only been two by-elections since labour came to power - there was a 14% vote swing away from Labour in Runcorn and Helsby (26.4% of their votes) and 10% vote swing in Gorton and Denton (19.6% of their votes).

There is no way to calculate 75% from either of those

Not MPs, local council by-elections.

Haven’t most of those been caused by Reform councillors resigning or being sacked?

Ok not long to find out. One other difference is polling includes Restore which takes Reform votes but won’t be on the ballot.

Agreed. Further and faster 😬 No thanks.

I think they are referring to local council by-elections. In the last 12 months, there have been 234 council by-elections, 71 of them in seats held by Labour. Labour now hold only won 17 of the by-elections - they held 16 seats and gained 1 from Reform.

Sir Keir Starmer is scrambling to resolve the cross-Whitehall dispute over the UK’s defence budget, as part of a planned “reset” of his administration after the dire results Labour is expecting in Thursday’s elections.

The prime minister held talks with chancellor Rachel Reeves last week in a bid to finalise the 10-year defence investment plan (DIP), which has been repeatedly delayed to the dismay of both international allies and the defence industry. One official briefed on the discussions said they were “nearing a conclusion”. Starmer and Reeves were expected to come up with “a fudge” to tackle a £28bn funding gap over the next four years identified by the Ministry of Defence, according to another person close to the talks.

FT

This is Vintage Starmer.

Struggling to find £28B over the next 4 years for national security, while £1.2T (yes, £1,200B) will walk out the door in welfare cheques over the same time period.

MADNESS.

You really do have your knickers in a knot over welfare, don’t you?

Cutting it will just cause misery. It won’t miraculously improve productivity. It will mean that disabled people are miserable, mental health declines, health significantly declines and has a knock on effect on healthcare costs, the gap between rich and poor widens… Pensions are the biggest chunk of welfare. Most people receiving benefits also work. The living wage would need to increase to make it affordable for those in work to eat and house themselves.

People are busy surviving and most of those references of unrest had roots in left wing, socialist principles so not quite the right wing bell you are ringing.

This government has its priorities completely skewed.

Its primary objectives should be defence and law enforcement. They could find £7bn a year easily through very marginal cuts to welfare (including pensions), yet somehow defence and law enforcement come secondary.

But, of course, Starmer is too weak to get past his back benches, as we saw last year.

Vote Labour, and this is what you get.

Labour are going to get a bloody nose. Reform I am afraid are going to walk and end up managing many Councils. God help us.
They can talk sound bites but you then have to do the day job. Public administration. A bit more difficult than they imagine. You cannot talk your way through the actual work that is needed.

Reform, racist bastards. I despise these people.

He will never resign. Clearly the shenanighans up till now shows that. As a centre right voter, I actually don’t want him to resign. Who he will be replaced with is absolutely terrifying.

What do we get?

GDP growth which is almost 3 times that which was achieved under Rishi Sunak (post Covid, the average GDP growth was 0.5%, since the election it's been 1,4%)

Defence spending of more than 2.2% of GDP - with the exception of 2022/23, it hasn't been that high since the last Labour government where it was consistently 2.2% or higher.

Defence spending rose from 4.1% to 4.6% under Thatcher until 1985 when the winding down of the cold war saw defence spending fall year on year to 2.2% in 1997 when Labour held it steady. In 2010 it was 2.4%. By 2018 it had fallen to 1.8%.

Public order spending is 1.8% of GDP - between 2013 and 2020 it didn't get above 1.6% of GDP

Social protection spending is 13.3%. It was 11.3% in 1997 and Labour kept it below 12.3% up until the financial crash. In 2009 it went up to 14.3% and 14.7% by 2013. The Tory government brought it down each year to 12.2% just before Covid when it skyrocketed again. It was at 13.3% when Labour got in.

So - they have had better GDP growth than the last Tory government, they are spending more on defence and public order and are not spending significantly more on social protection.

They are giving you what you claim to want - increased spending on defence and public order.

@BloominNora, the state currently is large, heavily taxed and indebted.

This government is highly bureaucratic and risk averse, therefore there is little prospect of vital enterprise and investment arriving in the foreseeable future.

Stable government that invests in infrastructure,
health and education can take the long road. But the way we are currently spending in order to sustain an aging population, to pay rising welfare costs and to look after a workforce with more and more complex healthcare needs, alongside rising borrowing costs, is not the way to
growth only further decline. The future doesn’t look very bright.

Do you have a source please?

I voted Labour as these are local elections for local issues and they’re doing ok - certainly better than the Conservative and Unionist party who were in before . Plus they’re the ones here to vote for to keep reform out - double whammy.

I can think of at least 6 Prime Ministers worse than the current offering in my lifetime. Unfortunately we’re still feeling the effects of the worst ever who decided to privatise everything to keep her cronies happy.

Yes, I think he will.
I have voted labour for quite some time now. I don't think he's a strong leader, and I actually do not think he is representative enough of real labour values.
I'm hoping that he will be replaced by Andy Burnham to be honest.

Burnham? What do you think of his plan to disregard the bond markets, as if a country that is borrowing money hand over fist to stay afloat can just ignore their creditors?

which is great.

In three years until next GE Reform, and Green for that matter, will f.. up their councils so badly that voters might actually start seeing the reality of Reform. And Green.
The more councils Reform and Green get now, the better the chance of them getting less seats in 2029.

I have to admit that I'm saying this from an area where neither have a chance. But I also have little sympathy for Reform/Green voters.

We have been conditioned to think of government spending as if it is the same as household budgets, but its not, its more akin to property investment and improvement while improving wage earning potential.

I hear this from time to time. The reality is that some government spending could be classed as investment, but much of it could not. In any event, you can't invest money you haven't got. The government is currently running a deficit of over £130 billion per year. Total government debt is around £2.9 trillion, the highest it has been relative to GDP since the early 1960s. The interest rates the government is having to pay to finance the debt are the highest they've been for 28 years, above the levels seen after the disastrous Liz Truss mini-budget.

What this leads to is a situation where the government is paying over £110 billion a year in interest. It is the fourth highest item of government spending, after pensions & benefits, health and education.

The reason the interest rates paid by the government are so high is that the markets are concerned about our levels of debt and talk of loosening the rules to allow even more spending and borrowing. Burnham denies saying we should disregard the bond markets. If he had, that would be living in fantasy land. Unless we cut government spending to the level where we no longer need to borrow as much, we have to pay attention to the bond markets.

Yes pretty much this when it comes to debt, servicing it and the markets.