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?

So they increased employers national insurance and produced a job tax that increased the cost of employing people and making the young an increasingly risky and unemployable prospect. What people want the least is higher levels of unemployment.

They wanted a change from Labour, then the Conservatives, and now Labour again. They'll keep voting differently until they get something they want.

I think they kept saying they wouldn't raise taxes on working people so raising NI on businesses was perhaps a bit of a fudge rather than a broken promise. Yes, if Hunt hadn't cut it in the first place it would never have been an issue. And if the media in this country wasn't so obsessed with bloody tax, encouraging people to believe they can have everything without ever having to pay for it they perhaps wouldn't have felt the need to make those promises in the first place.

It wasn't just the media, the Labour government and its supporters were selling change. The General Election boards are still up on this site, change was expected from the staunchest of supporters who agreed that this government would have failed if it hadn't got it's act into gear in its first half.

But what we had was U-turn after u-turn, scandal after scandal, a rivers of blood speech and Powell calling the discussion of raped and tortured children of grooming gangs a dog whistle. It has been a shit show. Not the grown ups back in charge.

A ‘bit of a fudge’? It’s had a MASSIVE impact on businesses up and down the country and also massively increased the salary costs of public bodies such as local council’s NHS, police. Hardly just ‘a bit of a fudge’ 🙄.

Your beloved Labour government made false promises in order to win an election and then went back on them the moment they got in. You might not be able to see that, but a lot of people do - as evidenced by the results of the local elections.

Not exactly. The 2024 Labour manifesto reads -

Labour will not increase taxes on working people, which is why we will not increase National Insurance, the basic, higher, or additional rates of Income Tax, or VAT.

My interpretation of that paragraph is that it is referring to direct taxation which would not include employers' NI contributions. Labour could equally have increased fuel duty or vehicle excise duty without breaking that promise.

But you must realise the voters believe that they are being treated with contempt when you step away from the spirit of your words and refer them back to fine print, after the fact? There's not much they can do about it but they'll register their protest at the polls.

Why does everyone here misunderstand plain English and extrapolate what they want from posts? @Upstartled I know they promised change. The point I made about the media was that if they had said, "We want change but it will have to be paid for so income tax is going up by a penny," or something, the papers would have been filled with "Labour's tax hike" "Red Reeves' tax raid" etc etc. Yet people are upset that local and public services are in tatters.

@Marmalademorning I didn't say the impact of the policy was a fudge - that wouldn't make sense. I said they perhaps used language to fudge their promise a little, using the phrase 'working people' to leave NI on businesses on the table.

"I accept that previous Labour leaders have sort of pulled the tax levers every single time and driven up spending, I want to grow our economy. The manifesto tomorrow will be a manifesto for wealth creation. Now you may not hear a Labour leader say that very often but, for me, that is the most important thing and therefore I'm not going to do what other Labour leaders have done and be tempted to say every single time, let's pull the tax levers. We're not going to do that".

'We will not raise tax on working people,' Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer says | News UK Video News | Sky News https://share.google/Lslh6UtHiHaF7ka2g

That was the spirit of the manifesto, that's what Labour were offering. Growth, the kind of growth that wouldn't require hammering the tax levers.

The manifesto said “We will not increase taxes on working people”.

And it's this backhanded, "hey thickos, didn't you understand that we were technically telling you the truth while selling you a falsehood", that sinks trust capital.

That's before you even get to the elite border force who will smash the gangs.

But the £350 million for the NHS on the side of the bus and all the other lies from other parties haven't sunk any trust capital at all?

Yes, of course, but Labour did it again. And, no doubt, it will happen more but each time it happens it hardens the electorate who are less and less willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. So if you offer change and don't deliver it in the way is was sold (not the small print) people won't return a vote for you. And this is where we are now.

The result of this is that hospitality, retail, hairdressing has been massively cut of staff. That trainee your hairdresser was about to take on is scrapped and the rest of the staff just need to suck it up. Or the hairdresser throws the towel in and becomes mobile.

Retail is using more and more self service tills. If you punch a sector and when they are down kick them in the ribs with increase in NMW then there will be less and less jobs. Robots to deliver your Macdonalds when you order in house. Same with the drive through.

Over 90% of our businesses are small ones. Is that going to increase growth? I suspect it was a short term headline that backfired.

The full quote is "Labour will not increase taxes on working people, which is why we will not increase National Insurance, the basic, higher, or additional rates of Income Tax, or VAT." It does not caveat the NI part of that to say it is referring to employee contributions. They have increased NI. And whilst it is not a direct tax on working people, it is disingenuous to pretend it doesn't affect workers. It reduces the ability of employers to award pay rises and increase staff.

I'm not saying it was necessarily the wrong thing to do, but it is a broken promise.

But they have. They froze the income tax thresholds, dragging more people into the higher tax bracket as their wage rise (and the wage rises never go up and keep pace with inflation).

Businesses are folding left right and centre - you are in denial if you think the NI increase hasn’t been a contributing factor to this. Thousands of people will have lost their jobs because of this!

Lots of working people have small modest investments. Labour is increasing dividend tax by 2% from next year.

Then there’s VAT on private school fees - parents paying these fees are WORKING PEOPLE.

Then there’s stamp duty. The list goes on and on.

I’m willing to bet there won’t be many farmers (‘working people’ who get up at the crack of dawn to produce the food we need) voting for Labour any time soon. But Labour want to build loads of houses all over the countryside so I guess they aren’t too bothered if loads of working farms are having to shut down because farmers are having to sell off machinery and huge chunks of land to pay massive inheritance bills thanks to Labour.

As I have said on other threads. Labour are in their own echo chamber and won’t listen to anyone that doesn’t agree with them.

Why not invite say Reform voters into Downing Street. Really listen to what they are saying. Don’t dismiss their views or ask someone in your echo chamber what they think.

Immgration is a real issue with many voters. Birmingham is a prime example of what can happen if you shout ‘racist’ to anyone who shows concern as to what is happening there. Women in a particular area are nowhere to be seen politically in some of these areas.

We’re never going to agree on this. Words matter - employers’ NI contributions aren’t a tax on working people. I just wish they hadn’t made the pledge about NI in the first place, reversing the Hunt cut would have been the sensible thing to do.

Of course they are hence companies folding, taking on less staff etc.

As soon as they can get Burnham back I expect.

Exactly - all having a massive impact on ‘working people’.

Everyone who has been made redundant at the alter of 'not raising ni taxes 'technically', is a working person who was a victim of that tax.

This is not, 'treading lightly on your lives'.

Labour fail to get this, another reason for their crushing results.

You make an awful lot of assumptions, my friend.

I don’t understand your reference to ‘boat people’, either - although I see that you have tried to shoe-horn that in.

Hey ho.