To feel slightly sad for Labour and Keir?

[Wellwhatnowbellaboo]

Aibu to feel sad for Labour's results so far ? I've not historically been a Labour voter but I think Keir has done a good job on some things but on others he was never going to be popular...and no one would be ! I like that he's the first leader recently to appear to have a moral backbone and consistency (if he truly wasn't informed about Mandelson I might add).
How do you feel about the state of play particularly if you've been lifelong labour and did you swing to a different vote this time round ?

AIBU To feel slightly sad for Labour and Keir?
HaHaHa, yes YABU. 🤣 No sympathy vote from me. I’m

The Labour back benches and unions are one of the major distinctions.

Starmer and Reeves cannot get any welfare reform past them - nada.

Remove universal benefits for pensioners?

Stop the triple lock?

Make them pay the same tax rates as everyone else (NI)?

Get rid of the triple lock! Which noon e will ever do given they couldn’t even manage to go through with the winter fuel allowance cut.

I have still voted Labour (best of a bad job in my eyes) but I am disappointed that they have back tracked on tough decisions like winter fuel and benefit reform and can’t seem to stick to a decision. I am disappointed about the Mandelson stuff too. Keir just looks like such a weak and ineffectual leader. Better than Johnson and the Tories but disappointing nonetheless.

Same. And I think that one of the odder features of this Labour Government has been that at times they still behave like they are in Opposition. Stamer puts out tweets saying this or that is wrong. Well, you are the Prime Minister- don't say 'oh heavens this aspect of whatever is wrong- change it.

And yes- Labour squeezes the middle, and wants to level everyone down. It attacks aspiration and self-reliance.

This is a major nation-wide protest vote. Labour ignores what it says at their peril.

@Shrinkhole yes, I think there was a small window for some change but they rowed back. It’s all a shitshow

@MidnightPatrol Yes but do you not think there is a reason no party has that in their manifesto?

It’s why Reform are popular because they peddle the myth that the triple lock etc is affordable if we tackle immigration & too many prefer that myth.

Last voted for Labour in 1997. Been a Lib Dem voter since. Frustrated as I was by Nick Clegg and I know I'm not alone there...

I'm annoyed by the treatment of Starmer in the press though. What he's trying to do is really hard. To bring together a deeply divided country and to sort out some economic hard issues. Is he doing it right? Well this is my view.

• On the EU, Labour won't get my vote until they are more strong on wanting closer relationships. BUT I see what KS is doing. He's letting it play out and for people to make their own call rather than hammering it down peoples throats. Problem is, while it's actually super clever, it's just making him look weak and indecisive. In fact it's not but a lot of politics is perception.
• On the economy we have three fundamental problems. People not working due to ill health, an aging population with fewer tax payers than previously and more tax recipients and the hangover from the 2008 crash, austerity which didn't save money and Covid. This all needs sorting much as people don't want to admit it. Whether Labour are doing quantitive tightening too fast or not is open to debate. It is faster than other economies but our borrowing is often for longer too so just to leave it all to mature naturally isn't the same as other economies either.
• On the above, I get frustrated by the Labour back benchers. Some level of carrot and stick is needed to get people back into work. It feels sometimes like KS is leading a minority government not a thumping majority. He needs better whips to get people into line. Some of this is painful but needs to be done.
• On things like the minimum wage. Yes this is effectively a "job tax" but one which actually makes sense to me. Right now the low paid are effectively subsidised by benefits. The more you pay the lower paid directly, the less benefits will be subsidising those roles moving the onus from government to employer. There is a sense in that. Whether NI should have increased as well, I'm less sure of. But they tied themselves in knots with manifesto promises.
• On the global stage, KS has actually impressed me the most. He's made very sensible judgements on foreign policy IMO.

Overall, some of the opposition to Labour isn't even prepared to talk about the fundamental issues we have. Pretending that immigration isn't a necessary thing in the UK right now, at least in the short to medium term. Without it, we simply do not have enough people working (until at least we get some of the people not in work back to work and increased automation). Look at Brexit. It vastly reduced EU immigration. Asian immigration then absolutely shot up. You can google it yourself.

So what worries me from the likes of Reform is the facile popularism. It's all slogans without actually talking about the fundamental problems in the UK.

Is it racist to want to protect borders? No. But to pretend you can just stop immigration without impact to the economy and public services is just a lie.

It worries me that voters fail to see the bigger picture on all of this and, sadly, some of our media are not supporting seeing the bigger picture. But Reform are likely to win councils today and slogans do not fill potholes and run care homes.

I didn't get a vote but live in a Reform run council area. The performance has been absolutely crap so far. They've fallen out with each other, spaffed money on consultants and increased council tax after promising to reduce it. But even the increase makes BIG assumptions on cost savings later I see no evidence are achievable. So for people to see the reality of it all might be a good thing.

I'd love to feel sorry for Labour but I'm not wealthy and privileged, so am too miffed by the state of the economy

And yes- Labour squeezes the middle, and wants to level everyone down. It attacks aspiration and self-reliance.

It’s higher income earners who pay tax in line with other similar European countries. The middle & lower earners pay comparatively less tax. The problem for many though is wage stagnation & how much of that middle & lower incomes is eaten up by housing costs.

We are in such a mess & imo we need cross party consensus because any solutions are going to take years to feel.

Overall, some of the opposition to Labour isn't even prepared to talk about the fundamental issues we have

@Lemonthyme good post & I agree a huge part of the problem is the above.

As you say immigration does have problems but it’s also responsible for any recent growth we have had.

I thought Teresa May’s proposal changes to fund at home social care had valid points but look at how unpopular that made her. That was nearly a decade ago and the mess is worse now.

I agree with you, and this is why labour lost my vote.

It’s deserved and I doubt either will realise why they’ve taken a battering, and will make excuses and continue to drive voters away.

More to come though, London, Wales and Scotland.

We need rapid change. Too much immigration. Too many people living in UK not working and not contributing. Too many on benefits. Middle earners squeezed. Cost of living ++. NHS in bits. I could go on. I don’t like reform, Farage is a nob, I wasn’t required to vote this time but the UK needs change and quick. We’ve all had enough. Looking forward to the detention centres being built where the greens were voted - let the NIMBYs come out then!

I feel bad because the press are just SO against them. There are actually a number of areas in which they’ve gained some improvement - but you can’t win when a small stamp duty underpayment based on your solicitors advice forces you to resign, whereas Tice’s enormous tax “underpayment” or Farage’s undisclosed £5m donation gets ignored entirely. The double standards are wild.

I do believe Reform will reduce immigration simply because they will make the UK a terrible place to live for all of us. It looks like there are plenty of people willing to pay that price sadly!

I’m stunned anyone can think Starmer has some form of moral backbone. From the freebie fiasco, the lying about the flat he used as a perk, to what he’s done to the economy with reeves,the tax burden on the average working person, is horrific, the closure of the North Sea and the thousands of job losses, the increased energy prices due to it, and now it’s led to bloody farage and his bunch of losers taking control of the councils.

starmer and the rest of the Labour Party should be utterly ashamed of themselves.

I feels sad for us all.Ive got a terrible feeling that this is going to end in the mid future with Farage in charge. We are all screwed tbh.

A lot of sensible comments on this thread

Things that a lot of people seem not to know:
the majority of the welfare bill is pensions
Immigration is a net economic benefit to the UK and has been proven so on many occasions.
One third of nurses and Drs in the NHS are immigrants so these are the people you are actually demonising.

but the UK needs change and quick

We need change but it’s completely unrealistic to think it can be quick.

Agree. Social care is a can which again keeps being kicked down the road.

Older people don't want to hear that they've not been paying tax into a piggy bank that is drawn down when they retire. But the reality is and always has been that it's working age people who pay for those retired. For their pensions, for their care, for the NHS they use more of. All of these cost vast amounts of money.

Councils are going bankrupt due to adult social care. The country's budget is struggling in part due to interest costs on debt but also the NHS is the largest part of the budget. The largest benefit recipients are the elderly.

I'm not saying that any of that is changeable. We still have a low state pension vs. other countries. We still have the best value for money health care system of any developed nation. So it's pie in the sky to make any of that cheaper.

What might be possible is you look at care home providers and they are making vast profits. Not the workers that's for sure but the owners. The longer we keep people out of those money pits the better. And that might be a combination of community led public support but also more support from relatives in a way companies are incentivised to help with. Has true flexible working ever really been a success? Not really. But then that could add cost to businesses (but on the counter argument that could also retain staff. I mean how many of us on MN are in the position of caring for both kids and elderly parents and getting low support? I'm sure many of us have had to cut hours or even leave jobs as a result.)

It's complex. People don't want to listen to complex. They don't want to hear "we are poorer than we were before 2008 and we've not admitted that for nearly 20 years and there's f-all we can do about it".

People want someone else to blame.

And if they want that? Blame the US. Blame the mega corporations who are making vast profits and offshoring them. If you want someone to pay more in our economy, they definitely have the pockets and the reason to be taxed more. But they're also really good at finding ways to avoid that tax...

You know, there's an Irish joke about a guy asking for directions and the person he asks scratches his chin then says:

"Well I wouldn't start from here..."

You know what, we need to be more bloody honest about where we are and stop looking for scapegoats. When we're honest, we can fix it.

You think genocide is irrelevant?

I would add as well that I don’t think Nigel Farage actually wants to be in power. He makes his money being a political agitator - look at Brexit, he was all for it and as soon as it happened off he scarpered - popping up only to criticise the deal on offer. By and large, the councils they do have control of haven’t been wildly successful. Getting into power means they’ll be exposed when they inevitably can’t deliver (or they do, and magically people’s lives don’t become better because it’s billionaires and not immigrants that are the source of most of our woes).

He’s not got moral backbone. He’s the same as the rest of them. He spoke well before the election and then proceeded to do fuck all.

And given the public knew about various Mandelson scandals years ago, he seemed an odd choice even without the Epstein stuff.

I feel more sad about the damage they’ve done to the UK to be honest.