So frustrated and desperate for Labour to be bold and give the country something to believe in.

[youlookradishing]

This is my take on what is happening today.

I really do believe that the last decade and a half has left the country (Western world, actually) in a terrible situation and that any government with any moral values are in a totally impossible situation.

The economy needs fixing before the lasting change can happen and the public can reap any rewards, but the people are too desperate and cynical to wait. The vultures are circling and we are turning to populist voices who are looking to take advantage of our desperation by promising the impossible and delivering only for themselves to the detriment of us all.

Labour have actually tried to put the very limited public money in the right places (eg tightening up winter fuel allowance) but caved in and U-turned any time they face opposition. Policies like scrapping the two child benefit cap brought them negative press rather than positive, because of the fannying around.

Likewise they are actually bringing NHS waiting lists down and getting more houses built, but their messaging around this is utterly woeful and nobody seems to notice it’s happening.

Kier is FAR too bothered about being popular and trying to please everybody. He won the mandate in 2024 and he should have built a narrative of ‘this is gonna be shit for a while, but this is WHY, and this is why it will be WORTH it. He is trying to deliver but any positives are being utterly drowned out because there is no vision for us to believe in! At the end of the day, nothing he can deliver will ever be enough in the short term, when we’re starting from such a low baseline. This is about vision and messaging. Look at Trump, the guy is a complete lunatic, but he has charisma and tells a good story and THAT is what gets people on board long enough to actually have an impact.

I honestly believe that this Labour government are the best hope this country have got - come on Kier, time to turn it around and give us something to believe in, because we have everything to lose if you don’t!

Thank you.
A sensible voice of reason. We definitely need Starmer's unwavering steadfastness now and I believe if he stays firm over this leadership nonsense it will gain him more popularity.

After years of infighting & dishonesty what we are crying out for now is stability and sense at the top.
I am a Labour supporter but I am so disappointed by the way some in the party are behaving at the moment and I hope the leadership bids fail.
I was a big Andy Burnham fan but I do not support what he is doing right now.

That poster won't be offended for much longer.

Let's see.
But whatever happens to the leadership, Labour will be in power for three more years.

If constantly changing leader and thus PM, was an issue I think we would have had a few more general elections under the Tories.

A hell of a lot can happen in 3 years. The political landscape will see allies finding common ground to topple Labour.

I always thought of JM as the voice of reason - he's proved himself a wise and statesmanlike politician since leaving office. He might have suffered the tail-end of the Thatcher Years Backlash, but I rate him as a politician.

He's the old-fashioned one-nation Tory, not an extremist or ideologist.

He was an inoffensive PM.

Maybe.
Or maybe Labour will actually do a good job and improve the lives of poorer people in the country which is what they are fundamentally about. And maybe they will win a second term when the people who have recently voted in Reform councils have had a chance to see what that's like in reality?

Neither of us knows so let's see how it pans out.

@cloudtreecarpet I completely share your views about steadfastness, stability, sense. SKS quietly - far too quietly - has a vision which he is standing by. Kemi is keen to point out the detrimental effect of their infighting, knowing Tories had the same problem. Effectively by shaming Wes Streeting this Wednesday she unequivocally supported SKS. The behaviour of the plotters and schemers is disgraceful, selfish, self-serving, contemptuous of what the country needs yet we have AB coming to the rescue, “heroically protecting” us from a “weak” PM and the prospect of Reform. Much as I don’t like what she’s done, her lack of foresight, her intransigence, I can understand Reeves’ anger at their undermining atm. Politically opposed, you and I have a lot in common.

One thing is for certain and that is Labour not seeing a second term. Respectfully, that's pie in the sky thinking. Too much damage has been done. It's going to take a moderate replacement PM to undo all of that and, I suspect a few more reshuffles for their PM. Streeting has already carried on attacking Reformers. Just like Starmer he doesn't know when to zip it. Great resignation letter, aside from that own goal. When will they take lessons from the recent local elections results?

I apologise if that's the case!

I largely agree with your post - that equality of opportunity is even harder to achieve than actual equality.

I get frustrated at the abstract notion, bandied about by stupid politicians, of the 'good school'. They think that, if they take a high-achieving, over-subscribed school and ship in a totally different intake, it will somehow stay a good school (and they need to sharpen their criteria for that denomination).

No - it's a good school because the school community of parents (of all classes, as my children's school was ), students and teachers is supportive and values education. If you bring in children from families where education is not valued, and who want to fight the school all the time, it will change fundamentally, no matter where it is, or how many shiny facilities there are.

Good students/parents lead to good teachers - who can actually go to the classroom in the knowledge that they won't have to waste time and energy on riot control and even self-defence. These things go together, and once you change the punters, you change the teachers.

(I do have lots of thoughts about how this could be changed and improved, but that's not the thread topic, so I won't blather on here!)

I will say this: it's not always about money. If your family encourage you and support your learning, that's more than half the battle. I pity the poor children who, whatever money is thrown at their schools, have unsupportive and even obstructive parents. They are almost impossible to help.

The other thing that can be taken from the local election results is that a huge proportion of the electorate used their vote to show their distrust in Labour and prepare them that more of that is coming. Will Labour learn from it? I doubt it.

Yeah me too and my husband's friends were chatting about this recently.

All perfectly happy to pay tax to have a society that functions well.

Amazed how selfish some people are becoming. We become more like the USA every day.

I would never be happy to take a massive tax cut and have the NHS slashed as Reform wants to do. Can you imagine knowing people are dying because they can't afford healthcare. We would all end up paying more anyway.

I'm a floating voter. Can't see Reform ever getting my vote as call me old fashioned and but I favour neither misogyny nor rascism and I really wouldn't want a Putin supporter leading us whilst taking huge amounts of cash from dodgy donors.

Definitely won't vote Green, they have very questionable ideas about women.

I would vote Conservative if they had a more centrist leader and a clear economic plan to undo the financial harm done by Brexit.

At the moment that is exactly what Labour are delivering. No one likes the additional businesses taxes but it takes me back to the days of John Major.If its not hurting, its not working. Covid and Brexit cost a fortune and they need paying for.

I personally disagree with the VAT on school fees. Those parents have already saved the system money by taking their kids out of state.

I think inheritance tax on farms is on shaky ground because they're often asset rich but tax poor.

But then I fully understand that tax revenue has to come from somewhere and people paying school fees are a soft target.

I also understand that people are sinking money into arable land solely to avoid inheritance tax, Clarkson admitted to it and at a time of food insecurity, we need arable land to be used effectively not businesses and the very rich using it as a loophole to avoid contributing to wider society.

What this country actually needs is more equitable wealth distribution. No one should be a billionaire. It is morally bankrupt for individuals to hoard huge amounts of wealth whilst people go hungry.

Yes Reform want us to concentrate on the relatively very small number of people arriving in boats. When really we should be focused on how the filthy rich in terms of both personal and corporate wealth are allowed to extract so much from ordinary people.

Its really, really noticeable how the headlines of recent decades past have changed from mentioning fat cat bankers to being about very poor immigrants. Let's face it the bankers have caused far more damage.

If anything we seem to revere obscene wealth more and more. Thats what needs changing, not a sensible prime minister walking a difficult path, trying to hold together a country whilst a very wealthy elite try to convince us tearing each other apart is the answer.

Tell me what they have done that is so awful.

You mean aside from telling the electorate they are far right racists?

I think he's exactly the sort of politician we need. Not charismatic like Tony or Boris (yes, love or loathe them - they were charismatic, like many dodgy people). JM would never have taken us out of the EU on a silly whim, for example.

I like boring, steady, moderate and I distrust star-quality in politicians. Leave that to actors and pop singers! But unfortunately, human nature is easily swayed by superficial qualities.

What a well written and well reasoned post.
Yes, it is exactly this.
The demonisation of the "small boats" is a facade that the very wealthy, Farage included, hide behind.
That and the demonisation of people claiming benefits too.
But people & businesses avoiding paying their share of tax is ignore, CEOs paying themselves increasingly high salaries whilst cutting jobs and blaming Labour for it is ignored etc etc.

Fair distribution of resources is what is needed.

Labour's John Smith was another steady voice I admired. It would have been interesting to see where we would be without his sad death and its timing.

More needs to be done about the Black Economy - but it's a difficult one. I have always, and indeed always HAD, to pay my taxes and I get cheesed off when tradesmen have said to me 'We don't want the taxman to get it, do we?" Well, yes, actually, we do if we want the NHS etc etc.

I laughed when, during the Covid situation, some tradespeople had only declared about £16K as their annual income on their last tax return. When furlough payments from the govt were then based on that last tax return, they were grinding their teeth. Ha ha ha ha ha.

As much as some like to hope, the voters are seeing a bigger picture. A national rather than local level. They were called thick, as they normally are, for thinking the LEs would have direct influence at a national level. Start small think big. These people are far from thick.

I agree. I'm not particularly party-political and I appreciate genuine, steady, sincere people who try to bring the nation together rather than stir up extremism and division.

In fact - I think vicious social and political division is the bane of our lives at the moment. If it isn't gender politics it's the Middle Eastern conflict and attitudes to immigration. A skillful politician should be able to find middle ground with these matters.

Fabulous post, with which I agree in its entirety. The bit about furlough tax relationship 😆 🤣 wasn't that a bitch of a payback, pardon the pun. It's all very well to talk about some politicians getting richer but the black economy goes largely ignored. If people enjoy having money in their pockets by living here, they need to reminded of the social contract.

Argh, I quoted the wrong post!
God I hate the MN phone app

Evidence please.
And not from the Daily Mail.

Why is the DM always referenced; what purpose does that cheap shot serve? The evidence comes from both Starmer and Streeting. Their respective speech about the Unite rally and Streeting's resignation letter highlights how out of touch they are. A bit like Mumsnet really. Don't take voters for granted and ignore their concerns. Putting the boot in further by saying they vote for racist parties is doing nothing to increase Labour's popularity. The splinters need addressing. They spent so long in opposition that Kemi was right. When they came to power, there was no plan. Deers caught in headlights and they still have no solid plan now. Internal self-serving egos come before the country. Now who was it who promised country first?

It’s clutching at straws as the changes are so small that they fall within statistical error margins.