Is a more left Labour government what people want?

[punkhairbrush]

I keep hearing statement after statement from Labour MPs and Rayner saying they essentially want a more left version of the Labour Party. From my understanding the majority of the public are fed up with work not paying and whether we like it or not, nothing being done about the welfare state and also illegal immigrants. Surely a more left approach isn’t going to solve either of these issues and will just cause Labour to be even less popular than they are now. Or have I got it all wrong?

@OonaStubbsgenuone question, why? From what I can see a move further to the left suggests more of us, who work insanely hard and have very little at the end of the month will be left without. Not making working pay is the biggest bug bare for everyone. i cant tell you how many times I’ve written to my MP with my incomings and outgoings and compared my situation with a friend who works part time and is on UC (because working full time would leave her worse off) she’s not disabled or unable to work. We’re constantly told by the left that it’s not true that people are better off on benefits or that there are many people rinsing the system. But let me tell you there is. Until the government acknowledges this they won’t be popular. Sadly their out of touch bank benchers have no clue about economics or creating growth that’s why it all feels like it is stagnant.

I would much prefer a more left leaning labour. At the moment I think there isn’t a big difference between them and the tories with labour being more towards the centre. If they were more left I would vote for them rather than my current vote to the greens

Yes please.

There is a whole group of younger people eligible to vote but they are not engaged by left or right or any of this. Someone needs to get to grips with the issues that they are facing - student loans, lack of opportunities, cost of living, housing crisis, young parents struggling with childcare costs etc. What are any of these politicians doing for them?

Yet when Labour try to improve wages in the NHS, they are trashed, increase NMW... again trashed.

We have a crumbling infrastructure because for 14 years, the Tory never invested in it, be it NHS, Roads, Dentistry... Schools... all run down over 14years of Austerity.

People don't want higher taxes but they want better infrastructure, they want more council housing but wont pay for it, housing is extremely expensive... so instead of accepting this will take time to fix, they seek a quick fix... ie Reform or the Greens.

Immigration is, net, is 204k.... so down to what is, according to you/FT "manageable"

We cannot force people to work in Health and for med staff, AHPs and HCPs all require degrees, which vast majority of "economically inactive" do not have.

Does the FT or our other right wing media report this? is it on BBC or Sky or headlines in the 'Mail or Express?

Your post highlights exactly why Labour are doomed, easy fixes, blaming the wrong people, failure to accept where we are as a country and how very difficult it will be to correct.

Absolutely this, also as a former Labour Party member and campaigner, only a few short years ago I voted for the Green Party too, now I can think of nothing more abhorrent. I can understand why those who were not even left leaning to start with are swinging to the far right

Except those who voted green, who do I think.

‘Not making working pay is the biggest bugbear for everyone’

You see, it isn’t. It is for you and I’ve no doubt many others but not everyone, including me.

So what you’ve described is more public spending, this would need to be paid for by income tax, that’s left-leaning as the right tend to want to not tax, or spend on public services, they prefer to privatise and look how that’s turned out with the water in England and the energy companies, British telecom, British steel etc.

Most of the things people complain about have been caused by Tory governments over the years that have been voted in by those who are now complaining.

@Hallowedturfthis is such a strong response. Whether we like or not the two main issues are immigration AND benefits. Though I do genuinely believe there is nuance in both.
People are sick of undocumented men coming over,
even if the percentage of crimes on women and children are small overall, they still happen. The elephant in the room is their cultures are so fundamentally different from British culture. For so long the U.K. has embraced everyone and just let them be, but sadly this has allowed British culture to be eroded in the name of being fair and kind. So now for many it feels like British people have to accept everyone’s traditions and cultures but nobody is expected to respect British cultures and traditions (this is not my opinion this is just what I gauge from the current mood).

the second thing is the benefit system. This also goes hand in hand with immigration. Have friends from Europe who moved here pre Brexit, am shocked how little they seem to know about British way of life and are always moaning about the NHS even though it’s a free service. However, the one thing they seem very clued up on is benefits and how to claim. This is my lived experience as a Brit who has worked her whole life and wouldn’t have a clue how the benefits system works. And to be honest does leave a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth. When people are struggling month to month, they will look to people to blame etc.

i despise Reform, I shudder to think of the devastation they would cause on a grander scale. So in my mind the government must act they must be prepared to be criticised. They must be prepared to make their back benchers unhappy. The must concentrate on growth and giving back to low/middle earners so it feels that hard work does pay.

In some parts of the country they were. In other places and especially larger cities they were an emphatic yes to more left wing policies.

@WeirdyBeardyMarrowBabyLadywhat is it for you?

We live in a very right wing country when you look back historically. The most successful Labour leader was centrist and I’d say we are largely centre right as a nation.

Corbyn was successful, as much as people like to lambast him, he was particularly successful with the younger generation who actually went out and voted for a change. He could never have been PM though, partly because the media denigrated him at every turn.

I think Labour needs Andy Burnham. The man has done a fantastic job in Manchester and it would be great to see that success recreated nationally.

For me the Greens are dangerous too. Watching their councillor pull out a Palestinian flag when he won and talking about twinning a town with one in Palestine is so divisive and has no place in local council matters. The Greens are insane championing LGBTQ and trans rights, whilst hoovering up the pro Palestine HAMAS supporting vote is insanity. The two types of voters will never thrive together as they stand for totally different things. This glaring red flag is ignored by the naive and they can’t see that Polanski and his policies are just little sound bites with no meaning, just like Farage’s

The strange thing is this supposedly left public spending government I actually seems to be sending less money into public services. The budget for my NHS team is at lowest level in real terms that it has been for past 10 years, with 12 percent cut since the start of this parliament.
My daughters primary (of which I'm a governor) has seen a real term drop in funding and is likely to end this school year in deficit for first time in 15 years, despite already cutting 4 LSA jobs. Labour have cut their real term funding approx 8%

It's much more nuanced to that saying right wing are in favour of lower spending and left with higher.

The amount they spent of lifting the 2 child cap could have been spent on schools and paediatric care, and I think it would have been popular as would benefit nearly every child in the country without discrimation, both rich and poor. But spending it on the 2 child cap benefits a relatively small amount of people, and generally benefits those who do not work and contribute more than those who do, which is seen as unfair

Despite being very leftie myself, I accept most people don't want this. This was a choice for us a few years ago and certainly, there was a huge popular movement towards the left-wing, but the public, despite increased votes in that direction, voted against it.

Very sadly, I think we're going into neo-fascism or modern far-right authoritarianism, which has its roots in the prep and push towards Brexit. And the population keep voting for it, so it must be what they want.

The FT backed Labour during the 2024 GE.

Not any longer, they don’t.

@Bushmillsbabethanks for this insight. I think scrapping the two child benefit cap was a big mistake. As a single parent to one child I find this infuriating myself.

Why? If they lose their benefits it won’t benefit you.

Yes agree with this.. All those who clapped and welcomed that well known corrupt passport seller for cash and other sleazy activities ' we call him Peter' should be out. Its clear they have no integrity.

The country don't want to pay massive amounts of tax if they work hard, and what tax they do pay frittered away on endless bad decisions.

Labour had a great opportunity. They really fucked it up. We need a new broom, and get rid of the people in the cabinet right now. All of them. And give back those massive payrises.

And reinstate wrongly sacked civil servants. Oh and pay the post office victims before you go.

Ironic coming from Blunkett when so much of what makes government and the civil service turgid and inefficient was implemented under the last Labour government.

They backed Labour at the very last minute, like the SUN, because they knew the Tories were toast.
They don't back Labour now because they think Reform might win.

The reality is, Reform can hardly get 25% in national polling.

I don’t think the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ have much meaning anymore. The world has changed so much since those terms were coined, they no longer represent any kind of shared political philosophy or set of beliefs.

What people want, generally, is still the same though. They want to work and to be rewarded for that. To exchange their labour for goods and services, or the means to purchase them. They want to work, and to be able to feed, clothe, care for their children and family, get them medical care when they need it. They want to work, and when they are old and tired they want to stop working and be cared for. They want to see their children do better, go further, achieve more than they did.

i can’t remember what podcast it was I listened to recently, but the speaker was saying that we fell into a trap of thinking the post war 1945-2008 period was the new normal, and it wasn’t. It was actually a blip in human history, a freakish period of huge change. We optimistically believed the world was genuinely changed forever. But it wasn’t. It was a blip, and now we are back to business as usual. Human nature is what it is, and that doesn’t change.

Angela raynor has written an open letter and has said the nnw wage needs to rise to help young people into work.

This in itself shows a fundamental misunderstanding of why their policies have gone so wrong .

It's utter madness.

And they don't care what we want they have an ideology to be follow