We need a political party that will…

[Skippp]

I work in finance and this country is on the brink of collapse. It’s spending too much, it’s not growing the economy and needs someone to come in and make good decisions quickly if we are to survive. It’s in a really serious state now and action must be taken. I’vote Labour, and did so hoping Keir would be brave enough to take the hard decisions needed but he’s been a pathetic wet blanket. We need a government who:

1. get rid of the triple lock. It’s laughably unaffordable.
2. reassess the whole benefits system and get rid of disability payments for anything but the most severe conditions, increasing the amounts to those who have these conditions.
3. restrict benefit payments to those born outwith the UK to those that have been in full time work for a large proportion of their adult lives here.
4. Reduce the minimum wage to help companies hire again.
5. Reduce housing benefit. People will have to move to somewhere cheaper or landlords will have to drop prices to what people can afford.
6. Go to an insurance backed healthcare system like they enjoy in Europe.
7. Ditch 95% of planning regulation and get Britain building again.
8. ditch net zero. No one is going to run a successful business in a country with the highest energy costs on the planet.
9. Reopen Scotland oil and gas production (inc refineries) and explore for more areas.
10. Simplify income taxes. Roll income tax into NICs. Give everyone child care hours, child benefit, personal allowance and increase tax rates to pay for this. Stop artificially restricting people from earning more.
11. Simplify VAT. Drop the threshold to £20k to ensure no one has a ceiling on earnings.
12. Simplify IHT. 5% on everything. No nil rates or exemptions.
13. rejoin the single market and customs union.
14. Explain policies better! Tell people how unaffordable the triple lock etc is. Tell them what the single market and customs union non is and why you’re rejoining. Tell people what the ‘bond markets’ are and why they’re important. Tell people why paying for rich people’s child care is much better for the economy than forcing high earners to drop their hours.
15. Probably ought to start deporting economic migrants with no right to stay quickler to throw some red meat to reform voters.

We need a party to take on ALL of these policies and move AT PACE on them. Who’s the party that will do this? I thought it was Labour but BOY was I wrong on that!

What are people adding to the list?

Indeed. But we’re looking at ways to improve the NHS so we all get seen promptly, rather than just me and my colleagues. I find it quite unethical that I get treated when others don’t.

So interesting reading the comments on NMW. I’ve said this on many threads before. My business produces something that most people will have in their kitchen on any given day. Feed and labour are 85% of our costs. Supermarkets know our costs and base ALL Labour in NMW. So when the NMW goes up by a chunk so does what we get paid. And we aren’t making lots and lots!!

I’m not sure what the answer is as it feels a bit of a cycle. I do think it’s ridiculous paying the youngsters the same. We’ve always done that once they can do the job as well as an older one. It’s a rare 18 year old that jumps straight in, they need training, coaching and guiding. Especially the recent generation. They get there, normally after about 6 months to a year. They need basic handholding like “don’t message me at 10lm asking for your shifts I gave you four months ago and checked last month and have been up in the staff room for aeons.”

Agree with you, except that I think it’s not going to be sensible to rejoin a single market until we have made all benefits contributory. It is not possible under EU laws to treat new EU arrivals different to U.K. citizens - U.K. citizens don’t have access to benefits in many EU countries because all benefits are contributory, so that the amount you get depends on having paid in and contributed for a set amount of time. As the U.K. system is universal, we have to pay benefits to EU citizens on the same basis, regardless of contribution. Those are the rules. So the idea of rejoining the single market conflicts with one of your other points without very significant prior reform.

To put this into some kind of reality. I provide a weekly meal for £2.50, which quite often I can make a small profit on. This is done within a club setting, and as volunteer let, there are no other costs.
Now take that meal to a hospital setting. Firstly volume makes a need for expensive equipment for preparation.
Then you need equipment to deliver it to point of need.
Plus the cost of staff for preparation, checking, deliver, washing up etc.
There are plenty of other things that’ll also raise the cost but I’d imagine good nutritious food delivered in a hospital setting will never be cheap.

I suppose that would mean you pay or go hungry.

Agree on these points too. Sure start was shown to drastically cut costs later on in life associated with those who grew up in poverty. So why did Labour remove the 2 child benefit cap instead of using that money to fund classes for those parenting kids in poverty?

But the more people being treat privately means less people on nhs waiting lists. You getting treatment privately means your not taking up an NHS space

i doubt the possibility of a vulnerable person dying troubles the op

I don't think many people agree with lifting the 2 child benefit cap.

Can we rejoin the customs union and single market without freedom of movement though? All we’re talking about is saying yes my ham sandwich is produced to away standards, and therefore we can export ham sandwiches to the EU without having to show a vet certificate that the pig that the ham came from was happy etc. Reduce the endless admin showing that UK standards of production meet EU ones.

65% of people were against.

Yeah that doesn't suprise me it makes no sense. Im actually surprised that number isn't higher

I am as left as it can be and even I didn’t agree with lifting the two benefit cap! Sure Starr made real differences to people and children.

Anyway, I have a day job.

I want a government that will take firm, decisive urgent action to improve UK prospects to ensure firms invest here, we get jobs and growth and that feeds into better public services and a better future. We need to escape being ‘in hock to the bond markets’ by getting out of debt. We need ‘rebel’ backbenchers and opposition MPs to grow up and get behind the PM. No more indecisive actions that lead to endless decline.

@SpideySensesbroken Given what we know about the impact of trauma, poor nutrition and addiction, the biggest thing we could do to help reduce costs in the future would be to improve the lives of children.

It's actually binning the idea that having children is a universal right. Some people should not be allowed to have children, or keep having children until they get it right. For some children, never having been born is preferable to the issues they have to deal with as a result of having those parents and, with respect, well meaning social workers and others involved in this area, don't make any real difference to that. We subject those children to what is effectively mental torture their entire lives and, for what?

@Skippp

The EU have always said no single market without FOM. It might be possible to rejoin the customs union without FOM, but absolutely not the single market. That is the issue - the EU does not want to let the U.K. pick and choose as frankly lots of countries would choose this!

Agreed. People could help their DC whilst alive and even earning though....
And see my original post where I said a functioning government should get building council housing. This would lower demand and help the housing market adjust. Eventually. It should have been happening from, oo lets say, about the time Magaret Thatcher decided to sell off all the stock. And at any point since then. Massive failing by successive goverments.

I do agree about the triple lock and also wish that they had committed to the winter fuel payment cut. They could have used that money to start investing in young people especially with the threat of AI on their career options.

I feel like we all have expected that the economy would start to better at some point. I left school just as the conservatives were getting into power and have had my entire adult life in an economic downturn. Living in the north east the decline has been even longer.

I work in social care and the costs are absolutely eye watering but people do need the care they receive and there is no way around that. There is maybe ways to save little bits of money here and there but it would be a drop in the ocean. The truth is that we have an ageing population who are living longer than ever, disabled children who are living well into adulthood with advances in medicine and a very unhealthy population on top of it all. The ageing population is not a shock we have all been aware this was coming and politicians have completely let us down not preparing for it.

I do think the NHS needs reform and to be honest I would not be sad to see if reformed into an insurance system like France. It’s not our way or America’s there is lots of in between options.

All of the above - brilliant list. Not rocket science. If all the parties stopped trying to satisfy their party members and mps rather than doing what would be good for the country we’d all be a lot better off.

I would add making coding/AI related knowledge compulsory in schools. Make it as essential as maths and English. Everyone needing to take a gcse in it.

Except that the nhs consultants these privately paying people see are the same consultants as the ones in the nhs. So while they are spending 40 minutes talking to each private patient at Spire or Nuffield they are not seeing nhs patients.

i know because I used to work in a private hospital!

I partially agree with the OP.

Frankly, the UK is in dire straits. The big issues being:

• one that most countries are facing, that is most acute in developed countries - birthrates in perpetual decline, meaning an exponential decrease in working age people and increase in (traditional) retirement age ones. It is not an ideological judgment but a matter of fact that our pension system - by far the largest component of welfare - is completely unsustainable in its current form.

• one relatively unique to the UK - we have a uniquely high number of people out of work on health grounds (again, adding to welfare spend, and reducing the pool of net contributors

Short term, we need to bite the bullet and slash welfare spending. That goes against every ideological instinct of mine, but the country is veering towards collapse quicker than most. Starmer gets that, but (1) doesn't have the grip on his party, and (2) is faced with extreme public backlash - as will be any leader who takes this particular bull by the horns.

So, some of the OP's "policies" make a lot of short term sense.

Longer term though - and while acknowledging that no country, however left or right, has found the answer - I profoundly doubt that policies that would increase wealth inequality (e.g. minimum wage cuts) are conducive to a recovery in birth rates. Few want large families anymore and, many that do, cannot afford them. Absent a radical solution, we need to remove barriers and incentivize birth rate stabilization. The latter is a tough nut to crack, but we certainly shouldnt be adding to the economic barriers.

A revision to fossil fuel reliance sounds attractive but would take years to yield results and is short termism pure and simple.

Reform UK? Morons demanding unicorns. Immigration is not a viable long term solution to the demographic crisis but - like it or not - is the duct tape solution. Net zero Immigration is probably the single dumbest policy imaginable at the current moment.

The Greens? Look, I would be delighted if someone can put together a coherent vision for a more equitable society that is capable of sustaining itself. (Antisemitism aside...) it all sounds so very lovely, but they have no demonstrated a modicum of economic credibility, at a time where we need it in spades.

Labour (or at least, Starmer) seem to have something the extremes lack - a baseline understanding of the challenges we face and some sense of realism, although long term solutions seem elusive to them too. Unfortunately, politics has always prioritized the short term over the long term, and even means testing the winter fuel allowance caused such backlash that they u-turned in order to (try to...) remain electable.

Bitter pills need to be swallowed, and whoever administers them is almost certainly condemning themselves to election defeat - unless they can clearly articulate the problems and sell the solutions. Starmer - regrettably - can't even sell incremental steps to his own "supermajority" (and yes, that's partially down to traditional media, partially down to social media - but its an area where he is especially weak).

Anyway, as bad as tying are now, they look set to get worse come the next general election, especially if the Russia/crypto-backed slimeball slithers into number 10, so enjoy the soon-to-be good old days and cross your fingers that AI might somehow save us.

I don’t think the OP is really meaning that those seriously ill enough to be hospitalised through mental illness should have pip removed.

Reform party political broadcast ! So obvious.

I know surely everyone knows this. Most of my nhs drs do private work

The NHS has had huge huge/vast amounts of money. It’s the structure of it which seems to be the problem.