Voting for Reform

[Behappyandbehave]

Would this be such a bad idea? I hate labour and tories. But I don't know enough about Reform.

...and Sunak supports Meloni in Italy, he even went to a right wing Govts conference in January.

This idea that Le Pen and Meloni are far right but the Tories are not, is for the birds.

Reform, Conservatives, RN, AFD, Freedom party etc etc they are all versions of the same right wing that has gained traction since the GFC.

There is a very good reason why Major, Heseltine, Clarke, Stewart & Grieve are not supporting Sunak in this GE and why a few current MPs have switched sides too

I still don’t understand how Labour are going to lower NHS waiting lists? Wes Streeting even said recently he would look at using private hospitals to help with this.

Yet Kier Starmer said on a debate the other day he would never use private healthcare for a loved one ? Isn’t this contradictory?

How will Labour recruit 6 thousand teachers ? You can force people into the profession or magically conjure them up. Maybe people don’t see it as an attractive career anymore. Maybe people don’t want to be teachers.

Border command centre to stop boats ? We already have Border force that work in collaboration with the French. Between the two nations, high numbers still arrive here.

Surely for every boat gang you ‘smash (Starmer’s words) there will be another one?

I don’t see any real benefit to charging VAT on private schools. It will just force some to close and put more pressure on state schools. Almost everyone else ,including head teachers have said this -but Starmer seems keen to go ahead with it.

Starmer refuses to rule out council tax rises which is his right to do so.

But lots of people seem to forget that council tax is almost as expensive as income tax for lots of people.

My council tax is band D is costs me £2500 per year. My income tax is roughly the same if not lower.

So whilst income tax and NI might not go up other taxes will.

Some people will be financially worse off under Labour.

Wes Streeting even said recently he would look at using private hospitals to help with this. Yet Kier Starmer said on a debate the other day he would never use private healthcare for a loved one ? Isn’t this contradictory?

Not in the least contradictory. Using private facilities and staff to bring down waiting lists for NHS patients is completely different to jumping the queue by swerving the NHS completely.

There are currently over 40,000 qualified teachers not working in the profession, doubtless ways can be found to persuade some of them to return to the classroom.

Other than a pay rise , what would persuade them back into the classrooms?

And what pay rise would be offered ? How do they make teaching attractive for ex or indeed new teachers ?

How about starting with properly funding Education, especially SEND?

Funding levels are now the same as in 2010.

Not sure what Reform's plans are

Reduction in unnecessary paperwork and an increase in actual time to plan and teach would help.

Also more powers (and training) for effective discipline in schools. Teachers hands are tied.

Golden helloes would work. No pay rise necessary, just a nice lump sum for returning and staying for a specified period.

@BIossomtoes

"Golden helloes would work. No pay rise necessary, just a nice lump sum for returning and staying for a specified period."

Surely that disincentives existing teachers to be loyal and stay and incentives teachers to leave and come back.

Exactly. They'd need to pay a big fat bonus to every teacher currently working as well as any that returned to the profession.

The country is skint, so that's not going to happen.

It would be incredibly easy to set up the scheme so that couldn’t happen. How do you think private sector employers fill vacancies in shortage areas without offering the same deal to existing employees?

How is it different? Honestly you’re at it again - contorting yourself into a pretzel to defend labour over something you’d give another party an absolute pasting for.

Reform plans for the first 100 days for primary and secondary education are

A Patriotic Curriculum in Primary and Secondary Schools

Ban Transgender Ideology in Primary and Secondary Schools

Tax relief of 20% on all Independent Education

No details on how the going to fund or execute it

Of course it’s different. Using the private sector to benefit millions of ordinary people at no cost to them is completely different to an individual buying private healthcare.

@BIossomtoes

"How do you think private sector employers fill vacancies in shortage areas without offering the same deal to existing employees?"

In the private sector they generally resolve vacancies in shortage areas by:

1. Paying more money than existing employees doing the same job but rebrand the job title to try and stop existing employees get pissed off about it or for triggering discrimination cases (different pay for the same job). This approach usually fails with existing and experienced employees getting seriously pissed and either asking for a raise, become demotivated or leave.

2. an alternative and more common approach is to hire someone way less experienced and effective than the current experienced employees but on the same salary. This also tends to result in the existing experienced employees becoming pissed off and leaving but with the added hit of department/ company performance taking a hit as this plays out.

Golden hellos or golden handcuffs are very rare in the private sector and are generally only used in the banking sector.

@DuncinToffee

"No details on how the going to fund or execute it"

Because they know that they are never going to get elected so it doesn't matter.

It's a bit like Brexit with all sound bites "let's take back control" but with absolutely no idea what that actually looks like in practice.

But people will vote for a party with soundbites, I would like to know why they will vote for those education policies.

Tax relief on state provision lowers the state burden, it’s why some countries already do it

Even a country with a Labor gov

What other country has a Labour government?

Well I understand that people will vote for cheaper private education, what about the other policies?

Labor in Aus got in recently, and if you look at the policies it’s quite an interesting mix which some have looked into here

Starmer was happy at their win and took their shift to green policies as inspiration a fair while ago

Streeting had a look at healthcare but not sure what he’s going with

Immigration policies are some of the toughest out there and Reform would be pretty happy to get those in place. They are bipartisan now so still there under Labor gov

I think they have workfare still and do tax rebates which are quite different to how we feel about tax

Gender tracks with left

Anyway on who will vote for Reform it seems a fair few will but not having PR will give different outcomes to EU shifts we’re seeing

Surely because the government is paying to use spare capacity in private hospitals to treat NHS patients, rather than only wealthy people being able to get treatment while everyone else is stuck on a waiting list.

Precisely. It’s not difficult.

Well it’ll cost and like everything the extra funds Labour are relying on are reducing already

Going by the FT recently behaviours already changing pre GE outcome

Going by the FT recently behaviours already changing pre GE outcome

How?

A link would be nice but that’s too much to hope for.