To be surprised how many threads on here are about …

[Ednasharples]

Labour making a hash of things. It’s like we are living in a weird kind of masochistic Stockholm syndrome. Most of us are experiencing the reality of broken Tory Britain, where nothing works (unless you live in a very well off area I guess) but we’re being gaslit that everything is hunky dory.
I listened to Oliver Dowden literally shouting over the interviewer on LBC this morning, telling us how taxes will shoot up within 6 months of KS being PM, how British children are the best readers in the universe, how Rishi single handedly brought down inflation (but funnily enough had nowt to do with it going up). I read on here that Labour hate women, hate rich people, hate aspiration, and will raise the red flag over Buckingham palace after Starmer has been overthrown by Corbyn.

It’s like the country is facing an existential threat to its survival if Labour win despite Tory Brexit, Tory austerity, Tory cronyism, life expectancy falling because of a whole scale drop in living standards, children becoming fatter and sicker. It’s just all very odd and I’m struggling to understand it …

I agree with this.

However when Labour did invest they turned to PFI to do it so it made the books look better under their tenure. But this also made it more difficult to invest later because of the costs of PFI being kicked down the road in an insane way and it merely hide the costs at the time.

The lack of transparency on this distorts comparable figures.

The trouble is there is a fundamental lack of transparency across the board with all these figures heavily politicised rather than acting to serve the public.

Labour are not now advocating self ID. They are advocating one doctor making a decision and a period of notice.

Liz Truss favoured self ID, apparently.

Liz Truss was like the walking dead. Zombie like and incapable of thinking. Over promoted way beyond her ability and her levels of understanding of subjects. She, more than anyone, embodies the problems with politics in recent decades.

Equally though you might want to check the small print on that Labour self ID policy and what it means in practice.

The Labour manifesto is under funded by £5 billion, Conservatives by £13 billion, Liberals by £27 billion, Reform by £141 billion and the Greens y £180 billion.

However all parties fail to admit that assuming current spending and taxation stay the same then there is an increasingly large deficit.

So regardless of who gets elected that party will have to either cut spending or increase taxation. Part of the tax rise is already factored in by assuming that there will be no increase in the tax thresholds to take inflation into account (something all the parties are silent on). However beyond that there is very little scope for further tax rises with well off earners getting taxed at 60% already starting to cut down hours or retire early.

That leaves spending cuts and austerity which politically would be suicidal for Labour.

There was talk in Labour a while back to copy Reform's proposal to stop interest payments on Government debt (which is roughly the same as the education budget). To do this would remove all investor confidence in the UK and monumentally destroy the economy and make Liz Truss' budget look like sound economic policy.

This isn't a criticism of Labour or Starmer but just a realistic appraisal that given current spending and debt, Labour's ability to improve the current situation is incredibly difficult, to keep things the same would be a success but I genuinely think the more probable outcome is things will get worse.

Similar to France right now, this will create a large number of disillusioned and angry voters that will move to the harder left and harder right just in time for the 2029 election.

So regardless of who gets elected that party will have to either cut spending or increase taxation.

This is a continuation of the austerity myth. Reeves, endorsed by the majority of economists and big business, is clear that the way out of this is growth, just like it was in 2010. Any other approach just reinforces the last 14 years of a sluggish economy. If you keep doing what you’ve always done you’re going to get what you always got. People are voting for change, not more of the same.

Agree that the Shit List is longer than Lord of the Rings (infrastructure/public services/governance etc) and Labour have no wriggle room. I hope some political stability will encourage inward investment however.

One hope I have is that the Conservatives don't make any knee jerk reactions this summer. I appreciate that there will be a strong urge from some to bring Farage into the tent but I think that would be ruinous overall. He wont be satisified with anything but leadership and shows zero signs of being able to work collaboratively. The Conservatives would become a party in his own image - successful with a segment of the electorate but a massive turnoff overall.
Controversially I think Sunak should stay put until after the Autumn conference - they need cooling off time before jumping back in. I dont see that happening however.

The Tories will take 5 years in opposition and blame everything on labour then people will probably believe them. They get away with so much

This 100%

I read an article recently that summed up the choice between Conservatives and Labour historically as:

Conservatives - cruel but competent
Labour - caring but incompetent

Nobody could describe the current incarnation of the Conservative party as competent so they will lose voters and Labour will win

(I can't remember which articel - possibly Matthew Paris in the Times)

The gap between rich and poor has become a chasm now and it’s deeply unfair. An unfair society causes huge resentment and unrest. And this idea that the rich are rich because they work hard has become so ingrained people repeat it ad nauseum without thinking of the utter nonsense of it.

I opened this expecting it to say Reform as a fair few threads on that

There are still many pro Labour threads on here

I thought we’d see a rise to right in EU and France are pretty much where I expected. I think a left ish gov and growing Reform put us behind where they are in timing but we could see similar over next few years

Labour’s policies will be the opposite of what those voters want and I can see it pushing more of a shift

To me, the criticism of Labour is deserved and reasonable, and is in no way lessened by the fact that the Conservatives have been and are terrible. Similar applies vice versa. In some ways, these two situations reinforce and magnify each other: how can Labour be so lacking when they've had a series of incompetent governments to oppose? How can the Tories have accomplished so very little when they've faced a weak opposition that's given them years of a strong, clear majority in the HOC to accomplish (within reason) whatever they prioritised? Either way, all parties should be somewhat respectful of the people they seek to represent and should attract and retain voters rather than assuming that votes are their due for being marginally less bad than absolute rock bottom.

I groan when I see posts reacting to criticism of Labour with various versions of "but the Tories!" In Scotland it's rarely a question (except perhaps in a few Borders constituencies) of Tories vs Labour. In my area, the choice is between Labour and the SNP - or, possibly, do you play the long game and vote for one of the tiny very new parties (who often seem to have the most desirable candidates - I feel like the big parties just take voters for granted, recycle the same bad candidates through Westminster, Holyrood, local and until recently EU elections, and don't even bother to vet any more) in order to bolster their numbers in hopes of viability and visibility in the future? And I can only imagine that voters in NI are even more annoyed than Scots about the weird insistence that criticism of Labour automatically = a vote (literally, and/or of confidence) for the Conservatives.

Which voters ? Which policies are the opposite of what voters want ?
If anything the empty or unachievable promises of mainly right wing parties have sullied the water for other political parties. The cynicism towards politicians is precisely because the party in government has lied and gas lit. Look at levelling up. A blatant sham.
I guess what Labour needs to do is be absolutely honest with the population. What is and isn’t achievable. But then you’ve got a hostile press that will be misinforming and exaggerating.

I’m actually not sure what people want in this country and how it squares up with actual reality. That’s the problem.

Self ID = someone is whatever sex they say they are, regardless of their biology, how they present etc.

Therefore any policy that requires a medical diagnosis and an element of gatekeeping is not "self ID"

Unless you think all of us on anti-depressants after filling in the NHS depression questionnaire and getting a prescription from the doctor are also "self-identifying" as depressed. 🙄

This "Labour are bringing in self ID" is also gaslighting.

A combination of Labour’s ‘smash the gangs’ which is unworkable and France’s shift to the right will likely mean they become a bigger push factor for traffickers

I would not be surprised if this fuels further Reform like backlash

Yes.
It's so weird this thing of the Conservatives are powerless to improve things because of "global events" but Labour will definitely make it worse because they are in power.

When Labour come in they will repriorotise spending. They've said how and on what. It looks credible, I would rather vote for that than 5 years of something we know definitely isn't working.

Plus in my opinion you'd need your head read to believe a party that has consistently and repeatedly lied and broken the law. That's nothing to so with party politics. That's and application of basic standards in democracy. Pretty sure lots of people agree which is why the Tories are not closing the polls. They are the boy who cried wolf and very few people believe a word they say.

Because some of us remember living under previous labour governments and know it wasn't the utopia it is made out to be on here.

And some of us remember that while not perfect it was a damn sight better than this utter fiasco

I’m surprised @RedToothBrush, remember their posts on the Brexit board. Seems that they’ve turned full circle politically.

Absolutely

@EasternStandard so what policies do you want ?
Most of the frustration with politicians is precisely because we’ve been lied to and false promises made. Brexit turned out to be a failure but because no one can say that aloud we’re frankly scuppered.

I remember clearly. Not utopia no, but public services, the environment, the economy, tax, wage growth the NHS, education, the roads and social care were all much better then.

Yes it's quite striking isn't it

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2024/06/27/keir-starmer-should-be-britains-next-prime-minister

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uks-sunday-times-newspaper-endorses-opposition-labour-party-july-4-election-2024-06-30/

The Economist and The Financial Times are both backing Labour.