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 would take a mix of policies from each of the parties tbh

I’d drop some bad ones and take what I think could work from each

@BIossomtoes

"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"

We are going to pay for increased spending by "economic growth " ranks right up there with "by cutting wasteful spending" or "closing tax loopholes on the super rich " as all time favourite bullshit explanation to naive voters by politicians on how to pay for stuff.

Clearly every Government endorsed by economists and big business would rather the economy is growing more. The tricky part is achieving this.

Labour's ambition is for the UK to be the fastest growing economy in the G7 with absolutely zero explanation on how they will achieve this.

Indeed threats to raise CGT, dividends being taxed at the same rate as income and a general hostile attitude to the wealthy plus structural poor productivity means that they will be doing well just to keep the economy where it is.

Labour will NOT be able to fund their spending plans by assuming the UK will be the fastest growing economy in the G7 - it simply will not happen.

Labour's ambition is for the UK to be the fastest growing economy in the G7 with absolutely zero explanation on how they will achieve this

Wondering how too.

The political instability of the last decade has had an appreciable impact on investment. I hope Labour can go some way to reverse this.

The UK is struggling to attract foreign direct investment, with projects down nearly 30 per cent from a peak in 2016-17, according to headline government figures. Analysis by the Financial Times of official data and other sources showed that the drop in the number of FDI projects has been particularly acute in some key sectors since the Brexit referendum.

www.ft.com/content/8db6c9f8-8f4f-4cd2-869c-a04e8da9cb13

What voters want is for the Government to spend more money on services but without increasing taxes (or so long as the tax increase is on someone else and not them).

This has been achieved for the last 25 years by increasing Government debt from 35% of GDP in 1997 to 70% in 2010 and 100% today. The key problem for Governments now is that borrowing even more money is getting harder and the interest payments on existing debt takes a large chunk of Government spending (approximately the same as the education budget).

Meanwhile just on existing spending and tax plans the annual budget deficit will grow national debt further.

The policies the country needs will never get supported by the average voter.

@1dayatatime your post is in line with the IFS take on the conspiracy of silence around tax rises and spending cuts over the next five years

There are a lot of worried Tories scaremongering on Mumsnet at the moment. Perhaps that includes you OP.

@EasternStandard

Ahh but they are going to find the money by "growing the economy "
whilst at the same time being hostile to big business and foreign investment and being hostile to the wealthy.

It simply isn't going to happen and anyone who believes it will is deluded and will become disillusioned and angry in time for the 2029 election.

🙄

But I thought Rachel Reeves had met up with big business leaders to thrash out policies friendly to business and growth ?
FT, The Economist and the Sunday Times have all backed labour, surely says something about their plans ?

YABU, not because the Conservatives have been anything but useless, but because Labour will likely be just as rubbish, and I say this as someone who has always voted Labour. There is no party for me anymore.

What are the Tories plans @EasternStandard ? Cutting inheritance tax, NI ?

What exactly do you want from a government?

Have a look at their manifesto I don’t know about those ones

I don’t feel strongly about IHT or NI

I genuinely think this is a longterm strategy that has worked pretty much brilliantly for a long, long time. Make out that the Labour Party in power will threaten our way of life, will somehow destroy us and people are frightened into voting Conservative yet again.

Anyone who can look at what has ACTUALLY happened to our country since the Conservatives have been in power and still vote for them just astounds me. I'm guessing they picked a side a long time ago and just can't accept they're failing now. Or they are older people who know their pensions are safe and they have private health insurance so failing schools and hospitals don't affect them and they're selfish enough not to care about anyone else.

There are also clearly a lot of political lobbyists who are paid to start threads on social media. There are way too many of them all saying the same thing for it not to be a strategic effort.

So you'd rather use a crystal ball than the evidence of your own senses?

That makes a lot of sense....

Colour me surprised.

Why the insult? What a bizarre response

I don’t know the detail and I’m sure you can look it up

No. I've not. I'm consistent.

I was extremely critical of LD and Labour policy during Brexit if you were paying attention.

Different parties do different things better at different times.

I don't do tribalism to the degree everyone seems to think I did. I got very annoyed and alienated by Remainers being tone deaf by the point I left the threads

Ultimately I do think tone deafness contributed in various ways to Brexit.

This 💯 percent. Some of us remember when rapists were convicted, old people could expect an ambulance to arrive and there weren’t four million kids living in poverty. I’ll take that.

I think tribalism is the root of most of our political problems tbh.

@Pelham678

"So you'd rather use a crystal ball than the evidence of your own senses?"

This is not crystal ball gazing nor is it a criticism of Starmer or Labour. Instead it is a reality check that on current spending and taxation there is already an annual deficit that is about to get worse- or in short Labour will have to cut spending or increase taxation from its 70 year high just in order to stay where we are.

Add in over £2.5 trillion of national debt and there really is no room for manoeuvre regardless of who gets elected.

Anyone voting Labour and expecting a significant change from the current situation will be sorely disillusioned and angry in a very short time building support for the hard left and hard right at the 2029 election.

Labour will have to cut spending or increase taxation from its 70 year high just in order to stay where we are.

No it won’t. You need to open your mind and stop believing the Tory myth that there are only two options.

@BIossomtoes

"No it won’t. You need to open your mind and stop believing the Tory myth that there are only two options."

What you mean is that I need to believe in the deluded fantasy that Labour will create the fastest growing economy in the G7 whilst at the same time being hostile to foreign investment, big business and wealthy people.

Don't get me wrong the same problem would face the Conservatives if (highly unlikely) they ever got re elected.

It's not a question of opening my mind it's about facing reality even if you don't like it.

The IFS agree with you about the reality