The Financial Times Endorses Labour

[verdantverdure]

Feels significant

Good to see all the left wing...erm...oh.

Be very careful who you vote for UK.

Link: www.ft.com/content/2290c1f7-a4cb-4fe1-9b69-b0c8ca17f070

I think everyone knows that this is a particularly centrist and moderate Labour Party. I can live with that, particularly given the present state of the country and the world.

The Sunday Times (another well known …. newspaper!) also endorsed labour

The Economist as well. Their leader is biting.

No we don't.
They say everything (and hide everything) to win this election, many called it "Ming vase approach"
We know nothing about the real plan when they get into power apart from numbers in manifesto don't work.
Rayner isn't centrist or moderate.
I wouldn't be surprised if Starmer is replaced at some stage.

As to endorsements - I'm very cynical about it. Labour won this election already by a huge margin, all polls can't be wrong, so press and everyone else are trying to make friends.

I don’t think you understand what the Ming vase analogy means. It means extreme caution and taking nothing for granted. The IFS says none of the manifestos’ numbers work. We do know that income tax, VAT and NI - the taxes paid by most of the population - won’t go up. We also know that business supports them. The endorsement by the heavyweight press is significant whether you like it or not.

The current Labour Party knows that the country needs huge investment in public services, and the best way to do that in the long term is to fix the UK's longstanding productivity problem and grow the economy. Unsurprising that the FT and the Economist, who've been banging on about this for years, are happy to see someone take on this problem head on who isn't Liz Truss.

The financial markets like stability, and the Tory party lurching from one crisis to the next doesn't give them that.

They're willing to take a punt on Labour keeping things more stable. We shall see.

As for growth, "How Labour will kickstart growth" is here
https://labour.org.uk/change/kickstart-economic-growth/

So, relying on the private sector to build houses and "boost growth", and creating a National Wealth Fund to invest in jobs. It remains to be seen how much money that fund will have - remember what happened to the green investment plans - and what exactly it will pay for - see the Labour Welsh Government's record for examples of failed investments in -

film facilities https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-politics-51207094.amp
a race track
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-politics-65181038.amp
and the site of the Green Man festival
https://nation.cymru/news/green-man-spin-off-falls-apart-with-welsh-government-left-with-4-25m-farm-it-doesnt-need/

That makes sense.

The Tories for the past 14 years have worsen, not improved, the economy and misused tax payers money.

Time for another party to be in charge and these papers know that Starmer is a moderate, sensible leader rather than a radical.

So sensible they have said they will do a thing, and also the opposite thing.

Who?

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

This is pretty emphatic

A fresh start? Possibly. How much will change, is the question.

The Independent, hardly a right wing paper (it's full-on TWAW, for instance) has an article which says economists warn both the Conservatives and Labour that the UK is heading for "'stagnation' after the election and that Sunak and Starmer are "failing to offer a 'serious plan' to grow the UK economy". Can't link, it's behind a paywall.

One test for a new Labour government within a couple of months of the election is whether it can persuade Tata to keep blast furnace number four at Port Talbot in operation instead of closing it in September as intended, given Labour's manifesto commitment to invest £2.5 billion in the steel industry.

The trouble is that Labour are committed to making the UK "a world leader in clean green steel with a long-term programme of investment in clean steel technologies". But the blast furnace is old, very un-green technology. However, Tata does intend to build a new electric arc furnace on the site with government help, but that will take around three years.

Can Labour afford to pay Tata to keep one blast furnace operational as well as funding clean steel technologies?

Edited for typo

FT chart about votes and seats