When will things get better under Labour?

[Tregaronableist]

I remember reading a thread asking this, just after the election results. My thoughts at the time were that things wouldn’t change much. I’ve seen governments come and go and nothing much changes. We are the same people, the same country, the same industries and we have the same amount of money.

It’s depressing to see what is going on currently. Is it because we now have a left wing government? If the riots were happening under the Tories would the agitators be labelled as far left?

They aren't a new secretary taking over from a shit secretary. They've been doing this job for 20 years. Wtf do they actually do in opposition if it isn't closely shadowing what the current government are doing?

That’s a red herring. If your income is high enough to pay tax, you don’t need the WFA, in fact you appear to be arguing that most pensioners don’t need free prescriptions or bus passes either and I don’t disagree with you.

I despair of this government. Pontificating about a “black hole” in the public finances which they claim to have known nothing about — while spending money on net zero in other countries and giving in to every strikers’ demand. (And guess what — the strikers are all coming back for more.)
Ignoring the rampant anti-Semitism and violence many pro-Palestine marches while coming down like a ton of bricks on other hateful protesters.
Waffling about restoring trust in politics while warning us that they’re going to break their election promises by raising taxes.
All the while posturing about how marvellous they are.

Not to mention most of the day to day running of the country is done by the permanent civil servants in each ministry and department who don't change "en masse" when the party in power changes. Yes, maybe a few move, retire, etc., but most just carry on doing their normal jobs without much change. Lots of decisions, etc at micro level are made and enacted with little input from the ministers having been rubber stamped by the permanent civil servant heads under a kind of "umbrella" agreement with their respective Secretary of States/Ministers as to general direction of travel of policies etc.

The new incoming party after an election, in the same way as when a Minister position changes, will hit the ground running because most of what they do is decided/organised by the civil servants and they will just "rubber stamp" most of it.

It's exactly why not much changes (in the big scheme of things) when a government or Secretary of State/Ministerial appointment changes.

Also why sometimes "big" changes are made, which are then overturned when the Minister/SOS/Prime Minister starts receiving complaints/objections, etc.

A recent one was where HMRC unilaterially decided that pick up trucks would be subject to benefits in kind like cars, i.e. a lot higher tax/nic charges. All the announcements were made, statutory provisions were enforced. Then Rishi announced it was to be cancelled and returned to being taxed lower rates as vans! That was due to political pressure from landowners and farmers who'd have been badly affected. None of that, neither introduction, nor cancellation, was discussed across the floor of the House of Commons. It seems to have been a decision made by the head civil servant within HMRC!

I'm not sure things will get better. They might not get as bad as they could have if we hadnt changed government, but that's hard to measure. Like the education, which is the area I know best, might maintain current status but under the conservatives it might of got worse and worse. So it looks like labour did nothing to make the country better. For instance, a lot of capital projects have been postponed for over a decade and are now critical, so labour could massively invest in education to get the same education result as the investment is all hidden in up to date fire alarms and cladding - but the tories might not have invested and the building burnt down and children died.

I've been very unmoved by the change of government too. It's the same parliament, in the same world. I dont know how, but labour v tory seems something for a past age with neither party representing the future of the uk.

For the moment, I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt, even though I generally believe that most politicians are despicable creatures in general, who never face consequences for the harm they cause. (Yes, massive generalisation, I know.) Labour do have a massive mess to sort out, left by a government who cared about ABSOLUTELY NOTHING but their own perks. But I think the ones to be most suspicious of are those who promise miracles and the moon on a stick, like both Johnson and Bliar spent a lot of time doing. Labour under-promising seems sensible to me. And I'd rather have dull and boring Starmer than the "lovable buffoon" of Saint Boris.

I don't have a lot of hope for Labour in general though: after all, they did not provide a shred of opposition to the extremely damaging lockdowns, which were prolonged for far longer than necessary, and were justified by the miracles which Johnson kept promising: "we can send the virus packing if we lock down long enough and hard enough". I would have had far more respect for "we cannot beat the virus, we can only lessen the harm, and we will only cause more harm to the economy and children's wellbeing if we long down for too long". So I'm not holding my breath, unless they actually start talking about the damage caused by the lockdowns which they clamoured for more and more of.

Agreed

anyone who thinks this lot are the same as the last lot frankly is not paying attention…

There was a caller on 5 live yesterday who blamed all the last governments failures over 14 years on Labour. Apparently they should have held the government to account and therefore it’s all their fault.

laughable. And your post is showing similar vibes

Landowners? Landowners drive brand new Discoverys and rangerrovers. They aren't driving Izuzu pick ups!

If you mean farmers, farm workers and builders then yes - they are commercial vehicles. Not many Nissan Navaras parked in our local private school car park!

Their job in OPPOSITION is to hold the government to account. The clue is in the name. I'm not blaming them for the mess the tories made. But to flutter their eyelashes and pretend it was all a big nasty surprise is pathetic.

In about 8 years from now. That's typically the lag between any large meaningful political change and practical results. That's why we're still taking a kicking right now: we're still having the affects of George Osborne's original austerity cuts and Brexit. Sadly it appears Labour are about to make similar mistakes. But I live in hope that they'll see sense and borrow now to spend and get the economy churning again.

How do you expect them to know about the recently discovered mess when the IFS and OBR didn’t? The last government managed to spend the entire year’s reserve contingency in three months.

Things won't get better under Labour. That's been made painfully obvious already.

In other news your State Pension increased by 10.1% in 2023 and 8.5% in 2024 and the government are keeping the Triple Lock on pension increases. So, you could use that instead.

Last time it was the second parliament. That’s my expectation.

Well said, state pensions have risen far faster than wages in the last few years.

I’m just so sad about how much worse it’s going to be. I am genuinely shocked labour have bowed to the unions within weeks, and to such a huge extent, and have reverted immediately to tax and spend of old.

God yes. I remember getting lectures about timing van purchases in such a way that effectively the government would be paying for most of it through increased working tax credits. Unreal.

Have a word with yourself FFS. Public sector pay has stagnated for over a decade, causing massive recruitment and retention issues, plus requiring the use of more expensive bank staff to plug the gaps. Without this, the problems in schools, hospitals, civil service etc for service delivery wouldn't be anywhere near as bad as they are.

The recent pay settlements haven't even begun to address the lack of pay rises suffered by staff, many of whom have seen their salary caught up by NMW despite being in skilled jobs.

@senua completely agree. Spot on.

Yes, I forgot about the "van" purchase scenario. Yes, lecturers were showing illustrations showing how you could buy a van for a net cost of peanuts after tax relief and tax credits. Utter madness. A lot of our clients took advantage, even worse, than many didn't need a "van" as they never carried goods/loads, but still qualified for the tax/nic relief and additional tax credits. So in those years, they bought a van (often a crew cab pickup for transporting the family) but as soon as the system changed, they reverted back to buying cars!

Another entirely foreseeable behaviour which the government claimed was "unforeseen".

Just like Brown reducing corporation tax for small limited companies and then being surprised that lots of window cleaners, cleaners, gardeners etc converted from being sole traders to limited companies.

They're hopeless!

So the same as large parts of the private sector then. At least PS workers get good pension schemes, whereas private sector workers don't even have that to look forward to!

Which wouldn’t have been necessary if public sector wages hadn’t stagnated for the last decade or so.

This is today's 'let's blame the Labour government thread' - one at least every day. Guess it makes a change from VAT on private school fees.

No guarantees Labour will keep the triple lock, I bet RR is eyeing that one up