I am a Labour voter, a Labour supporter and I do not regret my vote.

[CurlewKate]

However, I think that Starmer has been incredibly stupid and/or very badly advised over this expenses issue. He has done nothing wrong, but his behaviour is not what he led us to believe he would do, and I am incredibly exasperated and disappointed.

In my opinion, he should admit that he made a massive misjudgement, and agree to take no more freebies from now on.

Apart from anything else anything which allows people to say "They are all as bad as each other" (they aren't) is a distraction from the real issues the country faces. He should be laser focussed on repairing the damage caused by 14 years of Tory misrule. Not scrambling around dealing with peripheral stuff.
Starmer-say sorry. Don't do it again. And get back to work.

Thank you.

It’s so refreshing to have grown ups in the room after the Tory chaos. 🙄

KS has four weeks to prove his Govt is not ‘fundamentally’ dysfunctional, a senior Whitehall figure has said.

What have you done oh holier than thou?

I'm not sure how many times it has to be said to the 'but what about Boris?' people that the issue is the utter hypocrisy of Labour.

If you set yourself / your party out to be different, without sleaze, and you've previously called out 'nose in the trough' behaviour from the previous government's MPs, you need to make sure that, actually, you aren't indulging in the same sort of behaviour yourself! Because if you are, it makes you look exceptionally stupid and like a total hypocrite.

This.

I didn't listen, but what did he say that was racist?

So until a month or so a go, the rental market was all rosy!!! all those hikes in rents and property shortgages didn't happen in Toryland.

Market reactions?? You'll have to explain.

So far, no one knows, well apart from you that is.

Plus changes to CGT do not affect current LLs, as rent is already taxed as earned income.

What will drive LLs out is expenditure, hence the rush to sell after EPC min ratings was talked about, once this was dropped, the market eased, but if Labour bring this back in again, LLs will sell as the costs are just too great, this alone will cause what you appear to be so gleeful about.

I'd like to know too!

@twistyizzy whose Rayners mate I mean who is her mate 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️
rental market is a free fall they are solving nothing in fact making it completely untenable

I agree but this just prompts cringing, whinging responses of 'everyone is entitled to leisure time'.
So that's that then!

The market was already tight, no question. Do drop the Toryland etc - it’a really quite juvenile.

The increase in CGT is provoking LL’s to try to sell now. Talk of rental reforms including caps is also driving LLs out. Those that remain will insist on greater security from prospective tenants hence higher rents.

We are otherwise in an easing monetary environment meaning lower interest rates, and which gives leveraged LLs respite.

My point is - Labours plans will backfire, because they simply don’t understand or care.

Meanwhile Labour Cabinet ministers have accepted £753,017 in donations and £90,853 in gifts since the beginning of the year, according to the analysis of the members’ register of interests.

It’s an effing disgrace, really.

Makes my blood boil, and it should yours too.

Unbelievable really and to think this is the “honeymoon’ period

Yes to this. It will backfire and will be harder for higher risk tenants

This exactly. Angela Raynor when in opposition said that the decision to fly privately showed the public “exactly quite how little respect this Conservative government has for taxpayers’ money”. And Rachel Reeves promised a “crackdown on Tory ministers’ private jet habit” if Labour came to power. Now Labour are in power it’s suddenly a matter of national security that Labour ministers and the PM have the exact same private jet habit. For me it’s the brazen hypocrisy of it. You can’t stand for something and then drop it in less than 4 weeks once you’ve been voted to power. And stop with the fucking “but Boris” thing. He didn’t stand on a platform of integrity; and that’s the worst of it isn’t it, when your integrity is lost.

And the football thing-whining that he can’t go unless the clubs give him a free box (worth £10,000) for every game-boo hoo-watch it on TV like the rest of us who can’t go for whatever reason. These free boxes come from the Premier League and its football club members, many of whom are lobbying against Labour’s plans for a new independent regulator for the sport, which doesn’t make the freebie come without strings attached. How does Labour step away from the biases that produces?

They whined and got media time to get into power. Rayner went on about Boris and now look at them all

Very, very soon - those that would seek to defend, deflect or deny, every Labour transgression, will run out of alibis and excuses.

Already, they are becoming much less vocal.

Yes, Carol Vordemann has definitely reined in her glee about Labour! The language she used about the Tories during the election can now quite easily be applied to her beloved Labour Party.
I am no Tory but I am extremely pleased I didn't vote for Labour.

Mn will be the last place to support but it will dwindle

I don't regret my vote because I didn't want the Tories running what's left of the economy into the ground and completely destroying the NHS as they were on track to do.

However, if Labour are heading for more austerity then they're just repeating the mistakes of the past fourteen years. I did believe they had more vision than that, and I am profoundly disappointed with their message of pessimism. People simply do not have it in them to face things getting worse before they get better.

So I am relieved that we don't have more of the disastrous Tories but not feeling great about Labour unless they change direction.

I came quite close to falling out with my parents and sister over their naively skipping off to vote for Labour. I said I despised them even more than the Tories because they are just as self-serving, useless and dishonest only they have the brass neck to pretend not to be. And that people were voting for what Labour once were decades ago rather than what they had become. They wouldn't concede at all, said that's rubbish etc.

We've gone back to awkwardly avoiding political topics altogether again now when we see them but I cant help but hope they feel embarrassed now and are remembering my words. Not that 'told you so' ever brings any satisfaction when we all have to live with the consequences.

The problem is, these days MPs don't think. You've been voted into government by millions of people. You've been given a great honour and the trust of people to act for the good of the country. You handle vast budgets and are there to serve. You need to have the utmost integrity to ensure that trust is well placed.

You then, as the Education Secretary did, accept £14,000 from someone you know through work, to pay for your 40th birthday party. You think that's a perfectly reasonable thing to happen to you. You are lobbied by very powerful and wealthy people now. You're an MP now. So why shouldn't you get expensive presents from relative strangers. It doesn't happen to most of the country but you are special now and the rules don't quite apply as normal. You think it comes with no strings attached. But as I said, you don't really think.

I expect he was talking about limiting immigration which as we know is not allowed to be discussed without accusation of racism being dropped in by someone. And that has tarnished the whole debate. As usual.

Two or three decades ago a woman was put down by her graduate school-teacher DIL, who saw one party as the perfect answer etc. I am interested in your post as well as the one about Carol Vordemann - sorry if I've mis-spelled her. I can never understand how anyone can be around for a while and think and say that one party does everything wrong and another will be wonderfully right. It seems so naive to me. It's all so much greyer. I can't understand how people I think of as fairly intelligent can be so thick sometimes! Harsh?

In the run-up to the election someone on a thread expressed scepticism about the possibility of a Labour government coming in. I thought of suggesting that he/she keep a list of whatever was done by whoever got in. Lots of people will have forgotten about 'Lord Ali and the frocks scandal' in five years years time. There'll be a new hoo-hah of the week.

I suspect a significant amount of the luvvie endorsements have been more about a dislike of certain Tories, than an unmitigated love of Labour.

Consistent with the election result in essence.

(Don't let the Vikings in, with their damn boats. Too late, Ethel, you're descended from them.)

Do you think the people who always shout "Racist" are lurking racists themselves?