Labour - death by a thousand cuts…

[MyNameIsX]

Labour - another day, another calamity…

Utter treachery and deceit from our illustrious government.

The Government’s own estimate of the cost of giving away the British Indian Ocean Territory to Mauritius is almost £35bn, according to documents released under the Freedom of Information Act – far higher than the £3.4bn figure Sir Keir has previously used in public.

Labour ministers now face claims that they misled Parliament and the press with an “accountancy trick” to hide the size of the bill from taxpayers.

Under the terms of Sir Keir’s deal, the UK will give up the Chagos Islands by the end of this year and lease back the Diego Garcia military base, a facility built there in the 1970s that has been used by UK and US forces.

The cost of the agreement has been fiercely disputed. Sir Keir claimed in May that it would be £3.4bn over 99 years, accounting for inflation and other discounts, but the Conservatives said it would total £30bn.

An official document produced by the Government Actuary’s Department shows the cost of the deal was first estimated at 10 times Sir Keir’s figure, at £34.7bn, in nominal terms.

It explains how the cost was lowered by the Government using inflation estimates, then reduced again under a controversial accounting method sometimes used for long-term projects.

The total cost, which ministers refused to release to Parliament, is equivalent to 10 Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers, or more than half the annual schools’ budget.

Much as I love a good stone throwing competition this is a black hole.

Labour are fucking everything up and they're an abject failure is hardly a nuanced response. Starmer has got a good economic deal from Trump, dealt well with the Ukraine crisis, is working with Europe, and making good progress in other areas. They've been in a year and are clearly not abject failures.

Yeah, you might not be quite so happy when a child you love is totally failed by the state system and a private alternative is your only option.
Or when VAT is also applied to Universities, or private health care and the NHS doesn’t want to know…

I’m old enough to have seen a fair few governments, this shower are universally unpopular. They are making awful decisions at every turn, another 12mths and the economy will be sunk. Every business I know of is struggling, right from the one man band to the 3k plus employers. They’re a disaster.

Yes, saying that you will push the country forward by growing business and then hitting them with an increased minimum wage, a national insurance increase and pushing through enhanced employment rights, all at the same time showed us exactly the kind of ideologically fuelled misjudgement they were prepared to subject us to for years to come.

This thread started off about Chagos deal + Starmer lying about how much it would cost. ....any comment to make?

A 50B black hole?

They’ve already done the ‘one off’ tax, borrowing and spend budget. It’s hit us for £50bn down so far. They’ll have to find another way.

I've made plenty of comments. You carry on playing in the mud.

Nice.

Be fair. Not EVERY criticism.
Some are met with 'the Tories were worse'.

🤣🤣 well seems everyone else on this thread is playing down there with me!
The only evidence you can provide me to support Labour is a website run by Labour 🤣 Who are renowned for their honesty and integrity aren't they....
Now remind me what their anti-corruption minister and their homeless minister left the cabinet for again?

Gosh @MiloMinderbinder925 I must have missed your comments on Starmer lying to Parliament and using a sleight of hand to tell the public that this Chagos madness was going to cost £3.4 billion and not the actual cost of £35 billion too?

I just saw a lot of misdirection and insults? 🤷🏼‍♀️

One think tank has suggested a 40 billion "black hole" others put it at 10 to 20 billion plus its in the years 2029 to 30

Public sector debt is pretty much the same as it has been for the last 5 years, in fact it has dropped a little.

Lloyds Business confidence survey in positive territory, first time since Pandemic.

What is v clear though, is the 'right wing will do everything they can to talk down the country, nothing you and others post is ever positive, its all disaster, stoking discontent... our resident doom monger in chief bangs on about a 50bn black hole, but fails to mention that includes Reeves planned 10bn Head room.....

The OP talks about a 33bn cost for the Chagos, missing out that is over 100 years, is a disputed figure... offers no alternative and that the USA is in full support.

Ah well if the US is in support....

Oh no! You've brought out the big guns - the laughing emojis. You actually want to get into some kind of tit for tat about MPs. Isn't Farage currently being investigated, yet again, for finances? How many times is that now? Want me to list all the Tory corruption scandals?

ONS says:
The current budget deficit – borrowing to fund day-to-day public sector activities – in the FYE March 2025 was provisionally estimated at £74.6 billion; this was £12.6 billion more than in the same twelve-month period a year earlier and £13.9 billion more than the £60.7 billion forecast by the OBR.

Aren’t they getting paid? Why wouldn’t they want easy money from us.

I’d be interested to know whether the political shift in MNetters is due to individuals changing their minds, individuals feeling freer to speak, or different people joining.

I’m in category 1. Very much left leaning, but becoming more disillusioned with labour day by day.

None of that is true. I’m not saying Labour has inevitably done worse than others might have done. And Trump being erratic doesn’t help.

But the tariff deal was solely because we export relatively little to the US and are not EU members.

Starmer has not dealt well with Ukraine. The ‘coalition of the willing’ is a farce.

Moves towards Europe are not in themselves a good thing. What have we got and what have we paid for it?

Chagos looks like it might be a very big problem for Labour.

Not everything that Labour has done is bad. Unlike the left I don’t go in for storybook villains and heroes. But even on a trust level Labour has gone wrong. We’re only a year in and one cabinet minister’s resigned over her past, and the anti-corruption and homelessness ministers have also resigned. And that’s without the freebies (actually worse was the attempt to hide them) and without the massive u-turns that make Starmer look weak.

The economy is in a very bad way. That, IMO, was avoidable. And Labour will be very, very lucky to get a sense of improvement to public services. The doctors weren’t bought off and I suspect a lot of other public sector groups are getting the placards ready for the picket lines.

But Labiur were meant to be "grown ups in charge" "doing things differently" they literally campaigned on those slogans and by proclaiming themselves as living on a higher moral plain than the Tories. Turns out they are exactly the same as Tories, except worse because they think they aren't!
Mendacious liars and hypocrites.

Can you not answer 1 question without using whataboutery/Farage obsessing?

bloody well said.

The Tories had COVID to deal with too.

Labour are fucking things up at speed.

Increasing the costs of employing someone is just batshit. It's why private sector wages are stagnating and the economy is bollocksed.

Taxing education is disgusting.

The boats policy is laughable.

The problem is, I don't see a credible opposition. I reckon we're looking at a really ineffective, fragile coalition next time around.

Because they thought he was only a threat to the Tories.
They’re only now realising how wrong they were.

Posting actual government policy, and using their own financial figures (obtained by FOI) does not equal a ‘bizarre coordinated attack’. But, presumably, being a Labour supporter and thinking that it does must be very difficult for you.

And as for ‘OVERSEAS’, the whole of the Chagos deal is a shit show. It’s like agreeing to hand back the Elgin marbles, except giving them to Turkey.

So what? you re not looking at the other side of the Debt to GDP ratio are you? no surprise as all you do is trash the country... with a series of negative and twisted stats... another one is this £33bn..... for Chagos......it is at most 300k per year to continue to use a base for the next 100 years.... good value.

You've a good user name for what you post.