Do you want a change of leader?

[Arewethereyetarewe]

BBC are predicting the PM should stand down. I know this is not news, but why can we not have a period of stability?

Andy Burnham is much lefter in terms of policies and may not follow the manifesto Labour got in on.

Left or right the country needs a longer term plan.

What do others think?

Rishi Sunak warns against a coronation as he had

https://nitter.net/RishiSunak/status/2068574639799124444#m

Political capital now depreciates faster than ever. Across Europe, leaders are facing the same pressures, from weak growth to rising defence spending and a state that too often cannot deliver. These are arduous times for incumbents. Anyone who wants to govern should understand why.

https://www.thetimes.com/business/economics/article/rishi-sunak-andy-burnham-skl889lxs

Archive ph doesn't seem to be working

The PM's job is really a poisoned chalice

I don't understand your sentence 'Burnham's whole schtick seems to be that he likes Angela Rayner is more in touch with the party's soul because Northern'.
What does it mean?

He'll go on to better things that's for sure - let's all hope the same for the country, that is my concern ...

Did Gordon Brown 'push Blair out'? I clearly remember he took over, and he hadn't been elected to the position by way of a General Election, but what are the details of this push? I don't think they liked one another and I do think they had an arrangement that Brown would take over but I genuinely don't remember why.

No one else got enough votes to stand against him so he became Leader, and consequently PM. Sounds like that is what will happen now .....

I don't understand your sentence 'Burnham's whole schtick seems to be that he likes Angela Rayner is more in touch with the party's soul because Northern'.
What does it mean?

That somebody from the North, or Scotland, is more innately authentic a labour politician.

Look at the groans every time Starmer told people his father did manual work. Bo one believed him and it felt like he had to keep saying that to re emphasise his working class credentials to count as labour. Burnham doesn't need to parrot "my father was a telecoms engineer and my mother was a GP receptionist" .

For instance, Burnham doesn't have the largest political mandate as Manchester mayor. That's Sadiq Khan as London mayor. He's also generally well thought of by London voters.
So why isn't he being fast tracked to take over from Starmer?

A new chancellor who can undo at least some of the huge amount of damage caused by Rachel Reeves would be a very good start. We shall wait and see.

We have an ungovernable country driven by a public desire for excellent public services and low taxes which is incompatible. Social media and cynical grifters like Farage are trying to split society. Far right extremists are using racism as a weapon to get themselves into power. Russia and other bad actors are finding their money can destabilise the country quite cheaply. Good luck trying to sort all that out

Well I’ve seen that Burnham hasn’t ruled out a snap election, so it looks like we’re on track for a Reform Government / Reform Tory coalition then. I’m absolutely flabbergasted that Burnham thinks Labour would even come close to winning when they are doing so badly in the polls at the moment. Seriously, what planet are these people on? They would have been better off leaving Starmer in power. Not a fan of Labour myself, but certainly not a fan of Reform either. Worrying times ahead.

Low taxes? Is that a joke. Plenty of us have been paying more than 60 per cent on our income for the last few years and have the highest tax burden since world war 2. So yes in return we deserve good public services. Most people in this country don’t pay their way, that is a fact.

I think your maths is wrong. Even when you are in the marginal band of just over 60% (which I agree is dotty but is a Tory policy/legacy) far larger slices of income are charged at 0%, 20% and 45%.

So someone earning, say, £110k pays income tax at an overall rate of 34.2%. I hope you feel better now. 😎

source: HMRC calculator www.tax.service.gov.uk/estimate-paye-take-home-pay/

We don't need leaders. We need public servants who serve the people.

@MissCharlotteLutterell - there is also council tax, road tax, VAT at 20% on everything you spend pretty much. It adds up to roughly 60%. DH and I did the calculations.

And that’s not specific to high earners. In fact low income households pay proportionately more when VAT, road tax, fuel duty, etc are included.

We have public servants, but we also need leaders.
Politics doesn't work without politicians.

Yes, but it's marginal tax rates that drive behaviour. People are going to think twice about working an extra shift, an extra day, taking a promotion, etc., if their deductions (tax, student loans, NIC, etc) are 62% or higher. Even more will take drastic action if a promotion or pay rise or extra shift takes them over £100k where they lose free childcare. Likewise at the bottom end of the scale where an extra shift in a corner shop may mean someone losing their free prescriptions or rent/council tax support, or 25-30% tax and NIC at the same time as losing some of their Universal credit. Averages don't matter when it comes to decision making, i.e. extra shift, extra day, promotion, etc - it's marginal rates that drive such behaviour.

Yes I have cut my hours as has my DH. With 4 DC we are really busy and they can’t expect both of us to slave away more to the system than we get to keep for ourselves. It is completely unreasonable. We are also telling our DC to look for jobs with work life balance and to move to cheaper areas of the country. Lots of people are choosing balance over full career because of the tax system and no it’s not creating more jobs for others, it’s just plain and simple inefficiency.

I think the 400 odd Labour MPs who would lose their seats might have something to say about this!

I really can't see a snap election happening , as much as I think one should be called .

Yeah. UK is a hidden tax haven. There is a tax for everything and it all adds up.
Plus the mortgage and the car ( which goes to the banks). And the average household is left with quite little these days.

The key issue I see with politics now is that it's all about personality rather than policy - and this applied to the Conservatives as well..

When the key issue is how to stop the managed economic decline and create economic growth, there's not a peep out of Labour.

The problem is that popular personalities have a very short shelf life, what sustains them and wins elections is actual results and actual policies that deliver what the public wants.

He won't turn from the Manifesto, its a genuine Labour document but he won't make mistakes like the Winter Fuel Payment fiasco which aren't in the Manifesto.
He is already doing better at uniting the Parluamentary Labour Party than KS, who only seemed to be concerned about one very narrow faction. And he has far more ministerial experience than KS.

Not saying you're wrong, but the poster seemed to believe that a marginal rate of 60% means an effective overall rate of 60%. I was just pointing out that this is not the case.

The same poster has said since that they pay more than half their income in tax, which the sums show isn't the case (it's a bit over 1/3), so unfortunately I don't think they have quite understood the very simple mathematical point being made.

Foreign policy might be the Achilles Heel. The EU have already had to postpone a conference because the pm won't be the one that started negotiations. Plus there's that defence plan that's been kicked into the long grass that caused John Healey to resign

https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-uk-summit-postponed-as-keir-starmer-resigns/

Tell Trump that.