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We don’t need opportunity to fight for a small number of well payed jobs that only a few can ever be successful in gaining. We need all jobs to allow a reasonable standard of living, we need houses to be affordable, we need a decent standard of healthcare and education to be available to all. We need everybody to have choices in life, not just the lucky few who break out of poverty.
Unfortunately too many of your fellow citizens disagree, it's why poor people still vote Tory.
I am really disliking the language around “opportunity for all”
Yes - they keep clucking on about hard working families.
Can't be helping those slackers not in work.
Yeah I particularly dislike Labour politicians using the term 'hard working families', it is nonsense Tory terminology. Which is presumably why centrists use it - to sound more like Tory politicians.
Hard is totally relative and suggests above the norm, no one should need to work hard for a decent wage. Working at normal intensity should be sufficient for people to earn a decent living wage.
“Bring about a fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of power and wealth in favour of working people and their families”
Using “just three words” is modern politics, annoying and dumbed down as that is. Labour has to learn from the success the likes of Johnson have had. That doesn’t make them Tories.
It is not about social mobility it is about social inequality. All social mobility does is tell the ones you left behind they should have tried harder and the ones that are up there already deserve to be. Both are bollocks.
That doesn’t make them Tories.
No it doesn't. Sounding like Tories and adopting their policies does.
and the ones that are up there already deserve to be
Social mobility has to be a two-way road, you cannot have everyone moving up without anyone moving down.
For that reason social mobility might be the answer to something but it isn't the answer to social and economic injustice.
All social mobility does is legitimise social inequality. Everyone deserves decent housing, job and income, schooling, healthcare, not just those who passed the exams and/or brown nosed their way up.
Gotta hand it to him, he's certainly focused on the big issues.
Teaching kids to speak proper, innit.
Never mind all the environment, pollution, cost-of-living nonsense, kids need to able to ask for their gruel nicely and politely and not to sound like that **** off the car adverts talking about Bri'ain cinching its mo'ors.
Combine that with the Victorian Pencil wanting everyone to learn Latin, we'll be awesome at holding court in 4th Century Roman Bri'ain which is seemingly where Government would like to send us back to.
Except with worse roads and public transport than the Romans managed...
Teaching kids to speak proper, innit.
No, it’s not about that at all. There’s a few brief quotes from professionals in the article you linked to that explain that. It’s about being able to articulate your ideas verbally, a skill more useful for most people later in life than being able to express them with the written word. A key idea is that spoken work and assessment should become a core part of all school subjects, not just those with language in the title.
I agree. A lot of kids leave school these days all lah-di-dah and without any street cred.
I am definitely not hearing enough double negatives and glottal stops these days.
They need more help with stuff like this
Gotta hand it to him, he’s certainly focused on the big issues
Smacks of rearranging the deckchairs while the ship sinks.
I'll be honest I preferred it when the useless idiot said nothing,which is funny really given this latest bollocks.
Can I have lessons to get rid of my posh voice and accent? its a bit of a liability here 🙂
It's obviously a bad thing that children might be taught how to express themselves effectively. It's 101 at public (private) schools, along with debating skills. I wonder how we end up being led by those who go through those educational establishments? 🤔
It's not an 'either/or'. But it would be useful if we could just teach children in schools rather than schools being the social services of last resort as they are currently.
As a teacher, oracy <> talking posh.
One IS actually very important (and should be taught/encouraged), the other really not so much.
Agree, being able to articulate and speak well is a good thing to have in life. As is understanding politics and economics, personal finances, critical thinking etc,. etc,. More important than a lot of subjects taught in schools so maybe go a bit bigger than just trying to get people to talk properly and put in a complete reform of what school is actually for and how people are 'ranked' at the end of it.
Doesn't fit on a one liner that will be forgotten tomorrow though does it.
I wonder how we end up being led by those who go through those educational establishments?
Boris? The pencil for the 17th centaury? The lettuce? May? Sunak? SKS? They are all extremely poor communicators, they all express their feeble ideas badly. It clearly isn't that they have been taught to communicate effectively that brings them to power.
It clearly isn’t that they have been taught to communicate effectively that brings them to power.
At private schools, debating is still held in high regard; the ability to argue a point even if you don't believe in it (quite often *especially* if you don't believe in it) and debating societies can be quite prestigious.
It's that ability to convince others, to argue your point (even if it's bollocks) that gets them where they are.
JRM, at about the time this whole "let's teach everyone Latin" thing was doing the rounds was on radio and he got absolutely owned by the DJ who put some Latin phrases up and JRM could only recognise his old school motto. Turns out of course he doesn't speak Latin, can't translate it etc but what he himself admitted to - his favourite book is the Oxford English Dictionary of Quotations and he reads that, memorises a lot of the pithy one-liners for use at opportune moments and comes out with these fancy sounding Latin/Greek quotes. Makes him sound educated, intelligent, well-read.
He's a ****ing parrot. Doesn't understand it, but because he sounds like he knows what he's talking about, people defer to him.
I don't have much time for that because I did a science degree and one of the main points we were taught in lab work was if you don't understand, ASK. Don't bluff, don't sound like you know what you're talking about, or argue that black is white. Ask. Ideally before you blow the lab up through incompetence.
It’s that ability to convince others, to argue your point (even if it’s bollocks) that gets them where they are.
That idea breaks down quite quickly when anyone listens to them, it isn't that they a great debaters or communicators that leads to their success, it is because they are given a platform. They are the throwback comedians given a stage and a microphone, it doesn't matter if people in the crowd are smarter and wittier they will always be drowned out by those given a platform.
Trumps self proclamations of brilliance are more newsworthy than actual achievements by brilliant people.
Farage whining about not being allowed a posh bank accounts is more newsworthy than hundreds of thousands actually failed and suffering from banking failures.
This isn't because they are great debtors, this is because the "news algorithm" (for want of a better term) gives them an advantage despite their oratory skills.
Maybe when Starmer is PM he can ask the RMT if they would look into the issue and perhaps make some recommendations, they seem to have cracked the issue, as demonstrated by Bob Crow, Mick Lynch, and Eddie Dempsey:
Or simply encourage kids to join the Communist Party, it certainly helped me to hone my debating skills. As it did no doubt Eddie Dempsey's.
What absolute crumbs of nonsense - what good are your communication skills if there are no good jobs available ; infrastructure is crumbling; you can't find somewhere to live; or your school is falling to bits?
This is desperate, desperate stuff from a man looking to change nothing of significance.
It sounds exactly like a Tory 'idea'. Get the kids doing as they're told without any resources put in place.
It's the same - oh it's your fault you can't get a job attitude - that pervades the Tory way - no amount of confidence boosts your chances if there aren't good opportunities created.
It's definitely not a priority - several months ago we were discussing heating or eating.
Labour deserve to be wiped off the face of the earth and replaced with something far far more progressive and brave. Every little defences I hear of this weasel - is a step back from where we should be going.
My girlfriend works at an independent school - where they do articulate themselves well, but they mostly belong to successful families who have supported them with money and opportunity in the first instance.
But you are at school anyway so why not become more skilled and knowledgeable in things that actually may make a difference in your life than say knowing the formula for a load of different acids.
But you are at school anyway so why not become more skilled and knowledgeable in things that actually may make a difference in your life than say knowing the formula for a load of different acid
Because the biggest changes to your life, especially currently are the things that government can implement from the top down.
(My partner is a Chemistry teacher that originally got a job in the pharmaceutical industry - knowing stuff about acids etc.)
I don't think it's any sort of priority - what's being discussed here. The pandemic showed us what the priorities were and we're only a few months out from that.
I would expect more children to leave school with an ability to communicate "better" if funding was increased to restrict class sizes to less than 20, if teachers were better compensated and numbers increased to ease the workload, so they could give the individual and group guidance needed. If less pupils weren't suffering the impact of poverty, if more parents weren't working every god given minute just to stay afloat.
Ending the child benefit cap would have a bigger impact on educational achievement, it is nothing but pure bullshit.
Because the biggest changes to your life, especially currently are the things that government can implement from the top down.
So what, that has nothing to do with what you are taught while at school. I stand by my comment that teaching kids things that will actually be useful in their lives is more important than knowing the formula of acids (you can learn that later if you need to but 99.9% of the population don't need to be know it for their life or work)
That however does not mean that I think it is a priority and if it were even in the list of 100 things to improve society in this country it would probably be at position 100.
I stand by my comment that teaching kids things that will actually be useful in their lives is more important than knowing the formula of acids (you can learn that later if you need to but 99.9% of the population don’t need to be know it for their life or work)
Agreed but not this by Starmer,
And I say this as someone who never went to uni. But some people get on in life by using your example - understanding acids.
Besides who gets to decide what's useful? Capitalism?
I broadly agree with you but not with Starmer's point.
Given Starmer's commitment to Tory budgets, it will probably just mean more 'reading around the class.' No bad thing for clearing up mispronunciations, 'com promise' etc, and for improving confidence but his implication I suspect is victim-blaming.
It is literally a game to them.
https://twitter.com/RachelReevesMP/status/1687402245095043073?t=XcogUK0HD4jNKcaAajyXJg&s=19
No one has any priorities these days.
Don't knock it. Imagine how different the lives of people will be if they can play chess.
I stand by my comment that teaching kids things that will actually be useful in their lives is more important than knowing the formula of acids (you can learn that later if you need to but 99.9% of the population don’t need to be know it for their life or work)
You would be mistaken, teaching should be to encourage the pupil to think for themselves so that they can undertake the part in brackets. It's not the job of education to save industry/commerce money. Without the ability to learn and think critically we do our young people a disservice and give potential autocrats a free ride.
I believe that chess helped Andrew Tate develop his cunning skills in the dark art of financially exploiting people, so I can understand the attraction it might have to the next Chancellor of the Exchequer.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1715336/andrew-tate-who-is-he-childhood-career-spt
He played chess competitively from the age of five, even competing in adult tournaments as a youngster.
Edit: To be fair I don't think that tables in parks for people to play chess is a bad, expect obviously issues concerning the British weather, and it's nice that they have managed to get half a million quid off the money tree to fund it.
Nor do I think that there is anything wrong with the Shadow Chancellor, a former chess champ, making an off the cuff comment asking the Prime Minister if he fancies a game.
I just wish that the Labour Shadow Chancellor would talk more about shifting the nation's wealth away from the a smay elite and towards ordinary people who actually create the wealth, ffs.
Don’t knock it. Imagine how different the lives of people will be if they can play chess
🤣🤣
Starmer’s commitment to Tory budgets
Uh?
Not totally overtly as Blair /Brown did but he has made it clear he will continue with much the same level of spending and that various things we all want are too expensive
Yeah lack of money blah
So increasing interest rates (by the fed) in the USA has added 65bn to bank reserves in interest payments alone - than their balances sheets have provided. That's a gift of money to the banks.
That's bank created money that eventually flows into the private sector.
And that's why inflation is sticky.
'There is no money ' - (for public purpose)
So Labour's plan for education is more chess and reading aloud, surprised they haven't mention issuing chalk for hopscotch. Nothing about salaries, recruitment and retention, leaky buildings, de-academisation. At least we have been warned.
NB. There's a never-ending chess tournament down the local pub. They'll be able to join in with that but they might not be able to afford the beer. They are woking on a pupil-deficit model rather than investing in children's/society's future.
lack of money blah
...is not the same as commitment to Tory budgets. If you actually want to change any minds blatant distortion is unlikely to help. If you're just sort of mumbling to yourselves I'll leave you to it.
…is not the same as commitment to Tory budgets.
It is exactly the same. Budgets are about income and expenditure, Labour, under the present leadership, has said they will match Tory taxation and spending levels, which makes their commitment the same as the Tories's.
It is not the first time that Labour have promised to match Tory expenditure, Gordon Brown did precisely that in 1997.
Starmer has promised New Labour on steroids. That is possibly one promise he might keep, who knows?
Btw;
"Senior members of the shadow cabinet expect to have no more money for public services if the party wins the election next year."
You can see how important that makes voting Labour.
You would be mistaken, teaching should be to encourage the pupil to think for themselves so that they can undertake the part in brackets. It’s not the job of education to save industry/commerce money. Without the ability to learn and think critically we do our young people a disservice and give potential autocrats a free ride.
I think you would be mistaken. "teaching kids things that will actually be useful in their lives " would include the lies of what you are suggesting. Where did I mention teaching things that would save industry/commerce money?
<p style="text-align: left;">is not the same as commitment to Tory budgets. If you actually want to change any minds blatant distortion is unlikely to help. If you’re just sort of mumbling to yourselves I’ll leave you to it.</p>
If you want to change minds point to the times the government/central banks clearly add money to the economy when supposedly they don't have any for public purpose.
You know, use a bit of evidence based logic rather than pretending Labour and Tories aren't really sailing the same ship.
However I wasn't making any particular comment other than money is still making its way into the economy from central banks - despite screeches of monetary brakes being put on things.
Mumbling things ....
See that part where you mention "useful in their lives" that's usually Tory/workplace shorthand for doing training for industry/commerce as you should know. (If you don't then maybe some study may be useful).
If that was not your intention my apologies.
Labour, under the present leadership, has said they will match Tory taxation and spending levels, which makes their commitment the same as the Tories’s
That unsourced Times story doesn't say that, rather vague things about fiscal responsibility and that Reeves won't raise levels of personal taxation during a cost of living crisis.
But I'm impressed by the paywall bypass
Yes it does say exactly that - that the next Labour government will keep taxation and spending limits to those of the Tories's.
If you actually want to change any minds blatant distortion is unlikely to help.
Indeed.
Labour have outlined many tax increases already, they just don’t effect most workers or their families. Your direct and indirect taxes as the normal man/woman on the street are only part of the equation.
Labour have outlined many new and increased spending areas, they have just also explained how that is to be balanced with increases in taxes raised (often after the spending, because).
But keep on having a laugh about chess and whatever else you’re circle jerking about. The pretending it doesn’t matter who wins the next election is the only real “playing games” going on here.
Labour have outlined many tax increases already, they just don’t effect most workers or their families.
You need to tell that to Labour's Shadow Chancellor, apparently no one has told her :
"All policy announcements undergo close scrutiny by Rachel Reeves, the shadow Chancellor, to ensure they do not require additional tax or borrowing."
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/labour-policy-pledges-cost-rise-income-tax-2377898
And as for any tax rises not affecting "most workers or their families" apparently they aren't going to effect top earners either........no one will be paying for these tax rises!
In fact Starmer wants "to lower taxes"
But you carry on pretending that Starmer is offering a radical alternative to the Tories, and dishing out crass personal insults to those who disagree, with comments about "circle jerking" or whatever.
Your direct and indirect taxes as the normal man/woman on the street are only part of the equation.
Changes to income tax rates are not the only way to raise tax revenues. Ask a non-dom. Or a parent of kids going to fee paying schools. Tax changes are coming, and some have already being announced, years out from a manifesto being written, never mind a Labour budget.
carry on pretending that Starmer is offering a radical alternative to the Tories
Who said anything about radical?
dishing out crass personal insults to those who disagree
Ah, bless. Carry on with the games everyone else is just avoiding this thread to keep away from.
Tax changes are coming, and some have already being announced
So over the span of two posts you have changed your position from "Labour have outlined many tax increases" to now no increases just "changes", and not much has been announced because it is so far from a Labour manifesto.
Who said anything about radical?
Now that really takes the biscuit! 😆
Have you seen the Rishi Sunak, Boris Johnson, Suella Braverman, etc, threads? STWers are queuing up to express their total disgust with the current Tory government, apparently they are pretty much evil incarcerated. And utterly stupid and incompetent.
But according to you we don't need a radical alternative?? I had no idea that the consensus was that the Tories hadn't got anything fundamentally wrong and all that was needed was for a Labour government to tweak a few things here and there! 😂
You really are all over the place mate, no wonder that you get in such a strop and resort to crass personal insults.
I detailed some tax changes that will raise more revenue. And off you go on your little games. Time waster.
Yeah your claim of (many) "tax increases" turned into "tax changes" when you saw the quote I posted :
“All policy announcements undergo close scrutiny by Rachel Reeves, the shadow Chancellor, to ensure they do not require additional tax or borrowing.”
Your little game is to be all over the place as you desperately try to defend the indefeasible. And then to, yet again, claim that you have no wish to discuss anything with me, after directly challenging me over a comment which wasn't even aimed at you.
Why don't you actually stick to your alledged preference and don't engage with me? Easiest solution - don't bother reading what I post......solves the problem once and for all; That's what I do with a few posters, rather than endlessly complain.
Going to engage with my examples of Labour already announcing extra taxes on non-doms and schools fees, or just going to keep up the attempted baiting?
See that part where you mention “useful in their lives” that’s usually Tory/workplace shorthand for doing training for industry/commerce as you should know. (If you don’t then maybe some study may be useful).
If that was not your intention my apologies.
No need to apologise. As I am not representing tory/workplace values I wouldn't be saying it from that angle and am well aware of tory/capitalist BS (more stuff for all to be aware of in the "useful in their lives" category so they may not get so easily misled by tories, Daily Mail etc,.))
Some of the points on both sides of this argument are well thought out and provide an interesting range of views to some of us who like to consider a debate's alternatives.
Sadly - the way some debaters on both sides carry on make the debate frankly depressing to read, you sound like bickering kids in a playground and simply saying not to read their posts means that practically half the posts, and a lot of the content is getting lost.
Have a look at yourselves, you're coming across like dicks.
When children learn the formulas of acids its not to remember them in case they need them in later life. Its learning how to 'do' science.
Eight long provocative and unpleasant posts on this page from a person who wants us to ignore him. 🙂
Nothing to add to the thread BTW, I've been told to ignore the incoherent, contradictory nonsense. 😉
Thank you to those who are making informed posts about Labour party policy.
Nothing to add to the thread BTW, I’ve been told to ignore the incoherent, contradictory nonsense. 😉
And yet despite that here you are unable to resist getting your two pennies worth and taking the opportunity of doing a bit of stirring.
How about expressing opinions, if you have any, without resorting to personal attacks and getting angry with others who have different opinions? Most people manage it.
Anyway back to the thread, I'm loving this headline:
With the latest opinions polls showing Labour easily maintaining their 20 plus percent lead over the Tories I think it is probably more a case of Starmer being supremely confident, than feeling it is necessary to abandon your principles to win.
There you go accusing me of being "angry" when there are nothing but smileys on my posts, Ernie. You systematically insult our inteligence and insult us. As for "stirring", read you own posts on this page.
Come on mods, when is somebody going to do something about Ernie pissing everbody off and trashing threads ?
* goes back to ignoring the thread*
I know most of you think Scotland irrelevant but ~Starmer does not agree. this analysis from the gruaniad which is very anti SNP ( note no quotes from the SNP) shows ( IMO ) Starmers weakness well. The rutherglen byelection is a serious test of labour and its move to the right - the the extent the labour candidate is campaigning on a platform of repudiating some of london labours policies. SNP have placed themselves to the left of labour and are using the "two cheeks of the same arse" line which is going to resonate well up here
"Labour to be attacked from the left in crucial Scottish byelection"
It also states that labours lead over the tories has dropped back to " hung parliament" teritory
SCOTTISH Labour’s by-election candidate in Rutherglen and Hamilton West has been challenged to “reject NHS privatisation” after being pictured alongside shadow health secretary Wes Streeting.
The SNP’s health spokesperson at Westminster, Martyn Day, said: "The damaging competition between the Tories and pro-Brexit Labour Party to lurch further to the right, and impose creeping privatisation of the NHS, has set alarm bells ringing in Scotland.
"Like the SNP, the overwhelming majority of people in Scotland are committed to the founding principles of the NHS - and want to see more funding from the UK government, instead of ever increasing private sector involvement.
"I would challenge Michael Shanks to reject this toxic race to the bottom on public services, which should be in public, not profit-driven private sector hands. He must distance himself from yet another damaging Tory-Labour Party policy.
remember the source but its a good indication of the thinking on the pro independence side Labour are going to be pushed on brexit and NHS privitisation and thus both are going to be live issues in the GE
SNP have placed themselves to the left of labour and are using the “two cheeks of the same arse” line which is going to resonate well up here
“Labour to be attacked from the left in crucial Scottish byelection”
To claim that Labour and the Tories are two cheeks of the same arse is an obvious, and easy, line of attack. Especially when Starmer appears to be determined to make the difference between Labour and the Tories less and less noticeable.
Currently the SNP lead over Labour in Scotland is about 3%, which is significantly less than it was a year ago when it was over 20%, so they certainly have their work cut out.
But yeah, Starmer attempting to ape the Tories should play well for the SNP.
It also states that labours lead over the tories has dropped back to ” hung parliament” teritory
The very latest poll, which is from Omnisis, gives Labour, nationally, a very healthy 22% lead over the Tories, which would give them a huge parliamentry majority.
https://twitter.com/Omnisis/status/1687463535255662592
And more evidence of what an extraordinarily lucky party leader Starmer is:
The SNP’s vote share of 35% is the joint-second lowest figure they have polled in a hypothetical Westminster election in any publicly released poll conducted by any company since October 2014.
This obviously does not reflect on the personal success Starmer has had wooing Scottish voters and everything to do with the self-inflicted crisis facing the SNP.
With Labour's two greatest foes, the Tories and the SNP, both in crises totally of their own making, Starmer must feel like the luckiest politician in the world. Who needs charisma and/or policies ?
The fact that the SNP are still leading should be of great concern to Starmer. SNP are too long in power, in a self inflicted crisis and he still cannot overtake them
Martin Forde KC, the senior lawyer commissioned by Starmer to investigate the Labour party’s culture, said legal professionals from across the political spectrum had expressed their bewilderment that the Labour leader had not said anything after such personal attacks, even after former Conservative law officers criticised the political rhetoric aimed at “lefty lawyers” on Friday.
He really can't be this bad can he? I realise he doesn't want to blow the chances of a Labour win and doesn't want to give the tories/media anything to dig up or focus on come the election but really.
It is remarkable that given the unpopularity of the Tories, Starmer is trying so hard to be like them. No 'moderate' government has ever been elected and then moved left, it is always the reverse.
Why won't he play the game the Tories want!? It's bewildering. Well, it really isn't... is it.
It’s bewildering. Well, it really isn’t… is it.
Yes actually it is.
This is the sort of craven bending to the hard right press demands that have landed us in such a mess. The utter refusal to stand up to the tory lies and allowing them to portray their distorted image of the UK as what is patriotic.
The tories have put us into a spiral we arent going to get out of it by Starmer bowing to their lies.
By distancing himself from lawyers who are helping those currently being illegally targeted by the government, and forcing a Tory Home Secretary to comply with the law, Starmer is playing right into their hands.
He should be focusing on how unacceptable, and extremely dangerous, it is for a government not to comply with national and international law.
The whole legal profession, across the political spectrum, is rallying behind a lawyer who is being vilified by Tory Central Office for helping those being denied their legal rights, you would expect the Leader of the Opposition, a barrister and former DPP, to have an opinion on the matter.
No?
Yes actually it is.
This is the sort of craven bending to the hard right press demands that have landed us in such a mess. The utter refusal to stand up to the tory lies and allowing them to portray their distorted image of the UK as what is patriotic.
The tories have put us into a spiral we arent going to get out of it by Starmer bowing to their lies.
I'm on repeat but it's not as if their aren't a million things to take aim and get the public on side.
(I don't see this as Starmer's agenda though - he's clearly not as passionate as he led us all to believe and is just running with the easy right-wing vote. Though I was never convinced from the start.)
Speaking in Scotland - whose voters tend to be more left-wing than those in England - the Labour leader said that in the “recent past” his party had been “afraid to speak the language of class”.
But he said that would not be the case in “my Labour Party”
Starmer really is shameless and will say whatever he believes his audience wants to hear.
"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them...well I have others."
- G. Marx
Another day another Reeves/Starmer regression.
https://twitter.com/RichardJMurphy/status/1695855919333056705?t=oYhadEMX_PN8zA4BZinAbg&s=19
Bed wetting times.
Just what exactly are they going to do apart from wait for growth? UK is mostly a low to no growth country these days.
So good luck with that.
Not even trying for your vote.
Supertanskiii having a meltdown trying to defend Starmer whilst having zero understanding of what a progressive country might look like.
Just not Tory is still right-wing.
From Murphy's blog:
The economic truths that seem to have passed Labour by
Posted on August 28 2023
I commented yesterday on LBC on Rachel Reeves telling the Sunday Telegraph that she has no plans to increase taxes on the wealthiest people in the UK.
The FT has an article this morning summarising her comments. At the core of their piece, and her comments, is this paragraph:
Speaking to the Sunday Telegraph, Reeves said Labour had no need to levy any form of wealth tax because her party would be rigorous in holding down public spending.
This is a staggering claim because there are so many assumptions implicit in that suggestion, which is a fair synopsis of the Telegraph article, which I have read.
First, there is an implication that taxes fund spending. They do not, of course. The Bank of England funds spending with the monetary equation being balanced by a combination of tax, borrowing and money creation. Reeves must know that but does not acknowledge it. To pretend that tax and spending are directly related, as she implies, is to deny the whole reality of fiscal policy and the economic tools within it.
Second, Reeves ignores the fact that tax is an instrument of social policy. It is the primary tool available for tackling inequality at the top end of the income and wealth spectrums, and what the statement she has made implies is that Labour must be happy with the current levels of inequality that exist in the UK even though they are very clearly destructive for society as a whole. That is a quite staggering position for a party on the supposed left of politics.
Third, this implies that Reeves believes that those with wealth are the generators of value in the economy. Actually, it is the spending power of people and government that, in combination, create value in our economy. But she thinks otherwise. The whole idea that wealth, disconnected as it now is from the making of investment in the economy, has anything to do with value generation is absurd, but this fundamental economic truth has clearly not yet permeated the core of the current Labour Party.
Fourth, the idea that all wealth is equal is implicit in this claim. That is not true. Wealth from, for example, speculation and rent extraction are not value-adding activities for the economy, and to suggest that they should enjoy low taxation (as they do) is an insult to those who work for a living.
Fifth, the idea that the current obvious injustices within the tax system should be retained - which means that those with income from unearned sources will continue to pay much less on their income and gains than do those with income from work - is being supported by Reeves, which is simply contrary to any known form of economic justice.
Sixth, there is the issue of spending. What Reeves is promising is austerity when what we need is spending to tackle the enormous problems that we face that cannot be resolved by private sector spending.
So why do this? Reeves is pandering to the idea put forward by Sangita Myska at the start of my interview with her yesterday that if we tax more, people have less to spend, and so the country is worse off. This is not true, of course. Government spending does not go into a bottomless pit, never to be seen again. It is spent on people and with businesses. In other words, government sending becomes other people's income. They pay tax on that and then, by and large, spend the rest. As a result, government spending stimulates the economy. What is more, it does so to much greater effect than does leaving income with the wealthy, who simply save what they get - which is precisely why we have such enormous wealth inequality in the UK now. Since, as a result, government spending has a much higher multiplier effect than leaving income with the well-off, the best way to grow the economy is to tax the rich and for the government to spend more - with the added benefit of much improved public services along the way. But again, Labour does not seem to know this.
Instead, Labour wants to maintain the status quo. And as Sangita Myska asked in her programme, what is the point of that when almost nothing seems to work now? I wish I could answer that question, but I cannot.
It is staggering that Labour is no longer bothered by inequality. What is it for?
I think this sums it up well.......
https://capx.co/keir-starmers-only-policy-is-getting-elected/
And I reckon this is a line the Tories will be pushing when the general election campaign gets in full swing:
"Why should the public trust Starmer when he breaks his promises to Labour members who elected him?"
If Starmer can't be trusted not to lie to his own party members why should Tory voters trust him not to lie to them?
I guess it is very possible that he feels more loyalty towards Tory voters than he does towards members of his own party, but are they going to be convinced?
Yeah.
I keep hearing the argument he has to convince Tory voters blah blah with Tory projects.
Can he not convince all prospective voters with solid arguments about how to fix the country? There are loads.
Lame.
https://twitter.com/UKLabour/status/1698244440962560443?t=EZyvwzFM8olpSU6bMSDCVQ&s=19
Tackling the cost of living crisis by not tackling the cost of living crisis.
And it is only a Tory cost of living crisis as they are in power. If Labour had been in power it would be a Labour cost of living crisis as they have never proposed anything radical (or even not radical) that would have changed what has happened over the last few years.
I thought the 2017 and 2019 election manifestos were quite radical.
But apparently too radical for the majority of the Parliamentary Labour Party.
Only appeared radical because we've all become to accept neoliberalism as the only way to do things I guess.
So yeah, radical on the one had but essentially just correcting the mess of right-wing destruction.
I was reading some great stuff earlier about how Neoclassical economists dominate every facet of society and universities. So it's really hard for people to break the mould of what we've got; this is despite complex models of the economy totally falling apart when a crisis occurs - they simply don't work and the state has to fix stuff. Said economists then simply retool their complex models and go again until they break. It's preposterous.
This is what sets MMT apart - it starts by accurately describing the government's money operations that underpin current sovereign government finances. It then says here are the facts - you could do this with it.
No other economic theory does this.
Neoclassical models do not take this approach - they say the private sector funds everything - here's a complex model to make it do something for everyone via trickle-down.
Flops.
The model didn't work -let's just retool the same thinking using a better model.
Only appeared radical because we’ve all become to accept neoliberalism as the only way to do things I guess.
So radical then. The person who wrote the 2017 Labour manifesto was also responsible for writing this:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Failed-Experiment-Build-Economy-Works/dp/1871204283
I think it is fair to say that Andrew Fisher sees neoliberalism as a failed experiment.