It will always be used until the UK governments take action on wealth distribution and the cost of living crisis.
Absolutely. Life was hardly a bed of roses whilst being in the EU for many irrespective.
Forgotten due to the noises made by the you-made-my-ski-trip-harder mob. (And yes I count myself in that group.)
God I hate that kind of inverse snobbery. Millions of us in lower paid households understand the negative effects of Brexit, it’s not just the skiing and caviar brigade… most of whom won’t be feeling the effects at all. Brexit made it more expensive to be poor, and removed rights from the working class that those with the means can always find a way to pay their way around.
Brexit: the 'gift' that just keeps giving! 😣
God I hate that kind of inverse snobbery. Millions of us in lower paid households understand the negative effects of Brexit, it’s not just the skiing and caviar brigade… most of whom won’t be feeling the effects at all. Brexit made it more expensive to be poor, and removed rights from the working class that those with the means can always find a way to pay their way around.
Well said, never earned over £15k and spent most of life on disability benefits yet I knew Brexit was an utter **** ing stupidity ignorant idea
It will always be used until the UK governments take action on wealth distribution and the cost of living crisis.
Absolutely. Life was hardly a bed of roses whilst being in the EU for many irrespective.
Forgotten due to the noises made by the you-made-my-ski-trip-harder mob. (And yes I count myself in that group.)
True, but now we don't even have the pretty flowers and petals, we just have the left over thorns and rotten stems.
Well played. 🙄
Beginning of the end for Starmer/Reeves?
Whilst I don't mind a u-turn on some things, this has been such a hash, and clearly a reaction to polling - recent results etc. This is too little too late and looks like they've done it for cynical reasons. The press will hammer them. This WFA move was absolutely ridiculous from the outset. Terrible politics and economics. All for a mystical 1.4bn which now becomes less I'm guessing.
The logical economic rule is to make things better first then tax back later. That follows exactly how the procedure of monetary operations is laid out and works well politically.
Inflation up - unsurprisingly. (We all knew this was coming with energy rises.) yet they were telling everyone how it was coming down last week. They really can't tip toe in and out of inflation - pretending they're responsible when it suits
Battle with Streeting and Rayner?
Starmer is damaged goods and is not coming back from all of this. (reshuffle first perhaps?)
All that said leaders have a knack of hanging on don't they!
The good news is if they get shut now and recalibrate their priorities maybe they could still get on with the job. It would require some serious political calculations and investment. And the ability to block out all noise about spending.
Improve people's living standards asap.
One final thing - at this point they've got nothing to lose with the looks of it.
Brexit: the 'gift' that just keeps giving! 😣
FTFY:
Brexit: the 'grift' that just keeps giving! 😣
Improve people's living standards asap.
Absolutely. But hand outs to well off pensioners shouldn’t be at the top of anyone’s priority. If WFA becomes universal again, I hope they look at increasing taxation on those pensioners that can easily afford to pay more.
The good news is if they get shut now and recalibrate their priorities maybe they could still get on with the job.
Undoubtedly they could but it won't happen imo. The Labour Party has been changing ever since the days of New Labour and that change accelerated during the last five years under Keir Starmer's leadership.
I have no doubt that the Parliamentary Labour Party, and the wider party establishment, are now even more hostile to a social-democratic alternative to the Tory-Labour-LibDem neoliberal consensus than they were under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership.
Sure there are a few remaining social-democratic Labour MPs such John McDonnell who haven't been weeded out yet but they have no influence in the direction of the party. Corbyn's successful leadership bid was entirely due to the party membership and in the face of staunch opposition from the PLP, that party membership has also now dramatically changed since the centrists seized power.
I fear that the Labour Party will simply just repeat the same mistakes as the Tories and fall into the trap of believing that changing the leader without changing the political direction in any significant way will save them from electoral armageddon. Or at least they will do that because they can't think of palatable alternative.
Keir Starmer might lack the charisma and connection with ordinary working people but that isn't the primary problem, that is the economic model which all four major political parties are welded to. Next it will be Reform's turn to take to the stage and have a go at making austerity/neoliberalism work.
Yes that is the trajectory.
You think Starmer and Reeves will last?
Keir Starmer might lack the charisma and connection with ordinary working people but that isn't the primary problem, that is the economic model which all four major political parties are welded to. Next it will be Reform's turn to take to the stage and have a go at making austerity/neoliberalism work
I think it goes beyond that - Starmer is liked by whom? His popularity is shocking.
Your latter comment i couldn't agree more. We are stuck in a failed economic system. I can see that probably more than most.
(Also bear in mind that Trump is very much moving their economic model sideways and possibly backwards of you think imports are ner gain. Point is things don't stay the same forever.)
If WFA becomes universal again, I hope they look at increasing taxation on those pensioners that can easily afford to pay more.
Better than that, just raise capital gains tax to the same levels as income tax, the right wing love "hard working families" so why not create a balanced system so that wealth from assets are taxed at the same rate as wealth from "hard work". No need to focus on age groups, those wealthy pensioners will be taxed without the easy excuse of age discrimination.
Absolutely. But hand outs to well off pensioners shouldn’t be at the top of anyone’s priority. If WFA becomes universal again, I hope they look at increasing taxation on those pensioners that can easily afford to pay more.
It's a barely an economic relevance in terms of revenue if even you accept tax and spend. (Which I don't as you know.)
It's a trapping of economic frustration to believe that 1.4bn will make a sod of difference compared the noise it created.
Can I also point out that removing money from pensionsers is a removal of money from the economy. The exact opposite thing to do if you want growth.
So mechanically there is an argument to chase well off people who have too much stuff. Targeting pensioners alone is totally defeating.
Especially if we all want a good life as we get older.
Probably best not to think it as a hand-out and more as subsidy to a group of potentially vulnerable people. It's also an inflation hedge to people who don't have the capacity to earn money as easily as working people.
Wrong group of people, wrong policy and not worth the effort for an opener.
Some of us have to grit our teeth as certain cohorts might benefit - that we don't like as long as the overall picture is to reduce inequality and improve lives. 1.4bn won't do that.
A much bigger picture is needed and I'm not excluding taxation from that as you alluded to - somewhere along the way.
The trick is to seperate taxation from spending. Taxation as a means to limit consumption/resources/redistribute where its needed and spending to target the areas that need money.
The Labour right have already shown they'd prefer a Tory government to an eg Corbyn government. However, there must be quite a few backbenchers who don't want their careers terminated by a dimwitted neoliberal who can't resist a freebie. If the current leadership have guaranteed electoral failure, there's no harm in giving another lot a chance just in case. Rayner seems to have been silenced and is tellingly distancing herself from the leadership. Even if there were to be a party coup, enough austerity damage would have been done to make it very difficult to turn it around and improve the picture by the next election. It's almost as if Starmer is doing a Johnson.
Quite.
I'm zoning in on that leaked memo where Rayner called for tax rises.
Even if there were to be a party coup, enough austerity damage would have been done to make it very difficult to turn it around and improve the picture by the next election.
I think if people saw hope they could at least fend off Reform to a degree.
There's nothing to lose really as I see it.
It will take years to make a dent for sure.
wealth from assets are taxed at the same rate as wealth from "hard work".
One of the changes in France I've very much approved of despite it costing a bit more tax. It's very unfair when income that requires selling ones life, travelling to work etc. gets taxed less than investment income whether rental income, ISAs, shares, bitcoin or whatever. It sould incur NI payment too. (CSG in France)
As for WFA I'd find it outrageous if I became eleligble for it next year when I officially retire. Not being elegible for pension credits as a test seems very reasonable to me.
I filled in my tax declaration yesterday, even in what CNBC commentators used to refer to as 'socialist land' I don't feel I'm paying enough tax, however before junior left home I felt I was paying as much as I could afford. It strikes me that the tax system hits young people with no wealth too hard especially if they have children, and people of my age and wealth not hard enough. Following relatives in the uK it's more extreme - some of the younger ones are delaying having kids till they can afford it whereas the older ones are considering which expensive toy to buy, holiday to go on or property to invest in. I believe in vertical solidarity in families so will hand over the money I think I should be paying in tax to junior.
Migration levels for 2024 down by around 50%.
That is a massive drop
Fantastic interview with a Labour MP and select committee member this morning - I didn't catch her name.
Apparently she was 'very clear' with the producer that she had no opinions of her own and was only there to discuss the work of her committee...
Which she then couldn't really discuss because that work (a paper) might be published around 11th of June. So she basically quoted its TOR to the interviewer.
I would actually support a BBC interviewer just saying "well, **** off then, if you're not actually going to answer anything". Which she did on a practical level by just cutting the interview short.
But overall it was a triumph of not saying anything at all.
🙄🙄🙄
Can I also point out that removing money from pensionsers is a removal of money from the economy.
Who the money goes to is key. Who money is then recovered from in taxation is key.
This is too little too late and looks like they've done it for cynical reasons
Don't you mean democratic reasons?
People: Government, we elected you, you do what we want.
Govt: Ok, how about this?
People: Nooo!! Not that! This instead!
Govt: Ok done.
People: Spineless U-turn!
Migration levels for 2024 down by around 50%.
That is a massive drop
Won't please Reform/Tories or their voters as still too high - in fact they will only be happy when more people are leaving the country than coming into it.
Migration levels for 2024 down by around 50%.
That is a massive drop
Won't please Reform/Tories or their voters as still too high - in fact they will only be happy when more people are leaving the country than coming into it.
Something else Starmer can blame the Tories for
Migration levels for 2024 down by around 50%.
That is a massive drop
So who is going to take credit for that, Labour or the Tories? They were both in power in 2024 for approximately the same amount of time and I distinctly remember being told on this very thread not to expect anything that Starmer's government might do to have any significant effect for the first few months........"they've only been in government 3 months, you can't expect them to do anything very quickly after 14 years of Tory governments blah blah"
It is a massive drop though but only a massive drop on the previous year's post-covid pandemic distorted figure, it is a significant increase on the previous 3 years figure.
And no, of course it won't be enough for Reform/Tory voters who firmly believe that net migration should be no higher than zero, a narrative which Starmer is now enthusiastically feeding with talk of "incalculable damage" and "an island of strangers".
Realistically the drop in immigration is unlikely to be due to the Labour government, though they will no doubt claim it.
BBC credits Tory policies for the drop, and COVID.
Won't please Reform/Tories or their voters as still too high - in fact they will only be happy when more people are leaving the country than coming into it.
In the case of Reform voters they won't be happy until the country is 100% white British.
Well that's obviously untrue.
True, many of them wouldn't be happy then, either.
Life was hardly a bed of roses whilst being in the EU for many irrespective.
I'm calling bullshit on this, the vast majority of people voting for brexit were reasonably comfortably off, indeed it was only as a consequence of their reasonably comfortable lives largely built on the back of "globalisation" (ie the trade and migration that has driven the development of human civilisation and economic growth over centuries) that they could afford the luxury of conspiracy theories and obsessing over trivial irrelevancies and then set out to spitefully cause such monumental harm to the country.
It strikes me that the tax system hits young people with no wealth too hard especially if they have children, and people of my age and wealth not hard enough
A back-loaded tax system would actually work pretty well, I think.
I'm calling bullshit on this, the vast majority of people voting for brexit were reasonably comfortably off,
You'd be ignoring the effects of Thatcherism and all the 'bullshit' that came with that (de-industrialised communities.) Not forgetting areas like mine (redwall) that voted in strength for it - that are extremely deprived.
I think the remainers were largely made up of the people you describe as they had nothing to put the 'blame' on for their decent lifestyles whilst ignoring the broader decline of communities and growth in inequality. Basically lucky well-meaning people that had done well out of HPI.
There's probably a clique at the JRM level that thought they would benefit. That's a very small number of asset rich folk really.
Neoliberalism tends to benefit the people who already have stuff. Like we've discussed there are right-wingers who want to exploit migration and those that want them out. Same thing is happening with the Republicans.
- The poorest households, with incomes of less than £20,000 per year, were much more likely to support leaving the EU than the wealthiest households, as were the unemployed, people in low-skilled and manual occupations, people who feel that their financial situation has worsened, and those with no qualifications
- Authorities that recorded some of the highest levels of support for Brexit include the working-class communities of Castle Point, Great Yarmouth, Mansfield, Ashfield, Stoke-on-Trent, and Doncaster. In such communities the types of opportunities and life experiences contrast sharply with those in areas that are filled with more affluent, highly-educated, and diverse populations, which gave some of the strongest support to remaining in the EU, such as Islington, Edinburgh, Cambridge, Oxford and Richmond upon Thames.
It strikes me that the tax system hits young people with no wealth too hard especially if they have children, and people of my age and wealth not hard enough
Totally. We have a regressive tax system.
That needs adjusting, but there's little appetite for it which is why the need for resource/inflation control (taxation) should be separated from the need for public investment as there's no real political desire to tax more. (Mechanically they're not linked anyway in the current system.) This is why fiscal rules are doomed because it's the wrong metric applied to real problems. Designed by people like George Osborne is hardly a good place to be. Labour are stuck in 2010 with seriously daft decisions making based on household finances.
Handy for limiting spending for political purposes.
The only process that makes sense - is can we resource it and what do we want for better public purpose?
(Low income and expensive living costs is more of a problem than taxation perhaps though.)
It strikes me that the tax system hits young people with no wealth too hard especially if they have children, and people of my age and wealth not hard enough
Totally. We have a regressive tax system.
That needs adjusting, but there's little appetite for it which is why the need for resource/inflation control (taxation) should be separated from the need for public investment as there's no real political desire to tax more. (Mechanically they're not linked anyway in the current system.) This is why fiscal rules are doomed because it's the wrong metric applied to real problems. Designed by people like George Osborne is hardly a good place to be. Labour are stuck in 2010 with seriously daft decision making based on household finances. This is at the heart of current Labour gone wrong. And expecting growth out of this is just preposterous. (At the levels they claim they need.)
Handy for limiting spending for political purposes. Public have moved on since 2010 and we no longer accept it. Hence the resentment towards Labour.
The only process that makes sense - is can we resource it and what do we want for better public purpose?
(Low income and expensive living costs is more of a problem than taxation perhaps though.)
I'm calling bullshit on this, the vast majority of people voting for brexit were reasonably comfortably off,
I think the biggest issue is that people regardless of financial position weren’t really voting for in/out the EU.
They were voting for one of the many promises being offered by people without any office to fulfil the promise.
The issues weren't all directly related to being in the EU as shown by them still existing after leaving the EU.
Add to that that most people weren’t really banging on about the EU other than Farage , Who was an elected representative also on the fishing board(or whatever it’s called) and had a voice for the fishermen but never bothered to use it.
I'm calling bullshit on this, the vast majority of people voting for brexit were reasonably comfortably off, indeed it was only as a consequence of their reasonably comfortable lives largely built on the back of "globalisation" (ie the trade and migration that has driven the development of human civilisation and economic growth over centuries) that they could afford the luxury of conspiracy theories and obsessing over trivial irrelevancies and then set out to spitefully cause such monumental harm to the country.
I don’t disagree with this, met ex-pats who would have happily voted For Brexit or did.
Not sure how they could be so obsessed over it after taking advantage and retiring somewhere warmer, happily taking advantage about freedom of movement but happy to remove it from others and their grandchildren.
But immigrants 🙂
Here what's going on here?
Streeting talking up his bullshit and making it hard to get at the stats?
https://twitter.com/FullFact/status/1925830469246968301?t=nOsZ228DP94LrV084S7qQw&s=19
Indeed the rise of 3.6 million in the first eight months of the Labour government, which the health secretary Wes Streeting described this month as a “massive increase”, is actually smaller than the 4.2 million rise that happened in the equivalent period the year before. (This is after the figures have been standardised to account for the varying number of working days per month. Our calculations standardise the figures to the latest period, following a similar method to that used by NHS England in the published data.)
I see that Starmer's "Island of Strangers" speech is still causing a poll bump. For Reform obviously, not for Labour.
A poll out today gives Reform an 11 point lead over Labour.
https://findoutnow.co.uk/blog/voting-intention-21st-may-2025/
Streeting talking up his bullshit and making it hard to get at the stats?
Wes lies?……..well I have to say I’m utterly shocked 🙄
And the Guardian editorial writers hits the nail on head ...... most Reform voters are not traditional Labour red wall voters
Most Reform UK voters are not Labour’s to win back. They are largely embedded within a “right-Conservative” bloc
And a nice little truth here :
Labour’s centrist power brokers are fighting the last war – not against the Tories, but against Jeremy Corbyn.
Sometimes the Guardian gets it right!
The original policy, hatched in the Treasury and defended for months, had cut winter fuel payments, worth up to £300 annually, to millions of pensioners. It was unpopular, and unnecessary
From that article. It was "unpopular and unnecessary" yet at the time many a Starmer fanboy defended it as some sort of a cleverly calculated move needed to fund other things. It does no such thing.
You really didn't have to be Einstein to see it was a dreadful way of opening a government's term. The key word being unnecessary. All that headache for less than around 12% of what has been spent on Ukraine.
They're not coming back from this mess as it stands.
Vote for change eh?
Wow, they say that a week is a long time in politics.......now Starmer is being forced to move to the left by the Reform threat!
Sir Keir Starmer could decide to lift the two-child benefit cap in the autumn budget, amid further pressure from Nigel Farage to appeal to traditional Labour voters.
I see that Nigel Farage is looking to challenge George Galloway's monopoly of the prat-in-a-hat image.
I just saw that. Sorry but it's a master stroke by Farage.
While Labour dither on potent issues Farage comes in with solid noises.
This is the problem - whilst Farage might well be cynical he knows how to seize the electoral gaps created by a confused Labour party.
It doesn't matter that Reform will make a hash of it (I mean Labour are making a hash of it) Reform will take the higher ground here.
Why is Starmer playing the prat? These issues wouldn't have existed in the first place if it wasn't for Starmer creating them. (I know Osborne created the benefit cap but still.) U-turn now rather than later. It's damage limitation.
People want better stuff. Labour are too embroiled in looking conservative - no one wants that any more at - least economically.
There would be good arguments against this populism if Labour weren't so incompetent and right-swinging, when people voted for change. I'm sick to the back teeth of high-brows making excuses for Starmer's strategy. It's a big fail, almost a disaster unless they don't act.
Waiting until the budget is a big problem.
Good morning magnificent 6, or 5 if I'm considered one. 😉
Farage adopting left-wing policies on stuff where he doesn't need to be nationalist, eurosceptic, economically liberal, anti-Islam, protectionist, anti-immigrant, and right-wing populist mimics the FN/RN, AfD, Vox etc. Hi-jack a few socialist policies so long as there's a nationalist/populist justification such as encouraging Britons to have more babies. A sot of neo-liberal, anti-immigration, protectionist national socialism. The sad thing is that a Labour (which is where some of us hope to find socialist policies) government ever thought the child-benefit cap was ever a good idea in the first place.
Edit: with a special good morning to our four-letter friend. 🙂
Your occasional reminder that the two child cap on child-benefit (and a number of other restrictions on child-benefit… the total claim limit and removing the benefit from households with at least one higher level tax payer) were Tory policies. Yes, it’s been a Labour government’s decision not to reform Child Benefit rules in its first year, but thinking it a “good idea” suggests they came up with the cap etc, when they didn’t. There will be likely be reforms in this area, although in the short term they are more likely to be urgent interventions in failing services aimed at children in the worst off households rather than benefit increases. Political pressure could well result in something headline grabbing about changing benefits before the next election, but it is child focussed services where the rebuild is desperately needed, they’ve been left in a right mess by previous governments. That necessary work isn’t great headline fodder though.
I was refering to what happened last year as "in the first place", Kelvin; when Starmer considered it a sufficiently "good idea" to suspend Labour MPs opposed to it.
https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-labours-two-child-benefit-cap-row-explained
Anyhow I approve of his u-turn for once if he does get rid of the cap.
IMHO If labour had lifted the cap reform would probably be banging on about benefits scroungers.
I just saw that. Sorry but it's a master stroke by Farage.
While Labour dither on potent issues Farage comes in with solid noises.
This is the problem - whilst Farage might well be cynical he knows how to seize the electoral gaps created by a confused Labour party.
It doesn't matter that Reform will make a hash of it (I mean Labour are making a hash of it) Reform will take the higher ground here.
Why is Starmer playing the prat? These issues wouldn't have existed in the first place if it wasn't for Starmer creating them. (I know Osborne created the benefit cap but still.) U-turn now rather than later. It's damage limitation.
People want better stuff. Labour are too embroiled in looking conservative - no one wants that any more at - least economically.
There would be good arguments against this populism if Labour weren't so incompetent and right-swinging, when people voted for change. I'm sick to the back teeth of high-brows making excuses for Starmer's strategy. It's a big fail, almost a disaster unless they don't act.
Waiting until the budget is a big problem.
There's a lot of sense in all that. I can't believe that Labour are letting Farage set the agenda and take advantage
Your occasional reminder that the two child cap on child-benefit ..............
......That necessary work isn’t great headline fodder though.
If it is headlines that we are worried about then keeping the Tory child benefit cap can result in some not very nice headlines :
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/two-child-benefit-cap-labour-poverty-b2726970.html
This headline a week earlier was much more pleasant
Child poverty in Scotland falls
There's a lot of sense in all that. I can't believe that Labour are letting Farage set the agenda and take advantage
I can't get my head around it which is why I'm scathing.
If Labour don't get their act together - that's it for Labour in my lifetime, I can't see hope coming back.
I don't know what he's scared of.
I was listerning to Mark Blyth (economist - not an MMTer! for the critical) but he said Labour should pull out all the stops to get building some state-owned houses; gain an asset - which wouldl be seen as a plan by the god-damn market!
Labour are shit-scared of their Liz Truss moment and they shouldn't be. They set the effing terms of bond sales!
It's absolutely ruining everything.
(It is to be noted now that inflation may never return to the target previously set. The monetarist types will use this to absolutely clobber many of us. It would be better to simply change the target, now post-pandemic the landscape has changed.
Inflation targetting by interest rate policy is a disaster and given the States and China have done much better on inflation than us -we maybe ought to look at the stimulus policies that actually lower inflation that can only be provided by the government rather than an agent of government (BoE) through a distorted monetary lens.
Labour should pull out all the stops to get building some state-owned houses
Now that I fully agree with and a shit tonne of money into onshore renewable, both will make things way better in the long term, actually do something about the cost of living and piss off some more retired Torys.
And anyone who thinks taking WFA off wealthy pensioners in principle was a bad idea probably votes Tory / Reform anyway. It's a great Labour policy, this rather pathetic turn is very disappointing. If they want more people to get it, up the pension credits threshold and make a big fuss about it. Difficult to argue with giving the poorest pensioners a bit more at the expense of the wealthy ones.
And anyone who thinks taking WFA off wealthy pensioners in principle was a bad idea probably votes Tory / Reform anyway.
Totally. Both my parents and my in-laws found it laughable that they got the WFA. Both sets of grandparents simply put the money towards more Christmas presents for their grandchildren.
It's utterly ****ing mental that households that retired at age 55-60 with some final salary pensions and shares etc received the WFA.
