Sir! Keir! Starmer!

“A significant majority (56%) believe the country is heading in the wrong direction, compared to just 19% who feel things are on the right track.”

https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/two-five-britons-think-they-are-worse-labour-was-elected

At least the Tories and Liberal Democrats managed to convince voters that austerity and tough times was a good idea because it would reap rewards later, but that was almost 15 years ago.

Perhaps Starmer should adjust his strategy to reflect up-to-date realities…… it would seem that voters won’t get fooled again with all the “tough decisions” mantras.

voters thinking that everything can be “fixed” in six months?

I hate to break it to you.. But yes, that’s exactly what the average voter thinks.

But it doesn’t matter as the current government isn’t going anywhere for at least 4 years.

Someone above said, and I paraphrase ‘it takes quite a few years for policy changes to come to fruition’

Just as you can’t turn an oil tanker around very quickly.. It’s a heavy beast.

voters won’t get fooled again with all the “tough decisions” mantras

No one mentions the “easy choices” recently made… more money for health, schools, justice, and all the other services where the damages of Tory austerity will take a decade to fix… the ‘tough choices’ have been about making it harder for land owners to avoid what minimal wealth taxes we have, withdrawing the winter cruise allowance* from better off pensioners, removing tax breaks for those sending kids to private schools, making minimum wage employers pay more, and increasing taxes paid by businesses. Tough for some maybe… but the direction and priorities are fine with me.

[ being flippant there, my mum isn’t rich, never goes abroad… but she pointed out that the uplift in her state pension is still greater than any winter fuel payments she’s losing ]

I thought the problem with Liz Truss was that all her policies were shit?

They were indeed shit, but more importantly they were completely and utterly insane, driven entirely by the Tufton Street mob, who seized their opportunity to get a vacuous half wit to implement their idealogical lunacy

I had no idea that it was anything to do with her not having a mandate.

After the chaos she unleashed, most people looked at their massively increased mortgage payments and said “hang on a minute, I don’t remember voting for some utterly insane policies, driven entirely by the Tufton Street mob, seizing their opportunity to get a vacuous half wit to implement their idealogical lunacy. Do you?”

Thats one of the main reasons we now have a Labour government

No one mentions the “easy choices”

The only person relentlessly talking about “tough decisions” is Starmer.  Small wonder that people are pessimistic.

A few days before the general election Starmer promised to “relight the fire of optimism”. And yet all that is coming out of him since then is negativity.

withdrawing the winter cruise allowance* from better off pensioners

My mum, who has no issues with the withdrawal of the winter fuel allowance, told me of one of her very comfortably off, Tory voting friends who was up in arms about it as ‘“I’ll have to pay for my own flights to Tenerife now!”

With what her, Jeremy Clarkson, Andrew Lloyd Webber and James Dyson are all having to endure, the worlds smallest violin is getting a serious workout here

The tactic of providing an example of how a government spending cut won’t affect a particular person, or persons, to justify that cut, is one which Tory politicians and newspapers such as the Daily Mail have always used.

Are we now using the same tactic to justify Labour government policies?

More important than the personal examples provided by the likes of Daily Mail columnists are the analytical calculations of internal government modelling.

“Internal government modelling shows the decision to remove the benefit from millions of pensioners will push about 50,000 more people into relative poverty next year, and another 50,000 by the end of the decade.”

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/nov/19/winter-fuel-payment-cuts-may-force-100000-pensioners-below-poverty-line

One of the founding principles of the British welfare state when it was established was that it should, in keeping with the accepted norms of social-democracy, universal in its provisions.

This was for a variety of reasons including that it was only way to guarantee that welfare benefits would be available to everyone who actually needed them. The only proviso was that those persons who can contribute more to the social funds did precisely that.

That use of that 50,000 figure is absolutely bogus. Have a dig through the report, it ignores everything else being done for pensioners. It’s a report on the impacts of the change with all else being equal…  if pensions don’t rise (they are) and people who need more help don’t receive any (which they are). The report was needed to inform what mitigations are required if/when the change goes ahead… it should not be used/seen as a way of predicting what the result of the change will be in reality.

The only person relentlessly talking about “tough decisions” is Starmer. Small wonder that people are pessimistic.

Hang on, let’s get this straight. You’re giving the strong impression you’re not a fan?

I’m pessimistic because of climate change, rising authoritarianism with Putin, Trump, Jinping and the CCP,  Brexit, the billionaire dominated planet etc etc. Frankly if would take more than the perfectly good employment white paper published yesterday to make me optimistic. Also because I’m from Yorkshire, which at least makes me cheerful about it all.

You’ve got to admit though John, he’s not exactly Johnson is he… “talking up” our “worldclass whatever”, while running it down.

Starmer will never make many people optimistic with his rhetoric. He needs to deliver substance not charming boosterism while scruffing up his hair. Honestly, it’s too soon to judge him either way really. Unless you’re wishing him to fail, and have been since before the election.

Hang on, let’s get this straight. You’re giving the strong impression you’re not a fan?

Whether I am personally a fan or not isn’t relevant, I won’t be deciding who wins the next general election.

Although to be fair I am not in any politician’s fan club, I judge politicians based on what they do. So yes, you are right, I am not a fan.

I know that attitude goes against the grain of many though. Apparently you pick a side and then it is a case of for better for worse, for richer, for poorer, till death us do part.

Also because I’m from Yorkshire, which at least makes me cheerful about it all.

Perhaps that’s Starmer’s problem – he is from Surrey. Maybe if he was from Yorkshire he wouldn’t be spreading so much doom and gloom and voters would be more optimistic, eh?

The electorate have been peddled fantasy economics since 2016 with its cakism and we can have it all nonsense, embraced by the gullible, looking for easy answers to complex problems, happily delivered by populist snake oil salesmen

Now the grown ups are back, belatedly, after also having another Brexit fantasist in charge of the Labour Party for far too long at the worst time possible. And now the you’re  moaning about pessimism.

Its just realism. Soz, and all that 

A country can only survive on fairy tales for so long before the real world has to intrude again.

Seems a lot of people want to keep living in a dreamworld and are going to start a petition to insist on it

And now you’re moaning about pessimism.

Who’s moaning about pessimism? It seems quite a reasonable attitude.

They were indeed shit, but more importantly they were completely and utterly insane, driven entirely by the Tufton Street mob,

As anyone with the vaguest clue would know that is crap and just playing into the tories hands.

It was pretty standard tory theory hence why almost all but the most sane ones were behind it originally. Its only about 5 days in that everyone started distancing themselves and pointing at the Tufton lot who, themselves, just pointed at Truss.

Even so they could have got away with it aside from the fact the pension funds had made some moronic gambles which couldnt handle the most mild pressure test.

It couldnt have happened now since the regulators decided to eventually shut the stable door. Question is whether the regulators will be allowed to keep those rules in place or whether those are some regulations which have gone too far in limiting the crown jewels?

It was pretty standard tory theory

Mkay. Any examples prior to Truss of anyone advocating 50 billion in unfunded tax cuts?

My recollection of her leadership campaign was of her opponent, one Rishi Sunak, predicting that if she went ahead with this madness it would end really really badly. Ironic given his legacy, I know.

The consensus amongst the few sane Tory MP’s left was  ‘yeah, she’s saying this to curry favour with the membership, who are all mental, but she won’t actually do it’

Quite some re-writing of history you’re doing there .

Mkay. Any examples prior to Truss of anyone advocating 50 billion in unfunded tax cuts?

ermmm ok, well done for demonstrating you dont actually understand what the problem was with her plan.  Perhaps you could ask a handy sixth former?

I know its hard for someone so easily led by the latest headlines but just go and look at the papers from the 23 to about the 26th and you will see overwhelming support from the right wing press and commentators. It was not limited to the tufton mob although the right wingers have done a good job of convincing the simple minded it was.

We’ve all got Truss wrong… her refusing to listen to advice from people who knew about, you know, things like pension funds, refusing to let her cunning plan be scrutinised by the people we pay to be across the details in the normal way, wasn’t the reason for her failure. It was just bad luck.

^^ And communist bankers.

II know its hard for someone so easily led by the latest headlines but just go and look at the papers from the 23 to about the 26th and you will see overwhelming support from the right wing press and commentators. It was not limited to the tufton mob although the right wingers have done a good job of convincing the simple minded it was

Ah yes…. I often forget you genius lefties are so much more switched on than us pathetic drones, us slaves to the military industrial complex, us simple proles, woefully devoid of your searing insight, who unquestionably accept what we’re spoon by the Murdoch press and now Elon Musk on Twitte/X/Whatever

I just find it refreshing that given your obvious intellectual   superiority to us mere mortals, you somehow manage to stay humble and not even remotely patronising and somehow totally free from sniffy, high-horse condescension

I just find it refreshing that given your obvious intellectual superiority to us mere mortals, you somehow manage to stay humble and not even remotely patronising and somehow totally free from sniffy, high-horse condescension

LOL I’m lovin that coming from you binners!

Anyway moving away from personal insults and to answer your question concerning previous examples of unfunded tax cuts from Tory governments. The dash for growth and the temporary booms created by Reginald Maudling, Anthony Barber, and Nigel Lawson come to mind.

Conservative governments almost always run budgetary deficits. Reaganomics is know for both its tax cuts and deficits, in fact I believe that the term “unfunded tax cuts” was first coined by critics of Ronald Reagan.

We’ve all got Truss wrong… her refusing to listen to advice

It’s clear that at the time, she didn’t refuse to listen as much as go out of her way not to inform certain organisations about her plans. If I’m being generous to Truss, in some respects – her claims that there are organisations in the UK that work to constrain governments. She’s correct. The OBR, and the BoE for example. Which can be a good thing, and generally beneficial to the economy, but they undoubtedly prevent Govts from developing radical agendas.

You can argue the toss about whether her plan – to shock the UK economy into growth, was a decent or workable poloicy, but without the backing of non governmental organisations, it just caused instability , and rather than be attracted to the UK investors smelled blood, and the pound fell

But at the same time the fiscal targets that a strongly independent BoE operates to that mean that the UK is known for being intuitionally stable, also work to frustrate govts. Starmer can have all the plans he like to invest in say; sewage repairs, or sure-start or pothole repair or whatever, and essentially faces the same constraints that frustrated Truss.

Have a dig through the report, it ignores everything else being done for pensioners.

The government didn’t carry out an impact assessment of the WFA cut https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/sep/12/no-winter-fuel-payments-impact-assessment-was-carried-out-no-10-admits

There’s a massive assumption that pensioners are claiming the benefits that they’re entitled to, which would allow those in greatest need to access WFA. The government think that 60%-ish of poorer pensioners who could claim Pension Credits don’t claim, which is a route to WFA. A so-called double-whammy, no PC and no WFA for those in greatest need.

But it’s all okay because we equitably sent some leaflets out…

Keir Starmer, speaking to reporters at the G20 in Rio, said: “We’ve had a campaign to drive up pension credit, to get more pensioners on to pension credit, which obviously is not only a guarantee of the winter fuel allowance, but also gives the credit itself. So there’s an additional benefit there.” https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/nov/19/winter-fuel-payment-cuts-may-force-100000-pensioners-below-poverty-line

Yes, I do feel strongly about it. It’s appalling

We’ve all got Truss wrong

Thats not what I am saying. Again go and look at the headlines for the first 2-3 days after the mini budget and you will see overwhelming praise for it from pretty much everyone on the right wing side of things. Even those who were less convinced saw it as high risk/high return vs just high risk.

Blaming Truss alone lets everyone else off the hook. Its a reinvention of history playing into the hands of the tories.

As for the pension funds. You seem to be confusing their role in events. They were caught up in events due to their LDI strategies which couldnt handle margin calls. As far as I am aware no one really understood the risks here and it wasnt highlighted prior to the budget. It was a ticking time bomb and I suspect if any of the pension funds had spotted the risk they would have been quietly exiting the market rather than highlighting it.

go and look at the headlines

The newspapers running positive lines* on whoever the new Tory PM was, and no matter what they were (or weren’t) doing? Yes, business as usual. Not sure that tells us anything, other than how symbiotic the Conservative Party and many of our newspapers are.

Right back to commenting on how badly the press claims Starmer is doing as PM…

[ *just remembered the Daily Star front pages… gold! ]

LDI strategies which couldnt handle margin calls. As far as I am aware no one really understood the risks here and it wasnt highlighted prior to the budget.

Liz Truss is on the record as saying that when she launched her Catastrophic mini-budget that she didn’t know what LDI’s were. And because she isolated herself from any advisors and wouldn’t allow any grown ups know what she was planning she had no idea of the potential consequences. There’s a phrase for this…. wilful ignorance. Not really a quality you look for in a PM. It’s like giving a monkey a machine gun

Which can be a good thing, and generally beneficial to the economy

Quite a loaded phrase that. What actually does it mean? From where I’m standing it means beneficial to capital and those who control it rather than anything to do with your average voter. Should we be grateful that the BoE and OBR ensures that the financial system and economy is stable enough to prevent any challenge to the power and wealth of billionaires and corporations?

Perhaps that’s Starmer’s problem – he is from Surrey. Maybe if he was from Yorkshire he wouldn’t be spreading so much doom and gloom and voters would be more optimistic, eh?

But his father was a toolmaker apparently…

But his father was a toolmaker apparently…

Really? I don’t recall him mentioning that.

The newspapers running positive lines* on whoever the new Tory PM was, and no matter what they were (or weren’t) doing?

No it was rather more than that. It was full throated support for her strategy and if it hadnt been for the pension funds screwing up which incidentally no one seems to have spotted up front then she probably would have got away with it.

The reinvention to blame just her is the tory papers rapidly rewriting history and sadly people are falling for it.

Its good to know we can now acknowledge the press bias and its no longer the labour leaders fault for everything though.

Quite a loaded phrase that. What actually does it mean?

Do you want politicians to be able to make decisions without any regards to the wider implications; one of which may mean you get to take home your wages in a wheelbarrow?

one of which may mean you get to take home your wages in a wheelbarrow?

Bit of a red herring really. Ensuring stable prices in the economy doesn’t require that billionaires and corporations acquire vast amounts of wealth without having to pay much of it back as tax or have their wealth limited in some way to benefit everyone else. In fact I’d say the opposite is true, inflation and financial instability are a product of the system which enables and prioritises vast profits and wealth accumulation.

Bit of a red herring really.

I’d rather there be a check on the short term expediency of politicians than not. The historic investment/return and spending records for the political classes of all stripes post-war is frankly woeful  The system of checks by Treasury, BoE market forces etc etc the very least lends the whole thing some (badly needed) discipline.

The UK lack of investment is largely to do with the fact that borrowing for the UK govts is expensive now. The UK runs a trade deficit and we rely mostly on “Foreigners giving us their money” for investment. As it happens both the EU and US have recently invested E1.2T and  more than $500B respectively on  infrastructure and rebuilding programmes, in the case of the EU it’s overall economical outlook is growing making borrowing cheap and for the US, well, they’re the world’s reserve currency, they can pretty much do what they want, The UK (since 2016 at least) isn’t in a position to do that anymore.

And I know you’ll talk about “countries with their own central banks can’t go bankrupt blah blah blah” and all that, but bad things start happening waaaay before you get to that level of financial incompetence, so in reality, it’s just a meaningless technicality.

So yeah, we’re probably never going to be in a state where the BoE is printing £1,000,000 pound notes to fling about like confetti, but that’s mostly down do the mandarins sucking air through their teeth and asking “Are you sure?” rather than any great strategy coming out of the pages of Tory/Labour manifestos.

but that’s mostly down do the mandarins sucking air through their teeth and asking “Are you sure?”

Yeah the same mandarins who would tell us there is no alternative to a system where a tiny few people take the majority of the wealth and everyone else has to work their bollocks off to make ends meet and put up with crumbling public services. The thing those manadarins are best at is looking after themsselves and their mates in the city and it’s got bollocks all to do with maintaining a stable economy.

If you can bear to read the blame shifting accounts of any of the recent Tory PMs or Chancellors… that really wasn’t the issue… wanting unaffordable tax breaks for the wealthy, while squeezing public services and those that work in them, was what the politicians were pushing for, while the warnings of civil servants as regards the effects of doing so were pushed aside.

kelvin
Full Member
If you can bare to read the blame shifting accounts of any of the recent Tory PMs or Chancellors… that really wasn’t the issue… wanting unaffordable tax breaks for the wealthy, while squeezing public services and those that work in them, was what the politicians were pushing for, while the warnings of civil servants as regards the effects of doing so were pushed aside.

This was the word and the word was good.<Thumbs up>

kelvin
Full Member
If you can bare to read the blame shifting accounts of any of the recent Tory PMs or Chancellors… that really wasn’t the issue… wanting unaffordable tax breaks for the wealthy, while squeezing public services and those that work in them, was what the politicians were pushing for, while the warnings of civil servants as regards the effects of doing so were pushed aside.

This was the word and the word was good.<Thumbs up>

“the UK is only superficially governed by MPs and the voters who elect them. Parliamentary democracy is, in truth, little more than a means of securing a periodical change in the management team, which is then allowed to preside over a system that remains in essence intact. If the British people were ever to ask themselves what power they truly enjoyed under our political system they would be amazed to discover how little it is, and some new Chartist agitation might be born and might quickly gather momentum.”

– Tony Benn

There appears to be at least a couple of individuals on this thread who wish to conserve the status quo ……“nothing tooo radical please”

I on the other hand still believe in the brave new dawn which the Labour Party was established to achieve.

Or are people suggesting that 2024 is the brave new dawn?

Benn is right (as usual) and matches what I have observed over the last 40 years where I have been old enough to notice/feel changes. Each government promises change but just tinkers around making thing slight better or slightly worse. Tories tend to make things slightly worse than better but not massively so. The problem with living in a democracy where the people are scared of radical and are more interested in immigration figures which have no impact on the vast majority of people.

Yes, I do feel strongly about it. It’s appalling

You’ll be gobsmacked when you find out about Brexit and the lack of a “impact assessment”…

These poor pensioners, if the loss of £6 per week is pushing them into poverty, I think most of us would consider that they’re already in poverty.  And as someone almost at pensionable age I do struggle with the concept of folk retiring with only a State Pension to support them; did they put nothing aside whatsoever and/or never have a private/works pension during their working lives?

<anecdote>I know two people who were overjoyed to learn they could take huge wads of cash out of their pensions in their fifties and joyfully did so, then spunked that cash up the wall in months without any plan as to what to replace it with – one of them is furious about the cut to the WFA even though she won’t be eligible for years yet. I’m a financial ignoramus but they make me look like a financial super brain, and I suspect there’s a lot of them about. </anecdote>