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.