UK Government Thread

Apart from the one about declaring it.

Starmer initially didn’t declare the megabucks spent by Lord Alli on his clothes and glasses etc, claiming instead that was “private support for the office of the leader of the opposition”, I can’t imagine why, can you? He changed that a month later.

Starmer also didn’t declare the money that Lord Alli spent on his wife Victoria’s wardrobe, despite the fact that the rules very clearly stipulate that gifts to family members must be included. His Downing Street office claims that it was an “error”.

But yeah I know, Keir Starmer isn’t Boris Johnson so he allowed to do stuff because he isn’t a Tory, apparently.

You might think that shit like that can be dismissed so easily but even Starmer realises that it can’t be, which is why he has announced that it won’t be happening anymore. But you carry on defending it anyway.

No, not defending it, just pointing out that it isn’t ‘absolutely identical’ to what Johnson did.

I still note that by objective measures he didn’t hide donations, he declared them and then his office realised they had been wrongly declared. But – he has to be even better than that. So I am fully critical of Starmer for those errors / omissions / delays, he needs to be (let’s paraphrase my previous post) ‘whiter than white, and is letting his small g government down dreadfully’. If that’s defending, what do you want me to do to criticise?

https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/comment/keir-starmer-gifts-ethics

Meanwhile – still no answer on your ‘misleading’ facts about the TW/Teddington report?

It needs rule changes rather than up to the MPs to turn down. It is open to corruption at worst and special ‘favours’ at best so it needs to stop completely.

It’s funny how a party of protest is somehow derided whilst a party of free-loading, scatty, greedy and total incompetence is good.

All this could have mostly been avoided if they’d have hit the ground running with a stonking well thought-out budget late summer instead of delivering the random – abominable black-hole driven fiscal approach to *saving*  a utterly pointless 1.4bn.

One thing for sure this is a Labour driven mess – no point crying about the media and public’s response to Labour’s terrible decision making; not helped by their own approach to scrutinising constantly the previous government on competence instead of ideas, which has put them in the spotlight for the same thing.

(Conference was a shit show too. )

Oh my – free broadband seems eight lifetimes ago.

The Labour brand is trashed. I can’t see how it survives this. Even if the budget is just okay – faith has gone.

They’ve got to seriously pull something out of the hat and Reeves has not indicated anything like that.

Agreed. If rules are so hard to understand that a lawyer and army of advisors aren’t able to understand them in a timely manner then they’re too complex. Simplify, if necessary to stopping them completely.

No, not defending it, just pointing out that it isn’t ‘absolutely identical’ to what Johnson did.

‘Spilt milk under the bridge’ as Jeremy Irons says in Margin Call.

It’s not a way to start a new government where everything was pinned on its chances of being ‘change.’

If I were a Starmer supporter now I wouldn’t be looking to upturn and check the absolute details – because it won’t end favourably.

Simplify, if necessary to stopping them completely.

Yep.

That’s the issue and why I feel annoyed.

From my little enclave on the inside, I see a lot of good work happening, that will come to light in the budget and SR. Will it be exactly what ‘everyone’ wants – by definition no because people want different things. Is it being done diligently and professionally. Yes. Is it being overshadowed by these totally avoidable rows, yes.

That’s not asking for a let off, and it’s annoying too (but a feature of our media today) that every day another scandal drops, but that’s all this discussion became / has become. “But MMT! But wardrobegate!  It’s not a discussion of policies or thinking, it’s infantile name calling, and I’m deliberately guilty but you lot (whoops!) started it.

Example. I posted that a 2:1 majority of the public actually support the 2cbc. Barely a comment? But 3 pages of the same back and forth.

I still note that by objective measures he didn’t hide donations, he declared them

It’s true that the LP did declare a £4m donation from a Cayman Islands hedge fund with investments in arms and fossil fuels. I’m sure it was purely coincidental that the timing allowed Labour to declare it well after the general election.

Like I said, in the rules but still not good enough, you need to be well behind the line, not toes poking over.

Ah, still see it’s all pessimistic stuff from the usual suspects, every statement at the party conference is bad, if only labour did what they wanted them to do it would all be rosy. The thing that cracks me up is that the stuff on here is exactly the same rubbish the right wingers are posting via GBNews and the likes, it’s almost as if the extremes from either side have more in common than they do with the centrist scum ;o)

Yup, off-shore donations should be banned out right. Getting campaign funds in within the law to defeat the Tories is one, very dirty, thing… but with a change of government and a different make up of parliament, the rules can now be changed. And should be. UK election (and referendum) campaigns should not be funded from outside the UK… that’s UK democracy for sale… and should be stopped.

Rarely do I read a political comment piece which nails all the issues in a few hundred words but this does. Seems some in the Starmer camp get it too, so why are they allowing Reeves to run the show?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/sep/26/britain-spending-nhs-growth-labour-voters-keir-starmer

People want big quick fixes. You don’t need polling expertise to understand that. That isn’t what they were promised, for good reason.

I know what people don’t want – A govt that tells them they can’t do anything because it’s all too difficult. If Labour don’t get their heads around this they’ll be out at the first opportunity, possibly even earlier.

It’s all very well telling people how bad everything is and how it’s going to take a decade to fix but they don’t want to hear it. They’ve got two years to make some big material differences to peoples lives. Anything less just shows how politically naive they are.

A govt that tells them they can’t do anything because it’s all too difficult.

Which government is that? What we have is a government that acknowledges where the UK currently is, and how long it will take to turn around. There is no “can’t do anything”, that’s just the usual histrionics over “can’t do everything, all at once, all in one go”.

It’s all very well telling people how bad everything is and how it’s going to take a decade to fix but they don’t want to hear it. They’ve got two years to make some big material differences to peoples lives. Anything less just shows how politically naive they are.

That’s a problem with the population, not the government.

Anyone with a brain knows we are a decade away from being in “a good place”. Spelling it out is expectation management. Idiots not understanding the real world and wanting quick and easy soundbite solutions is how we had 14 years of Tory government.

So what we have is a government (on this instance) demonstrating political maturity to a population who are politically naive.

I agree that they need to be showing some progress in the first two years, and that needs to start when the spending review and budget come out.

Falling into a trap over gifts etc was politically naive and stupid. Everyone still banging on about it a week later shows the power of the right wing press to influence and shape opinion, rather than focusing on the more important national issues.

That’s a problem with the population, not the government.

Ha! And you call us lefties the idealogues!?

Like I said it’s political naivety. If Starmer/Labour wasn’t prepared to accept that they’d have to make real progress quickly then they shouldn’t be in govt. If they don’t accept it and do something about it, they won’t be in govt for very long. That’s the simple fact of the matter. Telling people it’s all to difficult and they’ll need 10 years is a fantasy.

Everyone still banging on about it a week later shows the power of the right wing press to influence and shape opinion

Yeah, blame the right-wing press, it’s the classic knee jerk reaction. So who do you blame for Wallpapergate which is widely seen as being the beginning of the end for Boris Johnson?

Starmer received over £100,000 in personal gifts and freebies from wealthy admirers since 2019, more than any other UK MP, including obviously more than 300 Tory MPs. The next highest amount was £40,000 given to another, yup, Labour MP.

And all this comes out against a backdrop of Labour telling everyone how shit things are but unfortunately there is very little they can do (I believe that the latest figures show that Labour inherited a low inflation growing economy, the sixth largest in the world) and things are going to stay tough for years.

But yeah, Labour totally understands the hardships which ordinary people are facing. It’s Austerity Dave and his sidekick Nick Clegg “We’re all in this together” bollocks all over again.

The damage this is doing Labour isn’t due to a right-wing press conspiracy some of the most vocal criticism has come from the opinion pages of the Guardian. They get it, even if you don’t, or at least pretend not to.

Edit: I don’t know if the Sky News’ Westminster Accounts project is part of this “right-wing press” conspiracy but here is an example of what people are reading:

https://news.sky.com/story/sir-keir-starmer-declares-gifts-and-freebies-totalling-more-than-100-000-the-highest-of-any-mp-13217287

There’s a nice video clip in that link explaining in detail the  issue

Sam Coates very much is part of the “right-wing press”. A good journalist, but very much a right wing one.

The context to the story above is mostly about the upgrade from season ticket for the stands to a box at football matches. Something Starmer should have rejected. If it was about security, he should have made the sacrifice of no longer attending matches. Hard luck. Naive not to have seen that coming. He’s failed when it comes to managing that. For sure. But the story absolutely is about right wing journalists creating an “all the same” narrative with false equivalence…. and it is notable who wants to join in with that on here. Notable, but unsurprising. In addition there are campaign costs, all very exciting if you want it to be.

The additional context is that Coates was only looking at “current” MPs, and what happened in the last parliament… ignoring all the MPs we’ve got rid off, especially those who had been in government, and giving a free pass to those who are new to house.

Search the Sky database for Boris Johnson… £6.4 million… and that’s already out of date. Yet the story is that Starmer “received two-and-a-half times more gifts and hospitality than the next MP”… for £100k of tickets and campaign costs.

If Starmer/Labour wasn’t prepared to accept that they’d have to make real progress quickly then they shouldn’t be in govt.

They have done plenty already (and not just gone to the football)

And again a reminder – about 90d in, approaching the benchmark first 100 but about 5% of their term. A month or so away from the budget. This is still early days, that annoyingly are being characterised by unpopular policy indications (although, are they that unpopular except to the very vocal people that oppose them) and legitimate but optically dodgy donations.

To the comment (I think Rone) on they should have had a plan for the spending on day 1. That’s before they found the accounts. Part of the issue about Brexit is having made a decision, then realised what a crap decision it was ‘we’ were too stubborn to stop and think about it. “No, we made a decision, we have to see it through now!”

Having found the 22bn black hole, any plan they had goes back to the drawing board, that’s the sensible thing to do. And while you can (and undoubtedly will) say that the black hole is irrelevant that is a theory that Reeves does not buy into* and the model she does buy into means that a review of the ins and outs of the budget is required. To plough ahead with the D1 plan would be daft in that context.

* even then i said weeks ago that I wouldn’t be surprised that she might have to soften that because things are so bad. And what was said earlier this week…..

Sam Coates very much is part of the “right-wing press”.

I read about a lot of this stuff in Private Eye.

The level of delusion on this thread/forum about politics is astonishing quite frankly. Do you guys know what people out there in the real world are saying? They’re not sayiing ‘it’s early days, we need to give them a chance because we know it’s really difficult’, they’re saying ‘they’re no different to the tories, they’re looking after themselves as usual and have no interest in us’. I don’t usually talk about politics IRL (I save that for here) but when it crops every now and again down the pub or on a bike ride or something, this is what I hear from almost everyone.

It’s like brexit all over again. A load of chattering middle class educated types telling each other ‘they couldn’t possibly vote us out, it would be economic suicide’ whilst everyone else is thinking ‘f*** it, what have we got to lose?’. Hope you’re all looking forward to the Tory-Reform govt in a few years with Farage as PM or chancellor.

Having found the 22bn black hole

Even if we accept this assertion (we shouldn’t), context is important. £22bn is about 5% of COVID related public expenditure and less than 2% of annual public expenditure.

So you want a government led by public opinion and popularity, should Labour come up with some type of britains got talent style voting system?

It’s like brexit all over again. A load of chattering middle class educated types telling each other ‘they couldn’t possibly vote us out, it would be economic suicide’ whilst everyone else is thinking ‘f*** it, what have we got to lose?’.

Oh, Labour absolutely can lose the next election… but promising things they can’t deliver… lying about the likely outcomes of decisions… that won’t head off a defeat, it’ll make it more likely. This isn’t the Brexit referendum… promising easy wins and milk and honey rather than hard work and progress will be found out before voters get another say (and they will get another say).

and when it comes to the 2CBC, a majority of people actually support that too.

The majority of people supported Brexit and 40% still want hanging. A disincentive to have kids in a country with a birth rate below 2 since the 70s and currently 1.56,  in a country that also hates immigration is **** stupid. Quite apart from the morality and ethics of child poverty. The majority are selfish arses and don’t want anything paying for they don’t benefit from directly, and sometimes they’ll cut off their nose to spite their face rather than see other people benefit from something that they’d benefit from too.

To the comment (I think Rone) on they should have had a plan for the spending on day 1. That’s before they found the accounts.

Sorry that doesn’t reflect reality.

There is nothing stopping them spending what they need to spend other than a phoney self-imposed restriction.

They don’t ‘find the accounts.’  It’s not how it works. Governments don’t wander into office and look at a ledger or budget and and find they haven’t got the money to do that. It simply wouldn’t work and it’s not how it works.

Irrespective of any sort of black-hole story – new government spending is not based on old government budgets.

Remember when Liam Byrne left the note from the last Labour government in 2008  saying there was no money left – well since then there’s been an accumaltive spend of around 16 trillion. Every single bit of that spending was created by new money, day in day out.

Having found the 22bn black hole, any plan they had goes back to the drawing board, that’s the sensible thing to do.

They didn’t find anything that would stop them from spending – otherwise there would be no spending today. And to add insult to injury – they thought 1.4bn would plug the gap how?

Let’s be honest they didn’t have a plan and they’ve lied to gain politcal capital and it’s back-fired.

More plainly, the UK has a sovereign currency. No need to feign dependence on the rich. The British government can source its own financing internally. Indeed, there is no other way. https://t.co/Squ3NdJBpF https://t.co/FIBNW362HS

— Stephanie Kelton (@StephanieKelton) September 25, 2024

So you want a government led by public opinion and popularity, should Labour come up with some type of britains got talent style voting system?

But we’re not being led by sound decision making. Public opinion has been shaped by terrible policy, and worse lies about the state of the finances.

but promising things they can’t deliver

It’s the opposite – they’re simply not promising much by not offering anything that will materially improve people’s lives. You don’t start a government by reducing the spending power of the population by 1.4bn to try and plug a 22bn black-hole.

Dumb politics and dumb maths.  It makes no sense at all. None.

So you want a government led by public opinion and popularity, should Labour come up with some type of britains got talent style voting system?

You are going to be mortified when you find out what “general elections” are about.

Bourgeois democracy has very little appeal to me but that unfortunately is the best that human society can come up with at this stage of its development.

There is nothing stopping them spending what they need to spend other than a phoney self-imposed restriction.

I think you might have made the point, once or twice. The results of deciding to do that is disputed though. And need to be controlled, and a plan to do so must be in place (even though it’ll need to be “adaptable”). Spending more needs to occur. Having everything in place (including changes to future tax take, an industrial strategy, directed spending and recovery) to prevent the negative effects of that spending not wiping out the possible benefits (and making us all poorer, again) is absolutely necessary though.

I think you might have made the point, once or twice.

Labour have tried to sell the 22bn black-hole to every single interview I’ve seen – so forgive my repetition on such bullshit when people just repeat what they’ve heard.

 Spending more needs to occur. Having everything in place (including changes to future tax take, an industrial strategy, directed spending and recovery) to prevent the negative effects of that spending not wiping out the possible benefits (and making us all poorer, again) is absolutely necessary though.

That’s the bit where they have had years to come up with a plan. Years, Kelvin.

It’s not good enough.  Anyone who knows anything about politics knows the first 100 days is critical. Labour couldn’t have had a worse start.

State services are in deep deficit – how much longer do you want to wait?

That’s the bit where they have had years to come up with a plan.

Sorry Rone, you have a very clear idea of one economic theory, but appear to have little idea about how a government and all its departments work.

rone
Full Member
It’s funny how a party of protest is somehow derided whilst a party of free-loading, scatty, greedy and total incompetence is good.

Not sure I agree to be honest.

How many perpetual strikes have been resolved within weeks? I’ll put money on the nursing one being resolved within weeks too.

Rwanda scrapped.

Far right riots delt with.

Staff being hired to actually process the huge backlog of asylum seekers, a Tory manufactured problem.

Actually trying to rebuild bridges with the EU rather than treat them as enemies.

Continued support for Ukraine.

50£ billion being found down the back of the sofa just as many of us predicted even before the election.

Going after the huge monies fraudulently claimed during Covid.

Real commitment to build more housing.

Rebalancing renters rights against landlords rights.

Breaking with allies to ban arms sales to Israel, as far a UK government can do so as there are ties with overseas manufacturers out of its control.

I bet others on here can fill in the ones I’ve forgotten??

Frocks, glasses, 14k parties? Wrong, wrong, wrong and it needs to end but to assert that’s all the government have done in a few months is objectively wrong.

They aren’t incompetent but their PR and political naivety have been shown. Luckily they have plenty of time to learn from this and they will.

Another thing since the attack line NOW is all about the press. Yawn.

The right-wing press didn’t just start. They’ve given Starmer an easy ride up until he started putting his hand in the exciting governmental equivalent of the Aldi speical offers aisle.

(Strangely we were told by many Centrists you can’t go left as the press will take you apart – well Labour haven’t gone left at all, so get used to the plan.)

50£ billion being found down the back of the sofa just as many of us predicted even before the election.

Wouldn’t disagree but that’s a fault  – not a fix, due external pressure of many pointing out lack of spending will be deadly.

Very little in your list that is tangible to the people that have suffered under the hands of the Tory government, and what is useful on that list will probably fail due to expecting the private sector to simply pick the slack up.

Oh they are totally incompetent or we wouldn’t be here talking about it.

What’s the plan again?

We seem to have forgotten about House Building, NHS investment, Poverty, Climate etc.

new government spending is not based on old government budgets.

You inherit the income and expenditure commitments in the short term at least. Then you do a budget / SR which for the love of god, is what is happening now. You can’t just turn them off on D1, And again, I know you say the 22bn deficit is irrelevant by size or theory, but that’s not the approach Reeves believes in and so simply posting another Kelton MMT tweet is pointless. She’s not doing that, and simply posting it over and over won’t make it happen.

Do you guys know what people out there in the real world are saying? / The majority of people supported Brexit and 40% still want hanging.

Just merely saying that while wardrobe / Arsenalgate has driven popularity down, ‘the public’ doesn’t seem so against the actual substance of what they’re doing as a few loud voices would indicate. I wasn’t saying I think the 2CBC decision was a good thing personally, although I’d refer to previous posts where I say that they instead have set up a CP taskforce to look at all options and that may well come back and say that lifting the 2CBC is the right thing to do. I do think means testing WFA is the right thing, and indeed most on here seem to agree. Let’s pose that directly – who thinks rich pensioners should be given the £300 anyway?

Governments don’t wander into office and look at a ledger or budget and find they haven’t got the money….

https://fullfact.org/economy/labour-government-blackhole-public-finances/

https://obr.uk/docs/dlm_uploads/Letter-from-Richard-Hughes-to-the-Treasury-Select-Committee-on-the-OBR-review-of-the-March-2024-forecast-for-departmental-expenditure-limits.pdf

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uks-obr-review-last-budget-preparations-after-new-government-identifies-2024-07-29/

Come on Poopscoop, apart from that, what has the new government actually done for us?

You inherit the income and expenditure commitments in the short term at least.

Why didn’t Reeves commit to the WFA then for everyone?  At least be consistent.

She’s not doing that, and simply posting it over and over won’t make it happen.

Let’s never point anything out becuase we can’t affect it on a forum. I love it when poeople try to silence the solutions to problems because it exposes the current government.

Look the IFS / Paul Johnson work on figures that imply the government can run out of money. It’s beyond ridiculous to cite it as evidence. The IFS and the OBR both basically offer up austerity as solution. If that’s what you want then you’ve probably got the correct party.

Labour have tried to sell the 22bn black-hole to every single interview I’ve seen – so forgive my repetition on such bullshit

It’s not BS. It’s a verified OBR fact. You can argue they should have predicted a deficit, or that it’s irrelevant because Kelton says so, but it is a clear fact that the Chancellor and the Head of the OBR did not have visibility of the actual overspend against DEL until well after the election.

and when it comes to the 2CBC, a majority of people actually support that too.

I think that entirely depends how you ask the question:

“Do you think people should be able to exploit the benefit system by having more children?” 

v’s

“Do you think children in poverty should suffer more if part of a large family?”

or

“Do you think people who find themselves in unexpected hardship should get more support if they have more dependants?”

or 

“If two single people each with 2 kids get together and live as one family, would you cut the total amount of tax/benefit support available to them?” 

and

“When determining the size of family to have, how much did you consider the UC and CTC in your family planning decisions?”