Stop voting for fucking Tories

[JM2K6]

Fuck's sake. I really want to try and be optimistic about an incoming Labour government, but they're trying so hard to appeal to who they perceive the red-wall and 'sensible conservative' voters to be that they're really testing the voting intention of those on the left. They need to be careful about not alienating core support.

They're also trying very hard not to commit to anything there's unlikely to be money for in the current climate. Everything this lot does is geared towards neutering the classic attack lines against Labour. In this case, it's the magic money tree / socialists spending everyone's money nonsense. But at some point the defensive approach becomes cowardice - you have to give people something to vote for.

There's no point making promises that can't possibly be followed through on, fair enough. But there are ways of raising funding that they are too scared to mention for fear of giving the Tory press a field day. By boiling everything down to this election calculation, Labour under Starmer has given up any right to be considered a progressive party. They might still be one, but you wouldn't know it after the last six months.

The world has changed post Covid and the economic situation they will inherit is dire, no question. But that also means that maintaining the status quo and not rocking the boat because you fear various political establishments more than you care about the electorate is not going to help one bit.

Which I definitely understand, but the right wing press are not shy of just making shit up or reporting in such a skewed fashion that it might as well be pure fantasy. If their paymasters think keeping the Tories in place makes them more money than apparently directionless Labour, then the attacks will still come and all Labour will have achieved is dampening their own support.

It's all so dispiriting.

Yes, absolutely. We're not quite at USA levels - our version of Fox News is watched by 3 people and a dog - but while what we do have is very influential it is still a losing proposition to try and get them completely onside, because to do so you'd have to abandon everything worth doing.

The rabid Tory press, the mentalists making up the current Tory party, and the mentalists obsessing over Corbyn aren't the vote winners. Give people a reason to vote for you beyond "we're not the Tories" and fuck the press. You're not going to stop the Telegraph and the Spectator printing lies. You're not going to stop Guide Fawkes and Skwawkbox printing lies. You're not going to stop the UKippers and the Momentum crowd screaming about broken promises and hypocrisy and immigration. They're all just noise.

I absolutely do not believe for one minute that a Starmer government would be "Tory-lite". It's weird to me that the same people who obsessively claim that he's a liar who can't be trusted with anything are also taking what he says about policy in the current environment as 100% unbending and unbreakable truth for ever and ever while completely ignoring any explanation or context. I do believe that the new Govt would actually attempt to do right by the country and attempt to govern for the people. We are in absolute hole in a variety of different ways: economically, socially, politically, environmentally. It probably will take something revolutionary to steer the best course, and these guys aren't revolutionary. So they're likely to be tinkering rather than overhauling, having convinced themselves the situation is too dire for anything else. But there's a shit-ton of money to be collected if they're brave enough, and a shit-ton of work that can be done to genuinely improve the lives of every Brit outside of the 0.001%. It just can't be done without putting some powerful noses out of joint and treading on some very expensive toes, and at some point they are going to have to stand up and prove to people that they are willing to do just that.

[Biffer]

Some bits of wealth tax, yes - ending nom don status for example , cgt exemptions - but it would surely be far less efficient tax harvest and valuing people horse stables and oil paintings , when it’s far easier to tax at source like their fuel on the Aga & Aston Martin.

The truly wealthy clearly pay far too little tax, and the middle class increasingly burdened . The bottom deciles pay so little tax in total anyways, I would raise the limit and make more personal tax exempt.

Am on phone so can’t find the thing I saw before from Uk stats, but iirc the bottom 2or 3 deciles paid only 8% of the Uk income tax revenue , yet their marginal rate of all taxes was 40%+ and higher rate than those in the top deciles - those rates are surely the wrong way around !

And fuck this Income Tax / NI split nonsense. It's set up that way to be able to say that higher earners are taxed at 20% more, but that's bullshit. The true income tax rate is NI + Income tax, so 32% for lower earners, 42% for higher earners.

Been a loooong while since I studied public finance but iirc that split was because of the fundamental aims of those 2 pools:
Income tax - for general govt expenditure (ie everything but initially wars against napoleon )
National insurance - for pensions and benefits.

Going back to my earlier rant re hypothecation , there should be FAR tax for this, pays for that explanation. Aussies have a 12% superannuation tax I think that literally pays for their state pension, nice and clear and and entitlement properly funded.

It's meant to be hypothecated, yeah, but in reality it's not. If it was, I'd have less of a problem with it, but NI is a hugely regressive tax and that needs to be fixed.

[I like neeps]

Some bits of wealth tax, yes - ending nom don status for example , cgt exemptions - but it would surely be far less efficient tax harvest and valuing people horse stables and oil paintings , when it’s far easier to tax at source like their fuel on the Aga & Aston Martin.

The truly wealthy clearly pay far too little tax, and the middle class increasingly burdened . The bottom deciles pay so little tax in total anyways, I would raise the limit and make more personal tax exempt.

No I mean on houses. People through no skill have become wealthy by living in a house for 20 years. And it's massively distorted the economy. Or don't tax it but just change planning regulation to mean development is actively encouraged and the value declines naturally.

Sadly, the horse has bolted on the truly wealthy paying tax. Non Dom tax won't really work as the Non Doms will Dom elsewhere.

Value declines naturally ? You mean like Detroit ?

Does it matter it skill was involved in becoming wealthy ?
I’m not disagreeing with you re distortions in the economy and how there should be more built , but going after people in big houses seems extremely inefficient to me when it’s cheap to tax incomes at source. These guys are all dying off anyways and their houses being sold to fund their OAP care.

Detroit the industry is gone, what's really the difference between Detroit and many Northern cities except the North got less wealthy originally and a UK safety net as opposed to US no safety net. It wasn't house prices were insane because there was monetary policy that inflated asset price without economic strategy of investing in stuff.

Yes it absolutely does matter. If someone gets wealthy through skills, hard work, ingenuity, innovation that's great. If you get wealthy through monetary policy then it requires rebalancing or you get in the state of the UK where wealthy boomers kibosh any aspiration and economic development.

[I like neeps]

They're also trying very hard not to commit to anything there's unlikely to be money for in the current climate. Everything this lot does is geared towards neutering the classic attack lines against Labour. In this case, it's the magic money tree / socialists spending everyone's money nonsense. But at some point the defensive approach becomes cowardice - you have to give people something to vote for.

There's no point making promises that can't possibly be followed through on, fair enough. But there are ways of raising funding that they are too scared to mention for fear of giving the Tory press a field day. By boiling everything down to this election calculation, Labour under Starmer has given up any right to be considered a progressive party. They might still be one, but you wouldn't know it after the last six months.

The world has changed post Covid and the economic situation they will inherit is dire, no question. But that also means that maintaining the status quo and not rocking the boat because you fear various political establishments more than you care about the electorate is not going to help one bit.

Which I definitely understand, but the right wing press are not shy of just making shit up or reporting in such a skewed fashion that it might as well be pure fantasy. If their paymasters think keeping the Tories in place makes them more money than apparently directionless Labour, then the attacks will still come and all Labour will have achieved is dampening their own support.

It's all so dispiriting.

Yes, absolutely. We're not quite at USA levels - our version of Fox News is watched by 3 people and a dog - but while what we do have is very influential it is still a losing proposition to try and get them completely onside, because to do so you'd have to abandon everything worth doing.

The rabid Tory press, the mentalists making up the current Tory party, and the mentalists obsessing over Corbyn aren't the vote winners. Give people a reason to vote for you beyond "we're not the Tories" and fuck the press. You're not going to stop the Telegraph and the Spectator printing lies. You're not going to stop Guide Fawkes and Skwawkbox printing lies. You're not going to stop the UKippers and the Momentum crowd screaming about broken promises and hypocrisy and immigration. They're all just noise.

I absolutely do not believe for one minute that a Starmer government would be "Tory-lite". It's weird to me that the same people who obsessively claim that he's a liar who can't be trusted with anything are also taking what he says about policy in the current environment as 100% unbending and unbreakable truth for ever and ever while completely ignoring any explanation or context. I do believe that the new Govt would actually attempt to do right by the country and attempt to govern for the people. We are in absolute hole in a variety of different ways: economically, socially, politically, environmentally. It probably will take something revolutionary to steer the best course, and these guys aren't revolutionary. So they're likely to be tinkering rather than overhauling, having convinced themselves the situation is too dire for anything else. But there's a shit-ton of money to be collected if they're brave enough, and a shit-ton of work that can be done to genuinely improve the lives of every Brit outside of the 0.001%. It just can't be done without putting some powerful noses out of joint and treading on some very expensive toes, and at some point they are going to have to stand up and prove to people that they are willing to do just that.

The British Fox News is the Sun and the Mail which dominate national debate.

They aren't brave enough. Yes it's possible as someone who lies about every policy platform Starmer is lying now and he's got a radical program of improvement planned... Let's hope he is. But the we'll grow the economy but we won't discuss planning reform and we won't discuss Brexit is baloney. Yes we'll improve public services but we won't spend any more money is baloney.

I hope he did find time to stand up to Murdoch at their recent fancy dinners. I hope he's willing to take on the vested interests he's cowtowing to to win elections and he's some strategic genius. But it seems unlikely, no?

[Yeeb]

No I mean on houses. People through no skill have become wealthy by living in a house for 20 years. And it's massively distorted the economy. Or don't tax it but just change planning regulation to mean development is actively encouraged and the value declines naturally.

Sadly, the horse has bolted on the truly wealthy paying tax. Non Dom tax won't really work as the Non Doms will Dom elsewhere.

Value declines naturally ? You mean like Detroit ?

Does it matter it skill was involved in becoming wealthy ?
I’m not disagreeing with you re distortions in the economy and how there should be more built , but going after people in big houses seems extremely inefficient to me when it’s cheap to tax incomes at source. These guys are all dying off anyways and their houses being sold to fund their OAP care.

Detroit the industry is gone, what's really the difference between Detroit and many Northern cities except the North got less wealthy originally and a UK safety net as opposed to US no safety net. It wasn't house prices were insane because there was monetary policy that inflated asset price without economic strategy of investing in stuff.

Yes it absolutely does matter. If someone gets wealthy through skills, hard work, ingenuity, innovation that's great. If you get wealthy through monetary policy then it requires rebalancing or you get in the state of the UK where wealthy boomers kibosh any aspiration and economic development.

Ok - if it matters, how do you propose to tax differently then someone who is a the son of an immigrant , first in his family to go to uni & get professional job and obligatory buy to let flat in addition to his £1m home in Surrey , compared with someone from old money who has a decent enough job at his uncles brokerage but inherited his £1m home in Surrey ?

[JM2K6]

Which I definitely understand, but the right wing press are not shy of just making shit up or reporting in such a skewed fashion that it might as well be pure fantasy. If their paymasters think keeping the Tories in place makes them more money than apparently directionless Labour, then the attacks will still come and all Labour will have achieved is dampening their own support.

It's all so dispiriting.

Yes, absolutely. We're not quite at USA levels - our version of Fox News is watched by 3 people and a dog - but while what we do have is very influential it is still a losing proposition to try and get them completely onside, because to do so you'd have to abandon everything worth doing.

The rabid Tory press, the mentalists making up the current Tory party, and the mentalists obsessing over Corbyn aren't the vote winners. Give people a reason to vote for you beyond "we're not the Tories" and fuck the press. You're not going to stop the Telegraph and the Spectator printing lies. You're not going to stop Guide Fawkes and Skwawkbox printing lies. You're not going to stop the UKippers and the Momentum crowd screaming about broken promises and hypocrisy and immigration. They're all just noise.

I absolutely do not believe for one minute that a Starmer government would be "Tory-lite". It's weird to me that the same people who obsessively claim that he's a liar who can't be trusted with anything are also taking what he says about policy in the current environment as 100% unbending and unbreakable truth for ever and ever while completely ignoring any explanation or context. I do believe that the new Govt would actually attempt to do right by the country and attempt to govern for the people. We are in absolute hole in a variety of different ways: economically, socially, politically, environmentally. It probably will take something revolutionary to steer the best course, and these guys aren't revolutionary. So they're likely to be tinkering rather than overhauling, having convinced themselves the situation is too dire for anything else. But there's a shit-ton of money to be collected if they're brave enough, and a shit-ton of work that can be done to genuinely improve the lives of every Brit outside of the 0.001%. It just can't be done without putting some powerful noses out of joint and treading on some very expensive toes, and at some point they are going to have to stand up and prove to people that they are willing to do just that.

The British Fox News is the Sun and the Mail which dominate national debate.

They aren't brave enough. Yes it's possible as someone who lies about every policy platform Starmer is lying now and he's got a radical program of improvement planned... Let's hope he is. But the we'll grow the economy but we won't discuss planning reform and we won't discuss Brexit is baloney. Yes we'll improve public services but we won't spend any more money is baloney.

I hope he did find time to stand up to Murdoch at their recent fancy dinners. I hope he's willing to take on the vested interests he's cowtowing to to win elections and he's some strategic genius. But it seems unlikely, no?

I can't tell how much of this is a bit.

For the record Starmer's strategy seems quite obvious and quite obviously successful: it's based on the twin pillars of neutering standard attacks on Labour and keeping the lead they've got. It allows them to attack the Tories with impunity and it gives their political opponents (including the press) little to go on. There's zero doubt it is a winning strategy for the election. I wouldn't call it genius, but it's definitely not stupid, and it's working.

What we're really arguing about here is what comes next. I don't really see how Labour fail to win the next election with their current strategy, even with your natural bedfellows screaming at everyone to not vote Labour, because they've largely been ignored (at best!) by the rest of the population for much of the last 8 years. I know it sounds really cool to slag off the leader of one of the two UK parties for playing the game with Murdoch and co, but I can't imagine how anyone seriously believes any Labour leader who wants to win isn't going to at least pay lip service to the establishment. Unless you have managed to get a populist whirlwind behind you - a real one, not a convinced-themselves-he-was-nailed-on-to-win Corbyn one, mind you - then these are the hoops you have to jump through if you want to give yourself the best chance of winning the election.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but most of what Labour can achieve for the benefit of the country can only be achieved if they win an election, including anything to do with the press and limiting Murdoch's power. I personally believe that by playing it so safe they are sometimes abdicating on their responsibilities to people as Opposition, but all that is out of the window at the moment and all eyes are on the election, which is far too far away IMO. It's a gamble - ironic, given their lack of interest in risk - but one that makes sense from their perspective, I just think it's a mistake. Given the amount of time between now and the election, making big statements about what they're going to do when they don't know just how bad things are going to get - and they ARE going to get worse according to pretty much every source you can think of - is obviously another risk and I do applaud them for not coming up with pie in the sky nonsense like nationalised broadband or whatever. The fact that they aren't committing to this stuff right now is, however, mostly meaningless. In some cases they are absolutely right to do. In others I think it's a crying shame that they are refusing to show their hand at all. And with the 2 child cap in particular, it shows the obsession with the finances overrules everything else to an extreme extent. It absolutely should be abolished, because the human cost is verifiably awful. But even that won't make Starmer change the messaging. It's essentially a practical approach taken to the extreme and shows how blinkered he can be.

This is the same as it is with pretty much everything else Starmer's done, be it how he handles dickhead MPs undermining him, any hint of anti-Semitism, the fringe cranks, Brexit, the media, protests, etc. The overriding aim is to transform Labour's public persona from the absolute laughing stock of a party they were for much of the last decade into the "grown up, serious" party that doesn't flirt with extremism, doesn't make absurd promises, isn't riddled with corruption, and is by far the better party to be given the reins and be allowed to rule the country. In comparison the Tories look like the jokes at this point. Which is great, but the huge concern is that by defining yourself by the election and by what you aren't, you don't define yourself by what you are and what you're going to do in power. I agree with the comments about a lack of vision. Starmer is pretty bloodless and doesn't seem to understand the part of the brief beyond the reimagination of the Labour party into a scandal-free serious election winning machine - the part where it's a progressive party fighting for the people, rather than just defining itself as not being what the Tories are or what the previous iteration of the party was. While I can accept some level of keeping your cards close to your chest at this stage as being sensible, it does mean the election manifesto is going to have to be pretty impressive in order to bring actual hope to people, and it also means a lot of people right now are not being given a huge amount to cling to.

But it isn't an election manifesto yet. We can certainly agree on some criticisms, and we will never agree on others. It would be good to see a bit more nuance, but I won't hold my breath!

(And no, the Sun and the Mail are not the British Fox News. As bad as the Sun and the Mail are, they a) are not even as bad as the Express let alone Fox, and b) are a million miles away from the absolute insanity of that particular Yank institution. GB News is the closest we have. Murdoch is a fact of life and there's little to be gained from making him an enemy before the election. Starmer's Labour are looking to defeat the Tories, not Murdoch. Do I worry that Starmer is an authoritarian with no interest in undoing some of the excesses of this Tory Govt? Yes. Do I know that for a fact? No. Does him dealing with Murdoch alter that calculation in the slightest? No, because I'm not an idealist, and that (sadly) is just how this stuff works in the real world.)

[SaintK]

Lockdown party goer who was for some reason given a peerage by the blonde slug swears allegience to the King's ears

[I like neeps]

Yes, absolutely. We're not quite at USA levels - our version of Fox News is watched by 3 people and a dog - but while what we do have is very influential it is still a losing proposition to try and get them completely onside, because to do so you'd have to abandon everything worth doing.

The rabid Tory press, the mentalists making up the current Tory party, and the mentalists obsessing over Corbyn aren't the vote winners. Give people a reason to vote for you beyond "we're not the Tories" and fuck the press. You're not going to stop the Telegraph and the Spectator printing lies. You're not going to stop Guide Fawkes and Skwawkbox printing lies. You're not going to stop the UKippers and the Momentum crowd screaming about broken promises and hypocrisy and immigration. They're all just noise.

I absolutely do not believe for one minute that a Starmer government would be "Tory-lite". It's weird to me that the same people who obsessively claim that he's a liar who can't be trusted with anything are also taking what he says about policy in the current environment as 100% unbending and unbreakable truth for ever and ever while completely ignoring any explanation or context. I do believe that the new Govt would actually attempt to do right by the country and attempt to govern for the people. We are in absolute hole in a variety of different ways: economically, socially, politically, environmentally. It probably will take something revolutionary to steer the best course, and these guys aren't revolutionary. So they're likely to be tinkering rather than overhauling, having convinced themselves the situation is too dire for anything else. But there's a shit-ton of money to be collected if they're brave enough, and a shit-ton of work that can be done to genuinely improve the lives of every Brit outside of the 0.001%. It just can't be done without putting some powerful noses out of joint and treading on some very expensive toes, and at some point they are going to have to stand up and prove to people that they are willing to do just that.

The British Fox News is the Sun and the Mail which dominate national debate.

They aren't brave enough. Yes it's possible as someone who lies about every policy platform Starmer is lying now and he's got a radical program of improvement planned... Let's hope he is. But the we'll grow the economy but we won't discuss planning reform and we won't discuss Brexit is baloney. Yes we'll improve public services but we won't spend any more money is baloney.

I hope he did find time to stand up to Murdoch at their recent fancy dinners. I hope he's willing to take on the vested interests he's cowtowing to to win elections and he's some strategic genius. But it seems unlikely, no?

I can't tell how much of this is a bit.

For the record Starmer's strategy seems quite obvious and quite obviously successful: it's based on the twin pillars of neutering standard attacks on Labour and keeping the lead they've got. It allows them to attack the Tories with impunity and it gives their political opponents (including the press) little to go on. There's zero doubt it is a winning strategy for the election. I wouldn't call it genius, but it's definitely not stupid, and it's working.

What we're really arguing about here is what comes next. I don't really see how Labour fail to win the next election with their current strategy, even with your natural bedfellows screaming at everyone to not vote Labour, because they've largely been ignored (at best!) by the rest of the population for much of the last 8 years. I know it sounds really cool to slag off the leader of one of the two UK parties for playing the game with Murdoch and co, but I can't imagine how anyone seriously believes any Labour leader who wants to win isn't going to at least pay lip service to the establishment. Unless you have managed to get a populist whirlwind behind you - a real one, not a convinced-themselves-he-was-nailed-on-to-win Corbyn one, mind you - then these are the hoops you have to jump through if you want to give yourself the best chance of winning the election.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but most of what Labour can achieve for the benefit of the country can only be achieved if they win an election, including anything to do with the press and limiting Murdoch's power. I personally believe that by playing it so safe they are sometimes abdicating on their responsibilities to people as Opposition, but all that is out of the window at the moment and all eyes are on the election, which is far too far away IMO. It's a gamble - ironic, given their lack of interest in risk - but one that makes sense from their perspective, I just think it's a mistake. Given the amount of time between now and the election, making big statements about what they're going to do when they don't know just how bad things are going to get - and they ARE going to get worse according to pretty much every source you can think of - is obviously another risk and I do applaud them for not coming up with pie in the sky nonsense like nationalised broadband or whatever. The fact that they aren't committing to this stuff right now is, however, mostly meaningless. In some cases they are absolutely right to do. In others I think it's a crying shame that they are refusing to show their hand at all. And with the 2 child cap in particular, it shows the obsession with the finances overrules everything else to an extreme extent. It absolutely should be abolished, because the human cost is verifiably awful. But even that won't make Starmer change the messaging. It's essentially a practical approach taken to the extreme and shows how blinkered he can be.

This is the same as it is with pretty much everything else Starmer's done, be it how he handles dickhead MPs undermining him, any hint of anti-Semitism, the fringe cranks, Brexit, the media, protests, etc. The overriding aim is to transform Labour's public persona from the absolute laughing stock of a party they were for much of the last decade into the "grown up, serious" party that doesn't flirt with extremism, doesn't make absurd promises, isn't riddled with corruption, and is by far the better party to be given the reins and be allowed to rule the country. In comparison the Tories look like the jokes at this point. Which is great, but the huge concern is that by defining yourself by the election and by what you aren't, you don't define yourself by what you are and what you're going to do in power. I agree with the comments about a lack of vision. Starmer is pretty bloodless and doesn't seem to understand the part of the brief beyond the reimagination of the Labour party into a scandal-free serious election winning machine - the part where it's a progressive party fighting for the people, rather than just defining itself as not being what the Tories are or what the previous iteration of the party was. While I can accept some level of keeping your cards close to your chest at this stage as being sensible, it does mean the election manifesto is going to have to be pretty impressive in order to bring actual hope to people, and it also means a lot of people right now are not being given a huge amount to cling to.

But it isn't an election manifesto yet. We can certainly agree on some criticisms, and we will never agree on others. It would be good to see a bit more nuance, but I won't hold my breath!

(And no, the Sun and the Mail are not the British Fox News. As bad as the Sun and the Mail are, they a) are not even as bad as the Express let alone Fox, and b) are a million miles away from the absolute insanity of that particular Yank institution. GB News is the closest we have. Murdoch is a fact of life and there's little to be gained from making him an enemy before the election. Starmer's Labour are looking to defeat the Tories, not Murdoch. Do I worry that Starmer is an authoritarian with no interest in undoing some of the excesses of this Tory Govt? Yes. Do I know that for a fact? No. Does him dealing with Murdoch alter that calculation in the slightest? No, because I'm not an idealist, and that (sadly) is just how this stuff works in the real world.)

Having dinner with Murdoch and licking his anus for favourable publicity doesn't end when you are in power. It's not like Pre Election:
"Hi Uncle Rupe, I'm on your side mate so how about we stop the silly attack articles. Dont worry, my policy platform will be palatable because I need you to rest those attack dogs you call journalists. Are we square"

That doesn't become after election:
"Haha you prick I'm actually progressive and don't align with you at all, unlucky"
The attack dogs attack every day and make your government incredibly unstable with relentless negative press. Not sure how much of a "realist" you have to be to fundamentally not understand the reality of the right wing pressure groups with a printing press we have. Newspaper proprietors have a quid pro quo arrangement with politicians. If you want Murdoch and the rest of them to like you, your politics have to be Murdoch appropriate.

Corbyn lost, we've all moved on. The problem is that Starmer is just a terrible option as PM, who as you say lacks vision beyond discipline. And as you say he has no plans on how to improve the country which is getting worse by the day. He'll win the election, super - I'll be tactically voting LD in a LD/Tory marginal. But he won't improve my life, he won't improve anyone's because he doesn't have even one solution to any one policy problem.

Britain's economic model used by the Tories and New Labour is fundamentally broken. Public services are fundamentally broken, planning is fundamentally broken, Brexit is a disaster. What does Starmer say to that - continue with the broken models and some reform we'll tell you about later. It's not good enough. What happens when he inevitably fails? Some NatCon lunatic in power. Bully for that.

[_Os_]

Britain's economic model used by the Tories and New Labour is fundamentally broken. Public services are fundamentally broken, planning is fundamentally broken, Brexit is a disaster. What does Starmer say to that - continue with the broken models and some reform we'll tell you about later. It's not good enough. What happens when he inevitably fails? Some NatCon lunatic in power.

I agree with all that, other than public services being fundamentally broken. The UK public sector could be better, but it's a funding and staffing issue not something unresolvable that needs to be replaced.

Where things are going wrong is the economic model means a smaller weaker public sector, there's no recognition that without an active capable state the sort of private sector that takes shape ends up being less productive than it could've been. No one is saying something like "the reason there's no growth, is because the public sector hasn't been invested in enough, spending there is an asset not a liability", even the far left which should understand that argument is instead focused on redistribution and not growth.

Brexit remains the giant elephant in the room, until that's revisited there can only be a muddle of different tax rises and spending cuts to fill the -4% of GDP hole (and the reduced tax take). The only other option is domestic economic reform via state driven development plans funded by debt, this can go wrong if the growth doesn't appear. Or Brexit is never revisited and there's no domestic economic reform, the "everything is fucked but nothing can ever change" option, which means a growing debt anyway just more slowly and mostly on consumption.

[I like neeps]

At least someone finds child poverty funny.

[JM2K6]

Having dinner with Murdoch and licking his anus for favourable publicity doesn't end when you are in power. It's not like Pre Election:
"Hi Uncle Rupe, I'm on your side mate so how about we stop the silly attack articles. Dont worry, my policy platform will be palatable because I need you to rest those attack dogs you call journalists. Are we square"

That doesn't become after election:
"Haha you prick I'm actually pr ogressive and don't align with you at all, unlucky"

You don't understand just how meaningless your complaint is. Starmer going to that dinner means nothing beyond the fact that he's willing to play the Westminster game. That's it. He's not "licking Murdoch's anus for favourable publicity". He's simply doing the bare minimum required to not have Murdoch spend 24x7 aiming at Labour. Like it or not, power in this country does not lie solely with the parties. Being able to reach consensus and being able to deal with people you'd rather not have to deal with so you can achieve most of the things you want to do are a fact of life in Westminster. Pretending otherwise is just living in cloud cuckoo land.

The attack dogs attack every day and make your government incredibly unstable with relentless negative press. Not sure how much of a "realist" you have to be to fundamentally not understand the reality of the right wing pressure groups with a printing press we have. Newspaper proprietors have a quid pro quo arrangement with politicians. If you want Murdoch and the rest of them to like you, your politics have to be Murdoch appropriate.

It's not a question of getting him to like them. It's a question of whether they're presenting themselves as a bigger threat than the wankers currently ruining things for everyone, costing Murdoch money, and embarrassing him by association.

Do I think that going to the dinner will make much difference to how Labour are treated? Not particularly, but I can see how a competent Labour party is something Murdoch might not hate compared to the absolute shitshow of the lunatic Tories.

Do I think that going to the dinner means Starmer is some sort of Nazi lickspittle deserving of abuse? Absolutely not.

Do we have some historical basis to think that maybe playing nice with hostile media doesn't mean you can't enact a whole heap of policies for the good of the country? Yeah, we do. And Starmer doesn't need to be imaginative to be aware of to that precedent.

Corbyn lost, we've all moved on. The problem is that Starmer is just a terrible option as PM, who as you say lacks vision beyond discipline. And as you say he has no plans on how to improve the country which is getting worse by the day. He'll win the election, super - I'll be tactically voting LD in a LD/Tory marginal. But he won't improve my life, he won't improve anyone's because he doesn't have even one solution to any one policy problem.

Honestly - can we revisit this come election campaigning time? We'll see what the Labour manifesto says. I'm prepared to be disappointed, but I'm also prepared for their manifesto to be a damn sight better for the country than anything we've had since the last Labour govt.

Britain's economic model used by the Tories and New Labour is fundamentally broken. Public services are fundamentally broken, planning is fundamentally broken, Brexit is a disaster. What does Starmer say to that - continue with the broken models and some reform we'll tell you about later. It's not good enough. What happens when he inevitably fails? Some NatCon lunatic in power. Bully for that.

Right, but what do you do when there's no money to actually do anything, the forecast is dramatically worse, and talking about the only other options on the table are likely to be the most damaging thing to your chances of gaining power? Even if - and I accept this is a huge if - Labour want to do something fairly revolutionary and headline-grabbing, talking about it now does carry a lot of risk. It's either an attack line or something the Tories can steal. Things like the 2-children limit are not major revolutionary policies and the political calculation they made there is flat out wrong, no excuses. Labour have talked a bit about what they won't / can't do. They haven't yet begun to talk about what they will do. I think we should probably at least wait until they do before we start trying to analyse exactly what their time in power is going to look like.

Skwawking over going to the Murdoch dinner is just noise. It's a sideshow. Extremely powerful people get the privilege of being feted by the major parties. That's how politics works, for good and bad (mostly bad, obviously). There's plenty to criticise Starmer for but these student politics level smears just make you look really naive.

[JM2K6]

At least someone finds child poverty funny.

Talking of smears - this is dumb as fuck. But given the author thinks that Labour has been taken over by "the hard right" (jesus CHRIST) I'm not surprised. STARMER JOKES ABOUT CHILD POVERTY says a disingenuous weirdo with a shitshow of a twitter account

[_Os_]

This doesn't look good at all. Blair is hated by basically everyone. Last year before Johnson fell, Blair was starting the process of forming a new "centre-ist" party (meaning pro-globalisation, pro-markets, pro-privatisation, pro-small/weak state, anti-labour unions, in other words Thatcherite/neoliberal). Blair isn't a socialist and isn't a liberal, he's part of the reason the UK is in the situation it's in. Blair's actual real world politics (and not the vibes people that have decide to forget Iraq get high on) are much closer to Tory extremists like Truss than he admits.

Starmer is now laughing about the "tough choices" he's making with Blair. Interesting how they're always choices that please the hard right. Tough choices are never "tax the ultra wealthy more" or "scrap Trident" or "end the boat people situation by opening safe routes" or "Brexit has to be revisited". Tough choices are always things Farage would support.

The course Starmer is choosing looks dangerous. Labour have imposed the following rules on themselves: do not re-join the SM or CU, debt to GDP must be falling after 5 years. That means without growth they will have to cut spending to reduce the deficit and reduce the debt, ie austerity. Thing is austerity was a total failure, it increased the UK's debt to GDP because by cutting back the state everything that made economic growth possible was damaged, which meant debt was needed to fund consumption (the welfare state). If Starmer follows through on everything he's saying Labour are going to end up looking a lot like the Tories, they'll own Brexit and austerity. It's dangerous because people will give up on Labour if that happens, given Starmer refuses to change the electoral system (another "tough choice") once people aren't voting Labour beating the Tories becomes harder.

[Jockaline]

Starmer is now rowing back on removing the 2 child limit, which prevents claiming child tax credit/universal credit for any (third or more) child born after 2017. It was brought in to try to force parents into work, or work more hours if they do already. It has achieved putting 1.5m children into poverty, which could be alleviated by removing the 2 child limit and spending the £1.3b. The Tories brought it in with the usual class war stuff, "if they cannot afford children they shouldn't have them" type rhetoric, as well as some racism in the darker corners of the Tory support base. It was an outright attack on Labour's supporters.

Now the official position of both the Tories and Labour is that no one should have more than two children unless they are rich (this gets confusing with some Tories who also wanting to ban abortion, but no one could accuse them of joined up thinking), when it has become extremely expensive to just live a normal life in the UK, and the UK's birth rate is below replacement rate.

It's made Labour supporters particularly angry, because Labour have consistently opposed the 2 child limit under Corbyn and under Starmer, there's quotes from Labour's front bench saying it's basically evil. Now it's suddenly necessary and nothing can change. At this rate nom-dom tax rules are going to become necessary and something which cannot ever change.

When Labour get into power, the feeling of relief is going to be brief. Then Starmer and friends are going to start saying everything is fucked but nothing can change, which will mean only two possible outcomes. Starmer turns out to be a windsock and various pressure groups will get to dictate to him, unions/"remainers"/environmentalists. Starmer wins and continues this Tory administration unchanged, which would mean social and political chaos, Labour ending up as damaged as the Tories are now.

Fuck's sake. I really want to try and be optimistic about an incoming Labour government, but they're trying so hard to appeal to who they perceive the red-wall and 'sensible conservative' voters to be that they're really testing the voting intention of those on the left. They need to be careful about not alienating core support.

They're also trying very hard not to commit to anything there's unlikely to be money for in the current climate. Everything this lot does is geared towards neutering the classic attack lines against Labour. In this case, it's the magic money tree / socialists spending everyone's money nonsense. But at some point the defensive approach becomes cowardice - you have to give people something to vote for.

There's no point making promises that can't possibly be followed through on, fair enough. But there are ways of raising funding that they are too scared to mention for fear of giving the Tory press a field day. By boiling everything down to this election calculation, Labour under Starmer has given up any right to be considered a progressive party. They might still be one, but you wouldn't know it after the last six months.

The world has changed post Covid and the economic situation they will inherit is dire, no question. But that also means that maintaining the status quo and not rocking the boat because you fear various political establishments more than you care about the electorate is not going to help one bit.

We are still potentially a year out from the election. I'd like Labour to implement it's own policies, not just dismantle Tory policy. Stammer is right not to allow expectations to be set to high, otherwise it is setting itself up to fail, or to tie his hands by letting others set his programme for government. Sir Starver is ridiculous given he's not in power or the one to implement the cap.

I'd like him attack the Tories more, and talk about more generally about the road to recover and a building a fairer society, emphasis it will take time, but that there will be a change for the better. No need for detail at this time, as it will just give his opponents lots of time to prepare sticks to beat him with.

Even if he is seen as Tory Mk2 the electorate haven't got much choice but to vote out Tory Mk1 as the current lot are just so dire. Even if that depresses some it shows how desperate the country is for change. Risks maybe of a hung parliament, which may not be the worst outcome, particularly of PR gets put on the table. If not hung, he'll be pushed by his own MPs to deliver Labour type policy.

[fishfoodie]

This doesn't look good at all. Blair is hated by basically everyone. Last year before Johnson fell, Blair was starting the process of forming a new "centre-ist" party (meaning pro-globalisation, pro-markets, pro-privatisation, pro-small/weak state, anti-labour unions, in other words Thatcherite/neoliberal). Blair isn't a socialist and isn't a liberal, he's part of the reason the UK is in the situation it's in. Blair's actual real world politics (and not the vibes people that have decide to forget Iraq get high on) are much closer to Tory extremists like Truss than he admits.

Sorry, but all these labels have been meaningless bullshit for the last 50 odd years !

If you give the average UK voter a choice for them to define their broad Political perspective, they'll pick one; & then if you ask them to declare if they are for or against concrete policies like the NHS, Taxation, Nationalized Utilities etc, they'll give you a position that's contradictory to their declared broad position.

The US thinks anyone who doesn't think allowing poor children to die of starvation is Communist, but go tell the inhabitants of the local Conservative club that demanding the triple lock makes them all Commie scum !

Politicians are pragmatists, & the dogma of the 19th century is dead & gone. Politicians & mature electorates understand that reality isn't black & white, it's a million shades of gray. People complain that it makes the division between parties blurred, but that's what happens when you this consensus, it's reversion towards the mean.

[JM2K6]

How on earth have they been meaningless bullshit? Try explaining the last 25 years without defining neoliberalism ffs

[_Os_]

This doesn't look good at all. Blair is hated by basically everyone. Last year before Johnson fell, Blair was starting the process of forming a new "centre-ist" party (meaning pro-globalisation, pro-markets, pro-privatisation, pro-small/weak state, anti-labour unions, in other words Thatcherite/neoliberal). Blair isn't a socialist and isn't a liberal, he's part of the reason the UK is in the situation it's in. Blair's actual real world politics (and not the vibes people that have decide to forget Iraq get high on) are much closer to Tory extremists like Truss than he admits.

Sorry, but all these labels have been meaningless bullshit for the last 50 odd years !

If you give the average UK voter a choice for them to define their broad Political perspective, they'll pick one; & then if you ask them to declare if they are for or against concrete policies like the NHS, Taxation, Nationalized Utilities etc, they'll give you a position that's contradictory to their declared broad position.

The US thinks anyone who doesn't think allowing poor children to die of starvation is Communist, but go tell the inhabitants of the local Conservative club that demanding the triple lock makes them all Commie scum !

Politicians are pragmatists, & the dogma of the 19th century is dead & gone. Politicians & mature electorates understand that reality isn't black & white, it's a million shades of gray. People complain that it makes the division between parties blurred, but that's what happens when you this consensus, it's reversion towards the mean.

All these have well defined meanings: liberal, socialist, Thatcherite. They are the opposite of meaningless. The other ones I used "centre-ist" and "neoliberal" are a bit more tricky because no one uses those terms to define themselves, but I also made it clear that Thatcherite and neoliberal are interchangeable and even gave a definition.

Sure people that don't think about politics much, or don't think of it in a joined up way, have contradictory views which don't make much sense. It's not true of people that think about it a lot, even less true of people that devote their lives to it, and even less true of the people that do all that and have some smarts. Someone like Blair has a definite worldview and set of beliefs that flow from that, he absolutely is ideological and does see things in a black and white way a lot of the time. He doesn't think "the truth about Corbyn is many shades of grey so I must pragmatically support him", he instead immediately opposed him.

There is no consensus in UK politics, anything that matters is heavily contested. The consensus that existed was purely a function of the FPTP electoral system/things going well/homogenous society, the less those things exist the less median voter theory is true. It's not the 90s anymore. The Tories know this, they've held onto power by constantly giving their core supporters goodies and brutally punishing those who will never support them. Both the Tories and Labour now purge their own ranks of opposing factions this includes elected officials, something unthinkable in the recent past. Black and white.

[I like neeps]

At least someone finds child poverty funny.

Talking of smears - this is dumb as fuck. But given the author thinks that Labour has been taken over by "the hard right" (jesus CHRIST) I'm not surprised. STARMER JOKES ABOUT CHILD POVERTY says a disingenuous weirdo with a shitshow of a twitter account

So he gets asked about the child benefit cap (which he used to say caused child poverty) and makes a joke about hard choices. It's a joke about the cap really.

[I like neeps]

Having dinner with Murdoch and licking his anus for favourable publicity doesn't end when you are in power. It's not like Pre Election:
"Hi Uncle Rupe, I'm on your side mate so how about we stop the silly attack articles. Dont worry, my policy platform will be palatable because I need you to rest those attack dogs you call journalists. Are we square"

That doesn't become after election:
"Haha you prick I'm actually pr ogressive and don't align with you at all, unlucky"

You don't understand just how meaningless your complaint is. Starmer going to that dinner means nothing beyond the fact that he's willing to play the Westminster game. That's it. He's not "licking Murdoch's anus for favourable publicity". He's simply doing the bare minimum required to not have Murdoch spend 24x7 aiming at Labour. Like it or not, power in this country does not lie solely with the parties. Being able to reach consensus and being able to deal with people you'd rather not have to deal with so you can achieve most of the things you want to do are a fact of life in Westminster. Pretending otherwise is just living in cloud cuckoo land.

The attack dogs attack every day and make your government incredibly unstable with relentless negative press. Not sure how much of a "realist" you have to be to fundamentally not understand the reality of the right wing pressure groups with a printing press we have. Newspaper proprietors have a quid pro quo arrangement with politicians. If you want Murdoch and the rest of them to like you, your politics have to be Murdoch appropriate.

It's not a question of getting him to like them. It's a question of whether they're presenting themselves as a bigger threat than the wankers currently ruining things for everyone, costing Murdoch money, and embarrassing him by association.

Do I think that going to the dinner will make much difference to how Labour are treated? Not particularly, but I can see how a competent Labour party is something Murdoch might not hate compared to the absolute shitshow of the lunatic Tories.

Do I think that going to the dinner means Starmer is some sort of Nazi lickspittle deserving of abuse? Absolutely not.

Do we have some historical basis to think that maybe playing nice with hostile media doesn't mean you can't enact a whole heap of policies for the good of the country? Yeah, we do. And Starmer doesn't need to be imaginative to be aware of to that precedent.

Corbyn lost, we've all moved on. The problem is that Starmer is just a terrible option as PM, who as you say lacks vision beyond discipline. And as you say he has no plans on how to improve the country which is getting worse by the day. He'll win the election, super - I'll be tactically voting LD in a LD/Tory marginal. But he won't improve my life, he won't improve anyone's because he doesn't have even one solution to any one policy problem.

Honestly - can we revisit this come election campaigning time? We'll see what the Labour manifesto says. I'm prepared to be disappointed, but I'm also prepared for their manifesto to be a damn sight better for the country than anything we've had since the last Labour govt.

Britain's economic model used by the Tories and New Labour is fundamentally broken. Public services are fundamentally broken, planning is fundamentally broken, Brexit is a disaster. What does Starmer say to that - continue with the broken models and some reform we'll tell you about later. It's not good enough. What happens when he inevitably fails? Some NatCon lunatic in power. Bully for that.

Right, but what do you do when there's no money to actually do anything, the forecast is dramatically worse, and talking about the only other options on the table are likely to be the most damaging thing to your chances of gaining power? Even if - and I accept this is a huge if - Labour want to do something fairly revolutionary and headline-grabbing, talking about it now does carry a lot of risk. It's either an attack line or something the Tories can steal. Things like the 2-children limit are not major revolutionary policies and the political calculation they made there is flat out wrong, no excuses. Labour have talked a bit about what they won't / can't do. They haven't yet begun to talk about what they will do. I think we should probably at least wait until they do before we start trying to analyse exactly what their time in power is going to look like.

Skwawking over going to the Murdoch dinner is just noise. It's a sideshow. Extremely powerful people get the privilege of being feted by the major parties. That's how politics works, for good and bad (mostly bad, obviously). There's plenty to criticise Starmer for but these student politics level smears just make you look really naive.

Murdoch is never going to support anything against his interests. You don't reach consensus with him as he wants absolutely nothing but his own way and you have no leverage on him because as he does he'll tank any politician he wants to. What consensus are you reaching with Rupert? What's your bargaining position? There is none apart from plz be nice I won't do anything you don't like too much plz plz. Consensus is with City of London, potentially global Investors re the fiscal discipline etc. Not serpents like Murdoch who you have nothing to materially offer.

The manifesto is going to basically be Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt's manifesto. No new money, some reform, with slightly less culture wars. No hope, no answers, no nothing. As that's how they're speaking.

Where's there money? The money is in the billions created from the magic money that has gone into asset wealth. Find a way to tax that. 1/4 of pensioners are millionaires with their property wealth - lower state pension for the rich oldies and give the money to the starving kids. And also nationalisation not possible, fine. End bail outs for bad investments made by private sector negligence where they've got their models and DD wrong. Beef up the regulator taking out industry stooges and sharpen them up to the point asset strippers can't leech off the state. Actually, you know, mention Brexit isn't working and come up with a plan. There's loads of stuff they could say other than "no money for anything, we'll diddle around reforming stuff and keep the seat warm for Miriam Cates to come in and force everyone has a family with 2.1 kids".

[JM2K6]

But no reason [from their perspective] to say it right now.

[Rhubarb & Custard]

Someone like Blair has a definite worldview and set of beliefs that flow from that, he absolutely is ideological and does see things in a black and white way a lot of the time. He doesn't think "the truth about Corbyn is many shades of grey so I must pragmatically support him", he instead immediately opposed him.

What does immediately mean here?

Blair and Corbyn/Momentum have decades of dislike, both being at the point they consider the other an existential threat to the party, or at least to their notion of the party. I'm just wondering how having that mistrust and disregard build over decades leads to immediate opposition?

[_Os_]

Someone like Blair has a definite worldview and set of beliefs that flow from that, he absolutely is ideological and does see things in a black and white way a lot of the time. He doesn't think "the truth about Corbyn is many shades of grey so I must pragmatically support him", he instead immediately opposed him.

What does immediately mean here?

Blair and Corbyn/Momentum have decades of dislike, both being at the point they consider the other an existential threat to the party, or at least to their notion of the party. I'm just wondering how having that mistrust and disregard build over decades leads to immediate opposition?

Immediate as in the losing faction (the Labour right) made life difficult for Corbyn from the get go, Corbyn didn't have much control of the Labour parliamentary party.

Corbyn was never in Militant, in other words when Labour had a very active far left he wasn't part of it. This whole decades long war between Blair and Corbyn, didn't actually ever happen. Blair's disregard is for anyone that wants to change anything in a significant way, and in Labour that means most of the party members. Corbyn's politics are closer to most ordinary Labour members than Blair's. In Blair's time as PM Corbyn's politics was a normal part of the Labour party, under Blair he sat in parliament and wasn't purged, that it's now possible to demonise that part of Labour (in my view probably the majority of the Labour party) and purge their leaders shows how far politics has shifted to the right in the UK.

Corbyn is now out polling every other active politician, so it was clever of Starmer to purge him, because Starmer is going to be pressured from most of his own party if he tries to govern like a Tory.
https://yougov.co.uk/ratings/politics/p ... igures/all

[Biffer]

But no reason [from their perspective] to say it right now.

Exactly. The answer to any question about money is 'that depends how much more the tories gut the economy and rob us all blind over the next twelve months'. Turn it back on just how bloody awful everything is and how it's all their fault. Every. Single. Time.

[Rhubarb & Custard]

Someone like Blair has a definite worldview and set of beliefs that flow from that, he absolutely is ideological and does see things in a black and white way a lot of the time. He doesn't think "the truth about Corbyn is many shades of grey so I must pragmatically support him", he instead immediately opposed him.

What does immediately mean here?

Blair and Corbyn/Momentum have decades of dislike, both being at the point they consider the other an existential threat to the party, or at least to their notion of the party. I'm just wondering how having that mistrust and disregard build over decades leads to immediate opposition?

Immediate as in the losing faction (the Labour right) made life difficult for Corbyn from the get go, Corbyn didn't have much control of the Labour parliamentary party.

Corbyn was never in Militant, in other words when Labour had a very active far left he wasn't part of it. This whole decades long war between Blair and Corbyn, didn't actually ever happen. Blair's disregard is for anyone that wants to change anything in a significant way, and in Labour that means most of the party members. Corbyn's politics are closer to most ordinary Labour members than Blair's. In Blair's time as PM Corbyn's politics was a normal part of the Labour party, under Blair he sat in parliament and wasn't purged, that it's now possible to demonise that part of Labour (in my view probably the majority of the Labour party) and purge their leaders shows how far politics has shifted to the right in the UK.

Corbyn is now out polling every other active politician, so it was clever of Starmer to purge him, because Starmer is going to be pressured from most of his own party if he tries to govern like a Tory.
https://yougov.co.uk/ratings/politics/p ... igures/all

So immediate in the sense it built over decades.

You may have a point about Labour Party members, but do you happen to like the flip side to that, the Tory party when it governs for its base and not the country? Maybe I'm wrong, but I suspect most people think country not party, and so for myself I'm not worried about the feelings of Labour Party members, frankly I'm not worried about the feelings of Lib Dem party members, and I am a Lib Dem party member

Where Starmer will have to be careful, maybe more so over the longer term than the next GE, is there's no doubt many of the left have felt taken for granted, and that set the scene for many of them accepting the lies of Boris and Brexit. In this I'm a little surprised Starmer wanted to change tack on the 2 child limit, there's plenty of scope to argue spending more there for children in need reduces the spend in so many other budgets it's actually a win overall, and it'd be something the left could be rewarded with, but if not this he is going to need some concessions

[_Os_]

What does immediately mean here?

Blair and Corbyn/Momentum have decades of dislike, both being at the point they consider the other an existential threat to the party, or at least to their notion of the party. I'm just wondering how having that mistrust and disregard build over decades leads to immediate opposition?

Immediate as in the losing faction (the Labour right) made life difficult for Corbyn from the get go, Corbyn didn't have much control of the Labour parliamentary party.

Corbyn was never in Militant, in other words when Labour had a very active far left he wasn't part of it. This whole decades long war between Blair and Corbyn, didn't actually ever happen. Blair's disregard is for anyone that wants to change anything in a significant way, and in Labour that means most of the party members. Corbyn's politics are closer to most ordinary Labour members than Blair's. In Blair's time as PM Corbyn's politics was a normal part of the Labour party, under Blair he sat in parliament and wasn't purged, that it's now possible to demonise that part of Labour (in my view probably the majority of the Labour party) and purge their leaders shows how far politics has shifted to the right in the UK.

Corbyn is now out polling every other active politician, so it was clever of Starmer to purge him, because Starmer is going to be pressured from most of his own party if he tries to govern like a Tory.
https://yougov.co.uk/ratings/politics/p ... igures/all

So immediate in the sense it built over decades.

You may have a point about Labour Party members, but do you happen to like the flip side to that, the Tory party when it governs for its base and not the country? Maybe I'm wrong, but I suspect most people think country not party, and so for myself I'm not worried about the feelings of Labour Party members, frankly I'm not worried about the feelings of Lib Dem party members, and I am a Lib Dem party member

Where Starmer will have to be careful, maybe more so over the longer term than the next GE, is there's no doubt many of the left have felt taken for granted, and that set the scene for many of them accepting the lies of Boris and Brexit. In this I'm a little surprised Starmer wanted to change tack on the 2 child limit, there's plenty of scope to argue spending more there for children in need reduces the spend in so many other budgets it's actually a win overall, and it'd be something the left could be rewarded with, but it not this he is going to need some concessions

I don't think it was "immediate in the sense it built over decades", Corbyn wasn't one of those purged from Labour to make New labour possible. He was/is just the standard type of candidate the Labour party throws up. What then happened is Corbyn/Momentum were successfully equated to Militant, the 1980s Trotskyist entryist group (which was led by a South African who was more like a disciplined Starmer than a bumbling Corbyn). But it doesn't really fit, because the faction which didn't have broad support inside the Labour party but was attempting to enter into it and gain control of it, wasn't Corbyn. I'm always a bit sceptical when someone who has been in a party for decades holding various elected positions, is suddenly claimed to be an aberration and not really part of that party. I've known plenty of Labour types far to the left of Corbyn (normally union workers), the same amount again about where Corbyn is, and about the same amount again that are liberal/Brownites. I've never met anyone associated with Labour that has spoken positively on Blair.

I don't support Corbyn, he's a bit of a chump. Just calling it how I see it. Obviously parties need a leader supported by the parliamentary party and at least a large amount of the party membership. Starmer knows this, it's why he conned Labour liberals into thinking he was a remainer then conned labour socialists into thinking he was one of them, got their votes then started New Labour mk2. It's not possible to be a party leader and give the membership nothing, that's a recipe for a short leadership or destroying the party. That's why Starmer's team is purging the likes of Jamie Driscoll, it's not because he makes Labour less electable (he's popular), it's because they know the party will challenge Starmer eventually and the less leaders there are to do it the better for them.

As for the Tories, Sunak isn't supported by most of the Tory membership and is doing stuff their members don't support. He's also turning out to be a loser. The forecast looks a madman replacing him the day after he's defeated.

[JM2K6]

Lmao I think before talking about Corbyn out polling everyone you might want to look at the unpopularity figures. He's at nearly 50%! A hugely divisive figure.

Starmer is a remainer, for what it's worth. The problem is that Remain lost. Fighting the Brexit battleground is not the winning play right now, and if a party that pinned its position on remain previously is going to win the next election they can't half arse it - it's either all in on getting back everything we can, essentially igniting another war we lost last time round, or accepting that it's happened and taking the Tory winning ground away from them.

So we are back to the topic about a negative safety first strategy designed to rob the Tories of any ability to effectively campaign against Labour.

The strategic errors are of course not being smart enough to leave some wiggle room. Which is a criticism for most of the Starmer approach. Being decisive is one thing; committing to damaging promises regarding the SM / CU might end the argument, but it's stupid to commit to when it could well be a huge benefit to be country and one way back to economic safety.

I also know plenty of Labour types who don't hate Blair. It's not starry eyed hero worship, but Labour did enact a lot of good policies during his time in power, and Labour being in power is vanishingly rare in this country.

[Simian]

But no reason [from their perspective] to say it right now.

Exactly. The answer to any question about money is 'that depends how much more the tories gut the economy and rob us all blind over the next twelve months'. Turn it back on just how bloody awful everything is and how it's all their fault. Every. Single. Time.

Yep. It’s amazing to me how many otherwise sensible people appear not to see that that really is the smartest play for Labour.

[I like neeps]

But no reason [from their perspective] to say it right now.

Completely untrue. Literally nobody reads manifestos, they're an irrelevance. You get your story out early and back up up with policies gradually. People make up their mind way before the manifesto. Starmer is unpopular, not trusted, people don't know what he stands for. If I was him, I'd fancy changing that. If I was Labour I'd want to tell my story. The no money left, hard choices, blah blah blah worked for the Tories because they told the lies repeatedly of all in this together, household budget balancing baloney, tough period but we'll get through, and crucially as Osbourne said expansive monetary policy through magic asset wealth tree. Labour have none of that, no story, no asset wealth inflation, no hope, no nothing. So what happens when an unpopular PM and unpopular party get in power on the basis of being the least bad option? Nothing good.

They look to have learnt completely the wrong lessons from Cameron and Osbourne despite them trying pathetically hard to e.g. the "there's no money left" note labour left them now bringing up in interviews.

[SaintK]

The Tories have managed to select a London mayoral candidate that is even worse than the idiot Shaun Bailey

[_Os_]

Lmao I think before talking about Corbyn out polling everyone you might want to look at the unpopularity figures. He's at nearly 50%! A hugely divisive figure.

Corbyn is hated by people over 50, but is well ahead of the rest with those aged under 50. Which is in line with people in the UK no longer moving the right as they age, because they've been given no/little stake in society. One of these groups is the future, the other will be mostly dead soon.

I don't support him, but you don't find it interesting someone demonised as basically being the devil himself, now out polls every other politician, and the one group he does terribly with is the old? Nothing revealing in that?

Starmer is a remainer, for what it's worth. The problem is that Remain lost. Fighting the Brexit battleground is not the winning play right now, and if a party that pinned its position on remain previously is going to win the next election they can't half arse it - it's either all in on getting back everything we can, essentially igniting another war we lost last time round, or accepting that it's happened and taking the Tory winning ground away from them.

So we are back to the topic about a negative safety first strategy designed to rob the Tories of any ability to effectively campaign against Labour.

The strategic errors are of course not being smart enough to leave some wiggle room. Which is a criticism for most of the Starmer approach. Being decisive is one thing; committing to damaging promises regarding the SM / CU might end the argument, but it's stupid to commit to when it could well be a huge benefit to be country and one way back to economic safety.

I also know plenty of Labour types who don't hate Blair. It's not starry eyed hero worship, but Labour did enact a lot of good policies during his time in power, and Labour being in power is vanishingly rare in this country.

Starmer is not a remainer/rejoiner, he has ruled out the SM/CU. He wants to make Brexit (as it exists now) work. Polling shows supporting Brexit is not a winning proposition, but in a FPTP system (which Starmer doesn't want to replace) only a small slice of the electorate who are swing voters in key seats matter. Supporting Brexit was a "tough choice" he had to make. He now has a -4% to -5% hole in GDP to fill, which he's deciding to do by cutting spending, more "tough choices".

Blair often gets a bit annoyed when people start listing the good stuff done while he was in power, because a lot of that stuff he didn't support and curtailed. I'll give him the GFA even if the process started under Major. Most of the rest were Brown's ideas, Blair didn't care about devolution or Lords reform. Even now, the only fully formed ideas Labour have seem to be coming from Brown.

The move for anyone that actually doesn't want more of the same, is to start voting Green regardless of if they can win or not, or if that helps a Tory or not. Because unlike Lib Dem votes (which could be from swing Tory voters) those votes will be understood by Labour as ones they can win. Starmer will say and do whatever if there's votes in it, he's going to ignore any demographic that just keeps voting Labour regardless.

[JM2K6]

But no reason [from their perspective] to say it right now.

Completely untrue. Literally nobody reads manifestos, they're an irrelevance. You get your story out early and back up up with policies gradually. People make up their mind way before the manifesto. Starmer is unpopular, not trusted, people don't know what he stands for. If I was him, I'd fancy changing that. If I was Labour I'd want to tell my story. The no money left, hard choices, blah blah blah worked for the Tories because they told the lies repeatedly of all in this together, household budget balancing baloney, tough period but we'll get through, and crucially as Osbourne said expansive monetary policy through magic asset wealth tree. Labour have none of that, no story, no asset wealth inflation, no hope, no nothing. So what happens when an unpopular PM and unpopular party get in power on the basis of being the least bad option? Nothing good.

They look to have learnt completely the wrong lessons from Cameron and Osbourne despite them trying pathetically hard to e.g. the "there's no money left" note labour left them now bringing up in interviews.

Manifestos are not an irrelevance. Sure, people don't often care about the detail. But the headline stuff is the policies people are campaigning on. Right now you're trying to say that no-one knows what he stands for. Come electioneering time, that will absolutely have to change. We'll have some actual policies to argue about. The cornerstones of their attempt to win the election. That is all I am saying here.

As for him being unpopular, he's not. He's 3rd on that list, 1% off the top. And significantly fewer people dislike him than they dislike current/recent major politicians, like Johnson, Sunak, Corbyn, May, etc.

[Biffer]

But no reason [from their perspective] to say it right now.

Completely untrue. Literally nobody reads manifestos, they're an irrelevance. You get your story out early and back up up with policies gradually. People make up their mind way before the manifesto. Starmer is unpopular, not trusted, people don't know what he stands for. If I was him, I'd fancy changing that. If I was Labour I'd want to tell my story. The no money left, hard choices, blah blah blah worked for the Tories because they told the lies repeatedly of all in this together, household budget balancing baloney, tough period but we'll get through, and crucially as Osbourne said expansive monetary policy through magic asset wealth tree. Labour have none of that, no story, no asset wealth inflation, no hope, no nothing. So what happens when an unpopular PM and unpopular party get in power on the basis of being the least bad option? Nothing good.

They look to have learnt completely the wrong lessons from Cameron and Osbourne despite them trying pathetically hard to e.g. the "there's no money left" note labour left them now bringing up in interviews.

The message is 'we need to build a better future'. You do that by chasing tax evasion / closing opportunities for avoidance, chasing PPE fraud, etc. Those are messages which will ring well with the public while still being nebulous - and you can still say that how much you raise from them depends on just how badly the tories fuck things in the next eighteen months. 'Getting our money back' / 'Punish tax dodgers'.

What you don't do is give the Tories and their press eighteen months run up of attacking your policies. The approach you talk about might have worked twenty or thirty years ago, but times have changed.

[JM2K6]

Lmao I think before talking about Corbyn out polling everyone you might want to look at the unpopularity figures. He's at nearly 50%! A hugely divisive figure.

Corbyn is hated by people over 50, but is well ahead of the rest with those aged under 50. Which is in line with people in the UK no longer moving the right as they age, because they've been given no/little stake in society. One of these groups is the future, the other will be mostly dead soon.

I don't support him, but you don't find it interesting someone demonised as basically being the devil himself, now out polls every other politician, and the one group he does terribly with is the old? Nothing revealing in that?

Not particularly? The extent of his "out-polling" is that he's 1% more popular than Starmer. Starmer's support is fairly steady across the age cohorts. Hugely more popular with Gen X, which includes a big chunk of voters under 50 (oldest Millenials are, well, me - early 40s). Corbyn's support among younger people, what it translates to when talking about a politician who is essentially an irrelevance (the less power he has, the more popular he becomes!), and what the relationship is with social media and groups of people who are not at all politically engaged is a really interesting question and I'd hesitate before drawing any conclusions as to what that actually means in the context of people trying to win an election.

I would also add that popularity and unpopularity are two distinct measures here, and that page (afaict) doesn't show the breakdown for the latter by age, which complicates things further.

Starmer is not a remainer/rejoiner, he has ruled out the SM/CU. He wants to make Brexit (as it exists now) work.

You misunderstand me. Being a remainer and being a rejoiner are two different things, for a start. Claiming Starmer is not a remainer because he's ruled out the SM/CU as part of a political calculation aimed at getting Labour the smoothest route to power is as silly as claiming Jeremy "lifelong opposition to the EU" Corbyn is a remainer because he campaigned for Remain. Both men made decisions based on what they thought was best for the party contrary to their personal views.

Starmer is not hostile to the EU and would rather the UK was still in the EU. His position is that we're out, fighting that war again in any way is divisive, a huge distraction, and a clear threat to a Labour victory at the next election as it paints a very large target on Labour's back. Is he correct in that calculation? Who knows. Is he removing an avenue of attack a desparate Tory party would weaponise to the fullest extent to cling onto power? Yes.

Polling shows supporting Brexit is not a winning proposition, but in a FPTP system (which Starmer doesn't want to replace) only a small slice of the electorate who are swing voters in key seats matter. Supporting Brexit was a "tough choice" he had to make. He now has a -4% to -5% hole in GDP to fill, which he's deciding to do by cutting spending, more "tough choices".

Again, let's wait and see what the already dire situation looks like by the time the fight for votes begins in earnest.

Blair often gets a bit annoyed when people start listing the good stuff done while he was in power, because a lot of that stuff he didn't support and curtailed. I'll give him the GFA even if the process started under Major. Most of the rest were Brown's ideas, Blair didn't care about devolution or Lords reform. Even now, the only fully formed ideas Labour have seem to be coming from Brown.

The move for anyone that actually doesn't want more of the same, is to start voting Green regardless of if they can win or not, or if that helps a Tory or not. Because unlike Lib Dem votes (which could be from swing Tory voters) those votes will be understood by Labour as ones they can win. Starmer will say and do whatever if there's votes in it, he's going to ignore any demographic that just keeps voting Labour regardless.

There is absolutely no way that voting Green will do anything except help keep the Tories in power for god knows how long. In a FPTP democracy, with a history of Conservative rule, you take every chance you get to get rid of the Tories. Labour are not in power. This isn't a Tory/UKIP scenario.

[JM2K6]

Also I think it's a little disingenuous to leap on that particular poll regarding Corbyn when he was sub 20% in the previous two quarters results and around 20-25% before that, usually well behind Starmer. If anyone has an explanation for the recent surge I'm all ears, but it's currently an outlier.

[SaintK]

Tory supporting newspaper owned by Tory peer Lord Lebdev not being partiucularly supportive of Tory London mayor candidate!!
Though having read some of the thingd she's come out with the photo looks very apt!

[I like neeps]

But no reason [from their perspective] to say it right now.

Completely untrue. Literally nobody reads manifestos, they're an irrelevance. You get your story out early and back up up with policies gradually. People make up their mind way before the manifesto. Starmer is unpopular, not trusted, people don't know what he stands for. If I was him, I'd fancy changing that. If I was Labour I'd want to tell my story. The no money left, hard choices, blah blah blah worked for the Tories because they told the lies repeatedly of all in this together, household budget balancing baloney, tough period but we'll get through, and crucially as Osbourne said expansive monetary policy through magic asset wealth tree. Labour have none of that, no story, no asset wealth inflation, no hope, no nothing. So what happens when an unpopular PM and unpopular party get in power on the basis of being the least bad option? Nothing good.

They look to have learnt completely the wrong lessons from Cameron and Osbourne despite them trying pathetically hard to e.g. the "there's no money left" note labour left them now bringing up in interviews.

The message is 'we need to build a better future'. You do that by chasing tax evasion / closing opportunities for avoidance, chasing PPE fraud, etc. Those are messages which will ring well with the public while still being nebulous - and you can still say that how much you raise from them depends on just how badly the tories fuck things in the next eighteen months. 'Getting our money back' / 'Punish tax dodgers'.

What you don't do is give the Tories and their press eighteen months run up of attacking your policies. The approach you talk about might have worked twenty or thirty years ago, but times have changed.

Right, he's not announced policies on either though. Non Dom isn't tax evasion as such they aren't evading tax they just have a lower tax regime. He's said nothing of clawing back PPE fraud, he won't touch tax avoidance as it's the UKs biggest export. He does say build a better future sure, he doesn't say how he wants to do it. So frankly, it's completely meaningless.

If you run scared of the press before an election, you'll run scared of them after an election too.

[Biffer]

Completely untrue. Literally nobody reads manifestos, they're an irrelevance. You get your story out early and back up up with policies gradually. People make up their mind way before the manifesto. Starmer is unpopular, not trusted, people don't know what he stands for. If I was him, I'd fancy changing that. If I was Labour I'd want to tell my story. The no money left, hard choices, blah blah blah worked for the Tories because they told the lies repeatedly of all in this together, household budget balancing baloney, tough period but we'll get through, and crucially as Osbourne said expansive monetary policy through magic asset wealth tree. Labour have none of that, no story, no asset wealth inflation, no hope, no nothing. So what happens when an unpopular PM and unpopular party get in power on the basis of being the least bad option? Nothing good.

They look to have learnt completely the wrong lessons from Cameron and Osbourne despite them trying pathetically hard to e.g. the "there's no money left" note labour left them now bringing up in interviews.

The message is 'we need to build a better future'. You do that by chasing tax evasion / closing opportunities for avoidance, chasing PPE fraud, etc. Those are messages which will ring well with the public while still being nebulous - and you can still say that how much you raise from them depends on just how badly the tories fuck things in the next eighteen months. 'Getting our money back' / 'Punish tax dodgers'.

What you don't do is give the Tories and their press eighteen months run up of attacking your policies. The approach you talk about might have worked twenty or thirty years ago, but times have changed.

Right, he's not announced policies on either though. Non Dom isn't tax evasion as such they aren't evading tax they just have a lower tax regime. He's said nothing of clawing back PPE fraud, he won't touch tax avoidance as it's the UKs biggest export. He does say build a better future sure, he doesn't say how he wants to do it. So frankly, it's completely meaningless.

If you run scared of the press before an election, you'll run scared of them after an election too.

Non dom is tax avoidance.

But I think that’s the thing - general direction of travel, yes, specific policies, no.

[I like neeps]

But no reason [from their perspective] to say it right now.

Completely untrue. Literally nobody reads manifestos, they're an irrelevance. You get your story out early and back up up with policies gradually. People make up their mind way before the manifesto. Starmer is unpopular, not trusted, people don't know what he stands for. If I was him, I'd fancy changing that. If I was Labour I'd want to tell my story. The no money left, hard choices, blah blah blah worked for the Tories because they told the lies repeatedly of all in this together, household budget balancing baloney, tough period but we'll get through, and crucially as Osbourne said expansive monetary policy through magic asset wealth tree. Labour have none of that, no story, no asset wealth inflation, no hope, no nothing. So what happens when an unpopular PM and unpopular party get in power on the basis of being the least bad option? Nothing good.

They look to have learnt completely the wrong lessons from Cameron and Osbourne despite them trying pathetically hard to e.g. the "there's no money left" note labour left them now bringing up in interviews.

Manifestos are not an irrelevance. Sure, people don't often care about the detail. But the headline stuff is the policies people are campaigning on. Right now you're trying to say that no-one knows what he stands for. Come electioneering time, that will absolutely have to change. We'll have some actual policies to argue about. The cornerstones of their attempt to win the election. That is all I am saying here.

As for him being unpopular, he's not. He's 3rd on that list, 1% off the top. And significantly fewer people dislike him than they dislike current/recent major politicians, like Johnson, Sunak, Corbyn, May, etc.

Yes exactly the policies that parties campaign on are relevant not manifestos. And Labour are campaigning (year out from the election, as you say entire focus is on winning an unloseable election) and they have no policies. They haven't even diagnosed where the Tories have gone wrong and in fact seem to be defending austerity.

I guess the hope is that he doesn't say anything of note, doesn't actually have any policies on taxing wealth to claw back that unearned magic money in housing and then delivers planning reform to kill nimbyism for the press to attack pre-election. And has won such a large majority the constant press attacks and hatred from magic money rich nimbys can be dealt with. But seems very unlikely.

His disapproval ratings are lower than others because more people don't have an opinion on him, which won't last long in an election year.

[I like neeps]

The message is 'we need to build a better future'. You do that by chasing tax evasion / closing opportunities for avoidance, chasing PPE fraud, etc. Those are messages which will ring well with the public while still being nebulous - and you can still say that how much you raise from them depends on just how badly the tories fuck things in the next eighteen months. 'Getting our money back' / 'Punish tax dodgers'.

What you don't do is give the Tories and their press eighteen months run up of attacking your policies. The approach you talk about might have worked twenty or thirty years ago, but times have changed.

Right, he's not announced policies on either though. Non Dom isn't tax evasion as such they aren't evading tax they just have a lower tax regime. He's said nothing of clawing back PPE fraud, he won't touch tax avoidance as it's the UKs biggest export. He does say build a better future sure, he doesn't say how he wants to do it. So frankly, it's completely meaningless.

If you run scared of the press before an election, you'll run scared of them after an election too.

Non dom is tax avoidance.

But I think that’s the thing - general direction of travel, yes, specific policies, no.

Hmm, hasn't mentioned PPE fraud investigation and clawback, hasn't mentioned industrial scale tax evasion by multinationals, Reeves has said Labour have no plans to change capital gains tax (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65122284), they did in 2021 when they were more focused on progressive policy say they'd tax carried interest as income but haven't discussed it sense.

I think you've misread the general direction of travel I'm afraid. The direction being - don't upset the press, don't upset asset owners, talk about the idea but not detail of "reform".

And you can say that well come the election he'll have policy or when he's in power he'll completely change course. Possible, as that's what he did with the Labour leadership. Or you can think what's more likely that he's a lifetime bureaucrat who has no real principles, no real diagnosis of Britain's problems, and no real ideas for how to change things and therefore no policy. Or he does understand Britain's problems and like the Tories is running scared of the voting lobby/press attached to keeping things as is.

[Biffer]

Right, he's not announced policies on either though. Non Dom isn't tax evasion as such they aren't evading tax they just have a lower tax regime. He's said nothing of clawing back PPE fraud, he won't touch tax avoidance as it's the UKs biggest export. He does say build a better future sure, he doesn't say how he wants to do it. So frankly, it's completely meaningless.

If you run scared of the press before an election, you'll run scared of them after an election too.

Non dom is tax avoidance.

But I think that’s the thing - general direction of travel, yes, specific policies, no.

Hmm, hasn't mentioned PPE fraud investigation and clawback, hasn't mentioned industrial scale tax evasion by multinationals, Reeves has said Labour have no plans to change capital gains tax (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65122284), they did in 2021 when they were more focused on progressive policy say they'd tax carried interest as income but haven't discussed it sense.

I think you've misread the general direction of travel I'm afraid. The direction being - don't upset the press, don't upset asset owners, talk about the idea but not detail of "reform".

Slight miscommunication here, I’m not really saying Starmer has done a good job, I’m saying what I think he should be doing.