Bye bye Starmer

[Broccers]

I genuinely think he is on the side of the rioters. And he’s not quite able to say it publicly.

I thought you were on about Starmer there!

Ha

[ZedLeg]

I genuinely think he is on the side of the rioters. And he’s not quite able to say it publicly.

If there are groups of white men with dangerously high blood pressure yelling in the street, broccers will be alongside them.

[V8Granite]

Apparently there is going to be a riot in Peterborough so the local Facebook page says. We keep away from the place in general but it’ll no doubt be a group of shirtless yobs shouting “Come on” to no-one in particular.

The last time there was a bit of a riot a couple of people climbed up the side of cathedarel square and fell off, so we can only hope.

Dave!

[Gavster]

The country is doing great, a bunch of violent racists are outing themselves and getting dragged before judges as a result. It's a form of natural selection.

[V8Granite]

I thought we had no space in jail

There is a positive from them all frothing on social media, they will all put the videos up themselves !

Dave!

[Jobbo]

I genuinely think he is on the side of the rioters. And he’s not quite able to say it publicly.

I thought you were on about Starmer there!

Ha

I think you understood my point, Broccers. No denials, I notice.

[Gavster]

Glad that Starmer has the balls in his speech yesterday to admit that we need to focus on long-term change and that things could get worse before they get better. The last government was endlessly obsessed with short-term pandering to voters, which inevitably led to bad choices. They were leaders who were, somewhat ironically, afraid of leading.

Also, the removal of the winter fuel cap makes a lot of sense in the context of the newly launched Great British Energy. There's no point handing out free money to pay corporations for energy for when you can simply make energy more affordable in the first place.

[ZedLeg]

I don’t know, the poor and disabled are pretty concerned about what’s coming tbh.

After 14 years they were kind of hoping for a respite from austerity as it clearly isn’t working.

[Rich B]

it’s a shame politics has to work the way it does, open lies. i was and still am aware that taxes need to go up to sort the problems we have. there was no point thinking anything else, but, labour were elected categorically stating that taxes would not be going up (they had to, as the Tories were saying that’s what they’d do).

Since then they’ve had to manufacture this £22bn hole (£9bn of which is what they’ve paid the junior doctors) to justify putting up taxes (which was clearly always the plan.)

it’s a real shame that all politicians have to lie to get into power, to then actually action what needs to be done. it totally undermines the ideas of democracy.

let’s hope it works.

[Swervin_Mervin]

Glad that Starmer has the balls in his speech yesterday to admit that we need to focus on long-term change and that things could get worse before they get better. The last government was endlessly obsessed with short-term pandering to voters, which inevitably led to bad choices. They were leaders who were, somewhat ironically, afraid of leading.

Also, the removal of the winter fuel cap makes a lot of sense in the context of the newly launched Great British Energy. There's no point handing out free money to pay corporations for energy for when you can simply make energy more affordable in the first place.

I don't know what you're eating/drinking/smoking Gav but I'd love some of it

There's no long term plan - it will be more short-termism. I can't see GBE as being anything other than a monumental waste of taxpayers' cash either. Big corporations will continue to milk the state, the NHS will stagger on somehow (hoovering up even more cash), the public sector and their unions will seize their opportunity to get their pound of flesh, and the turds will keep on flowing down our waterways and bobbing around our shores.

[Gavster]

I'm not sure what you're all expecting? A release from austerity and pay rises for public sector works? To fix the NHS while not raising any taxes? To re-organise major infrastructure without spending cash?

Creating policy around major change is inherently messy. There will always be losers in any policy change. The aim is to create the greatest benefits and mitigate the trade-offs. In fact, the concept of trade-offs is the reason why governments often fail to make change, because the public don't understand that there is no such thing as a perfect policy with no losers, and therefore politicians fail to act because they're petrified of voters. As far as I can see we have a bucketload of problems in the UK and fixing them requires either a magic money tree, or accepting some major trade-offs.

I'm inherently hopeful about this country and always have been, and I am putting those hopes onto this new government as they're presenting a genuinely convincing pragmatism about change. Besides, I trust them with the country far more than the I did the tories.

[ZedLeg]

Like I say, the people who have been suffering most under austerity were hoping for some respite. Not another turn of the screws.

If only there was a way for us to raise money without passing the burden onto the people least able to hold it.

[Swervin_Mervin]

I'm not sure what you're all expecting? A release from austerity and pay rises for public sector works? To fix the NHS while not raising any taxes? To re-organise major infrastructure without spending cash?

Creating policy around major change is inherently messy. There will always be losers in any policy change. The aim is to create the greatest benefits and mitigate the trade-offs. In fact, the concept of trade-offs is the reason why governments often fail to make change, because the public don't understand that there is no such thing as a perfect policy with no losers, and therefore politicians fail to act because they're petrified of voters. As far as I can see we have a bucketload of problems in the UK and fixing them requires either a magic money tree, or accepting some major trade-offs.

I'm inherently hopeful about this country and always have been, and I am putting those hopes onto this new government as they're presenting a genuinely convincing pragmatism about change. Besides, I trust them with the country far more than the I did the tories.

I'm expecting a continuation of the shitshow of the last decade or more. I'd love lots of things to happen, but they won't as long as we have an entrenched civil service, public sector and political sector, and a general populous that largely seems to just keep on keeping on with it all regardless.

I've never know which is better though for the human condition - to live in optimism and be disappointed more often than not, or to live as a pessimist and occasionally experience being disproved

[Jobbo]

Like I say, the people who have been suffering most under austerity were hoping for some respite. Not another turn of the screws.

If only there was a way for us to raise money without passing the burden onto the people least able to hold it.

In what way did Starmer's speech sound like the burden was going to be borne by those least able?

I don't think announcing it in this way was particularly clever; the reality of the budget is probably not going to be as bad as we fear but the tactic of letting us down early to soften the blow doesn't really work in politics, IMO.

I'm not looking forward to tax rises but I can always pay myself less if I want to pay less tax. What I don't want to see is substantial changes each budget as there used to be when Gordon Brown was chancellor. Stability is a good thing and much as I hated what the Conservative Party had become, the Tories (mostly) didn't surprise us with each budget. Probably because every policy was leaked early and changed if it got a bad reaction, but hey. I did see that Liz Truss considered removing NHS funding for cancer treatment so maybe a bit of public opinion helps.

[ZedLeg]

It’s not just him, Rachel Reeves has been cueing up benefit cuts for weeks.

[Rich B]

just a shame they couldn’t have been more honest from the beginning. this is still on the labour website.

[Jobbo]

They might not increase those three very specific taxes (NI is really a tax despite not being reclaimable). For example dividend tax, corporation tax, fuel duty, stamp duty - and applying VAT to previously exempt stuff. I think I'd rather they increased income tax rates rather than fiddling around just to show they've stuck to their manifesto. But only if they simplify as they increase the tax rates; get rid of the unfair traps like the loss of child benefit and the tapering loss of personal allowance over £100k.

[integrale_evo]

If the oil prices stay low like they are at the moment come October they’re bound to stick a few pence extra of fuel duty.

[Mito Man]

It’s all going as expected tbh. Labour don’t have any genius ideas and continue the trajectory of their predecessors. You would have thought that the man who spent years complaining about the highest ever taxes would at least take longer than the first budget before surpassing that record.
Increasing the debt burden by kneeling before trade unions, whilst actively scaring off investment.
Didn’t even have the patience to wait a year before the cronyism began.

Ed Miliband - what is that cunt still doing here? Just trying to make everyone’s life difficult as we march head first into his unrealistic net zero wet dream whilst the rest of the world laughs.

All of their ideas so far are really just squeezing those who have no choice. Mainly middle class and PAYE. Then they have the audacity to complain about the ever widening gulf between the haves and the have nots.

The UK productivity problem will continue for another 5 years at least.

[Simon]

Agree with all of that, apart from I confess I've got a begrudging respect for Milliband. Ironically it stems from this Jonathan Pie vid:



We all need to get to Net Zero somehow. Waiting for other countries to get there first isn't the answer. We just need to bring everyone with us, nationally and globally.

I admired some of Starmer's early ministerial picks, but on the economy I'm reminded very quickly that at the end of the day, Labour hate people like me, and a lot of those here - above middle income earners. It's ever thus.

And they're starting to look a tad authoritarian too.