Keir Starmer

[Jacob]

Agree, it was silly calling for a boycott once they'd agreed to work with UK law. My guess is it's about adjusting to being power

More like adjusting to being powerless. Starmer should have defended Haigh in public, and then been diplomatic about the issue. He has no political skill.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

100 days, great things to come, no doubt.

You should have been a stand up comedian.

 

[Jake]

Going on about what the tories did in the past is pointless.

It's really not, the first time the Tories failed to effectively capitalise on (unfair) blame for the global financial crisis in 2008 was in 2024.

 

[woodieallen]

Agree, it was silly calling for a boycott once they'd agreed to work with UK law. My guess is it's about adjusting to being power rather than being a protest party. It's only been 100 days, great things to come, no doubt. Well, we hope.

Since Labour have had so many years in opposition one would have thought that they had more than enough time to prepare for Govt. The idea that they have ‘great things to come’ is wishful thinking.

 

[Scruples]

Successful economies are not run to suit the poor.

But successful economies benefit the poor. With economic growth comes more business bringing more employment. More employment brings in more income tax VAT and it decreases the benfit dependency.

Businesses pay taxes too; the largest ones paying more than the rest of us put together. Those companies are usually headed by very highly paid people who got them to the top. I see no problem with that.

Workers have never been so well off in the modern age (excepting the current fallout from the pandemic and world recession). More holidays, better working conditions and more money to spend on those things that only 40 years ago were a dream to the average worker.

Any government, that upsets the population in any way, only lasts one term. Labour is one that finds itself with only short terms occupation of No.10. It's usually the people who decide on the future of our country. Brexit being an example of people-power. We need to encourage investors from anywhere in the world as long as the UK benefits from it.

The major questions in my mind are whether Scotland will ever gain independence and could they survive? And will Wales follow suit? I don't think losing Northen Ireland would be a bad thing, politically, geographically or economically. And it would mean we'd have another close EU trader close by.

There's something to chew on, boys.

 

[RobinBHM]

You've been brainwashed by Jacob.

No, its just fact.

Do you think the FT is left wing brainwashing?

Britain and the US are poor societies with some very rich people​

Britain is a different story. While the top earners rank fifth, the average household ranks 12th and the poorest 5 per cent rank 15th. Far from simply losing touch with their western European peers, last year the lowest-earning bracket of British households had a standard of living that was 20 per cent weaker than their counterparts in Slovenia

https://www.ft.com/content/ef265420-45e8-497b-b308-c951baa68945

 

[woodieallen]

......

The rest of the stuff like Starmer following the rules on expenses is just right media distraction.

So breaking the rules is OK then. Strange as I always thought the Left preached ethical behaviour.

 

[RobinBHM]

The attitude of some evidently Labour supporters to the "mis-doings" of the current government are precisely the same as those Tories who could see no fault with the previous senior Tory leadership - despite its obvious failings.

One may have hoped that the pursuit of high standards to which politicians should be held, and the honesty to call out the inappropriate would continue. It seems I was mistaken.

The right wing media have been screaming that Labour (who have followed the expenses rules) are far worse than the Tories (who didn’t follow the rules).


Keir Starmer getting a free pair of glasses has had way more media coverage than Robert Jenrick mysteriously getting a donation of £75,000 from a company that has no employees and is £300k in debt.

The false equivalence is staggering

 

[RobinBHM]

So breaking the rules is OK then. Strange as I always thought the Left preached ethical behaviour

But they haven’t broken the rules, that’s my point.

 

[woodieallen]

No, its just fact.

Do you think the FT is left wing brainwashing?

Britain and the US are poor societies with some very rich people​

Britain is a different story. While the top earners rank fifth, the average household ranks 12th and the poorest 5 per cent rank 15th. Far from simply losing touch with their western European peers, last year the lowest-earning bracket of British households had a standard of living that was 20 per cent weaker than their counterparts in Slovenia

https://www.ft.com/content/ef265420-45e8-497b-b308-c951baa68945

That's just another pointless article looking at the situation through a very narrow lens focussing on just oe aspect - salary.

By the way, in your earlier post, you ranted about right wing policies and included QE in 2008 when Labour happened to be in power. Around the time when wunderkind George Brown announced that he was going to sell off some of our gold reserves which promptly caused the price of gold to plummet. Looks like Ms Reeves shares his inability to understand finance.

 

[woodieallen]

But they haven’t broken the rules, that’s my point.

OK...they have 'finessed' them. Pity you cannot appreciate the sleaze.

 

[RobinBHM]

To be better off economically we need to forget all that and look forwards not back

Good news then:

Sunday Times 13th Oct

 

[TRITON]

When I read threads like this i completely understand how in history it was reported of slaves defending their masters ,sometimes to the death.

Know your class, know your place, and woe betide anyone who tries to tell you different.

 

[Blackswanwood]

When I read threads like this i completely understand how in history it was reported of slaves defending their masters ,sometimes to the death.

Know your class, know your place, and woe betide anyone who tries to tell you different.

When I read it I wonder if after all that has been said anyone has changed their opinion on anything …

 

[spanner48]

It’s 4 decades of neo liberal, right wing policies.

Starting with Thatchers flogging of council houses houses to buy working class voters and stopping councils rebuilding.

Then we have deregulation of banking with interest only mortgages and self cert mortgages.

Then we have vast amounts of QE from 2008 onwards.

Then we have the big 6 house builders being donors to the Tory party in exchange for policies which benefit the house builders.

High house prices are transferring assets from ordinary working people to the wealthy.

And that explains main reason for UKs problems: wealth inequality

"Thatcher flogging off council houses houses to buy working class voters and stopping councils rebuilding." ?

We were living in west London in 1982. In that year it was recorded that – across the UK – the majority of housing starts had been Local Council [or charity] ones.

In that year, the Labour 'Leader' of Ealing Borough Council announced that it would be Council policy to discourage private home-owning in the Borough. No new building permits for privately-owned dwellings would be approved. Council tax on private houses would be progressively raised. The tax income generated would be used to buy out those private homeowners who wanted to leave. The future aim would be 100% Council ownership.

I decided then that the functions of government [outside China and the Soviet Union] do not include housing the population.

 

[spanner48]

Dear oh dear that sounds awful!
Didn't you tell them that you were an Englishman and not used to that sort of thing?
Stiff upper-lip and all that - sing "Rule Brittania" under your breath?
I hope it wasn't too upsetting.
If these johnny foreigners came here of course our own officials and civil servants would stop at nothing to make their experience as pleasant as possible. Nothing too much trouble for the British serving classes! That's what attracts all these dinghy wallahs.

Not "the British serving classes"; just "the Woke establishment"

 

[spanner48]

The fact he was by far the least appalling candidate out of himself, Jenrick, and Badenoch tells you just how vile the latter two are.

The Tory Party have twice recently had candidates with the potential to make great Prime Ministers: Rory Stewart and Jeremy Hunt. In each case, the 'pearls & twinset classes' studiously ignored them, in favour of populist mediocrities.

As an irrelevant aside: only capped by the 3rd August 2000 Republican Party Convention, when they decided – by a 99.6% majority – that George W Bush would make a better President than John McCain.

That, for me, signalled "The end of the American Century"

 

[spanner48]

But they haven’t broken the rules, that’s my point.

Corruption, by any other name, is still corruption

 

[Jacob]

Echo chamber stuff - hardly illuminating

It's amazing and shocking that so many people find it so easy to turn a blind eye to this massive humanitarian catastrophe.

 

[Jacob]

Yes, the tax advisers twigged to this a while ago and schools have been taking action accordingly. It goes further. A private school I know quite well, provided a number of services to the adjacent primary and secondary schools for free. This included use of some sports facilities, drama and music facilities and some other things.

Crumbs from the rich man's table. The tories have always accepted that some wealth and privilege has to trickle down. In fact it's the basis of free-market right-wing economics and is of course totally inadequate for the bigger picture. Private schools should be nationalised.

With the VAT imposition the governors have "suggested" that it is inappropriate for parents to subsidise the state schools further, when they are already doing so by paying via taxes for state school places that they are not using.

Nonsense. There are no empty places in state schools waiting to be taken up by private school drop-outs. We'll just have to hope that the government realises this and spending more on expanding schools and effectively redirecting the VAT gained towards worthy causes.