That thumbnail 😄
Little point in voting in elections if all parties have the same policies. Labour exists to give the impression we have choice. We don’t.
That’s kind of what the Tory press want - if they can’t get you enthusiastic to vote Conservative, then they want to suppress the vote by driving home that they are all as bad as each other.
After a dozen years of this shitshow it is clear that this isn’t the case and any one of the line of Labour leaders would have saved the country a lot of pain if voted it, no matter what your feelings on Corbyn or the fact that Ed Miliband once ate a sandwich a bit weirdly.
Starmer is a personality vacuum and deeply uninspiring but, even if he performs exactly to most people’s low expectations, he’ll be orders of magnitude better than whatever robber baron stands against him.
When I’m in the voting booth do I pretend that Starmer has broken every promise he made to his own party? That he’s not going to provide universal free school meals? That he’s going to continue the child benefit cap? He’s ditched the party’s green plans? And whatever right-wing nonsense he spouts before the GE?
Personally, I’ll be voting to get the Tories out. I’d vote for a rabid badger whose one policy was that he was going to come round and eat my face (which is refreshingly honest).
My ideal solution would be that Labour get in but without a large enough majority that they can wave bills through parliament and have to do deals that mean proper electoral reform. I’m not quite sure how to engineer such an outcome, so (this side of him surprising us with a raft of secret radical policies he’s been hiding so as not to give the media a stick to beat him with) I am hoping he underperforms to such an extent that someone like Andy Burnham has to intervene and challenge him.
However, as long as my main aim (Tories Out) is accomplished then things will be better than they are now. That’s a really low bar but it’s a base to build from.
That isn’t what he said…
He states what he would like to do but sidesteps the question when asked directly what payrise offer he would make. His message is focused on growing the economy.
I think its expectation management, I think he sees his first few years as firefighting and he won’t make promises he can’t keep.
Labours message on the NHS was focused on rolling back privatisation, then it suddenly stopped and became about bed blocking and staff shortages.
I don’t think Starmer suddenly decided privatisation was good, its more bed blocking is eating NHS resources and there is a 30,000 staff shortage.
Those are critical issues which if left will cause the NHS to collapse, so if you know you won’t have time to address something like privatisation it makes sense not to promise to remove it.
Yeah they’re 18% ahead in the polls. It would be foolish to make any promises at this point - he doesn’t need to and only risks giving the cons attack headlines and losing votes. Until they have to produce a manifesto and while the tories continue to self destruct, these are the sorts of statements / interviews you’re going to get.
There is a choice, albeit a choice between a douche and a turd sandwich. Neither are appealing, but at least a douche is cleansing, while a turd sandwich just fills you full of shit.
Don’t be so pessimistic – you can have a red neoliberal or a blue neoliberal. What more could you want?
Sir Keir insists that his promise to reform public services is bold and focuses on long-term solutions rather than quick fixes
UK is so 'effed.
Inflation at 3-10% over the last few years
Population 10% higher every 10 years
“Nah, we can keep costs at the same level as the 90s, no problem”
The problem is with the current government and not the next to come. They have broken the country. There is only so much you can do after an episode with such a corrupt group in power.
I mean, everything I’ve heard about Starmer is pretty awful too. He just sounds like another Tory, it’s sad how few different options we have.
O aye in what way? Do you really think we should continue with the current set of thieves?
After World War Two and a broken, penniless Britain, Labour introduced the Welfare State. This country was still on rations but the Labour leadership knew that there needed to be radical change and had a vision of a better Britain. Worrying that they couldn’t afford it wasn’t an option.
That’s what we need now - especially so at a time of climate catastrophe - but Starmer’s Labour Party refuse to do so.
Nor should he.
Have you seen the size of the public debt?
A country’s debt isn’t the same as an individual’s, no matter what the Tories like to say about balancing the books and the like. At those rarefied heights it’s all a bit more… theoretical.
Things like austerity were less economically driven and far more ideological, it was all about shrinking the state. They always managed to scrounge up some giveaway to the rich.
Suffice it to say, after 10+ years of austerity most people in the country are poorer. The wealthiest people are much more wealthy though, which ends up tipping the scale - yet we still cannot afford to fund basic services properly. Train strikes, bin strikes, NHS strikes; and the only planned solution across the board is to lower our standards.
Starmer won’t make things worse than the Tories, but he for sure will take advantage of many of the new loopholes the Tories got away with exploiting.
Right wingers rant and rave about wasting money and balancing the books but manage to stack up way more national debt than left wingers. It’s just gaslighting. They believe that spending on poor people is a terrible waste of money, but spending on rich people and rich corporations is good because they know how to handle it, having had so much experience of being wealthy already. The poor just spend it. Admittedly that’s called growth in the economy, but everyone deserves a tax break, they think, especially those who pay so much tax.
Interesting how nearly 15 years of austerity has done nothing to improve that. Maybe it’s time to actually stop cutting taxes instead.
We have spent 15 years with depreciating infer structure education and health. In an attempt to avoid taxing the people making the most money out of our society.
Because this train of thought is making things better.
The only way to fix things is to incur so we can actually improve things in the country. That means investing in making us self-sustaining and making it more attractive for doctors and nurses.
I agree but there will be limits on how much additional borrowing and spending markets will be ok with.
It means that spend has to be on the biggest issues and things most likely to help the economy.
I want to say fuck the markets, but that doesn’t work out so well. The reality is though, unless we invest heavily in things like health, education, heat pumps, solar panels, wind, artificial intelligence and robotics, then there’s no hope for this country. So we really need to be firm and at least give the markets food for thought.
