Starmer's vision quest

[Stevo 666]

Blair didn't do too badly, electorally.

Never! But icowden talking about was Starmer (who most people recognise is somewhere to the left of Blair) moving further left.

As I've said, Starmer should go for it. If you're going to be a leftie loser, do it properly 🙂

 

[BoldonLad]

And arguably gave the best outcome to the country in the last 30 years excluding the Iraq war.

Pretty low bar that 😂

 

[Stevo 666]

Pretty low bar that 😂

It might also explain why a lot of lefties called him a Tory with a red rosette.

 

[briantrumpet]

Never! But icowden talking about was Starmer (who most people recognise is somewhere to the left of Blair) moving further left.

As I've said, Starmer should go for it. If you're going to be a leftie loser, do it properly 🙂

I struggle to see how at the moment Starmer is left of Blair, given he's chasing Reform voters as if there's no tomorrow, has his EU 'red lines' firmly in place, has stuck to the two-child family benefit cap and has cut disability benefits. Seems like your kind of man.

 

[briantrumpet]

If you take wealth redistribution as a mark of leftieness, then Blair and Brown were definitely leftie. I'm yet to see Starmer do anything on this scale... well, anything, really.

https://ifs.org.uk/articles/labours-record-poverty-and-inequality

Today, the Oxford Review of Economic Policy publishes a special issue on Labour's economic record when in government between 1997 and 2010. As part of this, IFS researchers assess Labour’s record on income inequality and poverty. Here, we show how income inequality changed little but child and pensioner poverty fell significantly. We suggest, though, that these falls in poverty might prove fragile given that they were mostly based on very large increases in spending on benefits and tax credits.

Labour had very clear objectives to reduce poverty amongst families with children and pensioners, and accorded these objectives high priority. Tony Blair made a famous commitment to end child poverty within a generation, and Gordon Brown promised to ‘to end pensioner poverty in our country”. However, it is much less clear that Labour took a strong view on the appropriate level of inequality within the top half of the income distribution, as indicated for example by Peter Mandelson’s famous statement that he was “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich as long as they pay their taxes.'

The substantial falls in pensioner and child poverty were largely driven by very significant additional spending on benefits and tax credits. Reforms since 1997-98 resulted in an £18 billion annual increase in spending on benefits for families with children and an £11 billion annual increase on benefits for pensioners by 2010-11 (see here). Our modelling suggests that child and pensioner poverty would either have stayed the same or risen, rather than fall substantially, had there not been these big spending increases. Meanwhile, Labour’s tax and benefit changes had relatively little net impact on the top half of the income distribution, or on low-income adults without dependent children – the group whose poverty rate did not fall. However, there is evidence to suggest that these reforms prevented a larger rise in inequality than actually occurred under Labour.

 

[Stevo 666]

I struggle to see how at the moment Starmer is left of Blair, given he's chasing Reform voters as if there's no tomorrow, has his EU 'red lines' firmly in place, has stuck to the two-child family benefit cap and has cut disability benefits. Seems like your kind of man.

Can't say I'm too keen on the big NI hike on businesses - I have seen the impact not just on my group but more so smaller businesses that I have spoken to. Or the upcoming 'workers rights bill' which is going to do more damage. Or the big handouts to public sector and unionised workers for nothing in return.

 

[CXRAndy]

Labour deciding whether to U turn on winter fuel allowance cuts.

Really, how can they afford it with a £20bn black hole.

I'm sure there will be a run on the pound 😜

All because some small party won a few council seats

 

[BoldonLad]

Can't say I'm too keen on the big NI hike on businesses - I have seen the impact not just on my group but more so smaller businesses that I have spoken to. Or the upcoming 'workers rights bill' which is going to do more damage. Or the big handouts to public sector and unionised workers for nothing in return.

Indeed. Although, no doubt, many of those switching to vote Reform will be motivated by immigration concerns (rightly or wrongly), the means testing of WFA is also a significant factor. Anyone capable of simple arithmetic must wonder, why deduct about £400 per household from those with a household income as low as £9500pa, whilst conceding a pay rise with no pre-conditions to a group earning more than 4 times as much.

This is not a defense of universal WFA, but, a recognition that when people have had their pockets picket, they are typically, rather irate.

As I have said before, in the area I live, there were precious few Conservative Voters to switch to Reform, given the size of the switch, there simply must be a significant number of former Labour voters who have switched.

 

[Psamathe]

.

Can't say I'm too keen on the big NI hike on businesses - I have seen the impact not just on my group but more so smaller businesses that I have spoken to. Or the upcoming 'workers rights bill' which is going to do more damage.

IU would agree. NI increase bound to impact growth (pretty predictable so beggars belief why Reeves did it).

'Workers Right Bill' list intent I saw is likely to have quite a lot of unintended consequences. eg Employment Rights starting immediately or much sooner in effect increases the risk for employers (if employee turns out not to be that 110% perfect they suggested at interview). So likely to make employers more cautions about recruiting which will slow growth.

I remember when I lived in France certain trades were very difficult to book as they mere mostly small enterprises (eg plumbers, electricians). Employment rights ("job is for life") made these small companies very very very cautios about recruiting more staff even when they have far more work than they can do because once they take on an employee that have such solid "rights" they can't lose then without horrendous costs.

Not suggesting employees should not have better protections and I dislike the enforced zero hours contracts, etc. but the bill Labour are proposing will slow growth. I wonder if a more incremental approach would get to the same place a bit slower but with fewer negative impacts.

Ian

 

[CXRAndy]

Blank of the decade 🤣


View: https://x.com/exRAF_Al/status/1919483003065016363?t=3E72QO48Ve7wzFpNdNpoyw&s=19

 

[CXRAndy]

Another kick in the teeth for British people. Even more immigration, cheaper labour with tax breaks


View: https://x.com/Basil_TGMD/status/1919766899962880382?t=6RxnVCsrZ5jeFmUlFyZs7A&s=19

 

[Rusty Nails]

Another kick in the teeth for British people. Even more immigration, cheaper labour with tax breaks


View: https://x.com/Basil_TGMD/status/1919766899962880382?t=6RxnVCsrZ5jeFmUlFyZs7A&s=19

You really don't look deeper than the views your social media algorithms feed you, do you? Reports by professional journalists, rather than clowns like the one you quote, explain that:


"The exemption applies to the staff of Indian companies temporarily transferred to the UK, and to UK firms' workers transferred to India. Social security contributions will be paid by employers and employees in their home country only, rather than in both places.

The UK already has similar reciprocal "double contribution convention" agreements with 17 other countries including the EU, the US and South Korea, the government said."

 

[Webbo2]

You really don't look deeper than the views your social media algorithms feed you, do you? Reports by professional journalists, rather than clowns like the one you quote, explain that:


"The exemption applies to the staff of Indian companies temporarily transferred to the UK, and to UK firms' workers transferred to India. Social security contributions will be paid by employers and employees in their home country only, rather than in both places.

The UK already has similar reciprocal "double contribution convention" agreements with 17 other countries including the EU, the US and South Korea, the government said."

The thing is you can’t educate pork so he will never learn.

 

[Stevo 666]

.
IU would agree. NI increase bound to impact growth (pretty predictable so beggars belief why Reeves did it).

'Workers Right Bill' list intent I saw is likely to have quite a lot of unintended consequences. eg Employment Rights starting immediately or much sooner in effect increases the risk for employers (if employee turns out not to be that 110% perfect they suggested at interview). So likely to make employers more cautions about recruiting which will slow growth.

I remember when I lived in France certain trades were very difficult to book as they mere mostly small enterprises (eg plumbers, electricians). Employment rights ("job is for life") made these small companies very very very cautios about recruiting more staff even when they have far more work than they can do because once they take on an employee that have such solid "rights" they can't lose then without horrendous costs.

Not suggesting employees should not have better protections and I dislike the enforced zero hours contracts, etc. but the bill Labour are proposing will slow growth. I wonder if a more incremental approach would get to the same place a bit slower but with fewer negative impacts.

Ian

Well quite.

I suspect that Reeves and Starmer had painted themselves into a corner on tax, having ruled out rate rises on the 4 biggest revenue earners for the treasury (income tax, employees NI, VAT and corporate tax). Beginners error really, as piling the costs of the employers was going to have predictable consequences.

Re: workers rights, they should be able to see what happens in countries where employees have very strong protection and rights. Another example of how that doesn't work out is in the Netherlands where employers are reluctant to hire employees and they have 27% of the national workforce on temporary contracts as a result, with very few rights. And in the group where I work, our poorest performing performing companies are in France, Germany and Netherlands - directly related to difficulty and cost of shedding staff and their rights to strike etc. Law of unintended consequences and all that.

 

[Ian H]

Interestingly, The Netherlands and France both rank above the UK in productivity.