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.