Starmer's vision quest
- Thread starter mjr
- Start date
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AuroraSaab
Pharaoh
I think if Labour had said they were going to put up income tax a small amount for everyone and made it clear exactly where the money was going eg NHS, they could still have won the election. Instead they find themselves in the position of looking both fiscally incompetent and misleading the electorate.
Pblakeney
Guru
Anyone who believed that manifesto (any manifesto?) were fools.
Pross
Über Member
I said that at the time. It was stupid to let the Tories force them into a promise it was obvious they’d have to break and maybe the first sign of their lack of backbone. Most people wanted public services fixed and Labour would have won pledging that whilst stating it would mean some tax rises at least until the economy started to improve.
Even if they had been honest about their plans to gouge us they would still be in the position they are now, namely having failed to fix the foundations and having actively made everything worse than it already was and at huge expense. Some feat.
BoldonLad
Old man on a bike. Not a member of a clique.
- Location
- South Tyneside
If this BBC article is correct https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7v80n7mz2jo and 70% of the income tax take goes to pay for sickness benefit, then, I suspect more than a "small" amount of increased Income Tax is needed. Income Tax is one of the major sources of Tax.
First Aspect
Guru
2p on the basic rate is being floated. That's a lot.
So is even a modest proportion of the £200Bn worklessness cost that I think could probably be called a Snowflake benefit, that is doing the news cycle today.
As I keep saying, you can't just keep putting taxes up and expect growth.
Psamathe
Guru
In fairness to Starmer/Reeves, little over a year ago could we have expected them to have foreseen Brexit?. Reasonable to think they could have seen Russia invading Ukraine? Reasonable for them to have foreseen Trump's tariffs (despite him wittering on about them the entire time)? Reasonable they should know about Ms Truses budget?
And those are Ms Reeve's main reasons for having to likely prepare us for tax rises and I knew about them all before Labour even promised/pledges "no income tax rise, no NI rise, no VAT rise", let alone the subsequent later "we won't be back for more".
If somebody lives with their head in the sand are they suited to such senior crucial posts?
And those are Ms Reeve's main reasons for having to likely prepare us for tax rises and I knew about them all before Labour even promised/pledges "no income tax rise, no NI rise, no VAT rise", let alone the subsequent later "we won't be back for more".
If somebody lives with their head in the sand are they suited to such senior crucial posts?
Psamathe
Guru
Manifestos do have special and important status in our legislature. Legislation that was in the Government's election manifesto will not be subject to the same scrutiny and amendments by the House of Lords (Salisbury-Addison Convention?).
Either they are important and have "status" and impact on our legslative process/scrutiny or they are a pack of lies. Can't be both.
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secretsqirrel
Well-Known Member
Do you fancy the job of Chancellor of the Exchequer?
First Aspect
Guru
Brexit kicked in in 2020. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. Truss was fleetingly relevant in 2022 and will have had little long term effect.
Labour was elected in mid 2024.
The only things I think you could argue wasn't foreseeable was quite how bad Trump would be, or that he would win at all. Perhaps one could argue that the middle east instability has been worse than expected, also.
That aside, I think no one expected the Ukraine war to end and the effects of Brexit were predicted in 2016. I also think the 2p drop in employee NI by Hunt just before the election was pretty much intentional sabotage. But again he did it before the election and Labour snoozed through the consequences.
Pblakeney
Guru
icowden
Shaman
Well of course. No-one cares about the manifesto except for politicians. The "manifesto" is what one party can use to beat the other over the head with. In turn the parties allies in the press will make political capital.
"Rachel from Accounts breaks manifesto pledges".
"Lying Labour Party in embarrassing u-turn"
"Starmer breaks out his flip flops again"
No one in the real world cares about the manifesto.
secretsqirrel
Well-Known Member
We’ll still be paying for the pandemic for sometime to come too. Don’t recall Johnson Sunak mentioning furlough, eating out, vaccines etc will have to be paid for by a future government.
Not say it was wrong to spend that money but the cost was somewhat glossed over at the time.
All foreseeable of course..
