this post was submitted on 16 May 2024
28 points (96.7% liked)

UK Politics

2983 readers
243 users here now

General Discussion for politics in the UK.
Please don't post to both [email protected] and [email protected] .
Pick the most appropriate, and put it there.

Posts should be related to UK-centric politics, and should be either a link to a reputable news source for news, or a text post on this community.

Opinion pieces are also allowed, provided they are not misleading/misrepresented/drivel, and have proper sources.

If you think "reputable news source" needs some definition, by all means start a meta thread. (These things should be publicly discussed)

Posts should be manually submitted, not by bot. Link titles should not be editorialised.

Disappointing comments will generally be left to fester in ratio, outright horrible comments will be removed.
Message the mods if you feel something really should be removed, or if a user seems to have a pattern of awful comments.

[email protected] appears to have vanished! We can still see cached content from this link, but goodbye I guess! :'(

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
all 16 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago (2 children)

It’s starting to feel like an election is coming sooner rather than later with this and Sunak’s speech thing the other day

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Sunak is still saying 'second half of the year'. There's some procedural stuff that I think means he has to give notice six weeks before the date, so in theory it could still be as soon as July.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Do you think he could call it to be during the summer holidays?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

He could, but it would be mad. But he is mad. So, maybe?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Honestly with the actions the tories have made over lately.

I'm starting to think winning is not their plan.

I can see them forcing the labour party to make promises by looking like they are trying to bribe the poor to vote for them. Challenging them in debates. And living about labours claims in the media. Making voters think they are offering way more then they are.

And just trying to make labour look like a complete failure in the first term.

There recent attempt to indicate they need to prepare for nuclear war. Gives them huge options to force labour to come out with defence spending promises. During the campaign.

This would either be unfixable or limit labours ability to make other promises. Allowing 2029 to be about how labour has failed to improve anyones lives.

Add the recent media news about the end of the recession. Based on limited evidence and very short term improvements.

They will then be able to say labour failed to keep the tory repair going.

I really don't think the tories plan to win. Just force labour to have to commit to spending in ways that will slow down any improvements in the econ.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

Yeah, Tories have definitely given up winning. I wouldn't put too much faith in their ability to mount a nefarious scheme, as you describe. They're flailing around, it's pure panic.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

He'll call it in August when (he hopes) most people are on holiday and won't bother to vote.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

And it’ll bite him on the arse when he finds out lots of people can no longer afford holidays abroad in the school holidays

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

Worse the only ones that can. Tend to be more wealthy so more likely to vote tory.

Good thing he is unlikely to read lemmy.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Sticking to tough spending rules in order to deliver economic stability

Code for austerity, some arbitrary cap on fiscal deficit.

Setting up Great British Energy, a publicly owned clean power energy company

How could that be done if spending rules are 'tough'? By raising taxes on the rich? I highly doubt that even with the higher taxes, the Government would be able to raise enough revenues to 'fund' a green transition.

Cutting NHS waiting lists by providing 40,000 more appointments each week - funded by tackling tax avoidance and non-dom loopholes.

NHS would require a shit ton more spending than whatever could be raised by tackling tax avoidance. Decades of austerity has to be compensated for.

Launching a border security command to stop the gangs arranging small boat crossings

Hitler particles detected. How will the security command be paid for? NHS has to be funded by 'tackling tax avoidance' but funds for border security never need to be 'raised'.

Providing more neighbourhood police officers to reduce antisocial behaviour and introduced new penalties for offenders

What is antisocial behaviour? Loitering? Also how are revenues for police officers raised? Every bit of welfare has to be 'paid for' by raising taxes or whatever but there is no mention of how police officer salaries would be paid for.

Recruiting 6,500 teachers, paid for through ending tax breaks for private schools.

Its fascinating how he can't just say 'Recruiting 6,500 teachers', he has to 'pay for it' with something else. Why do private schools exist in the first place?

This is so bad, Starmer is really showing that he is not different from the Tories.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

There’s two reasons why there is a lack of teachers/doctors/nurses/police, and none of them seem to want to acknowledge this…stress, and pay. Solve the pay problem and you’ll solve the other. But no politician seems to want to acknowledge this.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

While non of these promises seem very impressive. I will respond to a few of your comments.

Code for austerity, some arbitrary cap on fiscal deficit.

Agree fully

How could that be done if spending rules are ‘tough’? By raising taxes on the rich? I highly doubt that even with the higher taxes, the Government would be able to raise enough revenues to ‘fund’ a green transition.

He is talking about a company competing in the current energy structure.

It really dose not require huge investment. Companies can both sell energy created by other companies. So produce 0 themselves. But only buy from green sources. Already selling. That dose is increase the demand for green energy without actually investing anything in it.

Or it can invest in one or 2 very small energy production schemes that are green. And sell that to other companies

While that costs money. He makes no promises about how much would be spent. It could literally be a company owning one windmill. And his claim has been achieved.

Its really only an expensive promise if you add assumptions about how big the gb energy company is going to be. He has not made any commitments on that.

Cutting NHS waiting lists by providing 40,000 more appointments each week - funded by tackling tax avoidance and non-dom loopholes.

NHS would require a shit ton more spending than whatever could be raised by tackling tax avoidance. Decades of austerity has to be compensated for.

To fix the NHS compleatly yes. But he is only offering to reduce waiting lists by 40000 more appointments

He dose not say what type of appointments or make any promises as to the costs invested.

He could litralling hire a nurse 40hrs a week. Much as GP are already doing. Average of 10 mins an appointment. 240 appointments a week. That is 167 nurses.

Not a huge cost. Or much of a promise.

Hitler particles detected. How will the security command be paid for? NHS has to be funded by ‘tackling tax avoidance’ but funds for border security never need to be ‘raised’.

GODWINS LAW STILL IN FULL SWING.

but I agree its not costed here. But also remember he. He really has not committed to spending much on everything else yet. So how much dose he need. How much is he actually promising here.

what annoys me more. Its just a rebadged tory policy they have failed to achive. So is he planning to copy failure to commit as well as policy? I will add. Tories rwanda bullshit iss costed at 150k per victim sent. So if that is costed in the current budget. Then cancelling it and using that money would technically be costed. So its no worse then tory bulshit.

What is antisocial behaviour?

pretty well defined in the past. By both labour and tories. Its not a new thing.

Also how are revenues for police officers raised? Every bit of welfare has to be ‘paid for’ by raising taxes or whatever but there is no mention of how police officer salaries would be paid for.

Agreed. But again what is he actually commiting to more is not a number. Hiring a few specials (is that the still the name for unqualified part time officers now) would meet the commitment.

Its another promise with no real measure.

Recruiting 6,500 teachers, paid for through ending tax breaks for private schools.

Its fascinating how he can’t just say ‘Recruiting 6,500 teachers’, he has to ‘pay for it’ with something else. Why do private schools exist in the first place?

because some folks want to pay for an elite education. But the better question is why the hell are they allowed to claim charity status and not pay taxes on the fees.

It is potentially a fairly large some of money. Lots of higher earners send kids to privrate school. And every privrate school uses charity status to allow no taxation on the income. I actually like this idea. But its an old one. Labour has used multiple times.

Where it might fail. If you increase the cost of provrate scooling(I'm gonna leave that typo. As I did not go to a privrate school ;) ). As this would fairly huge. You may see an equal number of lower wealthy deciding they cannot afford it. So it deff has a failure point. But less provrate schools is still a win to some extent.

This is so bad, Starmer is really showing that he is not different from the Tories********

Oh def agree. Including typical promises that don't promise much. Long time tory practice. Offer something that sounds great. But give 0 detail of what it actually will be.

PS I am visually impaired on a tablet. So sorry I make lots of typos. I try to fix the ones I see. So lots of edit but again vision is crap so I just miss loads. Sorry but live with it please.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

Is it me or do those new glasses make him look like Antony Albanese (Aussie Lab PM)?