Westminster Politics

[Maticmaker]

Without any policies or money it won't really matter that much how competent they are though, we can only hope the cowardly non-positions Starmer has taken on almost every policy give way when they take office. I won't hold my breath.

Starmer needs to keep his 'powder dry' until the GE starts in earnest, going too soon ruined many previous labour attempts to get elected and last time Corbyn raised a number of issues early that basically most people agreed with, then he got 'suckered in' and started to promise everything, which left him open to the 'sucker punch'.
The Tories believe they are the 'natural party of power', because they know how to play the FPTP system, certainly last time, to perfection... Labour has to outsmart them in such tactics and Starmer is (in my opinion) doing that right now, he's like an 'eel wriggling' and the Tory press don't know how to pin him down. Long may it last.

I'm not sure how those initiatives you mentioned are relevant today given the makeup of the UK economy these days, but agree that something needs to be done.

Those initiatives were right for the time, just they had 'weaknesses' which were exploited. I suggested those as former examples which Labour could learn from in terms of implementation, and to proof test new initiatives so as to identify weakness before launching, to make sure they have no such weaknesses, or that any inherent problems can get sorted down the line, e.g. how employers were drawn in initially needs to be studied, so does the approaches that frightened off many TU's in the first place. Once the Labour government have it buttoned-down they go for it, but it will take time.
Timescales are the worry for me, so much ground has been lost to the 'carpet-baggers' in industry and commerce; the faith of the ordinary public has been devastated, which is why so many 'red wall' areas turned to the Tories. It's a lot to roll back and time is of the essence (isn't it always?)

 

[Smores]

Starmer needs to keep his 'powder dry' until the GE starts in earnest, going too soon ruined many previous labour attempts to get elected and last time Corbyn raised a number of issues early that basically most people agreed with, then he got 'suckered in' and started to promise everything, which left him open to the 'sucker punch'.
The Tories believe they are the 'natural party of power', because they know how to play the FPTP system, certainly last time, to perfection... Labour has to outsmart them in such tactics and Starmer is (in my opinion) doing that right now, he's like an 'eel wriggling' and the Tory press don't know how to pin him down. Long may it last.

Actually what you're describing is exactly what all the post election analytical analysis and leaks said caused Milibands downfall. Miliband also pushed back against his advisers and pushed key speeches to shortly before the election, the issue was they'd created such inertia and unclear messaging that the Tories only had to fight and use up a small window. When Labour actually tried to get out their messaging the Tories/media buried it. There's plenty of commentary from key Labour people, plenty still around who bemoaned keeping the powder dry.

Now Starmer is in a different situation given the healthy lead but you can guarantee the same ploys will be used. The Tories come election time will have months of attack pieces planned, dead cat announcements to bury Labour announcements. If Labour let the Tories have the initiative and fail to beat them to policy announcements then the lead will dwindle. It takes months for people to really understand key messaging and you can't do it all at once it has to be topic by topic, it isn't just a case of releasing it for it to be read on the BBC News (where the dead cat pushes it down to the story rankings).

 

[TheGame]

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[Maticmaker]

said caused Milibands downfall.

Milliband caused Milliband's downfall.
All the Tories had to do was pushover a man already losing his balance; the treatment of his brother, his 'Stonehenge type promises in stone' whoever recommended he try to ape Moses and the ten commandments, written in stone should have been expelled and banished forever!

Milliband was never going to win a large enough majority to change things/move the dial..... Starmer just might!

 

[Mr Pigeon]

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"Pongchong"?

 

[TheGame]

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[2mufc0]

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[Pogue Mahone]

The UK spends more than anywhere else in Europe subsidising the cost of structural inequality in favour of the rich, according to an analysis of 23 OECD countries.

Inequalities of income, wealth and power cost the UK £106.2bn a year compared with the average developed country in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), according to the Equality Trust’s cost of inequality report.

When compared with the top five most equal countries, however, inequality costs the UK £128.4bn a year in damage to the economy, communities and individuals.

Fixing the NHS crisis, including funding the maintenance backlog, hiring more staff and increasing wages, would cost about £66.7bn over 15 years.

“Inequality has made the UK more unhealthy, unhappy and unsafe than our more equal peers,” said Priya Sahni-Nicholas, the co-executive director of the trust. “It is also causing huge damage to our economy: we have shorter healthy working lives, poorer education systems, more crime and less happy societies.”

Britain in the 1970s was one of the most equal of rich countries. Today, it is the second most unequal, after the US.

Sahni-Nicholas said: “There is a direct financial cost to inequality: the consequences of structuring society to allow for massive profiteering for the richest at the expense of the rest of us have been enormous.”

Overreliance on financial systems that allow for massive profits and wealth-hoarding has hollowed out our infrastructure, she added, encouraging massive regional disparities and leaving the UK vulnerable to shocks and recessions.

The report found that the richest 1% in the UK are the most expensive top 1% group in Europe, paying the lowest taxes of such a group in any large European country. The benefits of allowing this to continue are “almost impossible to defend”, said Danny Dorling, the author of Inequality and the 1%.

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Don’t understand how they calculate the 128 billion cost but this seems damning all the same.

 

[4bars]

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Don’t understand how they calculate the 128 billion cost but this seems damning all the same.

is quite simple what damage the inequality does. There are many arguments. My favourite (all numbers made up) people with more than 10 million will buy a limited number of trousers, being generous 20 a year. While people with very limited resources will buy 2 every 3 years. If you allow that through taxes to get 1 million people the capacity to buy 1 trouser more, you will sell 1 million trousers and the rich segment will keep buying the same. And with that every single aspect of the economy

The funny thing is that I am sure that the rich know that increasing the wealth of the base will make them even wealthier and they would create a society with intangibles that would make them happier, so I don't understand why they adopt this position

 

[cafecillos]

I sometimes think about that myself and wonder if they'd rather be slightly less well-off themselves if that meant the gap between them and us peasants would be even bigger.

 

[FireballXL5]

Yes, but if we all wait long enough it'll trickle down...right?

 

[Adisa]

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[golden_blunder]

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Sunak is so far out of his depth he makes David Cameron seem a proper leader in comparison

 

[Buster15]

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Definitely one of Starmer better put downs.

 

[Buster15]

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Yes well it is abundantly clear that Yvette Cooper is many orders of magnitude more intelligent and would make a significantly better Home Secretary than Mr Not So Cleverly. And he is right to be an admirer of her. As am I.

 

[Berbasbullet]

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Best thing he's done.

 

[VP89]

Sunak is so far out of his depth he makes David Cameron seem a proper leader in comparison

To be fair you can stick anyone in that seat and theyd look like a mug

 

[The Corinthian]

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I watch this, and I'm glad I see Sunak looking like a weak boy. Then I watch it and realise even when he's gone, we're left with a spineless sheep in Starmer. Is this the worst position UK politics has been in? It feels like it.

 

[TheGame]

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[Red in STL]

I watch this, and I'm glad I see Sunak looking like a weak boy. Then I watch it and realise even when he's gone, we're left with a spineless sheep in Starmer. Is this the worst position UK politics has been in? It feels like it.

,in my lifetime that was the day Thatcher was elected, and then reelected

 

[Frosty]

,in my lifetime that was the day Thatcher was elected, and then reelected

And then reelected again!

 

[Fergies Gum]

What the hell is going on here. How many neutrality/impartiality rules has Hoyle broken by doing this visit.

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[Kaos]

What the hell is going on here. How many neutrality/impartiality rules has Hoyle broken by doing this visit.

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Even the speaker has a price it seems

Bring back Bercow.

 

[Frosty]

What the hell is going on here. How many neutrality/impartiality rules has Hoyle broken by doing this visit.

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His dad is a member of the House of Lords. He has also explicitly stated he is against Lords reform. He is a consummate establishment representative, but that is overlooked as he doesn't have a Southern accent.

 

[The Corinthian]

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[Dobba]

A devastating loss to campaigners for good austerity across the country, just as they were getting over their favourite war criminal not called Tony Blair shuffling off this mortal coil too.

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[Buster15]

Been listening to the former Health Secretary Matt Hancock giving his statements to the COVID inquiry.
Slimey git trying to exonerate himself.
Everyone else fault not his and pretending that he is telling the truth.
I don't believe a word of what he is trotting out.

Yesterday, there was a lady on the wireless who was in charge of a Care Home who had received a large number of patients from the NHS.
She said that on the very night Hancock was telling everyone that the Care Homes had all the PPE they needed, she was parked in a layby buying any PPE she could from other Care Homes.
They had set up a WhatsApp group so that each care home could identify what they had and what they needed so as to be able to trade.
And she said that Hancock claimed that he had written advice to all care homes on what they should and should not be doing. Rubbish she said. The only advice they had ever been given by Hancock was to wash their hands singing Happy Birthday.

 

[Maticmaker]

I don't believe a word of what he is trotting out.

I don't think even he does, its par for the job.... apart from Frank Field I don't think I have believed any politician, when talking about themselves, since I was about 35 years old, that's about the time of the Oil Crisis, ROSLA, Nixon's resignation, 3-day week, State of Emergency in NI and major local government re-organisation, none of the leading politicians of the day told the truth about their part in things, except I suppose Nixon.... well at least he resigned!

 

[TheGame]

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[Eplel]

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Greek newspapers are legit catering to conspiracy theorists sometimes.

Among other things, the paper accuses Sunak of being a goldmann sachs plant (also calls him rat faced, and that he's in cahoots with the Turkish government, and claims that King Charles is secretly a christian orthodox and he should intervene.

Finally they called Elgin a "katsaplias", which is a slur reseved for mainly for hideously untalented football players.

 

[Red in STL]

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I think a large number of Brits agree with that headline!

 

[Buster15]

I don't think even he does, its par for the job.... apart from Frank Field I don't think I have believed any politician, when talking about themselves, since I was about 35 years old, that's about the time of the Oil Crisis, ROSLA, Nixon's resignation, 3-day week, State of Emergency in NI and major local government re-organisation, none of the leading politicians of the day told the truth about their part in things, except I suppose Nixon.... well at least he resigned!

Hancock should remember that he is under oath having been sworn in as in a normal court of law.

As you rightly point out, it is highly regrettable that we have zero faith in what politicians are saying.
Maybe twas ever thus.

But only this morning, there was a Tory lady at the COP28 trying to convince us that the roll backs in the UK climate change policies, such as listening new coal mining and new oil and gas fields in the north sea, plus Sunak ridiculous changes to electric vehicles from 2030 to 2035 will have 'no change at all to the UK net zero' pledges.
I mean honestly.

 

[Maticmaker]

Hancock should remember that he is under oath having been sworn in as in a normal court of law.

As you rightly point out, it is highly regrettable that we have zero faith in what politicians are saying.
Maybe twas ever thus.

But only this morning, there was a Tory lady at the COP28 trying to convince us that the roll backs in the UK climate change policies, such as listening new coal mining and new oil and gas fields in the north sea, plus Sunak ridiculous changes to electric vehicles from 2030 to 2035 will have 'no change at all to the UK net zero' pledges.
I mean honestly.

It's when they are talking about themselves more than anything else when I disbelieve most, they either 'won the war on their own" or it was "entirely, not their fault".
As far as the net zero is concerned, the argument seems to be instead of laying ourselves open to being 'hostages to fortune' in buying in coal, oil and gas, we will develop more of our own sources, oh yes the price for doing this is we overshoot on net zero... but they don't admit the last bit. The electric cars thing is 'for the birds' anyway, lots of development needed yet on batteries, weight to power ratio's etc. I can't believe anyone really believes this stuff anyway!

 

[Buster15]

It's when they are talking about themselves more than anything else when I disbelieve most, they either 'won the war on their own" or it was "entirely, not their fault".
As far as the net zero is concerned, the argument seems to be instead of laying ourselves open to being 'hostages to fortune' in buying in coal, oil and gas, we will develop more of our own sources, oh yes the price for doing this is we overshoot on net zero... but they don't admit the last bit. The electric cars thing is 'for the birds' anyway, lots of development needed yet on batteries, weight to power ratio's etc. I can't believe anyone really believes this stuff anyway!

There will inevitably be development on EV Batteries and the cars in general. And incidentally I am hoping that more of them will be made here in the UK.
But I have an EV and I couldn't be more pleased with it. Yes they are a bit heavier, assuming you don't drive a ridiculous sized SUV. But the performance is excellent, as is the cost of driving.

 

[Berbasbullet]

There will inevitably be development on EV Batteries and the cars in general. And incidentally I am hoping that more of them will be made here in the UK.
But I have an EV and I couldn't be more pleased with it. Yes they are a bit heavier, assuming you don't drive a ridiculous sized SUV. But the performance is excellent, as is the cost of driving.

How often do you charge it?

 

[Buster15]

How often do you charge it?

This should really be in the Electric Car thread.
I have an MG4 51KWH with the LFP battery which can be charged to 100% and have only ever charged it at home with the Granny Charger. So I typically charge every week.

 

[Paul the Wolf]

How often do you charge it?

I have exactly the same car as @Buster15 and usually top it up every 7 to 10 days at home.
Have calculated that with my previous car it would have cost over €300 in diesel - the new car has cost me around €25 in electricity for the same distance covered. Some saving.

 

[Berbasbullet]

I have exactly the same car as @Buster15 and usually top it up every 7 to 10 days at home.
Have calculated that with my previous car it would have cost over €300 in diesel - the new car has cost me around €25 in electricity for the same distance covered. Some saving.

I didn't know it was that good to be fair! That's some battery.

 

[Maticmaker]

There will inevitably be development on EV Batteries and the cars in general. And incidentally I am hoping that more of them will be made here in the UK.
But I have an EV and I couldn't be more pleased with it. Yes they are a bit heavier, assuming you don't drive a ridiculous sized SUV. But the performance is excellent, as is the cost of driving.

"Ooops" sorry, hope you keep on being pleased.

Lots of people I know with EV's who are far from satisfied, they keep finding faults, the 'power drain' when every thing is switched on, especially in bad weather, which leads also to 'destination anxiety' and for some I am told, costs are more, but good luck... "if the cap fits wear it..." as they say up here

 

[Paul the Wolf]

I didn't know it was that good to be fair! That's some battery.

It's quite a small range - around 350km but I don't do high mileages any more and haven't used a public charger yet. But like all cars you buy a car to adapt to your use. It's considerably cheaper charging it at home. Definitely wouldn't go back to petrol/diesel cars now. I used to have a 3 litre petrol Jag before my previous diesel and this has faster acceleration than that. Boy racer car.