I can't even. How about removing the cap not because of how it plays politically but because it will bring tens of thousands of children out of poverty? Fucking hell. Winning power should be about helping people not running scared of losing power. - ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

chrischirp.bsky.social • 5 days ago

I can't even.

How about removing the cap not because of how it plays politically but because it will bring tens of thousands of children out of poverty?

Fucking hell. Winning power should be about helping people not running scared of losing power.

Comments

sadmazov.bsky.social•5 days ago

This who the labour right are and always have been
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/oct/12/labour-benefits-tories-labour-rachel-reeves-welfare

sadmazov.bsky.social•5 days ago

They aren't doing this because reeves and co want benefits to be removed completely, she hates anyone that can't be "economically active", she hates the poor/children/disabled/retired because they're useless eaters

gambitman.bsky.social•5 days ago

#BlueLabour

lozzadarlo.bsky.social•5 days ago

The LP's aware of poverty & are looking into it.

" ... poverty is probably the most researched issue in social science ... there’s not much we don’t know about the scale and roots of impoverishment and deprivation, or the potential impact of different policy levers".
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/labour-lacks-a-strategy-to-cut-poverty-and-inequality/

canarykate.bsky.social•5 days ago

Agreed - read the article this morning & just thought - wtf. Timing is now, make a difference now. Government should be about leading policy for improvement to childrens lives.

julessheridan.bsky.social•5 days ago

Shameful

dawnbritten.bsky.social•5 days ago

You’re right of course you are x

phillyhart4.bsky.social•5 days ago

I read the Guardian headline first, said almost the same thing word for word out loud, angrily, at my phone, scrolled up slightly, then read your comment! Only difference: I started with ‘Fucking hell’.

teresasm.bsky.social•5 days ago

For those with no heart: outcomes later in life are greatly affected by earlier years. Leave children to suffer and they won't thrive as they might have done with more resources. If you want them to contribute you need to nurture them. Millions of future adults whose outcomes will affect society.

angray.bsky.social•5 days ago

What we have is Starmer, Reeves, Reeves & Cooper. It is not Labour. We need to take it back or have another party.

roybennett.bsky.social•5 days ago

You can`t have it back, Corbyn and his 600,000 members proved that, Blair and his backers will just destroy whoever tries to do so, many of us realised this in 1996 before he got control, that's when (old) Labour as most people knew it, was thoroughly killed off.

jlyons1991.bsky.social•5 days ago

The idea that Starmer and Co are capable of critically weighing the value of lifting thousands of children out of poverty against some vague notion of political benefit makes me laugh out loud. Those fools? Give me a break.

pckenny.bsky.social•5 days ago

Perhaps so but the first priority when one has power is hanging onto it. We keep making the same mistake in thinking that the people are their first priority!

ajkitch.bsky.social•5 days ago

They must be awaiting focus group data to help them decide...

hollybrigstocke.bsky.social•5 days ago

The Starmer regime think they can put a gun to the electorates head and use smooth language to excuse a slide to the neoliberal far right.

My view is if they want to erase my kind and be horrible to people and children they're coming over the cliff too.

Let's see who blinks first.

redkeith.bsky.social•4 days ago

If only they had four more years and a 165 majority.
Their defining characteristic is timidity.

smhwpf.bsky.social•5 days ago

Seems to me Starmer & co.'s mission was always 1) purge the left from Labour 2) win an election based on Tory unpopularity and a zero risk strategy. No vision for what to do in power, just keep with the same approach of pleasing big business, not doing anything to rile the right-wing media, & hope.

paulspeacock.bsky.social•5 days ago

The reality is Labour needs two terms at least to put things right, 5 years won’t cut it, but they have to carry people along with it.

lomelindi12.bsky.social•5 days ago

Really terrible

bartiddu.bsky.social•5 days ago

It would remove far more than that
Numbers here

ruthwatson.bsky.social•5 days ago

Meanwhile, in Scotland,

Constrained by Westminster's financial controls,

We have the Scottish Child Payment, described as 'a game changer' by anti-poverty charities,

Scotland's Government will cancel Labour's two-child cap next year.

Imagine how much more we could do with #ScottishIndependence

neillovatt.bsky.social•4 days ago

https://bsky.app/profile/neillovatt.bsky.social/post/3lpyca3esvk2d

cahirokane.bsky.social•5 days ago

The 2-child benefit cap is a eugenic policy meant to discourage the less desirable from breeding. In fact it targets children who are feckless enough to be born into a family where they have 2 or more siblings.

katek0.bsky.social•5 days ago

This doesn't have to be this way, imagine if you had a government that was determined to improving the economic situation of the working class, instead of just doing austerity & trickle down economics. How come when budgets are tight its those who have the least who have to pay not the most.

scotlassie.bsky.social•5 days ago

Is this a good time to mention, King Charlie got a 52% increase in his allowance. The interest alone, from his hoards of cash, would end poverty overnight. Ditch the millionaire politicians, ditch the monarchy. Vote Greens.

judeet44.bsky.social•5 days ago

Another speculative piece by Crerar...focusing on what she thinks is the reason, ie political posturing. Journalistic posturing is rife and rampant.

parallax2112.bsky.social•5 days ago

Labour seem to be doing their damndest to lose the next GE to Reform. Utterly sickening.

anondon.bsky.social•5 days ago

They’ve lost the wood for the trees. The way to beat the political competition is to effectively govern in a way that helps ppl. THAT will win votes. Not try to slalom through the next yrs avoiding tabloid backlash.

barryhavenhand.bsky.social•5 days ago

I'm old enough to remember Sure Start

gspeng.bsky.social•5 days ago

What's the point of a Labour Party if they are behaving like Thatcher?

chester66red.bsky.social•5 days ago

They wanted power for powers sake and to be anti-LGBTQ*, racist and xenophobic and wreck benefits

2a101010.bsky.social•5 days ago

I thought they were the good guys … forgive my mistake.

1015saturdaynight.bsky.social•5 days ago

But a lot of people don't like their taxes going to support other people's children. By removing the benefit cap Labour will be characterised as arrogant and out of touch with 'ordinary' people. Things aren't as simple as we think

https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/50140-public-support-retaining-the-two-child-benefit-limit-as-starmer-gears-up-for-first-rebellion

roybennett.bsky.social•5 days ago

In England, not in Scotland

nikksinc.bsky.social•5 days ago

So much depends on how YouGov phrased the question.

jacquicroftie.bsky.social•5 days ago

Always true. They asked if it should be kept or abolished, which is valid (I think), but it’s easier to vote for the status quo than really consider what you’re being asked.

nikksinc.bsky.social•5 days ago

Yes, you’ve put it better. We’re conditioned to imagine feckless couples that churn out children and refuse to work. If voters were given the very real scenario of family/friend with 3 children, made redundant and struggling to feed the children, they’d be far less likely to want to retain the cap.

leviathanwilde.bsky.social•4 days ago

Interestingly this story is reported in a different way in The Observer to the screen shot above from The Guardian

“Keir Starmer has told cabinet ministers that he wants to scrap the two-child benefit cap and has asked the Treasury to identify ways to fund the plan”

https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/starmer-to-scrap-two-child-benefit-cap-as-treasury-told-to-find-money

leviathanwilde.bsky.social•4 days ago

The key issue is - will Starmer recognise that taking advice from Gordon Brown (w his lived experience of successfully tackling poverty at country & global scale) is more likely to deliver positive results than taking advice from Morgan McHiltonTimothyCummingsSweany & his Reform-light policy plans?

messy-by-name.bsky.social•5 days ago

If they actually helped people, didn't punish the poor, sick and disabled, then they would be able to stay in power. At the moment I can't imagine them winning the next GE because a lot of their big policies are hurting their core voter base!

sadmazov.bsky.social•5 days ago

They'd gladly lose the next GE as long as it stops any threat to the thatcherite consensus

ern400.bsky.social•5 days ago

It's not as if they're being bold and actually using their huge majority to effect.
They need to go back to their Manifesto, stop deviating and punishing the weak and vulnerable.

messy-by-name.bsky.social•5 days ago

It's not like people are asking for the moon, just for them to actually be Labour!

ern400.bsky.social•5 days ago

🎯

ldw1.bsky.social•5 days ago

https://bsky.app/profile/ldw1.bsky.social/post/3lprxoqeahs23

ruthholliday.bsky.social•5 days ago

Labour must tax the rich. This is US. UK probs similar. There is no mystery why our country is broke.

https://bsky.app/profile/gabrielzucman.bsky.social/post/3lpuhc3leec2t

roybennett.bsky.social•5 days ago

Agreed

roybennett.bsky.social•5 days ago

England, Scotland is already well on the way to alleviating poverty, and that's with Westminster actively undermining its govt`s efforts to do so. https://www.ft.com/content/cf41b5d9-c714-40a2-b66d-251efde61504

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stopthetories.bsky.social•5 days ago

If they lose power, everything (and I mean everything) will be for nothing.

clearlight.bsky.social•5 days ago

They don’t care unless they can use it to get more tax cuts for oligarchs

ajoyce.bsky.social•5 days ago

The right thing to do is still the right thing to do even if not everyone will vote for it. This shouldn’t be hard. A less piss poor politician wouldn’t find kids not starving so hard to sell to a country. Does he actually have any of his own values?

myleshoyle.bsky.social•5 days ago

"Winning power should be about helping people not running scared of losing power."
It's been this way since the day after they won the GE and explains not only the 'winter fuel payment' fiasco but the overall timidity of their policies.
They run scared of the power of the billionaire class.

seismatters.bsky.social•5 days ago

These people are now so fucked