Reducing 'regulation' to increase 'growth' while reducing immigration & bolstering workers' rights & ruling out any return to the single market/customs union is such a mad project that I'm tempted to take the Reeves speech live this morning...
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It only makes sense if you assume that Labour looks at the project of governing solely through the lens of what it thinks is likely to get it reelected.
Their plan to win the next election is clearly to be completely cautious, pray for a miracle and hope nobody notices if it doesn't happen. Along with Farage is bad! I think we all know that ends.
Everyone on here is like a football crowd turning on the referee. They all know how to to do his job better than him. If you want to know how we will finish up with a Reform government just listen to yourselves.
Can’t see too many Tories that have left the fold for the LD returning on current form. In fact even more could follow as they continue to pursue the Reform vote.
I've moved from Labour to the Greens. I will never vote Labour again. We need no airport expansion and no ruining the Green Belt. Tax the rich including a wealth tax and a land tax.
Will your change of allegiance bring about a green MP?
I would love to vote Green but for me a Green vote is a vote for the tories and I do not want the tories back.
The best way to ensure that doesn't happen would be PR. Reform ltd supporters are a vocal minority more easily diluted if there's a choice of progressive parties.
I'm not sure about PR currently.
Hitler got 2.6% of the vote in 1928. 5 years later he was chancelor. That under a list system PR.
I would favour a 2 round system as in France. First round to vote for whom you want 2nd to vote against who you want to keep out.
"What it thinks" is right. In reality, the policies of this increasingly disappointing Labour Govt are pushing voters towards the populists by ignoring the needs of the mass of the population.
The best thing that can happen to Labour is a Reform win in the Runcorn by-election after Mike Amesbury is removed as an MP. A warning but with time to put it right. I have no confidence they will listen though
A win for that mob in our constituency would be a fucking disaster for the 71,000 people who live here, and for anyone who does not want to embolden fascism!
Conner you've been on here for 12 months - still no bio and you've been blocked by more accounts than you follow or follow you. So this is the first and last bit of engagement you get from me.
Agreed it isn’t good, but I think it will happen because of how Labour are going about things. Hopefully they learn from it and turn things around before Reform get a majority
Your political strategy sounds like let the fascists win a bit in the hope that they don't win a lot later - just to own the libs!! You don't give ground to fascists anywhere at any time. Its a bit more than 'not good'.
So how will Labour change their mindset? Their strategy is to bury their head in the sand. I don’t have the answers but are you worried Reform will win that seat? Me too. How has it come to this?
I don't understand why they can't see that attacking Brexit for all of its dire economic consequences is the best way to keep Farage at bay. It's his only legacy and look what a mess it has caused!
Not sure I agree with it but I think it's still about feelings versus facts & while the facts are currently well ahead, the calculation is that populist liars could probably still reverse the balance. There will probably come a point where the best option is picking this battle regardless.
GDP as a metric isn't "growth" that makes people's lives better. That £5bn worth of stolen Bitcoin recovered will put up GDP, and estimates of illegal activity go into calculating GDP figures 1/
exactly this. as soon as anybody in a position of influence starts talking about anything approximating 'rejoin', the usual media outlets will just put their shoulders back to the wheel.
Sharp End, current affairs programme on ITV Wales last night, had an elected Conservative representative and members of the public saying how well Brexit has gone. None so blind.
They're convinced they can get a bit of the pie. Same with decisions pandering to technocrats.
Labour are chasing the same scams people have fallen for, hoping if they get the front everyone will praise them. Unable to see they won't, and the scams are already backfiring.
MAD
The Tories wanted Singapore on Thames and now Labour are going for a kind of Singapore on Thames light. Meanwhile the elephant in the room must not be mentioned for fear of spooking a few ex Labour voters who are already voting Reform.
At least part of the issue is with client journalists not asking relevant or detailed questions. As soon as you start asking for the detail, these things fall apart like a cheap suit.
Richard J Murphy, the tax reform campaigner, has published proposals which would do just that. He's on Bluesky, and posts a vid daily on YouTube. Rachel Reeves is going in the wrong direction sadly. 4/end.
So if Rachel Reeves wants "growth", she needs to remove the incentives that drive investors to favour speculation, rather than productive investment in capital projects. That isn't impossible to do, with reform of the tax system 3/
Reeves getting giddy about a £600m opportunity with China whilst forgetting to mention the annual £100bn hit to the UK economy from not being in the Customs Union 👌
In that case, I'M tempted to scrape all ten of my nails up and down a blackboard whilst singing "Ode to Joy" to myself over and over and over again until the message gets through
There is a distinction between creating opportunity for growth & creating opportunity to be exploited by the Corrupted.
You don’t have growth by muzzling regulators: You create exploitation: We suffer, while malign investors are left, unfettered, to pick and feed off our rotting economic corpse…
If only government policy could get back to doing the right thing, rather than running scared about and appeasing the opposition, in this case Reform and their anti Europe any Net Zero agenda
This obsession that reducing regulations creates growth needs to end. Boeing is a great example of why we need regulations. It is not just to protect the customers or employees, but companies their own from greed induced myopia.
The corrupt Tories were a horrendous nightmare that cost the Nation dearly but you were warned about Starmer & the treacherous Blairites! They are Tories dressed up in red rosettes.
👀 You have to be in power to implement anything. Then you have to thread the needle and do the best given the circumstances. It's not pretty but it's better than the last mad bunch selling us down the river. 🤷🏼♀ More workers right is a good move. Growth is the key to paying for NHS & Defence etc..
Starmer didn't win through popularity. He had the luck of the SNP and Conservatives collapsjng. In any other election in the past 20 years Labour would have lost. They have a strong majority and there is nothing stopping them from implementing radical change. Except themselves. Meow.
No they need 10 to 15 years in power to move things back to normal and rebuild the country, so they have to be very careful and not take their voters for granted. Starmer is serious about fulfilling his promises. All of them.The only way out of this mess is Growth. The EU is years away 10? 20? 🤷🏼♀
There is nothing stopping them from undoing much of the harmful legislation passed under the Conservatives. Labour need to be radically pro-worker because Reform will eat their lunch otherwise. I have no idea what promises Starmer made as nothing he was made leader for originally remains. Meow.
The easy win for growth must be to abolish the ridiculous Sunday trading law.... basically another half day trading a week available, more employment and thus growth – all at the swipe of a pen.
Is Labour making the same mistake Biden did-concentrating on abstract concepts like growth rather than money in people’s pockets/actual visible improvements to public services?
What about Thunberg’s warning of 10 years (now 5) to save the planet? Growth isn’t a panacea. Green growth not any growth.
100% growth without actual redistribution will only mean the rich get richer, even during the new Labour era where some money was forced downward the gap grew between the continue to grow (just a bit slower)
Never much serious discussion in the public political sphere about the truly important and fundamental issues facing everyone. Instead it’s all just culture war b.s., sloganeering, and tub-thumping prattle for the most part.
The aspects of growth which they DON’T speak about make it so much more interesting. Only one of the eleven journalists today asked some difficult environmental questions.
Food security and how that squares with growth, would be an interesting one. Not that you’d get an honest answer.
Well said. We have a huge disparity of wealth and power I this country. How does extending airports help the poor or the environment or our global climate change?
My mid-70s parents & their friends think Brexit is the best thing the UK cud hav done & shud hav happened yrs b4😬. You can show them all the facts/figures u want. Farage is some sort of saint & there’s no telling them otherwise. They shout down ANY facts abt immigration: facts r lies:lies r facts 🤷🏻♀️
Labour need to stop trying to appease those people who vote Conservative and Reform and start asking what it is , that those who voted for them actually want.
We’ve had 14+ years of poor governance and it’s Labour’s job to put everything straight the way Labour would do it, not how Reform would.
Should disabuse anyone of the notion that Labour lacks imagination. Strange way of demonstrating it, however... with a harebrained “plan” that appears to be completely incoherent and seems rife w/ all sorts of potential (inevitable some might say) soon-to-be “unintended consequences.”
The contradictions are mind blowing. To successfully grow the economy with major infrastructure projects requires skilled people and lots of them . Heathrow expansion is a very complicated project that requires specialist project management skills which are in short supply. Another potential HS2 ?
There is also a contradiction in party funding coming from unions as the value of trades union membership being inversely linked to the strength of the national economy and state level labour protection.
I'm enjoying it, thank you. No one can complain it isn't positive and uplifting. I'm sure the closer ties with Europe is happening away from the press and commentariat. It is a toxic political story here.
If Labour are truly worried about breaching their "red lines" could they ask people what they are and if they can correctly remember them, then ask them if they want to keep them? Then decide if they are still significant.
Wen older mean sad older people call up and moan about immigration.
They r ither young fit men,if they are.Their not blocking up the NHS..Their saving their As.!
They r never challenged on this.
You're as bad as the rest of the Anti Labour press. "mythical growth" your opening statement this morning. Just because Tory's failed for 14 years does not make growth mythical if you have the desire and determination to make it happen
Im fairly sure that had Starmer committed to rejoining the single market as part of the labour election manifesto they would be in a much better position.
Whilst I support this government wholeheartedly, I can't understand it. And worryingly they can't seem to explain the contradictions to someone who wants to understand let alone those determined not to.
This feels like another attempt at “supply side reform”
Remove workers rights, reduce their income, so you have a cheap workforce that attracts foreign investors. Making sure they’re poor to offer resistance
Not the direction I’d personally want to see it go in
As things in the USA continue, there's a very real chance that in the coming months and years a "move closer to Europe and away from the USA" stance will be both an economic and a political winner. Many see quite the opposite atm, but give it a year or two and I could see that flip 180.
As long as “growth” only benefits the wealthy and big business, their efforts will be fruitless.
Labour seem to be relying on the debunked trickle down approach to growth, which always results in the wealth gap growing and poorer people feeling worse off.
Ruling out any return to SM or CU is absolutely weeing on the Scots who voted against Brexit. Confirms that the only way we would have the slightest chance of making closer ties with mainland Europe is by becoming independent.
Do Labour realise that Brexit is Farage’s Achilles heel now. Sadly, they don’t have time to gradually phase closer economic relationships with the EU. If they want to deliver recognisable improvements to ordinary folks lives before the next GE they must attempt to rejoin the CU & SM asap.
I am not sure there are any answers to any of the most pressing questions that do not involve the word global.
We can rearrange the chairs on this wee nation as much as we like but until there is a global movement to deal with inequality and climate change, we are on a hiding to nothing.
A progressive thinking federal Europe may be a start but I'm not sure that is the current direction of travel politically. We talk about UK rejoining EU as a fix all solution but some EU countries are in the same political hole the UK finds itself in...
Reeves is willing for a fight to get these plans through. So she is willing to fight for a policy that is both absurd and will face huge public opposition. That is political suicide.
Most of their decisions have made no sense. The only question I want answered is who has the UK Gov by the short and curlies to make them do these things.
I always voted Labour because I want to improve living standards, now, for the poor also myself. Why did they miss the open goal of raising tax thresholds at the bottom and increasing taxes at the top? Imagine if the lower income bracket received more money next April in their wages. More votes?
Keir seems to want nothing more than see Farage becoming the PM, there's no other explanation for his pure stupidity.
Re-entering the EU has public support, especially among young people, who Labour continuously ignore through all of their policies.
We are over regulated, not in terms of standards, but in terms of process. And the standards we have, notably building safety, just haven't been enforced. EU is a third rail - nobody is going to touch that yet. The dishonest debate over immigration does rankle though.
With a birth replacement rate of 1.6 and falling, we are going to need a lot of immigrants to support and pay for the increasing elderly population. Lest we end up in a death spiral like South Korea or Japan.
They really do have to start coming up with the goods. I know 14 yrs of mismanagement by the Tories has caused so much damage but they have had 14 yrs in opposition to come up with a plan. It's not as though they didn't know what the Tories were doing.
Please,please don't put Reeves' speech on...I'd rather listen to the speaking clock..if it still exists. How many times can the word 'growth' be said in a speech? Is she part of some drinking game?
We need a redistribution of power and wealth starting with a wealth tax. We also need Green policies such as no airport extension or building over the Green belt. We also need more regulations not less to protect consumer rights and health and safety. Doncaster Airport should remain closed.
Oxford/Cambridge corridor would benefit from further expansion. Add a station at Silverstone & link it with Milton Keynes = no traffic chaos when F1 is on.Then link Silverstone with Banbury & Northampton.That would create a rail network linking up London, Oxford, Northampton, Cambridge & Birmingham.
And all while causing huge distress to ill and disabled people with the promised "ruthless" cuts to their support. Life could become unbearable for many who simply cannot work - however impoverished they become
They have learned no lessons from other progressive parties wedded to neo-liberalism esp the Democrats. Populist right wing parties offering false promises to the left behind are making ground everywhere. Stop sucking up to the rich/big business or we will get our own Trump
We're 6 months into a 5 year parliament. Maybe I'm being naive about reeves and starmer but they are sensible grown up people who know what their doing. If they go for rejoining Europe now, farage and his goons will make gains by saying they can't be trusted. They need time to get this done properly
Yeah, I'd hate for them to be the same as the tories and farage. But this was never gonna happen overnight as the mess was huge and deep. The way politics work now is it isn't enough being right, you have to combat social media, media and people's entrenched views.
Appreciate you’re well intentioned, but you should just have a phone-in where you apologise to all the callers you were rude to for not backing ‘Labour’? Then go back over how you got conned into joining that ridiculous smear campaign against the left.
Unfortunately it boils down to the lack of understanding of how sterling works. So we box ourselves in with nonsensical ’fiscal rules’ and end with environmental vandalism. Instead of massive public investment around a sustainable ‘green’ future, our only hope. https://findingthemoney.vhx.tv/products/finding-the-money
Comments
Theres not a single politician in parliament that knows that to do.
It's the strategy of running scared of the newspaper barons and hoping the electorate don't notice (or don't have any better options).
They're not interested in what's good for the UK.
Only what's good for Labour.
Party before country all the way.
It's a disgrace.
I would love to vote Green but for me a Green vote is a vote for the tories and I do not want the tories back.
Hitler got 2.6% of the vote in 1928. 5 years later he was chancelor. That under a list system PR.
I would favour a 2 round system as in France. First round to vote for whom you want 2nd to vote against who you want to keep out.
Labour have been a disaster for Halton, the far left thug is hopefully going to prison and Halton can move on from labour.
In other words you have no answers, you know Halton is a mess.
So you write this bs.
https://bsky.app/profile/carolinelucas.bsky.social/post/3lhospmakm22z
I’m so, so disappointed in the Labour Party right now.
"Brexit has made you poorer, has increased prices" is a far better line than "we are going to stimulate growth by speeding up planning"
It remains that Labour got in by default with no appetite for anything but staying there.
Labour are chasing the same scams people have fallen for, hoping if they get the front everyone will praise them. Unable to see they won't, and the scams are already backfiring.
The Tories wanted Singapore on Thames and now Labour are going for a kind of Singapore on Thames light. Meanwhile the elephant in the room must not be mentioned for fear of spooking a few ex Labour voters who are already voting Reform.
Dan: 1) Consistent standardisation aligned with our target (closest) markets;
2) Stability, founded upon positive customer outcomes;
3) Opportunities, like having unfettered access to markets and their consumers…The EU
https://bsky.app/profile/danaiolos.bsky.social/post/3lgun53vnns2u
You don’t have growth by muzzling regulators: You create exploitation: We suffer, while malign investors are left, unfettered, to pick and feed off our rotting economic corpse…
Plus you missed the environmental aspect.
Anyone see a pattern?
What about Thunberg’s warning of 10 years (now 5) to save the planet? Growth isn’t a panacea. Green growth not any growth.
But will it help the rest of us?
They need to address the relative sizes of all the slices to ensure the smallest slices get bigger.
That is when the people will feel better off.
Food security and how that squares with growth, would be an interesting one. Not that you’d get an honest answer.
Just don't.....
If that makes sense.
We’ve had 14+ years of poor governance and it’s Labour’s job to put everything straight the way Labour would do it, not how Reform would.
These "heroes" don't like immigration. They supported Brexit. They don't like anything 'unpatriotic' or soft of skivers.
1/
https://news.sky.com/story/keir-starmer-used-his-party-conference-speech-to-sharpen-his-message-and-go-heavy-on-patriotism-in-a-pitch-to-hero-voters-12706410
2/2
I would suggest most people don't know or care
Be bold and make a difference. Otherwise I fear they’ll be the midwives of a Reform UK government.
They r ither young fit men,if they are.Their not blocking up the NHS..Their saving their As.!
They r never challenged on this.
Remove workers rights, reduce their income, so you have a cheap workforce that attracts foreign investors. Making sure they’re poor to offer resistance
Not the direction I’d personally want to see it go in
Limiting overtime hours, min pay, safe working conditions, everything related to workers rights are regulations too
I’m no Corbynite but my membership has been teetering for a little while now.
Labour seem to be relying on the debunked trickle down approach to growth, which always results in the wealth gap growing and poorer people feeling worse off.
We can rearrange the chairs on this wee nation as much as we like but until there is a global movement to deal with inequality and climate change, we are on a hiding to nothing.
This is planning to fail.
'EMPIRE'
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I'm also chilled that Reeves has been referring to sustainable air travel - absolute Orwellian nonsense.
I fear that when this fails, Farage will sweep in. It's terrifying.
Re-entering the EU has public support, especially among young people, who Labour continuously ignore through all of their policies.
If this is about growth and the economy above all else, get us back in the EU. Surely.. that is a given.
Why not? It upsets the right wingers and the rich elites that financially gained millions or more.
I'll look forward to it. 🍿