The total intellectual vacuum amongst our politicians www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/01... Wes Streeting might manage to produce a social care plan by 2028. By then, Labour will be in its last inglorious days in office. How did people as incompetent as this ever reach high office in the UK? - ThreadSky

richardjmurphy.bsky.social • 56 days ago

The total intellectual vacuum amongst our politicians https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/01/03/the-total-intellectual-vacuum-amongst-our-politicians/ Wes Streeting might manage to produce a social care plan by 2028. By then, Labour will be in its last inglorious days in office. How did people as incompetent as this ever reach high office in the UK?

Comments

judgesmith46.bsky.social•56 days ago

Media backing billionaires and politicians who will literally do anything to stop change (2017 & 2019 being the most obvious)

100,000's of deaths due to government policy - worth it.

Millions kept in poverty - worth it.

We actually had a crossroads but media is powerful along with cheerleaders

thinkgov.bsky.social•56 days ago

I don’t the problem is not having a plan. Many people know what a plan must contain, nobody knows how to convince voters to pay for it.

Who thinks, we’ll all pay more tax, is an election winner?

losturuk.bsky.social•56 days ago

https://options2040.co.uk/public-opinion-and-taxation-the-surprising-reality/

thinkgov.bsky.social•56 days ago

The key question is will you vote for the party that will increase taxes to pay for essential services e.g. health and care?

Based on behaviour, it doesn’t look as if the main parties believe it’s a vote winner.

Even Green and Lib Dem won’t say it. Taxing “wealth” isn’t quite the same thing.

losturuk.bsky.social•56 days ago

Would I pay more tax for better services? yes.

Based on behaviour both main parties believe in stealth taxes on the poor and tax breaks for the rich.

The discourse around tax - and what it pays for - has been poisoned. That's why when asked if they would pay more tax for people say yes

alanehill.com•56 days ago

How about everyone paying a fair amount of tax on the manifesto?

busygranof6.bsky.social•56 days ago

Amazing that Labour has been going on for years that they had a plan for everything to be put in place on day 1 of their government. An empty vessel makes most noise.

alvinford.bsky.social•56 days ago

They must have had "concepts of a plan".

busygranof6.bsky.social•56 days ago

You are too kind. I don’t believe they ever had that either. It is Starmer we are talking about, no plan at all in his brain apart from getting him to be PM.

alvinford.bsky.social•56 days ago

I was being sarcastic. My quotation was from Fatso Trump, when he was pretending that he had a plan for healthcare.

busygranof6.bsky.social•56 days ago

And thank you for the follow. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

busygranof6.bsky.social•56 days ago

I knew that, sorry if it came across as disagreeing with you. I am totally on your side.

alvinford.bsky.social•56 days ago

👍

jennyharker.bsky.social•56 days ago

We need cross party task forces to tackle the most pressing problems facing this country aided by teams of experts whi actually wirk at the coal face.

rmappleby.bsky.social•56 days ago

Their opponents were even worse?

martandelus.bsky.social•56 days ago

I get the sentiment, sure. But aren't we forgetting something? There's a couple of runaway trains we got round here. For one thing, drinking culture, it's out of control and rapidly destroying health. It is everywhere we look and nearly unescapable. This makes addiction immensely challenging.

martandelus.bsky.social•56 days ago

There is assumed to be 600k people who have AUD which involves a dependance, which means there are more who have problems which may spiral into dependency and this looks poised to get worse.

Along with this, is problems which you have mentioned such as metabolic disorders and diabetes.

martandelus.bsky.social•56 days ago

Smoking too, although in decline, it's once again far too available. Why must it be in absolutely every shop? If people want to escape their binds, shouldn't they be given the option instead of having harmful addictions forced on them? A lessez faire approach is meaningless.

martandelus.bsky.social•56 days ago

Then ofcourse there is the matter of care. If addicitons are associated with ill health. Doesn't this mean that we need to actually do something about it? Because we don't have infinite resources. Same must also apply with the problems with respiritory diseases en masse.

martandelus.bsky.social•56 days ago

A lot of this could be sorted out, but we need to drive the point home that what we are doing just now, isn't working. Honestly, it is best that we reign this in now because it will be a lot harder later. This is but one way to inform our MP's

https://members.parliament.uk/FindYourMP

jaco45er.bsky.social•56 days ago

Surveys show youngsters are drinking less than before. There’s a positive !

martandelus.bsky.social•56 days ago

Yes, i did check that out, it's a positive thing for sure. I also think that more mid-aged adults are starting to turn away from it, probably because they see the truth of the industry more and more. There's hope that it will continue.

jaco45er.bsky.social•56 days ago

After reading Chris V Tulleken’s excellent “Ultra processed people” my non-expert view is that it’s the food industry that’s the problem. You can avoid alcohol & smoking, but a shop in a supermarket can in the long term, be as harmful !!
Unless you do research, but many trust these companies 1/2

jaco45er.bsky.social•56 days ago

But that’s not critiquing people. Young parents lead busy lives etc so if a product says “fat free” they assume it’s a good choice. There is the problem, big business and disingenuous claims !! 2/2

martandelus.bsky.social•56 days ago

That's certainly a reality, there are too many ultra-processed foods around. I've been trying to do more frozen veg and such for a while now. It's quite disturbing that good, healthy food is so expensive. It should be the other way around to promote better health for sure.

pjdenyer.bsky.social•56 days ago

This seems unfair, an immediate funding boost and a number of reforms have been put in place now, the independent commission looking at further reform will make it's first report in 2026. 14 years of managed decline is going to take time to repair.

https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/social-care-reforms-funding-boost-baroness-casey

alexferrie.bsky.social•56 days ago

The question is fair. Given that Labour have had 14 years to develop plans for what they would do in government, where are those plans? Setting up a commission to report in 2028 isn't a plan, it's an exercise in delay

pjdenyer.bsky.social•56 days ago

That's a fair question (& the answer is probably in part the funding boost & immediate reforms), but what I'm saying is unfair is not mention the funding boost, immediate reforms or 2026 report. Saying that more was expected/hoped for is fair, but the coverage, & this OP imply no change, that isn't.

alexferrie.bsky.social•56 days ago

The sole campaign promise from Labour was change. From what I've seen so far, there is no plan to deliver real, meaningful change that will benefit society as a whole. It's a continuation of the neoliberal policies of the previous administration. 14 years, no plan, no relationship to trade Labour

ltrojan.bsky.social•56 days ago

Need I remind you of Fishy? Or the Lettuce? Or the host of other half wits in parliament on both sides???

mark-russell.bsky.social•56 days ago

If it was easy then it would be fixed by now. The constraints imposed by fiancés, practical difficulties and inertia are so significant it will take time. But, really the thing is to help, not throw toys out of the pram and mount a tirade against people trying to do their best.

kibalchich.bsky.social•56 days ago

I assume people voted Labour for real change. Not 'same ole, same ole'. This looks like kicking the problem into the long grass. Money is there to fix social care. It just depends where the govt chooses to spend it. And having the cajones. How about no nukes or funding wars?

mactakeshi.bsky.social•56 days ago

The plan was "Get Torys Oot!" Everything after that is just icing on the cake.

hoodyindy.bsky.social•56 days ago

To my mind, it was pretty much inevitable since Murdoch was given free reign back in the day.

gos75.bsky.social•56 days ago

Smart people don’t go into politics. They can earn far more elsewhere, without the same level of hassle. It’s a cross-partisan issue.

gaspurves.bsky.social•56 days ago

It is. Nicola Sturgeon marginalised the thinkers in the Scottish national movement for a decade, which has led to the rudderless zombie administration we see at Holyrood today.

gos75.bsky.social•56 days ago

And there are bright minds on the centre-right. We need a healthy centre-right. Whereas those minds are fleeing the scene, leaving a vacuum for far right movements and leaving the left unchallenged / complacent.

gaspurves.bsky.social•56 days ago

Neoliberalism has failed and the centre-right have nothing else to offer. That's why the far-right are having a field day.

susanseekshope.bsky.social•53 days ago

slow coaches!!

flyguy1966.bsky.social•56 days ago

Bribery and corruption like all of them. It's a rich person club. We (tax payers) just pick up the tab. They make millions while we freeze to death.

mmm94.bsky.social•56 days ago

Competent people don’t want the job. To face constant abuse, criticism, risk of physical harm no matter what they do or say. Good people unfortunately do other jobs. It’s our fault.

t55ddy.bsky.social•56 days ago

It’s probably quite complex … I often wonder why we don’t use the considerable intellectual resources in our universities to research & solve some of these critical National issues??

damonthedemon.bsky.social•56 days ago

No. The excuse that its “Complex” is pure Government propoganda. We have numerous studies on this already by respected expert organisations with clear outcomes and objectives. This is simply kicking into the long grass. Dont be fooled.

leylandcacti.bsky.social•56 days ago

mostly because they were seen as the least worst option, and with right-wing vote split, they picked up more seats without increasing their vote share. Which presumably explains their reluctance to bring in PR, despite their conference and membership supporting it.

craiggwilliams.bsky.social•56 days ago

Well the New Labour project came crashing down after the GFC and the media have merrily shitposted increasingly awful governments into office ever since while anybody that might actually change anything gets roundly derided as a racist and terrorist sympathiser.

johntonks.bsky.social•56 days ago

What a very good question. A position we have been in for decades. Some how the least able have secured positions across the whole political spectrum.

jaco45er.bsky.social•56 days ago

I say uneducated by I can speak from experience on the social care system.
The social care system is in tatters which backfills into the NHS. Resolved care system issues? Relieve NHS pressure. If you’re going to attack old boy, I’d rewind back to 14 years ago and work up !!

jaco45er.bsky.social•56 days ago

This is waffle 🤦‍♂️ I know you’re a professor and I’m a mere, uneducated punter but a couple of things:
Labour have been in for 5 mins, we can’t predict where they will be in 2028, if policies begin to shine. Why blame Labour for last 14 years of social care crisis? Was there no government in then?