The Politics Thread | Page 874 | Vital Football

The Politics Thread

As much as I hate the Tories, and I do hate the Tories, they are gone now and Labour's economic incompetence is their own doing.

I don't think Rachel Reeves, despite her very expensive education, understands economics.

My whole issue with the Tories is that austerity is economic nonsense. It's ideological warfare against the poor and in the end, everyone loses.

I was hoping to see a bonanza budget with all kinds of investment in the future of Britain. What we have got is a shuffling of the deck chairs.

I'm very worried that Starmer is a Tory with a red tie.
This, I read a couple of weeks ago that Starmer is a Tory mole planted in Labour to totally destroy the Labour Party forever.
 
The only people this affects is people who get the bus. Could be about 40 pounds extra a month they have to find for this, just to get to work and back. Considering the amount of these people who need to use food banks, I don't think that is a small amount. They are the same ones who are likely to be shafted with stagnated wages and job losses because of the NI contribution rise.
It doesn't affect the wealthy (car drivers) at all. It's easy to say just stop going for a pint, or stop vaping, but that is showing a real lack of empathy IMO. These are the people who voted Labour because they were 'desperate' for change.
Thing is though, they coped before the cap. What was a daysaver up to £8.75? Bus passes? Returns?

Not sure the employers NI rise is suddenly going to stop them paying above minimum wage when they never bothered before either? Any expanding business will cope, a shrinking business would have an issue regardless.
 
The beer duty reduction is a smart but sly one having digested it more.

It’s always one that grabs the headlines, it’s the first thing I joke about with the in law is the beer duty tax and planning a trip to the pub when it’s frozen usually.

The emotional benefit of announcing a reduction in the rate is much greater than the actual cash impact given it’s literally 1p, as stated by Reeves herself. She built that one up with a solid statement for a 1p reduction, which she could’ve just froze but took the emotional benefit to leverage just elsewhere.

The more I think about beer duty, the more it takes the piss and shouldn’t be celebrated so much.
 
If Jeremy CHunt hadn't shamelessly cut NI (for employees) back in the spring, pre-election, there might not have been any need to consider increasing it (for employers) this time around.

Easy to pile in on Labour, but it's quite clear (as confirmed by the OBR) that the scale of the mess inherited was something no one realised (apart from Sunak, Hunt et al).

It will take more than this parliament to even begin to recover.
 
If Jeremy CHunt hadn't shamelessly cut NI (for employees) back in the spring, pre-election, there might not have been any need to consider increasing it (for employers) this time around.

Easy to pile in on Labour, but it's quite clear (as confirmed by the OBR) that the scale of the mess inherited was something no one realised (apart from Sunak, Hunt et al).

It will take more than this parliament to even begin to recover.

You are right. They can't undo 14 years of suicidal economics with one budget but it seems to me that they didn't even try.

Why not hit the ground running with big investment into the future of Britain? Instead we got 1p taken from there and put here.

Does Starmer actually have any ideas to turn this ship around?
 
From what I've seen, it's there BB. We just need to wait for the media and talking heads to stop spaffing the lazy bollocks and fannying around the edges for easy headlines.

The all important question, as ever, with the money there, accounted for now blah blah.

When does Lab get past lawyers, accountants, architects and get to building now (housing, schools etc), what do we see with new NHS buildings, and how quickly does the new equipment arrive.

It's a bold budget, it's possibly already suicide but it can't be done again without them committing it, and it's that bold in some ways Reeves/Starmer live or die by growth noticeably happening in the first term - and I can't see that happening as even their projections (OBR etc) show noticeable is truly 10 yrs +.

Labour need quick visible signs of this budget producing bricks and equipment as promised, that'll span wider economy and the much vaunted 'small struggling businesses'. People can grab to that as action.

And they need to do that, whilst plugging the gap and day to day costs, and the loss and reduction of services we have seen to boot.
 
From what I've seen, it's there BB. We just need to wait for the media and talking heads to stop spaffing the lazy bollocks and fannying around the edges for easy headlines.

The all important question, as ever, with the money there, accounted for now blah blah.

When does Lab get past lawyers, accountants, architects and get to building now (housing, schools etc), what do we see with new NHS buildings, and how quickly does the new equipment arrive.

It's a bold budget, it's possibly already suicide but it can't be done again without them committing it, and it's that bold in some ways Reeves/Starmer live or die by growth noticeably happening in the first term - and I can't see that happening as even their projections (OBR etc) show noticeable is truly 10 yrs +.

Labour need quick visible signs of this budget producing bricks and equipment as promised, that'll span wider economy and the much vaunted 'small struggling businesses'. People can grab to that as action.

And they need to do that, whilst plugging the gap and day to day costs, and the loss and reduction of services we have seen to boot.

I really hope you are right, Mike.

I really want to support Starmer but I'm struggling to find a reason to except that he isn't a Tory.
 
There's strengths and weaknesses to be honest. It's very good that significant money will be going into the NHS and education, this is absolutely vital. I certainly applaud this.

The weaknesses I see is that of course this will hit business and this will ultimately impact the economy. The budget is very weak regarding economic growth. I also think they need to be realistic that increasing employer NI contributions will eventually hit working people through worse pay rises and eventual downward pressure on wages with the cost passed on to employees.

Two other issues I have is that the inheritance tax thresholds should not be frozen and should be inflation adjusted, this isn't unique to Labour as the Tories also froze the thresholds.

Finally I'm pretty sure I heard in the car yesterday that £3bn a year is being pledged to Ukraine for 'as long it takes'. To put this in perspective, this is a bit more than 10% of the expected revenues generated from the NI contribution increase. This money is absolutely better off being spent at home.
 
Finally I'm pretty sure I heard in the car yesterday that £3bn a year is being pledged to Ukraine for 'as long it takes'. To put this in perspective, this is a bit more than 10% of the expected revenues generated from the NI contribution increase. This money is absolutely better off being spent at home.

You heard correctly, those exact words.

Controversial point coming up, if Trump gets into power then he may put an end to the war in Ukraine pretty quickly, the Democrats will continue the status quo. Labour are powerless to influence anything directly out there, so the quicker the US decide it’s the right thing to get around the table the better so that we can stop spending £3BN each year.
 
If Jeremy CHunt hadn't shamelessly cut NI (for employees) back in the spring, pre-election, there might not have been any need to consider increasing it (for employers) this time around.

Easy to pile in on Labour, but it's quite clear (as confirmed by the OBR) that the scale of the mess inherited was something no one realised (apart from Sunak, Hunt et al).

It will take more than this parliament to even begin to recover.

Really harsh to pick on the party who had 14 years to improve things, I notice @sirdennis doing the same. Bullies, having a go at the rich bully boys playing with the working classes and taking the piss out of the country when you have Labour in power for 2 months or so....!

As you say, Hunt did that knowing full well it wasn't the brightest of moves and probably realising it wouldn't be his problem.

And seeing Rishi all indignant yesterday implying he was sticking up for the working classes, well.. beyond parody really, albeit some fall for it.
 
Social care should have been front and centre, when it came to the NHS part. It is all well and good throwing more money at that monster, it is more proper (in the round, cross party) reform to sort all that out, as best as it can be sorted. But again, social care really isn't being pushed to take some pressure off the NHS.
 
And seeing Rishi all indignant yesterday implying he was sticking up for the working classes, well.. beyond parody really, albeit some fall for it.
Sunak was apoplectic because he now has to pay £450 extra for his private jet usage, VAT on the school fees for his kids and his wife will lose her non-dom status as its being abolished.

Sunak is definitely a budget 'loser' this time around.