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Sorry, I know politics is taboo on here but I just can't believe how intent the Labour party are to push the self-destruct button. The party is tumbling in the polls and elections but the muppets just seem to want to drive a further wedge through it and split. They really need to see the bigger picture and pull together. It wouldn't be so bad if those in opposition were more central but unfortunately I fear this is just opening the door for NF to wheedle his way in. All very depressing.
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The Labour Party on 21:48 - May 14 with 2832 views
Its 7 PMs in 10yrs now isn't it? Reckon a QPR manager has more job security than the PM nowadays.
Personally, I feel there should be a general election if the PM who won an election gets launched - doesn't sit right with me having a PM who hasn't got a personal mandate from the electorate.
My dad thought I'd be a PM one day. Post Man.
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The Labour Party on 22:31 - May 14 with 2693 views
The thread keeps circling around personalities and factions, but there's an actual structural problem nobody's naming clearly.
Look at what LazyFan proposes: renationalise energy, take on big business, and fund the green economy through North Sea oil profits split 50/50. It's coherent, but it requires one thing to work: that markets will accept a major redistribution of wealth and state ownership without immediate capital discipline.
That's the unstated assumption in the left-wing argument, and I don't think it holds. Not because "the rich secretly control everything", but because capital is mobile.
A government announcing large-scale nationalisation, wealth redistribution, or aggressive business taxation faces immediate pressure: bond yields spike, currency weakens, and investment capital relocates. That's not a conspiracy but finance working as it actually works.
The evidence is there: Corbyn's polling collapsed the moment markets priced in his policies. Every developed economy attempting large-scale redistribution in the past 30 years has either accepted working within market constraints (Denmark, Germany) or faced economic instability. There's no recent example of successfully breaking the constraint without severe cost.
If the constraint is real, then the choice isn't between "principled left-wing policies" and "sell-out centrism". It's between:
Option A: Be honest about the constraint. Say what you can actually do within it. Build trust through measured delivery. It's slower and less exciting, but it's sustainable.
Option B: Promise to break the constraint. Face immediate market pressure. Either break your promises (the Corbyn problem) or destabilise the economy trying to keep them.
Starmer chose A implicitly, but he didn't communicate it - or communicate it well enough. He tried to look left while acting centrist, and that's why he's lost both audiences.
The "unity" argument is also a distraction because you can't unite around a false promise. If the left demands policies that the fiscal position won't support, and the centre says "that will destabilise us," you can't compromise. One of them is wrong about the constraint.
Either (a) the constraint is real, in which case the left's approach won't work, or (b) it isn't, in which case we should be implementing the left's policies now.
That's not factionalism. but a genuine disagreement about what's possible.
Starmer failed not by choosing A over B but by not being honest that he was choosing. He should have said, "Here's the fiscal reality. Here's what we can do. Here's why it matters." Instead, he looked like he was choosing between two poor options rather than explaining why one was necessary.
HAYESBOY's right that childcare, rents reform, and minimum wage increases matter. But they matter more if you explain why they're what's possible, not if you present them as a consolation prize for the transformation you promised but couldn't deliver.
Re VAT on private schools and NI increases, LazyFan's analysis of their distributional effects has merit. But the alternative (higher income tax, wealth tax, wealth redistribution via capital controls) faces the same market constraint. These aren't "Tory policies"; they're the least bad options given what markets will tolerate.
Labour need a leader who can do three things:
Be explicit about fiscal constraints rather than pretend they don't exist. Show what can be done within those constraints and why it matters. Actually deliver it, so trust rebuilds.
That's not "centrism" as a label. It's just honesty about the world we're actually operating in.
The left will argue those constraints are politically illegitimate and that we should reject them, even at economic cost. That reflects a lot of the Green's position, but it requires saying that clearly, not pretending the constraint doesn't exist while promising to break it.
Of the candidates being discussed, what matters isn't their previous positions but whether they can do three things immediately:
First: Make a clear public case about fiscal constraints. Not in technical jargon but in language that working people understand. 'Here's what the bond markets will do if we promise X. Here's why that matters. Here's what we can do instead.'
Second: Reconnect the policies they can deliver to people's actual lives. Childcare, rents, wages, and NHS waiting lists aren't consolation prizes. They're material improvements. But only if you explain them as the result of honest choices, not failures of ambition.
Third: Show willingness to make hard trade-offs publicly and not hide them. When the left says 'renationalise energy', the answer should be 'We've looked at the fiscal cost and the market risk and recognise they're real.' Here's what we're doing instead and why it matters more.' That's leadership. The current approach, trying to look left while acting centre, just looks dishonest.
Any candidate who can do that gets a chance. Any candidate who tries the Starmer approach again deserves to lose.
Its 7 PMs in 10yrs now isn't it? Reckon a QPR manager has more job security than the PM nowadays.
Personally, I feel there should be a general election if the PM who won an election gets launched - doesn't sit right with me having a PM who hasn't got a personal mandate from the electorate.
This highlights an important issue…the electorate don’t vote for the PM. Maybe that’s part of the problem, especially as the majority of people treat politics as a popularity contest.
On a separate note, I wonder if banning all funding to political parties and giving a level playing field to campaign and develop policies would improve things? Also, encouraging more cross party working on key issues?
[Post edited 15 May 6:52]
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The Labour Party on 07:55 - May 15 with 2368 views
This highlights an important issue…the electorate don’t vote for the PM. Maybe that’s part of the problem, especially as the majority of people treat politics as a popularity contest.
On a separate note, I wonder if banning all funding to political parties and giving a level playing field to campaign and develop policies would improve things? Also, encouraging more cross party working on key issues?
[Post edited 15 May 6:52]
Its the media that get rid of PM's. Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer.
They run the narrative - Farage will get the same treatment.
This is the ISSUE now - not any particular leader or party....
Its 7 PMs in 10yrs now isn't it? Reckon a QPR manager has more job security than the PM nowadays.
Personally, I feel there should be a general election if the PM who won an election gets launched - doesn't sit right with me having a PM who hasn't got a personal mandate from the electorate.
Between 2015 and 2024 that would have meant 5 GEs instead of 3. As Betty from Bristol might have said "Oh no, not another one".
"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the Earth all one's lifetime." (Mark Twain)
Find me on twitter @derbyhoop and now on Bluesky
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The Labour Party on 10:57 - May 15 with 2138 views
The Labour Party on 07:55 - May 15 by numptydumpty
Its the media that get rid of PM's. Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer.
They run the narrative - Farage will get the same treatment.
This is the ISSUE now - not any particular leader or party....
Liz Truss did for herself really, she was a car crash waiting to happen even before she got the conservative vote, I'm not entirely sure the press needed to do much there. And Rishi Sunak inherited a mess noone could turnaround.
Burnham taking over now still gives him three years, but he's massively constrained by the current debt levels, tax and cost of living burden on small/medium sized business and the bottom 60% of earners.
I'm no fan of Labour, but if there's anyone in the Labour Party that could turn it around it is him successfully taking policies that have turned Manchester around to the National level, without splurging more on welfare until the growth starts to pay for it. However he'd need a united labour party behind him, and unfortunately I don't see that happening.
Which ultimately will lead us with Reform who's tax policies make Lizz Truss' seem like a well though out and considered plan however attractive they may seem to some.
Mind you that assumes he'll win the by-election, which seems like a 40% shot at best, which will Leave Starmer in power for now, but a dead duck and unable to govern, with the most likely outcome he calls a snap election similar to Theresa May.
We then get Reform in early, and just watch as they completely tank the economy worse than Truss.
Only in the UK!
[Post edited 15 May 11:16]
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The Labour Party on 11:45 - May 15 with 2061 views
The Labour Party on 10:57 - May 15 by swisscottage
Liz Truss did for herself really, she was a car crash waiting to happen even before she got the conservative vote, I'm not entirely sure the press needed to do much there. And Rishi Sunak inherited a mess noone could turnaround.
Burnham taking over now still gives him three years, but he's massively constrained by the current debt levels, tax and cost of living burden on small/medium sized business and the bottom 60% of earners.
I'm no fan of Labour, but if there's anyone in the Labour Party that could turn it around it is him successfully taking policies that have turned Manchester around to the National level, without splurging more on welfare until the growth starts to pay for it. However he'd need a united labour party behind him, and unfortunately I don't see that happening.
Which ultimately will lead us with Reform who's tax policies make Lizz Truss' seem like a well though out and considered plan however attractive they may seem to some.
Mind you that assumes he'll win the by-election, which seems like a 40% shot at best, which will Leave Starmer in power for now, but a dead duck and unable to govern, with the most likely outcome he calls a snap election similar to Theresa May.
We then get Reform in early, and just watch as they completely tank the economy worse than Truss.
Only in the UK!
[Post edited 15 May 11:16]
I’m not so sure Liz Truss did ‘do for herself’. The wets in the Tory party were so appalled at her being elected they briefed against her leading to a record rise in the interest on 30 year gilts to 4.9% (the ‘constraints’ mentioned earlier in this thread) which directly led to her downfall. The rate on 30 year gilts is currently at 5.8% due to borrowing by the Labour Govt and yet there’s no hint of the Govt collapsing because of this. Work that one out.
I’m not so sure Liz Truss did ‘do for herself’. The wets in the Tory party were so appalled at her being elected they briefed against her leading to a record rise in the interest on 30 year gilts to 4.9% (the ‘constraints’ mentioned earlier in this thread) which directly led to her downfall. The rate on 30 year gilts is currently at 5.8% due to borrowing by the Labour Govt and yet there’s no hint of the Govt collapsing because of this. Work that one out.
Yes the Bank of England admitted they caused most of the bond spike due to changes in their policy at that time. Labour have since increased spending on benefits and public sector pay by far more than the tax cuts were worth, so why would one cause a bond spike and not the other?
Labour won't be popular whoever gets in charge, people working and struggling to pay the bills have noticed that they are paying for people on benefits to have more money than them or someone turning up on a dinghy getting first in the queue for housing.
Burnham would just up the taxes on people who bother to get out of bed and hand even more to non-workers making the problem even worse.
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The Labour Party on 12:21 - May 15 with 1982 views
Should Burnham make it to no 10, he must keep his word and change the UK elections from the ridiculous first past the post system to proportional representation. The majority of the UK are in favour.
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The Labour Party on 12:26 - May 15 with 1956 views
This thread was relativley well mannered with generally reasoned arguments so we don't need this.
[Post edited 15 May 12:46]
Agreed. We don't want this thread to descend into petty partisan politics. That applies to the post above and Lazy Fan's post.
ATM Labour Party seem to be descending into an unedifying soap opera. That's no good for the party or the country.
"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the Earth all one's lifetime." (Mark Twain)
Find me on twitter @derbyhoop and now on Bluesky
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The Labour Party on 13:40 - May 15 with 1782 views
So, a tight fiscal position and high gilt yields mean any government faces real limits. All fair enough, but the markets aren't actually spooked by Labour. Gilt rates are high, but stable. Starmer is, by most measures, a safe pair of hands on the economy. So that doesn't actually explain why he's lost both the left and the centre simultaneously. Plenty of governments operate under tight constraints without collapsing like this.
When a government becomes so cautious about constraint that it stops being willing to choose. Starmer committed to fiscal rules. That was honest - the constraints are real – but the question then was, within those constraints, what do you actually do, where do you prioritise, and what do you ask people to accept, and why?
He never answered that. Instead, when the first difficult choice arrived (winter fuel payments and disability benefits), he reversed course under backbench pressure. Not because the constraint forced him to (he had fiscal room), because he couldn't hold a line politically.
That single moment did more damage than any policy because it signalled this government will make whatever commitment suits the occasion, then abandon it when it gets difficult.
The left saw it and thought, "He was never serious about using constraint to build something and was just using it as a cover for inaction." The centre saw it and thought: "He can't even hold the safe position he set for himself."
Now look at what's happening with candidates. Burnham keeps saying he'd "do Manchester at a national level". Streeting keeps saying different things to different audiences. Nobody's actually naming which choices they'd make within the constraint and sticking to it.
That's the problem - not the constraint itself, but the refusal to choose within it. This government (and potentially any successor) has become so focused on acknowledging the constraint that it's forgotten you still have to choose within it. And when you refuse to choose, or you make a choice and then reverse it, you lose everyone.
So, a tight fiscal position and high gilt yields mean any government faces real limits. All fair enough, but the markets aren't actually spooked by Labour. Gilt rates are high, but stable. Starmer is, by most measures, a safe pair of hands on the economy. So that doesn't actually explain why he's lost both the left and the centre simultaneously. Plenty of governments operate under tight constraints without collapsing like this.
When a government becomes so cautious about constraint that it stops being willing to choose. Starmer committed to fiscal rules. That was honest - the constraints are real – but the question then was, within those constraints, what do you actually do, where do you prioritise, and what do you ask people to accept, and why?
He never answered that. Instead, when the first difficult choice arrived (winter fuel payments and disability benefits), he reversed course under backbench pressure. Not because the constraint forced him to (he had fiscal room), because he couldn't hold a line politically.
That single moment did more damage than any policy because it signalled this government will make whatever commitment suits the occasion, then abandon it when it gets difficult.
The left saw it and thought, "He was never serious about using constraint to build something and was just using it as a cover for inaction." The centre saw it and thought: "He can't even hold the safe position he set for himself."
Now look at what's happening with candidates. Burnham keeps saying he'd "do Manchester at a national level". Streeting keeps saying different things to different audiences. Nobody's actually naming which choices they'd make within the constraint and sticking to it.
That's the problem - not the constraint itself, but the refusal to choose within it. This government (and potentially any successor) has become so focused on acknowledging the constraint that it's forgotten you still have to choose within it. And when you refuse to choose, or you make a choice and then reverse it, you lose everyone.
The markets aren't the problem - paralysis is.
Two great posts, E17.
The second one hits the nail on the head to me. Starmer bowed to political pressure from within his own party on key topics. It lost him the left and centre for exactly the reasons you explain.
As you say, anyone breaking things to operate out of the constraints that exist in the current capital system, will, not might, will reduce living standards even further for the population. There will be a cost for the country to bear because of how markets will react.
Starmer wasn’t trying to break it. But, by failing to do what he and Reeves knew needed to be done on Welfare - what everyone in Whitehall and the City know needs to be done - he’s actually pushed the system towards breaking (and that real cost being incurred by the people), whilst not materially improving living standards in the immediate short term.
Welfare is incredibly emotive. I feel like there is a nuance lost often. Individual welfare payments are, in the main, low. Low for someone to have a good standard of living. The problem is the volume of the population on welfare. It is unsustainable. Part of this volume problem is an ageing population (especially with the triple lock), part is immigration, part is education, and part is growing classifications of welfare entitlement (arguably fair, arguably not). The volume is the problem. The government’s (any government’s) number one objective needs to be to reduce the number of people in need of welfare within our state today. It reduces the pressure on the tax take, which gives the chancellor the ability to potentially reduce tax takes from the population and business in order to stimulate growth, which typically (has down throughout capitalism to date) improved living standards in general (and yes, not everyone, but most from whatever their base was.
Backing out of that Welfare bill and the winter fuel allowance change was catastrophic. Removing the two child benefit cap does not help the problem. And the triple lock pension must go immediately.
And then we need an array of policies to reduce the volume of people in need of welfare. In a utopian situation this approach might enable those in need to receive high individual payments too.
[Post edited 15 May 14:19]
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The Labour Party on 15:00 - May 15 with 1585 views
The second one hits the nail on the head to me. Starmer bowed to political pressure from within his own party on key topics. It lost him the left and centre for exactly the reasons you explain.
As you say, anyone breaking things to operate out of the constraints that exist in the current capital system, will, not might, will reduce living standards even further for the population. There will be a cost for the country to bear because of how markets will react.
Starmer wasn’t trying to break it. But, by failing to do what he and Reeves knew needed to be done on Welfare - what everyone in Whitehall and the City know needs to be done - he’s actually pushed the system towards breaking (and that real cost being incurred by the people), whilst not materially improving living standards in the immediate short term.
Welfare is incredibly emotive. I feel like there is a nuance lost often. Individual welfare payments are, in the main, low. Low for someone to have a good standard of living. The problem is the volume of the population on welfare. It is unsustainable. Part of this volume problem is an ageing population (especially with the triple lock), part is immigration, part is education, and part is growing classifications of welfare entitlement (arguably fair, arguably not). The volume is the problem. The government’s (any government’s) number one objective needs to be to reduce the number of people in need of welfare within our state today. It reduces the pressure on the tax take, which gives the chancellor the ability to potentially reduce tax takes from the population and business in order to stimulate growth, which typically (has down throughout capitalism to date) improved living standards in general (and yes, not everyone, but most from whatever their base was.
Backing out of that Welfare bill and the winter fuel allowance change was catastrophic. Removing the two child benefit cap does not help the problem. And the triple lock pension must go immediately.
And then we need an array of policies to reduce the volume of people in need of welfare. In a utopian situation this approach might enable those in need to receive high individual payments too.
[Post edited 15 May 14:19]
The triple lock gives an increase on the higher of three measures, inflation, average earnings or 2.5%.
As it's generally agreed, pensioners should get a yearly increase to keep up with the cost of living, and if the triple lock was abolished, which measure would be used?
Whichever measure was used, would it save much or would it just be 'fiddling around the edges'?
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The Labour Party on 15:15 - May 15 with 1539 views
The triple lock gives an increase on the higher of three measures, inflation, average earnings or 2.5%.
As it's generally agreed, pensioners should get a yearly increase to keep up with the cost of living, and if the triple lock was abolished, which measure would be used?
Whichever measure was used, would it save much or would it just be 'fiddling around the edges'?
I don’t think it would be fiddling around the edges. The actual GBP involved is significant so any small % change delivers material impact for the treasury.
Inflation is probably the fairest. Why should pensions go up above that, which is happening now given average earnings is leading it?
And separately, why should current tax payers fund it, when the current pensioner population for not pay for such a mechanism for the elderly when they were net tax contributors. Not to mention where asset wealth is predominantly tied up across the age demographics in the UK.
I’ve not heard anyone make a solid defence of triple lock pensions for some time now.
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The Labour Party on 15:16 - May 15 with 1535 views
The triple lock gives an increase on the higher of three measures, inflation, average earnings or 2.5%.
As it's generally agreed, pensioners should get a yearly increase to keep up with the cost of living, and if the triple lock was abolished, which measure would be used?
Whichever measure was used, would it save much or would it just be 'fiddling around the edges'?
It should be remembered UK pensions rank 13th in Europe. We're not at all generous in this respect.
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The Labour Party on 15:17 - May 15 with 1535 views
I don’t think it would be fiddling around the edges. The actual GBP involved is significant so any small % change delivers material impact for the treasury.
Inflation is probably the fairest. Why should pensions go up above that, which is happening now given average earnings is leading it?
And separately, why should current tax payers fund it, when the current pensioner population for not pay for such a mechanism for the elderly when they were net tax contributors. Not to mention where asset wealth is predominantly tied up across the age demographics in the UK.
I’ve not heard anyone make a solid defence of triple lock pensions for some time now.
Thanks Hunter. My follow up question is would the small % increase in money saved, which wouldn't be anything in years when inflation was high, be attractive enough for any prospective government to say they were going to abolish the triple lock?😁
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The Labour Party on 15:27 - May 15 with 1504 views
Its 7 PMs in 10yrs now isn't it? Reckon a QPR manager has more job security than the PM nowadays.
Personally, I feel there should be a general election if the PM who won an election gets launched - doesn't sit right with me having a PM who hasn't got a personal mandate from the electorate.
We don't elect Prime Ministers. We elect a local Member of Parliament who represents us for the party which has the manifesto that you believe is best placed to improve our lives.
Is everyone certain that Labour's manifesto is not actually being carried out, with childcare, renters rights, employment protection, etc being legislated? The right wing millionaire owning offshore tax avoiding newspaper owners would have you believe otherwise. Even the BBC is now run by Boris's appointed board members and the political direction by the ex GB News director. Farage gets an easy ride from all of them, they say nothing about the crypto millions paid to him and his Reform Co Ltd and his iffy house in Clacton.
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The Labour Party on 15:28 - May 15 with 1502 views
I don’t think it would be fiddling around the edges. The actual GBP involved is significant so any small % change delivers material impact for the treasury.
Inflation is probably the fairest. Why should pensions go up above that, which is happening now given average earnings is leading it?
And separately, why should current tax payers fund it, when the current pensioner population for not pay for such a mechanism for the elderly when they were net tax contributors. Not to mention where asset wealth is predominantly tied up across the age demographics in the UK.
I’ve not heard anyone make a solid defence of triple lock pensions for some time now.
I'm heading towards retirement, and I can't justify the Triple Lock and think it should be stopped. It was put in as a temporary measure in order to lift the state pension up to a meaningful level before moving back to being index linked. Tax credits and other benefits are available to those that need them (Something needs to be done about communicating this though as so many are left unclaimed)
But I'll be livid if it gets means tested and if over 45 years of taxes and NI don't provide me a state pension just because I've also done things right and saved, and invested to make up for people that could also have done so, but decided to piss it up the wall on alcohol and fags for most their lives.
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The Labour Party on 15:39 - May 15 with 1450 views
The Labour Party on 15:28 - May 15 by swisscottage
I'm heading towards retirement, and I can't justify the Triple Lock and think it should be stopped. It was put in as a temporary measure in order to lift the state pension up to a meaningful level before moving back to being index linked. Tax credits and other benefits are available to those that need them (Something needs to be done about communicating this though as so many are left unclaimed)
But I'll be livid if it gets means tested and if over 45 years of taxes and NI don't provide me a state pension just because I've also done things right and saved, and invested to make up for people that could also have done so, but decided to piss it up the wall on alcohol and fags for most their lives.
I agree it would be outrageous to means test the state pension and doubt any gov would. As for “pissing their cash up the wall” on fags and drink, I wonder how much I've paid in duties on such things.
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