| The Labour Party 16:37 - May 14 with 30692 views | Logman |
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. |  | | |  |
| The Labour Party on 12:08 - May 16 with 2318 views | JamesB1979 |
| The Labour Party on 12:03 - May 16 by Clive_Anderson |
Someone on minimum wage pays around 10% income tax currently, halving that is not going to make a huge difference to them. And it certainly won't help pay more tax to continue to pay pensions and benefits the country clearly can't afford.
Income tax doesn't even cover welfare these days. |
The amount of people on long term sickness has sky rocketed since covid. That’s completely unworkable. We need to get more people back into work. We do that, more taxes, good for them and good for everyone.
What would you do for those on minimum wage then? If you increase their gross, I think will lead to more unemployment. Maybe increase the tax threshold to a high level so more people on lowest income pay zero tax? Need to increase their net pay whilst not risking jobs. | | | |
| The Labour Party on 12:12 - May 16 with 2292 views | dmm |
| The Labour Party on 12:04 - May 16 by Logman |
But why don't the Labour dissenters see that they are falling into the media's trap if they oust Starmer and replace him with someone who hasn't been democratically elected. That's what I can't understand. I can't understand how they are letting this happen when the very same thing happened with the Tories who are now being overtaken by Reform. Or is it just that Burnham, Streeting, Rayner etc can't resist flexing their muscles ? FWIW I'm not Labour but I think Starmer has done OK given what's going on in the world, politically and financially. |
Starmer lied to become leader of the party and then broke the pledges he made to win the general election. Those two issues alone should make you think again |  | | |
| The Labour Party on 12:22 - May 16 with 2252 views | Logman |
| The Labour Party on 12:12 - May 16 by dmm |
Starmer lied to become leader of the party and then broke the pledges he made to win the general election. Those two issues alone should make you think again |
They all lie to get in and don't follow through. It's par for the course. I judge them by how they manage things when they are in and I think Starmer has done OK on the world stage. | | | |
| The Labour Party on 12:28 - May 16 with 2228 views | Clive_Anderson |
| The Labour Party on 12:08 - May 16 by JamesB1979 |
The amount of people on long term sickness has sky rocketed since covid. That’s completely unworkable. We need to get more people back into work. We do that, more taxes, good for them and good for everyone.
What would you do for those on minimum wage then? If you increase their gross, I think will lead to more unemployment. Maybe increase the tax threshold to a high level so more people on lowest income pay zero tax? Need to increase their net pay whilst not risking jobs. |
Well yes I agree the amount of people on sickness and other benefits has gone exponential and that needs sorting out.
Well personally I'd cut spending massively including cutting the huge public sector pensions to reduce taxes so people keep more of their money and get private business to grow, reduce immigration to reduce pressure on low wages and housing, get rid of housing benefit to reduce rents/house prices allowing low paid workers to buy a home.
Unfortunately it looks like we're going to get the opposite with of that with taxy spendy Burnham, who I expect will tax middle earners even more to hose at the public sector and people on benefits. When we can no longer afford the interest on the national debt as middle earners give up bothering at all and have to call in the IMF they will then blame Iran/Brexit/the spinning of the planet earth rather than their own policies. | | | |
| The Labour Party on 12:42 - May 16 with 2184 views | JamesB1979 |
| The Labour Party on 12:28 - May 16 by Clive_Anderson |
Well yes I agree the amount of people on sickness and other benefits has gone exponential and that needs sorting out.
Well personally I'd cut spending massively including cutting the huge public sector pensions to reduce taxes so people keep more of their money and get private business to grow, reduce immigration to reduce pressure on low wages and housing, get rid of housing benefit to reduce rents/house prices allowing low paid workers to buy a home.
Unfortunately it looks like we're going to get the opposite with of that with taxy spendy Burnham, who I expect will tax middle earners even more to hose at the public sector and people on benefits. When we can no longer afford the interest on the national debt as middle earners give up bothering at all and have to call in the IMF they will then blame Iran/Brexit/the spinning of the planet earth rather than their own policies. |
Most of those I agree with. But how do you improve things for those workers on the lowest wage? Thats why I would increase the tax threshold or halve the tax rate or both. | | | |
| The Labour Party on 13:03 - May 16 with 2154 views | Clive_Anderson |
| The Labour Party on 12:42 - May 16 by JamesB1979 |
Most of those I agree with. But how do you improve things for those workers on the lowest wage? Thats why I would increase the tax threshold or halve the tax rate or both. |
Stop supressing their wages with mass immigration so they earn more, stop them being outbid for houses with their own taxes by people on benefits getting housing benefit, reduce taxes they do pay eg. VAT and council tax.
Not easy at all, but on the current path the UK finances are currently heading off a cliff. | | | |
| The Labour Party on 13:41 - May 16 with 2095 views | E17hoop |
It’s about pressures that are getting tighter, harder to manage, and more future-facing than most political arguments allow. I don’t think many governments in living memory have faced the level of restriction and constraint that the 2024 government did: ageing, pensions, weak productivity, tax pressure and AI all point to the same underlying problem, and the state is being asked to do more while the labour force and tax base are not expanding fast enough.
That is why so many debates end up sounding repetitive. People argue about this policy or that leader, but the deeper issue is structural: what the state can promise, what it can fund, and what the economy can actually absorb are moving out of alignment. Once that happens, every option becomes a trade-off.
The hardest part is that this is not a problem with a single fix. You can try to raise productivity, increase labour supply, reform pensions, change the tax mix, or use AI to improve public-sector capacity. But none of those are quick, and none work well in isolation. They need time, consistency and credibility, which is exactly what politics makes hardest. Particularly as we are now in a reality show era of expecting to be able to vote off the people we like less.
That is why the conversation keeps coming back to trust, sequencing and delay. A government can promise a lot, but unless it can show where the money, labour and capacity come from, the promises eventually run into arithmetic. The real question is not whether change is needed. It is whether it is managed early and deliberately or later and under pressure. |  |
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| The Labour Party on 13:48 - May 16 with 2084 views | Hunterhoop |
| The Labour Party on 11:55 - May 16 by JamesB1979 |
It’s a matter of principal for me. I want my taxes to support those that have now retired after working all their life and those that cannot physically work, disabled etc ie the most vulnerable in society. I also want those on the lower income tax band to get more take home pay than they do to help get them out of poverty. There are plenty of other areas to pay for this . Higher rate of tax, other parts of welfare state, efficiencies in public services. |
But this is the entire problem, as alluded to by E17.
There aren’t loads of other ways to raise more revenue for the treasury to pay today’s welfare costs in the Uk, let alone higher costs, without breaking the current capital system constraints which WILL cause significant hardship in the short and medium term for everyone in the UK.
Would love to be able to afford greater pensions (I’m yet to reach pension age so would benefit if there was) and some other welfare payments. But not at the expense of causing massive economic shock to try UK and harming everyone.
Fundamentally, the UK needs to grow its tax take and reduce its overarching welfare bill with a significantly aging population. That is a hard problem to solve. It isn’t easy. There is no silver bullet. And no one will be able to get what they want “principally” when it comes to holistic policy. There has to be compromise. It won’t be fair.
Outside of some showy, but low impact tax policies on the uber rich, I’m not sure the county can stomach more tax. The bottom 2 income deciles are, when it comes to take home pay, better off today relative to the other deciles, than they were two decades ago, almost entirely due the doubling of the income tax free threshold in the last 16 years. That doesn’t mean love is easy, or we don’t want it to increase. But the whole country has to function.
If we keep raising taxes endlessly, on people and business, you run the risk of everyone getting poorer overall.
Tax take needs to increase through more people working, ideally at a little lower tax paid level. And welfare needs to reduce through fewer people being on welfare, not reduced payments, and the triple lock being ditched so pensions rise in line with inflation. It’s going to be very hard to achieve for any political party, regardless of what they tell you. |  | | |
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| The Labour Party on 13:52 - May 16 with 2076 views | E17hoop |
| The Labour Party on 13:48 - May 16 by Hunterhoop |
But this is the entire problem, as alluded to by E17.
There aren’t loads of other ways to raise more revenue for the treasury to pay today’s welfare costs in the Uk, let alone higher costs, without breaking the current capital system constraints which WILL cause significant hardship in the short and medium term for everyone in the UK.
Would love to be able to afford greater pensions (I’m yet to reach pension age so would benefit if there was) and some other welfare payments. But not at the expense of causing massive economic shock to try UK and harming everyone.
Fundamentally, the UK needs to grow its tax take and reduce its overarching welfare bill with a significantly aging population. That is a hard problem to solve. It isn’t easy. There is no silver bullet. And no one will be able to get what they want “principally” when it comes to holistic policy. There has to be compromise. It won’t be fair.
Outside of some showy, but low impact tax policies on the uber rich, I’m not sure the county can stomach more tax. The bottom 2 income deciles are, when it comes to take home pay, better off today relative to the other deciles, than they were two decades ago, almost entirely due the doubling of the income tax free threshold in the last 16 years. That doesn’t mean love is easy, or we don’t want it to increase. But the whole country has to function.
If we keep raising taxes endlessly, on people and business, you run the risk of everyone getting poorer overall.
Tax take needs to increase through more people working, ideally at a little lower tax paid level. And welfare needs to reduce through fewer people being on welfare, not reduced payments, and the triple lock being ditched so pensions rise in line with inflation. It’s going to be very hard to achieve for any political party, regardless of what they tell you. |
It's one reason why immigration is so high - people coming here on work visas are net contributors to the tax pot; they pay income tax, VAT, etc but aren't going to be a pension drain. | |
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| The Labour Party on 14:07 - May 16 with 2038 views | Bluce_Ree |
I'm not exactly political but I know that running this country is basically impossible.
And bless him but whatever Starmer does, people are going to call him a tw@t.
Here's the one thing I do know. The worst person I've ever worked with. A proper useless prick. Did f**k all for years. Was known for being f**king useless and absolutely honking of piss. He finally got a pay off to leave (they couldn't get rid of him because he was unioned-up so heavily). I'm telling you, this piece of shit did nothing. He never even logged on for work on a computer. Occasionally checked his emails on a tablet, that was it. Never responded. Absolute waste of skin.
He stood as a Reform councillor and WON two weeks ago. He's a fat fcking urine walrus and he fking won. They could have picked a cow straight off a field and put a Reform sticker on it and it would have won.
He was also life-long Labour until recently and is also pulling some weird reborn Christian act too. But I'm telling you, most useless c*nt since SWP in a hooped shirt. On the plus side, the c**t is 30+ stone and never shows up for work so the ward he's representing will probably never see the c*nt. |  |
| Stefan Moore, Stefan Moore running down the wing. Stefan Moore, Stefan Moore running down the wing. He runs like a cheetah, his crosses couldn't be sweeter. Stefan Moore. Stefan Moore. Stefan Moore. |
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| The Labour Party on 14:39 - May 16 with 1984 views | Sonic_Hoop |
| The Labour Party on 13:03 - May 16 by Clive_Anderson |
Stop supressing their wages with mass immigration so they earn more, stop them being outbid for houses with their own taxes by people on benefits getting housing benefit, reduce taxes they do pay eg. VAT and council tax.
Not easy at all, but on the current path the UK finances are currently heading off a cliff. |
The impact on low wages of immigration is miniscule. Their impact on house prices non-existent and on rent only local and often temporary.
Reducing tax on earned income and raising it on earned income, and scrapping NI, is the easiest option. |  | | |
| The Labour Party on 15:09 - May 16 with 1907 views | Clive_Anderson |
| The Labour Party on 14:39 - May 16 by Sonic_Hoop |
The impact on low wages of immigration is miniscule. Their impact on house prices non-existent and on rent only local and often temporary.
Reducing tax on earned income and raising it on earned income, and scrapping NI, is the easiest option. |
4.5 net million more people in the country in a decade doesn't affect housing availability at all? Er...ok let's agree to disagree on that one.
I imagine Burnham probably agrees with you unfortunately. It honestly wouldn't surprise me if they go further and try to claim immigration actually reduces pressure on housing somehow. | | | |
| The Labour Party on 16:25 - May 16 with 1833 views | E17hoop |
| The Labour Party on 15:09 - May 16 by Clive_Anderson |
4.5 net million more people in the country in a decade doesn't affect housing availability at all? Er...ok let's agree to disagree on that one.
I imagine Burnham probably agrees with you unfortunately. It honestly wouldn't surprise me if they go further and try to claim immigration actually reduces pressure on housing somehow. |
4.5 million overstates the scale of net immigration over the last 10 years; the ONS‑aligned figures are much lower and do not come close to that number. perhaps half.
Migration does affect housing demand, but the evidence does not support treating it as the dominant cause of UK housing unaffordability. The real drivers are planning constraints, chronically low supply, changes in credit and mortgage conditions, and labour‑market dynamics, alongside the growth of the private‑rental sector where many households now spend well over 30% of their income on rent.
That means the problem is not just how many people are arriving, but how few homes are being built, how much people can afford to pay, and how the private‑rental market is structured to absorb that pressure.
Again, whose choice is for a massive programme of capital social housebuilding, reducing rental income and the cost of private accomodation against an economic forecast that makes it unaffordable.
Pressures...I wouldn't want to be PM. | |
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| The Labour Party on 16:32 - May 16 with 1818 views | themodfather |
for me, Tories gave up half way thru covid, knew they'd broke the bank and under bojo were lost , then truss, rishi so many jumped to Reform
as for labour Blair created this new labour and they moved away from supporting workers and unions .
as it is, we are falling headlong into a Reform govt who have no real manifesto, no plan , just rich funders wanting to stay rich ( the same lot who caused brexit likely to avoid taxes and declaring accounts ) .
starmer is charmless and is likely a deputy Pm thats all.
he must have known Mandelson was dodgy and if he didn't should go for that ignorance alone, now losing it brings in brown who balls us up and was an unelected pm , by us. another bad move. don't go back go forwards. | | | |
| The Labour Party on 19:53 - May 16 with 1670 views | BushRanger82 |
Think I'm starting to understand why this country is in the state it is. |  | | |
| The Labour Party on 16:17 - May 17 with 1348 views | StevenageRanger |
Not read all post so apologies if answered a,ready, but went to chat GPT to see what the difference would be if state pension had risen by inflation rather than the triple lock………
The difference is quite large over time, because the triple lock (introduced in 2010) has usually increased the UK state pension faster than inflation alone.
How the two systems differ
* Inflation link (CPI/RPI): pension rises in line with prices → maintains purchasing power.
* Triple lock: pension rises by the highest of:
* inflation
* average earnings growth
* 2.5%
Since 2010, earnings growth has often exceeded inflation, and even the 2.5% floor has sometimes beaten both.
⸻
What the impact looks like in practice
For someone on a full new State Pension, the effect compounds year after year.
* In 2010/11 the basic pension was about £97/week
* In 2026 it is about £221/week (roughly)
If it had only risen with inflation (CPI) instead, it would be roughly estimated at:
* ~£180–£195/week instead of ~£221/week
That’s a difference of:
* ~£25–£40 per week
* ~£1,300–£2,000 per year per pensioner
The triple lock cost the government roughly:
£7–£8 billion extra in 2025/26 / 2026/27
compared with if pensions had only risen in line with inflation. | | | |
| The Labour Party on 16:27 - May 17 with 1323 views | NorrisGreen |
| The Labour Party on 09:09 - May 15 by derbyhoop |
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".  |
True. BUT... they wouldn't be revolting every 5 minutes if they knew it would cause an election. Current situation is ridiculous. Manifestos barely exist and if they do, they get ripped up and abandoned within weeks. Internally changing the leader and presumably the mindset/policy too is just taking the piss out of the electorate.
I know we technically don't vote for a PM, we vote for a party but in reality I think a lot of folks DO vote for the leader, y'know vote for such-and-such colour rosette and get Boris/Nigel/whoever as PM. When the Northern red wall fell, I feel quite certain that dyed in the wool lifelong Labour voters rationalised their "treachery" by viewing it as a vote for the maverick populist Boris and not a vote for the hated Tories. | | | |
| The Labour Party on 16:28 - May 17 with 1320 views | colinallcars |
Aw….Labour MPs that like their grub:
Lisa Nandos
Wes Streetfood
David Lamby |  | | |
| The Labour Party on 16:43 - May 17 with 1291 views | Sonic_Hoop |
| The Labour Party on 15:09 - May 16 by Clive_Anderson |
4.5 net million more people in the country in a decade doesn't affect housing availability at all? Er...ok let's agree to disagree on that one.
I imagine Burnham probably agrees with you unfortunately. It honestly wouldn't surprise me if they go further and try to claim immigration actually reduces pressure on housing somehow. |
I said house prices. Immigrants don't have enough money to be buying up housing to push up prices. At the last census there were a million empty dwellings in just England and Wales.
House prices rising in the UK are primarily driven by the availability of debt and liquidity in the market, rather than population growth. This means that when more money is available for mortgages, it pushes prices up, even if the population does not increase significantly. Add in higher returns on assets than savings and the very rich getting exponentially richer and you've got your answer to house prices.
As for Andy Burnham agreeing with me, it's highly unlikely we'd agree on much. | | | |
| The Labour Party on 18:25 - May 17 with 1194 views | Clive_Anderson |
| The Labour Party on 16:43 - May 17 by Sonic_Hoop |
I said house prices. Immigrants don't have enough money to be buying up housing to push up prices. At the last census there were a million empty dwellings in just England and Wales.
House prices rising in the UK are primarily driven by the availability of debt and liquidity in the market, rather than population growth. This means that when more money is available for mortgages, it pushes prices up, even if the population does not increase significantly. Add in higher returns on assets than savings and the very rich getting exponentially richer and you've got your answer to house prices.
As for Andy Burnham agreeing with me, it's highly unlikely we'd agree on much. |
I wonder why some people can't admit having millions of extra people in a country puts pressure on housing or pushes up housing costs. It's literally impossible for them and I honestly don't get it.
You can think immigration is great overall, but also admit it causes housing issues and yet they can't and pretend it makes no difference even though they must know it does. Very odd. | | | |
| The Labour Party on 19:04 - May 17 with 1155 views | BazzaInTheLoft |
| The Labour Party on 18:25 - May 17 by Clive_Anderson |
I wonder why some people can't admit having millions of extra people in a country puts pressure on housing or pushes up housing costs. It's literally impossible for them and I honestly don't get it.
You can think immigration is great overall, but also admit it causes housing issues and yet they can't and pretend it makes no difference even though they must know it does. Very odd. |
You need to give us evidence, not just vibes mate.
There are 300,000 long term empty houses in the UK. |  | | |
| The Labour Party on 19:35 - May 17 with 1120 views | Gus_iom |
| The Labour Party on 19:04 - May 17 by BazzaInTheLoft |
You need to give us evidence, not just vibes mate.
There are 300,000 long term empty houses in the UK. |
Supply and demand, surely it's that simple.
It's not the only factor, its not necessarily the main factor, but it is a factor. | |
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| The Labour Party on 19:37 - May 17 with 1103 views | E17hoop |
The triple lock is a material part of the pressure, but not the whole story. The OBR says the triple lock is now expected to cost about £15.5 billion a year by 2029-30, roughly three times the original expectation, and the IFS estimates the full new state pension is already around £30 a week higher than it would have been under earnings uprating alone.
That doesn’t mean pensions are “the” problem, but it does mean the system is moving in a direction that is hard to sustain alongside an ageing population and slower tax growth. The more serious point is that you cannot keep promising higher pension spending, lower taxes for workers, and no trade-offs elsewhere at the same time.
Well you can, but you're in LaLa Land and conning voters. [Post edited 17 May 19:38]
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| The Labour Party on 19:52 - May 17 with 1068 views | Gus_iom |
| The Labour Party on 19:35 - May 17 by Gus_iom |
Supply and demand, surely it's that simple.
It's not the only factor, its not necessarily the main factor, but it is a factor. |
The Select Committee on Economic Affairs - first report 2007-2008 estimated that if net migration continued at the then 'present rate', it would lead to house prices being 10% higher then they would have been if there was zero net migration. Net migration to the uk in 2006 was 240,000 people. Net migration up to 2025 averaged out at about 340,000 people a year. | |
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