I’m not sticking up for the Tories or blaming Labour in my response to your post, merely engaging in debate.
Do you have evidence that the Tories have funnelled £200bn to their mates?
Do you have evidence that 100k people died or ‘killed’ due to their mismanagement of the pandemic.
Destroying standards in public life, undermining rule of law…
You could counter argue that the Financial crisis, started the standard of living crisis. Families having their homes repossessed, the Government bailing out the banks with the public money…this was 2008, 10 years into a Labour government.
Blair and the whole smoking gun, getting into bed with Bush, misleading parliament about the intelligence to justify his decision to go to war.
.
The problem is not just a couple of free suits, it’s the fact that Starmer/Labour called out the Tories for the same thing, built his election campaign on “Change” and yet 3 months in power we are seeing the same stories manifest. Labour supporters cry foul of right wing media, so why give them easy pickings.
Look, I want the Country to get back on track as soon as possible, irrelevant of who is in Government. I very much have my fingers crossed for Starmer/Labour, but, in my opinion we as a public have to hold them accountable from the start. We didn’t with the Tories and look where we are now.
However, this type of reporting is misleading. Where in the article does it show that it is only poor children who are not growing? Surely, you would take an average height of the children from the poorest 5% in the UK and compare it to the richest 5% to get a fair assessment.
The graph also shows a close trend to the United States in terms of the change in height, yet this is not addressed. Also, could the increase in balance between the UK and Eastern Europe be down to a lot of people working in Europe and sending money back?
Again the report does not show if Eastern European children are getting taller.
No human, especially a child should go hungry. That is something we all agree on.
Well I am glad I read this before I sent him my worn pair of Levi Jeans and dirty Sambas, postage was gonna be costly. I guess I should just burn them now….
On a more serious note, how about they still accept these donations and auction them off, with monies going to charity?
The donator would have shown good intent to the Government, who in turn would have acknowledged the gesture. Who in turn would of provided some benefit to people in need.
“Politics of envy” is unfortunately a great way for people to detract from the debate about how economic resources should be allocated, suggesting some moral component to the issue.
“Politics of gesture” is oddly, despite all the noise, mainly practised by the right-wing.
That’s one big issue there, you say that “tribal politics will not fix it”, and I won’t argue. However, if your second sentence that the economic model of the UK that the infrastructure of government is built on isn’t there anymore, then politics by definition will determine how and what kind of economic model should replace it.
Ironically, I was reading an opinion piece the other day that suggests that Starmer and Reeves have a civil servant mindset to governance, just keep doing the same things, but better and more diligently, and things will magically work out. The thing is, government needs to get better, the civil service needs to be improved, but those things in and of themselves are insufficient. A vision for the country and society is needed, with the requisite investment to bring it about.
Then that’s also a structural problem in the governing institutions/society that needs to be resolved too.
No we dont. The Labour party is a broad enough church by itself. If anything, the left would argue that the Labour government is more towards the conservatives than a traditional labour stance.
Secondly, even ignoring the first 12 years of mismanagement, the last two on its own should be enough to demonstrate that this present incarnation of the Conservative party should be nowhere near a government - and that it would not work beyond its own internal interests were it to form part of one.
My post was meant to be party neutral and just pointing out the need for fundamental change. I am not sure our current political system has the ability to make that change - left or right.
You could ask business to help but we all know they are self serving and all about the money.
I realise I am pointing out issues and not solutions. Maybe a radical think tank, maybe proportional representation?
A problem i have here is that (if i remember correctly) it follows earlier posts were you were critical of a Labour government so it just comes scross as any excuse not to allow a Labour government.
You do remember correctly but I can be critical of any government. Labour deserve their chance after the mismanagement of the last years. I will also say that fundamental change will not come from the Conservatives navel gazing and going radical right to counter Reform.
The right could argue that the Tories are more towards the Labour government, which may be a reason why many voters chose to vote remain, rather than vote Labour.
Why are the Labour Party moving more centre, than left to gain votes?
They already do. Have you missed Braverman’s statements?
But it’s clearly nonsense. The Conservatives have stirred up trouble with the unions, underfunded public services and spent much of the last 2 years pandering to the far right announcing such policies on deporting asylum seekers to hostile countries, that they know wont succeed.
So you accept that there were a lot of stories about the Tories from the RW media? And we are going to over look someone’s mistakes because they aren’t as bad as others….talk about burying your head in the sand.
As I have said, don’t give people easy ammunition. If people are out to get you, don’t do anything that you may be held account for. I’m not comparing Starmer to the Tories but other people will and as I said, Starmer went with the whole ‘we need a change’ so demonstrate that.
Interesting. I have no problem challenging process but only if its fundamentally wrong or overly complicated in achieving a result. Either way there are certain things that cannot be avoided and you cant ride roughshod over that. You just need to do the job.
Reeves, bringing the OBR etc. on board makes sense for example
The asylum system under the tories is not how to do it.
That is pretty much what happens in the civil service, except that it is suggested that gifts should be refused and returned if they are of excessive value.
In reality there will always be things like hospitality that have to be accepted in a civilised world, and that is why they are recorded.
It’s worth pointing out that all these things that Starmer is being pulled up for are above board and in the public domain. There is no indication that he has been taken backhanders.
Where the real conflicts of interest go on are behind the scenes. It’s interesting how many former ministers ended up taking directorships in firms that they were previously supposed to be regulating.
I’ve never denied that there were. But framing is important - and comparing the gifting of a box at Arsenal by the club for safety reasons, where he already has a season ticket with that of say sidelining existing protocols to fund the barman at your local pub or a baroness within your party to provide vital equipment for the NHS, which arent delivered is laughable.
Because the centre ground wins elections. The tories left that behind in 2016 and are essentially a hopeless far right populist party now.
Reform are the same, spouting loud noises, driving hate with very little in the way of answers or at the very least overly simplistic ones that are doomed to fail, but they chime with those that are less knowledgable on a given subject.
This is just one absursity from the many you post.
I assume @Mascot is talking about this, but really, it could be fucking anything.
Who do you thinks owns those companies that benefit from such arrangements??
Hint…it ain’t anyone who votes Labour and didn’t go to Oxbridge.
And apologies for taking so long to reply to your reply to me a week ago…bonkers few days at work…the economic prosperity currently enjoyed by the richest in British society has come at the cost of the extraction of wealth from those lower down the social pyramid. See above.
Economic inequality in the UK is fucking scandalous. Fact.