UK General Discussion: Rishecession

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Removing the tax exempt status for private schools is theoretically quite an effective wealth tax. It's also the right thing to do for other reasons, but that aspect should not be ignored.

Some people would disagree with me and say you need the political reform but after the last 13 years I very much hope that Labour will focus on their own coalition & specifically fixing the economy rather than burning a lot of energy on political reform.

Especially as, bluntly, so much of that coalition has had to be coaxed back. Can't be any taking of those elements of the electorate for granted.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Andrew Rosindell has been named as the Conservative MP presently barred from the Commons estate following his arrest for rape and a couple of other offences. He has not been charged, but has been repeatedly re-bailed: the investigation appears to be a very complex one.

[Meclazine for Israel]

BBC Presenter

Public Statement

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CuombsFg7Rl/

[YL]

Andrew Rosindell has been named as the Conservative MP presently barred from the Commons estate following his arrest for rape and a couple of other offences. He has not been charged, but has been repeatedly re-bailed: the investigation appears to be a very complex one.

Do we know why the Sunday Times has suddenly felt able to name him?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Andrew Rosindell has been named as the Conservative MP presently barred from the Commons estate following his arrest for rape and a couple of other offences. He has not been charged, but has been repeatedly re-bailed: the investigation appears to be a very complex one.

Do we know why the Sunday Times has suddenly felt able to name him?

He seems to have decided to tell them officially for whatever reason.

[CumbrianLefty]

It may be worth pointing out that certain non-mainstream media outlets named Rosindell a while ago, on repeated occasions in some cases - and it doesn't appear any action was taken against them. To a degree this was always a bluff, which the MP himself has ultimately called.

Though it does make party HQ re-endorsing him as a candidate no less odd.

[Frodo]

Even Nigel Farage has concluded that Brexit has been a miserable failure:

Brexit: More than half of Britons would vote to rejoin the EU, poll finds

[Pericles]

Even Nigel Farage has concluded that Brexit has been a miserable failure:

Brexit: More than half of Britons would vote to rejoin the EU, poll finds

Yet even now, the leader of the Labour Party can't say it. He has to focus group and poll everything before he opens his mouth, he's honestly pathetic.

[MayorCarcetti]

Now the hunter has become the hunted - the fighter of woke Dan Wootton of GB News, not averse to hounding people himself, is in a spot of trouble. Unsurprisingly he's called it a witch-hunt, hit out at 'dark forces'  and said it's because GB News is the biggest threat to the establishment in decades

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/jul/18/sun-and-mail-publishers-examine-claims-against-journalist-dan-wootton

[CumbrianLefty]

Even Nigel Farage has concluded that Brexit has been a miserable failure:

Brexit: More than half of Britons would vote to rejoin the EU, poll finds

Yet even now, the leader of the Labour Party can't say it. He has to focus group and poll everything before he opens his mouth, he's honestly pathetic.

Please be serious, the next GE becoming another "leave v remain" contest is maybe the one thing that could still save the Tories. Starmer's tactic has been for people to MAKE UP THEIR OWN MINDS that Brexit has been a failure - and whatever his lapses elsewhere, this has been a brilliant success.

Also, nobody expects Labour in ofiice to stick to the same line for......oh, maybe a matter of days.

And - to respond to another post - would Blair have done the same in this situation prior to 1997? The answer is of course - and totally obviously - YES, and probably then some. He was incredibly cautious prior to that election, to the frustration of many just as with SKS now. And whilst he *was* popular then, the scale of it has been retconned. He only got the stratospheric ratings after actually winning.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

And - to respond to another post - would Blair have done the same in this situation prior to 1997? The answer is of course - and totally obviously - YES, and probably then some. He was incredibly cautious prior to that election, to the frustration of many just as with SKS now.

He wrote (well, had an aide write: it was his by-line though) a rather silly piece in The Sun about how Labour would 'slay the Euro dragons' or something during the election campaign, which caused the then-editor of The Independent Andrew Marr (who, back in those days, was firmly on the centre-left and quite liberal) to hit the roof. And this man was, once in office, the most pro-EEC/EU Prime Minister we've ever really had.

[TheTide]

And - to respond to another post - would Blair have done the same in this situation prior to 1997? The answer is of course - and totally obviously - YES, and probably then some. He was incredibly cautious prior to that election, to the frustration of many just as with SKS now.

He wrote (well, had an aide write: it was his by-line though) a rather silly piece in The Sun about how Labour would 'slay the Euro dragons' or something during the election campaign, which caused the then-editor of The Independent Andrew Marr (who, back in those days, was firmly on the centre-left and quite liberal) to hit the roof. And this man was, once in office, the most pro-EEC/EU Prime Minister we've ever really had.

What is he (Marr) now?

[Zinneke]

And - to respond to another post - would Blair have done the same in this situation prior to 1997? The answer is of course - and totally obviously - YES, and probably then some. He was incredibly cautious prior to that election, to the frustration of many just as with SKS now.

He wrote (well, had an aide write: it was his by-line though) a rather silly piece in The Sun about how Labour would 'slay the Euro dragons' or something during the election campaign, which caused the then-editor of The Independent Andrew Marr (who, back in those days, was firmly on the centre-left and quite liberal) to hit the roof. And this man was, once in office, the most pro-EEC/EU Prime Minister we've ever really had.

What is he (Marr) now?

An adulterer

[JimJamUK]

He wrote (well, had an aide write: it was his by-line though) a rather silly piece in The Sun about how Labour would 'slay the Euro dragons' or something during the election campaign, which caused the then-editor of The Independent Andrew Marr (who, back in those days, was firmly on the centre-left and quite liberal) to hit the roof. And this man was, once in office, the most pro-EEC/EU Prime Minister we've ever really had.

What is he (Marr) now?

His recent articles in the New Statesman have been critical of Labour’s conservative approach to policy, so he’s (soft) left of Labour at least.

[JimJamUK]

Now the hunter has become the hunted - the fighter of woke Dan Wootton of GB News, not averse to hounding people himself, is in a spot of trouble. Unsurprisingly he's called it a witch-hunt, hit out at 'dark forces'  and said it's because GB News is the biggest threat to the establishment in decades

Before his more recent political turn, he was known for writing nasty articles about B-List British celebrities, many of which seemed to bare little relation to the truth.

Couldn’t happen to a nicer person etc.

[Pericles]

The reality is though that a landslide victory does not give a mandate for things that were not campaigned on, and especially those that were explicitly ruled out. The only option that has been left on the table is a tweaking of Boris Johnson's deal-which will be good but won't change the fundamentals of the relationship with the EU. So nothing much will change until the 2030s.

If that were just one issue, that would be tolerable. But Labour is ruling out so much that nothing much is changing on lots of issues-he literally focus grouped himself into keeping kids in poverty.

[CumbrianLefty]

The reality is though that a landslide victory does not give a mandate for things that were not campaigned on

A strange statement, especially in a UK context - where it has long been accepted that manifestos are not legally binding documents, and the "we have discovered things are even worse than we thought! We now need to do X/not do Y" gambit is one of the oldest tricks in the book.

Thatcher (in)famously reneged on a supposedly iron clad "no increase or expansion of VAT" pledge just a few months after winning in 1979 - it didn't appear to do her that much harm in the longer term. And btw the Tory manifesto then was generally short on specifics and quite moderate in tone - it never even mentioned the word "privatisation". The one thing they did go big on was curbing union power.

[Zinneke]

Isn't there a rule where if the Government puts forward a Bill enacting policy that either wasn't mentioned or is directly contradictory to their manifesto, the House of Lords can play more games with it in order to muddy the waters for the Gov?

[Blair]

Isn't there a rule where if the Government puts forward a Bill enacting policy that either wasn't mentioned or is directly contradictory to their manifesto, the House of Lords can play more games with it in order to muddy the waters for the Gov?

An unwritten convention called the Salisbury convention but it’s confusing as there’s a wider convention that the lords won’t block or keep trying to force amendments to bills which the commons have passed- as seen by the recent various illegal migration bills and public order bills.

[EastAnglianLefty]

And frankly Lords conventions have always been primarily about how much leeway the Lords thinks it has to make trouble for the government of the day without said government threatening to abolish it.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

His recent articles in the New Statesman have been critical of Labour’s conservative approach to policy, so he’s (soft) left of Labour at least.

He may be another case (see also David Aaronovitch) of a political journalist whose apparent views for a long time were not actually or entirely their actual views and who feels freer, now in a different position, to actually express them.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

A strange statement, especially in a UK context - where it has long been accepted that manifestos are not legally binding documents, and the "we have discovered things are even worse than we thought! We now need to do X/not do Y" gambit is one of the oldest tricks in the book.

Thatcher (in)famously reneged on a supposedly iron clad "no increase or expansion of VAT" pledge just a few months after winning in 1979 - it didn't appear to do her that much harm in the longer term. And btw the Tory manifesto then was generally short on specifics and quite moderate in tone - it never even mentioned the word "privatisation". The one thing they did go big on was curbing union power.

Exactly so. This particular Rubicon was crossed as early as 1931, when the National Government announced that it was seeking a 'doctor's mandate' from the electorate (i.e. permission to do whatever it damn well pleased in order to restore confidence in the economy) and was rewarded with what remains the largest landslide since the advent of democracy. This has been normal practice ever since, at first pretty explicitly (the vagueness and conditionality of so much of Labour's 1945 manifesto is striking, I'll post an example in a minute) and subsequently implicitly, so much so that election manifestoes are a by-word for dishonesty. There have even been occasions when newly elected governments have openly ignored their own manifestoes, as was the case with Labour in 1974. Mostly what people take from them now is vibes: one of the things that has tripped this government up very badly is not that it has broken manifesto promises (as if people can even remember what they were) but that it has broken the vibes of the manifesto, and not in a positive direction.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

So, this is what the 1945 Labour manifesto had to say on the subject of welfare/social security policy:

Social Insurance against the Rainy Day

The Labour Party has played a leading part in the long campaign for proper social security for all - social provision against rainy days, coupled with economic policies calculated to reduce rainy days to a minimum. Labour led the fight against the mean and shabby treatment which was the lot of millions while Conservative Governments were in power over long years. A Labour Government will press on rapidly with legislation extending social insurance over the necessary wide field to all.

But great national programmes of education, health and social services are costly things. Only an efficient and prosperous nation can afford them in full measure. If, unhappily, bad times were to come, and our opponents were in power, then, running true to form, they would be likely to cut these social provisions on the plea that the nation could not meet the cost. That was the line they adopted on at least three occasions between the wars.

There is no good reason why Britain should not afford such programmes, but she will need full employment and the highest possible industrial efficiency in order to do so.

Apart from a brief mention of Labour's support for the Family Allowance scheme recently passed by the Churchill government in the (also very brief) health section, that's it. Quite a fascinating little period piece for several reasons.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

So, this is what the 1945 Labour manifesto had to say on the subject of welfare/social security policy:

Social Insurance against the Rainy Day

The Labour Party has played a leading part in the long campaign for proper social security for all - social provision against rainy days, coupled with economic policies calculated to reduce rainy days to a minimum. Labour led the fight against the mean and shabby treatment which was the lot of millions while Conservative Governments were in power over long years. A Labour Government will press on rapidly with legislation extending social insurance over the necessary wide field to all.

But great national programmes of education, health and social services are costly things. Only an efficient and prosperous nation can afford them in full measure. If, unhappily, bad times were to come, and our opponents were in power, then, running true to form, they would be likely to cut these social provisions on the plea that the nation could not meet the cost. That was the line they adopted on at least three occasions between the wars.

There is no good reason why Britain should not afford such programmes, but she will need full employment and the highest possible industrial efficiency in order to do so.

Apart from a brief mention of Labour's support for the Family Allowance scheme recently passed by the Churchill government in the (also very brief) health section, that's it. Quite a fascinating little period piece for several reasons.

So they warned that the first Tory government to preside over an economic downturn would abolish their new social schemes? Was that scaremongering or did things like the NHS becoming immensely popular third rails take them by surprise?

[Blair]

So, this is what the 1945 Labour manifesto had to say on the subject of welfare/social security policy:

Social Insurance against the Rainy Day

The Labour Party has played a leading part in the long campaign for proper social security for all - social provision against rainy days, coupled with economic policies calculated to reduce rainy days to a minimum. Labour led the fight against the mean and shabby treatment which was the lot of millions while Conservative Governments were in power over long years. A Labour Government will press on rapidly with legislation extending social insurance over the necessary wide field to all.

But great national programmes of education, health and social services are costly things. Only an efficient and prosperous nation can afford them in full measure. If, unhappily, bad times were to come, and our opponents were in power, then, running true to form, they would be likely to cut these social provisions on the plea that the nation could not meet the cost. That was the line they adopted on at least three occasions between the wars.

There is no good reason why Britain should not afford such programmes, but she will need full employment and the highest possible industrial efficiency in order to do so.

Apart from a brief mention of Labour's support for the Family Allowance scheme recently passed by the Churchill government in the (also very brief) health section, that's it. Quite a fascinating little period piece for several reasons.

There is also a lesson here about the language used; I would recommend any one with access to a good university library should use it to read manifestos or political tracts from either main party- they are a work of rather simple art.

No vacuous middle management talk but rather easy to understand and emotive prose.