| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 08:39 - Feb 8 with 2881 views | BanksterDebtSlave |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 07:48 - Feb 8 by jayessess |
Cool, cool, not like any of this climate stuff is time sensitive, I'm sure geo-physics will wait patiently until we've got our finances in order. |
Patience and wearing layers! |  |
|  |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 08:43 - Feb 8 with 2867 views | BanksterDebtSlave |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 08:24 - Feb 8 by itfcjoe |
I guess the reality is we are needing to trust that when they get in Govt they are more ambitious than they appear to be outside Govt - and that these schemes will be enacted even if not explicitly stated in the manifesto.
The problem is with the 'fiscal rules' and 'spending plans' is that the Tories know they are going to lose so are just making them impossible to actually govern with come 2025 with their supposed spending plans.
Sadly, the attack line of "can't trust Labour with the economy" still lands with the voters they need to attract, and despite the Conservatives no longer being Conservative, and having made an absolute hash of everything including the economy they are still seen as more trusted with it |
Are there pigs overhead in Ipswich today Joe?
"Vote Labour, we might surprise you." | |
| |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 08:46 - Feb 8 with 2856 views | BloomBlue |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 08:24 - Feb 8 by itfcjoe |
I guess the reality is we are needing to trust that when they get in Govt they are more ambitious than they appear to be outside Govt - and that these schemes will be enacted even if not explicitly stated in the manifesto.
The problem is with the 'fiscal rules' and 'spending plans' is that the Tories know they are going to lose so are just making them impossible to actually govern with come 2025 with their supposed spending plans.
Sadly, the attack line of "can't trust Labour with the economy" still lands with the voters they need to attract, and despite the Conservatives no longer being Conservative, and having made an absolute hash of everything including the economy they are still seen as more trusted with it |
I see accepting things change is a positive in government. In life I could say I'm going to spend 'x' on a holiday in 3 years, but if my financial situation changed dramatically and I couldn't afford to still spend 'x' I would be silly to spend it.
The strange thing is we, as a public, seem to think politicians can predict everything years in advance.
Therefore, I think Labour saying the country can not afford it now is a positive.
But given the public strangely believe politicians can precisely predict years in advance for Starmer its the U-turn which could hit him harder. You can see the attack in the GE will be 'you can not trust what Labour is saying now, Starmer has proved he'll say anything and then change his mind' - proof being the u-turns. |  | | |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 08:53 - Feb 8 with 2835 views | itfcjoe |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 08:46 - Feb 8 by BloomBlue |
I see accepting things change is a positive in government. In life I could say I'm going to spend 'x' on a holiday in 3 years, but if my financial situation changed dramatically and I couldn't afford to still spend 'x' I would be silly to spend it.
The strange thing is we, as a public, seem to think politicians can predict everything years in advance.
Therefore, I think Labour saying the country can not afford it now is a positive.
But given the public strangely believe politicians can precisely predict years in advance for Starmer its the U-turn which could hit him harder. You can see the attack in the GE will be 'you can not trust what Labour is saying now, Starmer has proved he'll say anything and then change his mind' - proof being the u-turns. |
I guess the Labour party think there are 2 attack lines:
You can't trust Starmer he U-Turns and changes his mind
vs
You can't trust Labour with the country's finances
And that they see the 2nd one as more damaging to their electoral prospects. Starmer isn't incredibly popular like a Blair was, but seems to be incredibly ruthless - so anything that attacks him opposed to the Labour party is probably easier for them to handle |  |
| |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 09:21 - Feb 8 with 2802 views | NthQldITFC |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 07:52 - Feb 8 by Steve_M |
Where I have a degree of sympathy here is that the government set the fiscal rules* and there is an element of trying to avoid making an easy target for the tame media.
However, there is a an incredibly fine line between that and a complete lack of ambition and, once in government, not being the Tories isn't going to be enough given the state that the country has been left in.
*I agree that fiscal rules that prevent investment in infrastructure are counter-productive for growth and the well-being of the country. |
Pissing around within the conventional economic and political framework is patently, obviously a recipe for continued compromise, failure to act, further infrastructure decay, firefighting (literally and metaphorically) and eventual collapse. This has been demonstrated clearly and regularly for decades.
Someone (not Starmer I would think!) needs to have the balls to stand up and say that we need to crash and reboot the whole system, building something up from not-for-profit nationalised infrastructure and redistribution of living wealth and opportunity. That person will very probably be committing career suicide - but they need to be the sort of person who realises that their career is utterly unimportant in comparison with triggering fundamental change. Greed needs to die.
We need to be on a war footing, with politicians and public alike taking chances and making HUGE sacrifices in order to merely give ourselves some kind of hope for survival. |  |
| |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 09:21 - Feb 8 with 2801 views | BlueBadger |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 07:52 - Feb 8 by Steve_M |
Where I have a degree of sympathy here is that the government set the fiscal rules* and there is an element of trying to avoid making an easy target for the tame media.
However, there is a an incredibly fine line between that and a complete lack of ambition and, once in government, not being the Tories isn't going to be enough given the state that the country has been left in.
*I agree that fiscal rules that prevent investment in infrastructure are counter-productive for growth and the well-being of the country. |
People need to stop thinking of the country as a household that needs to scrimp and save to get by on the bare minimum, but as a business that occasionally needs investment and even th occasional risk to be taken to push on. |  |
| |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 09:49 - Feb 8 with 2736 views | jayessess |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 08:46 - Feb 8 by BloomBlue |
I see accepting things change is a positive in government. In life I could say I'm going to spend 'x' on a holiday in 3 years, but if my financial situation changed dramatically and I couldn't afford to still spend 'x' I would be silly to spend it.
The strange thing is we, as a public, seem to think politicians can predict everything years in advance.
Therefore, I think Labour saying the country can not afford it now is a positive.
But given the public strangely believe politicians can precisely predict years in advance for Starmer its the U-turn which could hit him harder. You can see the attack in the GE will be 'you can not trust what Labour is saying now, Starmer has proved he'll say anything and then change his mind' - proof being the u-turns. |
Government finances are not comparable to household finances in this way. The use of exactly this kind of metaphor to explain political economy has inflicted huge damage on this country. |  |
| |
Login to get fewer ads
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 09:53 - Feb 8 with 2720 views | Chris_ITFC |
That sea temperature one…
 |  |
| |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 10:01 - Feb 8 with 2696 views | BlueBadger |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 09:49 - Feb 8 by jayessess |
Government finances are not comparable to household finances in this way. The use of exactly this kind of metaphor to explain political economy has inflicted huge damage on this country. |
Labour’s £28bn U-Turn by BlueBadger 8 Feb 2024 9:21People need to stop thinking of the country as a household that needs to scrimp and save to get by on the bare minimum, but as a business that occasionally needs investment and even th occasional risk to be taken to push on.
| |
| |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 10:02 - Feb 8 with 2691 views | leitrimblue |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 09:53 - Feb 8 by Chris_ITFC |
That sea temperature one…
|
The air temperature increase over 80 years is incredible as well. Its hard to imagine its heated up much quicker then this since the end of the last ice age. |  | | |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 10:03 - Feb 8 with 2690 views | NthQldITFC |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 09:53 - Feb 8 by Chris_ITFC |
That sea temperature one…
|
Yup. That's where something like 90% of the excess heat we've been trapping with our irresponsible actions is 'stored'. Something odd has been happening since about May last year, way beyond El Nino impact - previous El Nino's every 4-7 years are swallowed in that graph.
The deviation from the historical distribution is absolutely mind-blowing to me as a former scientist of sorts. It is a massive system and it has suddenly gone mental. I think of it as a very heavily loaded HGV doing between 50 and 65 on a packed motorway for hours, then in 10 seconds it's suddenly doing 120 and nobody can get out of the way.
We will find out what has caused this monumental state change someday soon I guess. | |
| |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 10:19 - Feb 8 with 2654 views | DJR |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 08:53 - Feb 8 by itfcjoe |
I guess the Labour party think there are 2 attack lines:
You can't trust Starmer he U-Turns and changes his mind
vs
You can't trust Labour with the country's finances
And that they see the 2nd one as more damaging to their electoral prospects. Starmer isn't incredibly popular like a Blair was, but seems to be incredibly ruthless - so anything that attacks him opposed to the Labour party is probably easier for them to handle |
I think though there is a danger that some people just won't be bothered to vote Labour with every U-turn taking Labour closer to the Tories, and Labour having no clear message.
It will be particularly interesting to see the effect such a U-turn will have on Scotland, where there is great scope for green investment and where the polls are perhaps not so doomed for the SNP as some might think.
Yesterday, an Ipsos poll, put the SNP seven points ahead in a Westminster election on 39%, versus 32% for Labour, and nine points in the constituency vote for Holyrood, on 39%. It said the SNP still maintains a lead in public trust in health, schools and the cost of living policies. |  | | |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 10:28 - Feb 8 with 2621 views | Swansea_Blue |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 09:53 - Feb 8 by Chris_ITFC |
That sea temperature one…
|
yeah, it's nuts and really worrying those that research the oceans/marine life, etc. Her's an older article from last year, but it's a pretty decent synopsis of the concerns and there's some pretty graphic stuff in it - the temperature anomaly map focussed on the Med is bonkers. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230720-theres-a-heatwave-in-the-sea-and-sci
And this year has started much warmer than last...
It'll be interesting to see what happens when El Niño ends (possibly April-June time- ish) and how much things cool down (if indeed they do, but they should a little). |  |
| |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 10:33 - Feb 8 with 2584 views | Chris_ITFC |
What is El Nino? Wasn’t he the Spanish lad at Liverpool? | |
| |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 10:38 - Feb 8 with 2575 views | Guthrum |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 07:52 - Feb 8 by Steve_M |
Where I have a degree of sympathy here is that the government set the fiscal rules* and there is an element of trying to avoid making an easy target for the tame media.
However, there is a an incredibly fine line between that and a complete lack of ambition and, once in government, not being the Tories isn't going to be enough given the state that the country has been left in.
*I agree that fiscal rules that prevent investment in infrastructure are counter-productive for growth and the well-being of the country. |
This is partly what I was getting at.
The fiscal situation has been left in such a state (partly, but not all, through mismanagement) that there will be little room for maneuver without either borrowing or raising taxes (at least not cutting them further). The former is presently very expensive (thanks Truss), the latter apparently the greatest evil a government can perpetrate on the population/businesses.
I think we'll see Labour having to be very fiscally cautious to begin with, out of necessity in a time of economic fragility. A New Deal solution would be great, but is unlikely. |  |
| |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 11:07 - Feb 8 with 2535 views | itfcjoe |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 10:19 - Feb 8 by DJR |
I think though there is a danger that some people just won't be bothered to vote Labour with every U-turn taking Labour closer to the Tories, and Labour having no clear message.
It will be particularly interesting to see the effect such a U-turn will have on Scotland, where there is great scope for green investment and where the polls are perhaps not so doomed for the SNP as some might think.
Yesterday, an Ipsos poll, put the SNP seven points ahead in a Westminster election on 39%, versus 32% for Labour, and nine points in the constituency vote for Holyrood, on 39%. It said the SNP still maintains a lead in public trust in health, schools and the cost of living policies. |
Yep, they are playing a riskier game with regards to people looking for a reason to not vote for the incumbents but needing a pull factor as well as the clear push that exists.
I am interested to see how manifesto looks, because ultimately 90% of the country won't care until it is an election footing as to all what has happened between elections and that is when they need to campaign and show what they are
If they show their hand too early it either gets nicked as a policy and ruined (i.e. childcare) or just hammered for what it costs as the economic situation changes massively from when it was made | |
| |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 11:14 - Feb 8 with 2516 views | NthQldITFC |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 09:53 - Feb 8 by Chris_ITFC |
That sea temperature one…
|
Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis (amongst much other science) if I remember correctly speaks to how the Earth system as a whole tries to maintain an equilibrium which suits the dominant 'active' species which historically have been things like phytoplankton (photosynthesisers) and trees, which our activities increasingly overwhelm. The system absorbs and stores energy in various ways (fossilised carbon etc.) or modifies the atmosphere to reflect more into space (cooling) or trap more (warming, which we have been doing much more of unchecked since the Industrial Revolution).
I guess it's bit like a big rubber band, or more usefully a bunch of rubber bands in parallel - as you apply force to it the bunch stretches and stretches and you can't see much change, then all of a sudden one snaps! - and the increased force is taken up by the other bands, which without reducing the force will in turn exceed their elastic limits too. Cascading collapse.
The divergence in that graph (remembering what an immense system and momentum it represents) says to me that a substantial rubber band has snapped. Never too late to start taking the pressure off the remaining rubber bands. | |
| |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 11:38 - Feb 8 with 2458 views | Pinewoodblue |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 11:07 - Feb 8 by itfcjoe |
Yep, they are playing a riskier game with regards to people looking for a reason to not vote for the incumbents but needing a pull factor as well as the clear push that exists.
I am interested to see how manifesto looks, because ultimately 90% of the country won't care until it is an election footing as to all what has happened between elections and that is when they need to campaign and show what they are
If they show their hand too early it either gets nicked as a policy and ruined (i.e. childcare) or just hammered for what it costs as the economic situation changes massively from when it was made |
Getting your support to get out and vote is always the key issue. Elections are lost rather than won.
There seems a risk, for Labour, that the manifesto will be too light on socialist principle’s for activists, who tend to come from the left of the party.
I’m not comfortable with the apparent current policy of attacking the man (Sunak) rather than what he represents. It is likely to encourage Conservatives to vote.
Same in Scotland where SNP will warn Scottish voters that voting Tory light, rather than SNP, won’t give Scots what Scotland needs. The more SNP elected the better the chance of holding the balance of power and influencing a Labour government.
Interesting times ahead , hopefully we won’t regret the outcome. |  |
| |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 12:51 - Feb 8 with 2399 views | backwaywhen |
And yet another Starmer U turn …..couldn’t make it up …numpty personified. |  | | |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 17:17 - Feb 9 with 2243 views | MattinLondon |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 12:51 - Feb 8 by backwaywhen |
And yet another Starmer U turn …..couldn’t make it up …numpty personified. |
Maybe he’ll go up in your estimation if he committed himself to something stupid like bringing back National Service. |  | | |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 19:55 - Feb 9 with 2206 views | Swansea_Blue |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 10:19 - Feb 8 by DJR |
I think though there is a danger that some people just won't be bothered to vote Labour with every U-turn taking Labour closer to the Tories, and Labour having no clear message.
It will be particularly interesting to see the effect such a U-turn will have on Scotland, where there is great scope for green investment and where the polls are perhaps not so doomed for the SNP as some might think.
Yesterday, an Ipsos poll, put the SNP seven points ahead in a Westminster election on 39%, versus 32% for Labour, and nine points in the constituency vote for Holyrood, on 39%. It said the SNP still maintains a lead in public trust in health, schools and the cost of living policies. |
They see to be framing the u-turns as responding to changes in the underlying conditions. There’s some justification in that, as this plan was a lot cheaper before Truss/Kwarteng through a spanner in the works and whacked up the price of servicing debt.
Only some justification though. The u-turn label will likely stick; the reasoning doesn’t make the headlines or is quickly forgotten. Or they could try justifying it with whataboutery I suppose as the Tories u-turned so often recently that they may as well be on a carrousel.
It is a dangerous game. I don’t know why they’re so reluctant to commit to either an ideology or a plan. Why can’t they just focus on everything they’d like to fix or improve? There’s a massive list they could pick from after all. Or are we so tribal now in this country that the only thing that matters is not giving the opposition a target? How do they expect people to follow them if they’re not prepared to lead?
Still better than the Tories though. | |
| |
| Labour’s £28bn U-Turn on 17:55 - Feb 12 with 1941 views | DJR |
The former chief economist at the Bank of England thinks it's a mistake, and he should know a thing or two about the nation's finances.
| | | |
| |
By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions.
