mercury_redstone7
Well-known member
He should have renationalised just about everything by now... dear me.
Keir Starmer..
- Thread starter newyddion
- Start date
Decent_Left
Well-known member
I think Farridge is the only thing stopping them looking like a shoe in next time around. On a national level I think he will be enough for a lot to not go there
But locally I am dreading the frog faced spawn of evil doing his bloody good bloke impression after storming the council elections in a couple of months
Decent_Left
Well-known member
Well that of course would be lovely, if we were still living in 1945z
Beyond settling the NHS strikes it’s very thin gruel today and be thankful as it may not be available tomorrow. That’s what’s sticking
Merrykoala
Well-known member
I'm not fan of Starmer but he's fighting against a hostile right wing media, an actual fascist political party, a real life bond villain and every ignorant tosser with a Facebook account in the country who will believe whatever bilge the algorithm will feed them.
I don't think we'll ever see a remotely socialist government again, too many Turkeys voting for perpetual Christmas.
At this rate I'd be happy to let the robots wipe us out
I don't think we'll ever see a remotely socialist government again, too many Turkeys voting for perpetual Christmas.
At this rate I'd be happy to let the robots wipe us out
MolteniArcore
Well-known member
Trump & Musk don’t drive the domestic agenda regarding ‘stopping the boats’ too much - plus they are too busy upsetting the world to be playing with Starmer again now the election has been won.
newyddion
Well-known member
Musk owns Twitter.. which is hugely influential.
Trump gets so much airtime and paper inches that you would think he was our president.
MolteniArcore
Well-known member
Since the inauguration Musk has left the UK alone really. Trump is too busy turning Gaza into the Spanish riviera. Farage who?
Good post, and a few months ago I would have agreed. Action to lift wages and public spending on infrastructure is classic Keynesian economics and we can look at Bidenomics to see it still has purchase. The U.S is in a different position to us though: its citizens still largely consume U.S products and, crucially, as the world's reserve currency (because oil is traded in dollars) it can keep on 'printing money'.
What's changed for me is my understanding of just how weak our structural position is. Pikety demonstrated that capital took an even greater share of national income (in the form of economic rent of one form or another) and it is this tendency that continually stifles demand in the UK, the 'rentier' economy par excellence. Businesses don't want to grow, because ordinary people haven't got money to spend because of increased mortgages/rents, energy costs etc. We have transformed into an economy dependent on asset bubbles to produce ersatz 'growth', but all asset bubbles do is deliver an ever greater share of wealth to those who already have it as they buy up all the assets, taking them out of the reach of workers without wealth. Moreover - and this is another crucial fact that has recently become apparent to me - the businesses that are growing in the UK are invariably owned by America! In addition to the vast swathes of our infrastructure owned - and rented back to us - by overseas asset funds (such as Blackstone and the like), over the last 20 years American companies have consistently predated upon the UK market, taking over both established and nascent UK companies that promised high returns, invariably offshoring profits.
As a Labour member, I have always been against left-splitters, but I'm starting to lose faith that the party has either the will or the understanding to begin to reverse these fundamental structural changes to the UK economy. We have an economy based around asset wealth, rent seeking, rapacious foreign ownership and large-scale tax avoidance. Like Gary Stevenson says, 'It's not growth, it's inequality', that's the real problem. We need to tax wealth more more aggressively - a land-value tax is an obvious place to start - and we need to draft laws preventing further foreign ownership of strategic assets, as the French do. Most importantly of all, we need to break up the banks, encouraging a return to local banking and lending, with the privilege of public money creation reserved for 'productive lending'. It was the last Labour government, after all, that oversaw the sale of Cadbury, a major UK asset, to Kraft, a U.S corporation (which used a £7 billion loan from RBS - at the time a UK taxpayer-owned asset!) which closed its UK factory (after promising not to) and which now offshores profits to Switzerland. Now, we have Mandelson installed as US Ambassador and Starmer pathetically grateful for an audience with Donald and about to bend over and agree to further raping of the UK economy. Trump doesn't need to charge us tariffs; we already pay tithes from the UK-based assets his country already owns in the form of vast (virtually tax-free) profits - via infrastructure/tech/property rents and consumer sales - ultimately repatriated to US bank holdings.
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HolgateCorner
Well-known member
I don’t disagree but what you are saying is very difficult because the U.K. is simply a part of a global economic system. If a Labour Chancellor tampers too much and spooks the markets then you would get a Liz Truss situation magnified a billion times because it was Labour that did it.
Starmer, and the voters, need to be realists and do good things for the working class whilst keeping economic stability. Saving the NHS from the far right and the terrible prospect of an insurance based system would on its own be a superb achievement by this Labour Government.
SCG
Well-known member
Just turned on the news and seen this headline flash up
To use a famous quote "I want your walls. I want the eyes out of your head. I want the roof off your f**king house, I want no shoes on your f**king feet. That's what's going to happen."
Won't be happy until we are all slaves cleaning out the Barracks.
Army chief warns Keir Starmer his Premiership is heading for the 'dustbin of history' as he slams 'embarrassing' neglect of UK's armed forces amid growing threat from Putin
Hmmm.. 6% Pay Increase and increased defence spend in the budget...To use a famous quote "I want your walls. I want the eyes out of your head. I want the roof off your f**king house, I want no shoes on your f**king feet. That's what's going to happen."
Won't be happy until we are all slaves cleaning out the Barracks.
Laughing
Well-known member
This is absolutely the most ignorant post I have ever read on this board.
Defence spending isn't even at the 2.5% that has been continually committed to. It is significantly less than when labour were last in government and if the USA do withdraw troops Europe more generally will have to massively increase defence spend to take up the slack.
I am afraid the latest iPhone purchase might have to wait until the region in which we live is more stable.
red_harrington
Well-known member
Defence spending is a pretty simple concept.
When there are no wars, and there is little threat, what's the point of spending big on defence?
Hence the low spending in the past few decades.
But now the threat looms large ie actual war is happening right now on our doorstep, it's time to up spending.
Which isn't the black hole people think it may be, most of the money will be spent within the UK on construction & arms, much of which gets fed back into the economy.
When there are no wars, and there is little threat, what's the point of spending big on defence?
Hence the low spending in the past few decades.
But now the threat looms large ie actual war is happening right now on our doorstep, it's time to up spending.
Which isn't the black hole people think it may be, most of the money will be spent within the UK on construction & arms, much of which gets fed back into the economy.