Best Of

How. How is it possible that only two years after a landslide win this Labour government is collapsing in chaos?

Starmer is a very poor leader. Like, really poor. (I'm sure a better writer than me could come up with a Hitchhiker's style soliloquy about how mind-bendingly poor Starmer has been.)

He only won a landslide because he was up against the weakest performance by the Tory party in its history, after that party foisted a Prime Minister onto the country so inept they had to replace her in less than 50 days.

In those circumstances any averagely competent leader would have won a landslide of Baldwin (1931) proportions.

The landslide that Starmer did win probably bought him an extra year as PM. That and the split and weak nature of the opposition.

I have my doubts about Burnham. And I think Labour should be working out what to do different rather than concentrate on who to do it differently with. But Starmer is actively making the situation worse and has to go.

If you were Labour leader and looking a year or two away from a GE in which the worst combination of Liz Truss shite/Johnson open borders/Sunak mud sludge do nothing policy other than AI was the opposition --- would you not sit down with the great and the good in policy world and actually construction a manifesto and political economy policy that mattered??

But he couldn't do that because Labour is a socialist party and socialism doesn't work, as has been obvious since at least 1989.

To work economically, any such policy would have to involve some combination of deregulation, lower taxes and lower welfare spending.

But the activists and many MPs are still socialist, so the leadership's only recourse is a kind of weird doublethink, where they pretend they have a growth strategy while sabotaging the economy with endless tax rises and welfare spending, which infuriates the right, white leaving just enough of a free market to keep the economy stagnant rather than collapsing, which outrages the left.

And, unsurprisingly, nobody is happy.

Labour came in on Change. They are failing to Change. And somehow you think more of the same failing to Change is going to help.

I mean really, deregulation? Deregulation has given us the water industry. It’s given us the Fossil Fuel Industry with andd its authoritarian hideousness and climate change. Deregulation is not a panacea. It’s an utter fucking disaster for environment and humanity.

Tired old ideas from Labour and the right’s endemic corruption are supporting a genocide. FFS, blaming welfare recipients is so short sighted it cause me to face palm.

Change is required.

The water industry deregulated?

You must be joking.

I actually know a lot about the industry's regulation professionally and it's incredibly heavily regulated. In fact, water companies answer to no fewer than seven regulators. So many that not even I can remember them all (Ofwat, DWI, RAPID, the Environment Agency, the National Rivers Authority are the ones I dealt with).

Similar with the energy industry - what do you think the 2,200 people in Ofgem do all day?

And the financial services industry.

The problem with many of those industries is not inadequate regulation, it's incompetent regulation.

Very different. And it doesn't change the fact that excessive regulation, which many industries do suffer from (housing is a particularly glaring example) and taxes strangle economic growth.

Economy contracts in April by 0.1%

Thanks, Donald!

Economy contracts in April by 0.1%

Thanks, Donald!

The businesses I run have nothing to do with Trump

April was a shit month because everone is holding on to their cash

Nobody has any confidence in the economy/

But is high inflation part of why they have no confidence in the economy? Be2.8%cause that high inflation is the fault of Trump.

No

Trading is just bad and inflation is 2.8% hardly stratospheric

My business has almost hit our 2025 revenues already this year. It’s frenetic.

Well good luck, I hope you have a great year.

I work in manufacturing and it's just tumbleweed with rising costs

It seems to be grim in the jobs market too for manufacturing.

So many people I see on LinkedIn looking for work. People,I’ve worked with before. These aren’t the usual suspects but good people with a lot to offer. Its awful.

We had in PB yesterday people bemoaning youth unemployment rising. Some of whom were the same people who,supported Rayners so-called workers rights act and the rising in costs of employing people.

They’re getting what they supported. Own it.

Im afraid thats the case.

I have factories in the Midlands and Hartlepool and they are in that hand to mouth phase., People in the industry keep telling themselves customers cant hold off placing orders for ever, but so far they seem to be able to do so.

I was going to get moving with some apprentices this year but I will leave it for 2026 and see what joys 2027 brings.

Customers may be running down excess inventory but if they’ve little demand themselves then there’s no orders to place.

My old place has ended up being absorbed into another division to save costs as orders just were not there in sufficient quantity. They also no longer take in apprentices.

A recession is definitely coming - the only question is how deep and long will it be.

Economy contracts in April by 0.1%

Thanks, Donald!

Economy contracts in April by 0.1%

Thanks, Donald!

The businesses I run have nothing to do with Trump

April was a shit month because everone is holding on to their cash

Nobody has any confidence in the economy/

But is high inflation part of why they have no confidence in the economy? Be2.8%cause that high inflation is the fault of Trump.

No

Trading is just bad and inflation is 2.8% hardly stratospheric

My business has almost hit our 2025 revenues already this year. It’s frenetic.

Well good luck, I hope you have a great year.

I work in manufacturing and it's just tumbleweed with rising costs

It seems to be grim in the jobs market too for manufacturing.

So many people I see on LinkedIn looking for work. People,I’ve worked with before. These aren’t the usual suspects but good people with a lot to offer. Its awful.

We had in PB yesterday people bemoaning youth unemployment rising. Some of whom were the same people who,supported Rayners so-called workers rights act and the rising in costs of employing people.

They’re getting what they supported. Own it.

Economy contracts in April by 0.1%

Thanks, Donald!

Economy contracts in April by 0.1%

Thanks, Donald!

The businesses I run have nothing to do with Trump

April was a shit month because everone is holding on to their cash

Nobody has any confidence in the economy/

But is high inflation part of why they have no confidence in the economy? Be2.8%cause that high inflation is the fault of Trump.

No

Trading is just bad and inflation is 2.8% hardly stratospheric

My business has almost hit our 2025 revenues already this year. It’s frenetic.

Well good luck, I hope you have a great year.

I work in manufacturing and it's just tumbleweed with rising costs

It seems to be grim in the jobs market too for manufacturing.

So many people I see on LinkedIn looking for work. People,I’ve worked with before. These aren’t the usual suspects but good people with a lot to offer. Its awful.

We had in PB yesterday people bemoaning youth unemployment rising. Some of whom were the same people who,supported Rayners so-called workers rights act and the rising in costs of employing people.

They’re getting what they supported. Own it.

Im afraid thats the case.

I have factories in the Midlands and Hartlepool and they are in that hand to mouth phase., People in the industry keep telling themselves customers cant hold off placing orders for ever, but so far they seem to be able to do so.

I was going to get moving with some apprentices this year but I will leave it for 2026 and see what joys 2027 brings.

As I posted earlier.

Benefits not bombs.


Sam Coates Sky
@SamCoatesSky

The bottom line tonight is that the military establishment didn’t win the argument with Labour cabinet and MPs that they needed to cut spending, raise borrowing, raise taxes or cut welfare to fund higher defence spending.

Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves do not agree with John Healey even now, and while I’m sure mast Labour MPs would like to raise defence spending more, there’s no consensus what gives to achieve this.

This sounds about right. Whether there's enough money allocated or not - whatever the 'correct' amount is - the party (and parliament generally I imagine) cannot agree what it should be spent on or where the money comes from.

That isn't going to change.

Defence spending is insurance, no one with any sense spends more on insurance than they have to...
There are more productive ways to spend the money

Depends on the magnitude of the risk being insured. Defence seems rather existential. Perhaps less for us than the Baltics, but still.

How. How is it possible that only two years after a landslide win this Labour government is collapsing in chaos?

Starmer is a very poor leader. Like, really poor. (I'm sure a better writer than me could come up with a Hitchhiker's style soliloquy about how mind-bendingly poor Starmer has been.)

He only won a landslide because he was up against the weakest performance by the Tory party in its history, after that party foisted a Prime Minister onto the country so inept they had to replace her in less than 50 days.

In those circumstances any averagely competent leader would have won a landslide of Baldwin (1931) proportions.

The landslide that Starmer did win probably bought him an extra year as PM. That and the split and weak nature of the opposition.

I have my doubts about Burnham. And I think Labour should be working out what to do different rather than concentrate on who to do it differently with. But Starmer is actively making the situation worse and has to go.

If you were Labour leader and looking a year or two away from a GE in which the worst combination of Liz Truss shite/Johnson open borders/Sunak mud sludge do nothing policy other than AI was the opposition --- would you not sit down with the great and the good in policy world and actually construction a manifesto and political economy policy that mattered??

But he couldn't do that because Labour is a socialist party and socialism doesn't work, as has been obvious since at least 1989.

To work economically, any such policy would have to involve some combination of deregulation, lower taxes and lower welfare spending.

But the activists and many MPs are still socialist, so the leadership's only recourse is a kind of weird doublethink, where they pretend they have a growth strategy while sabotaging the economy with endless tax rises and welfare spending, which infuriates the right, white leaving just enough of a free market to keep the economy stagnant rather than collapsing, which outrages the left.

And, unsurprisingly, nobody is happy.

Labour came in on Change. They are failing to Change. And somehow you think more of the same failing to Change is going to help.

I mean really, deregulation? Deregulation has given us the water industry. It’s given us the Fossil Fuel Industry with andd its authoritarian hideousness and climate change. Deregulation is not a panacea. It’s an utter fucking disaster for environment and humanity.

Tired old ideas from Labour and the right’s endemic corruption are supporting a genocide. FFS, blaming welfare recipients is so short sighted it cause me to face palm.

Change is required.

The failures of the water industry were the result of (a) zero interest rates (b) clever and unscrupulous financiers and (c) naive regulators. It wasn’t anything fundamental to do with ownership.

The answer is relatively simple: cap the amount of debt that the water companies are allowed to borrow. Require existing shareholders to pay in additional equity to reduce debt to those levels. If they won’t then the government can on penal terms

So, we are spending nearly £60bn on defence this year. We struggle to put a single ship to sea. Our carriers seem to spend all their time in dock. We have a pitiful number of planes. Our army is one of the smallest we have ever had and almost certainly incapable of putting 5k soldiers on the front line for anything other than the briefest of times (which is how long their ammunition would last anyway).

John Healey may well be right that we need to invest in defence but what, as Secretary of State, has he done to improve our return on that £60bn. Last time I checked we had something like 31 flag officers for that frigate that we managed, with a fair bit of effort, to make seaworthy. According to CoPilot, the British Army currently has three full generals, nine lieutenant generals, and approximately 44 major generals on active duty. How many of these are in charge of a platoon? The money blown on the Atlas vehicle is almost beyond belief.

This chronic waste of resources is by no means all Healey's fault, of course, but I see precious little evidence that he has done much, if anything, to improve this chronic situation.

I am sorry but the “more admirals than ships” nonsense is unworthy of you. “Large, complex, organisation operating complex machinery requires senior managers” is not news and not the problem.

Compare us with our peers and we do better than most, and much the same as the French (the best comparison). This stuff is just hard, and expensive.

Can improvements be made? Of course. Is there some deep underlying scandal? Nah. Well maybe Ajax.

Edit - and when looking at the NOD budget remember that pre-2010 operations were an extra budget line, and now MOD must find room for them, including support to Ukraine. The cupboard is bare.

Bollocks. It is utterly risible. You don't need a 'large complex organisation' if you have no military capability.