Best Of

I don’t envy Labour but the clear message from his support at the last GE and before was that people are done with austerity. To double down on it whilst doing stuff that really upsets middle England, like the war on nature, has been politics at its poorest.

How can austerity end without raising taxes which are already at a high level?

Growth. Essentially, it can't. We can't afford the level of welfare we're currently paying for - we've basically got UBI for anyone who can pass a PIP and keeping anyone over 65 in clover.

Which party is going to be brave enough to end the triple lock ? My answer none .

It's not just the state pension, public sector pensions need a 30-40% haircut too. In too many areas we're living well beyond our means and our welfare state is far, far beyond a safety net. Cut a million people from state employment to take us back to 2017, taper the state pension for higher rate tax payers, merge NI and income tax so that non-working income is taxed at the same rate as working income, cut to £2k the cash ISA allowance, push through a 30-40% haircut for defined benefit pensions (even for people currently receiving them), introduce much, much tougher criteria to receive disability benefits and exclude all but 5% of the most serious mental health cases by default. The rest can go back to work or live on £450 per month or whatever UC is for unemployed people. Also get rid of UC, move back to the old system if JSA and ESA, UC is an experiment that hasn't worked, it's just encouraged people to game the system worse than ever.

I think if Labour started that programme today by the end of the parliament we could be in a position to actually pay front line service staff more and attract better quality candidates for teachers, police, nurses etc...

What we have now is an underfunded and hugely over funded state at the same time it's literally the worst of both worlds.

You aren't going far enough. That list looks like reforms but in practice is just cuts. You say "go back to work" but the jobs aren't there, and the few who find a job quickly experience why in work benefits are so well used - work doesn't pay the bills.

Unless you reimagine the welfare state in its entirety and make some surgical cuts to the cost of living, what you proposed creates a massive recession as circulating cash collapses which buggers local economies and makes the crumbling ruins of our towns collapse even faster.

The jobs are there - it's just very difficult for anyone who's been out of work a long time to get one because they are seen as "suspect".

If only that was true. There are few jobs in so many communities. Again, park the national statistics and look at it at a granular level. Speak to people. Look at towns and regions where the deprivation is crushing. You think that we can cure Middlesbrough by tipping people off welfare into all of those jobs which sit unfilled?

What jobs?

Maybe, just maybe, if these people weren't allowed to sit on benefits then they might go out and do something else? Start a business? Become deliveroo riders, Uber drivers, we always have a shortage of care workers as you point out on a regular basis, create a training pathway for it.

People who are sufficiently motivated (facing homelessness) will find a way to get work, even if it starts small with temporary jobs or part time work.

There are 300k+ people in England who haven’t found homelessness enough of a motivation to start a business. What went wrong there?

I don’t envy Labour but the clear message from his support at the last GE and before was that people are done with austerity. To double down on it whilst doing stuff that really upsets middle England, like the war on nature, has been politics at its poorest.

How can austerity end without raising taxes which are already at a high level?

Growth. Essentially, it can't. We can't afford the level of welfare we're currently paying for - we've basically got UBI for anyone who can pass a PIP and keeping anyone over 65 in clover.

Which party is going to be brave enough to end the triple lock ? My answer none .

It's not just the state pension, public sector pensions need a 30-40% haircut too. In too many areas we're living well beyond our means and our welfare state is far, far beyond a safety net. Cut a million people from state employment to take us back to 2017, taper the state pension for higher rate tax payers, merge NI and income tax so that non-working income is taxed at the same rate as working income, cut to £2k the cash ISA allowance, push through a 30-40% haircut for defined benefit pensions (even for people currently receiving them), introduce much, much tougher criteria to receive disability benefits and exclude all but 5% of the most serious mental health cases by default. The rest can go back to work or live on £450 per month or whatever UC is for unemployed people. Also get rid of UC, move back to the old system if JSA and ESA, UC is an experiment that hasn't worked, it's just encouraged people to game the system worse than ever.

I think if Labour started that programme today by the end of the parliament we could be in a position to actually pay front line service staff more and attract better quality candidates for teachers, police, nurses etc...

What we have now is an underfunded and hugely over funded state at the same time it's literally the worst of both worlds.

You aren't going far enough. That list looks like reforms but in practice is just cuts. You say "go back to work" but the jobs aren't there, and the few who find a job quickly experience why in work benefits are so well used - work doesn't pay the bills.

Unless you reimagine the welfare state in its entirety and make some surgical cuts to the cost of living, what you proposed creates a massive recession as circulating cash collapses which buggers local economies and makes the crumbling ruins of our towns collapse even faster.

The jobs are there - it's just very difficult for anyone who's been out of work a long time to get one because they are seen as "suspect".

There is actually a secondary problem here - at £12.21 an hour staff need to be productive quickly. And an awful lot of unemployed people simply won't be reliable enough for someone to risk the cost of employing them..

£12.21 is only the start.

By the time you add on employers NI, holiday pay, sick pay, employers pension contributions and any training costs then you're looking at over £16 per hour cost to the employer.

Seems to be the tories and Labour haven’t quite grasped the mood out there - seemingly continuing in the same way they have for decades and changing nothing.

Starmer needs to stop the “smash the gangs” rubbish as quite clearly it’s making no difference. Reeves needs to go. And we need to start having an honest conversation about the NHS and whether there is a “better way”.

Badenoch - well, she’s quite useless. She won’t be around for much longer I think.

Apart from that, really fascinating time in politics

IMHO we should restrict what is available on the NHS. Emergency care, obviously, and basic services. But a lot of things we just can't afford, yes, like latest treatments for X, Y, Z. If we have to borrow money to support our standard if living we aren't a wealthy country.

I think the brutal but necessary action is to freeze hospital spending in nominal terms until it represents the same proportion of health spending as it did 20 years ago. Tighten up QALYs and revert the emphasis to public health and primary care.

Why on earth do Labour put Ellie Reeves on to talk for them ? She;s appalling.

She read law, Labour have concluded the country loves a lawyer.

Labour's biggest ever majorities have all been won by lawyers.

She might as well come on TV and just bleat four legs good two legs bad

Brainless.

No doubt has the CV for the TV.

I always wondered why they put forwards the Eagle sisters too.

It's a hospital pass, having to face the questions over an appalling performance.

It was Cleverly's gig at the last election, and I have some respect for whoever volunteers to go over the top into the guns. A lot just go to ground.

Cleverly is keeping a very low profile these days. Is he waiting for when the ball spills out the back of the scrum?

I know he's thinking of running for Mayor of London, under FPTP he could win with circa 22% of the vote.

That said he's got to wait three years but If the ball came loose from the back of the scrum before then.