Mailwatch(ed) Forum

Yep, and lots of it from what's supposed to be their own side. Coalition parties opposition to austerity amounted to nobody in the Tories and only Charles Kennedy and Lord Oakeshott from the Lib Dems.

Which is unfair and all that, but the fact remains that the base for Labour's policies as announced so far is fairly small. I think a mistake was made in the campaign by allowing the Greens to pile up votes and rack up good second places. I'm sure it isn't necessary for the government to spend £28bn a year to make climate targets, but no positive case was made for the new Labour position. The impression was half as much decarbonisation, when the plan is for the private sector to fund more of it.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ing-abroad

Here's a very Guardian article on freedom of movement, the only difference being it's written (competently enough, certain no less competently than in regular guardian columns) by a 16 year old.

This is fairly wishful thinking.

The need for engagement with other cultures has become all the more vital after the racist Islamophobic riots that broke out across the UK, which were fuelled by an inability to accept people from different ethnicities and cultures. Arguably, this nativism could be avoided if people were given the opportunity to meet and engage with people from different backgrounds at an early age.

Freedom of movement was available to the big majority of people who ran amok in Sunderland. And as pointed out BTL, the EU isn't exactly short of racist young people. Or old people, for that matter.

A scheme such as free movement for 18- to 30-year-olds, something which finally puts young people first, is desperately needed to allow students to flourish. By dedicating resources and creating policy with the young people of this country in mind, the government could provide hope, and create a domino effect of positive change for the younger generations – who need investment and care more than ever.

OK, it's only an example, but this is the group who migrated before, and it was unpopular enough to lose the referendum. I like hope as much as the next man, but I think the main person who'd draw hope from that would be Nigel Farage. If you offered him this scenario, with a relatively small number of British people working abroad and coming back feeling more cosmopolitan v all those Romanians coming over here etc.

I wish the Guardian had more sense of the pitfalls involved in "just agree to youth mobility".

How many Red Wallers would want their children to move to Foreign for a year or two?

davidjay wrote: ↑Wed Aug 28, 2024 11:13 pm How many Red Wallers would want their children to move to Foreign for a year or two?

I think the vast majority would be proud of children/ grandchildren working abroad, just like they're proud when they go to university. That's why the wider right culture war fell fairly flat.

I think lots of the issue they had with the EU was that they blamed it for big local employers closing.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Thu Aug 29, 2024 10:40 am

I think lots of the issue they had with the EU was that they blamed it for big local employers closing.

Aided and abetted by the right-wing press and their client government.

But I thought being in the EU enabled Japanese car manufacturers to have a Thatcher subsided base here, so they could access the European markets

Yug wrote: ↑Thu Aug 29, 2024 10:45 am

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Thu Aug 29, 2024 10:40 am

I think lots of the issue they had with the EU was that they blamed it for big local employers closing.

Aided and abetted by the right-wing press and their client government.

Gazackly. So many of them are as gullible as toddlers, and I'd wager a crisp tenner that they'd break at 52% : 48%.

Starmer not ruling out raising fuel duty. This would be well overdue, but believe it when I see it. I do though quite like Starmer and Reeves' "we're in the shit" stuff, even if they're getting a lot of stick from "their own side" for it. Never let a crisis go to waste- we don't raise enough tax for our diminished expectations of the state, let alone what we actually would want from it. No reason that they can't borrow more for investment once they've tightened up in the first year.

If there is a raise in fuel duty, what are the chances Jez opposes it? "Instead of hitting ordinary drivers, why don't they just do a wealth tax?"

Interesting stuff in here on bus reforms.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/art ... bus-routes

Step in the right direction, but I worry about the expectations of this policy.

says Stephen Rhodes, the director of bus travel at Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM), the extension of franchising plans under Labour is welcome – but that change can only be a first step. “Franchising is an enabler. It makes things easier and it gives us more levers to pull, but we still need to do a lot; whether that’s red routes, or other infrastructure improvements working with local authority partners.”

What he doesn't say here is that a lot more money is needed to meet expectations. It's one thing to resolve absurdities like tickets only being valid with one company on a route, but the main reason there aren't more buses is that they'd lose money. First Group, Arriva would already be running buses on these (hypothetical) routes if they didn't. Everyone likes buses, but LAs have other priorities at the moment. Will central government step up?

One thing I actually liked about Jez was his focus on buses. Sure, anybody can spend more money, but buses are progressive spending and he'd have found it easily enough from his tax rises. And he wasn't dogmatic about insisting they were run by councils. I assume he'd spoken to Livingstone or Khan, who told him that the bus operators did a reasonable job in London.

I feel money exists for this kind of stuff, it doesn’t effectively exist for giveaways.

See what happens in the budget. There are loads of reliefs below the radar that can be abolished/phased. See Dan Neidle for some suggestions.

The UK has broken with the Biden administration on a significant part of their tightly coordinated policy towards Israel by announcing it is suspending some arms export licences to Israel because of a “clear risk” they may be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law

Correct, and not before time. But unlikely to end the war, because the UK isn't one of Israel's big suppliers.

Takes some of the wind out of Corbyn's sails too.

It may be too much to shut up those other “independent” MPs who stood at the election on a platform of lies that Labour is somehow responsible for genocide in Gaza. I note that Corbyn is trying to form some sort of parliamentary grouping with them, with some co-ordination (HA !) to “campaign” on stuff like more Gaza lies, scrapping the two child benefits cap, a wealth tax, and so on.

Opposition. Corbyn fucking loves it.

It’s not a full embargo, that’ll be what Jez says. He knows about embargos. Wants to impose one on Ukraine.

Disgraceful response by Bozo suggesting Labour wants Hamas to win. And Lord Ricketts who supports the decision has pathetically criticised Labour for doing it on the day it's announced that some of the hostages have been murdered. It's a war. Very bad stuff happens all the time in it.

Abernathy wrote: ↑Mon Sep 02, 2024 8:45 pm It may be too much to shut up those other “independent” MPs who stood at the election on a platform of lies that Labour is somehow responsible for genocide in Gaza. I note that Corbyn is trying to form some sort of parliamentary grouping with them, with some co-ordination (HA !) to “campaign” on stuff like more Gaza lies, scrapping the two child benefits cap, a wealth tax, and so on.

Opposition. Corbyn fucking loves it.

This is the real indicator of Jez’s popularity and influence - even his temporarily ejected best mates won’t throw in with him or his new indie group because they know full well that doing so will make their ban permanent and they’ll be out of the Labour Party. And they sure do like that party money and network come election time.

Change UK may have crashed and burned, but every single one of them had more principle than Corbyn, who - despite his fanclub constantly telling him to quit and start his own party - clung on by his fingernails until finally being forced out. And even now he’s taking a leader role but explicitly saying ‘there is no leader’ so he can avoid any accountability for group actions.

He has never once put his money where his mouth is.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Tue Sep 03, 2024 9:40 am Disgraceful response by Bozo suggesting Labour wants Hamas to win.

One lot of foreigners killing another lot of foreigners is none of our business, is the line taken by anyone who still listens to anything Johnson says.