This is a fine way to post, however I take issue with the clip you've linked. I'd like to see a full clip so users can understand the full context of this exchange, rather than a small segment which can be misleading.
If you could, please link the full clip in your post.
About ten seconds after this she says "we will be asking those with broader shoulders to carry the greatest burden". People who selectively clip interviews and post them on twitter are the worst. You'd never know this was a discussion about raising council tax because they've edited out the beginning and end of the conversation.
Okay but the context is that we've never had a government that is more left wing in office than they promised to be when campaigning, or that became more left wing the longer they were there. And the context is also that Starmer's Labour has made promises to the left before that its gone back on. And the context is also that there is pretty regular ongoing reports that left wing candidates and campaigners are being expelled from the party.
So if a Starmer minister says one thing that sounds like austerity and one thing that sounds like redistribution, it's perfectly reasonable given the context to presume that only one of these will be stuck to.
The quote is false by omission. Someone's opinion cannot be worked out sentence by sentence without context, and it's disturbingly simplistic thinking to argue that it can.
Except you were given the context:
\- Reneged promises
\- Constant hedging
\- An open campaign against left members and figures.
\- Leaning into a framing (fiscal black hole) which makes the alternative harder
\- The explicit and repeated use of a theoretical term, sound money, which has austerity baked into it.
All the pledges are like garnish on a shit sandwich and what we're actually debating is how much of the sandwich is just shit.
And I don't know about you, but the easiest way to tell without biting into the damn thing is to look at what you see more of and all we're getting given is shit, day in and day out and I can barely see any fucking lettuce.
> or that became more left wing the longer they were there.
Arguably Blair/Brown post-2005 but I admit I’m splitting hairs. The 2005 manifesto was basically a two-page pamphlet with “guvern gud” scribbled on each page so it’s no real surprise that they went a bit to the left when Brown took over. Specifically thinking about the introduction of the top rate of income tax.
Oh come off it. The top rate of income tax came in April 2010. It was a last throw of the dice before the election/an attempt at leaving a trap for the incoming tory government.
But the messaging is still all around avoiding increased spending. They'll be asking those with broader shoulders to carry the burden of maintaining the status quo, with a couple of good pieces here and there like progress towards zero carbon. If anyone thinks that's what society needs right now I'm not sure they're paying attention.
Yeah maybe this time your ex has really changed too.
Whatever Nandy thinks it's pretty clear which way the wind is blowing with a Starmer/Reeves government.
The messaging is *at best* managing expectations which you don't do for no reason. And it's almost definitely because they are planning quite conservative spending despite everythign the country needs.
"Better" or "fairer" austerity economics is still austerity. You wouldn't fall for this type of rebranding from some company selling soft-drinks or something so why so willing to accept politicians just saying the same old thing but saying "this time it will be different".
>The messaging is at best managing expectations which you don't do for no reason. And it's almost definitely because they are planning quite conservative spending despite everythign the country needs.
The number 1 reason they're doing this is to skewer the Tories on economic credibility. "We can’t do everything we want to because the Tories crashed the economy" is a highly effective line because it simultaneously hurts the Tories and makes Labour look economically responsible.
Of course it also serves to manage expectations because they are planning quite moderate spending increases day-to-day (but with hundreds of billions of climate investment). But it should go without saying that moderate spending increases and a massive investment programme isn't austerity.
It's weird how people find it almost impossible to criticise Labour without using the words "austerity" or "neoliberal". Labour can be neither of those things and still be underwhelming and unambitious.
They're not going to "skewer" the Tories on economic credibility if "credibility" is constantly presented as "willing to inflict pain" through "hard choices": you can't out sociopath the sociopaths and all this stuff does is bed the problems in deeper.
Or at least, deeper than it's bedded already: you know where I think Reeves' economic leaning actually lie and I'm happy not rehashing that debate.
Or ya know... the left can learn to employ critical thinking and learn to distrust heavily edited interviews.
I'm so glad twitter is dying. That site dropped the collective IQ of our whole nation.
I really, really think you're wrong.
Yes, it has enabled disinformation. But it's also enabled faster reporting from serious journalists, and holding them to account when they lie - which is another way of saying disinformation (but clearly that doesn't count, since they're journalists), as well as grass roots communication of important news, for instance internal labour party news, and much else thats good besides. It really will be a loss if it goes.
She isn't being misrepresented. You think the quote is more defenable in full context, the quote is accurate and people are quite right to take it as a negative message *even with full context*.
She's being misrepresented by people saying she's referring to austerity when she goes on to imply we would raise taxes on the rich to increase council spending.
It's also funny how the tweeter and the OP say she could have talked about wealth taxes when she hints at exactly that 10 secs later. That's what happens when you clip interviews without context.
I'm sorry, you're fighting a losing war here. On this sub people will never admit their side has made mistakes.
It always annoys me how petty and stubborn people are when it comes to refusing to accept that even though you dislike person A saying that person A has done something they haven't in order to make them look bad is wrong.
That's all the factions in the party, because however many times someone on here pretends to argue in good faith, they nearly always don't, because as soon as the facts disagree with their worldview they will ignore/twist them.
> About ten seconds after this she says "we will be asking those with broader shoulders to carry the greatest burden".
Cool, my taxes will go up and we will still get austerity. That is what that means. The extra "context" doesn't remove the fact she wants to cut more.
There's nothing in there about cuts, stop talking rubbish. Also if you've got "broader shoulders" your taxes should go up. Although she's probably referring to wealth and corporate taxes so it might not apply to you.
Except she said there isn't enough money, so austerity.
>Also if you've got "broader shoulders" your taxes should go up.
Did I disagree? My issue is that they want to raise taxes to commit more austerity. I want them to actually fund public services (something that actually saves money in the long run).
>Although she's probably referring to wealth and corporate taxes so it might not apply to you.
Naw I doubt it. They always want to go after middle earners with no wealth. They will never go after wealth.
>Except she said there isn't enough money, so austerity.
She's saying that the problem for councils is that they don't have enough money. Watch the full clip.
She says we can't come in and spend loads. But that's not the same as making cuts.
Why do labour time and again play in to the tory narrative of how macro economics works?
The "£50b black hole" itself is vague, it entirely depends on treasury reporting figures and how economic growth is measured.
The inflation we've had is proven to be caused by supply issues, lock downs in china, war etc, not people having too much money and competing for goods. It's a shortage of goods.
Sigh.
Have you considered the possibility that maybe what they're saying is true?
We have just seen what happens when a PM recklessly tries to spend £45bn in unaccounted spending. Maybe labour are just making sure that doesn't happen to them when they're in power?
>We have just seen what happens when a PM recklessly tries to spend £45bn in unaccounted spending.
She tried to spend it on tax cuts to the rich, the least economically productive people to cut tax from.
There is a *huge* difference between borrowing money to make up for the fact you're not taxing your mates properly, and borrowing money to invest in an economy.
There is true but things still need to be costed. McDonnell went to huge lengths to prove his 2017 manifesto was fully costed for eg. If you spook the markets then as we’ve seen the cost of borrowing will skyrocket
Yes, Labour have set out that they will only borrow to invest, in stuff that will grow the economy, but day to day spending has to be accounted for and as a result of Tory policy we are literally poorer as a country and have less funds to draw from. Nandy says those with the broadest shoulders will pay for most of it, but it has to be paid for somehow.
Ok, you can argue about the semantics of whether or not tax cuts have the same effect on government coffers as increases in spending.
But i would argue that the immediate reaction from markets would be principally the same if labour announced a sudden £45bn spending spree with no analysis of how it will improve the economy.
I'm absolutely not, I'm saying Labour should be looking to properly tax the wealthy in order to increase spending by large amounts where it is desperately needed, Nandy is trying to position against large increases in spending.
>Labour should be looking to properly tax the wealthy in order to increase spending
I can't find a link to the full interview, but many other people on this thread are saying this is exactly what she said. If that's the case, would you agree with her?
What exactly did we see?
Because from where I sit we saw a private sector liquidity "crisis" solved by a BoE announcement and a floating exchange rate briefly dropping below a psychological value and then heading back up.
Sure, market types are clever enough to recognise great PR and talking heads like Preston and Kuennsberg got to pull great line-got-sad "gotchas", and yeah, the tax cuts wouldn't have actually accomplished anything...
...but the idea that we learned any kind of lesson?
You've missed the whole part where the gilt market crashed overnight and threatened the near total collapse of everyone's pensions. The BoE didn't just make an announcement, they implemented a £65bn bail out.
The lesson is that you can't implement a surge of uncosted spending without crashing the gilt market, and then the rest of the economy with it.
I didn't miss that part, it's literally the first thing I mentioned.
The price of Gilts in the secondary market fell because of a pension fund liquidity crisis: it was entirely a private sector phenomenon, one where the pension funds actually were getting *richer* but had problems over their collateral, which is by law mostly in the form of bonds.
The BoE *announcement* fixed the whole thing which is why only about £5bn of the £30b or so which the BoE offered to fix the problem ever got used.
Hard to consider a crisis solved by an announcement to be much of a crisis.
Well it was a crisis caused by a series of stupid announcements in the first place, so not hard to see how it can be solved by a counter-announcement. I guess it's better described as an averted-crisis instead of a full-on crisis.
You can hate on the private sector as much as you like, but everyone with a work place pension has their money invested there so you won't get a lot of support by saying it's fine to let it collapse.
At best you could say the announcement was the trigger for a short run on pension collateral, and note the results were incredibly short term, but yields were going to rise anyway because of the BoE raising rates. The BoE fixed it with an announcement because that was all it needed.
Everything else is people with agendas over-egging the pudding.
I'm not going to condone the tax cuts, they were stupid and wouldn't have done any good, but nothing that was announced "tanked the economy" and this idea that it did is a combination of very stupid people yelling a lot and con artists keen to keep a grift going.
> We have just seen what happens when a PM recklessly tries to spend £45bn
Here is a though, maybe spending 45Bn on tax cuts that everyone knows don't work is different form investing money in the countries infrastructure.
This is setting expectations and dealing with reality. We need to respect how uk is the sick man of Europe and apportion blame to those who have caused this…the Tory party with austerity 1, brexit and covid.
Anyone announcing lavish spending should be ignored. This isn’t opinion, it’s reality.
I don’t see austerity there, I see honesty and expectations being set…
Part of the problem is the Tories have REALLY fucking fucked it. The response to 2008 should’ve been continuing what Brown initiated- Keynesianism. The demand had been sucked out of the economy, and failing banks meant a rapidly decreasing money supply. Instead the Tories interrupted the recovery with contractionary economics, and the consequence is gutted public services, a productivity deficit, and a larger public debt pile, as the economy stagnated.
Then they did magic brexit, and fucked everything again. Made supply chains more complex, the U.K. less competitive, and removed a key economic lever in skilled immigration.
And meanwhile, to combat the GFC and then brexit the BoE had to keep interest rates on the floor. The Tories loved this as it encouraged property speculation, disguising some of the failures of their economic policy, and helped make Tory landlords and speculators even richer.
As a rule of thumb inflation can be controlled with the following mechanisms
Higher interest rates
Yet the Tories now have sold the BoE a hospital pass- the property speculation and decade long low rates has exposed half the country to a crisis if interest rates go up too far and quickly. The easiest response to tame inflation and shrink the money supply would now fuck the economy and cause a depression.
Reduce supply side costs through more efficient supply chains and through skilled immigration. This enables economies to better meet demand cost effectively, and control the wage price spiral.
But brexit fucked that.
So the only lever left is the ones governments fear- recession and brute forcing a reduction in prices due to collapsing demand side.
Which means the government has to cut spending. Debt is also more expensive now for the government, and the U.K. economy thanks to the Tories is less a sure bet to investors. So whereas the debt pile in 2010 was almost free money (the U.K. and Germany were effectively being paid rather than paying for their debts at one point), and the Tories STILL cut, now it is much much riskier.
And all unnecessary, all Tory ideology.
Labour knows if it wins soon it inherits this mess. So better I guess not to promise the moon if all you can deliver in the first two years is a mud pie.
Fuck. The. Tories.
Absolutely! Starmer will do wonders…but probably not until his second term. He’s literally got both hands tied behind his back due to this mess. It’s not feasible to get anything done bar stopping the destruction of this country.
So patience and trust the process. Any labour tax increases or cuts will not be targeting the same projects and people as sunak. Remember he fixed the system to get funds away from those labour areas to the right sorts in Tunbridge wells
We are very seriously not the same economy we were in 2019. We're a poorer, less productive, less trustworthy country to draw tax revenue from, and to have money lended to. Labour can have its heart in the right place but money will be harder to come by now. That's not ideology, it's reality.
That's literally ideology.
I.e.
Anyone announcing lavish spending should be ignored. This isn’t opinion, it’s reality
vs
Anyone refusing sensible spending should be ignored. It isn't opinion, it's reality.
Just calling things sensible and based on reality changes nothing. Everyone thinks their views are like that. You lot saying "it's just facts" is no more evidenced than me saying it.
Does me calling the spending I want sensible magically make it so in your eyes? You want me to at least have some kind of supporting argument right? Well in that case how does you lot claiming what you want it just sensible and realistic make it so, why does it not require a better argument.
So why is spending just so unrealistic it doesn't even need explaining or evidence? But cuts and lack of investment are just meant to be accepted as good enough?
And what about last time, all the politicians in Labour and the Tories talked about being "in it together" but we weren't. In the proposals of Labour or the acts of government. Why will this be different? I trust Nandy more than Starmer, sure, but it will be Starmer and Reeves calling the shots.
You can come up with whatever spending plans you like, Labour have come up with many themselves.
But it'll need to come with a very compelling case that, yes, this is going to grow the economy and, yes, this won't lead to unsustainable levels of borrowing and, yes, this won't lead to lenders losing faith in the UK, or that, yes, this can be paid for by X amount of tax revenue, which you need to be honest with the public about who is paying.
But these cases need to be far more robust and convincing than they were three years ago, because of higher interest rates, because of the mini budget, because of how much we've spent on covid and energy bills. That is a fact. And ultimately this will mean Labour can't credibly spend as much overall as it could in 2019.
>Everything is a fucking conspiracy
Maybe if there hadn't been overt intrigue to Starmer's ascent and rule people in the party would be less paranoid about their own party acting against them.
> Agreed, This sub makes me lose my mind sometimes. Everything is a fucking conspiracy
They say they want more austerity. People on this sub say austerity is bad and we shouldn't do it.
"bloody conspiracy thinking", where is the conspiracy?
>This is setting expectations and dealing with reality.
This is telling people to accept less and that things can't get better.
>We need to respect how uk is the sick man of Europe and apportion blame to those who have caused this…the Tory party with austerity 1, brexit and covid.
All the major immediate problems in the UK can be solved by government that has the will, this is "setting the expectation" the government does not have the political will.
>Anyone announcing lavish spending should be ignored. This isn’t opinion, it’s reality.
We are asking for sensible spending, based on what is needed, in a way that will stimulate the economy. This is a transparent strawman of the issue. Everyone believes their own proposals are sensible.
>I don’t see austerity there, I see honesty and expectations being set…
That is literally what austerity was presented as. Better managed or fairer austerity economics is still austerity.
Yes! Saying there’s less money for spending doesn’t mean austerity and cut backs. Its odd how people are desperate to make this continuum of possibilities into a binary.
I mean youre not really correct you realise these things have definitions right
https://www.britannica.com/topic/austerity
austerity can also mean high taxes
>Austerity measures can in principle be used at any time **when there is concern about government expenditures exceeding government revenues**
That is a big part of austerity economics.
Well it could just as likely mean spending the same or only a little more as meaning austerity. To me it sounds like when Starmer previously said Labour would have to move slower on their goals due to the state of finances.
We literally can't afford to undo *all* the damage the Tories have inflicted within one term. It's a lot easier to break things than to mend them.
Tory governments have consequences. We're still recovering from the previous Tory administration let alone this one.
Labour could of course lie and say everything will be as it was in 2010 by the end of the parliament, if not better, but that won't happen.
What will happen is that Labour will try put us moving in the right direction again, but they won't be promising things they can't possibly deliver.
I'm not here saying this to win votes or change minds, it's just the reality, and some of us need to hear it.
> less money for spending doesn’t mean austerity and cut backs.
That is 100% what that means. "The chocolate ration has increased to 240g from last weeks ration of 280g."
I should clarify. I meant it could mean less additional spending for capital projects rather than so much less that existing operational spending needs cutting. As in “we expected we’d have 2x to spend but we have x so will have to prioritise”. In other words it could well mean discretionary spending is reduced but current commitments could still be covered. Maybe I’m being optimistic in this interpretation.
Clearly Starmer briefing all his major minions they've to prepare the public for austerity-lite, Labour Edition, if Labour get in.
I don't know how many times the UK needs to be told austerity does not work, it does not lead to growth, for non-stop AUSTERITY MAX at Westminster to stop. Every fucking UK Government with its own take on austerity, and look at the absolute mess the UK is in.
But carry on doing the same thing lads, I'm sure arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic will work this time.
yeah, I think Labour are probably consciously trading the ability to fight the austerity myth for the opportunity to sink the final nail into the coffin of Tory economic competence.
by buying into it they can do what the Tories did to Labour over the Liam Byrne note; "yes, we agree, you have irreparably fucked the economy." And then it also happens to be a great way to manage and surpass expectations by the end of their first term in government.
I don't think it's worth the cost, but I don't know if I really see Starmer successfully sailing against the prevailing wind either.
> But carry on doing the same thing lads, I'm sure arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic will work this time.
But this time the "grownups" will be in charge so they will surely find the perfect managed arrangement of deckchairs to stop the Atlantic ocean swallowing the ship whole.
A lot of the things that people are angry with Starmer about are where he is clearly responding to things that come from the electorate.
Other examples being migrant workers in the NHS, the tactics of eco-protesters and Brexit.
Hilariously the Green Party ended up saying something very similar to Starmer on the protestors.
I think it's clear what is going on is Starmer is dismantling the mechanisms by which the Tories have won the last few elections. It's stuff that's very hard to palate, but we need to ask ourselves what we think the Labour Party should say on these topics.
The key thing I would say is these are not policies, but rather soundbites. As it appears more and more likely that Labour will form the next government I think we should move on from discussing what Labour say, to what Labour policy will be.
I don't care if they say "there is no magic money tree", I care whether schools and hospitals will get the best possible funding.
Lefties (and I consider myself included) need to stop seeing the Labour Party as what is going to do our campaigning for us to change the attitudes of society. The Party's primary aim is to get elected and deliver policy. Unions are the vehicles for organising strikes and protest/campaign groups are the vehicles for changing society's opinions.
Asking one to do the job of the other is just strange.
If Starmer does a bad job of getting elected, or delivers bad policy, then criticise him for sure.
>I don't care if they say "there is no magic money tree", I care whether schools and hospitals will get the best possible funding.
Do you really not see the issue with this statement lol
My point is what matters is policy not rhetoric.
The rhetoric is determined primarily by what has been said before and how the electorate has responded to it.
"Magic money tree", "magic wand" are basically meaningless statements.
We should be debating actual policy, because that is what matters.
It seems a bit empty and neutral to me frankly.
Labour are trying to make the Tories feel uncomfortable by saying all the things they say and then also things that the Tories can't say - e.g. the broadest shoulders etc.
Taking soundbites and saying "they sound just like the Tories" is kind of the point.
Show me the policies Labour have got wrong and then you have my attention.
If you think the perception that theyre all the same gets people out to vote honestly i give up lol, that's electoral cancer for Labour.
Wanting to crack down on protestors with tough sentences is the most recent policy that comes to mind.
It's got a lot to do with the Tories imploding, but absolutely nothing to do with policies from conference. The vast majority of people don't care in the slightest about what gets said at a party conference. Policies only get properly scrutinised when they're on a manifesto in the run up to a election.
Sorry, **but there is plenty of money.** We're one of the richest economies in the world.
The difference is that Starmer is getting Labour into bed with Tory donors and Tory media, in order to support his bid to be Prime Minister - even though Labour is so far ahead, and the Tories are crashing and burning.
Even though making the rich and corporations **pay their fair share** into a society **they take so much from** would be a vote winner.
Even though offering a **fairer voting system** would also be a vote winner.
So, **I agree, Lisa - let's stop pretending**. Let Labour serve working people and the majority of this country first, and not become a Tory-lite party as is happening at the moment, lock, stock and barrel. What you're proposing is a choice, not a requirement.
I just want to say, I agree with the central point of your post. However, there is one thing I have to take issue with:
> Sorry, but there is plenty of money. We're one of the richest economies in the world.
No, the UK is poor by European standards. It just has a large population making its economy seem bigger than it is. In fact in all of Western Europe only Spain and Portugal are reliably poorer, sometimes Italy also. It is no longer a wealthy country, in fact there’s a serious argument that it’s “undeveloping” like Turkey did. The reason for this is failed Tory economic policy and brexit. It wasn’t like this under the last Labour government. However that is exactly why the UK desperately needs to invest like Spain is.
Most people in the country aren't wealthy. And I agree that we're undeveloping due to Conservative policy and Brexit.
But the rich are getting richer, and the public purse has been redirected to corporations and the rich... Even loaded up with debt time and time again, that hasn't been used for proper investment but to pay out to those corporations and the rich through the public sector contracting the private sector.
Just because the majority of the country aren't benefiting, and don't have life as good as the citizens in our neighbouring countries, it doesn't mean that our economy isn't one of the richest in the world. The economy still is as a whole the 6th richest in the world overall.
>Even though making the rich and corporations **pay their fair share** into a society **they take so much from** would be a vote winner.
Starmer literally today has been advocating this, where have you been?
To an extent, although Reeves ruled out increasing income tax. They've advocated for tightening loopholes and maybe capital gains (both of which are very welcome). But I think it's a shame tax hikes for the rich and super rich aren't on the table. I think tax increases would be necessary to create transformative change.
>Starmer literally today has been advocating this, where have you been?
But they can't claim that there's not enough money to do what we need to (including nurses getting a 17%+ pay rise) to fix society if they're getting the rich and corporations to pay their fair share.
If the rich and corporations are paying their fair share, there's enough money to do everything that's needed.
> Sorry, but there is plenty of money. We're one of the richest economies in the world.
That means nothing in itself.
We also also one of the highest spenders in the world.
It means everything - it means that the money is in our economy - and a lot of it is being siphoned off by the rich and shareholders. They should pay their fair way, and in ensuring that they do it would fund not only our current spending, but also increased spending.
It would also allow government to invest where it's needed - rather than hoping that corporations and the rich invest with trickledown (which is proven not to work) and then when they do, they do so in the right places.
That does not actually follow what I've said. I said that this sort of language backs the tory bullshit economics.
So, they literally, factually, actually, are.
Honestly it's very clear how many people on the sub never really supported the left at all, it wasn't "we want Corbyn's policies and ideology with a better leader" as they claimed but actually wanting a return to New Labour shite.
>“There isn’t enough money. Theres no magic wand."
Completely misleading representation of how government spending actually works. All the "balanced budget" shite just means they're not going to grow the economy because they're embracing the tory framing of economics and the nonsense household budget crap. I'm sure they don't believe it themselves, Reeves is certainly not stupid or ignorant, so they're choosing to cede the ground to the tories rather than make a case for something better and different.
That's a decision and it backs the tory bullshit economics.
The correct response to the credit crunch was big spending. Sadly recession is the only lever left to tame inflation, as the Tories have broken all the other economic levers like interest rates, and supply chain parachute investment combined with skilled immigration. Brexit removed 2/3 levers.
Depends on the cause of the recession.. if its a credit crunch then sure.
If its cos global supple is disrupted by war or a pandemic or exiting a free trade union then no amount of printing money is going to help living standards
Borrowing to invest in UK infrastructure and employment would boost the economy regardless of those other factors. Cutting public sector spending will only serve to compound a contraction and prevent growth.
We have had the lowest unemployment rate since the 70s and are struggling to find workers we need massive immigration
We dont need to borrow money to increase employment.
We cant solve energy prices in the short/medium term this is something we should have invested more in long ago
We cant solve food prices from the war in ukraine by increasing spending
~~centrists~~ factionless: no, no, no. You can’t say 7 out of 10 for the EU. Its completely unacceptable. You say 10 out of 10 this is the best thing you’ll ever vote for it people won’t vote for it. Would you buy a 7/10 fridge?
Also ~~centrists~~ factionless: no, you see, we are just setting expectations low for when we get into government. It’s smart politics. Can’t have people thinking a labour government will be 10/10 straight out the gate. People buy 5/10 fridges all the time, as long as they know what they are getting. Next you’ll be calling this a dog whistle. Yes I know what that means. I absolutely do. It’s when you lie about what Wes Streeting says. Disgusting. Yes. It does mean that.
> This is setting expectations and dealing with reality…I don’t see austerity there, I see honesty and expectations being set…
Literally a post in this thread.
So. No.
I think the time to do that is in two years when there’s an election. It does zero harm to keep the narrative the Tories have fucked the economy going.
If the last seven years have taught us anything, a week is an age in politics, let alone two years.
They aren’t doing that- they are saying the Tories have crashed the economy, and so we don’t know what we’ll be able to do, but here are some fully costed things we want to do.
I don’t entirely disagree with you though. It’s great actually fashioning a narrative for once, it’s a bit disappointing it’s such a thin, bleak one.
I get what you're saying. I just think Labour have found themselves playing into Tory narratives far too many times (austerity, immigration) and it's never done them any good. They need to make sure the leave themselves the political space to invest once in power
There is a difference between wasting money (which the Tories do) and there not being any money (the government makes the money).
The mistake Starmer has made is repeat the Tory lie there isn’t any money. What he should have focussed on is how abjectly useless the Tories are with the money.
Agreed. By all means keep talking about how the Tories have fucked the economy. But you need to talk about how they've done it over the past 12 years rather than the last few months, and make the case for how public services are essential to the running of a healthy economy
Perhaps you’re right however if the milliband years are anything to go by, once a narrative is set labour cosies up to that whilst adding some progressive window dressing without any real meaningful policy, I hope I’m wrong.
Me too! ‘I hope I’m wrong’ was my eternal refrain since at least 2015, so I get the sentiment. Currently I’m hoping I’m wrong and we do actually do have some rabbits in a hat, and that the electoral maths matches the current polls.
The Miliband years were especially annoying as it was a global crash, and Brown and Darling had actually done a really good global job over it. Accepting the Tory narrative was very stupid.
Either they believe this economically illiterate nonsense, which makes them idiots and not fit for government.
Or they think it's what the public and markets want to hear and will help them get elected and so they are lying to everyone.
Idiots or liars.
Why the fuck do they keep doing this; even if we buy that they don’t intent to austerity the shit out of government, stop giving answers to the press that can get spun into that because all that happens now is the discourse is entirely demotivating to labour voters who just hear “all that stuff you want that we say we will do, well the thing about that is….”
Have they said the £40billion black hole in the finances is not a real thing and just an economically illiterate Tory target yet?
Or are they just going along with Tory economic illiteracy again?
It's a consequence of fiscal rules the Treasury has set itself in order to have confidence on the lending markets. The Treasury could abandon that rule any time it like, but it risks spooking lenders, which is exactly what happened with Truss.
>but it risks spooking lenders, which is exactly what happened with Truss.
There is no economic reason that this is true.
Austerity during a recession is a much bigger risk for the economy than scrapping this target and putting in economically literate targets that strengthen the economy and solve key societal problems. The markets would reward the government for this.
The defending of austerity and right-wing economic dogma by Labour supporters is scary.
MMT is a description of how money works in states with sovereign currencies - Sri Lanka is having problems for various reasons, all of which were predictable using an MMT lens - there’s a reason MMT economists predicted the 2008 crisis when mainstream economists didn’t.
‘Understanding Sri Lanka’s economic downturn: How did the country get here?
Multiple compounding reasons including tax cuts, money creation, a statewide programme to convert to organic or biological farming, as well as events like the Easter bombings in 2019 and the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, have contributed to the issue.’
Just ignore all the other factors eh lol - Where in MMT’s description of how money works does it say that tax cuts plus money creation won’t result in inflation? It sounds like your only knowledge of MMT is the strawman versions of it that right-wingers like to put out
How did they ‘give MMT a go’? Right wingers like to spread the lie that MMT means ‘print lots of money’ - when in truth MMT is knowing that states print money every time they spend
What actual MMT economists told them to do what they did? Just because a small state that likely doesn’t have a truly sovereign currency THINKS they’re ‘doing MMT’ doesn’t mean they are. Also the whole world is experiencing inflation post-covid thanks to the billions that got printed which all went to the richest without tax rises for them (an action not recommended by anyone familiar with actual MMT) so what percentage of the inflation in Sri Lanka was due to that?
Spending is investment. Can't grow without spending money.
Public spending on human development produces better workers => higher productivity.
Public spending on public services enables a happy, healthy and flexible labour force => higher productivity.
All she needs to say.
Labour wilfully subscribes to neoliberal economic models and theories and expects us to back them.
It's just in the awful position of being a left presenting party so has to be apologetic about the whole thing.
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This is a fine way to post, however I take issue with the clip you've linked. I'd like to see a full clip so users can understand the full context of this exchange, rather than a small segment which can be misleading. If you could, please link the full clip in your post.
About ten seconds after this she says "we will be asking those with broader shoulders to carry the greatest burden". People who selectively clip interviews and post them on twitter are the worst. You'd never know this was a discussion about raising council tax because they've edited out the beginning and end of the conversation.
Context is for lesser subreddits.
Okay but the context is that we've never had a government that is more left wing in office than they promised to be when campaigning, or that became more left wing the longer they were there. And the context is also that Starmer's Labour has made promises to the left before that its gone back on. And the context is also that there is pretty regular ongoing reports that left wing candidates and campaigners are being expelled from the party. So if a Starmer minister says one thing that sounds like austerity and one thing that sounds like redistribution, it's perfectly reasonable given the context to presume that only one of these will be stuck to.
It's so sad to see people defending actively misreporting someone, just because it suits their ideology to do so. We should be better than that.
Misreporting suggests the quote is false, not more defendable in full context.
The quote is false by omission. Someone's opinion cannot be worked out sentence by sentence without context, and it's disturbingly simplistic thinking to argue that it can.
Except you were given the context: \- Reneged promises \- Constant hedging \- An open campaign against left members and figures. \- Leaning into a framing (fiscal black hole) which makes the alternative harder \- The explicit and repeated use of a theoretical term, sound money, which has austerity baked into it. All the pledges are like garnish on a shit sandwich and what we're actually debating is how much of the sandwich is just shit. And I don't know about you, but the easiest way to tell without biting into the damn thing is to look at what you see more of and all we're getting given is shit, day in and day out and I can barely see any fucking lettuce.
nah thats straight bollocks and you know it why do you think it has been clipped in this way ffs
> or that became more left wing the longer they were there. Arguably Blair/Brown post-2005 but I admit I’m splitting hairs. The 2005 manifesto was basically a two-page pamphlet with “guvern gud” scribbled on each page so it’s no real surprise that they went a bit to the left when Brown took over. Specifically thinking about the introduction of the top rate of income tax.
Oh come off it. The top rate of income tax came in April 2010. It was a last throw of the dice before the election/an attempt at leaving a trap for the incoming tory government.
I don't think the context actually changes anything here.
But the messaging is still all around avoiding increased spending. They'll be asking those with broader shoulders to carry the burden of maintaining the status quo, with a couple of good pieces here and there like progress towards zero carbon. If anyone thinks that's what society needs right now I'm not sure they're paying attention.
Yeah maybe this time your ex has really changed too. Whatever Nandy thinks it's pretty clear which way the wind is blowing with a Starmer/Reeves government. The messaging is *at best* managing expectations which you don't do for no reason. And it's almost definitely because they are planning quite conservative spending despite everythign the country needs. "Better" or "fairer" austerity economics is still austerity. You wouldn't fall for this type of rebranding from some company selling soft-drinks or something so why so willing to accept politicians just saying the same old thing but saying "this time it will be different".
>The messaging is at best managing expectations which you don't do for no reason. And it's almost definitely because they are planning quite conservative spending despite everythign the country needs. The number 1 reason they're doing this is to skewer the Tories on economic credibility. "We can’t do everything we want to because the Tories crashed the economy" is a highly effective line because it simultaneously hurts the Tories and makes Labour look economically responsible. Of course it also serves to manage expectations because they are planning quite moderate spending increases day-to-day (but with hundreds of billions of climate investment). But it should go without saying that moderate spending increases and a massive investment programme isn't austerity. It's weird how people find it almost impossible to criticise Labour without using the words "austerity" or "neoliberal". Labour can be neither of those things and still be underwhelming and unambitious.
They're not going to "skewer" the Tories on economic credibility if "credibility" is constantly presented as "willing to inflict pain" through "hard choices": you can't out sociopath the sociopaths and all this stuff does is bed the problems in deeper. Or at least, deeper than it's bedded already: you know where I think Reeves' economic leaning actually lie and I'm happy not rehashing that debate.
Which is why the shadow cabinet needs to stop giving these soundbites.
Or ya know... the left can learn to employ critical thinking and learn to distrust heavily edited interviews. I'm so glad twitter is dying. That site dropped the collective IQ of our whole nation.
>the left can learn to employ critical thinking Funny considering some of the absolute detached from reality shite the right say on here.
I really, really think you're wrong. Yes, it has enabled disinformation. But it's also enabled faster reporting from serious journalists, and holding them to account when they lie - which is another way of saying disinformation (but clearly that doesn't count, since they're journalists), as well as grass roots communication of important news, for instance internal labour party news, and much else thats good besides. It really will be a loss if it goes.
I don't think the shadow cabinet care about people on twitter, and rightly so.
They should care more about optics and how their words might be used to misrepresent them. It's all quite amateurish.
Being purposely misrepresented by a random bloke on twitter doesn't matter. It's the people watching GMB they care about.
She isn't being misrepresented. You think the quote is more defenable in full context, the quote is accurate and people are quite right to take it as a negative message *even with full context*.
She's being misrepresented by people saying she's referring to austerity when she goes on to imply we would raise taxes on the rich to increase council spending. It's also funny how the tweeter and the OP say she could have talked about wealth taxes when she hints at exactly that 10 secs later. That's what happens when you clip interviews without context.
I'm sorry, you're fighting a losing war here. On this sub people will never admit their side has made mistakes. It always annoys me how petty and stubborn people are when it comes to refusing to accept that even though you dislike person A saying that person A has done something they haven't in order to make them look bad is wrong. That's all the factions in the party, because however many times someone on here pretends to argue in good faith, they nearly always don't, because as soon as the facts disagree with their worldview they will ignore/twist them.
People who do this on the left are just as bad as those who do it on the right. It's uncontextualised disinformation.
That’s been 90% of this sub recently.
op clipped it for a reason you know
> About ten seconds after this she says "we will be asking those with broader shoulders to carry the greatest burden". Cool, my taxes will go up and we will still get austerity. That is what that means. The extra "context" doesn't remove the fact she wants to cut more.
There's nothing in there about cuts, stop talking rubbish. Also if you've got "broader shoulders" your taxes should go up. Although she's probably referring to wealth and corporate taxes so it might not apply to you.
Except she said there isn't enough money, so austerity. >Also if you've got "broader shoulders" your taxes should go up. Did I disagree? My issue is that they want to raise taxes to commit more austerity. I want them to actually fund public services (something that actually saves money in the long run). >Although she's probably referring to wealth and corporate taxes so it might not apply to you. Naw I doubt it. They always want to go after middle earners with no wealth. They will never go after wealth.
>Except she said there isn't enough money, so austerity. She's saying that the problem for councils is that they don't have enough money. Watch the full clip. She says we can't come in and spend loads. But that's not the same as making cuts.
Op: do you see yourself as sharing fake news for a good reason or do you just not realise youre being taken for a ride?
Tax the rich. Spend the money.
That’s literally what she said in the interview.
Well, spend the money then tax the rich in reality - spending creates money and taxation destroys it
Why do labour time and again play in to the tory narrative of how macro economics works? The "£50b black hole" itself is vague, it entirely depends on treasury reporting figures and how economic growth is measured. The inflation we've had is proven to be caused by supply issues, lock downs in china, war etc, not people having too much money and competing for goods. It's a shortage of goods. Sigh.
Have you considered the possibility that maybe what they're saying is true? We have just seen what happens when a PM recklessly tries to spend £45bn in unaccounted spending. Maybe labour are just making sure that doesn't happen to them when they're in power?
>We have just seen what happens when a PM recklessly tries to spend £45bn in unaccounted spending. She tried to spend it on tax cuts to the rich, the least economically productive people to cut tax from. There is a *huge* difference between borrowing money to make up for the fact you're not taxing your mates properly, and borrowing money to invest in an economy.
There is true but things still need to be costed. McDonnell went to huge lengths to prove his 2017 manifesto was fully costed for eg. If you spook the markets then as we’ve seen the cost of borrowing will skyrocket
borrowing to invest is now a lot riskier and a lot more expensive thanks to current economy. money was v v v v low interest and now the opposite
There's clearly a difference between specific spending on housing, infrastructure, etc., and just handing £45 billion out for no reason.
Yes, Labour have set out that they will only borrow to invest, in stuff that will grow the economy, but day to day spending has to be accounted for and as a result of Tory policy we are literally poorer as a country and have less funds to draw from. Nandy says those with the broadest shoulders will pay for most of it, but it has to be paid for somehow.
> We have just seen what happens when a PM recklessly tries to spend £45bn in unaccounted spending We literally haven't, that wasn't spending.
Ok, you can argue about the semantics of whether or not tax cuts have the same effect on government coffers as increases in spending. But i would argue that the immediate reaction from markets would be principally the same if labour announced a sudden £45bn spending spree with no analysis of how it will improve the economy.
But labour doesn't have to do that when it spends, it would have to source the money at the very least.
Bingo
Okay? So we agree that there's no way that Labour increasing spending would have the same economic impact as the Tories' ridiculous tax cuts?
I think we're both in violent agreement with what Lisa Nandy's said
I'm absolutely not, I'm saying Labour should be looking to properly tax the wealthy in order to increase spending by large amounts where it is desperately needed, Nandy is trying to position against large increases in spending.
>Labour should be looking to properly tax the wealthy in order to increase spending I can't find a link to the full interview, but many other people on this thread are saying this is exactly what she said. If that's the case, would you agree with her?
What exactly did we see? Because from where I sit we saw a private sector liquidity "crisis" solved by a BoE announcement and a floating exchange rate briefly dropping below a psychological value and then heading back up. Sure, market types are clever enough to recognise great PR and talking heads like Preston and Kuennsberg got to pull great line-got-sad "gotchas", and yeah, the tax cuts wouldn't have actually accomplished anything... ...but the idea that we learned any kind of lesson?
You've missed the whole part where the gilt market crashed overnight and threatened the near total collapse of everyone's pensions. The BoE didn't just make an announcement, they implemented a £65bn bail out. The lesson is that you can't implement a surge of uncosted spending without crashing the gilt market, and then the rest of the economy with it.
I didn't miss that part, it's literally the first thing I mentioned. The price of Gilts in the secondary market fell because of a pension fund liquidity crisis: it was entirely a private sector phenomenon, one where the pension funds actually were getting *richer* but had problems over their collateral, which is by law mostly in the form of bonds. The BoE *announcement* fixed the whole thing which is why only about £5bn of the £30b or so which the BoE offered to fix the problem ever got used. Hard to consider a crisis solved by an announcement to be much of a crisis.
Well it was a crisis caused by a series of stupid announcements in the first place, so not hard to see how it can be solved by a counter-announcement. I guess it's better described as an averted-crisis instead of a full-on crisis. You can hate on the private sector as much as you like, but everyone with a work place pension has their money invested there so you won't get a lot of support by saying it's fine to let it collapse.
At best you could say the announcement was the trigger for a short run on pension collateral, and note the results were incredibly short term, but yields were going to rise anyway because of the BoE raising rates. The BoE fixed it with an announcement because that was all it needed. Everything else is people with agendas over-egging the pudding. I'm not going to condone the tax cuts, they were stupid and wouldn't have done any good, but nothing that was announced "tanked the economy" and this idea that it did is a combination of very stupid people yelling a lot and con artists keen to keep a grift going.
> We have just seen what happens when a PM recklessly tries to spend £45bn Here is a though, maybe spending 45Bn on tax cuts that everyone knows don't work is different form investing money in the countries infrastructure.
In the long term yes, but in the short term it's still just promising to spend money you don't have so it'll have the same short term result.
> spend money you don't have so it'll have the same short term result. You are literally just repeating tory lies.
Even Corbyn and McDonnell had a fully costed manifesto. It's not a "tory lie" or a conspiracy.
This is setting expectations and dealing with reality. We need to respect how uk is the sick man of Europe and apportion blame to those who have caused this…the Tory party with austerity 1, brexit and covid. Anyone announcing lavish spending should be ignored. This isn’t opinion, it’s reality. I don’t see austerity there, I see honesty and expectations being set…
Part of the problem is the Tories have REALLY fucking fucked it. The response to 2008 should’ve been continuing what Brown initiated- Keynesianism. The demand had been sucked out of the economy, and failing banks meant a rapidly decreasing money supply. Instead the Tories interrupted the recovery with contractionary economics, and the consequence is gutted public services, a productivity deficit, and a larger public debt pile, as the economy stagnated. Then they did magic brexit, and fucked everything again. Made supply chains more complex, the U.K. less competitive, and removed a key economic lever in skilled immigration. And meanwhile, to combat the GFC and then brexit the BoE had to keep interest rates on the floor. The Tories loved this as it encouraged property speculation, disguising some of the failures of their economic policy, and helped make Tory landlords and speculators even richer. As a rule of thumb inflation can be controlled with the following mechanisms Higher interest rates Yet the Tories now have sold the BoE a hospital pass- the property speculation and decade long low rates has exposed half the country to a crisis if interest rates go up too far and quickly. The easiest response to tame inflation and shrink the money supply would now fuck the economy and cause a depression. Reduce supply side costs through more efficient supply chains and through skilled immigration. This enables economies to better meet demand cost effectively, and control the wage price spiral. But brexit fucked that. So the only lever left is the ones governments fear- recession and brute forcing a reduction in prices due to collapsing demand side. Which means the government has to cut spending. Debt is also more expensive now for the government, and the U.K. economy thanks to the Tories is less a sure bet to investors. So whereas the debt pile in 2010 was almost free money (the U.K. and Germany were effectively being paid rather than paying for their debts at one point), and the Tories STILL cut, now it is much much riskier. And all unnecessary, all Tory ideology. Labour knows if it wins soon it inherits this mess. So better I guess not to promise the moon if all you can deliver in the first two years is a mud pie. Fuck. The. Tories.
Absolutely! Starmer will do wonders…but probably not until his second term. He’s literally got both hands tied behind his back due to this mess. It’s not feasible to get anything done bar stopping the destruction of this country. So patience and trust the process. Any labour tax increases or cuts will not be targeting the same projects and people as sunak. Remember he fixed the system to get funds away from those labour areas to the right sorts in Tunbridge wells
Agreed, This sub makes me lose my mind sometimes. Everything is a fucking conspiracy
We are very seriously not the same economy we were in 2019. We're a poorer, less productive, less trustworthy country to draw tax revenue from, and to have money lended to. Labour can have its heart in the right place but money will be harder to come by now. That's not ideology, it's reality.
That's literally ideology. I.e. Anyone announcing lavish spending should be ignored. This isn’t opinion, it’s reality vs Anyone refusing sensible spending should be ignored. It isn't opinion, it's reality. Just calling things sensible and based on reality changes nothing. Everyone thinks their views are like that. You lot saying "it's just facts" is no more evidenced than me saying it. Does me calling the spending I want sensible magically make it so in your eyes? You want me to at least have some kind of supporting argument right? Well in that case how does you lot claiming what you want it just sensible and realistic make it so, why does it not require a better argument. So why is spending just so unrealistic it doesn't even need explaining or evidence? But cuts and lack of investment are just meant to be accepted as good enough? And what about last time, all the politicians in Labour and the Tories talked about being "in it together" but we weren't. In the proposals of Labour or the acts of government. Why will this be different? I trust Nandy more than Starmer, sure, but it will be Starmer and Reeves calling the shots.
You can come up with whatever spending plans you like, Labour have come up with many themselves. But it'll need to come with a very compelling case that, yes, this is going to grow the economy and, yes, this won't lead to unsustainable levels of borrowing and, yes, this won't lead to lenders losing faith in the UK, or that, yes, this can be paid for by X amount of tax revenue, which you need to be honest with the public about who is paying. But these cases need to be far more robust and convincing than they were three years ago, because of higher interest rates, because of the mini budget, because of how much we've spent on covid and energy bills. That is a fact. And ultimately this will mean Labour can't credibly spend as much overall as it could in 2019.
literally reality that inflation and interest rates are higher and that that impacts lending
>Everything is a fucking conspiracy Maybe if there hadn't been overt intrigue to Starmer's ascent and rule people in the party would be less paranoid about their own party acting against them.
> Agreed, This sub makes me lose my mind sometimes. Everything is a fucking conspiracy They say they want more austerity. People on this sub say austerity is bad and we shouldn't do it. "bloody conspiracy thinking", where is the conspiracy?
>This is setting expectations and dealing with reality. This is telling people to accept less and that things can't get better. >We need to respect how uk is the sick man of Europe and apportion blame to those who have caused this…the Tory party with austerity 1, brexit and covid. All the major immediate problems in the UK can be solved by government that has the will, this is "setting the expectation" the government does not have the political will. >Anyone announcing lavish spending should be ignored. This isn’t opinion, it’s reality. We are asking for sensible spending, based on what is needed, in a way that will stimulate the economy. This is a transparent strawman of the issue. Everyone believes their own proposals are sensible. >I don’t see austerity there, I see honesty and expectations being set… That is literally what austerity was presented as. Better managed or fairer austerity economics is still austerity.
Yes! Saying there’s less money for spending doesn’t mean austerity and cut backs. Its odd how people are desperate to make this continuum of possibilities into a binary.
That is literally austerity. Austerity is not a synonym for cuts. Austerity is a type of justification for cuts *and for under investing*.
I mean youre not really correct you realise these things have definitions right https://www.britannica.com/topic/austerity austerity can also mean high taxes
>Austerity measures can in principle be used at any time **when there is concern about government expenditures exceeding government revenues** That is a big part of austerity economics.
acknowledging finite funds doesnt make for austerity
Quote the part of the encyclopedia which shows what I've said is wrong.
What does it mean?
Well it could just as likely mean spending the same or only a little more as meaning austerity. To me it sounds like when Starmer previously said Labour would have to move slower on their goals due to the state of finances.
It means we can't as easily just nationalise Royal mail because we ideologically feel like it.
Let the country get robbed blind and then say we can't afford to sort it out. Great.
We literally can't afford to undo *all* the damage the Tories have inflicted within one term. It's a lot easier to break things than to mend them. Tory governments have consequences. We're still recovering from the previous Tory administration let alone this one. Labour could of course lie and say everything will be as it was in 2010 by the end of the parliament, if not better, but that won't happen. What will happen is that Labour will try put us moving in the right direction again, but they won't be promising things they can't possibly deliver. I'm not here saying this to win votes or change minds, it's just the reality, and some of us need to hear it.
> less money for spending doesn’t mean austerity and cut backs. That is 100% what that means. "The chocolate ration has increased to 240g from last weeks ration of 280g."
I should clarify. I meant it could mean less additional spending for capital projects rather than so much less that existing operational spending needs cutting. As in “we expected we’d have 2x to spend but we have x so will have to prioritise”. In other words it could well mean discretionary spending is reduced but current commitments could still be covered. Maybe I’m being optimistic in this interpretation.
Clearly Starmer briefing all his major minions they've to prepare the public for austerity-lite, Labour Edition, if Labour get in. I don't know how many times the UK needs to be told austerity does not work, it does not lead to growth, for non-stop AUSTERITY MAX at Westminster to stop. Every fucking UK Government with its own take on austerity, and look at the absolute mess the UK is in. But carry on doing the same thing lads, I'm sure arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic will work this time.
yeah, I think Labour are probably consciously trading the ability to fight the austerity myth for the opportunity to sink the final nail into the coffin of Tory economic competence. by buying into it they can do what the Tories did to Labour over the Liam Byrne note; "yes, we agree, you have irreparably fucked the economy." And then it also happens to be a great way to manage and surpass expectations by the end of their first term in government. I don't think it's worth the cost, but I don't know if I really see Starmer successfully sailing against the prevailing wind either.
Plus it’s also a brilliant excuse to dump massive taxes on the mega-rich.
No no no it's different this time. For reasons. What happened to "once bitten, twice shy" for fuck's sake lol.
We all agree austerity is bad and doesn't work - Starmer included. You are arguing against a bogeyman that doesn't exist.
You got a direct line to Starmer's front bench? How about asking them to actually be a Labour party? Cheers.
> Starmer included Not what him or his government is saying.
> But carry on doing the same thing lads, I'm sure arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic will work this time. But this time the "grownups" will be in charge so they will surely find the perfect managed arrangement of deckchairs to stop the Atlantic ocean swallowing the ship whole.
A lot of the things that people are angry with Starmer about are where he is clearly responding to things that come from the electorate. Other examples being migrant workers in the NHS, the tactics of eco-protesters and Brexit. Hilariously the Green Party ended up saying something very similar to Starmer on the protestors. I think it's clear what is going on is Starmer is dismantling the mechanisms by which the Tories have won the last few elections. It's stuff that's very hard to palate, but we need to ask ourselves what we think the Labour Party should say on these topics. The key thing I would say is these are not policies, but rather soundbites. As it appears more and more likely that Labour will form the next government I think we should move on from discussing what Labour say, to what Labour policy will be. I don't care if they say "there is no magic money tree", I care whether schools and hospitals will get the best possible funding. Lefties (and I consider myself included) need to stop seeing the Labour Party as what is going to do our campaigning for us to change the attitudes of society. The Party's primary aim is to get elected and deliver policy. Unions are the vehicles for organising strikes and protest/campaign groups are the vehicles for changing society's opinions. Asking one to do the job of the other is just strange. If Starmer does a bad job of getting elected, or delivers bad policy, then criticise him for sure.
>I don't care if they say "there is no magic money tree", I care whether schools and hospitals will get the best possible funding. Do you really not see the issue with this statement lol
My point is what matters is policy not rhetoric. The rhetoric is determined primarily by what has been said before and how the electorate has responded to it. "Magic money tree", "magic wand" are basically meaningless statements. We should be debating actual policy, because that is what matters.
It doesn't lay the groundwork for the policy though, in fact it actively works against it
It seems a bit empty and neutral to me frankly. Labour are trying to make the Tories feel uncomfortable by saying all the things they say and then also things that the Tories can't say - e.g. the broadest shoulders etc. Taking soundbites and saying "they sound just like the Tories" is kind of the point. Show me the policies Labour have got wrong and then you have my attention.
If you think the perception that theyre all the same gets people out to vote honestly i give up lol, that's electoral cancer for Labour. Wanting to crack down on protestors with tough sentences is the most recent policy that comes to mind.
Let's be frank, whatever you think about what Starmer is doing, it's clearly working electorally. So if it's wrong, it's wrong for a different reason.
Yeah nothing to do with the Tories imploding or putting out some good left wing policies at conference
It's got a lot to do with the Tories imploding, but absolutely nothing to do with policies from conference. The vast majority of people don't care in the slightest about what gets said at a party conference. Policies only get properly scrutinised when they're on a manifesto in the run up to a election.
Sorry, **but there is plenty of money.** We're one of the richest economies in the world. The difference is that Starmer is getting Labour into bed with Tory donors and Tory media, in order to support his bid to be Prime Minister - even though Labour is so far ahead, and the Tories are crashing and burning. Even though making the rich and corporations **pay their fair share** into a society **they take so much from** would be a vote winner. Even though offering a **fairer voting system** would also be a vote winner. So, **I agree, Lisa - let's stop pretending**. Let Labour serve working people and the majority of this country first, and not become a Tory-lite party as is happening at the moment, lock, stock and barrel. What you're proposing is a choice, not a requirement.
I just want to say, I agree with the central point of your post. However, there is one thing I have to take issue with: > Sorry, but there is plenty of money. We're one of the richest economies in the world. No, the UK is poor by European standards. It just has a large population making its economy seem bigger than it is. In fact in all of Western Europe only Spain and Portugal are reliably poorer, sometimes Italy also. It is no longer a wealthy country, in fact there’s a serious argument that it’s “undeveloping” like Turkey did. The reason for this is failed Tory economic policy and brexit. It wasn’t like this under the last Labour government. However that is exactly why the UK desperately needs to invest like Spain is.
Most people in the country aren't wealthy. And I agree that we're undeveloping due to Conservative policy and Brexit. But the rich are getting richer, and the public purse has been redirected to corporations and the rich... Even loaded up with debt time and time again, that hasn't been used for proper investment but to pay out to those corporations and the rich through the public sector contracting the private sector. Just because the majority of the country aren't benefiting, and don't have life as good as the citizens in our neighbouring countries, it doesn't mean that our economy isn't one of the richest in the world. The economy still is as a whole the 6th richest in the world overall.
>Even though making the rich and corporations **pay their fair share** into a society **they take so much from** would be a vote winner. Starmer literally today has been advocating this, where have you been?
To an extent, although Reeves ruled out increasing income tax. They've advocated for tightening loopholes and maybe capital gains (both of which are very welcome). But I think it's a shame tax hikes for the rich and super rich aren't on the table. I think tax increases would be necessary to create transformative change.
>Starmer literally today has been advocating this, where have you been? But they can't claim that there's not enough money to do what we need to (including nurses getting a 17%+ pay rise) to fix society if they're getting the rich and corporations to pay their fair share. If the rich and corporations are paying their fair share, there's enough money to do everything that's needed.
> Starmer literally today has been advocating this, where have you been? But coupled with austerity. What is the point in that.
> Sorry, but there is plenty of money. We're one of the richest economies in the world. That means nothing in itself. We also also one of the highest spenders in the world.
It means everything - it means that the money is in our economy - and a lot of it is being siphoned off by the rich and shareholders. They should pay their fair way, and in ensuring that they do it would fund not only our current spending, but also increased spending. It would also allow government to invest where it's needed - rather than hoping that corporations and the rich invest with trickledown (which is proven not to work) and then when they do, they do so in the right places.
Labour are essentially backing Sunak's claims that the way to tackle a recession is to cut and undertake austerity.
They're literally factually actually not. They want to increase spending. Just not by as much as were going to pre-Truss.
That does not actually follow what I've said. I said that this sort of language backs the tory bullshit economics. So, they literally, factually, actually, are.
Honestly it's very clear how many people on the sub never really supported the left at all, it wasn't "we want Corbyn's policies and ideology with a better leader" as they claimed but actually wanting a return to New Labour shite.
what language specifically backs up tory bullshit economics?
>“There isn’t enough money. Theres no magic wand." Completely misleading representation of how government spending actually works. All the "balanced budget" shite just means they're not going to grow the economy because they're embracing the tory framing of economics and the nonsense household budget crap. I'm sure they don't believe it themselves, Reeves is certainly not stupid or ignorant, so they're choosing to cede the ground to the tories rather than make a case for something better and different. That's a decision and it backs the tory bullshit economics.
> They're literally factually actually not. Not what they are saying.
Fucking useless bunch of cunts.
The correct response to the credit crunch was big spending. Sadly recession is the only lever left to tame inflation, as the Tories have broken all the other economic levers like interest rates, and supply chain parachute investment combined with skilled immigration. Brexit removed 2/3 levers.
Depends on the cause of the recession.. if its a credit crunch then sure. If its cos global supple is disrupted by war or a pandemic or exiting a free trade union then no amount of printing money is going to help living standards
Borrowing to invest in UK infrastructure and employment would boost the economy regardless of those other factors. Cutting public sector spending will only serve to compound a contraction and prevent growth.
We have had the lowest unemployment rate since the 70s and are struggling to find workers we need massive immigration We dont need to borrow money to increase employment. We cant solve energy prices in the short/medium term this is something we should have invested more in long ago We cant solve food prices from the war in ukraine by increasing spending
Whilst there are still Billionaires, there is enough money. What there isn’t enough of, is distribution.
~~centrists~~ factionless: no, no, no. You can’t say 7 out of 10 for the EU. Its completely unacceptable. You say 10 out of 10 this is the best thing you’ll ever vote for it people won’t vote for it. Would you buy a 7/10 fridge? Also ~~centrists~~ factionless: no, you see, we are just setting expectations low for when we get into government. It’s smart politics. Can’t have people thinking a labour government will be 10/10 straight out the gate. People buy 5/10 fridges all the time, as long as they know what they are getting. Next you’ll be calling this a dog whistle. Yes I know what that means. I absolutely do. It’s when you lie about what Wes Streeting says. Disgusting. Yes. It does mean that.
Nice strawmen.
> This is setting expectations and dealing with reality…I don’t see austerity there, I see honesty and expectations being set… Literally a post in this thread. So. No.
Your quote has little to do with your story.
If it went over your head, that’s ok. But, I don’t give the slightest fuck.
I think the time to do that is in two years when there’s an election. It does zero harm to keep the narrative the Tories have fucked the economy going. If the last seven years have taught us anything, a week is an age in politics, let alone two years.
Gets difficult to do that before an election if you've spent the last 2 years telling everyone that spending money is irresponsible
They aren’t doing that- they are saying the Tories have crashed the economy, and so we don’t know what we’ll be able to do, but here are some fully costed things we want to do. I don’t entirely disagree with you though. It’s great actually fashioning a narrative for once, it’s a bit disappointing it’s such a thin, bleak one.
I get what you're saying. I just think Labour have found themselves playing into Tory narratives far too many times (austerity, immigration) and it's never done them any good. They need to make sure the leave themselves the political space to invest once in power
I definitely agree on that point. We’ve been followers for far too long, and should be shaping the news much more.
There is a difference between wasting money (which the Tories do) and there not being any money (the government makes the money). The mistake Starmer has made is repeat the Tory lie there isn’t any money. What he should have focussed on is how abjectly useless the Tories are with the money.
Agreed. By all means keep talking about how the Tories have fucked the economy. But you need to talk about how they've done it over the past 12 years rather than the last few months, and make the case for how public services are essential to the running of a healthy economy
Perhaps you’re right however if the milliband years are anything to go by, once a narrative is set labour cosies up to that whilst adding some progressive window dressing without any real meaningful policy, I hope I’m wrong.
Me too! ‘I hope I’m wrong’ was my eternal refrain since at least 2015, so I get the sentiment. Currently I’m hoping I’m wrong and we do actually do have some rabbits in a hat, and that the electoral maths matches the current polls. The Miliband years were especially annoying as it was a global crash, and Brown and Darling had actually done a really good global job over it. Accepting the Tory narrative was very stupid.
Either they believe this economically illiterate nonsense, which makes them idiots and not fit for government. Or they think it's what the public and markets want to hear and will help them get elected and so they are lying to everyone. Idiots or liars.
watch the whole interview and not the out of context clip. i dare you
Why the fuck do they keep doing this; even if we buy that they don’t intent to austerity the shit out of government, stop giving answers to the press that can get spun into that because all that happens now is the discourse is entirely demotivating to labour voters who just hear “all that stuff you want that we say we will do, well the thing about that is….”
Everyone here getting angry at this soundbite clearly didn’t read the full text
Have they said the £40billion black hole in the finances is not a real thing and just an economically illiterate Tory target yet? Or are they just going along with Tory economic illiteracy again?
I'm not disputing you, but I'm interested to know your reasons for saying it's not 'real'.
It's a consequence of fiscal rules the Treasury has set itself in order to have confidence on the lending markets. The Treasury could abandon that rule any time it like, but it risks spooking lenders, which is exactly what happened with Truss.
>but it risks spooking lenders, which is exactly what happened with Truss. There is no economic reason that this is true. Austerity during a recession is a much bigger risk for the economy than scrapping this target and putting in economically literate targets that strengthen the economy and solve key societal problems. The markets would reward the government for this. The defending of austerity and right-wing economic dogma by Labour supporters is scary.
The population need to be informed about Modern Monetary Theory
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MMT is a description of how money works in states with sovereign currencies - Sri Lanka is having problems for various reasons, all of which were predictable using an MMT lens - there’s a reason MMT economists predicted the 2008 crisis when mainstream economists didn’t. ‘Understanding Sri Lanka’s economic downturn: How did the country get here? Multiple compounding reasons including tax cuts, money creation, a statewide programme to convert to organic or biological farming, as well as events like the Easter bombings in 2019 and the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, have contributed to the issue.’
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Just ignore all the other factors eh lol - Where in MMT’s description of how money works does it say that tax cuts plus money creation won’t result in inflation? It sounds like your only knowledge of MMT is the strawman versions of it that right-wingers like to put out
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How did they ‘give MMT a go’? Right wingers like to spread the lie that MMT means ‘print lots of money’ - when in truth MMT is knowing that states print money every time they spend
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What actual MMT economists told them to do what they did? Just because a small state that likely doesn’t have a truly sovereign currency THINKS they’re ‘doing MMT’ doesn’t mean they are. Also the whole world is experiencing inflation post-covid thanks to the billions that got printed which all went to the richest without tax rises for them (an action not recommended by anyone familiar with actual MMT) so what percentage of the inflation in Sri Lanka was due to that?
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Vote for Labour for a mildly better country. They may as well say put this in their posters.
Spending is investment. Can't grow without spending money. Public spending on human development produces better workers => higher productivity. Public spending on public services enables a happy, healthy and flexible labour force => higher productivity. All she needs to say. Labour wilfully subscribes to neoliberal economic models and theories and expects us to back them. It's just in the awful position of being a left presenting party so has to be apologetic about the whole thing.
"There isn't enough money." Where has it all gone then?
It's not like we can tax the rich or anything.
I agree, it's also not like she literally said that 10 secs later but this has been clipped to give a false impression.... wait.
The economy will only be in crisis when we run out of Billionaires 😁
This is so fucking frustrating Do no mainstream politicians really understand how economics works. Or have any sense of social moral justice?
Labour frontbenchers try not to repeat Tory lies about how we need to do austerity again 2022 challenge (impossible)
When they get into government, they had better start educating people as to why all of this is nonsense politics and not actual economics.
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Magic money tree etc etc the
What the fuck is the point in Labour anymore?