I’m all for holding fire on the "retail’ policies until nearer the time (not least because circumstances can and do change in all sorts of unexpected ways. But I’m with you on shifting the “wholesale” terms of debate on the broad direction in which society and the economy need to move.
At the risk of sounding like a dinosaur, I once read Labour’s 1945 manifesto. It has not one single “retail” policy detail, no costings, no pledges on levels of taxation and benefits. It’s all about general themes and ambitions. Of course, these days you have to flesh out the “retail” details when the time comes, but they really need to get on with laying the groundwork.
Maybe they could find a level of general themes that can be shared with the LibDems and Greens, in case there’s a hung parliament.
Yes, but the Tories will say anything. Ironically, everything they’ve done in the last six years has done more to increase the risk of dissolution than anything Labour is ever likely to do.
I’m not arguing with that. And it’s pretty difficult to condemn the Scots for wanting to leave this clusterfuck.
Refusing to let the Scots have a referendum is not a viable long term solution. The way to keep the Union together, and to keep it stable, is to create a country that the Scots want to be a part of.
I always wonder how Brexiteers can manage the hypocrisy of wanting to preserve the UK. Surely all the same arguments apply?
In any case, it always seems to me that Labour is desperate not to alienate any potential Tory voters, which of course means they give nothing to their actual supporters.
There seems to be a disconnect in modern politics between the campaigning skills that get you into a job, and the leadership skills you need to do the job.
Yes and no. I think the biggest difference is that the UK out of the EU is far more likely to succeed as an independent economy than Scotland out of the UK would be. In fact, given the way things have panned out, you could argue that the UK’s economic experience so far is an argument against Scottish independence. But let’s not have this debate again in this thread, it would be quite a hijack.
I do find it darkly amusing that the Queen met the freshly-appointed new PM and then apparently more or less immediately said “ah screw it I’m out of here.”
She has reduced winter fuel bills with money she does not have, but it has increased her ratings so she is happy and the elctorate are happier. She can keep doing this and remain popular.
from what I gather shes just put a price freeze , or is the government going to start paying people’s natural gas/ electric? because all they do here in the us is offer discounts and say the private utilities cant charge over x amount of dollars
The prize freeze effectively means that the Government will have to pay the price difference to the energy companies. Going to cost about 150 Billion Pounds apparently.
This sounds a little like a nice windfall of cash for energy companies, paid for by future generations of British taxpayers. Pretty sweet for the companies.