What next for Starmer?

 After a completely humiliating thrashing at the local elections, Starmer has woken up.

This year he's shown himself to be ruthless.  Not a ruthless focused leader - he's more of a toothless sheep. He's completely ruthless at throwing people under the bus. He's completely ruthless at saving his own arse and blaming others for his failings.

The electorate have clearly sent a message they are not happy with Labour or Starmer.

The sheer scale at which traditional Labour heartlands have swung over to the apparently far right Reform party is staggering. 

Whatever the Left medicine is that Starmer has been prescribing is not going down with the Left voters.

So has Starmer learnt anything from this?  Well not really. He's calling the huge defection and voting for popularist parties as a protest and popularist noise. The irony is not missed on me.  When he "wins a landslide - it's a clear mandate" and is not popularist but when it's anyone wins  it is popularist.

Starmer clearly doesn't plan to resign as a result of this defeat. Any normal human would feel humiliated by this outcome but not StarmerBot.  He has concluded that the electorate what Change and they want him to go further and faster. 

I'm still really unclear what this "Mandate for Change" is that he's delivering and I suspect most of the Labour party havent got a clue either.  Pretty shocking as they have been in power for nearly 2 years.

The blueprint for change appears to be:

1/ Breakfast clubs for schools

2/ Drive up energy prices so all the traditional Labour heavy industries no longer exist

3/ Give more money to benefit claimants

4/ Discourage people from striving or working hard

5/ Force all the rich taxpayers to move to Italy or Dubai

6/ Allow more migrants in so they can become the future Labour voters (correction Green voters)

7/ Give inflation busting pay rises to Junior Doctors without addressing the declining NHS performance.

So I find it deeply worrying that he wants to go Further and Faster with this Mandate for Change.

They key conclusion he seems to have gleaned from a weekend at Checkers - soul searching and pouring over the entrails of the defeat - is that the electorate want closer ties with Europe.

Really? 

Reform - the pro Brexit party - which vast swathes or Labour voters  have voted for means they are crying out for closer ties with Europe?  I just can't see that.

Delusional.

I await the Kings speech to hear what else Starmer thinks but the key things he needs to do:

1/  Bring down energy prices - scrap ALL green (or should that be greed) subsidies which are hidden in energy bills.

2/ Remove VAT from energy bills - even if only a temporary measure for say 2 years

3/ Start extracting North Sea oil and gas - Iran is going to go on longer than expected and the energy shortage is heading our way.

4/ Stop signing energy contracts for wind power with massively stupidly high  supply prices

5/ Start building nuclear on a serious scale.  Scrap all the bureaucracy. Why does a standard Chinese (or Korean) nuclear reactor design cost 10x more to build here and take 20 years when it's built in 4 years in China or Korea? 

6/ Give BP and Shell some relief - if they supply fuel to the UK at below market rates then give them tax relief against the huge windfall taxes which are being imposed on them.

7/ Stop interfering. Sending messages to banks that their profits are going to be subject to windfall taxes does not help.  It's nearly 20 years since the financial crisis and it's taken them that long to recover.  Rather than tell them pay windfall taxes - force them to pay back the liquidity loans or increase the interest rate they need to pay on the liquidity loans - they are no longer needed if they are making bumper profits. Telling Landlords that they are going to be unable to increase rents for 1 year due to cost of living crisis is crazy. Swedish economist Assar Lindbeck :  "next to bombing, rent controls are the most efficient technique so far known for destroying cities".

8/ Stop giving inflation busting pay rises to benefit claimants.  If someone hasnt worked or paid tax then they are capped at claiming benefits  for some period say 6 months.   If they have worked then benefits are capped at 2 years unless there are good reasons eg caring for sick etc.  This brings it in line with the very socialist French system.  Here it's perfectly possible to be a benefit claimant as a lifesyle choice.

Starmer is right the electorate are calling for Change - just not his delusional Change.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rachel planning to charge National Insurance on rental income

 The rumour mill is that Rachel is considering introducing National Insurance on rental income. How ironic! For as long as I can remember, the government and HMRC stance is that rental income is not earned income and therefore it has consequences in how it is taxed and treated. For example you can't use rental income to make pension contributions (that can only be from earned income).   Also unearned income bubbles to the top of the tax stack (order of taxation) so is most likely to treated at the highest level of income tax.  By making rental income (hopefully profits rather than income) subject to national insurance it will almost certainly have unintended consequences.  Firstly if you are past State Pension age you dont pay National Insurance. it would therefore open up the government to litigation if they make rental income subject to National Insurance for OAPs.  I can just see the negative headlines ! It is estimated that there are 1 Million Buy to Le...
Read more

Energy Performance of Privately Rent Properties - expect crazy things as we approach 2028

 The wonderful Labour government has very generously given private Landlords until 2030 to improve the energy performance of rental properties to an EPC of C for incumbent tenants.  For new tenants they need to achieve this by 2028. I agree with the idea of energy efficiency in the home but it needs to be economically viable. Ignoring the fact that the EPC scoring system  is a work of fiction (for example installing triple glazed windows doesnt improve scores) I thought it would be interesting to work through the financial side of the EPC targets.  Social and council tenants currently do not have EPC targets of E (the current minimum for private landlords) although Labour seem to be suggesting that there won't be a 2 Tier system and that council and social landlords will also have to achieve C by 2030 (previously it was 2050 to achieve E). Although I suspect the council and social landlords wont have huge fines if they fail to achieve C.  Anyway it seems  c...
Read more

Rayner's attack on Landlords. TIme to rebalance the relationship in favour of Landlords.

 Exit anti-Landlord Conservative - only to be replaced by the very anti-Landlord Labour.  Government attacks on Landlords are set to continue. This feels like this Zombie attack cannot die. Angela Rayner makes unqualified statements about their forthcoming equivalent to the Renter Reform Bill such as “rebalance the relationship between tenant and landlord.".   Really? The law favours the Tenant way more than the Landlord. I thought it would be interesting to go through just how imbalanced things have got and how easy it is for a Landlord to get fined and get a CRIMINAL record. Let's start with the basics.  If a property has gas then the Landlord has to have a gas safety certificate.  Failing to get a gas safety certificate is a £6,000 fine and  a CRIMINAL record and potentially 6 months in prison.  This is not if the system is unsafe or kills someone.  Simply to not have the paperwork.  Most home owners do not have annual checks on ...
Read more