Quote Originally Posted by KerrAvon View Post
I agree that Labour has expended a lot of voter goodwill upon a policy that will save only a limited amount of cash. Whether the optics are wrong depends upon who the decision is aimed at.

The reality of the last ten years is that the UK has become a very unattractive place to do business. We have made access to one of the largest trading block in the world far more difficult and we have had a series of fiscally incontinent administrations, with constantly changing administrations and policy directions.

I suspect the pension policy is actually about saying 'screw the uncertainty of the last ten years or so, we're going to make fiscally sound decisions whether they are popular or not'.

In other words, I suspect that it's about saying that the UK is now a good place to invest and create quality jobs.

Love her or loathe her, that's exactly what Thatcher did.

It may well go tits up, as it would have done for Thatcher but for General Galtieri's intervention, in which case we can go back to pretending that it's possible to have decent services without paying for them.
This is exactly why I believe the optics are wrong. I'm in no doubt the WF payment changes are purely about getting the first in a series of burdens off our books, and the change should have been completely justifiable if they had very loudly talked about the growing issue of the triple lock and how it will disproportionately affect our bottom line. Pensioners are better off because of it, and in 2023 that was estimated to be at around £800 per annum above where levels would sit with only a single lever, rather than the best of the options.

The politically savvy move was for the PM to flag that the Autumn address will hurt, well ahead of that being issued. Anyone with a bit of sense can see we're caught up in a political landscape where easy fixes are offered (often with the backdrop of one or two apparent causes, despite the fact we're in a mess because of countless factors), but we need a more extensive suite of changes, and a far more holistic approach to making them. But the WF payments will always be an extremely divisive subject, and one which various media outlets will be all over to score big points, early in Labour's tenure. It was, bluntly, stupid to drop this the way they did (with no playing the tune of what triple lock costs as a lead-in), and in isolation - there are obviously other hits coming, so they could at the very least have alluded to other 'groups' getting hit to save this from being 'Labour lashing out at pensioners'. They'd also get the background win of seeing people speculate and argue what is fair with other groups they named as upcoming targets, giving them something of a sense check.

Thatcher was very well equipped to deal with being the cartoon villain, delivering (what at the time were seen as) positive economic changes whilst becoming a target for hate seemed to sit well with her, but that was a very different time. We're in a knee-jerk, hysterical, 'post-truth' (hate the term) era, and I'd be doubtful even she would have lasted a decade in a time as intense as this.

I've no doubt the intentions are good from this government, and the plan has clearly been to make Reeves appear to be the friend of big businesses, but they're failing on the PR front, and it'll be over and out in five years if they continue that, regardless of what gets fixed.