O/T:- ⚠️Impressed with the leadership [The UK Party Politics Thread]

[OchPie]

I'm not in favour of the Welfare State. The term implies that it is a way to have your life controlled - like The Fascist State or The Hermit State.

The term "Welfare State" was coined for Britain in the early 1940s as a counterpoint to the Nazi Germany "Warfare State".

[SmiffyPie]

I'm 100% against child benefit of ANY form. Why should the taxpayer subsidise others to breed?

Because they are the tax payers of the future?
And referring back to my means test post a few days ago, if it wasn't for family allowance (as it was then) me and my sister would have starved (we were close to it anyway, single parent, poor pay for women, rent, electricity and gas meter and all the rest of it). Guess some people were born lucky eh?

[Med Pie]

I'm not in favour of the Welfare State. The term implies that it is a way to have your life controlled - like The Fascist State or The Hermit State.

I'm in favour of a safety net for all those that need to call on it, but it's reviewed every three months. There has to be certain, minimal criteria that the recipient has to meet each time - depending on why they are receiving the payment. I'm 100% against child benefit of ANY form. Why should the taxpayer subsidise others to breed?

Your first statement is contradicted by the second, highlighted line with which I agree. Without a welfare state, we'd have miles of 'tent Cities' like we see in America, even in affluent Cities.

I think benefits should be removed from those whose incapacity is brought about by drug abuse or alcohol dependence however, there are myriad circumstances, almost endless combinations of factors in each, individual case so it's difficult to craft a 'one size fits all'.

Thank goodness for the two child limit on child benefit which some Liberals want to overturn or hundreds of millions more would be going to immigrant families who have twice as many kids on average as the Brits do.

[SmiffyPie]

Nailed it there Jackal! Long gone are the days when a person entered politics with the sole aim of improving the greater good (from whichever view point) it is now a "career" held in check by a powerful, self-serving civil service.

[M0ufMk3]

The problems over the last twenty years have been those of incompetence, inflexibility, and too many advisers pedalling either their own (unelected) views or ideas for their cv.
Brown overspent, albeit with intent to invest, meaning that we were hit harder by the crash than many others (No point in bringing up the gold sell off because a recent report reckoned he got a decent price - not convinced myself but there you go.)
Cameron and Osborne were right (imo) with austerity. There was no choice but they kept going for too long out of sheer machismo rather than economic common sense, and damaged our ability to compete.
I was torn for along time on whether to leave the EU or not (emotionally I agreed, intellectually I felt it would be a short-term disaster). There is little doubt that in the short-term (okay 8 years) it has had a hugely detrimental effect on our economy. A trading nation gets rid of its most convenient trading partner and realises that others are disinterested in offering reasonable deals to someone who seems desperate? Qu'elle surprise!
We were fast asleep when Covid arrived, locked down far too late meaning that we were weeks behind our (now) economic rivals who got over the worst and started to open up. We panicked (understandably), so we opened up as well. We are too early for our circumstances and had to lock down again otherwise deaths would have been far higher (although, ironically given the recent posts we'd' have saved a bundle on pensions). If we had locked down earlier, say within two weeks of mainland Europe (notwithstanding the wishful thinking of British exceptionalism) and stopped the flights (whose decision was it not to?), we'd have been able to come out sooner. Sod the roll out (excellent though it was but nowhere close to correcting the appalling decisions it post-dated) we needed awareness not chest beating - we actually needed the odious Cummings rather than buffoons that were Johnson (how many Cobra meetings missed?) and Hancock (how many family members made wealthy?)
Much of this explains what Starmer is up against, although I'm only going to give him a 5/10. Too negative, freebies an almighty misstep given the relatively small amounts involved. At least he is tackling the issues he was left with but I would wish he’d stop getting his excuses in first, legitimate though they may be – another problem of having to manage the media
OchPie is entirely right to point out the ludicrous pension triple lock. This means the economically inactive have an increase exceeding inflation by £900 since its introduction and now they're having a bit of a whinge. Well they can do one. My dad was pretty much on minimum wage despite being trained in a skill (partly his own fault - lack of ambition but he worked hard and had one day sick in over 40 years), my mum worked to keep us off free school meals, they saved for post-retirement by way of a modest work place pension (only active for 10 years before my dad retired). They can afford the loss of the fuel allowance. It won’t be easy but they do something called budgeting and not going to the pub that often. [I'm actually going to pay the fuel allowance for them, because I can afford to.]
I was one of those lazy entitled students that 1959 (who from his name I’d estimate predates me by either two or three school years) references/accuses. Well I apologise personally for doing my best and paying well over a million in tax over the years and being proud to do so in order actually to put something back, by way of repayment to the country which educated and raised me. Compare and contrast with some party donors who are throwing a wobbly with one hand at the thought of a tax increase whilst pleading patriotism with the other. [I actually don't think taxes should go up but their disingenuity makes me sick.]
Labour's media performance, as with much else, with the fuel allowance has been woeful and they should have linked it to the triple lock with a plan to set the pension at a sensible level (whatever that may be but not reducing it) and adjust it by a new/revised index of inflation which measures those elements the state pension is for, including fuel among the essentials.

[maddogslater]

... if anyone deluded themselves into thinking that we live in a democracy, this is further evidence that, for decades, we live in a dictatorship with a hard core/handful of power struck idiots aided and abetted by a multitued of self-serving controllers at all levels who will never give up
the power of their own little empires. It's the UK version of communism - absolute control; and we can do f-all about it.
Our tin pot 'government' plays about with eveyone else's money; it's peanuts compared to what goes on on the world stage. With covid control fading, the current stick is the climate change nonsense ... trying to frighten everyone into moving in a their desired direction. The efforts of the climate change scientists to rape governments of our £££'s mirrors that of big pharma conning every government daft enough to listen re covid.
The combined efforts of the mob to control climate are as great as the length of a knats c.ck being waved about in a hurricane when compared to what the effect of the sun will have at some time in the future. Ssk the scientists about that ...

A brilliant post horsey.
NCM OT post of the year.
Thank you ✌️

[jackal2]

Keir Starmer didn’t even enter politics until he was 53, so I’m not sure how he can be classed as a ‘career politician’. If anyone deserves that title it’s Jeremy Corbyn isn’t it?

I didn't cite Keir Starmer as a career politician in my post, but you actually make a fair point that it's too simplistic to blame all career politicians for the demise of the two main parties, or to absolve from blame all of those who don't fit that description.

Jeremy Corbyn could indeed be described as a career politician with strong ideological beliefs to which he has stayed (comparatively) true and consistent, whereas "Sir" Keir Starmer has proven over a much shorter political career that he will do and say anything to get to the top and ride the freebie train, including both supporting and then discarding the aforementioned Corbyn when it suited him.

[keldsyke]

Keir Starmer didn’t even enter politics until he was 53, so I’m not sure how he can be classed as a ‘career politician’.

He’s done well to learn how to take £107,000 worth of freebies nearly 2.5 times more than the next highest claimed by Lucy Powell, and that’s only from 2019. Just admit it BFP, you’ve been had over by all your socialist mates, there worse than the Torries and that’s saying something, but as I’ve told you before they are ALL as bad as each other, don’t trust any of them regardless of party.

[BigFatPie]

He’s done well to learn how to take £107,000 worth of freebies nearly 2.5 times more than the next highest claimed by Lucy Powell, and that’s only from 2019. Just admit it BFP, you’ve been had over by all your socialist mates, there worse than the Torries and that’s saying something, but as I’ve told you before they are ALL as bad as each other, don’t trust any of them regardless of party.

Calm down mate, you’ll self combust. Why you’re so determined to persuade yourself and others that ‘they’re all the same’ only you know. I suspect it’s to give yourself the moral permission to vote and support loathsome individuals like Farage, his performing monkey Anderson or whichever circus act wins the Tory leadership.

You keep telling yourself if it makes you feel better, you’re not going to win me over though.

[PedroTheFisherman66]

Leave the monarchy out of this.

🤣🤣🤣