You just want to watch the world burn? Trump will use his power to kill the legal cases against him and will move on to dismantle the democratic process. Starmer is the worst PM we've ever had? Are you drunk? Sunak, Truss, Johnson? Hell, Cameron!
He's not covered himself in glory, but he's not killed 300,000 people yet so we're still a ways from Starmer being worst-ever. As ever this government will be really unpopular for raising taxes.
Polls don't lie, he is hated and is less favoured than even truss was which is terrifying. I voted labour, I wanted change, I was hoping the idiot would step aside and let another lead the party as it was clear he was the right man to get labour in to power but I didn't think he would be the right person to continue to lead. However, he is still in. In case you hadn't noticed, the world is burning anyway. It just needs to be pushed along a little quicker so we can hit reset and build again. Letting issues continue to grow until they are irreparable is just dumb and that is where most are heading.
Yeah, they should take a leaf out of the Tory playbook and keep kicking the catastrophe can down the road until it blows up and then it's "there was no way to prevent this". We knew before the GE what was likely to come if we ever wanted to at least attempt to repair some of the damage foisted upon us by 14 years of corruption and incompetence; and we still voted for it. We're all going to have to take some pain but I wager it'll be a lot less painful than riding the Tory disaster train to the end of the line.
The problem is, if Trump gets in again, will we even recognise what the United States of America will become in a few years time? Last time he still had some voices and officials around to moderate and push back against the worst of his excesses. Now, however, he is openly vowing a full purge of government departments and to install his own servile lackeys. There won’t be anything left to stop him being a dictator and fundamentally restructuring America as he sees fit. The Supreme Court, usually the ultimate arbiter in disputes over governmental decisions, is already stacked in his favour. He and his supporters are already talking about restructuring the Department of Justice so that it pursues the cases and targets that are dictated by the office of the President. The Democrats tried the “they’re dangerous lunatics” approach last time and it worked against them; Trump’s acolytes could point to it and say “Look how scared they are, look how much they’re afraid of having someone in office who truly believes in this great country and wants to make it great again.” It’s why the “they’re just weird” play from Walz landed so well. It’s all fine and dandy to call them “weird” to try and get the voting public on the side of the Democrats, but that’s all it is: a ploy to get the public on side. None of the things that people were saying during the last campaign have changed - in fact the danger now is far worse than it was last time. We underestimate the Trump cult at our own peril.
A second Trump presidency would quickly turn the USA from a Democratic Republic into a xenophobic ultra-Christian theocracy. His "Project 2025" is a manual on how to turn the USA into Gilead from "A Handmaid's Tale". My guess is that should Trump win, Vance will immediately have him declared senile and invoke the 25th Amendment.
Yes, because the last lot didn't raise direct taxation, they just killed your disposable income through epic mis-management, corruption and stealth taxes. The Tories and most of their client media have created this myth that taxes rises are a bad thing, and they certainly did their best to avoid them for the wealthy, but the country is in the toilet and they locked themselves out of raising taxes by their own fear-mongering. So, they just pour on the austerity and service cutting during a pandemic or foreign conflict - "it's not us that's doing this to you, it's a global downturn" - despite every other major economy recovering quicker than us. I'm not well off by any means but I am in favour of paying a little more out of my wages, if the long term benefit is improved public services and a functioning NHS.
Please don't misunderstand me, I'm in favour much as you are, but generally any government that raises taxes kills its popularity.
This is, of course, well-known by the Tories, who get into power, cut services to the bone, lose power to Labour because nothing works, then when Labour raises taxes to try to get the services back to where they were cry "look, Labour is taxing you to the hilt," get voted back into power, cut services to the bone... A tale as old as time. Or democracy, at least.
Before raising taxes you need to cut them to incentivise businesses to invest both foreign and home grown (or at the very least hold them). Once you have that, you creep things in here and there that correct issues that both sit on the surface and are easily seen and dealt with. This boosts morale and trust and once you have that you can then start slapping in additional taxation to attack further down towards the root of the problems. You have to speculate to accumulate after all but can appreciate Labours argument in that we have been doing that for the last 14 years, just very very poorly. I have no issue really with most of the budget, I just think its a little too soon and heavy handed and that will drive down the economy. More property tax when purchasing? Less people move. Less starter homes appear on the market. Removal companies, trades including decorating and renovations drop and so do estate agents. Knock on affect? Less money overall as more people are out of work contributing to the economy and instead need to then rely on the state. This is a dumb policy in a country where we don't have enough housing and more importantly affordable starter housing as it is. I could then go on about inheritance tax but that is what it is. It doesn't affect those who are dead, only those getting the benefit of the hard work of those before them. I believe that there should be exceptions which would mitigate issues surrounding businesses and farms etc as this will likely cause closures and job loss which in turn reduces collected taxes and increases hand outs. I cant be bothered to go over the rest of it and the magic pot that's being dangled for the NHS as I am sure there are many opinions and everyone will both be right and wrong about it one way or another but as I have said above, baby steps, small wins etc to encourage public response before dropping your balls deep inside an orifice that you would rather remain vacant is the better option. It may take a little longer to achieve but the shock to the system would be gradual and the benefits would hopefully for the most part out weigh the negatives. And then we have the subject of illegal immigration. So long as they are here to better their lives and to work, I don't care and I would hope that others would feel this way too. I'm just not seeing the numbers that support that people are indeed doing this. Instead I am seeing the negatives constantly which no doubt is causing most of the tension we are currently experiencing. The media has a lot to answer for but so do those feeding the media and the agendas that they drive. Anyway... Trump, Harris. Back on track n all that. Trump will increase the wealth of America collectively, I do believe that, but I think it'll be at the expense of those in an middle class background yielding little results in the working and lower and improving the upper richer class significantly. The problem is, the world seems to always work better when it is like this so what can you really do about it other than accept it? By not accepting it you end up where we are now in the UK with people moaning about budgets, moaning about a lack of money in their pockets and the taxes that have been sprung on us all the while the rich laugh it off and leave after benefiting off of your hard graft. This is why you need to break things in slowly, if you don't then those who have the means to generate and improve the economy don't or they up and leave.
No, it’s an “oh crap, I posted that over 7 hours ago and didn’t realise that one stupid typo” thing People are moaning because sh** doesn’t work. Your bins don’t get collected properly, you can’t get a GP appointment, your hospital appointment has been delayed 6 times in 2 months, your roads are full of potholes, your towns and cities are dirty and rubbish-strewn, homelessness has increased massively… and then you get shrill nonsense from self-serving mouthpieces about how Labour just want to tax the balls out of everything you own when they start telling people how they’re going to try and get things moving again. In 2010 we were told that we need to tighten our belt to make us more economically productive and better off, so the government instituted drastic and wide-ranging cuts in funding. Nothing got better, it just got worse. Then we were told that if only we could get away from pesky meddling by the EU then we could chart our own course, and swashbuckle our way to sunlit uplands full of prosperity. And to hell with what those damn Krauts and frog-eaters think of it! So we committed possibly one of the most devastating acts of economic self-sabotage we could have: we told our closest trading partners to go take a long walk off a short pier and left the EU. Nothing got better, it just got worse. And then we were told that we just need to cut taxes to make us more prosperous, so Lettuce Liz instituted £44bn of unfunded cuts. The markets reacted instantly and made damn sure the rest of us knew what they thought of that, and now we’ll be paying the price for many years to come. Nothing got better, it just got worse. Then we were told we just need to cut taxes to make things better - but not like the way that last lot tried, god no, jeez wow that was crazy, wasn’t it? No, we just need to cut taxes in the right way, and if we keep spending endless billions on locking up illegal immigrants and asylum seekers (who are only came here illegally because we took away the means to come here legally) indefinitely then they won’t want to come here any more and you’ll all have more jobs. Nothing got better, it just got worse. We have a pretty good household income, between the two of us. Well above average. My other half could be out of work and the only thing we’d have to change about our finances is not being able to pay our credit card as soon as we’d like. That’s not a flex, or a brag, I’m saying that I have a lot to lose when people start meddling with income-related taxation. According to the best estimates I can find, this budget will make us worse off to the grand total of approximately £4.50 per year. If that’s the price I have to pay for the chance that maybe - just maybe - sh** might start working again… well… I guess we’ll just have to find a way to manage. I’m just gonna have to tighten the budget and start digging down the side of the sofa for spare change - every penny counts when you’re in a tight spot financially. Quietly absent from the sound and fury over the budget is the £7.7bn in savings over the next 5-10 years by simply committing to processing asylum claims in a timely manner. It turns out that the cost of indefinite detention quietly mounts up in the background… It’s just a shame that we spent so much money on Bibby Stockholm before the adults came back in the room and got everybody off it, quietly reminding people (and without needing to be so crass as to loudly shout it from the rooftops with catchy slogans) that we stopped using prison barges centuries ago.
I really don't see how on earth people can convince themselves that we are living in some dystopian hellscape that needs to be burnt to the ground. I cannot see that there was some previous time in history that would have been better to have been living in. Liberal democracy has created wealth and kept peace between nations that had spent centuries warring. We are on average heathier, weather and freer than at any time I can think of. I do not have any wish that I was born in an earlier to e. For sure we have problems galore, but I still would hold with Churchill's line that (misquoting a little) though you might look at our political mess and think that it was the worst possible mess you could have but surely this democracy it a better system than any that has been tried in human history.
The system itself isn't necessarily the problem, but rather the frustration of what people are doing with it.
Yeah that sounds ideal really - let's just make things infinitely worse because apparently that'll actually fix everything, oh and I guess it's just too bad for everyone who gets screwed along the way? There are quite a lot of misanthropes out there (and a few on here) who are convinced that everyone and everything is ****. I personally find this nihilism incredibly boring - maybe that makes me utterly naive but that doesn't bother me.
I'm still trying to reconcile this go lightly, slowly, softly approach: ...with this: Maybe I'm not enlightened enough to pick out the nuances in these seemingly diametrically opposed positions, but it looks and smells like sh!te to me.
They’re the difference between an how it should and a what I want as the should just doesn’t ever happen coupled with cynicism and scepticism and a slight hope that there are still good people in power left to do what’s right. I guess it’s like knowing your wife has cheated and hoping that perhaps its just a dream..
