advertisement


Labour Leader: Keir Starmer V

Status
Not open for further replies.
One person one vote sounds great until you try to square it with the lack of involvement in politics of your average person. I didn’t take a practical interest until my mid-thirties because I was so busy doing a lot of other things. Now I’m all clued up my vote is no more effective than when I didn’t know Jackshit.
 
droodzilla said:
Whatever Corbyn thought about the issue, he would have made the party more democratic had he held on for longer, and I suspect the pressure from members for PR would have become irresistible. Starmer's attack on internal party democracy this week has closed down that possibility for the foreseeable future.
Click to expand...
Yes. There are argument for and against PR, failure to be pro PR is not necessarily backward.

No matter, CLPs, that is ordinary members, we’re in favour of PR by 80%. Corbyn was very much for more democracy in the party and his proposals would make the party more accountable to the membership, so even if he was against PR himself, he would have had to bow to pressure from the grassroots.

We now have a Labour Party that has just made itself even less democratic than the Tories.
 
Seanm said:
Starmer campaigned for leader on the £15 minimum wage. Whatever you think of the policy, or Starmer, or Labour, it does something to public life when people from the two main parties lie so cynically and nakedly to get what they want. You can’t trust any of them with anything. It’s all just dogshit.

https://twitter.com/keir_starmer/status/1195036169773338625?s=21
Click to expand...
The BBC are reporting that raising the minimum wage was NOT one of the pledges made by Starmer in his run for leadership although he did support the 2019 campaign which is where the clip above is drawn.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58713344
 
In Local Government raising the minimum wage to £15 per hour would put the lowest paid full time staff on £27,300* and eradicate differentials from Grade 1 up to Grade 6.
*£15 x 35hrs per week x 52 weeks.
Do we also then pay for differentials to be maintained?
Seems like a somewhat ambitious proposal to me.
 
Weekender said:
The BBC are reporting that raising the minimum wage was NOT one of the pledges made by Starmer in his run for leadership although he did support the 2019 campaign which is where the clip above is drawn.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58713344
Click to expand...
Minimum wage might not have been mentioned in his 10 pledges, but a promise to tackle low pay certainly was. This is another pledge to go alongside Nationalisation and free movement that have been broken in just the last few days.

If Starmer cannot keep pledges he made at the start of his leadership, what is the trust that he will keep any made now be based on?

Starmer has the same integrity and commitment to pledges as Nick Duplicitous Clegg
 
So the unions and their activists torpedoed PR. "A 2015 paper in the British Journal of Political Science found that, in established democracies since the second world war, “countries with majoritarian rules more often elect conservative governments than those with proportional representation electoral systems … Majoritarian systems have a substantive conservative bias.”
 
We should scrap the entire tax service and reboot, abolish national insurance, raise thresholds so anyone on current minimum wage doesn’t pay tax, introduce a local income tax in place of council tax to pay for local social care.
Most important abolish zero hrs contracts and reform housing benefit with ref to a minimum wage. Government should not be subsidising poverty wages by topping up thru housing benefit and universal credit.
But it is essential rents drop, this means capping rents and allowing councils and housing associations to borrow to build (amend legislation to restrict right to buy as new housing will a tempting earner for some)
Introduce a asset\wealth tax and get serious with money laundering thru the city of London,
That’s just the start, don’t get me started on the corporate tax structure.
 
Weekender said:
In Local Government raising the minimum wage to £15 per hour would put the lowest paid full time staff on £27,300* and eradicate differentials from Grade 1 up to Grade 6.
*£15 x 35hrs per week x 52 weeks.
Do we also then pay for differentials to be maintained?
Seems like a somewhat ambitious proposal to me.
Click to expand...
Society would collapse.
 
Frizzy said:
We should scrap the entire tax service and reboot, abolish national insurance, raise thresholds so anyone on current minimum wage doesn’t pay tax, introduce a local income tax in place of council tax to pay for local social care.
Most important abolish zero hrs contracts and reform housing benefit with ref to a minimum wage. Government should not be subsidising poverty wages by topping up thru housing benefit and universal credit.
But it is essential rents drop, this means capping rents and allowing councils and housing associations to borrow to build (amend legislation to restrict right to buy as new housing will a tempting earner for some)
Introduce a asset\wealth tax and get serious with money laundering thru the city of London,
That’s just the start, don’t get me started on the corporate tax structure.
Click to expand...
No need to change the fundamentals of the tax system, just change the direction it flows, just switch the polar. Pay all tax to local government, then local government funds central government as a proportion of it’s income. Central government is responsible for policy in areas of national interest such as transport, education and health, and central government is responsible for funding projects that cross local borders, such as railways, power supply, broadband etc. local government is responsible for funding health, education etc with the policies set out at a national level.

Such a move would bring democracy much closer to home, power would follow the money and give local government power and because power is local, would make local government far more accountable because people could literally be banging on the door of local authorities.
 
Heckyman said:
Reducing taxes on the low paid would surely make more sense than increasing the minimum wage.
Click to expand...

This has been done though the significant increase in personal allowance over recent years which, in fairness to them, was a lib dem initiative. It’s now £12,570 before you pay any income tax at all. It’s NI that’s the problem. I’d get rid of it and merge into income tax rates but then the headline tax rate will appear much higher! Make no mistake, we have a high tax govt in place. Corp tax increasing from 19% to 25% in 2023, that’s a 31% increase. We have to pay the piper at some point.
 
Snags are:

Who decides which issues/services are 'local' or 'national'? - local or national gov? e.g. 'Social Care' and its funding, regulation, etc.

The problem is that - as now - various councils and national gov tend to dodge and redefine things to their advantage. Thus provision for various groups, etc, will vary around the UK. Similarly 'income' isn't sufficient as a basis as the level of demand for spending on various things varies from area to area. e.g. providing homes is far cheaper in some places than others. Who sets the relative levels?
 
As mentioned in the Brexit thread the far-right racist thugs that inspired Jo Cox’s murder are now a political party and I suspect will be taking some votes off Labour in the uglier working class heartlands (BBC).
 
Ponty said:
This has been done though the significant increase in personal allowance over recent years which, in fairness to them, was a lib dem initiative. It’s now £12,570 before you pay any income tax at all. It’s NI that’s the problem. I’d get rid of it and merge into income tax rates but then the headline tax rate will appear much higher! Make no mistake, we have a high tax govt in place. Corp tax increasing from 19% to 25% in 2023, that’s a 31% increase. We have to pay the piper at some point.
Click to expand...

Another problem with threashold raising is that it tends to cut the tax paid by the well-paid by more than it does those on modest wages. You need a change that reduces the rate paid by the poor whilst *not* letting that cut the amount paid by the well-off.

Corp taxes, etc, should essentially follow the same rate shapes and levels as income tax. Ditto wealth taxes. This would - if done well - destroy many of the tricks used by the wealthy to hide their income and dodge tax.
 
Jim Audiomisc said:
Another problem with threashold raising is that it tends to cut the tax paid by the well-paid by more than it does those on modest wages. You need a change that reduces the rate paid by the poor whilst *not* letting that cut the amount paid by the well-off.
Click to expand...

Might as well reverse it then, take it back to £6K.
Tell someone on £100K - £125K who has a marginal tax rate of 60% that they don’t pay their fair share…
 
Jim Audiomisc said:
Snags are:

Who decides which issues/services are 'local' or 'national'? - local or national gov? e.g. 'Social Care' and its funding, regulation, etc.

The problem is that - as now - various councils and national gov tend to dodge and redefine things to their advantage. Thus provision for various groups, etc, will vary around the UK. Similarly 'income' isn't sufficient as a basis as the level of demand for spending on various things varies from area to area. e.g. providing homes is far cheaper in some places than others. Who sets the relative levels?
Click to expand...
First of all this is never going to happen, but in my fantasy the less we change the better, so the policy for Social care would be set by national government, but it would be funded, as now, locally.

As for houses, then those areas where houses are more expensive tend to be where there is more wealth, so the local authority would have greater income from a higher number of higher earners, but would have a higher expenditure on things like like houses (as well as paying a higher grant to central government. One job of central government would be to supply grants back to poorer local government to fund capital expenses, such as housing)
 
I was going to state last week that the minimum wage needed to be raised to £15 - I had no idea that it was on the agenda. That's only about £25 k pre-tax per annum for a normal working week, without excessive hours or moonlighting. Shame on Starmer. These low, exploitative wages are being subsidised through general taxation via working tax credits. This is why I don't see minimum wage as a success of the Blair years, it was a mistake as it defines a widespread race to the bottom rather than a protection for the very lowest earners.
 
gavreid said:
I was going to state last week that the minimum wage needed to be raised to £15 - I had no idea that it was on the agenda. That's only about £25 k pre-tax per annum for a normal working week, without excessive hours or moonlighting. Shame on Starmer. These low, exploitative wages are being subsidised through general taxation via working tax credits. This is why I don't see minimum wage as sucess of the Blair years, it was a mistake as it defines a widespread race to the bottom rather than a protection for the very lowest earners.
Click to expand...
What are you talking about? Starmer supports £15 per hour:

https://twitter.com/jrc1921/status/1442549322638319623

Oh, hang on, wait...
 
Status
Not open for further replies.


advertisement


Back
Top