Keir Starmer at it again..

[sycophantia]

Is it too optimistic of me to think that they're preparing the ground for tax reset, with a higher high income tax rate, CGT/income tax equalisation, higher stamp duty on £2m+ properties, closing loopholes on the Googles/Amazons?

Get it all through while you've got a massive majority and 4 years 10 months before the next election, ride out the abuse and then point to rescued public services in 2 years time.

Think that has to be the plan, otherwise we just meander along keeping most of the policies of the last 5+ years.

 

[Wilf Wolf]

Is it too optimistic of me to think that they're preparing the ground for tax reset, with a higher high income tax rate, CGT/income tax equalisation, higher stamp duty on £2m+ properties, closing loopholes on the Googles/Amazons?

Get it all through while you've got a massive majority and 4 years 10 months before the next election, ride out the abuse and then point to rescued public services in 2 years time.

Unfortunately it probably is.

 

[Templeton Peck]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1816172464851804270

 

[Tony Towner]

Horseshit, particularly this part. Conflating the whip with collective responsibility to make an inaccurate point

https://twitter.com/x/status/1816172478634299850

 

[Del Woppio]

They were happy to stand on a manifesto and be involved in a campaign that was pretty explicit on the two child cap. I think voting on an amendment to that manifesto is pretty hypocritical. They could've had the courage of their convictions and resigned membership and stood as an independent, but that would mean risking their jobs.

 

[Templeton Peck]

Labour is a moral void

For those unaware of it, Labour suspended the whip from seven of its MPs last night after they voted against the King’s Speech because it did not include a commitment to end the two child benefit cap. Let me just take some facts here. The two child benefit is thought likely to...

www.taxresearch.org.uk

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

Well it looks like Jeremy is busy rabble rousing this little group of rebels. He really must hate labour being in power.

 

[Templeton Peck]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1816172470514135088

 

[Templeton Peck]

Well it looks like Jeremy is busy rabble rousing this little group of rebels. He really must hate labour being in power.

Good thing the PLP were all so beautifully behaved from 2015-19.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

Each quote makes a little less sense with that bloke.

 

[ROVERT47]

It’s about time Corbyn and his cronies formed their own party a bit like dissatisfied Tories with Reform, maybe call it Momentum.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

This is the first King's Speech of a new government. Therefore the motion to pass it is basically endorsing the manifesto that these rebel MPs stood behind to get themselves elected.

It's a bit more significant than rebelling on one motion later in a parliament. It's basically saying that you didn't agree with the thing you used to invite your constituents to vote for you.

That's hypocritical.

 

[Johnny75]

Yeah but they won the argument.

 

[Templeton Peck]

So it looks like those Labour MPs that voted it down did the right thing after all. That's a relief.

 

[The Saturday Boy]

They were happy to stand on a manifesto and be involved in a campaign that was pretty explicit on the two child cap. I think voting on an amendment to that manifesto is pretty hypocritical. They could've had the courage of their convictions and resigned membership and stood as an independent, but that would mean risking their jobs.

There is no mention of it whatsoever in the manifesto. What Starmer did say was that he could not make a commitment to scrap the two child cap unless it was funded.

In power, he could make that commitment if he wanted to - in the same way as he has committed to spending £3billion per year to Ukraine "for as long as it takes". In any reasonable understanding of that commitment, "for as long as it takes" is unfunded because there is no maximum on that.

Starmer has redirected money from Rwanda to other aspects of "irregular migration", he could have used some of this to fund some of the policy. He could have redirected some of the money from the scrapped HS2 policy...there are plenty of choices he could have made in power...if he wanted to. It might have been a little bit uncomfortable politically, but he is going to be PM for five years. He could have shoved something in the Kings' Speech, done a little jiggery pokery with the numbers to make it funded and never had to face an opposition amendment where he had to whip his own MPs to vote something down that will actually relieve child poverty.

And, that's exactly what will happen...possibly even as soon as the Autumn budget because Starmer has backed himself into a corner on this. He might have placated his MPs in the short term, but there are many, many more than the seven who fundamentally disagree and they won't be put off by the threat of the whip being withdrawn because he can only play that card so many times.

 

[Del Woppio]

I perhaps needed a comma. They stood on a manifesto that made no mention, and then it was said many times during the campaign that it wouldn't be done immediately. They knew what they were standing for, precisely, but rather than make a stand they took the central funds and then decided to cause a fuss once they'd had their seats won.

They were pretty clear even before the vote, that it will be scrapped, in time. It's on the agenda, on the radar, and we all know that the child poverty project will recommend it's abolition and the money will found. Not because he's been backed into a corner, because it was always going to be. Phillpson said a few days ago that lifting the cap was 'one of the levers we can use to eradicate child poverty', and Starmer agreed with her.

I disagree with the cap, and think it should have been in the manifesto, but understand why it wasn't, from a political strategy perspective. Voting for an opposition amendment to your own King's speech is nothing more than gesture politics, especially when it's on a matter that we all know is going to resolved completely by the new year.

 

[darlowolf64]

Yep, the MP's would have been fully aware that it is going to happen pretty soon but decided to try to "make a point" to Starmer.

As a Labour party member who actually voted for Corbyn as leader, twice, I think they should have just got on supporting the new government they are a part of in stead of trying to score points and open old wounds.

 

[Stan Hullis]

I thought Zarah Sultana's comments on it were fair last night on The News Agents.

She has no desire to splinter off into some other left faction either and wants the whip restored.

 

[The Saturday Boy]

I disagree with the cap, and think it should have been in the manifesto, but understand why it wasn't, from a political strategy perspective. Voting for an opposition amendment to your own King's speech is nothing more than gesture politics, especially when it's on a matter that we all know is going to resolved completely by the new year.

If it was a “political strategy”, that is also gesture politics. The only difference is that one version of gesture politics keeps kids in poverty, the other doesn’t.

It was so, so easy for Starmer to avoid this. He didn’t. There are so many ways he could have funded this.

 

[Del Woppio]

Political strategy isn't gesture politics if it gets you a massive majority. It's the whole point of it.

I agree with the last sentence entirely.