The Guardian reports this morning that:
Rishi Sunak is considering a tax cut for the 5 million highest earners and reducing stamp duty in an attempt to ease the pressure on his leadership after two historic byelection defeats, it has been reported.
The Conservatives may raise the 40% income tax threshold after Labour's victory in Mid Bedfordshire, Nadine Dorries' former seat. It was the largest majority to be overturned at a byelection.
Let's ignore the fact that both of these have decidedly minority appeal and instead presume that the suggestions are true indicators of the Tory mindset. What do they suggest?
First, they reveal a belief amongst Tories that what most people in the UK really want is for the better off to be better off still, because at least 85% of the population enjoy knowing that income and wealth inequality in the UK is rising and they are the victims of it. They haven't done opinion polls to prove this: they just innately know that is how those on lower incomes feel.
Second, it reveals desperation. Tax cuts are always the resort of the politician wholly out of ideas. The Tories have clearly reached the point in their downward trajectory where the fact that the idea they are proposing is so transparently a bribe that 98% of people will react to it with scorn no longer matters.
Third, it suggests a party that has given up. The opinion polls make it clear that the Tories will be suffer a humiliating defeat at the next election. By-election results do not prove that is the case, but consistently suggest it is likely to be true. Of course they have given up.
Reports are that finding anyone to do basic electioneering work on the ground was hard for the Tories in the two elections held this week. That's unsurprising when most of your members are well into older-age. But it also reflects the fact that fighting for a lost cause really does not have great appeal, and that is what the Tories are. Candidly, how Tory ministers and MPs will drag themselves to work for another year is hard to work out. I suspect some won't. The only reason for a May 2024 election is that so many will be begging to be put out of their misery.
And then what? The rump of the Tory party will try to regroup.
Will Farage enter from stage right? I would not rule it out.
That the party will go through a wildly extreme phase is almost inevitable. Some are already calling for it.
Will it ever return? Don't rule it out. Starmer has no more ideas. His policy is at best from the Cameron and Osborne playbook. There is nothing in it for most people. Right now the Labour election song should be ‘Things can only get worse', because that seems likely given Labour's apparent lack of preparedness for the horrors it will face. So of course the Tories could be back. Never doubt it. And never doubt the power of extremist views. That's where they will be going in search of recovery.
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The worst part about the current government is that there is no way for the public to force an election. This is bad for the majority of the country, and not in the so-called national interest.
It’s brilliant that Kier Starmer is likely to form a majority government. He has got the Party back on track and will recapture the red wall voters and a large band of floating voters. Something to definitely be cheerful about..
If you want a hardcore neoliberal government I guess that’s true
Satire, I presume.
“It’s brilliant that Kier Starmer is likely to form a majority government. He has got the Party back on track and will recapture the red wall voters and a large band of floating voters. Something to definitely be cheerful about..”
Well this statement is about as intellectually useful as saying at some stage next year there’ll be days the sun will shine! Sadly it’s readily apparent that many Starmer supporters can’t be bothered to investigate whether his economic and monetary policies will actually deliver well-being for the many. This attitude reveals feeble minds easily satisfied by rhetoric! It’s the story of the UK’s decline!
Here’s a useful new term to conjure with “angertainment” an American term meaning lucrative playing of the partisan angles in Congress, on social media and on network TV.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/21/adam-frisch-lauren-boebert-2024-election-colorado
Clearly it’s crossed the pond because isn’t it so true of the behaviour of the Conservative Party, the Labour Party under Starmer and much of the mainstream media?
As I always do when I read this sort of comment, I ask if this is a parody account? Or, in this case, a parody ID. Surely no one can voluntarily come out with such guff?
Talk of a Tory loss is – I don’t know really.
To be honest, it is the Tories since 2010 who are the real radicals. They have radically changed this country for the worst for sure.
And in defeat – looking at what Laboured are offering – they have still won.
That should be shocking and unacceptable to us all. But it us not it seems. Awful.
I saw the headline and feared we were back to the Trussian madmen taking over the asylum. But in fact it is simply about restoring the real terms threshold that has been lowered by “stealth”.
However the fact they are only talking about this one threshold rather than all of them makes it clear this is a naked political gesture to those they think of as their natural electorate.
Agreed
Starmer’s sacking of of Labour members who sympathise with the plight of Palestilians and the dozens of Labour councilors resigning for Starmer’s support of the Tory and Israeli intended annihilation of the Gaza strip will not encourage many Labour members to continue the support of the Labour Party and do the canvassing and leafletting for this barbaric policy.
I suppose Sunak needed a headline to take people’s minds off the fact that he was called Doctor Death in the covid inquiry on Thursday.
Notwithstanding all that, it is still depressing hearing the responses of voters as to why they have not voted Tory but for something similar.
I’ve always sided with our abused and manipulated electorate but they are beginning to test my patience and at the moment they seem to be well on the way to getting what they deserve whilst dragging the rest of us down with them.
I’ve spent an hour this morning watching the indi-sage youtube video from yesterday. It was all about trust, and behavioural science.
If the government had trusted the people and not said that we would game the system (Hancock) or not said that we would get behavioural fatigue (Whitty) there would have been 40,000 lives saved, as we would have locked down two weeks sooner.
Trust is a two way transaction between the people and the government. If the government doesn’t trust the people, there is no way the people should trust the government, in covid, finance or anything else.
The public is the most valuable asset the government has. The government squandered this asset by not trusting the public to do the right thing, and this is still happening. Whatever Sunak says from now on he is not going to be trusted.
Unfortunately Starver is doing the same, if not worse. He does not even trust members of his own party, which is why there are a lot of ex-members.
I must be even more cynical than many here, because I watched Indy Sage too, and thought “destroying trust is exactly what was intended.” Because that makes it even harder for democracy, truth, reason, humanity to make a comeback.
Now of course, the Tories are simply scorching earth. Setting an even bigger trap for Labour to walk into. They aim to be back after one term, you can be sure of it.
You are so right about the motive for destroying trust
What will happen to the Tories after the next election is an interesting question. It depends on what bits of the Tory Party are left once the electoral drubbing being predicted plays out. Will the party be dominated by the frothing-at-the-mouth ERG loons or will the so-called ‘sensible’ Tories be back in charge?
The Tory faithful are an ageing demographic and the Tories have nothing to offer future generations of voters except tax cuts for the rich, privatisation and culture wars. I hope they never recover.
PSR Is spot on unfortunately.
The Labour party is walking into a nightmare scenario with their eyes wide shut.
From their very first day in office they will be confronted by a maelstrom of abuse smears and downright lies from virtually every media outlet including the now corrupted BBC.
They will be fighting 24 hours a day a defensive rear-guard action that will be draining both in terms of political energy and resources, Labour will find it increasingly difficult to get their achievements recognised and or publicised.
Anything they do achieve in their time in power will be swiftly undone by an incoming neo fascist party.
Just look at the Blair administration, when labour last left office they had some real practical accomplishments, (not forgetting their colossal failures either)
Sure start was a great example helping the very poorest get their children off to the best possible start in life returning three pounds for every pound spent, and the NHS rated number one in the developed world also returning three or four pounds for every pound spent.
Both were systematically defunded in the first few years by the Tories as will anything else labour do this time round.
The tasks facing Labour are huge but the signs are already there that they have no idea what they are up against and what they need to do.
It is my belief that the best way forward would be to start by freeing the press from the ownership of a handful of extreme right wing racist tax dodging billionaires making it illegal for shares in newspapers to be held by people not resident in the UK for tax purposes, or by non UK passport holders.
Two, Make lying by politicians illegal in any setting be it in newspapers on TV or in parliament with very strong sanctions if they do.
Three we desperately need a written constitution protecting our rights and freedoms our courts and legal justice system.
Four, first past the post has to be replaced so that every vote counts and our gerrymandered voting boundaries have to change and be protected. At the moment it takes Labour 17,000 votes extra to get an MP elected, 16 and 17 year olds need to get their franchise.
This list would go on and on school and hospital buildings program, recruitment of teachers doctors nurses, rebuilding of community assets that have been sold off or run down.
Estimates suggest we are over a million workers short, and to start any of this immigration must increase and be properly handled with care and authority.
We need to rejoin the European customs union and single market as quickly as possible,
A police investigation into Brexit law breaking must take place and where criminal activity is identified prosecutions must take place.
Further police investigations need take place into party gate why in one of the most secure buildings in UK were police who are present 24/7 having a gross dereliction of duty, why were students with virtually no resources fined £10,000 a pop whilst millionaires Johnson and Sunak get £50 fines.
It’s my prediction that a Labour government wide eyed and armed only with neoliberal orthodoxy will be blown out of the water in months rather than years.
Some of those are definitely not going to be legally possible…..
Better to try and fail than not try at all ….Gordon Brown failed because he didn’t have the guts to try…I believe
But that’s my position anyway for what it’s worth
Reading through these comments makes me realise the value of Timothy Snyder’s book ‘The Road to Unfreedom’ – he is spot on with everything to be honest.
But it is the gullibility of the British public that has got me annoyed at the moment. And identity politics is an evolutionary dead end for me.
Sure, there was a crash that enabled the Tories to get in and a craven New Labour party who actually never contested the narrative the Tories brought in that Labour bankrupted us – not the private banks – also made me extremely angry.
But I think what it shows is something more sinister – that a lot of our politics and policy making is done out of plain sight now and other than turning up to vote we have even less democracy going forward – if capitalist democracy was as bad as Churchill said it was, well, it’s even worse than that now.
Democracy has stopped. OK, maybe it was never there and we were playing a big game of pretend democracy. But even that game has stopped in my view.
We must begin to accept this and take some form of fight from there. Because we are going backward.