The Labour front bench looked so excited by the King's Speech.
Yesterday, Rachel Reeves apart, they looked frightened.
Reeves had practised her "I'm angry" look, and it came across as entirely fake. Even Jeremy Hunt got the better of her on her faux claims, rightly pointing out that she had access to the Treasury months before the election, as is entirely normal, and nothing was, as a result, news to her on the first day in her job.
The rest did not share Reeves' drama teacher, it seems, and they just looked scared witless by knowing that they were going to have to go out and defend the mess she was making. Two million pensioners who deserve and need the winter fuel allowance are not going to be easy to placate when the wealthy are not being asked to pay a penny more in tax.
The honeymoon is well and truly over for Labour. And this summer, they are going to have to face up to owning their own mistakes. With Reeves as Chancellor there are going to be a lot of them.
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“The honeymoon is well and truly over for Labour.”
No that’s what you wish for. Actually Starmer’s approval rating has risen significantly since taking office.
There is so much pride before a full…
Thanks for detailed information on governments shortcomings.
Full = Fall, but Fool maybe more appropriate spelling in this instance.
True
There are too many comments to get all spelling right today
This is the man who supports the murder of 10s of 1,000s men, women and children by genocidal maniacs.
He’s such a cuddly character. Yeah?
Agreed.
The only other thing that I got any satisfaction of knowing was just what a nasty scheming piece of work Jeremy Hunt is.
The roar from the Tories to his response should remind us that the Tories are not finished yet. They do not what contrition is, and Labour are not safe.
Well I think some of us thought that the new regime would turn out like this. You only had to listen to what they said and the tenor of their approach. A party that refuses to increase taxes on higher earnings and the really wealthy yet cuts benefits and imposes austerity will end up creating misery and leaving the gate open to more extremist politics. If the government wanted to make the fuel payments system fairer it would have been better to make it taxable. Then with a 75% top income tax rate the affluent would receive less WFA than those on lower incomes.
Could it be a case of getting the bad news out while many people are on hols? (or many are focused on the Olympics = good two weeks in which to buty bad news?)
As for the “front bench” perhaps it is finally sinking in that they are “in-charge” & results will be required & the narrative “oh dear there is no money left” won’t cut it. Wall to wall nonesense.
As “The Man with No Name” remarked “man’s gotta know his limitations” – or in the case of Reeves………… serious deficiencies mixed with magical thinking. The imbecilic leading the incompetant.
@Mike Parr, always appreciate your comments, but the pedant in me won’t let go of the ‘mans gotta know his limitations’ quote. It wasn’t from any of the Eastwood westerns, it was “Dirty Harry”.
Front bench look frightened.
I remember Nick Clegg trying to defend increased student fees. Faux anger at Brown’s ‘over-spending’ and how Osborne’s measures were necessary to stop us becoming like Greece! Nonsense of course.
Similar story, different actors.
And then there’s this from Poly Toynbee today:-
“The money is there for the taking. Plucking the fatter geese will please most voters, and do no economic harm to Reeves’s hard-earned reputation for stability.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/30/billions-rachel-reeves-no-fiscal-promises-broken
Will her article win the “Churnalist of the Year” award?
She only ever quotes right wing sources these days
They have no need to look frightened. On BBC Radio Scotland this morning, someone purporting to be a journalist asked a Fraser of Allander economist ‘how political the statement was yesterday, rather than straight economics’; of a Chancellor’s statement to Parliament. What on earth does that actually mean? With questions like that – why would the Labour front bench be frightened?
I see Andrew Dilnot has come out and accused the government of reneging on a commitment to cap social care, as confirmed by Streeting in a formal interview.
They’re playing Jenga.