I noted this in The Guardian this morning:
Nigel Farage will commit to restoring the winter fuel payment to all pensioners and to scrapping the two-child benefit cap, a report has suggested.
The Reform UK leader is expected to appeal to leftwing voters with announcements in a speech next week, according to the Sunday Telegraph.
Keir Starmer has told cabinet ministers that he wants to scrap the two-child benefit cap and has asked the Treasury to identify ways to fund the plan.
With Labour MPs threatening to rebel over the government's welfare reforms, the prime minister has privately made clear that he is determined to axe the limit in order to drive down child poverty.
Labur needs a new song to sing. It would be called 'When Nigel says jump, we do.'
Of course, I want the two-child limit to go.
I have explained how to pay for it very many times over. We could also, of course, increase the deficit. It is permitted, not least as this policy would pay for itself many times over.
But there is no coincidence in these stories, I am quite sure, and that is pathetic.
It also means Rachel Reeves's days are numbered. She cannot survive this.
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Labour’s new song could also be “we’re only making plans for Nigel…”
Excellent, El Deco. I shall never listen to XTC the same way again…
[…] When you say jump, I will […]
The only question I have is why it took him so long?
To change this because of the advances of a non-party – to be associated with that……………………..
Mc Sweeney or someone has to walk. They really do.
I know that Starmer is a hollow vacuous nothing, but who ever is advising Numpty Dumpty Starmer has to go surely? They have totally misread what is going on.
This is where there can only be one more possible explanation – that those that fund Labour have willed this austerity, that their leverage has over come political common sense that has over-ridden the feedback loop inherent in the voting system and a badly flawed system of democracy? The ‘demos’ bit has won through.
However, we should not rejoice. Reform is just another organisation funded by extreme wealth and which has no credibility really at all. And frankly this makes them even more cruel than before, as so many upset, desperate, needy and confused people will be putting their faith in Farage, whose name is similar to the word ‘mirage’.
Low stuff, really low.
Morgan McSweeney is a massive issue.
His whole mythology is that his centre-right campaigning was what helped defeat the BNP in Dagenham, but actually all that happened is that turnout went up because it was a general election instead of locals. The BNP increased the amount of votes they got too.
Right after the locals he went out to do damage control and pretend he knew that the winter fuel cuts were a bad idea, and yet he, who in effect controls Starmer, couldn’t stop Reeves from going with that? Ridiculous.
Sue Gray (probably due to being a security service plant) seemed interested in doing actual governing rather than playing along with McSweeney’s stupid factional games. Which is why she was the first to go.
Not that I necessarily think she’d be a good power behind the throne, but I don’t think she’d be as clueless as the blue labour bros.
“Low stuff, really low. ”
Nah – predictable – I predicted it (that Deform would pick up on unpopular LINO policies & McSwine would be obliged to do a a “follow the fart-rage”). As for the LINO crew, if Starmer gets rid of McSwine & Reeves – who is there to tell him who to replace his chief-of-naff and the finance minister? Begging another question: did the pantomime season even end – given LINO-the-pantomime-gov which goes on & on & on.
How much worse will it get? Lets do a look-back-in-fury
early 1990s, tories moderately corrupt, moderately competent (but ideologically stuck with neolibtardism).
B.Liar years: corrupt from the get go (Bernie Ecclestone, F1 & £1m, Mandelsohn resigns twice & booted to Bx), Broon stuck in the neo-libtard groove, B.Lair goes full on warmonger, lots of people die in UK as a consequence, 2008 crash – direct consequence of Nude-LINO no-reg of finance policy (= Broon).
Cam-moron years – 130k dead due austerity, Libya, Gidiot loves rich Russians, uni’ fees, NHS fails & fails & fails
Brexit years: Tories told what to do by N.I. DUP headbangers. Robot runs Tory party. Blonde lunatic runs tory party – vast corruption, lots of dead people (Covid).
LINO: run by a congenital lair who lied within a month of becoming leader and in the tradition of all wanna-be Stalinists – wanted to chuck the previous leader in jail/gulag/Disneyland (the last for ever).
UK politics: the playground of imbecilies. Wanting to be a politician should automatically disqualfy you.
30 years of political history in that few words?
Brilliant, Mike.
I don’t disagree with your usual stylised digested history at all Mike, Richard’s praise too.
But abuse is abuse, and that’s what I’m calling out, because it is.
And when you see it – predictable or not – it should be called out.
Jesus himself said as much. Remember?
Nothing to disagree with there
Yer making me blush.
PSR: yup, McSwine has to go – can;t have a chief-of-staff/naff running the country as if it was “the student union and we need to get the lefties/trots out”. It’s beyond pathetic.
On a more positive note & thanks to one poster I’m talking to one of the groups in the increasingly DisUnited Kinkdom that is working for independence. I have offered the usual ideas/support. Here’s hoping.
I am hoping…
Once again, we see the folly of the Labour Right’s realpolitik – they have no justification of why they should be in power. Their core principle is “anything to the left of us is beyond the pale”, and so they’re chasing a constituency that has no interest in them. Bad politics and bad policy (winter fuel & benefit cap being an exception to the latter).
Let’s not forget that it was these bastards who gave the Frog a free ride in Clacton, by effectively standing down Jovan Owusu-Nepaul, for the crime of being more popular than Sir Kid Starver KBE KC.
If I were less charitable, I might say they’re intentionally trying to create a Reform government, but I don’t think they could if they wanted, given how utterly incompetent this ‘Blue Labour’ crowd have proved to be time and time again.
Mate it’s because Farage is by far the most powerful and important figure in british politics. He has the public backing. of course other parties and individuals will copy and try and steal his thunder. That is politics.
I am not your mate.
I verify much doubt I want to be your mate.
And you’re wrong.
@Micheal
Farage only has the backing of these voters because he is telling them what the think they want to hear.
Farage, is like Trump, what he says and what he does are two very different thing.
“When Nigel says jump, we do”
Sorta!
In my arrogant Yank opinion (coupled with $5.00 will get you a very bad burnt cup of coffee at Starbucks):
Swing Vote = 20% of the English voters who may vote Labour, Conservative or Reform as they have no set party loyalty and are desperately seeking leadership and answers to their household problems which are bigger than themselves.
This swing vote will determine the outcome of the next UK election due to the FPTP system.
It is this “Swing Vote” that Starmer is pandering to. At the present place in our current space-time continuum, the “Swing Vote” appears to be enthralled with Farage. How these people vote will determine the outcome of the next election. Starmer is “Jumping” to the tune of these voters not Farage.
Farage, as the self-appointed Swing Vote leader, has simply collected their voices and is rebroadcasting what they are saying.
What actually drives these people to perform such cruelty? Amd utter lack of safeguarding for society?
Do they want to leave some sort mark on the world? And this is the best they got?
Am baffled on a daily basis.
Something I can’t work out…
It has been fairly clear since July 5th last year, that having “won” the 2024 election, LINO immediately launched the 2029 election campaign. Many observed this including me. In fact, the 2029 election even dictated the rather vacuous tone of 2024 campaign, with Starmer being firmly on the fence on most things, such that there were many complaints that no one knew what he stood for.
It was also clear soon after the 2024 election, that this focus on permanent electioneering was at the expense of the “government’s” responsibility to GOVERN. I have complained about that frequently, including to my MP.
With such a dedicated commitment to electoral success (at the expense of competent government) it would be reasonable to suggest that Starmer’s administration (and in particular, Morgan McSweeney, the No.10 strategist from whom this permanent electioneering strategy emanates) should be judged above all by its performance in polls, and actual elections. It is clear it isn’t effective in government, so what about those polls and elections?
Clearly, it is failing there too, in quite spectacular fashion even though the specific demographics of the May 2025 local elections mostly exposed Tories, rather than Labour.
“Never in the field of UK psephology has an incoming government and its Prime Minister been deserted by so many voters, and loyally supported by so few.” (apologies to Winston Churchill, but I’m desperate for Reform votes…)
So, in what way can Morgan McSweeney be said to have succeeded with his Downing St. strategy?
If there was an “OfDown” report on his Downing St. “electioneering” operation, how could he argue for anything better than being put into “special measures”?
He would have to plead v persuasively that his is a 5 year operation, and once Starmer has kow-towed to a few more foreign fascists, once Trump has created more global economic chaos, once more public sector workers have been deported, once some overseas-student deprived universities have gone bust, once a few more hospitals and schools have collapsed under dodgy concrete or burnt down due to dodgy maintenance, once the next few years of austerity have supplied our children with the required amount of grit, once some under-regulated banks have had to be baled out again, the Dear Forensic & Patriotic Leader will be riding high in the polls and 2029 will be in the bag.
Now I don’t find that line of reasoning very convincing, although as a religious man, I do still believe in miracles – but not that sort.
So how the **!(#×* has McSweeney hung onto his job? Does he have Kompromat on Starmer?
During the recess I do hope 403 LINO MPs will apply themselves to that question. Because if HE keeps HIS job, they certainly won’t be keeping theirs. One year utterly wasted. Fa***e (or his successor) is ready to pounce, and he is a far better liar than Starmer. It only needs 83 of them to oppose
the PM in Parliament, or 202 of you in a PLP meeting.
If MPs don’t do it, who will, and how? We’ve seen enough street violence.
Farage, of course, wants to pay for it by scrapping accommodation for asylum seekers. Once upon a time, long ago, in a land (not very) far away, there was a Government that cynically used State spending to achieve its twisted aims, and made sure foreigners were excluded from its scope.
Mike
All I see is the abuse of hope which is a cornerstone of politics. That is what is so low about all of this.
I don’t actually use hope anymore but a lot of people do and that is why we get a lot of charlatans in politics as well as fascism. ‘Forgive them for they know not what they do’ – because they – the electorate – are being manipulated at scale.
I much prefer to just observe and a note the consequences these days. Warily. That’s how you live without hope. But you also learn who it is that is up to no good, and you are not fooled into thinking it is someone else.
Something I can’t work out…
It has been fairly clear since July 5th last year, that having “won” the 2024 election, LINO immediately launched the 2029 election campaign. Many observed this including me. In fact, the 2029 election even dictated the rather vacuous tone of 2024 campaign, with Starmer being firmly on the fence on most things, such that there were many complaints that no one knew what he stood for.
It was also clear soon after the 2024 election, that this focus on permanent electioneering was at the expense of the “government’s” responsibility to GOVERN. I have complained about that frequently, including to my MP.
With such a dedicated commitment to electoral success (at the expense of competent government) it would be reasonable to suggest that Starmer’s administration (and in particular, Morgan McSweeney, the No.10 strategist from whom this permanent electioneering strategy emanates) should be judged above all by its performance in polls, and actual elections. It is clear it isn’t effective in government, so what about those polls and elections?
Clearly, it is failing there too, in quite spectacular fashion even though the specific demographics of the May 2025 local elections mostly exposed Tories, rather than Labour.
“Never in the field of UK psephology has an incoming government and its Prime Minister been deserted by so many voters, and loyally supported by so few.” (apologies to Winston Churchill, but I’m desperate for Reform votes…)
So, in what way can Morgan McSweeney be said to have succeeded with his Downing St. strategy?
If there was an “OfDown” report on his Downing St. “electioneering” operation, how could he argue for anything better than being put into “special measures”?
He would have to plead v persuasively that his is a 5 year operation, and once Starmer has kow-towed to a few more foreign fascists, once Trump has created more global economic chaos, once more public sector workers have been deported, once some overseas-student deprived universities have gone bust, once a few more hospitals and schools have collapsed under dodgy concrete or burnt down due to dodgy maintenance, once the next few years of austerity have supplied our children with the required amount of grit, once some under-regulated banks have had to be baled out again, the Dear Forensic & Patriotic Leader will be riding high in the polls and 2029 will be in the bag.
Now I don’t find that line of reasoning very convincing, although as a religious man, I do still believe in miracles – but not that sort.
So how the **!(#×* has McSweeney hung onto his job? Does he have Kompromat on Starmer?
During the recess I do hope 403 LINO MPs will apply themselves to that question. Because if HE keeps HIS job, they certainly won’t be keeping theirs. One year utterly wasted. Fa***e (or his successor) is ready to pounce, and he is a far better liar than Starmer. It only needs 83 of them to oppose
the PM in Parliament, or 202 of you in a PLP meeting.
If MPs don’t do it, who will, and how? We’ve seen enough street violence.
Thanks
This is reason #47 why we need a mass socialist party.
The other day THE LEFT LANE did a survey on the current state of play.
In a word, “Scuttlebutt , dear Watson”: https://theleftlane2024.substack.com/p/a-new-socialist-left-party-in-the
Do you know what really pisses me off? Pull up a sandbag and I’ll tell you.
Starmer and his party arriving in Downing Street after four years of preparation and cosplaying a “Government-in-Waiting, with no policies AT ALL. The manifesto was full of wispy, high falutin, airy fairy, debating society level aspirations – generalised statements like “poverty is a bad thing”. Now they are faced with having to turn those unfocussed ideals into solid actions and guess what? They have absolutely no clue as to how to do it.
All that “fully costed” crap meant nothing. Not that I believed it anyway. Amateurs. Toddlers. No substance. Nothing. Empty.
Sue Gray might, just might, have been able to help. Love her or hate her, she knew Whitehall inside out. Replaced by the control freak McSweeney who probably never set foot in Whitehall until recently. That place runs on insider dealing; on personal connections and an intimate knowledge of how to short circuit the system. It takes YEARS to learn how to navigate the corridors of power. I know because I did it in the MOD; and I couldn’t have succeeded without the brains and support of armies of brilliant Civil Servants.
Empty. They had four whole years to write action plans for every Department. Four years to think; to anticipate; to war game every scenario; to decide on fallback positions. Too nervous about someone challenging their proposals to say ANYTHING of substance; the Ming vase approach.
The result? Announcements of policies with zero analysis of the pros and cons. No impact assessments. No research. Undignified scrambles to find anything to back the policies up. Policy collapses at every turn – or, worse, doubling down with a petulance thinly disguised as “tough decision making”. Policy based evidence – not evidence based policy.
Being incompetent and inexperienced and unable to translate high ideals into hard actions is the actual reason for this “black hole” excuse. They just don’t understand how to govern. Their answer? Blame the black hole. Then they don’t have to do anything.
It’s a shameful shambles. A costly game of dressing up. And people are dying. After short, miserable lives.
“They just don’t understand how to govern…”
That is the nub of the matter.
McSweeney only does elections, not government.
So, soundbites, aspirations, and grand promises, not policies. When you win in 2024 (by the luck of the Tories collapsing big-time after Johnson, Truss and Sunak, and Reform not being organised enough yet to win), then you start the 2029 campaign.
Government?
Who said anything about GOVERNING?
You mean we have to GOVERN?
Surely, the markets deal with that, while McSweeney gets on with producing more election-winning soundbites?
You have perfectly summed up the nation-destroying Starmer-McTeam operation.
Incidentally, apologies for my duplicate post above.
If starmer really wants to scuttle Farage over WFP he should immediately announce that not only will he restore the WFP as it was before AND next pension payment pay last December’s WFP to all those pensioners who did not receive it. No ifs buts or guff about it being to complicated, just pay it now. Then perhaps just perhaps he may get the pensioners who stopped voting Labour back supporting him again. If he really wants to clinch the deal he should also sack Reeves and that other neoliberal in charge of social security.
And Streeting, then replace him with someone who wants to protect the NHS, not sell it off.
Is it too much to hope Nigel comes out with more leftwing policies and Labour adopt them?
This shows the need for a strong left wing party to hold Labours feet to the fire. Just as Podemos and Sumar and the Catalan and Basque left do in Spain.
“Send him to his resting place” could be construed as a threat, and attract unwelcome legal attention to the blog. IANAL
Gone, thanks.
I need to pay more attention.
Appreciated.