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Keir Starmer: ‘We can’t win power by spending. We need to reform and create wealth’ (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 1 year ago by tillimarleen@feddit.de to c/unitedkingdom@feddit.uk

13 comments fedilink hide all child comments

There‘s no end to austerity with Starmer. He rather keeps cutting public spending than taxing the rich.

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[–] noodle@feddit.uk 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Austerity is as much the voters' addiction as it is the Tories and Labour have been framed as the "spend money for free stuff" party. Starmer has to combat that image if Labour want to succeed. No matter how many times you show the figures, people believe that Labour spends money and Tories save it. That's the kind of uphill battle Starmer faces in order to put Labour in power.

Note that we don't have a president. The Tories have changed leaders basically non-stop in recent times. If this doesn't prove to you that a PM is just a figurehead then I don't know what will convince you. Once Labour are in power, they can be held accountable on issues that matter.

[–] mannycalavera@feddit.uk 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Note that we don't have a president. The Tories have changed leaders basically non-stop in recent times. If this doesn't prove to you that a PM is just a figurehead then I don't know what will convince you. Once Labour are in power, they can be held accountable on issues that matter.

This is such a school boy take on how the UK forms governments it's laughable. Labour did exactly this in 2007. Where were the cries of holding to account then? Brown held onto power for three extra years. The fact of the matter is that this is how the UK forms a government. Both sides use this to their advantage to hold onto power.

What we need is proportional representation to force these clowns to work sensibly with each other. Too bad Labour have gone cold on the idea.

Edit: typos

[–] EnemyBattleCrab@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Didn't Gordon Brown build a surplus, only to be called out as a scrooge by the tabloid? Feels like you just cant win.

[–] HumanPenguin@feddit.uk 1 points 1 year ago

by the tabloid?

Well no. You can't expect tabloids to play fair. There's no profit in that.

[–] mannycalavera@feddit.uk 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Only once if I recall in 2001. Then he sold off $3 billion worth of gold that would have been worth $11 billion 🤷

[–] frazorth@feddit.uk 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

There‘s no end to austerity with Starmer. He rather keeps cutting public spending than taxing the rich.

That's a terrible misinterpretation. Nothing about what he says is wrong, the Tories have systematically destroyed industry, manufacturing and exports, tech and licensing.

Fuck, they were fine with us selling the greatest tech company the UK had in decades to foreign companies, ARM.

There have been a lot of crappy hottakes here about Starmer, worse than Reddit, but what is says is not wrong. We can't just promise more spending after the mess the Tories have left us in, there has to be a plan to improve the situation.

[+] rubberkeys@freeradical.zone 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] frazorth@feddit.uk 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

It's really sad that you are talking deceptive nonsense with so much conviction.

Governments of countries with sovereign currencies literally have no limit on how much they can spend. They cannot “run out of money”.

This means you are printing money, which devalues your currency. This leads to inflation, and will increase the cost of goods, and in your scenario would encourage more printing further causing issues.

You need to tax the rich, we need to make all wealth even if it's overseas liable to tax, and encourage new wealth generators, through new small businesses so that the spending is not concentrated and funneled up to a single group, and fix the manufacturing situation so that exports can bring in new money.

Promising spending without a plan is what the Tories do for their buddies.

[Edit] Taxing overseas wealth is something that would help us claw back some of the offshored tax havens that the royals, Cameron and Jimmy Carr take advantage of.

[–] tillimarleen@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago

But does Starmer talk about taxation?

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