UK Politics

6 readers

1 users here now

General Discussion for politics in the UK.

Posts should be related to UK-centric politics, and either a link to reputable news source, or be a text post.

If you think "reputable news source" needs some definition, by all means start a meta thread. (These things should be publicly discussed)

Posts should be manually submitted, not by bot.

Disappointing comments will generally be left to fester in ratio, outright horrible comments will be removed.
Message the mods if you feel something really should be removed, or if a user seems to have a pattern of awful comments.

We are friends with [email protected], a uk news community on a more general site.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Keir Starmer’s caution may be frustrating, but it's right. Voters no longer trust big promises | Rafael Behr (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

18 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Policy U-turns that the left interprets as surrender to a Blairite revanche are construed by the leader’s allies as rational choices by a man who wants to win an election, has looked at the evidence of how it can be done and will be ruthless in taking down obstacles in his path.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I don't think they're misleading anyone. I think the commitments are serious, as far as they go. Like any government, they'll change strategy as events develop, but that's a truism.

I also don't think it's true that they're not going to do a lot in office or that they're pretending that they won't. Look at what they're going to do on workers' rights, for example, or housebuilding, or green energy. These are all big, serious commitments. They're also quite clearly going to move closer to the EU on a lot of things (Europol is an example that came up today) and are not shy about that.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I also don’t think it’s true that they’re not going to do a lot in office.

I feel if you think this you're in some kind of denial. They've rolled back on so much...

And the commitments (if that's the right word) they do have are so wishy-washy and toothless. For example the housebuilding one is that they'll let developers build on more green belt and increase housing targets, no talk of investment of any kind - I'm sorry that's not a serious policy! That's like homoeopathy for policies! Green energy is much the same now that they've postponed (i.e. canned) the £28 billion green investment plan.

I guess we'll see on workers' rights, but as said in the article you've linked, a lot of the unions are dissatisfied with labour on that front which isn't really a good sign for a big, serious commitment.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

They've changed plans because the circumstances have changed. And to some extent, they've changed message because the target audience has changed.

They haven't canned the £28 bn. It was just a recognition that you can't magic up a whole load of results just because the cash is available. That's how you get disasters like unusable PPE, flammable clad ing or concrete that crumbles to dust.

Most unions back the proposals, as does the TUC. Sure, they want them to go further, but do you really think any group is going to go, 'Yep, that's everything we wanted. No further demands from us!' It's our job as trade unionists to demand more!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

That’s how you get disasters like unusable PPE, flammable clading or concrete that crumbles to dust.

They were the result of not spending enough money, and going for the cheapest options available (then using them way beyond their intended lifespan in the case of RAAC), not overinvestment.

But I don't want to draw out an argument, so let's just agree to disagree. I hope you're right though.