Lower taxes and well-performing public services is “fiction” - Starmer
Sir Keir Starmer said today that Labour would not continue the “fiction” that you can have lower taxes and public services that run properly, in a speech ahead of the Budget.
Asked if his priorities were out of step with the public mood after a poll suggested most voters would prefer lower taxes rather than investment in public services, the Prime Minister said: “No. I think for too long, we pretended that you could lower tax and spend more on your public services, but you can’t. And it’s about time we faced up to that.”
Fiction 1 - we can have lower taxes under Labour.
Fiction 2 - we can have public services that run properly under Labour.
Some things, doubted by most of the world, are for these people true and beyond argument; this certainty of theirs gives them a kind of stamp, as though they lived so much in their imagination as to have very little assurance as to what is fact and what fiction.
Hugh Walpole – All Soul’s Night (1933)
12 comments:
Collecting more tax is easy, within the political constraints of electoral risk and public disorder. Starmer has both of those covered, as he has a large majority and is happy to jail the riotous in order to cow the rest of us.
The real trick is delivering good services. Starmer made a lash-up of his time at the DPP, not prosecuting Savile, Prince Andrew, Al Fayed, and several hundred Pakistani rapists, but allowing innocent Post Office staff to be persecuted. His Chancellor ran nothing at all, although she pretended to be an economist. Lammy and Rayner never delivered anything, and are demonstrably thick.
Should get quite interesting....
Fiction 3:- Feeding more " funding" into a taxpayer funded service will improve the service.
I could go on, but I need more " funding".
Sam - he'll do well to avoid a perception of worse services. Even if not genuinely worse, his political incompetence and intransigence seem likely to cast a grey cloud over all services.
Doonhamer - yes, apparently Tony Blair was surprised when pumping billions into the NHS generated no improvement in outcomes. They never learn.
Government by aphorism, again, because real life is to difficult. The unspoken bit to 2TK's mutterings is that you can not improve services by adding more and more regulation and bureaucracy. Causing redundancies amongst Labour's middle class supporters is needed to slim down public services to a lean effective machine - and that would never do.
"Tony Blair was surprised when pumping billions into the NHS generated no improvement in outcomes. They never learn."
You don't even have to go back as far as the Blair years. The NHS has been given a massive boost in spending compared to pre-covid days, even ignoring the artificially inflated covid years of 20/21 and 21/22. Spending in 2019/20 was £157bn, 22/23 was £185bn, an increase of 18% in 3 years. And yet they are providing even less healthcare with that extra funding than they were just 3 years before. Anyone suggesting putting extra money into the NHS will make a ha'porth of difference to its output is either mentally subnormal or a liar (or both).
Do look at this photo.
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/10/28/starmer-suffers-biggest-fall-in-popularity-for-new-pm-as-horror-budget-looms/
It seems to me that his face is expanding and his eyes are contracting. The only constants are the Brylcreem and Lord Ali's glasses.
DJ - yes it government by aphorism again, I've just posted on another example. 2TK seems to be a genuine ideologue who can't do pragmatism, he does appear to assume that more and more regulation and bureaucracy must do something positive if framed to be positive. Can't see past that.
Sobers - one problem is that the media and too many voters don't seem to take any notice of the increase of 18% in 3 years, although the poor service does seem to attract attention if online comments are any guide.
Politicians hand over the extra money for purely political reasons, to tone down the underfunding propaganda, but the whole sorry mess never seems to reach a political tipping point because politicians won't allow it. They haven't the courage or the inclination.
dearieme - his mouth is shrinking too, maybe that's why he can't kiss Victoria properly. I saw a photo of him yesterday and although photos can lie, I thought he looked much older.
Will Starmer be overthrown on the excuse of ill health?
"Politicians hand over the extra money for purely political reasons, to tone down the underfunding propaganda, but the whole sorry mess never seems to reach a political tipping point because politicians won't allow it. They haven't the courage or the inclination."
We're approaching the tipping point. I've said for years, support for the NHS is a Potemkin Village, constructed by the media and political class. Out in the real world everyone knows how sh*t the NHS is, because we and our family members and friends have to deal with it, and we either experience it first hand, or get the horror stories from people we know aren't lying (unlike politicians). The question is when not if the dam breaks and that wall of negativity breaks through and washes the hagiographers away.
Its noticeable that the argument has subtly changed. It used to be 'The NHS is amazing, the wonder of the world, and everyone wishes they could have one'. Now its 'The NHS is failing and it must have more money to make it better'. Even the NHS fanboys have accepted that its not working, the debate is now about how to solve that problem. Thats a big change. Once you accept its failed, then other solutions can be put forward, which will include fundamental reforms of how it works as well as funding. At some point a political party will take the plunge and say 'We all know its not working, we all know we spend a fortune on it, and its time for a fundamental reform to align us with how the other 98% of the world do healthcare'. And that party will reap the rewards of its boldness because of the depth of utterly untapped anti-NHS sentiment in the country.
dearieme - if he's sensible he'll take that excuse and go. He can't do the job.
Sobers - I hope you are right. I read numerous online comments whenever I see an interesting NHS story and there is definitely widespread dissatisfaction with the NHS, particularly the GP service, but everything else too.
"And that party will reap the rewards of its boldness because of the depth of utterly untapped anti-NHS sentiment in the country."
One of the big media outfits could latch onto it too, start a reform campaign and ride it good and hard, at which point hard-nosed political ambition takes note and then who knows?
'Pulic Services' is thrown about a lot, but I doubt most people even know what that means. If you ask the average Joe what public services the Government spends their money on, and which of them they use, they would probably just mumble something about schools and bins.
The list of pointless, wastefull and over priced things that come under the banner, is never ending. I once checked the full list of what our local council taxes get spent on, and I was astounded
Bucko - yes, anyone used to a business environment would probably find the level of waste astounding. If it isn't prevented from growing, it grows.
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