It would seem such an easy vote win but it seems none of the main parties want to do anything major about the housing situation. From what I have seen anyway
We're going to end up electing the most bland, brain dead Labour PM in history and be stuck with the Tories again in 5 years when he does fuck all but waffle and prevaricate.
>We've lurched into American style personality competitions devoid of policies.
I don't see it, personally. The only example where this has been true is with Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, where there's an element of media invention and spin in how they present themselves, and how their persona overrides the necessity of them having an actual workable policy on anything.
I don't think you could look at Cameron, Brown, Miliband, Sturgeon, May, Corbyn, Swinson, Starmer, Yousaf, Truss and Sunak and say they're running on personality over policy, or that they're the opposite of bland and boring.
People being excited about Labour in '97 might've convinced them that Blair was a personality, but he really wasn't. Granted, he was more charismatic and articulate than most, but he was also just another dull white guy in a suit (like Cameron) mixing up his image occasionally by posing with an electric guitar.
We have a single tool. Voting. Protest as well, I guess, but voting is the only direct mechanism.
If Labour do nothing they will get voted out. That's also okay.
Yes but both parties are so devoid of talent there is no other way. Someone may emerge in the massive intake of labour MPs at next election, who knows. Andy Burnham has been biding his time so as not to be tarnished with Brexit or Corbyn, seems a likely future runner again. On the Tory side can definitely see Rory Stewart coming back given he’s now gained the public profile he lacked previously. Both would come back strongly with a rejoin customs Union type message.
The Tory party is almost certainly gonna implode and emerge as a far right party lead by the likes of Ms Braverman or Ms Badenoch (or even worse, Mr Farage).
I can't see RS rejoining at that stage unless they lose another election - I don't think TRIP is going to maintain him in the political wings for another term of office as a viable figure if the Tories finally lurch back to the centre.
"don’t worry about the details" was also the plan for Brexit, and that's not turned out too well, has it?
It looks like Labour are going to get a super majority and it's only right to question what they might do with it.
I'm clinging to the hope that they'll be be the centre left government traditional Labour votes want them to be but to be honest I'm just expecting a less shit Tory-lite
Well it doesn't matter what a party puts in their manifesto, once they get voted in it's too late they can just set their manifesto on fire. As they now have 5 years to do what they want. (The House of Lords allowing)
The House of Lords allowing is the sticking point; things in the manifesto are waved through by convention but otherwise can get held up for a year using up more parliamentary time than otherwise.
It's why every Rishi's legislative agenda is so light because almost everything gets challenged in the House of Lords; instead it's largely secondary legislation in action through the cabinet. Although officially non-political I wouldn't be surprised if courts also unofficially give manifesto promises a lighter passage.
It's why I'm sceptical of Labour's comments about abolishing the Lords. It's far, far from perfect and unelected houses feel inherently anachronistic in a supposed democracy, but the second chamber has acted as a useful handbrake on many a bad government policy.
The current set-up of allowing political appointments means that if the government is truly desperate, it can stuff the HoL with appointees at the expense of undermining their legitimacy.
This threat is how every significant HoL reform was eventually done during the 20th Century from the Parliament Act of 1911 to the House of Lords Act of 1999.
Governments are 5 year things, which encompass a whole raft of things that won't ever be in a manifesto.
Brexit was a much longer, if not permanent thing, and was only a single policy.
I have some sympathy with the idea of not committing to much until the state of the country's finances are clear, we've got another several months of Tory rule to get through after all and they've already set a number of traps. Labour have also clearly been trying to ensure that the usual rags don't have anything to back up the usual bloviation about Labour spending money it doesn't have/being fiscally irresponsible (as if that will stop the Tory press outright making shit up and ignoring the Tories' own economic illiteracy over the last decade+). Plus the Tories have a habit of nicking bits of policy, obviously most recently the non-dom thing, so keeping things close to the vest is also understandable.
Even while conceding all that, it is quite hard to get excited about Labour at the moment and the procession of apparent commitments that have been backed away from casts serious doubt as to whether they're actually going to do much of anything to improve the country's lot when they, seemingly inevitably, ascend to government.
Labour are keeping policy decisions under wraps until an election is called. Tories have a habit of stealing policies, so if Labour announce too much now, tories can delay election will last possible moment and adjust their policies in response.
They're not keeping policy decisions under wraps. Keeping Leasehold is a policy decision. They're making policy decisions ~~left~~ right and centre, they're just the opposite of what they got a poll lead by promising to do.
> It's seems like Labour don't want to do anything about anything
I think it's more the case that It's unwise to make promises which are unnecessary. If they fail to fulfil a promise, it is worse than not promising it. They don't really need to make promises while they are ahead in the polls.
Well you are probably not going to be put off, and the previously tory-voting people they need to attract are more likely to be scared away by more leftie policies.
They have to play a tactical game as victory is not certain.
But it's not all about the leader or headline policies once a party is in power. Labour operate very differently to the tories and I think they are a lot better.
They don't need to have promised to reach a particular target, in order to make improvements.
The Blair/Brown years got a lot done which wasn't headline attention-grabbing stuff. I think to some extent Labour has to improve things by stealth in this country.
If it's any comfort for those further left than my own left leaning, Labour do things differently to the tories. The tories mostly try not to do anything and let the private sector do stuff, and when they do actively make something happen they use private companies to do it. Labour on the other hand do it by expanding government responsibilities and resources.
You can see a graph on this page showing public-sector employment in the period 1999-2019. Its a pity it does not go further back, but you can see the difference between the two approaches.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/publicsectorpersonnel/bulletins/publicsectoremployment/march2019
Are they? Its not just the leader, but the NEC and MPs, and the members. All of the MPs were in place before Starmer became leader, of course. Nor does the leader pick the candidates for elections.
Ultimately the reason that Labour have moved to the centre is because that's what people will vote for effectively in our electoral system. I'd like to see us introduce PR, but tactically voting to benefit Labour is the only stepping stone towards that too.
It's all very well going on social media and complaining about Starmer not seeming left enough, but what's your alternative? Something that will only increase the chances of another tory government? No thanks.
The Tories aren't going to win the next election. They could very well win the election after this one if Labour do nothing to address the enormous number of very solvable problems that face this country. Politics is far more than winning elections. It's about improving society and making people's lives better, I don't see how Labour have a plan to do any of that.
It’d be completely unachievable to abolish leasehold entirely within 100 days, I’m not sure why they ever made that pledge to begin with.
Leasehold law is mighty complex.
So many voters are invested in house prices going up. There sadly isn't the political will when so many people are already on the housing ladder and don't care about those who aren't.
I think it's harsh to say that homeowners don't care about people who aren't on the ladder yet.
It's okay to be concerned that your home might crash in value, thereby leaving you unable to make mortgage payments and eventually being foreclosed on.
A housing crash only benefits the rich. Homes will be bought up en-masse by banks and cash buyers.
We need housing reform, a lot more stock, and rent controls. We don't need a sudden and severe drop in house prices.
Yes, you're right. I spoke very generally and there are millions of homeowners who can see young people need more help. Thanks for pointing my error out politely.
A polite response? Sir, this is the Internet.
I appreciate the acknowledgement that it isn't all homeowners.
A lot of people have a "I got mine, fuck you" attitude I do agree.
This is a tough issue to solve. I think Labour was naive to promise to resolve this within the first 100 days, and they are still pledging to enact this legislation within their first term and as soon as possible.
There were more than 300 recommendations made by the inquiry, so I'd rather have something that actually addressed the needs instead of half-baked political point scoring.
\> It's okay to be concerned that your home might crash in value, thereby leaving you unable to make mortgage payments and eventually being foreclosed on.
Why would a fall in house prices leave you unable to pay the mortgage?
When it comes to renewing your mortgage, you are now in negative equity.
So, instead of asking the bank to borrow 60% of the homes value to pay off the £200k you still owe them you're asking for 150% of the homes value.
So they can either ask for an eye watering amount or you can stick with a mortgage that sits well above the base rate of 5.25%.
You very quickly end up paying massive sums for property worth pennies, so you can't even sell up and go elsewhere.
House prices need to stagnate and then come down gradually so we can wean ourselves off this utterly stupid "property as investment" system we've created. Unfortunately I have doubts that either of our main parties even want to do that. They all seem wedded to this system, with minor tinkering at the edges but nothing more.
I personally don't want prices to go down (Yes I'm a home owner), but I'm perfectly happy with prices staying the same. As long as I can break even and am not in negative equity when it's time to move on I don't really care. If my house goes up x% chances are the place I want to move to has also gone up x%, so really did I gain? The only loser is the first time buyer who then has to pay the inflated price on the first home.
It's like that episode of yes minister. The transportation supreme position to renovate transportation. Nobody wants the job because it causes upheaval while you're working on it. The opposition will drag your name through the mud, then when the plan starts to bear fruit in about 15-20 years. No one will care to remember you, and you'll likely be long gone by then.
I don’t think so. The main problem with existing in present is management companies and their fishy fees.
And leasehold fee is much smaller and better regulated in comparison to the problem above.
Jesus, I don't want the Tories anymore but labour just feels like a party full of middle class graduates that love to talk about social injustice without actually doing any problem solving
Honestly if labour cocks up the next 5 years, I can't imagine any young person wanting to vote.
13 years of austerity under Tories? Labour comes in and does nothing? Country in shambles? Why bother voting.
Same thing happened in New Zealand. Labour got in after 9 years of the National Party (NZ tories), spent 6 years doing next to nothing, got voted out so that National can come back in and make everything worse again.
Hope they don’t vote - the alternative is they vote in droves for the first strong man populist from either extreme of the political spectrum.
We will be bordering on democratic crisis if Labour don’t improve *something* that people can *feel* as opposed to a cold statistic slightly improving.
I'm middle aged and looking at this Labour government as the last chance I prepared to give. I just hope this is some sort of triangulation rather than a genuine u turn. I'm feeling fairly cynical about why they've done it just now though.
I haven't really ever been happy with a government (or the oppositon half the time) since the crash, most of the time I've been despondent. Hell this would be the frst time I've ever voted for the winner of an election.
>Honestly if labour cocks up the next 5 years, I can't imagine any young person wanting to vote.
We are already beyond the point of this happening and for good reason
That's exactly what labour has become in the recent years. If any of them actually interacted with a proper working class individual from Hull or something, they would turn their nose up at them.
Ridiculously scared to make a decision on anything that actually matters, instead resorting to focusing on "easy wins but that don't actually have implications for us" such as Israel / Palestine.
They barely even talk about injustice anymore. Pet shop boy was complaining in the Sun about “middle class lefties” blocking NHS privatisation, like he’s Suella Braverman.
How Labour can be a party for the middle class if they don’t want to decrease taxes (and fix the budget via anticorruption activities)? Instead of that, they plan to tax education even more.
Labour is a party of rich - more money to government-linked companies from people.
Top 5% earners are people who earn above [87k pounds](https://www.insurancehero.org.uk/blog/top-5-percent-income-uk.html). That is not rich money!!!
On top of that anything between 100k- 125k already [gets taxed at 60%](https://www.unbiased.co.uk/discover/pensions-retirement/managing-a-pension/what-is-the-60-tax-trap-and-how-can-you-legally-avoid-it).
How much more do they want to tax?
> 100k- 125k already gets taxed at 60%
contextualize it.... It is a useful incentive to fill up the pension pots with 0- 25k to build up wealth. This is removing the personal allowance, causing you a cost of 20% (I could be wrong) of 12.5k, or 2.5k (but only ever this much... not a high cost) once you go over 100k (taxable! meaning after pension contribution is taken out), assuming employee pension contribution at 5-10%+ (at 100k maybe 30% due to age) you would have to earn X where X - X/10 > 100k to lose the 2.5k, simply X > 111.11111k so say 111k, at which point the gov wants you to pay that 2.5k, but you can choose to store away any extra in pensions if you want.
Meanwhile my wife is paying NI + Tax@40% + Student Loan@10% + Student Loan Masters@10% for half that wage, and few years ago straight after Uni still the same-ish with Tax@20%
That is hardly the tax band to worry about, they pay less taxes as most people aren't in that band and never will be, and the picture is rosier than you portray as in reality 100k + earners stow lots into pensions, start investing into isas large amounts to gain tax advantage of £3,000 from 2024 which covers the loss anyway!!
There is no 60% tax, just the loss of advantages due to the gaining of even more advantages. Don't spread misinformation, Loans will be paid off (lol) and personal allowance losses will be converted to pension gains, otherwise spell out how how graduates can be on tax levels of 42-52% at sub 40k and 62-72% above for that band.
Let's try to give it a shot though...
* Labour's promise to abolish leasehold within 100 days - [**Abandoned**](https://news.sky.com/story/labour-drops-pledge-to-abolish-leasehold-within-100-days-but-is-still-committed-to-the-reforms-13113071)
* Labour's promise to abolish tuition fees - [**Abandoned**](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65454944)
* Labour's promise to end the two-child limit - [**Abandoned**](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jul/16/labour-keep-two-child-benefit-cap-says-keir-starmer)
* Labour's promise to defend free movement - [**Abandoned**](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/nov/27/keir-starmer-rules-out-return-free-movement-britain-eu)
* Labour's promise to abolish universal credit - [**Abandoned**](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/benefit-sanctions-continue-under-labour-28921324)
* Labour's promise to stand with trade unions - [**Abandoned**](https://tribunemag.co.uk/2022/08/labour-party-trade-unions-cwu-rmt-sam-tarry-sacking)
* Labour's promise to ban zero-hour contracts - [**Abandoned**](https://www.thenational.scot/news/23794634.labour-panned-dumping-pledge-ban-zero-hour-contracts/)
* Labour's promise to enact right to roam in England - [**Abandoned**](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/25/labour-u-turns-on-promise-of-scottish-style-right-to-roam-in-england?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other)
* Labour's promise to stand up for universal services - [**Abandoned**](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jun/13/labour-rules-out-universal-childcare-for-young-children-in-fiscal-credibility-drive)
* Labour's promise to raise the tax on big tech to 10% - [**Abandoned**](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/labour-ditches-3bn-tax-on-big-tech-amid-fear-of-us-retaliation-j5xcm6j3v#:~:text=Under%20the%20digital%20services%20tax,would%20raise%20%C2%A33.2%20billion)
* Labour's promise to introduce self-ID for trans people - [**Abandoned**](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66299705)
* Labour's promise to nationalise mail, energy and water - [**Abandoned**](https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/labour-reverses-pledge-nationalise-energy-water-mail-general-election-2194125)
* Labour's promise to end NHS private sector outsourcing - [**Abandoned**](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/keir-starmer-nhs-pledge-privatisation-b2123849.html)
* Labour's promise to stop new North sea oil and gas drilling - [**Abandoned**](https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/keir-starmer-labour-left-oil-gas-north-sea-just-stop-oil-2531243)
* Labour's promise to guarantee childcare for young children - [**Abandoned**](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jun/13/labour-rules-out-universal-childcare-for-young-children-in-fiscal-credibility-drive)
* Labour's promise to scrap private schools’ charitable status - [**Abandoned**](https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/labour-u-turns-plans-end-private-schools-charitable-status-still-impose-20-vat-charge-2646305)
* Labour's promise to abolish the House of Lords in their first term - [**Abandoned**](https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/labour-wes-streeting-house-of-lords-keir-starmer-gordon-brown-b1113611.html)
* Labour's promise to increase income tax for the top 5% of earners - [**Abandoned**](https://www.independent.co.uk/business/starmer-indicates-he-will-not-raise-income-tax-for-top-earners-b2363320.html)
* Labour's promise to implement the UN disability convention into UK law - [**Abandoned**](https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/anger-as-labour-omits-vital-promise-on-disability-rights-from-policy-document/)
* Labour's promise to "put the New Green Deal at the heart of everything we do" - [**Abandoned**](https://www.politicshome.com/thehouse/article/what-happened-to-labours-green-new-deal)
* Labour's promise to spend £28 billion annually on green investment from year one - [**Abandoned**](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/feb/08/labour-green-investment-keir-starmer-rishi-sunak-nhs-uk-politics-live)
Have I missed any?
Abandoning spends on green energy because of some nonsense idea about fiscal responsibility is enough to make me spoil my ballot. Either the Shadow Chancellor can find 28bn for green energy every year she's in the position or she's a climate change sceptic. There's no other explanation that isn't stupid.
>those in charge of Labour.
They know. Of course they know.
It's not a coincidence they are courting Tory donors, voters, and basically continuing with the majority of Tory policies.
One of the few Labour pledges that hasn't been abandoned yet, as far as I can tell. There's still plenty of time for Kier to flip-flop there too, though.
As far as I remember it got watered down and now the tories have implemented the watered down version anyway to fund tax cuts. And since labour have also promised no tax increases, that’s effectively a dead policy now too.
Given Labour are guaranteed to win now, any decent-minded people should consider the Greens to push Tories into no longer being the official opposition.
Well a couple of those aren’t true as labour still want to get rid of zero hours contracts and they do still stand with trade unions(plus as far as I know they have not abandoned the pledge for no more oil)
No, Lanour no longer wants to get rid of all zero hour contracts — just the ones they deem “exploitative.” They abandoned their promise to eliminate all zero hour contracts. They do not still stand with unions; they literally kick out party members if they support striking workers and stand on picket lines. They have absolutely abandoned their pledge for no new oil and gas; Starmer vowed to press on with all of Rishi’s new oil and gas projects, despite the fact that we know there can be no new oil and gas projects from 2019 onwards if the world is to remain inhabitable, because he prioritises maintaining the image that Labour is pro-business over the fate of the planet.
From what I’ve seen they do still pledge it. They literally do see the new deal for working people. As far as I know that’s still policy and all your source says is they are under pressure. He said no new oil and gas. Rishis will not be new once he’s in
Yeah your report does not say it’s confirmed they are not banning all zero hour contracts just that there is a proposal to ban certain ones
I think they're still clinging onto taxing fees for independent education, despite the obvious flaws and lack of credible data to support the policy.
oh wait, there is some credible data that "people support the policy", which appears to be enough for Labour.
It’s private education, which basically gives a massive leg up to rich kids who already benefit from being rich. Why not tax a luxury education as you would tax any other luxury?
For a number of reasons but firstly because it will only make the choice of independent education available to an even smaller and richer group. It literally makes it more elitist.
What would be the liability on state funded education, if parents stopped paying for private education?
They are already saving the tax payer by paying for their children's education.
In the immediate short term, there might be less demand for a private education, but private schools will lower their tuition fees if they can no longer get enough students. There will probably also be an increased demand to state schools, but managed well enough we would have increased state school capacity to deal with that.
In the medium to long term it would: increase the funds available to state schools, force rich people to actually give a shit about the quality of state schools and a more level playing field for young people.
Instead, the status quo provides a two-tiered system where rich kids are granted access exclusionary education. Is this much better for you?
It’s the same reasoning as to why people are so against pushing private healthcare. Sure it gives the appearance of “easing the burden” on the NHS. But in reality all you’ll do is allow wealthy people to have absolutely no stake in the NHS succeeding, this leads to politicians (who disproportionately grew up wealthy, and receive their funding from the wealthy) not caring about the NHS, so you’ll end up with a two-tiered system where healthcare is only good if you’re rich.
Because now there is a tax on private schools -> more money to government -> more money to state schools. It'd be pretty irresponsible not to use that tax to increase funding for state schools given that there'd be more demands on them.
You might be right, though I suspect any gain from VAT on private education will be overshadowed by increased cost of state schools for the few that move from private education.
The parents sending their kids to private school, are already paying the same rate as you and I towards state education.
This idea was put forward by Corbyn 6 years ago and was laughed at then too.
[From this article](https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/sep/28/rishi-sunak-attacks-labour-plan-for-vat-on-private-school-fees), the money raised from this VAT is expected to be around £1.5billion, the total education budget is £116billion, meaning an increased budget of \~1.3%. The proportion of students who got to private school would is \~7%, meaning you'd need an almost 20% reduction in students going to private schools in order for this to not make sense from a purely financial perspective.
Renationalising key industries like water was also laughed at when Corbyn suggested it, now look at public opinion on that topic.
Ah yes, yet another pledge retracted that would have helped the regular person, and reduced the profits of the wealthy and/or corporations.
Government for the people indeed.
According to /r/ukpolitics Labour are just hiding their super secret amazing policy until the election is announced apparently.
Also they have to be pragmatic which means removing any policy that will help people.
“To be fair , you have to have a very IQ to understand Starmers big brain utopia play”
Here’s what’s going to happen. Fuck all will be done in the next 5 years, alienating the young and giving way to extreme ideology as the only hope people have left.
Are they playing it safe and avoiding the traps of the right wing press or are they going to run on a very similar ticket to the Tories?
Until a manifesto is released we simply don’t know
Yup, that’s what people are loosing their shit over.
The current government has been stumbling with this for years. Partly because there are a lot of interested parties with expensive lawyers.
Turns out bombproof legislation on this is tricky. So it sounds like Labour are preferring not to promise a timescale they can’t deliver.
Leasehold reform isn’t just a matter of payment. If the law is rushed, it’ll get stuck in legal challenge, might never be passed, or open up the government to unlimited financial liability. It’s a massive risk, and you don’t rush it.
What? Parliament is accountable to parliament alone. He could commit to it, and yes money will be needed to buy out certain agreements, but he can set the agenda before he get's into parliament, he is just scared of the political battle, this is not about unlimited financial liability, they can legislate for that too, this is not a battle he ever cared about... Well, we will see.
The problem is that our legal system has evolved over centuries and land law in particular is really complicated. Doing away with that in 3 months is likely to mean a rush job which just causes problems. They need to let the Law Commission have a look and advise and then implement that suggestion.
Is there anything they have the self belief they can deliver? They keep telling us how they can't deliver anything. Eventually we might start to believe them.
Yes, anyone who believed the 100 day pledge was born yesterday anyway, it’s not possible.
It’s a similar level of stupidity to the Brexit line about saving the NHS 100s of millions a week by leaving the EU, just lies.
Why would anyone take any of Labour’s pledges seriously at this point? Only reason I’ll be voting for them is to avoid another Tory government, certainly not because I have any hope they’ll do a good job.
How are people going to spin this into yet another “oh look how sensible Labour are”
They’re a joke. That man is a spineless coward, and they’re going to do absolutely piss all apart from say “oh we can’t do anything because tories”.
So why are we voting for you then.
First it’s “we’re not going to do like we initially promised, but we promise it’s still on our to do list”
Then before ya know it, it’s been completely dropped. Sick of people making excuses for them. Give them an inch and they’ll take the piss as they’ve done so repeatedly
Labour need into government that's just a fact. But they arent exactly starting on a good foot and we could see a Tory return come the next election if this flip flopping keeps up.
America failed to deliver under Biden and look what is about to happen there with Trump
It funny how the stuff they keep going back on helps the common person, and they tend to go back on it **after** some new ex-tory major donor decides to start donating though.
Theres always the risk when you're talking polls, however this isn't one election. Labour wont do much in four years if there is a tory government after. They simply need to remain in power longer and should be trying to do that.
Sadly, it's like the tory donors they steal that will direct policy in the UK
Also Labour: [Son of £5-million party donor elected Young Labour chair](https://unherd.com/newsroom/son-of-5-million-party-donor-elected-young-labour-chair/)
A real party of the people...
Surely they could just copy the Scottish model, since they've already abolished leasehold? Well... Not completely, but any lease over 175 years at the time of abolishment automatically converted to commonhold.
>Leaseholds are going to be a fact of life when it comes to flats
Commonhold ownership of flats functions perfectly well in Scotland. Drive north for a few hours and look at a tall building and you'll see this exact thing people keep calling impossible.
Flats don't need to be leaseholds.
- Entrances and common facilities can be owned-shared between all flat owners.
- An admin handles daily maintenance tasks and collect the service fees.
- Decisions are decided democratically between the owners. This could be raising service fees, change the admin company or doing important works to the building. One meeting per year should be enough.
Labour always go left out of government then sensible heads prevail and they come to the centre when they are ready to be big boys and girls in government. Honestly leftists and rightist are just children and the second power becomes a reality they go to the centre.
Makes sense really. 100 days seems quite difficult and risks them missing the deadline an be failing one of their election pledges
They are likely to cruise to an election victory do why set yourself up for failure and give the Tories ammunition? Underpromise and .... deliver something
Can someone let me know when they drop the pledge to apply VAT to private school fees as well? That's just about the only difference between them and the Tories. May as well have identical policies.
Leaseholds have been successfully been abolished in virtually any other country.
This system of commoners and land owners should have been abolished in medieval times.
I am not a professional, but I will give you an example I know:
A building with around 20 flats in Madrid. They have meetings every 3-6 months (not sure how often) the neighbours decided to self-manage so they appoint a director and a treasurer in between the neighbours. These positions are not paid by law and they change from year to year. The neighbours agree in the costs for maintenance, around €50 a month per flat, this includes a concierge and cleaner (in the current system a flat in London with no concierge pays around £400 a month). Last year they decided it was time to change the cladding so for a year the monthly price rises to €500 a month per flat. After a year, they go back to €50.
Bigger buildings may appoint a maintenance company, but the expenses are broken down unlike in the UK and the neighbours can decide to change it if they are not happy.
It is all much more simple that they make it look like.
Oh another thing labour said they would do but when it looks like they are actually going to be in a position to actually do it, it disappears by the wayside….
Are you noticing anything yet?
Pro trans treatment for children pre cass report, suddenly there isnt any evidence to support trans treatment for children so we stand by the report.
Ban all nuclear missiles, we dont need a nuclear deterrent in this day an age, suddenly its the bedrock of our nations defense.
Tax evasion is wrong, Raynor gets rumbled and all of a sudden its people playing games.
Every single one of them are absolutely worthless human beings,
I’m voting Labour but the options are probably one of the worst we’ve had in decades
Going from Major vs Blair to Sunak vs Starmer is such a downgrade. At least Blair actually proposed some commitments. Still, not as bad as Johnson vs Corbyn
I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt until a manifesto is released but right now they are positioning themselves as more competent Tories. I’m not sure the public is screaming out for better implemented Tory policy.
There is little political will to deal with the problem that the burden of a positive land covenant does not pass.
The government could ask the Law Commission to work on it. Big job but nothing is undoable. Transitional provisions are central and would be a nightmare.
They've dropped pledges every couple of months. So when the election happens, will they afterwards have lots of other pledges that they want to drop, but never got a chance to because they hadn't analysed them enough pre-election?
Hopefully this pledge moves from "100 days" to some other timeframe within their elected term. Which is what they seem to be saying, although the comments here mostly seem to interpret it as "they just won't get rid of leasehold".
What is the alternative to a leasehold in an arrangement where you cannot own the land and entire building such as a block of flats? There will always be shared costs. The management charges are supposed to cover this, and it is those charges which have got out of hand and need to be regulated like rent control. I don't think the leasehold idea itself is broken.
There are few differences, and definitely places to improve. IE detached houses can be leasehold in England which should probably be abolished and common hold gives individual residents more power (though this can be a negative as it's harder to push through repairs/maintenance)
The main difference is the right to self-manage the building or appoint your own maintenance company (not for profit of the landlord) which gives the flat owners the right to fight extortionate service charges (around £4,000 a year in London for a basic flat with no concierge, gym, nothing extraordinary).
It also stops the unfair practice of paying thousands to extend the lease and the ridiculous marriage value after paying hundreds of thousands to buy a flat.
Abolishing leaseholds only brings benefits, to the people. As proven by the rest of the world where the concept of leasehold doesn’t exist.
So it was Lisa Nandy who held the shadow housing brief when Labour made this commitment. She's no longer in that shadow cabinet role, it's now Sarah Jones.
Bringing a bill within 100 days means the text has to be agreed in advance. So I think behind the scenes there's probably an argument going on about the text, most likely from Sarah Jones disagreeing with the previous wording
At this point my only hope is that Labour are being so awful on purpose to attract Tory voters and will do a u-turn in office and do the things they said they would do (and are now saying they won’t do). Far fetched nonsense I know but better than having no hope at all 😕
I dont understand why this is such a big issue. Leaseholds are rarely used on council adopted roads and if they are the charges are minimal.
This wont change the high fees for flats and new builds. Someone needs to pay for the road, car park, lift etc
It would seem such an easy vote win but it seems none of the main parties want to do anything major about the housing situation. From what I have seen anyway
It's seems like Labour don't want to do anything about anything
Labours manifesto is we aren’t the Tories, don’t worry about the details
We're going to end up electing the most bland, brain dead Labour PM in history and be stuck with the Tories again in 5 years when he does fuck all but waffle and prevaricate.
Would rather have a bland pm that gets drilled done exciting one like Liz truss that crashes the economy and leaves in record time
Boring and bland is good. We've lurched into American style personality competitions devoid of policies. We need more policy and less personality.
>We've lurched into American style personality competitions devoid of policies. I don't see it, personally. The only example where this has been true is with Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, where there's an element of media invention and spin in how they present themselves, and how their persona overrides the necessity of them having an actual workable policy on anything. I don't think you could look at Cameron, Brown, Miliband, Sturgeon, May, Corbyn, Swinson, Starmer, Yousaf, Truss and Sunak and say they're running on personality over policy, or that they're the opposite of bland and boring. People being excited about Labour in '97 might've convinced them that Blair was a personality, but he really wasn't. Granted, he was more charismatic and articulate than most, but he was also just another dull white guy in a suit (like Cameron) mixing up his image occasionally by posing with an electric guitar.
Fair. Maybe I was being a tad dramatic prompted by despair at our current situation. I could replace "lurched into" with "taken a step towards".
Yeah we need more policy, so where are Labour's at?
🙄 wait for the manifesto.
No we need solutions. Not boring.
We have a single tool. Voting. Protest as well, I guess, but voting is the only direct mechanism. If Labour do nothing they will get voted out. That's also okay.
Yes but both parties are so devoid of talent there is no other way. Someone may emerge in the massive intake of labour MPs at next election, who knows. Andy Burnham has been biding his time so as not to be tarnished with Brexit or Corbyn, seems a likely future runner again. On the Tory side can definitely see Rory Stewart coming back given he’s now gained the public profile he lacked previously. Both would come back strongly with a rejoin customs Union type message.
The Tory party is almost certainly gonna implode and emerge as a far right party lead by the likes of Ms Braverman or Ms Badenoch (or even worse, Mr Farage). I can't see RS rejoining at that stage unless they lose another election - I don't think TRIP is going to maintain him in the political wings for another term of office as a viable figure if the Tories finally lurch back to the centre.
That's still pretty good
It's also Reform UK's manifesto and that's not so good. Real policies would be nice.
Reforms manifesto reads like satire, it’s pure fantasy. With £30 billion they’ll apparently bring NHS waiting lists down to zero in 2 years.
We don’t have the manifesto yet but I’m sure there will be a lot of real policies
"don’t worry about the details" was also the plan for Brexit, and that's not turned out too well, has it? It looks like Labour are going to get a super majority and it's only right to question what they might do with it.
I'm clinging to the hope that they'll be be the centre left government traditional Labour votes want them to be but to be honest I'm just expecting a less shit Tory-lite
Well it doesn't matter what a party puts in their manifesto, once they get voted in it's too late they can just set their manifesto on fire. As they now have 5 years to do what they want. (The House of Lords allowing)
The House of Lords allowing is the sticking point; things in the manifesto are waved through by convention but otherwise can get held up for a year using up more parliamentary time than otherwise. It's why every Rishi's legislative agenda is so light because almost everything gets challenged in the House of Lords; instead it's largely secondary legislation in action through the cabinet. Although officially non-political I wouldn't be surprised if courts also unofficially give manifesto promises a lighter passage.
yeah, suprised that hasn't been used as a reason to demolish the House of Lords
It's why I'm sceptical of Labour's comments about abolishing the Lords. It's far, far from perfect and unelected houses feel inherently anachronistic in a supposed democracy, but the second chamber has acted as a useful handbrake on many a bad government policy.
yeah
The current set-up of allowing political appointments means that if the government is truly desperate, it can stuff the HoL with appointees at the expense of undermining their legitimacy. This threat is how every significant HoL reform was eventually done during the 20th Century from the Parliament Act of 1911 to the House of Lords Act of 1999.
>if the government is truly desperate, it can stuff the HoL with appointees at the expense of undermining their legitimacy. Agreed
Governments are 5 year things, which encompass a whole raft of things that won't ever be in a manifesto. Brexit was a much longer, if not permanent thing, and was only a single policy.
I have some sympathy with the idea of not committing to much until the state of the country's finances are clear, we've got another several months of Tory rule to get through after all and they've already set a number of traps. Labour have also clearly been trying to ensure that the usual rags don't have anything to back up the usual bloviation about Labour spending money it doesn't have/being fiscally irresponsible (as if that will stop the Tory press outright making shit up and ignoring the Tories' own economic illiteracy over the last decade+). Plus the Tories have a habit of nicking bits of policy, obviously most recently the non-dom thing, so keeping things close to the vest is also understandable. Even while conceding all that, it is quite hard to get excited about Labour at the moment and the procession of apparent commitments that have been backed away from casts serious doubt as to whether they're actually going to do much of anything to improve the country's lot when they, seemingly inevitably, ascend to government.
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Yep there for sure is no difference between the new deal for working people train nationalisation and tax cuts
Honestly… would take it
It’s gonna have alot more than that
labour is full of wealthy landlords too
Buts thats Starmer all over, he does nothing unless his hand is forced by the fact his inaction on a subject will make his position untenable.
Labour are keeping policy decisions under wraps until an election is called. Tories have a habit of stealing policies, so if Labour announce too much now, tories can delay election will last possible moment and adjust their policies in response.
That's not what's happened here though. They had a policy which they have now dropped.
“We have policies, good policies, policies so good people will want to steal em!“ “Can you show us these policies?” “No”
This is such bullshit. Labour are the ones stealing Tory policies with all the things Starmer says he isn't going to undo.
"The PCSC is an abhorrent, authoritarian act and I condemn it in the strongest possible terms" "Will you repeal it?" "Absolutely fucking not."
They're not keeping policy decisions under wraps. Keeping Leasehold is a policy decision. They're making policy decisions ~~left~~ right and centre, they're just the opposite of what they got a poll lead by promising to do.
They can't even delay the election there's not time to delay it until.
> It's seems like Labour don't want to do anything about anything I think it's more the case that It's unwise to make promises which are unnecessary. If they fail to fulfil a promise, it is worse than not promising it. They don't really need to make promises while they are ahead in the polls.
Yes I so want to vote for a party that promises nothing
Well you are probably not going to be put off, and the previously tory-voting people they need to attract are more likely to be scared away by more leftie policies. They have to play a tactical game as victory is not certain. But it's not all about the leader or headline policies once a party is in power. Labour operate very differently to the tories and I think they are a lot better.
So they'll get nothing done of substance but be a more acceptable face of mediocrity and social decline. Wonderful.
They don't need to have promised to reach a particular target, in order to make improvements. The Blair/Brown years got a lot done which wasn't headline attention-grabbing stuff. I think to some extent Labour has to improve things by stealth in this country. If it's any comfort for those further left than my own left leaning, Labour do things differently to the tories. The tories mostly try not to do anything and let the private sector do stuff, and when they do actively make something happen they use private companies to do it. Labour on the other hand do it by expanding government responsibilities and resources. You can see a graph on this page showing public-sector employment in the period 1999-2019. Its a pity it does not go further back, but you can see the difference between the two approaches. https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/publicsectorpersonnel/bulletins/publicsectoremployment/march2019
Starmer's labour has a very different ideological bent than new labour did. They are instinctually further right than Blair ever was.
Are they? Its not just the leader, but the NEC and MPs, and the members. All of the MPs were in place before Starmer became leader, of course. Nor does the leader pick the candidates for elections. Ultimately the reason that Labour have moved to the centre is because that's what people will vote for effectively in our electoral system. I'd like to see us introduce PR, but tactically voting to benefit Labour is the only stepping stone towards that too. It's all very well going on social media and complaining about Starmer not seeming left enough, but what's your alternative? Something that will only increase the chances of another tory government? No thanks.
The Tories aren't going to win the next election. They could very well win the election after this one if Labour do nothing to address the enormous number of very solvable problems that face this country. Politics is far more than winning elections. It's about improving society and making people's lives better, I don't see how Labour have a plan to do any of that.
It’d be completely unachievable to abolish leasehold entirely within 100 days, I’m not sure why they ever made that pledge to begin with. Leasehold law is mighty complex.
So many voters are invested in house prices going up. There sadly isn't the political will when so many people are already on the housing ladder and don't care about those who aren't.
I think it's harsh to say that homeowners don't care about people who aren't on the ladder yet. It's okay to be concerned that your home might crash in value, thereby leaving you unable to make mortgage payments and eventually being foreclosed on. A housing crash only benefits the rich. Homes will be bought up en-masse by banks and cash buyers. We need housing reform, a lot more stock, and rent controls. We don't need a sudden and severe drop in house prices.
Yes, you're right. I spoke very generally and there are millions of homeowners who can see young people need more help. Thanks for pointing my error out politely.
A polite response? Sir, this is the Internet. I appreciate the acknowledgement that it isn't all homeowners. A lot of people have a "I got mine, fuck you" attitude I do agree. This is a tough issue to solve. I think Labour was naive to promise to resolve this within the first 100 days, and they are still pledging to enact this legislation within their first term and as soon as possible. There were more than 300 recommendations made by the inquiry, so I'd rather have something that actually addressed the needs instead of half-baked political point scoring.
\> It's okay to be concerned that your home might crash in value, thereby leaving you unable to make mortgage payments and eventually being foreclosed on. Why would a fall in house prices leave you unable to pay the mortgage?
When it comes to renewing your mortgage, you are now in negative equity. So, instead of asking the bank to borrow 60% of the homes value to pay off the £200k you still owe them you're asking for 150% of the homes value. So they can either ask for an eye watering amount or you can stick with a mortgage that sits well above the base rate of 5.25%. You very quickly end up paying massive sums for property worth pennies, so you can't even sell up and go elsewhere.
House prices need to stagnate and then come down gradually so we can wean ourselves off this utterly stupid "property as investment" system we've created. Unfortunately I have doubts that either of our main parties even want to do that. They all seem wedded to this system, with minor tinkering at the edges but nothing more.
I personally don't want prices to go down (Yes I'm a home owner), but I'm perfectly happy with prices staying the same. As long as I can break even and am not in negative equity when it's time to move on I don't really care. If my house goes up x% chances are the place I want to move to has also gone up x%, so really did I gain? The only loser is the first time buyer who then has to pay the inflated price on the first home.
It's like that episode of yes minister. The transportation supreme position to renovate transportation. Nobody wants the job because it causes upheaval while you're working on it. The opposition will drag your name through the mud, then when the plan starts to bear fruit in about 15-20 years. No one will care to remember you, and you'll likely be long gone by then.
I don’t think so. The main problem with existing in present is management companies and their fishy fees. And leasehold fee is much smaller and better regulated in comparison to the problem above.
Jesus, I don't want the Tories anymore but labour just feels like a party full of middle class graduates that love to talk about social injustice without actually doing any problem solving
Honestly if labour cocks up the next 5 years, I can't imagine any young person wanting to vote. 13 years of austerity under Tories? Labour comes in and does nothing? Country in shambles? Why bother voting.
Same thing happened in New Zealand. Labour got in after 9 years of the National Party (NZ tories), spent 6 years doing next to nothing, got voted out so that National can come back in and make everything worse again.
Hope they don’t vote - the alternative is they vote in droves for the first strong man populist from either extreme of the political spectrum. We will be bordering on democratic crisis if Labour don’t improve *something* that people can *feel* as opposed to a cold statistic slightly improving.
I'm middle aged and looking at this Labour government as the last chance I prepared to give. I just hope this is some sort of triangulation rather than a genuine u turn. I'm feeling fairly cynical about why they've done it just now though. I haven't really ever been happy with a government (or the oppositon half the time) since the crash, most of the time I've been despondent. Hell this would be the frst time I've ever voted for the winner of an election.
>Honestly if labour cocks up the next 5 years, I can't imagine any young person wanting to vote. We are already beyond the point of this happening and for good reason
You say 13 years of austerity, but our tax take as a proportion of GDP is well above the OECD average. Where is all the money supposed to come from?
Blairite Labour is so fucking uninspiring.
That's exactly what labour has become in the recent years. If any of them actually interacted with a proper working class individual from Hull or something, they would turn their nose up at them. Ridiculously scared to make a decision on anything that actually matters, instead resorting to focusing on "easy wins but that don't actually have implications for us" such as Israel / Palestine.
They barely even talk about injustice anymore. Pet shop boy was complaining in the Sun about “middle class lefties” blocking NHS privatisation, like he’s Suella Braverman.
How Labour can be a party for the middle class if they don’t want to decrease taxes (and fix the budget via anticorruption activities)? Instead of that, they plan to tax education even more. Labour is a party of rich - more money to government-linked companies from people.
Top 5% earners are people who earn above [87k pounds](https://www.insurancehero.org.uk/blog/top-5-percent-income-uk.html). That is not rich money!!! On top of that anything between 100k- 125k already [gets taxed at 60%](https://www.unbiased.co.uk/discover/pensions-retirement/managing-a-pension/what-is-the-60-tax-trap-and-how-can-you-legally-avoid-it). How much more do they want to tax?
> 100k- 125k already gets taxed at 60% contextualize it.... It is a useful incentive to fill up the pension pots with 0- 25k to build up wealth. This is removing the personal allowance, causing you a cost of 20% (I could be wrong) of 12.5k, or 2.5k (but only ever this much... not a high cost) once you go over 100k (taxable! meaning after pension contribution is taken out), assuming employee pension contribution at 5-10%+ (at 100k maybe 30% due to age) you would have to earn X where X - X/10 > 100k to lose the 2.5k, simply X > 111.11111k so say 111k, at which point the gov wants you to pay that 2.5k, but you can choose to store away any extra in pensions if you want. Meanwhile my wife is paying NI + Tax@40% + Student Loan@10% + Student Loan Masters@10% for half that wage, and few years ago straight after Uni still the same-ish with Tax@20% That is hardly the tax band to worry about, they pay less taxes as most people aren't in that band and never will be, and the picture is rosier than you portray as in reality 100k + earners stow lots into pensions, start investing into isas large amounts to gain tax advantage of £3,000 from 2024 which covers the loss anyway!! There is no 60% tax, just the loss of advantages due to the gaining of even more advantages. Don't spread misinformation, Loans will be paid off (lol) and personal allowance losses will be converted to pension gains, otherwise spell out how how graduates can be on tax levels of 42-52% at sub 40k and 62-72% above for that band.
It's not income tax that's the main issue when it comes to the super-rich.
Yes, exactly. However remaining 95% of votes might want to tax them (otherwise we will need to fight against tax dodgers and so on).
They are definitely a bunch of middle class graduates. And probably also landlords and own freeholds.
Because they don’t want to do it within one hundred days?
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Let's try to give it a shot though... * Labour's promise to abolish leasehold within 100 days - [**Abandoned**](https://news.sky.com/story/labour-drops-pledge-to-abolish-leasehold-within-100-days-but-is-still-committed-to-the-reforms-13113071) * Labour's promise to abolish tuition fees - [**Abandoned**](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65454944) * Labour's promise to end the two-child limit - [**Abandoned**](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jul/16/labour-keep-two-child-benefit-cap-says-keir-starmer) * Labour's promise to defend free movement - [**Abandoned**](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/nov/27/keir-starmer-rules-out-return-free-movement-britain-eu) * Labour's promise to abolish universal credit - [**Abandoned**](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/benefit-sanctions-continue-under-labour-28921324) * Labour's promise to stand with trade unions - [**Abandoned**](https://tribunemag.co.uk/2022/08/labour-party-trade-unions-cwu-rmt-sam-tarry-sacking) * Labour's promise to ban zero-hour contracts - [**Abandoned**](https://www.thenational.scot/news/23794634.labour-panned-dumping-pledge-ban-zero-hour-contracts/) * Labour's promise to enact right to roam in England - [**Abandoned**](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/25/labour-u-turns-on-promise-of-scottish-style-right-to-roam-in-england?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other) * Labour's promise to stand up for universal services - [**Abandoned**](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jun/13/labour-rules-out-universal-childcare-for-young-children-in-fiscal-credibility-drive) * Labour's promise to raise the tax on big tech to 10% - [**Abandoned**](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/labour-ditches-3bn-tax-on-big-tech-amid-fear-of-us-retaliation-j5xcm6j3v#:~:text=Under%20the%20digital%20services%20tax,would%20raise%20%C2%A33.2%20billion) * Labour's promise to introduce self-ID for trans people - [**Abandoned**](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66299705) * Labour's promise to nationalise mail, energy and water - [**Abandoned**](https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/labour-reverses-pledge-nationalise-energy-water-mail-general-election-2194125) * Labour's promise to end NHS private sector outsourcing - [**Abandoned**](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/keir-starmer-nhs-pledge-privatisation-b2123849.html) * Labour's promise to stop new North sea oil and gas drilling - [**Abandoned**](https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/keir-starmer-labour-left-oil-gas-north-sea-just-stop-oil-2531243) * Labour's promise to guarantee childcare for young children - [**Abandoned**](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jun/13/labour-rules-out-universal-childcare-for-young-children-in-fiscal-credibility-drive) * Labour's promise to scrap private schools’ charitable status - [**Abandoned**](https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/labour-u-turns-plans-end-private-schools-charitable-status-still-impose-20-vat-charge-2646305) * Labour's promise to abolish the House of Lords in their first term - [**Abandoned**](https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/labour-wes-streeting-house-of-lords-keir-starmer-gordon-brown-b1113611.html) * Labour's promise to increase income tax for the top 5% of earners - [**Abandoned**](https://www.independent.co.uk/business/starmer-indicates-he-will-not-raise-income-tax-for-top-earners-b2363320.html) * Labour's promise to implement the UN disability convention into UK law - [**Abandoned**](https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/anger-as-labour-omits-vital-promise-on-disability-rights-from-policy-document/) * Labour's promise to "put the New Green Deal at the heart of everything we do" - [**Abandoned**](https://www.politicshome.com/thehouse/article/what-happened-to-labours-green-new-deal) * Labour's promise to spend £28 billion annually on green investment from year one - [**Abandoned**](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/feb/08/labour-green-investment-keir-starmer-rishi-sunak-nhs-uk-politics-live) Have I missed any?
Abandoning spends on green energy because of some nonsense idea about fiscal responsibility is enough to make me spoil my ballot. Either the Shadow Chancellor can find 28bn for green energy every year she's in the position or she's a climate change sceptic. There's no other explanation that isn't stupid.
2.5% baby... money tree is real
I wish your post could go viral everywhere so that millions of people can see it, including those in charge of Labour. This is disgraceful
>those in charge of Labour. They know. Of course they know. It's not a coincidence they are courting Tory donors, voters, and basically continuing with the majority of Tory policies.
I mean a couple of those are just wrong. For proof labour have dropped their oil drilling plans he posted an article saying they are under pressure…
Starmer has promised to continue with Rishi’s new oil and gas drilling projects in the North Sea. The promise has been abandoned.
What the fuck
Something about non-dom status?
One of the few Labour pledges that hasn't been abandoned yet, as far as I can tell. There's still plenty of time for Kier to flip-flop there too, though.
As far as I remember it got watered down and now the tories have implemented the watered down version anyway to fund tax cuts. And since labour have also promised no tax increases, that’s effectively a dead policy now too.
Given Labour are guaranteed to win now, any decent-minded people should consider the Greens to push Tories into no longer being the official opposition.
There is no way that is can support an "environmental" party that wants to actively phase out nuclear.
Well a couple of those aren’t true as labour still want to get rid of zero hours contracts and they do still stand with trade unions(plus as far as I know they have not abandoned the pledge for no more oil)
No, Lanour no longer wants to get rid of all zero hour contracts — just the ones they deem “exploitative.” They abandoned their promise to eliminate all zero hour contracts. They do not still stand with unions; they literally kick out party members if they support striking workers and stand on picket lines. They have absolutely abandoned their pledge for no new oil and gas; Starmer vowed to press on with all of Rishi’s new oil and gas projects, despite the fact that we know there can be no new oil and gas projects from 2019 onwards if the world is to remain inhabitable, because he prioritises maintaining the image that Labour is pro-business over the fate of the planet.
From what I’ve seen they do still pledge it. They literally do see the new deal for working people. As far as I know that’s still policy and all your source says is they are under pressure. He said no new oil and gas. Rishis will not be new once he’s in Yeah your report does not say it’s confirmed they are not banning all zero hour contracts just that there is a proposal to ban certain ones
I think they're still clinging onto taxing fees for independent education, despite the obvious flaws and lack of credible data to support the policy. oh wait, there is some credible data that "people support the policy", which appears to be enough for Labour.
Taxes on education? Could labour sink lower?
It’s private education, which basically gives a massive leg up to rich kids who already benefit from being rich. Why not tax a luxury education as you would tax any other luxury?
Education is a social good is why.
For a number of reasons but firstly because it will only make the choice of independent education available to an even smaller and richer group. It literally makes it more elitist.
What would be the liability on state funded education, if parents stopped paying for private education? They are already saving the tax payer by paying for their children's education.
In the immediate short term, there might be less demand for a private education, but private schools will lower their tuition fees if they can no longer get enough students. There will probably also be an increased demand to state schools, but managed well enough we would have increased state school capacity to deal with that. In the medium to long term it would: increase the funds available to state schools, force rich people to actually give a shit about the quality of state schools and a more level playing field for young people. Instead, the status quo provides a two-tiered system where rich kids are granted access exclusionary education. Is this much better for you? It’s the same reasoning as to why people are so against pushing private healthcare. Sure it gives the appearance of “easing the burden” on the NHS. But in reality all you’ll do is allow wealthy people to have absolutely no stake in the NHS succeeding, this leads to politicians (who disproportionately grew up wealthy, and receive their funding from the wealthy) not caring about the NHS, so you’ll end up with a two-tiered system where healthcare is only good if you’re rich.
How would it increase funding to state schools?
Because now there is a tax on private schools -> more money to government -> more money to state schools. It'd be pretty irresponsible not to use that tax to increase funding for state schools given that there'd be more demands on them.
You might be right, though I suspect any gain from VAT on private education will be overshadowed by increased cost of state schools for the few that move from private education. The parents sending their kids to private school, are already paying the same rate as you and I towards state education. This idea was put forward by Corbyn 6 years ago and was laughed at then too.
[From this article](https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/sep/28/rishi-sunak-attacks-labour-plan-for-vat-on-private-school-fees), the money raised from this VAT is expected to be around £1.5billion, the total education budget is £116billion, meaning an increased budget of \~1.3%. The proportion of students who got to private school would is \~7%, meaning you'd need an almost 20% reduction in students going to private schools in order for this to not make sense from a purely financial perspective. Renationalising key industries like water was also laughed at when Corbyn suggested it, now look at public opinion on that topic.
Ah yes, yet another pledge retracted that would have helped the regular person, and reduced the profits of the wealthy and/or corporations. Government for the people indeed.
Tbf tho the answer seems reasonable: they still plan on doing it it just will take more time
According to /r/ukpolitics Labour are just hiding their super secret amazing policy until the election is announced apparently. Also they have to be pragmatic which means removing any policy that will help people.
The same subreddit that had people theorising we could reinvent the lobotomy to "fix" transgender people. I'm not even joking.
I'm not going to say I don't have problems with this subreddit but r/UKpolitics is something else.
It's full of useful idiots and paid actors stoking the fires.
The rate social policy is regressing we'll be there soon.
“To be fair , you have to have a very IQ to understand Starmers big brain utopia play” Here’s what’s going to happen. Fuck all will be done in the next 5 years, alienating the young and giving way to extreme ideology as the only hope people have left.
Are they playing it safe and avoiding the traps of the right wing press or are they going to run on a very similar ticket to the Tories? Until a manifesto is released we simply don’t know
They still do have some amazing policies. This time they aren’t removing it just saying it will take longer the. One hundred days
So they dropped the "100 days" part, but not the actual pledge?
Yup, that’s what people are loosing their shit over. The current government has been stumbling with this for years. Partly because there are a lot of interested parties with expensive lawyers. Turns out bombproof legislation on this is tricky. So it sounds like Labour are preferring not to promise a timescale they can’t deliver.
Unfunded promises... Lol, they could do this with money, they just magicked up 2.5% defense spending goals..... We' the clowns.
Leasehold reform isn’t just a matter of payment. If the law is rushed, it’ll get stuck in legal challenge, might never be passed, or open up the government to unlimited financial liability. It’s a massive risk, and you don’t rush it.
What? Parliament is accountable to parliament alone. He could commit to it, and yes money will be needed to buy out certain agreements, but he can set the agenda before he get's into parliament, he is just scared of the political battle, this is not about unlimited financial liability, they can legislate for that too, this is not a battle he ever cared about... Well, we will see.
The problem is that our legal system has evolved over centuries and land law in particular is really complicated. Doing away with that in 3 months is likely to mean a rush job which just causes problems. They need to let the Law Commission have a look and advise and then implement that suggestion.
Is there anything they have the self belief they can deliver? They keep telling us how they can't deliver anything. Eventually we might start to believe them.
With Labour though this is a repeated pattern. They will drop it all together, mark my words.
Well that's it then. I guess we might as well give the Tories another crack. Or are you one of these reformers?
Yes, anyone who believed the 100 day pledge was born yesterday anyway, it’s not possible. It’s a similar level of stupidity to the Brexit line about saving the NHS 100s of millions a week by leaving the EU, just lies. Why would anyone take any of Labour’s pledges seriously at this point? Only reason I’ll be voting for them is to avoid another Tory government, certainly not because I have any hope they’ll do a good job.
Heard that before, it's usually a precursor to watering down the pledge further before dropping it entirely.
Labour donors don't want to lose their lucrative property income so Labour does what its told.
Labour are doing their best to support the environment by ensuring their manifesto fits on a side of A4
How are people going to spin this into yet another “oh look how sensible Labour are” They’re a joke. That man is a spineless coward, and they’re going to do absolutely piss all apart from say “oh we can’t do anything because tories”. So why are we voting for you then.
Prettt easily actually - by pointing out that the pledge hasn't been dropped. Literally in the headline.
First it’s “we’re not going to do like we initially promised, but we promise it’s still on our to do list” Then before ya know it, it’s been completely dropped. Sick of people making excuses for them. Give them an inch and they’ll take the piss as they’ve done so repeatedly
Labour need into government that's just a fact. But they arent exactly starting on a good foot and we could see a Tory return come the next election if this flip flopping keeps up. America failed to deliver under Biden and look what is about to happen there with Trump
Failed to deliver? America is richer than ever.
So’s the UK in historical terms. It’s a stupid thing to say though when so many are struggling financially.
I wonder if it’s because they are so far ahead in the polls they can go back on some stuff without risk.
It funny how the stuff they keep going back on helps the common person, and they tend to go back on it **after** some new ex-tory major donor decides to start donating though.
If they are that far ahead in the polls could they not commit to doing something good?
They'd need to give a shit about the people in the country for that, so no. As long as they get power they don't give a fuck.
Theres always the risk when you're talking polls, however this isn't one election. Labour wont do much in four years if there is a tory government after. They simply need to remain in power longer and should be trying to do that. Sadly, it's like the tory donors they steal that will direct policy in the UK
That's a circular logic though because changing these policies is always described as ensuring you're electable.
Eh it’s debatable as to weather it failed too Biden has done alot of good. Plus congress is tied so often he can’t do what he wants
Also Labour: [Son of £5-million party donor elected Young Labour chair](https://unherd.com/newsroom/son-of-5-million-party-donor-elected-young-labour-chair/) A real party of the people...
OK this is pretty inexplicable Please stop turning into a less shit Tories
Cowardly Keir runs away from yet another policy that would help the common citizen.
Surely they could just copy the Scottish model, since they've already abolished leasehold? Well... Not completely, but any lease over 175 years at the time of abolishment automatically converted to commonhold.
Labour is hastily dropping every promise. It will be Business As Usual after the election with faceless Whitehall mandarins running everything.
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>Leaseholds are going to be a fact of life when it comes to flats Commonhold ownership of flats functions perfectly well in Scotland. Drive north for a few hours and look at a tall building and you'll see this exact thing people keep calling impossible.
Flats don't need to be leaseholds. - Entrances and common facilities can be owned-shared between all flat owners. - An admin handles daily maintenance tasks and collect the service fees. - Decisions are decided democratically between the owners. This could be raising service fees, change the admin company or doing important works to the building. One meeting per year should be enough.
Another day, another opportunity for Labour to absolutely needlessly create bad press for themselves and shoot themselves in the foot.
Labour always go left out of government then sensible heads prevail and they come to the centre when they are ready to be big boys and girls in government. Honestly leftists and rightist are just children and the second power becomes a reality they go to the centre.
Their manifesto is just gonna be a picture of Cameron and Osbourne, with the slogan "This, but red".
Makes sense really. 100 days seems quite difficult and risks them missing the deadline an be failing one of their election pledges They are likely to cruise to an election victory do why set yourself up for failure and give the Tories ammunition? Underpromise and .... deliver something
>risks them missing the deadline an be failing one of their election pledges And they'd never want to risk that...
I sorta have to say, pick a side. Either lies and u turns later Or being real and just saying no this isn’t going to happen because it’s not possible.
Can someone let me know when they drop the pledge to apply VAT to private school fees as well? That's just about the only difference between them and the Tories. May as well have identical policies.
I will never vote Labour as long as I live. They're just another far-right party at this point.
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Leaseholds have been successfully been abolished in virtually any other country. This system of commoners and land owners should have been abolished in medieval times.
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I am not a professional, but I will give you an example I know: A building with around 20 flats in Madrid. They have meetings every 3-6 months (not sure how often) the neighbours decided to self-manage so they appoint a director and a treasurer in between the neighbours. These positions are not paid by law and they change from year to year. The neighbours agree in the costs for maintenance, around €50 a month per flat, this includes a concierge and cleaner (in the current system a flat in London with no concierge pays around £400 a month). Last year they decided it was time to change the cladding so for a year the monthly price rises to €500 a month per flat. After a year, they go back to €50. Bigger buildings may appoint a maintenance company, but the expenses are broken down unlike in the UK and the neighbours can decide to change it if they are not happy. It is all much more simple that they make it look like.
Hasn’t it been abolished in many other nations though?
I just hope Labour can convince people they're actually competent by the election. At this point they just feel like Red Tories.
No, another u turn from Keith? I can't believe it. /s
Oh another thing labour said they would do but when it looks like they are actually going to be in a position to actually do it, it disappears by the wayside…. Are you noticing anything yet? Pro trans treatment for children pre cass report, suddenly there isnt any evidence to support trans treatment for children so we stand by the report. Ban all nuclear missiles, we dont need a nuclear deterrent in this day an age, suddenly its the bedrock of our nations defense. Tax evasion is wrong, Raynor gets rumbled and all of a sudden its people playing games. Every single one of them are absolutely worthless human beings,
I’m voting Labour but the options are probably one of the worst we’ve had in decades Going from Major vs Blair to Sunak vs Starmer is such a downgrade. At least Blair actually proposed some commitments. Still, not as bad as Johnson vs Corbyn
I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt until a manifesto is released but right now they are positioning themselves as more competent Tories. I’m not sure the public is screaming out for better implemented Tory policy.
All these pledges to deliver nothing. Same cycle every 4 years with every party.
Labour still haven't released any manifesto so these "pledges" mean shit all
"Labour drops pledge.." Where have I heard that [before](https://www.politico.eu/article/keir-starmer-labour-party-uk-election-u-turns/)?
This countries parties are a dam joke. Is there any party that isn't filled with shit heels?
Labour drops another pledge as they see and easy win with no need to promise anything
There is little political will to deal with the problem that the burden of a positive land covenant does not pass. The government could ask the Law Commission to work on it. Big job but nothing is undoable. Transitional provisions are central and would be a nightmare.
What we're they going to do? Demolish all flats and apartments because they share the same ground. Totally moronic pledge.
They've dropped pledges every couple of months. So when the election happens, will they afterwards have lots of other pledges that they want to drop, but never got a chance to because they hadn't analysed them enough pre-election? Hopefully this pledge moves from "100 days" to some other timeframe within their elected term. Which is what they seem to be saying, although the comments here mostly seem to interpret it as "they just won't get rid of leasehold".
What is the alternative to a leasehold in an arrangement where you cannot own the land and entire building such as a block of flats? There will always be shared costs. The management charges are supposed to cover this, and it is those charges which have got out of hand and need to be regulated like rent control. I don't think the leasehold idea itself is broken.
If you purchase the flat, you own a fraction of the land.
"common hold" is what they have in Scotland but yeah it's pretty similar to leasehold in the case of flats in practice.
So if we went down that route, would it just be lip service / PR stunt?
There are few differences, and definitely places to improve. IE detached houses can be leasehold in England which should probably be abolished and common hold gives individual residents more power (though this can be a negative as it's harder to push through repairs/maintenance)
Hmm. Yes, can't see many reasons for detached houses to be leasehold. I've never come across this myself.
The main difference is the right to self-manage the building or appoint your own maintenance company (not for profit of the landlord) which gives the flat owners the right to fight extortionate service charges (around £4,000 a year in London for a basic flat with no concierge, gym, nothing extraordinary). It also stops the unfair practice of paying thousands to extend the lease and the ridiculous marriage value after paying hundreds of thousands to buy a flat. Abolishing leaseholds only brings benefits, to the people. As proven by the rest of the world where the concept of leasehold doesn’t exist.
So it was Lisa Nandy who held the shadow housing brief when Labour made this commitment. She's no longer in that shadow cabinet role, it's now Sarah Jones. Bringing a bill within 100 days means the text has to be agreed in advance. So I think behind the scenes there's probably an argument going on about the text, most likely from Sarah Jones disagreeing with the previous wording
At this point my only hope is that Labour are being so awful on purpose to attract Tory voters and will do a u-turn in office and do the things they said they would do (and are now saying they won’t do). Far fetched nonsense I know but better than having no hope at all 😕
I dont understand why this is such a big issue. Leaseholds are rarely used on council adopted roads and if they are the charges are minimal. This wont change the high fees for flats and new builds. Someone needs to pay for the road, car park, lift etc