Thread by @SteveDavies365 on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "🧵 I have the increasing reeling that UK politics is in a holding mode with lots of people desperately trying to keep the circling plane flying.
1. The Starmer government is best understood as representing the technocratic consensus that emerged after 1990 and consolidated under Blair/Brown. Almost certainly the last stand of the conventional wisdom de jours. Will it succeed? Not impossible but unlikely because.
2. We are facing intensifying crisis on a number of fronts, public finance, public services, community relations, state capacity&effectiveness international relations. Not to mention climate change, increasingly severe malthusian constraints and (crucially) a lack of innovation. All this requires some radical measures and departure from the kind of policies and governance we have had since the early 1990s but see 1.
3. Starmer and Reeves are clearly betting the farm on reviving growth but what if that doesn't happen (right now I would bet against it)?
4. In terms of politics there has been a realignment in terms of the views and divisions among voters, with the emergence and crystallising of a national collectivist politics of the kind seen in several other places. However our political system and class means it has not found electoral expression yet (same is true for other emergent political identities). The result is it is going to be much more radically anti-systemic and plebeian when it does burst out.
5. What none of our political class and very few voters are prepared to even consider is the prospect that meaningful growth will be near impossible to achieve in the near to medium future. As I have said, the likely result will be an era of disillusionment as one kind of politics after another is tried, none brings growth and consequently the various crises get more acute. It's a challenge for all kinds of politics to think about this. End"
Cabinet has accepted more than £800,000 in donations and freebies this year - "The Cabinet has accepted more than £800,000 in donations and freebies this year, a Telegraph analysis has revealed. David Lammy, the Foreign Secetary, has received the most since the beginning of 2024, having accepted more than £150,000 worth. This included £2,500 worth of tickets to see Tottenham Hotspur, with the use of a hospitality box. The largest sum donated to him was from Labour Together, a Starmerite think tank, which donated £40,440 for the “provision of research and writing services”. Labour Cabinet ministers have accepted £753,017 in donations and £90,853 in gifts since the beginning of the year, according to the analysis of the members’ register of interests. Mr Lammy is followed by Wes Streeting, who received £117,000 in donations and gifts, among them four tickets and hospitality to see Taylor Swift at Wembley costing £1,160. The Health Secretary’s biggest donation was valued at £48,000 in four instalments from OPD Group Ltd, a company controlled by Peter Hearn, a recruitment mogul and one of Labour’s biggest donors. He also accepted £13,000 “towards staffing costs” while Labour was in opposition, declared in April, from Kevin Craig, a businessman who later stood to become the Labour MP in Suffolk Coastal. Mr Craig was later forced to stand down after it emerged he placed a bet on his constituency outcome in the general election, betting that the Tories would win. Mr Streeting returned his donation from Mr Craig. Among Angela Rayner’s £104,000 in gifts and donations since the start of the year was £2,230 for clothing from ME+EM, a British luxury fashion brand. Donations and gifts to politicians have come under renewed scrutiny in recent weeks after Sir Keir Starmer became embroiled in a row over funding clothes donated to him and his wife by Lord Alli. The backlash led to the Prime Minister promising that he would stop taking donations for clothing, a pledge matched by Ms Rayner and Rachel Reeves. Other revelations included Lady Starmer accepting two tickets to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, worth hundreds of pounds each. Bridget Phillipson, Darren Jones and Mr Streeting also accepted tickets to the tour... Labour MPs have called on Sir Keir to stop taking all “freebies” following the uproar over the Lord Alli donations, with one telling The Telegraph that several colleagues were “livid”. “This is what hypocrisy looks like – and most of us have been fighting the ‘they’re all the same’ rhetoric for our whole careers,” said the MP. “Keir’s double standards just prove it’s entirely accurate.”"
ripx4nutmeg on X - "Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, who's been an MP since 2015, says that she had to accept donations of expensive clothing from a wealthy party donor because "I was from a very working class background" #bbclaurak"
mirax on X - "These same "working class" heroes bitched endlessly about Sunak's wealth- at least he had enough dignity to buy his own clothes and pay for his own holidays."
Thread by @CharlotteCGill on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Keir Starmer: "There’s a budget coming in October. and it’s going to be painful. We have no other choice given the situation that we’re in". Really? Here are 10 things that taxpayers have been charged for...
1) £185,627: Trans Performance Now: Glitching cisgenderism
2) £840k: The Europe that Gay Porn Built, 1945-2000
3) £1,717,340 *in government grants since 2019: Tamasha Theatre Company - “a home for emerging and established artists from the global majority”
4) £810,703: Study of ‘sustainable’ Romani Gypsy lifestyle
5) £1.5m: Research project that aims to “decolonise” folk singing and investigate its "white-centricity"
6) £805,769: Decolonising the Museum: Digital Repatriation of the Gaidinliu Collection from the UK to India (DiMuse)
7) £805,745: on a study that says "The disproportionate representation of William Shakespeare in scholarship and performance has aligned early modern drama in the public mind with white, able-bodied, heterosexual, cisgender male narratives"
8) Sadiq Khan's unelected czars £148k pa: Justine Simons £148k pa: Mete Coban £110k+ pa: Will Norman £132,846 pa: Amy Lame
9) £113,220 in government grants - The Vagina Museum
10) £243,360: Buzzers for Bedwetters: Incontinence and the Urinary Body in Britain, 1870-1970
Btw I always get people saying "that's hardly anything" when I post these things. Well, it's a SAMPLE! I am tracking all the spending on @WokeWaste and bear in mind I'm a one-woman team:
Some of my most popular pieces: Mete Coban MBE: Sadiq Khan's new high-flying eco adviser (on £148k per year)
Over £1m taxpayer-funding - to the professor specialising in gay "pig" masculinities"
Clearly, if you cut "research" funding, you're short sighted, a philistine and hate learning
Keir Starmer 'doesn't want to tell people how to live their lives' - "Sir Keir Starmer tried to claim he does not want to tell people how to live their lives - despite preparing a series of new nanny state interventions. The Prime Minister refused to say if he thought Britons should have more children after an alarming report by the Office for Budget Responsibility warned the country's population could soon start to go into decline. And he insisted there was no need for the Government to intervene with a plan to boost the dwindling birth rate, even though some commentators say the economy will be damaged as the workforce ages... asked if Britons should have more children, he insisted: 'I've spent my whole time saying I'm not going to tell people how to live their lives - I'm not going to start by dictating whether they should or shouldn't have children.' His comments, however, came just days after he vowed to bring in a series of public health measures to combat childhood obesity. 'I know some prevention measures will be controversial but I'm prepared to be bold, even in the face of loud opposition,' Sir Keir said on Thursday as he announced a ban on television adverts for junk food before the 9pm watershed. He also wants to bring in supervised toothbrushing for young children and ban energy drinks for under-16s. The Government is also planning to ban outdoor smoking and may try to outlaw disposable vapes... 'If the Prime Minister wants growth, he should follow the example of increasing numbers of Western leaders in urgently looking for ways to increase the birthrate.' Former Cabinet minister Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, who has six children, said: 'Starmer seems incapable of telling the truth. He spends his whole time telling people how to live their lives with smoking bans, advertising bans and potentially sugar and salt taxes. 'No one is asking him to tell people how many children to have, all that is being suggested is that he should say having children is a good thing but the old lawyer never wants to give a straight answer.'"
Encouraging people to have more children is the same as dictating that they have children.
What is 'working class' Keir Starmer's net worth? - "Since launching his push to run the country, Sir Keir Starmer has been at pains to play down his privilege and play up his working-class roots. But 20 years as a lawyer before his move into politics has put him comfortably into the country's top 1 per cent of earners. His property dealings and gold-plated pension pot alone place his worth at around £3 million. During the 2020 Labour leadership contest, Sir Keir – who was paid up to £400 an hour during his two decades as a senior lawyer – played down his wealth. 'I'm not a millionaire,' he said, even though he conceded his north London townhouse might, then, be worth £1 million... Before entering politics, Sir Keir earned £1 million as Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) between 2008 and 2013. He also amassed a £700,000 pension which – on top of his MP's retirement allowance – is expected to give him a publicly funded pot worth about £1 million. In common with his predecessors as DPP, Sir Keir's pension is exempt from tax rules that he has said should apply to other workers who save more than £1 million."
GMB viewers hit out at ‘useless’ Ed Balls hours after wife Yvette Cooper voted to cut winter fuel payments - "Labour’s own research had suggested thousands of pensioners could die if the government proceeds with its plan to cut winter fuel payments for those not on benefits. Analysis published in 2017, when Sir Keir Starmer was in the Shadow Cabinet, warned that Conservative plans to cut the fuel allowance for ten million pensioners would increase excess deaths by 3,850 that winter. The proposal, put forward by Theresa May’s government, was dubbed the “single biggest attack on pensioners in a generation in our country”."
Clearly, if Labour is the one cutting the winter fuel payment, people won't die
Treasury is landed with a £10BILLION windfall - "Labour MP Rachael Maskell blasted slashing winter fuel payments as she said they would raise only a 'tiny proportion' of the £10billion funding the Chancellor has now been given - saying Reeves should 'absolutely' reconsider it now... Keir Starmer admitted that the upcoming Budget will be 'painful' - as he defended handing out billions to end strikes by militant unions."
How Labour could take away your state pension - "With Labour promising not to increase taxes for “working people”, it is feared that Britain’s 12 million pensioners could be at the sharp end of Rachel Reeves’s “painful” October Budget. The Chancellor says she has a £22bn “black hole” to plug, and experts say decisions need to be made to cut the nation’s ballooning multi-billion pound state pension bill. The universal entitlement pays £11,502 a year to everyone aged at least 66 who retired since 2016, as long as they have 35 years of National Insurance (NI) contributions. The state pension provides a financial safety net for pensioners with no other income. It is also expensive, costing the Treasury over £100bn annually – a figure expected to keep on rising."
Labour 'retirement tax' to hit 300,000 more pensioners - "The news comes as the Government continues to battle criticism of its decision to means-test winter fuel payments. In July, Ms Reeves said winter fuel payments would be restricted to just those on pension credit from this winter in an attempt to raise £1.5bn to fix the nation’s finances. Previously, it was available to anyone receiving the state pension. As a result, pensioners now face their “worst winter on record” with their bills expected to jump by almost £500 compared to last year."
Of course, the Guardian is not getting super upset, since this all these changes targeting pensioners and old people are by a Labour government. If it were the Tories, it would be an outrage because promises are being broken, old people are poor and destitute, the government is literally killing people etc (see also inheritance changes)
Keir Starmer's approval rating plunges by 14 points in a month - "Keir Starmer's approval rating has plunged amid the winter fuel allowance raid and looming tax hikes, according to a poll. Research by Ipsos found the proportion who viewed the PM favourably tumbled from 38 per cent in August to 32 per cent this month. Meanwhile, those who had a negative impression spiked by eight points to 46 per cent - giving a net score of minus 14... The proportion of people who view the Labour Party favourably has fallen by four points to 36 per cent, while unfavourability has increased by eight points to 45 per cent."
Starmer justifying £100k of gifts makes things worse says Baroness - "Baroness Harman became the first senior party figure to publicly criticise the Prime Minister in the growing storm over his acceptance of more than £100,000 worth of gifts and hospitality in the past five years. The former Cabinet minister – given a peerage earlier this year by Sir Keir – said the Labour leader was 'doubling down' and trying to justify a donor paying for thousands of pounds' worth of clothes for himself and his wife. Yet last night he again insisted he had done nothing wrong – and claimed a corporate box he has been gifted to watch his beloved Arsenal from was in fact saving taxpayers money, rather than sitting in the stands surrounded by security... The storm began last month when it emerged that Labour peer and fundraising chief Lord Alli had been handed an access-all-areas security pass to Downing Street in the wake of the election victory, having given Sir Keir £16,200 for 'work clothing' followed by £2,485 for 'multiple pairs of glasses'. It then emerged last weekend that Lord Alli, a former boss of online fashion retailer Asos, had also given thousands of pounds' worth of clothes to the PM's wife Lady Starmer, while new calculations showed that Sir Keir had received more freebies than any other MP, receiving £107,145 in gifts, benefits and hospitality since December 2019. Speaking on a Sky News podcast, Lady Harman said: 'You can either double down on it and try and justify it or you can just say 'it was probably a misstep, if I had my time again I wouldn't do it and therefore I'm going to auction for charity or something'. 'It was just a misstep, it's not a hanging offence, but I think doubling down and trying to justify it is making things worse... However, Sir Keir showed no signs of backing down, particularly when it comes to watching his favourite football team play. He has long been a season ticket holder at Arsenal but has in recent seasons accepted invitations to watch matches from corporate hospitality boxes rather than from the stands"
Labour’s moral posturing has backfired spectacularly - "The scandal which has taken hold at the heart of the new Labour government – primarily associated with party donor Lord Alli – exposes the party’s two-tier approach to parliamentary standards and ethics. As Leader of the Opposition, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer promised “change” – a politics of service, decency, and accountability. This would mean conducting politics in a different way, providing a sharp contrast from the moral indecency and lack of ethics at the heart of Tory-led government. Taking aim at former PM Boris Johnson, Starmer – setting out his “contract” with the British people – said he did not believe that politics is a branch of the entertainment industry. Branding himself as a paragon of piety, Starmer was photographed shopping for wallpaper in John Lewis – poking fun at Johnson’s eye-watering Number 10 refurbishment costs (with much of this funded by British entrepreneur Lord Brownlow). Now, a few months into his tenure as Prime Minister, “Mr Rules” now has two unflattering and somewhat related nicknames: “two-tier Keir” and “free-gear Keir”. Starmer has received substantially more freebies than any other MP since becoming Labour leader. Excluding legal fees, the MP for Holborn & St Pancras has received more than £107,000 worth of gifts – comfortably ahead than the runner-up, fellow Labour politician and current Leader of the House of Commons, Lucy Powell, who took in just over £40,000... there has been little in the way of a proper apology, suggesting the party suffers from a fundamental lack of remorse and humility. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson had a smile on her face as Sir Trevor Phillips informed the audience that she had taken a £14,000 donation from Lord Alli to throw a birthday bash, bizarrely seeking to justify it on the grounds of the party supposedly being a work-related event involving journalists, trade unionists, and those in the education sector. In a separate occasion, Phillipson was gifted Taylor Swift tickets declared at £522 – saying that it was a “hard one to turn down” and that one of her children was keen to attend the global music icon’s show. A car-crash interview of epic proportions. Why are these leading Labour politicians so blind to their own breathtaking hypocrisy, having a history of condemning Tory opponents for the very kinds of donor-connected indiscretions they are guilty of? Traditionally identifying with the Left and being a member of a trade union, I believe that it boils down to those involved in Labour politics believing they are entitled to indulge in such unethical behaviour because they have convinced themselves that they are morally decent overall. Being on the supposedly “virtuous” side on matters of social justice and committing to the “progressive” holy trinity of diversity, equity, and inclusion, means that all these covered-for treats are richly deserved – like luxury clothing, overseas stays in elite apartments, and expensive birthday parties: the perks of fighting the good fight. In their eyes, the “nasty” Tories are morally indecent on the whole – so when they indulge in similarly unethical forms of behaviour, it is completely unacceptable. They are not deserving of such treats and must be hounded. This is a shamelessly two-tier approach to parliamentary standards and ethics which undermines the very concept of good governance in modern Britain... Labour have burned through whatever political capital it had after it was elected on a low turnout and underwhelming share of the vote. This is not the duty-oriented politics of change – this is business as usual at the heart of Westminster politics, and it stinks."
Mediocre Britain deserves this grim government - "Labour has already failed, not because of “donor-gate” or the unedifying squabbles between Starmer’s special advisers, but because it has no clue how to run a country. It spent two months maniacally talking down Britain – with Reeves reportedly considering it a golden opportunity to “bury the Tories”, as though she were a far-Left social-justice activist rather than our Chancellor of the Exchequer – only to be pushed into a humiliating retreat after business and consumer confidence plummeted. Without the optimism to spend, hire, and invest, it’s near-impossible for our economy to expand. Their multi-billion pound bung to the public sector has not, as Starmer claimed in August, ended industrial strife – as the decision by the Royal College of Nursing to reject a pay uplift of 5.5 per cent makes awkwardly apparent. The issue, presumably, is not the above-inflation offer, but that Labour has already given 15 per cent over three years to better-paid train drivers and offered 22 per cent over two years to junior doctors. The bright sparks in government, apparently, could not see this coming. Whether Labour has a plan it daren’t reveal, or was so unprepared for office it never bothered to devise one is almost beside the point. It’s the naivety and hubris, with or without an agenda, that’s so troubling. The belief that, because it would be in charge rather than the grubby, venal, morally inferior Tories, it would succeed. That’s why it makes such absurd proclamations as “scrapping the universal winter fuel allowance would avoid a run on the pound”. It’s perhaps why our Business Secretary seems to believe he knows more about employee productivity at Amazon than its senior executives. The Government talks of growth as though it can be achieved through osmosis, yet takes decisions that will stymie it. It speaks as though there is no problem that cannot be solved with a bigger state, yet the public sector has scarcely ever been so bloated and ineffective. The Prime Minister told conference delegates that he would put “country first, party second” – but studies have suggested a 10 percentage point increase in the tax or government spending burden is associated with a roughly 1 per cent fall in the growth rate in the long-term. Were he truly committed to our national interest, he wouldn’t be bringing railways into public ownership, or handing workers a raft of new entitlements, or creating state-owned energy companies. Even parts of the economy seemingly distant from the locus of government are now subject to state meddling – thanks to legislation like the Equality Act, which Labour wants to expand even further. Ministers are musing on potential investigations into the price of holiday flights and Oasis tickets. Britain might not have voted for a government that presents itself as a paragon of moral probity while its politicians accept freebies from millionaires, but the nation has little appetite for lower taxes, or personal responsibility, or a smaller state. A poll by Global Counsel in December revealed people wanted spare government money to go on spending increases rather than tax cuts. Heaven forbid others be allowed to keep more of their own hard-earned cash... just 18 per cent of Brits are against the VAT raid on private school fees. Britain may not consciously have voted for a charmless, mithering administration, but we are an increasingly mean-spirited, priggish nation more interested in depriving others of pleasure than finding our own sources of enjoyment."
Environment Secretary accepted 'donation' from company linked to water pollution - "Environment Secretary Steve Reed is the latest to become embroiled in Labour’s cronyism scandal after accepting football tickets worth nearly £2000 from a company with links to water pollution."
Keir’s joyless government has found another thing to ruin - "Another day, another Labour Party donor caught running his mouth about the money he’s dropped. “I am hoping to have a conversation with the new government to encourage them to change the law”, Vince told a fringe meeting at the Labour conference, referring to the legal requirement for schools to serve meat to kids. Vince, you see, is a vegan warrior – one who wants to bring more of his company’s vegan meals to school kids, and less sausage and mash. The reason this is awkward news for the Labour Party is that Vince is a donor – to the tune of £5 million. Indeed, he boasted at conference that his company, Devil’s Kitchen, “already supplies vegan food to one in four primary schools”. Decrying the evils of meat and dairy, Vince demanded that “we shouldn’t be forcing these unhealthy products on to our kids”, which most people would think is a bit of an extreme way to talk about a lunchtime yoghurt. But this is the new reality for Labour. Fringe millionaires with fringe views seem to have bought access to the party in ways that Boris Johnson’s decorators could only have dreamed of. Better still, none of them seem to have any shame about it. The problem for Keir Starmer is not that business leaders want to use their cash to spend on the party, it’s that he has set himself up as Mr Squeaky Clean... What rankles isn’t the handouts, but the arrogance in which Labour politicians seem affronted when quizzed about it. It’s not that we care that Bridget Phillipson took her kids to see the queen of pop on a freebie, it’s that she blamed her children for her decision. Just take the ongoing row over Lord Alli’s influence in Labour decision making. For those living under a rock, Alli is the Labour peer who bought Starmer’s wife a new wardrobe, put Angela Rayner up in New York with two grand’s worth of spends and forked out for Phillipson’s work-related 40th birthday celebrations – all for nothing “in return”, he assures us. Except, we now know that Alli’s influence isn’t just on Labour’s fashion sense. Not only was he given a security pass to number ten – granting him access to the prime minister that the staff of lowly elected politicians don’t have – but we also know that a member of his staff was seconded and put in charge of selecting Labour MPs for this year’s General Election. "But what about the Tories?” The Labour lackeys cry... As such, Starmer seems just as happy as Johnson was to be swayed by the last person to whisper in his ear and drop a new pair of glasses in his pocket. Why else would Vince feel confident enough to boast on a public stage his ability to potentially change the diets of the nation’s children – something the vast majority of the country’s voters would oppose? The real problem isn’t money men throwing their weight around, it’s the ease with which Starmer seems to have filled his government with people who hold political power despite being unelected. When asked at conference about the reasons why Sue Gray was allegedly paid more than the prime minister, Labour MP Emily Thornberry scoffed that she thought it was wonderful that Starmer, a bloke, was paying a woman member of staff more than him... In her defence, it’s hard to listen to those pesky constituents with their annoying concerns when you’ve got a job to do making sure your family members are elected to parliament. Even Starmer’s appointees – James TImpson, Sir Patrick Vallance, Richard Hermer KC – though interesting, were, again, not tested at the ballot box. “But he’s a Labour peer”, cry Lord Alli’s defenders, arguing that there’s nothing to see here because his rosette is the right colour, forgetting that peers of the realm are, you guessed it, unelected by the people who should be in control of political power. It’s not Vince’s plans to replace our children’s bacon with beansprouts that stinks, it’s the contempt with which this government seems to treat democracy. And from shrinking pints to shutting pubs, banning smoking to repeating Thatcher’s milk snatching ways in the name of the environment, they seem to be hellbent on doing it in the most joyless way possible."
Starmer faces first Labour defection amid "cruelty" and "hypocrisy" criticisms - "Rosie Duffield bid farewell with a harsh letter condemning "corruption, nepotism, and large-scale greed" demonstrated by the Starmer team in just ninety days in power."
Keir Starmer has a problem with women, says MP who has quit Labour - "The former Labour MP Rosie Duffield has said Keir Starmer has “a problem with women” and that the government is “more interested in greed and power” than making changes to the country. In a broadside at Starmer’s leadership, Duffield told the BBC she was Labour “in my heart and soul” but said the scandal over senior party figures’ acceptance of donations and gifts including clothes was indefensible given the party was keeping the two-child benefit cap and had cut the winter fuel allowance for all but the poorest pensioners... Duffield has also been a high-profile gender-critical voice in the party which has put her at odds with trans rights activists. She has described receiving threats over her stance and receiving little support from the party leadership... Referencing the controversial donations to Starmer from Lord Alli, Duffield wrote in her resignation letter published on Sunday: “Someone with far-above-average wealth choosing to keep the Conservatives’ two-child limit to benefit payments which entrenches children in poverty, while inexplicably accepting expensive personal gifts of designer suits and glasses costing more than most of those people can grasp – this is entirely undeserving of holding the title of Labour prime minister.” She said Starmer “never regularly engaged” with backbench MPs and lacked “basic politics and political instincts”. She also criticised the promotion of new MPs with “no proven political skills and no previous parliamentary experience” and said Starmer himself had been “elevated immediately to a shadow cabinet position without following the usual path of honing your political skills on the backbenches”."
Sunak's government more popular than Labour, poll reveals | The Spectator - "more people prefer Sunak’s government to Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour lot, according to polling by More in Common. In yet another blow for Starmer, the survey found the new government was less popular than Sunak’s by two points, with the current Prime Minister not yet being three months into the job. It’s hardly the best start… More in Common quizzed 2,080 people on their thoughts on the governments of late. 31 per cent preferred Sunak’s boys in blue, with 29 per cent logging their support for Sir Keir. It follows Starmer’s rather bumpy ride in the top job, with his time as PM marred by accusations of cronyism, a freebie fiasco with considerable questions remaining about Labour donor Lord Alli, and backlash to unpopular policies like imposing VAT on private schools and cutting the winter fuel payment. In more bad news for Starmer, his personal approval rating has fallen, More in Common finds, by 38 points since his party won the election – down to -27 per cent. While the Prime Minister hasn’t even enjoyed his first 100 days in power, already barely a fifth of voters believe his party can win the next national poll, with a third of Labour voters lamenting their support for the Starmtroopers."