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[Politics] The Labour Government
- Thread starter Super Steve Earle
- Start date
The same thing but handicap is an out of date term ( like spastic) considered to be derogatory or offensive now. But if you are of a certain age and didn’t know that then no problem, just try not to use it again
darkwolf666
Well-known member
Empathy, that's the difference - the very reason we no longer call people spastics!
darkwolf666
Well-known member
I tried, but I think she had her fingers in her ears, or was talking about curtains or laminate flooring or some such
Cotton Socks
Skint Supporter
- Feb 20, 2017
- 2,527
You make a very good point but my post was written to dispel 'myths' that MH can't be debilitating as some have alluded to.
darkwolf666
Well-known member
- Jan 25, 2025
- 889
I’m confused, was this time last year too much, too soon?
Just two ways of describing the same thing then. But you took the holier than thou attitude, well done.
darkwolf666
Well-known member
If that’s the way you see it then THAT clearly is your problem! There were lots of words, like spastic, mongrel, etc., that holier than thou people no longer use - here’s a handy guide for your reading pleasure!
Goldstone Guy
Well-known member
On the HMRC website (www.gov.uk) you can see where government spending goes. In 23/24 it was as follows:
Welfare 21.6%
Health 20.2%
Pensions 11.4%
National debt interest 11.1%
Education 10.2%
Defence 5.2%
Public order and safety 4.4%
Transport 4.2%
Business and Industry 4.2%
Government admin 2.1%
Housing and utilities 1.8%
Environment 1.4%
Culture 1.2%
Overseas aid 0.7%
Outstanding EU payment 0.6%
That can't be sustainable in the long-term. The first thing we should be doing in my opinion is reducing the national debt so that 11.1% gets as close to zero as possible (will probably take decades though). We have to spend less on welfare and probably health.
Like everyone else I hate what Putin is doing. However perhaps one positive which might come from the Russia Ukraine war is that we (the UK) realise we need to get the country in order, being able to compete and defend ourselves globally, because Russia are doing what they're doing, and China are taking over all the world's important resources (rare earth metals) as far as I can tell. What they'll do after that I don't know, but I don't think they've forgotten the opium wars.
What Labour are doing is for the good of the country in my opinion. I get that that's probably not a popular opinion on here, but look at the numbers - what are they supposed to do instead? It looks like it's going to make them (Labour) unpopular but going ahead with the changes despite this is what a good government should be doing. There's quite a few things Labour have done that I don't like but not this. The difference with the Conservative austerity aura is that the national debt went up a lot from 2010 to 2020 and then of course from 2020 to 2023/24 with COVID it went up even more, as would be expected, but it would have been less without the corrupt PPE deals etc.
Uncle Spielberg
Well-known member
Shocking net borrowing figures for feb over £ 10 billion. This is very rapidly turning into an utter disaster under Reeves
A non party political point, more to counter media sh1t against all incumbent governments. Public sector net borrowing was £10.8b in Feb 23, £10.6b in Feb 24 and £10.7b in Feb 25. Why do journalists not reference useful facts such as these to put things in perspective? Because it‘d ruin a good story.
Greenbag50
Well-known member
- Jun 1, 2016
- 573
We have to pay our national credit card debt, which is huge.
Our debt as a country is 100% of our GDP. That means we owe more than our entire national output.
Not good. This is not party political, this is a country defining, future of UK issue.
We are borrowing 10bn a month to pay the interest on just our debt payments.
We are broke as a country.
We have zero growth as a country
We are taxing businesses more to employ people. We are taxing people who employ people more to employ people. This does not encourage businesses to employ to grow their business. Businesses are not hiring, business confidence is the lowest since 2019.
We have to get people off benefits and into work where they are productive and paying taxes, which fund our public services.
People not working do not add to a countries wealth. They add to its debt.
Our debt as a country is 100% of our GDP. That means we owe more than our entire national output.
Not good. This is not party political, this is a country defining, future of UK issue.
We are borrowing 10bn a month to pay the interest on just our debt payments.
We are broke as a country.
We have zero growth as a country
We are taxing businesses more to employ people. We are taxing people who employ people more to employ people. This does not encourage businesses to employ to grow their business. Businesses are not hiring, business confidence is the lowest since 2019.
We have to get people off benefits and into work where they are productive and paying taxes, which fund our public services.
People not working do not add to a countries wealth. They add to its debt.
chip
Well-known member
If the country was a house, we could borrow more than three times that. Spain, Belgium, Italy & France around the same, 124% in USA.
rogersix
Well-known member
- Jan 18, 2014
- 8,348
That's what 14 years of austerity does, you know. Do you now realise what you've done voting tory?
sussex_guy2k2
Well-known member
- Jun 6, 2014
- 4,878
These have been issues for years. They were issues the moment the Tories brought us austerity, they got worse when they brought us Brexit, and they got even worse when COVID and this war happened.
Also, just as a fun historical fact, the debt tends to go up much more when we have Tory govts than Labour ones… contrary to popular belief. Yet we, as a country, keep voting for them…
Greenbag50
Well-known member
- Jun 1, 2016
- 573
Politically, as soon as the stories mention cuts, it’s the same old nasty tories as well as the word growth, it’s taken as rich getting richer etc, reduce tax to rich.
Labour have the political cover to reduce costs and take on unions ion but conversely can’t as they massively funded by them.
So unless someone in any party and I don’t care who it is, grasps these 2 things, reduce spending and encourage growth within the private sector, we will continue down this road of zero growth and high indebtedness. I don’t see Labour moving the dial in next 4 years, so it will get a lot worse.
And BTW, we are already in recession, just haven’t got the figures yet.
Today’s news:
Milliband will overturn measures that would ban slave labour from being involved (eg manufacture of solar panels in China) in our drive to net zero.
Angela Raynor has postponed the £3.4b ‘cladding tax’ (Building Safety Levy introduced by Gove post Grenfell).
Reeves to scrap the £800M tax on US tech companies (eg Amazon) a matter of days before every UK employer will be hit by the increase in NI rates and thresholds.
Rachel Reeves still under fire for taking freebies (don’t really care about this but…)
Can you imagine if just ONE of the above was happening under the Tories?!
Milliband will overturn measures that would ban slave labour from being involved (eg manufacture of solar panels in China) in our drive to net zero.
Angela Raynor has postponed the £3.4b ‘cladding tax’ (Building Safety Levy introduced by Gove post Grenfell).
Reeves to scrap the £800M tax on US tech companies (eg Amazon) a matter of days before every UK employer will be hit by the increase in NI rates and thresholds.
Rachel Reeves still under fire for taking freebies (don’t really care about this but…)
Can you imagine if just ONE of the above was happening under the Tories?!
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Mellor 3 Ward 4
Well-known member
- Jul 17, 2003
- 20,826