Things Can Only Get Better?

I see Starmer let the car out of the bag yesterday. He said that he would not raise taxes on "working people" who he went on to define them during a radio interview.

"Sir Keir was asked what he meant by working people.“People who earn their living, rely on our [public] services and don’t really have the ability to write a cheque when they get into trouble,” he told LBC. “So the sort of people I’m meeting pretty well every day now. It’s quite a big group because these days there are many people obviously not so well off.” "

So there you have it. Had the audacity to save a bit? Well we're coming for you.

I’m looking at bookmakers and a few have hung parliament odds not as remote as they might be.

Labour have a few real issues with both their target and traditional voters.

Their target voters, as per above, are not all peasants crawling through the bins to lick the inside of the bean can out for nourishment. There simply aren’t enough of those so in trying to find the middle ground they need to attract people who …. er …. work. But these people also have money, which they want to tax off of them so that they can be closer to the bean can lickers in terms of spending capability. There are an awful lot of these people. They are disillusioned with their blue MPs but they remain quite attached to their earned assets, liquid or otherwise.

Between their target voters and their traditional voters they have an issue with image. Their traditional voters don’t like Starmer and his very obvious lower middle class background, his knighthood and his emanation from Surrey, land of the true blue Tory. Their target voters don’t like gobby northern and midlander wimmin talking about being poor, when they are of an age where the definition of “poor” is not having cable TV or Nike Air trainers.

Then there are their traditional voters. The Labour Party policy makers and vote chasers think that because they think all kinds of left-wing, inclusive, tolerant nonsense, all their traditional voters must do so too. However (and I’ve said it before) the Brexit and the Boris election showed us quite clearly that they do not. Old fashioned Labour voters from Labour constituencies are almost the definition of conservative with a slight smaller C. They wanted their industries to continue forever so their kids and grandkids could lead the same lives they did; they wanted the locals to stay looking like them because that’s how it is pictured on their chocolate boxes; they want their football players to look the same as they did in the 1950s; they want their corner shops to be owned and run by Arkwright, not Patel and certainly not Shah. The policies espoused by Labour just don’t match traditional Labour voters, apart from the tax-the-better-off bit, but even then they don’t want it given to fuzzy wuzzies.

So the polls are clear cut on a Labour landslide, but that could be the point at a Tory collapse (which is inevitable) with a very mixed parliament. I’d rather a completely ineffective government for half a decade to be honest.

As I read somewhere, support for Labour is like a mile wide river, that is only an inch deep. It appears impossible to cross, but actually isn't. 

Labour certainly don’t have my vote. I don’t trust them on tax at all and as someone who already pays a sky-high rate of tax, I’m not clear why I should be asked to pay any more. But I am sure I would be because people like me are a soft target.

What's the alternative though?

Selfishly I should vote for the Tories - I like cars and I think I pay enough tax already.

However, its obvious that even if the Tories magicked up a win Sunak isn't going to be leader by Christmas (assuming they lose I think he'll be gone by Sunday).
They're going to end up with someone awful like Braverman and I can't stand the thought of one of that ilk being PM.

Plus if things remain at the Status Quo it appears we're either going to have to accept a fall in services, increased taxation or cross everything and hope for growth.

I'm quite depressed really.

Pensions are an area of concern to me.
The rumours are that Labour intend to stop the tax free transfer of the balance remaining in a personal pension to the surviving spouse (or on 2nd death to children). What they fail to recognise is that those who have personal pension schemes have largely contributed without any help from an employer and don't have the luxury of a widows pension after death. This means it is extremely important in many cases that the wife gets to benefit from the balance remaining in the husband's pension after his death. If the pension fund gets included in the value of the estate it could face a 40% charge.

Strange how they fail to recognise that doctors, teachers and others in the public sector including MP's have a scheme which pays a widows benefit until the widow dies, with no tax charge on the couple.

Typical Politicians - they have no idea about the practical issues they cause and they have no idea about fairness.

Tax rates are already too high and the creation of cliff edge taxes (loss of personal allowances and Child Allowance) under the Conservative/LibDem coalition has created serious problems for the economy - I know doctors who have deliberately cut their hours and won't do extra shifts so that they stay below £100K and I golf with a lorry driver who similarly won't do extra shifts or overtime because it would take him in to higher rate tax (which in Scotland starts at £43,662 and is effectively 50% up to £50,240 because both tax and NI apply. After that it is effectively 44%). I won't tell you where he thinks they can stick any tax rate that gets even remotely close to 50%!

We have already lost 2 doctors to Canada, one to Australia (and another 2 talking about it) plus one to NZ in the past year or so.

 

Australia has always been like that AFAIK.

I've voted. Was tempted to spoil my ballot, but that's a bit of a cop out.

Held my nose and voted yellow. Can't bring myself to vote for Reform and the Tories need to be finished in their current guise.

I think we have two terms of Labour to look forward to so will just have to suck it up. I'm concerned for my business as I will be seen to be a nasty Landlord that needs punishing.

I knew the Conservatives were in for a walloping but if the exit poll is in anyway accurate (and it looks like it is) it's been an absolute hammering. Never mind making it to Sunday, Rishi will be lucky if he's still leader by breakfast.

I'm not at all enamoured by the idea of the Labour government, especially as I edge closer to the upper tax brackets, and nor will the many independent schools who are customers of mine and have been dreading the VAT set to be levied on their fees. With a majority of 150+ seats I really do worry that they'll be able to do whatever they want.

I'm glad to see the SNP getting a good kicking.

Indeed.

Labour has been lucky, just as Boris was. Reform took fully 14% (thank God we don't have PR here - I'm already horrified by the thought of having to put up with the ghastly Farage as an MP) and the SNP collapsed.

For example, here in Chelsea & Fulham, the Labour candidate won by just 152 seats, while Reform hoovered up some 3,000 votes.

That said, Labour also suffered from the left's exquisite talent for trying to eat itself, in this case over Palestine. Starmer's majority was halved, Wes Streeting came within 500 votes of being cast out and Jonathan Ashworth and others did lose their seats. Oh and Grandpa Semtex was re-elected.

Truly we have an electorate which is suffering from a surfeit of ideology.

I agree it's a shame about Penny Mordaunt, for the same reason.

I'm trying not to feel too depressed but it is hard. As a retired private pension, land and property and investment owning, white heterosexual, gender-definitive married couple, we're pretty much going to be front and central for a total financial fucking. It's inevitable.

If Laura Kuenssberg could stop having on-air orgasms over the Tories defeat, she might notice that labour under Starmer, a man who seems to be lacking in every aspect of what makes someone a decent human being let alone a PM, got fewer votes than Labour under dangerous, terrorist supporting, Jew hating, anti-Semite Jeremy Corbyn.

To my mind, the Tories lost, Labour didn't win. They just happened to be in the right place at the right time to benefit. The only silver lining was that Truss didn't get re-elected.

I think support for all parties is now very fickle.

With a sub 35% share of the vote giving such a large majority, I think that the clamour to change the electoral system will grow. Of course Labour can and will ignore it, which will only lead to more malcontent with the political establishment.

Indeed the Conservatives lost it, that was my first thought on reviewng the stats. My second, was how incredible it is that Labour has won less than 2% more of the total vote, after all that has happened, and the long portrayal of them as doing so incredibly well. Sub 2%. I guess more centrist people have joined the fold, and all the hard lefties and terrorist sympathisers have gone elsewhere. But its still astonishing that a centrist candidate with supposedly broad appeal, has won only <2% more than a career nutjob protester with terrorists and dictators as friends.

FPP the post is a funny one, I don't dislike it, but it can be fickle - suddenly the Lid Dems are big gainers, Reform UK and the SNP big losers.

After 25 years of living in seats where the Lib Dems put placards everywhere saying "we're winning here", they have actually won. So they're really honest as well then.... about 20% of the time.

I look forward to the honeymoon being over, and the real world catching up with Mr Starmer et al. And the dodgy fringes of his party feeling emboldened by the size of the majority, which they absolutely will not consider was the result of 20% of the electorate voting for them. Any more than The Conservatives will truly learn the lessons in a hurry (I'm another that would like to see a decent, non-rich, human with morals - like Penny Mordaunt - lead them now).