Labour Watch

[faldO]

Welsh First Minister Vaughan Gething quits after less than four months in job

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cleyl8ln66et

[Currywurst and Chips]

Daddy Keir nationalising the railways

Bit of red meat for the reds

[faldO]

Labour suspends 7 of its MPs for wanting to reduce child poverty.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c978m6z3egno

[Friend or fart]

Quite right. Why should we subsidise feckless families who have loads of kids. Contraception is easy & free. Plenty of families have large amount of kids and can't really handle one kid.

[Hoover Attack]

Labour suspends 7 of its MPs for wanting to reduce child poverty.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c978m6z3egno

There was only 7 ? WTF? Labour is over.

[Proposition Joe]

Quite right. Why should we subsidise feckless families who have loads of kids. Contraception is easy & free. Plenty of families have large amount of kids and can't really handle one kid.

Always fun how people bemoan the falling birthrate and wonder why people aren't having kids - or are having them later - while simultaneously treating those who do choose to become parents like absolute scum. Idiot.

[E10EU]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ar ... or-starmer


Brilliant comment from John McDonnell, that he did what Starmer claimed his 'changed Labour' would do, namely "put country before Party".
There were a large number of abstentions on the Labour side, clearly not happy about Starmer's stance but not standing up for their true beliefs.

BIG mistake from Starmer tonight.

[Hoover Attack]

Quite right. Why should we subsidise feckless families who have loads of kids. Contraception is easy & free. Plenty of families have large amount of kids and can't really handle one kid.

Always fun how people bemoan the falling birthrate and wonder why people aren't having kids - or are having them later - while simultaneously treating those who do choose to become parents like absolute scum. Idiot.

It’s not even really about the parents. It’s about the kids who had no say in the size of the family they were born into .

[Dunners]

It was a nonsense performative motion from the SNP before the autumn budget. Thankfully, only 7 Labour MP were either stupid enough to fall for it or cynical enough to use it as an opportunity for attention-grabbing theatrics. Obviously, this won't stop them bleating about the predictable consequences of their actions.

Anyone seriously interested in reducing child poverty understands that the scrapping of the cap will need to happen in conjunction with a reset in tax policies. And this can only happen through the autumn budget. That'll be the time to celebrate or protest, depending on what it contains.

[Friend or fart]

PJ you seem like a really nice guy, insulting people you don't agree with. It doesn't exactly seem the best way to get people on your side. Still I don't suppose Trolls bother about that.

[Proposition Joe]

But weird for you to get prescious about insults when you described anyone having more than 2 children as "feckless". If you can't take it back when people make assumptions about you, maybe you shouldn't dish it out and could be a bit more considerate before making silly sweeping statements?

[Dunners]

Anyone who doesn't understand the need for our society to incentivise people to have lots of kids, and not punish them, must either be thick or want communism.

[Friend or fart]

PJ you obviously can't read properly. I said feckless families that have loadsa kids. I didn't say it was feckless to have loadsa kids. That's quite a difference innit? People who can have large families & afford it, that's up to them. Although as an island we are grossly overpopulated & we don't have the resources to meet our needs. The feckless family bit, is self perpetuating; they have a lot of kids, obviously badly brought up. Their children repeat the cycle. Our resources would be better served by: education and breaking the cycle.

[Proposition Joe]

I can read very well, thank you. Perhaps you need to learn how to express yourself more clearly.

[Max B Gold]

It was a nonsense performative motion from the SNP before the autumn budget. Thankfully, only 7 Labour MP were either stupid enough to fall for it or cynical enough to use it as an opportunity for attention-grabbing theatrics. Obviously, this won't stop them bleating about the predictable consequences of their actions.

Anyone seriously interested in reducing child poverty understands that the scrapping of the cap will need to happen in conjunction with a reset in tax policies. And this can only happen through the autumn budget. That'll be the time to celebrate or protest, depending on what it contains.

Yes any measures need to be attached to a budget and not a legislative programme. You and I know that but that's not what everyone else sees. So to that extent the performative aspect was success.

All Labour had to do was go along with the performance and accept the amendment and their stock rises in the eyes of the core voters, many of them didn't vote for them at the election.

By announcing a clear commitment to fight child poverty they would at least be back on the Blairite/Brownite path. The fact that they didn't is a real concern for a party founded to fight for social justice.

Please don't tell me there is no money to remove the cap because there seems to be plenty for perpetual wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukrainia and Israel and for nuclear weapons we're never going to use.

[Max B Gold]

Where Labour should be on this issue. A principled MP explains:

[Dunners]

It was a nonsense performative motion from the SNP before the autumn budget. Thankfully, only 7 Labour MP were either stupid enough to fall for it or cynical enough to use it as an opportunity for attention-grabbing theatrics. Obviously, this won't stop them bleating about the predictable consequences of their actions.

Anyone seriously interested in reducing child poverty understands that the scrapping of the cap will need to happen in conjunction with a reset in tax policies. And this can only happen through the autumn budget. That'll be the time to celebrate or protest, depending on what it contains.

Yes any measures need to be attached to a budget and not a legislative programme. You and I know that but that's not what everyone else sees. So to that extent the performative aspect was success.

All Labour had to do was go along with the performance and accept the amendment and their stock rises in the eyes of the core voters, many of them didn't vote for them at the election.

By announcing a clear commitment to fight child poverty they would at least be back on the Blairite/Brownite path. The fact that they didn't is a real concern for a party founded to fight for social justice.

Please don't tell me there is no money to remove the cap because there seems to be plenty for perpetual wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukrainia and Israel and for nuclear weapons we're never going to use.

Ending child poverty is a priority. Scrapping the 2CL doesn't, by itself, achieve this (I'm happy for it to be scrapped, BTW). Instead, it will require a serious longer-term approach that will almost certainly require increases in taxation somewhere (or a reduction in spending elsewhere, such as military). Yes, there is enough money.

By framing everything around the 2CL they risk enabling a narrative that it is the be all and end all. A cynical government/client media could then say, "fair enough, the 2CL is scrapped - job done". Only the job wouldn't be done.

Also, this framing of these seven MPs being the ones of principle (and therefore, the others not being of principle) is just wrong. This was the first Labour King's speech in 14 years, so of course it was going to be voted through as normal parliamentary procedure. The seven gobsh*tes have now spent their political capital and will struggle to effectively lobby other Labour MPs in the future when it may really matter.

And, Labour are making a clear commitment towards dealing with child poverty without the need to play these stupid games (i.e. the re-establishment of the child poverty unit, the ministerial taskforce etc). But it's never going to be quick or appease the crank reactionaries. To expect otherwise is to underestimate just how broken things are.

[Dunners]

This guy is hilarious.

[Long slender neck]

Thing is, I believe most people agree with the cap, even commenters on The Guardian agree with it. How else do you deal with folk who pump out kids for a living?

[Dunners]

It's a perception thing. It is all too easy for a Government to point to an image of some scrounging immigrant mother with 14 kids all wearing the latest trainers and with smartphones as a cause for stagnating wages and rising wealth inequality. But it's a total distraction.

The 2CL has zero immediate impact on public finances - none of us enjoy increased riches through its introduction.

There are studies that show it probably will have a longer-term negative impact on public finances however, as other areas of society pick up the slack for an increased proportion of the population growing up through poverty.

As a society we desperately need more children. Our average fertility rate is currently estimated at 1.4 per woman, and on trend to hit almost 1.0 by the end of this decade. At that rate, every generational cohort will half in size, which will have a massive impact on how a society can function (if at all).

If we don't have more children, then we must either rely even more on mass immigration (which voters also seem to not like) or adopt a totally different socio-economic system on which to structure our society (and the last bloke who offered us even a sniff of a difference got rejected by the electorate. Twice).

It doesn't punish the feckless parent. It punishes the children.

Removing the 2LC will not make you or I poorer. But, so long as it is combined with a proper plan for reducing child poverty, it could mean we end up with a healthier, better educated and more stable younger generation below us, who we will rely on to wipe our backsides and pay taxes into whatever remains of the nation state when we're old and decrepit.

[StillSpike]

It's a perception thing. It is all too easy for a Government to point to an image of some scrounging immigrant mother with 14 kids all wearing the latest trainers and with smartphones as a cause for stagnating wages and rising wealth inequality. But it's a total distraction.

The 2CL has zero immediate impact on public finances - none of us enjoy increased riches through its introduction.

There are studies that show it probably will have a longer-term negative impact on public finances however, as other areas of society pick up the slack for an increased proportion of the population growing up through poverty.

As a society we desperately need more children. Our average fertility rate is currently estimated at 1.4 per woman, and on trend to hit almost 1.0 by the end of this decade. At that rate, every generational cohort will half in size, which will have a massive impact on how a society can function (if at all).

If we don't have more children, then we must either rely even more on mass immigration (which voters also seem to not like) or adopt a totally different socio-economic system on which to structure our society (and the last bloke who offered us even a sniff of a difference got rejected by the electorate. Twice).

It doesn't punish the feckless parent. It punishes the children.

Removing the 2LC will not make you or I poorer. But, so long as it is combined with a proper plan for reducing child poverty, it could mean we end up with a healthier, better educated and more stable younger generation below us, who we will rely on to wipe our backsides and pay taxes into whatever remains of the nation state when we're old and decrepit.

I'm not sure it's that those who agree with the cap do so because they see it as impoverishing them. I suspect that they agree with it because they believe that women are "spurting out babies just for the benefits" and they don't think someone deserves money just for opening their legs.

The Great British "they don't deserve that" mindset - don't you love it?. We're utterly f*cked (and won't even get paid for it!)

It's always hilarious when people complain about how easy and wonderful a life "others" are having on benefits / in prison / in asylum hotels - when they could quite easily place themselves in the same boat (maybe not the asylum hotels) if it's such a great life. They never do.

[Currywurst and Chips]

Surely the compromise is to the raise it from 2 to 4?

Then you encourage families to be double the replacement rate but root out the pisstakers

[Long slender neck]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4ng572nnvwo

It would cost £3bn a year to remove it.

We're certainly doomed as this country will never like measures to encourage people to have more kids.

[FrankOFile]

If people want to have multiple kids they need to be able to afford their upkeep. To say society should support them is simply madness.

[Currywurst and Chips]

Oh no! Things are worse than we thought so now we’ve got no choice but to put up tax

https://www.thetimes.com/article/62afef ... 67ed6555de