I might keep doing this every time Labour do anything (unless they do something really Tory, of course).
London-based writer. Often climbing.
I might keep doing this every time Labour do anything (unless they do something really Tory, of course).
Odd, as I had been told Labour were the same as the Tories, yet this seems quite different! Much to consider.
This is from the manifesto, published after both those articles. It’s the most up-to-date information we have on Labour’s plans.
Don’t know about the first, but the second two are definitely part of their plans. Fingers crossed the plans translate into reality!
They’re hoping to do that, too! A cash injection for the NHS and planning reform, so more houses can get built more quickly, are both in the plan for the first 100 days. I imagine the planning reform will be in the King’s Speech, but the NHS thing should be able to happen pretty quickly. If not, it will be in the first budget.
From the manifesto:
banning exploitative zero hours contracts; ending fire and rehire; and introducing basic rights from day one to parental leave, sick pay, and protection from unfair dismissal. We will strengthen the collective voice of workers, including through their trade unions, and create a Single Enforcement Body to ensure employment rights are upheld. These changes will improve the lives of working people across the entire UK.
Labour will also make sure the minimum wage is a genuine living wage. We will change the remit of the independent Low Pay Commission so for the first time it accounts for the cost of living. Labour will also remove the discriminatory age bands, so all adults are entitled to the same minimum wage, delivering a pay rise to hundreds of thousands of workers across the UK.
Labour’s two headline policies are:
The green investment will be the biggest in the country’s history and the workers’ rights expansion will be the biggest in decades. Now, for me, those are two necessary, excellent, leftwing policies.
I think people criticising them from the left are mainly criticising omissions: why no wealth taxes? Why not nationalise the water companies? And that’s fair enough. Labour could do more and I hope they will. But the platform is a leftwing one, and I’m happy with it, even if it could always be more leftwing.
Starmer will say he hates dogs, I reckon.
People (in this very thread, so not strawmen!) mischaracterising using any private companies in delivery as taking the NHS out of public hands was exactly the argument that he was responding to.
He is indeed part of the same phenomenon as known misogynistic rapist and people trafficker, Andrew Tate.
Funny how Farage is suddenly okay with people trafficking, though.
I’m canvassing for Labour all morning, voting in the afternoon, seeing Arcade Fire in the evening. So, it’s going to be a good day!
Private healthcare doesn’t come into it. It’s about people who don’t regularly interact with the health service, which is most of us, having stronger opinions about how healthcare is delivered than whether it is.
Nah. This is like the Lib Dems becoming the Official Opposition. Would be great. Not gonna happen.
Average life expectancy for a 61 year-old man is 85, in which case we won’t rejoin till 2048 at the earliest.
That’s also not a fair characterisation of Streeting’s argument. It’s not that they want people to suffer, just that they’re not exposed to the consequences of the policies they’re advocating.
Always good when left wing people repeat Tory talking points.
It’s actually a good idea for him to stay on for a bit. But first, he has to hold on to his seat…
It’s not in the manifesto, which unfortunately means it certainly won’t happen, moral or not.
Wanting the NHS to refuse to use private companies, even if that might mean better outcomes, which is the actual policy and the goal, is a privileged position.
Streeting is not proposing the NHS ‘no longer be in public hands’, so whether views on that are middle class, leftwing or whatever, are not relevant.
And yet, even with all you say about the policy being true, the Tories still committed to it over multiple PMs and Home Secretaries, while Labour opposed it at every step and scrapped it at the first opportunity. This does constitute a difference between the two. And even if it’s (just) that Labour can tell when something’s unpopular, expensive, cruel and doesn’t work, that’s a positive difference.