The Labour Government

Think we're going to get a Tory lite budget which will again hit hard on the higher working class (does that still exist?), lower middle class and people on pensions, both OCC-PENS and OAP's.

It'll not be pretty though no matter what she does as the country seems to want want want but nobody wants to pay for it.

Off out for a drink this afternoon, will pick up the bad news tonight.
 
meltonblue said:
No it’s still separate. He meant living wage as in the minimum wage above 21.

The real living wage is £13.45, £14.80 in London.
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The Living Wage Foundation calculate what they think is a "living wage":

The real Living Wage remains the only UK Wage rate calculated on the real cost of living. It is voluntarily paid by over 16,000 UK businesses who have chosen to transform millions of people’s lives and raise the bar for what decent work looks like in the UK.

Nearly half a million employees have received a pay rise as a result of the Living Wage campaign, and we enjoy cross-party support. We have a broad range of employers accredited with the Foundation including half of the FTSE 100 and big household names including Nationwide, Ikea, Everton FC and Aviva, as well as thousands of SMEs.

The Living Wage rates for 2025-26 were announced on the 22nd October. Employers now have 6 months to implement them by May 1st 2026.

In response to the Campaign, the Tories just renamed the Minimum Wage as the Living Wage (renamed but not recalculated). Labour hasn't changed that, but has put it up by 11% over two years, and reduced the age for it fromn 23 to 21. For under 21s, it's still called the Minimum Wage. And some businesses hate it. And the Telegraoph etc...
 
hilts said:
Mass mobilisation is impossible in this country we are too divided and therefore can't even agree what we would be mobilising against.
My only hope and its a long shot is that enough supporters and politicians from the libs greens and the Labour back benches can come together to fight off this current cabinet and reform.
It can only start with Labour back benchers and members fucking off Starmer and his ilk.
I have a feeling though that come the next election we will have parties coming out with all sorts of fantasy crap to scrape a win or enough support to form a coalition.
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Obviously at the moment we are hopelessly divided but that doesn't have to be the case. A mass movement doesn't start as a mass movement. It took two decades after the introduction of the Combination Act for it to be repealed and during that time most people would have suggested that organised labour making a difference to ordinary people's lives was nothing more than a pipe dream but eventually it happened. I think we're back in very similar times albeit with the clock ticking much faster and it's going to take the same level of tenacity and sacrifice to wrest control from the modern equivalent of the dark satanic mill owners. The alternative unifying force is a cataclysmic event that makes us realise how messed up things have become and tbh if I had to guess which of the two would come first it is the latter. Doesn't mean we shouldn't try for the former.
 
Vic said:
The Living Wage Foundation calculate what they think is a "living wage":

The real Living Wage remains the only UK Wage rate calculated on the real cost of living. It is voluntarily paid by over 16,000 UK businesses who have chosen to transform millions of people’s lives and raise the bar for what decent work looks like in the UK.

Nearly half a million employees have received a pay rise as a result of the Living Wage campaign, and we enjoy cross-party support. We have a broad range of employers accredited with the Foundation including half of the FTSE 100 and big household names including Nationwide, Ikea, Everton FC and Aviva, as well as thousands of SMEs.

The Living Wage rates for 2025-26 were announced on the 22nd October. Employers now have 6 months to implement them by May 1st 2026.

In response to the Campaign, the Tories just renamed the Minimum Wage as the Living Wage (renamed but not recalculated). Labour hasn't changed that, but has put it up by 11% over two years, and reduced the age for it fromn 23 to 21. For under 21s, it's still called the Minimum Wage. And some businesses hate it. And the Telegraoph etc...
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The real living wage and the (fake) living wage, bad idea from the tories to rename it.
Its not really a great look.....

We will raise the living wage to a figure you can't live on.

Only in the UK :-)
 
The Labour party want to please as many of us as they can , But it's not going to work, however, legalise "Weed"(I'm not a user or advocate of it either) However, the revenue in tax from it would be massive and the amount of public and.police resources to manage it at present would be removed meaning public services might improve.
 
threespires said:
Obviously at the moment we are hopelessly divided but that doesn't have to be the case. A mass movement doesn't start as a mass movement. It took two decades after the introduction of the Combination Act for it to be repealed and during that time most people would have suggested that organised labour making a difference to ordinary people's lives was nothing more than a pipe dream but eventually it happened. I think we're back in very similar times albeit with the clock ticking much faster and it's going to take the same level of tenacity and sacrifice to wrest control from the modern equivalent of the dark satanic mill owners. The alternative unifying force is a cataclysmic event that makes us realise how messed up things have become and tbh if I had to guess which of the two would come first it is the latter. Doesn't mean we shouldn't try for the former.
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The labour movement was a reaction to more straightforward times, the haves and the have nots, like centuries past when the peasants revolted against the wealthy elite. As a society there is no longer 2 main groups of people.
The peasants are as likely to blame each other as the well to do's and plenty are happy to hang on to what they have.

You used to go into the polling station with a pretty straightforward choice between blue and red. That is no longer the case. Its why the polls look like they do.
 
dooie68 said:
The Labour party want to please as many of us as they can , But it's not going to work, however, legalise "Weed"(I'm not a user or advocate of it either) However, the revenue in tax from it would be massive and the amount of public and.police resources to manage it at present would be removed meaning public services might improve.
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It didn't work in Thailand where they have just criminalised it again after about 4 years.
 
dooie68 said:
The Labour party want to please as many of us as they can , But it's not going to work, however, legalise "Weed"(I'm not a user or advocate of it either) However, the revenue in tax from it would be massive and the amount of public and.police resources to manage it at present would be removed meaning public services might improve.
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You really want to see people driving cars or operating machinery having taken cannabis - stupid idea
 
mosssideblue said:
You really want to see people driving cars or operating machinery having taken cannabis - stupid idea
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Of course not, it's treated as Alcohol,we frown upon drinking and driving,and weed in the system is the same. All I'm suggesting is the current climate of poor public services, none at f us want to pay more tax for service's and by managing the sale of weed and taxing it would bring a revenue to any political party who do it.
 
hampshireblue said:
I agree with your last paragraph and levelling up the tax relief would be a good idea to say, 25-30%. That helps the lower paid without being a major disincentive to save into a pension.

My main point is that wherever you put the starting point and whatever rate you choose for taxing a large pot, the fact remains that the very/reasonably wealthy (if you consider someone with say £4m in their pension wealthy) accrue additional wealth and potentially that remains completely outside the tax regime until it is drawn down which could be decades.
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I do agree horded wealth is an issue. Freeing that up is complicated so kudos for having an idea on one way to address it.
 
hilts said:
The labour movement was a reaction to more straightforward times, the haves and the have nots, like centuries past when the peasants revolted against the wealthy elite. As a society there is no longer 2 main groups of people.
The peasants are as likely to blame each other as the well to do's and plenty are happy to hang on to what they have.

You used to go into the polling station with a pretty straightforward choice between blue and red. That is no longer the case. Its why the polls look like they do.
Click to expand...

Plenty of parallels between then and now. Divide and conquer tactics from the wealthy elite. Self-stratification and in fighting by working people, often based around specific trades seeing themselves as better than others. Big identity divisions between people from rural vs urban backgrounds. Philanthropy by elites offered up as a better model than government doing the job. Plenty of deliberately fermented racism and xenophobia. Bloody Irish navvies coming over here taking our jobs and bringing their religion with them too; fleeing from starvation my arse they're all just economic migrants.

As for the idea that there are not two main groups of people, I think we're increasingly returning to that it's just not recognised to be the case by enough people yet and some that do recognise it have had their heads turned by charlatans.

The labour movements didn't easily coalesce and rise up, plenty of false starts, failed attempts and decades of work. The biggest problematic difference between then and now imo is the rate of pace of charge. We don't have decades for us to get our shit in a pile
 
threespires said:
Plenty of parallels between then and now. Divide and conquer tactics from the wealthy elite. Self-stratification and in fighting by working people, often based around specific trades seeing themselves as better than others. Big identity divisions between people from rural vs urban backgrounds. Philanthropy by elites offered up as a better model than government doing the job. Plenty of deliberately fermented racism and xenophobia. Bloody Irish navvies coming over here taking our jobs and bringing their religion with them too; fleeing from starvation my arse they're all just economic migrants.

As for the idea that there are not two main groups of people, I think we're increasingly returning to that it's just not recognised to be the case by enough people yet and some that do recognise it have had their heads turned by charlatans.

The labour movements didn't easily coalesce and rise up, plenty of false starts, failed attempts and decades of work. The biggest problematic difference between then and now imo is the rate of pace of charge. We don't have decades for us to get our shit in a pile
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We shall see fella.
 
dooie68 said:
Of course not, it's treated as Alcohol,we frown upon drinking and driving,and weed in the system is the same. All I'm suggesting is the current climate of poor public services, none at f us want to pay more tax for service's and by managing the sale of weed and taxing it would bring a revenue to any political party who do it.
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Not sure where you get that from
 
hilts said:
We shall see fella.
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Barring someone or something appearing out of left field, I don't doubt that the next election will pan out pretty much along the lines you said. My original point was simply that unless and until a radical alternative grips enough people we'll continue to circle the plug hole.
 
dooie68 said:
Of course not, it's treated as Alcohol,we frown upon drinking and driving,and weed in the system is the same. All I'm suggesting is the current climate of poor public services, none at f us want to pay more tax for service's and by managing the sale of weed and taxing it would bring a revenue to any political party who do it.
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The problem is legalising a substance that most employers would then have to ban its' employees from taking. My old job involved random testing for drugs and alcohol as it a safety critical role. Even hair samples could be taken to see if drugs had been taken in the last 30 days(that's where it remains the longest in the system).

It could be a good revenue stream for a government but a real problem for employers and wider society.
 
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