The Labour Government

[The Light Was Yellow Sir]

Really? My mate works as a guard for Northern Rail, he's an intelligent lad who joined them in 2007 on the premise he would be given an opportunity to be a Driver. I think he's had three interviews to become a trainee driver, each time he was told he'd not got the job.

Baffling really but he's 57 now so he's given up on that ambition, he'd previously been a Pension's Manager at CIS. If they're so desperate for Drivers you'd think they would promote from within the organisation.

As I said, I know nothing about the industry, only going off empirical evidence witnessed by others.

In an effort to save cash, the TOC’s trained fewer and fewer drivers but relied on the existing drivers working their days off. Once they decided they’d like to not give up their days off, the TOC’s decided to still not train enough drivers.
As mad as it seems, once the government decided it was so wedded to privatisation that it’d pay companies not to run trains, you can sort of see the logic of not doing so. An example of the “supply and demand mantra’ biting them on the arse.
Of course, they could bring immigrants in on £9 an hour……

 

[The Light Was Yellow Sir]

Aren't there thousands of applicants per job? The biggest reason for such shortages is the train operators aren't willing to invest in training.

It's the same in aviation where we're bombarded with messaging around shortages of pilots. The truth however remains that there is certainly no shortage of candidates.

There is really a shortage of already qualified candidates as the airlines prefer to hire those over spending hundreds of thousands on training new candidates.

Same with applications for doctors and nursing. Massively oversubscribed but, because of a 5 year election cycle and, subsequently, an unwillingness to invest, we go for the cheaper, unsustainable immigration option.

 

[Blue Maverick]

I do wonder what else was in the table before they decided on the winter fuel allowance, it must’ve always been there before they got elected. I appreciate there is bigger deficit than they thought but was there nothing else before that could’ve been on the list. I think if they don’t back down (which I don’t think they will) then literally anything is on the cards, however if the don’t put some windfall taxes in the budget their tenure could be short lived. It should be seen everyone is doing their bit, personally 1p would in income tax coupled with unfreezing the personal allowance would’ve been a start but they said they wouldn’t touch them or daftly the NI reduction.

 

[Chippy_boy]

All of this backlash over a maximum of £1.3bn saved. It was an idiotic political decision by an idiotic pair of politicians, even more so than an idiotic financial one.

Now they are in a real hole. The sensible thing to do, which they may gain an atom of respect from, would be to say,

"you know what, we've only by in for 8 weeks, we're doing our best, we're trying to make changes for the better, but inevitably we will make mistakes, and on this ocassion, clealy we got this one wrong. We are not so up ourselves to be unable to admit mistakes and we are reversing this decision".

Instead, we have them just overtly LYING, trying to justify the unjustifiable. About how this £1.3bn saving is ESSENTIAL to save the economy, whilst at the same time approving giving £11bn away to foreign climate change initiatives.

No-one believes this for 1 second, and it just shows Starmer and Reeves up as being dishonest. And obviously, politically incompetent.

 

[metalblue]

There are always going to be anomalies like this around the edge of benefits.

It's truly bizarre that you care about the principle more than the people.

Ironically I'd say that was a classic politicians trick ;)

I have principles and you think I’m behaving like a politician?!???!!

 

[Chippy_boy]

BTW, if they TRULY wanted to take money from those pensioners who could afford it, whilst still protecting those on very low incomes, then they could have scrapped the WFA and simply said they are raising the state pension by £300. And then anyone well off enough to be paying income tax and NI would not receive the full amount.

Would not save as much money, but at least it would be fair.

 

[metalblue]

All of this backlash over a maximum of £1.3bn saved. It was an idiotic political decision by an idiotic pair of politicians, even more so than an idiotic financial one.

Now they are in a real hole. The sensible thing to do, which they may gain an atom of respect from, would be to say,

"you know what, we've only by in for 8 weeks, we're doing our best, we're trying to make changes for the better, but inevitably we will make mistakes, and on this ocassion, clealy we got this one wrong. We are not so up ourselves to be unable to admit mistakes and we are reversing this decision".

Instead, we have them just overtly LYING, trying to justify the unjustifiable. About how this £1.3bn saving is ESSENTIAL to save the economy, whilst at the same time approving giving £11bn away to foreign climate change initiatives.

No-one believes this for 1 second, and it just shows Starmer and Reeves up as being dishonest. And obviously, politically incompetent.

You’re right but the problem is Reeves wants to be known as the Iron Chancellor.

 

[Vic]

Train Drivers are not that skilled, £45k would be fair, my mates SIL was on £65k before the pay rise, it's not a difficult job and the training was 6 months, absolute fucking joke.

So why is there a shortage of train drivers?

(And a reminder that privatisation was a main reason for drivers' pay rates going up, as the different companies had to compete with each other for drivers.)

 

[metalblue]

Classic avoidance of a serious problem. "When the old age pension was first introduced there were twenty people working for every pensioner. In a few years, there will be only two people working to pay your pension. So pick your two carefully." Or from the EU's Ageing Report: "The old-age dependency ratio is the ratio of the old-age population to the working-age population. This ratio gives an idea about the relative shift between potential retirees and potential workers and thus of how an ageing population alters the balance between beneficiaries and contributors. From about 29% in 2010 in the EU, it rose to 36% in 2022 and would rise further to 59% in 2070, with most of the increase expected already by 2045. Put differently, the EU would go from having nearly thirty people aged 20 to 64 for every ten people aged over 65 years in 2022, to having less than twenty people by 2045."

As for the NHS, it's because of the NHS that people are living so long.

I've said before that pensioner poverty needs dealing with (including anyone who loses wfp but doesn't qualify for pension credit), but most pensioners are not poor. Average pensioner family income is £700 a week (‘pensioner family’ is either a single pensioner or a couple (married or living together) that includes at least one pensioner).

Obviously, some don't want to discuss this.

Your logic is daft. Lots of things are far more expensive than they once were. Why single out pensions? Why cut anything? Raise taxes. If this was a Tory policy you’d be frothing at the mouth and you know it.

 

[mexico1970]

Your logic is daft. Lots of things are far more expensive than they once were. Why single out pensions? Why cut anything? Raise taxes. If this was a Tory policy you’d be frothing at the mouth and you know it.

The policies that Labour are keeping should annoy real Labour voters but it looks like they'd support Labour policies just because they are Labour policies.

Effectively they are just Tories, it's why many of them are angry at that fact being pointed out to them, two tier Keir isn't going to last the innings his lies and false promises are going to catch him out.