The Labour Government

Hertzblue said:
I would disagree that you have to have reached the very highest ranks of the army to be considered a great soldier.He served with distinction his rank is not material.Of course he made mistakes during the course of the war - which leader did not ?
I take your point in respect to expertise but I would double down on my point , if our Civil service, NHS, infrastructure, public finances ,welfare state , social cohesion etc were in good order and fit for purpose then I would accept your point that we have muddled along without expertise in our offices of state- but they are not in good order and not fit for purpose. Maybe its about time we made sure we had some expertise so our ministers are not in thrall to the experts in the civil service.
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The French have a college - I forget the name. Anyway, to achieve high status as a politician or a civil servant, you have to have attended it. It's very tough to get a place.

That's the only practical alternative and it's very alien to British thinking.

The truth is, any cock can be elected as an MP. You don't have to have a single GCSE, let alone a comprehensive understanding of how government works. The only way to change this is to filter candidates, to say that to be a candidate you must have... (Whatever).

If you raise the bar for admission, you're going to have to raise the rewards - a lot. Top business persons - e.g. those running FTSE 100 companies, not someone with a second-hand car lot in Radcliffe - would piss themselves laughing at the salaries given to politicians. (And that's aside from the fact that they wouldn't necessarily be very good leaders in a democracy. Alan Sugar would probably be no better as Foreign Secretary than Lammy is.)
 
BrianW said:
The French have a college - I forget the name. Anyway, to achieve high status as a politician or a civil servant, you have to have attended it. It's very tough to get a place.

That's the only practical alternative and it's very alien to British thinking.

The truth is, any cock can be elected as an MP. You don't have to have a single GCSE, let alone a comprehensive understanding of how government works. The only way to change this is to filter candidates, to say that to be a candidate you must have... (Whatever).

If you raise the bar for admission, you're going to have to raise the rewards - a lot. Top business persons - e.g. those running FTSE 100 companies, not someone with a second-hand car lot in Radcliffe - would piss themselves laughing at the salaries given to politicians. (And that's aside from the fact that they wouldn't necessarily be very good leaders in a democracy. Alan Sugar would probably be no better as Foreign Secretary than Lammy is.)
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used to be called the ENA but a few years ago was changed to the INSP

If you scroll up you can see Streeting is now anointing himself with Ash - I suspect in some cases they are as dim as a 15 watt bulb when they get elected or that some once elected form an elevated illusion of their own grandeur - either way as you say maybe a few years of education before they are allowed to stand might do the country some good
 
BrianW said:
The French have a college - I forget the name. Anyway, to achieve high status as a politician or a civil servant, you have to have attended it. It's very tough to get a place.

That's the only practical alternative and it's very alien to British thinking.

The truth is, any cock can be elected as an MP. You don't have to have a single GCSE, let alone a comprehensive understanding of how government works. The only way to change this is to filter candidates, to say that to be a candidate you must have... (Whatever).

If you raise the bar for admission, you're going to have to raise the rewards - a lot. Top business persons - e.g. those running FTSE 100 companies, not someone with a second-hand car lot in Radcliffe - would piss themselves laughing at the salaries given to politicians. (And that's aside from the fact that they wouldn't necessarily be very good leaders in a democracy. Alan Sugar would probably be no better as Foreign Secretary than Lammy is.)
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I can see there may be some merit in the French system but also I think if you just produce your entire governing elite in the same way they would be susceptible to groupthink ... a bit like the French I suppose lol.
Absolutely agree on the salary level for MPs, we are getting what we pay for. Realistically needs to be double what is and I would be happy with that if it did raise the quality to the required standards. I would not be happy if we raised the salary for what we have currently got, so some thought would need to go into implementing that one.
Can't agree on anyone being a worse Foreign secretary than Lammy. :)
 
BrianW said:
The French have a college - I forget the name. Anyway, to achieve high status as a politician or a civil servant, you have to have attended it. It's very tough to get a place.

That's the only practical alternative and it's very alien to British thinking.

The truth is, any cock can be elected as an MP. You don't have to have a single GCSE, let alone a comprehensive understanding of how government works. The only way to change this is to filter candidates, to say that to be a candidate you must have... (Whatever).

If you raise the bar for admission, you're going to have to raise the rewards - a lot. Top business persons - e.g. those running FTSE 100 companies, not someone with a second-hand car lot in Radcliffe - would piss themselves laughing at the salaries given to politicians. (And that's aside from the fact that they wouldn't necessarily be very good leaders in a democracy. Alan Sugar would probably be no better as Foreign Secretary than Lammy is.)
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You dont really need a FTSE 100 CEO as an MP or member of the cabinet for that matter. What you need are people with sufficient life experience and those who have dealt with issues in a front line role, before being allowed to run as an MP.

You need people who are technically good enough to hold Whitehall to account when they are in the cabinet/junior ministerial positions and not be steered due to the vested interests of the few. You cant do that straight from your Oxford PPE degree, history degree or politics degree which seems to be the route for nearly everyone in the cabinet.

Each party should be made to take the right blend of people from health, social care, education, engineering, science, finance, law, ex army/navy/air force etc and we might just get a government who truly understand the problems in the key areas and the potential solutions with the budget and power to do something about it.

To be honest my preferred approach would be to do away with health, defence, energy, transport etc ministers and instead have separate non political bodies running them. The only function of government should be things such as making money to fund them by setting taxation and facilitating business to trade on an international level.
 
Kompany Car said:
You dont really need a FTSE 100 CEO as an MP or member of the cabinet for that matter. What you need are people with sufficient life experience and those who have dealt with issues in a front line role, before being allowed to run as an MP.

You need people who are technically good enough to hold Whitehall to account when they are in the cabinet/junior ministerial positions and not be steered due to the vested interests of the few. You cant do that straight from your Oxford PPE degree, history degree or politics degree which seems to be the route for nearly everyone in the cabinet.

Each party should be made to take the right blend of people from health, social care, education, engineering, science, finance, law, ex army/navy/air force etc and we might just get a government who truly understand the problems in the key areas and the potential solutions with the budget and power to do something about it.

To be honest my preferred approach would be to do away with health, defence, energy, transport etc ministers and instead have separate non political bodies running them. The only function of government should be things such as making money to fund them by setting taxation and facilitating business to trade on an international level.
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First 3 paragraphs bang on . Not convinced on the 4th.
 
Starmer is at a crossroads now - he has tried to ride two horses at once. Sort of appeaser to Trump and broker with the EU. Today he was locked out of EU talks with Zelenskyy and Trump is showing zero affection for him in the appeaser role. He will have to somehow extricate himself from that situation and if he is sensible pick a side. The obvious one is with the EU - given how positive the polls are to adopt a pro-EU stance across lots of differing issues if he and his team have any sense they should go EU rather than USA.

Also the times have changed so now is the time for him to tell Reeves the self imposed fiscal rules can be changed to facilitate access to the finance that is needed
 
Hertzblue said:
Really ? I cannot begin to understand why you might believe that.
Where to begin ?
Reeves as Chancellor, let's not start on the detail of her C.V. but suffice to say she is patently under qualified for the job and to date has performed disastrously, we have yet to see the full impact of her ill construed and naive budget but its coming , I will be amazed if she gets to the end of this parliament in position.

Lammy as Foreign Secretary, our top diplomat. Did anyone see Lammy during the election campaign ? No, Starmer may as well have locked him in a cupboard for the duration for he was kept well away from the electorate. Why - because diplomacy is just not his thing ! he could not be trusted not to put his foot in his mouth and scare the electorate and yet here he - our top diplomat! So far an absolute liability, Chagos, his previous brainless utterings coming out of the woodwork on everything from Trump to Slavery reparations - frankly embarrassing . The ultimate diversity hire.

Rayner as Deputy PM. There is nothing wrong with working in Social care but does it prepare you to sort the countries planning laws and deliver house building programmes or deliver balanced employment law? I would suggest not. Its not been a promising start, the housebuilding industry and trade bodies say her plans just simply will not be delivered and employers are up in arms about her employment legislation and every indication suggests it will be severely watered down. Lets all pray Starmer remains in good health and doesn't go on holiday for more than a long weekend.

Reynolds as Business secretary, who has what experience in business ? of course - absolutely none ! Though he was a solicitor, sorry no he wasn't . What has he done in the real world - next to fuck all. Currently in hiding in case anyone wants to ask him a question about impersonating a solicitor but before that shown himself completely out of touch with the private sector. For example whilst the rest of the world led by its largest banks and businesses are well on the way to rolling back WFH, Reynolds continues to champion it despite our appalling productivity numbers especially in the public sector which is all he knows about.

I can't go through them all but you get the idea, they have no grounding or experience of their briefs ( to be fair Tulip Siddiq did know plenty about corruption) and it shows.

I don't know about this parliament but in the last one only around 5% of Labour MPs had a business / commerce background, there is no reason to believe it will be any more this time around and I suppose in those circumstances Reeves may look well qualified . The reality is Labour MPs these days are career politicians who have worked they way through public sector , charity and political organisations with littlest friends experience of the commercial sector and little regard for their working class constituents. Devotion to a fixed world view and the currency of virtue signalling is the their most highly valued qualification .

How you believe this makes them capable of the offices of state I don't know. Look them up. If you were doing the hiring for ministerial jobs and their CVs were on your desk you wouldn't even call most of them for interview.
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You could write something similar about the 14 years of Tory government. It might take you a while though.

It's a very long list of minister's who were out of their depth, including future PM's, Chancellor's etc.
 
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The Stockport Iniesta said:
You could write something similar about the 14 years of Tory government. It might take you a while though.

It's a very long list of minister's who were out of their depth, including future PM's, Chancellor's etc.
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I think the fuckwittery of the last government and their incompetence has been largely discussed, this however is the Labour Government thread.
If people are going to judge this lot against that lot and claim some kind of success then as a country we will continue to tread water.
In fact slowly drowning would be a better description.
The only way to prevent a government like that ever returning is to hope this one has much better ideas that are ultimately successful.
I personally don't think being mini Tory will grab the imagination of the public or improve their lot to any great extent.
 
The Stockport Iniesta said:
You could write something similar about the 14 years of Tory government. It might take you a while though.

It's a very long list of minister's who were out of their depth, including future PM's, Chancellor's etc.
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This is true. So from having a tory party that hadn't a clue what It was doing, we've inherited a tory goverment that does.
 
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