undefined | Better HN

0 pointsvidarh1y ago0 comments

Firstly Labour went mildly social democratic, offering policies to the right of Nordic conservative parties in some areas. Just to contextualise what "full left" means in this respect. (A concrete example is parental leave, where the Norwegian conservative party is fine with far higher statutory pay than Labour would even dare suggest even under Corbyn)

Secondly, I see this, but at the same time Corbyn was the most vilified politician in the UK in a generation and he still got close to a win with that program. Suppose Corbyn could do that at a point where the Tories were not historically unpopular. In that case, it's clear Starmer could have stuck to his pledges to be "pragmatic continuity Corbyn" and walked this election - most of the actual policies in the 2017 manifesto were highly popular when polled, including with conservative voters.

0 comments

dmje1y ago

Agree.

I mean - from my point of view there are two glaring issues in this election that are just being coughed aside in a deeply disingenuous way, by all parties (with maybe the exception of the LibDems, a bit):

1) Brexit. For this not to be on the agenda when it has been the most ruinous decision made in the last 10 years of our political history is just ...well, weird at best, totally surreal at worst. Widely recognised [even by many? most?] of those who voted for it as now being a mistake, it just seems insane to leave any discussion off the table.

2) Tax rises. Everyone knows that for our UK standard of living to continue (or even - lol - rise), the money has got to come from somewhere. And that place can only really be taxes. All of the parties seem to be pulling out a magic hat full of magic money - an honest conversation would have all the parties in a room agreeing that someone, somewhere has got to pay for all this stuff.

Anyway, wow, gone well off topic. Sorry Dang!

tim3331y ago

1) It's politically toxic. As soon as anyone says anything they'll be accused of betrayal etc

2) The UK's in a bit of a hole that it can't really tax and spend out of. What we need is more like sane government and economic growth. Just not having something like Boris's "fuck business" and tearing up our trade agreements for a while would help.

n4r91y ago

> It's politically toxic.

I think you're probably correct, as only the Green Party seem to be committing to moving back in (one reason I'm considering voting non-Labour for the first time in my life). I wonder though, do you think this will last forever, especially in the face of consistent polling suggesting that twice as many people think it was a bad idea as think it was a good one? [0]

[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/987347/brexit-opinion-po...

2 more replies

forgotacc2404191y ago

RE 1, it was pretty much the sole discussion of the last election and the winning party slogan was "Get Brexit Done" (ie let's stop this endless talking about this).

There's very little public appetite to focus on it again for now. I disagree with Starmer on a lot but he's right to totally shut down discussion on this until after an election

Closi1y ago

If labour ran on a manifesto of higher taxes and reverse brexit this election would be a shitshow.

I don’t actually agree that our taxes/spending have to increase in order to get a better standard of living - what we need is services which function better for the same costs.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse