Mason also said this just this afternoon….what does that well known Starmerite Paul Mason say about the current Labour Budgetary offering?
"
Rachel Reeves, in a Budget response suddenly dumped on her by Keir Starmer’s positive Covid-19 test, gave a very effective answer. We can spell out a coherent alternative. And she did so with such clarity that it had the public schoolboys on the Tory backbenches rattled to their Asprey cufflinks.
Labour, unlike Sunak, would go on borrowing to invest. It would cut taxes on working people, starting with VAT on fuel tonight, and abolish business rates altogether, replacing them with taxes designed to force the tech monopolies to pay their fair share. It would, in addition, invest £224bn over eight years on decarbonising energy and transport.
While the Tories flaunt their insouciance over climate change, cutting the taxes paid by short-haul air passengers on the eve of the Cop26 summit, Labour has placed climate mitigation at the very centre of its investment plans. Reeves pointed out that, had the Tories not spent ten of the last 11 years squeezing life, growth and social justice out of the UK economy, Britain might not have suffered the worst recession and the worst scarring of any major country.
She told, in short, a convincing alternative story – something Labour has struggled to do since Starmer took office. By summoning the image of Johnson and Sunak as street pickpockets, buffooning around while they lift your purse, doling out favours to champagne-drinking bankers on pointless short-haul flights, Reeves also dramatised the social dynamics.
For all the fawning press Sunak gets from media types inside the network of favours, garden parties and wedding receptions that surround the Tory elite, the Chancellor wants – openly and philosophically – to radically shrink the welfare state, but who’s been forced by the unexpected arrival of Covid-19 to put it off for a bit.
The lives of real people, facing wages eroded by inflation, rising tax, fuel and energy bills, and crumbling public services, do not match the sunny optimism generated within Sunak’s Potemkin village. And that is Labour’s opportunity. In Red Wall seats where one Tory MP after another voted to flood local rivers with sewage, the penny has begun to drop: that people feel worse off because they are worse off; and that nothing in the actions of the Tory party suggest how they and their families might claw their way out of grinding, multigenerational, post-industrial distress.
So the warnings from some Labour-leaning commentators – that the Tories have put their tanks on Labour’s lawn and that the party’s electoral prospects are therefore doomed – are misguided. The differences could not be clearer.
And in Reeves the party has found – both at conference and by complete accident at the Budget – its most effective and gutsy communicator. Yes, she authored a book about Alice Bacon, “hammer of the Trotskyists”, and once disparaged benefit claimants, but Reeves also seems able to articulate the basic class antagonism Labour was formed to address.
In a party bereft of talented and articulate lawmakers, and of professionally competent people, this is all you can ask of a centrist social democrat. And Reeves’s achievement raises an interesting question. Last week, Dominic Cummings offered Labour a massive brain dump of advice on how to defeat Boris Johnson. The core of it is impossible to achieve: forget the socially liberal agenda of the labour movement and lure potential Tory switchers with promises to terrorise terrorists and jail criminals.
But in one respect, Reeves, and we should assume Starmer (who held the pen on the response speech until minutes before it was delivered), have followed Cummings’s advice – and were doing so as early as the Labour conference. They have begun to frame the party’s anti-austerity offer around tax cuts for working people – VAT, National Insurance and business rates – as well as borrowing. For it is a truism often forgotten by the Labour left that fiscal austerity can be embodied in a tax rise just as much as in a spending cut."
Mason also said this just this afternoon….
Why's he talking about borrowing? Who does the issuer of the £ borrow £ from?what does that well known Starmerite Paul Mason say about the current Labour Budgetary offering?
"
Rachel Reeves, in a Budget response suddenly dumped on her by Keir Starmer’s positive Covid-19 test, gave a very effective answer. We can spell out a coherent alternative. And she did so with such clarity that it had the public schoolboys on the Tory backbenches rattled to their Asprey cufflinks.
Labour, unlike Sunak, would go on borrowing to invest. It would cut taxes on working people, starting with VAT on fuel tonight, and abolish business rates altogether, replacing them with taxes designed to force the tech monopolies to pay their fair share. It would, in addition, invest £224bn over eight years on decarbonising energy and transport.
While the Tories flaunt their insouciance over climate change, cutting the taxes paid by short-haul air passengers on the eve of the Cop26 summit, Labour has placed climate mitigation at the very centre of its investment plans. Reeves pointed out that, had the Tories not spent ten of the last 11 years squeezing life, growth and social justice out of the UK economy, Britain might not have suffered the worst recession and the worst scarring of any major country.
She told, in short, a convincing alternative story – something Labour has struggled to do since Starmer took office. By summoning the image of Johnson and Sunak as street pickpockets, buffooning around while they lift your purse, doling out favours to champagne-drinking bankers on pointless short-haul flights, Reeves also dramatised the social dynamics.
For all the fawning press Sunak gets from media types inside the network of favours, garden parties and wedding receptions that surround the Tory elite, the Chancellor wants – openly and philosophically – to radically shrink the welfare state, but who’s been forced by the unexpected arrival of Covid-19 to put it off for a bit.
The lives of real people, facing wages eroded by inflation, rising tax, fuel and energy bills, and crumbling public services, do not match the sunny optimism generated within Sunak’s Potemkin village. And that is Labour’s opportunity. In Red Wall seats where one Tory MP after another voted to flood local rivers with sewage, the penny has begun to drop: that people feel worse off because they are worse off; and that nothing in the actions of the Tory party suggest how they and their families might claw their way out of grinding, multigenerational, post-industrial distress.
So the warnings from some Labour-leaning commentators – that the Tories have put their tanks on Labour’s lawn and that the party’s electoral prospects are therefore doomed – are misguided. The differences could not be clearer.
And in Reeves the party has found – both at conference and by complete accident at the Budget – its most effective and gutsy communicator. Yes, she authored a book about Alice Bacon, “hammer of the Trotskyists”, and once disparaged benefit claimants, but Reeves also seems able to articulate the basic class antagonism Labour was formed to address.
In a party bereft of talented and articulate lawmakers, and of professionally competent people, this is all you can ask of a centrist social democrat. And Reeves’s achievement raises an interesting question. Last week, Dominic Cummings offered Labour a massive brain dump of advice on how to defeat Boris Johnson. The core of it is impossible to achieve: forget the socially liberal agenda of the labour movement and lure potential Tory switchers with promises to terrorise terrorists and jail criminals.
But in one respect, Reeves, and we should assume Starmer (who held the pen on the response speech until minutes before it was delivered), have followed Cummings’s advice – and were doing so as early as the Labour conference. They have begun to frame the party’s anti-austerity offer around tax cuts for working people – VAT, National Insurance and business rates – as well as borrowing. For it is a truism often forgotten by the Labour left that fiscal austerity can be embodied in a tax rise just as much as in a spending cut."
Why's he talking about borrowing? Who does the issuer of the £ borrow £ from?
That was an incredible exchange. I don't know why Starmer didn't just take him slowly through the numbers like a teacher talking to a slow child.Johnson is, in an absolutely shocking turn of events, putting on an awful performance at PMQs, resulting in Starmer openly laughing at him after he said that it was ‘not true’ that last nights vote only passed because of Labour support.
Johnson is, in an absolutely shocking turn of events, putting on an awful performance at PMQs, resulting in Starmer openly laughing at him after he said that it was ‘not true’ that last nights vote only passed because of Labour support.
Really ?! It’s kind of what everyone’s been saying, it appears almost instinctive to lie, even when the evidence is stark. I’m honestly starting to worry about his mental state
Surprised anyone ever has time for work with so many parties going on!Shapps probably shouldn't of been trotting around calling the Shaun Bailey party a disgrace
Tory Grant Shapps' staff 'boozed and danced' in 'lockdown-breaking' office party
The Transport Secretary's said to have had "absolutely no idea" about the Christmas bash on December 16 last year, when London was under Tier 3 restrictionswww.mirror.co.uk
Surprised anyone ever has time for work with so many parties going on!
First time the Tories have lost the seat in 200 years apparently.Oof.
He’s definitely gone now. All the fundamentals with the Tories there, old Brexity population. Throwing that away is criminal. Shame it means another Lib Dem but you can’t have it all.
Well well well,Shropshire.
34% swing.
Labour under 4k
The interesting thing will be at the next GE, assuming Johnson is gone. Will the Tories be able to entice voters back with a promise of a new regime, will the alliance here hold with an increased turnout.The Labour vote doesn't really matter as it shows he official progressive alliance/vote for the party most likely to beat the tories is working.
the knives are going to get even sharper for the PM
The interesting thing will be at the next GE, assuming Johnson is gone. Will the Tories be able to entice voters back with a promise of a new regime, will the alliance here hold with an increased turnout.
Oof.
He’s definitely gone now. All the fundamentals with the Tories there, old Brexity population. Throwing that away is criminal. Shame it means another Lib Dem but you can’t have it all.
It’s not terrible for Starmer really, but it should give him food for thought as to future strategy in seats like this.No wonder Grendel thinks Dan Hodges is 'excellent'
No wonder Grendel thinks Dan Hodges is 'excellent'
It’s not terrible for Starmer really, but it should give him food for thought as to future strategy in seats like this.
The people making the ‘only Labour can win here’ posters need to do one though.
A lot of people will vote differently to their normal habits when nothing is at stake. It doesn't really affect Boris as he still has a huge majority in the Commons. Protest votes quite frequently occur at by-elections then revert at the next GE. I predict the remaining 53% of the electorate will turn out next time (especially when Covid will be under control/over) and claw back that 4K majority.
I'm simply commenting, by the way, not wishing for that to happen.
It will be interesting. I can't see Sunak or Truss having the same pull for the non traditional tories who voted Boris so in some of their northern seats the could be damned either way.
Long way to go but for once there are real green shoots.
Still what did Jack Straw do in 1997?
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