Mailwatch(ed) Forum

The council can't afford the Unite proposals so it has to do something. Hiring agency staff isn't a good look but we're going along the lines of "A Labour council... A LABOUR council..." from the union here.

Unite join the BMA and seemingly every other interest group in the old "Why don't the Government just pay what we want now?" group.

Somebody should put all these groups together and they can add it all up, and work out how much extra tax they want to pay.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Sun Jul 13, 2025 6:35 pm Unite join the BMA and seemingly every other interest group in the old "Why don't the Government just pay what we want now?" group.

Somebody should put all these groups together and they can add it all up, and work out how much extra tax they want to pay.

Everyone wants more, whether it's wages or services. The only thing they don't want more of is taxation.

Well, we'll get a test soon enough. I would think that petrol duty is going to rise, as one of the few things that's substantial and hasn't been ruled out by the Government. I'm expecting the same cross party outrage that we got when Employers' NI went up by 1.2 percentage points.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Sun Jul 13, 2025 7:13 pm Well, we'll get a test soon enough. I would think that petrol duty is going to rise, as one of the few things that's substantial and hasn't been ruled out by the Government. I'm expecting the same cross party outrage that we got when Employers' NI went up by 1.2 percentage points.

It's ironic that fuel duty has become one of the scared cows of taxation when inbreal terms petrol has possibly never been cheaper.

This would be an incredibly bad idea. As someone old enough to remember the Expenses Scandal and Dawn's role in it.

Her rôle of being pilloried as a Black woman MP, endorsed by Barack Obama, the first to speak from the despatch box - who was returned with a thumping majority after the expenses scandal? That rôle?

What was her role in it again?

She claimed for a house in her constituency even though she had another residence the same distance from parliament. No duck islands were involved.

She also steamed full into the Chris Kaba case. Given that he turned out to be one of the most dangerous people in London that didn't exactly suggest great judgement. The Police judgement was vindicated in court.

They don’t understand that we are a Socialist Party.

Not what the great Tony Benn thought :

'the Labour party has never been a socialist party, although there have always been socialists in it.'

See also :

For Dawn to be thinking of taking a crack at being mayor of London is, I suppose, fair enough. Just about every politician with no chance whatsoever of a promotion to a front bench or ministerial job would possibly be looking, reasonably, toward a high-profile mayoralty as their next career move (cf Johnson, Khan, Burnham). Butler wouldn’t be the first, but she also wouldn’t be the first such politician to have severely over-estimated their own electability/capabilities.

Livingstone put a lot of effort into wooing investors and backing the Met (even over De Menezes). Is Dawn up for that?

I'd like it to be someone with experience of local government. Catherine West is one who gets her head down in government, but hasn't so far hit high office. She was leader of Islington Council before she was an MP, and worked as a social worker before she came into politics.

Abernathy wrote: ↑Tue Jul 15, 2025 5:50 pm

They don’t understand that we are a Socialist Party.

Not what the great Tony Benn thought :

'the Labour party has never been a socialist party, although there have always been socialists in it.'

Yes, I'm one of them. But I'm also a realist.

Me too, comrade.

Labour has several convincing candidates for the London mayoralty but have the Tories? Can't believe Susan Hall won the candidacy as the best person available for the job. But on hard right culture war gibberish.

The Tories would be best drafting some Andy Street type. Then again, that's been true since 2016 and they've had Goldsmith, Bailey and Hall.

I should imagine Deform will be eyeing a “serious” challenge in London

Abernathy wrote: ↑Tue Jul 15, 2025 7:20 pm Me too, comrade.