Mailwatch(ed) Forum

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Sat Sep 06, 2025 3:23 pm Cooper’s seemed busy enough to me too. How much is this “she hasn’t pushed the Home Office hard enough” stuff actually based on? Somebody moaning once? Twice?

I don't know. I don't know whether you've read the full piece, but this is interesting.

Taken together all of this represents a clear doubling down of the government’s existing strategy. Go harder on boats. Go back to welfare reform. Push again on growth. It’s a gamble. It is very unusual to make so many changes to a cabinet this early on and an open admission that they got it wrong the first time. The majority of departments are now led by a new minister. By contrast Tony Blair had more or less the same top team throughout his first term, except for Health and Defence. David Cameron had the same Chancellor, Home Secretary, and Foreign Secretary for his first four years, and made limited changes to other key jobs.

If going again with the same strategy and a new team doesn’t work it’s hard to see what the excuse is going to be for further failure. And it’s a political strategy that will continue to alienate the soft left of the party (let alone the actual left). As such it heightens the risk to Starmer if polling continues to be dire and elections next year are as catastrophic as they currently look like being. Rayner may have been the most likely alternative leader, but they had developed a good relationship. Now others may look to take opportunities.

I think that's overdone by Sam there. Nobody seriously thought there'd be no more welfare reform. Hopefully the budget means that they don't feel they need to cut as much from it as in the last botched nonsense. And what does "going harder on small boats" mean? Cooper seems to have gone pretty hard.

Thanks, Sharon.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... SApp_Other

Speaking to the Guardian before the start of the annual TUC conference on Sunday, Graham said Labour had a short time to turn things around or see support from union members leach away to other parties.

“They have one year to get this right because Nigel Farage is on their tail.

“And don’t get me wrong, Farage is not the answer, but he is a good communicator. And whether we like it or not, when he is talking about net zero, and about what’s happened to communities and workers, people are hearing what Labour used to say.”

She said that, with high inflation already taking a toll on household budgets, mooted tax rises in Rachel Reeves’s autumn budget would be the final straw for many Labour voters.

Graham said Labour needed to avoid taxing workers to fill the gap in the public finances and start drawing up plans for a wealth tax.

“If this keeps happening, the feeling that workers always pay, but they’re leaving the super-rich totally untouched – I think they won’t recover from it,” she said.

The Super Rich haven’t been “untouched”, absolute bollocks. Capital Gains Tax, inheritance tax, Employers NI all went up. as well as smaller taxes like VAT on school fees, increased duty on private jets, second homes, non-doms, private equity, oil production.

She means her wealth tax hobbyhorse hasn’t happened.

I thought she was the “just the core job, no politicking” candidate? She’s gobshiting like McCluskey.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Sat Sep 06, 2025 8:47 pm I think that's overdone by Sam there. Nobody seriously thought there'd be no more welfare reform. Hopefully the budget means that they don't feel they need to cut as much from it as in the last botched nonsense. And what does "going harder on small boats" mean? Cooper seems to have gone pretty hard.

Also, why are not going to increase Growth?

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Sat Sep 06, 2025 10:15 pm I thought she was the “just the core job, no politicking” candidate? She’s gobshiting like McCluskey.

Well, that went out of the window very quickly. What do you make of the changes to the employment bill at the end of the article?