Mailwatch(ed) Forum

Rachel Reeves again.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... hel-reeves

UK house prices rise in February as chancellor avoids ‘negative speculation’
Rachel Reeves’ upcoming spring forecast has not led to slowdown, as property tax rumours did in November

One thing that's helped here is they avoided the mistake of committing to keep within the fiscal rules at the Spring forecast. They just do that for the Budget now. That was a rookie mistake which they seem to have only made in the rookie year, but should have been avoided.

It's worth looking up what the property tax rumors were about.

Reeves considers replacing stamp duty with new property tax

This was something that wonks would almost all say was good, I reckon. But the politics of it would have been disastrous- extra tax for most people every year, rather than just when they moved house. I guess that's what you're elected for, making choices, but don't then complain that they "can't do politics" and "aren't making radical change people voted for".

They may need to do something on stamp duty. Badenoch won some rare pundits for saying it should be got rid of. Of course its easier to do that if you're prepared to make poor kids much poorer.

I'm already seeing a lot of "Starmer, war for Israel" stuff.

In other news.

a joint statement from the US and six allied Gulf states – Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates – condemning Iran’s “indiscriminate and reckless attacks” across the region, which they say “targeted sovereign territories, endangered civilians, and inflicted damage on civilian infrastructure”. The statement goes on:

Zionism must be more widespread in the region than I thought.

Ah, but they're rich so they don't count.

Jordanians aren't. But yeah, lots of Middle East countries don't like Iran.

Tim Stanley of all people backs the government.

I've seen what surprised me as being a decent amount of support for his position, or at least for calling out the critics of it.

Farage and Badenoch may have made an error. And perhaps Polanski has as well, I hope so.

Whereabouts? I'm only on Twitter at the moment. I've seen some praise on my Twitter feed, but these tend to come from the pro-Labour accounts that I follow.

Just following that Polanski link. Lots BTL calling him out.

The worst most hated PM ever appears to be having a good week. While two leaders destined to eat up Labour's votes at both ends, according to pundits from four days ago, a bad one. Events dear boy.
Not that foreign affairs crises will rescue your arse in the polls but they will bury you if you make the wrong moves.

Youngian wrote: ↑Tue Mar 03, 2026 6:59 am The worst most hated PM ever appears to be having a good week. While two leaders destined to eat up Labour's votes at both ends, according to pundits from four days ago, a bad one. Events dear boy.
Not that foreign affairs crises will rescue your arse in the polls but they will bury you if you make the wrong moves.

I think it depends on somebody in Labour putting the two challengers under a microscope.

Farage:
Gung-ho send in the SAS, Marines and the local cadet force.
Lancaster bombers and Jump Jets.
Whoo hoo, Uncle Sam - best friends for ever.
We get the casualties, he gets the spoils of war.

Polanski:
Splendid isolation when it suits him on defence.
Complete integration on trade, international law and ... err defence when it's Ukraine.
Liable to leave us with our pants down in an increasingly dangerous world.


Now, I tend to spell this stuff out in a most undiplomatic way.
I'm sure Labour can rustle up a coupe of spokespeople who can brief this stuff while sounding polite.

I'm sure Labour can rustle up a coupe of spokespeople who can brief this stuff while sounding polite.

Putin and Trump have been a slight liability for Farage but not enough. His core supporters won't understand why patriotic Nige is a liability on national security but pounding on his weaknesses encourages the vote out against him.
The media will do Labour's job for them in highlighting Polanski's contradictions on defence strategy.

While the attitude of the right to most of the world is somewhere between condescension and bitter hatred, Russia and the USA get a pass (the USA more so). Yes, the Yanks are excitable big kids really, just needing a bit of guidance from an old and sagelike ally (and they whoop a bit too much), but they did help out a bit in the war, and they do have loads of flavours of ice cream. Everything's better in America, or at least freer. As for Russia, well, you have to respect someone that strong (while never taking your eyes off of them, the sneaky Slavs). Besides, they also helped out a bit in the war as well.

The problem for Labour in particular is that what used to be called unkindly “establishment” bias in the media isn’t what it was.

By that I mean, broad trust in the government in an international crisis. Now a foreign crisis is just another controversy, like the Millennium Dome or whatever.

In the past, Badenoch and Farage would have got more blowback for arsing about. The equivalent of Zack would have been someone in the Campaign Group who nobody would even bother to seek out.

Starmer apparently performed vert well in the Commons yesterday. It may not be enough..

Anyone try to explain why the home office made that statement at this point? And was any comms person consulted?

Or does anyone with a brain work in Labour comms. Like if you think it’s right and they seem to think it is. No one is taking any notice bar those who want to attack you l, it gets zero attention and is just another stick.

And the Middle East is currently edging to a full scale war, which guess what, produces more asylum seekers (though perhaps the idea).

The Home Office statement was doubtless planned ages ago. It might just be that Trump has taken it off the front pages, but I have noticed that we've seen much less of Shabana recently. Whether you think they "need" to do anything like this or not, I think it's better that they spend less media time on it. Once they've done it, it either reduces "boats" or it doesn't, and people can make a judgement. At least use the media time for positive stuff. SEND is a major thing and got more media push than the asylum stuff did.

Youngian wrote: ↑Tue Mar 03, 2026 11:09 am
Putin and Trump have been a slight liability for Farage but not enough. His core supporters won't understand why patriotic Nige is a liability on national security but pounding on his weaknesses encourages the vote out against him.
The media will do Labour's job for them in highlighting Polanski's contradictions on defence strategy.

Yep. There's the problem that they can't go too hard against Farage-Kemi for Trumpery for obvious reasons. I'm hopeful that in time, they will be able to, and it'll make a difference.

Not that I’ve read it but I see Shabana Mahmood has done a “Labour values” justification article, and will do a speech.

Who does this actually persuade? I’m fairly grim in my view that lots may need to be done or else Farage- the Tories will win. But I don’t need to hear any more about how moral this position is.

Who does this actually persuade?

Leverage voters, they might not trust Farage or Polanski to run a bath and want to go back to Labour if they do better on....
A raft of issues behind Green protest votes but there's only one with Reform.

Do you think the "this is Labour values" persuades those voters? Wouldn't they be better swerving those speeches and just saying in a few years "here are the numbers, take it or leave it"?

Can't win, can they?