Sensible discussion on Labour Leadership hopefuls

Yes, apologies. However, Ed Balls was Chancellor in 2009.

I'm afraid I disagree with you. I was receiving WTC in 2009 and the small amount I received really helped me.

I'm self-employed now and the new regulations mean I can't claim it, even though my income after housing costs is less than £100 a week. There is no potential to increase my income. If I were to give up work completely, I would only be marginally worse off but the sting is that I'd have to top up my rent by over £60 a week - from an income of £73 a week - the maths doesn't work.

You might be a consultant, but I'm on the receiving end and I know how it works.

At least with WTC, people did actually receive something.

Growstuff I didn't say that Osborne was shadow chancellor.
Anniebach thought that I was talking about emailing before I moved to France in 2009 and that therefore I would have emailed him. However, I didn't specify when I sent my email, just that it was to a Labour Shadow and I went on to say that there was no point in emailing Osborne because he wouldn't have been interested.

Watch "Sorry We Missed You" (also by Ken Loach) for a better understanding of the gig economy.

I'm afraid people who campaigned against WTC did the low paid a great disservice.

It doesn't really matter who you emailed. I was a bit confused.

I really think you should look at some scenarios under UC, especially for the over 60s, to see how people are really suffering, not just from the implementation (bureaucracy) but the way the system and regulations have been set up.

I've written to my own MP with details of income and expenditure and have never received a reply.

Meanwhile, Conservatives come out with all the old soundbites and very few people see beyond that. Most people aren't affected and just believe what they're told. Even you don't seem to understand how it affects some people and how the changes from WTC to UC have contributed to poverty.

As I wrote, I would hope that a new Labour party leader actually understood the problems. One of the few MPs who does understand is Debbie Abrahams.

? my thoughts wondered,

When I stated that WFTC did no favours I also said that it did help the low paid and I have never had any complaints about that. My beef as stated above, was the fact that we, the taxpayers, were in effect supporting big business who were able to maintain higher levels of profit because of paying low wages. Hence the dividends paid to shareholders could be increased.

So now neither the state nor employers is supporting the low paid. Well done!

I am fully aware of how the changes have affected people and how people are suffering. I'm a member of the LP and a Guardian reader so how could I fail to understand?

BTW Having been a high earner in the past, I paid loads of NICs and tax, so effectively had insured myself against bad times. I am and was part of the "state".

Very easily!! Being a member of the LP and a Guardian reader doesn't give you much of an insight, so it seems.

Unfortunately, it's the lack of real insight and understanding by people who allegedly support the low paid, which has meant that millions of them have abandoned Labour and gives the Conservatives even more ammunition.

Labour needs a leader who is prepared to analyse problems forensically, not through a haze of ideology and vague policies.

Raising the minimum wage while freezing benefits and raising NICs has done absolutely nothing for the low paid. Conservatives can boast about what they've allegedly done for the low paid and Labour should have challenged them, but they didn't because they didn't understand the maths themselves.

The idiotic Labour Party even complained when Philip Hammond tried to reduce NICs for the lowest paid, whilst maintaining some of the benefits, such as the state pension, of contributing. I campaigned very vocally on social media, wrote to the press, was on a radio phone-in and wrote to Phil Hammond, when the government tried to abolish Class 2 NICs, which would have meant I would have had to pay an additional £500 a year. In the end, the idea was scrapped, but the Labour Party was absolutely clueless.

The group which was most helpful to me, really did understand the problems and lobbied on behalf of the low paid was this one:

www.litrg.org.uk/

Dinahmo
Your post @Wed. 21.27 was tongue in cheek, wasn't it?

I think that could be part of the LP's problem.

Would any LP members on here dare to admit to being a Daily Mirror reader rather than the Guardian?

Seems Thornberry has more charisma than Starmer but
Starmer is polling higher with party members

Starmer is the perfect foil for Johnsons blusteriness. Thornberry would make a great deputy.

So to sum up then

As the race to succeed Jeremy Corbyn gets underway there appears to be widespread agreement (or disagreement) that a new leader needs to be a man or woman, or somewhere in between, a radical, traditional, left-wing centrist with strong Remain and Leave tendencies, with or without charisma, a Guardian or Daily Mirror reader, who comes from both the North of England and London.

Does that about cover it?

No, you missed Wales

Oops! So I did but then I also missed Scotland Annie.

How do you stand on Home Rule for Wales?

Home rule for Wales is impossible Yehbutnobut ,

Yehbutnobut Wed 18-Dec-19 20:27:55

"POGS that was not the gist of Starmer’s article and you know it. And yes, he was asked to keep out of election debate. But then so was Mogg."
----

What article?

I never mentioned him being kept out of the election debate!

I have mentioned ' possible' candidates but so far only Thornberry I believe has come forward so nobody can say who.

Clive Lewis, the MP for Norwich South, is hinting he might run.

POGS finding your waffling hard to follow, sorry. So cannot answer your point until you make it clearer.

Oh dear, looked at the ‘potentials’ and none inspire any hope. Some would pander to the ‘somat for nowt’ socialists others would want to appease the ‘champagne’ socialists. What is needed is someone who truly represent those workers who generate the taxes to support the needy. The rights of whom have been eroded. We should not need ‘in work’ benefits apart from sick and maternity pay. Wages should be adequate to support a family.