A year of Starmer What do you think?

The most hard-left policy in there is "bringing the banking and financial system into democratic public control".

That won't happen.

BTW What's wrong with integrated care systems?

I think people are probably less concerned about who provides the care than about who is expected to pay for it.

A local NHS unit near me closed recently, and patients who used to go there for rehab after things like falls and strokes are now expected to pay for social care in homes if they have no-one to help them in the house. Yet again, this means nothing to the rich, the poor get it free, and the JAM in the sandwich end up paying until they are no better off than if they had no (or very few) savings.

I suspect the "self-employment" scheme is related to Covid lockdowns, during which over 3 million self-employed have received either no or very little help, which contrasts to the help given to the employed.

Doodledog I think it probably isn't, but if that's an answer to my query about integrated care systems, it doesn't really help me understand.

I agree with you about the JAMs, by the way.

An example is when I had a heart attack. I was in a hospital about 40 miles from where I live. I don't have close family and hadn't discussed it with any friends at the time and had nobody to take me home when I was discharged. The hospital refused to provide me with any transport, which it would have done if I'd been on any benefits. A 40 mile taxi ride is not cheap!

I suspect most people don't actually realise how low income has to be to qualify for benefits.

What are "universal basic services"?

Sorry growstuff, it wasn't - we cross-posted.

The Benefits system has never been very coherent. Even when the great reforms happened after WWII it was a hotchpotch of free rights (education), allowances (Family) and insurances (NI and the Health Act). Since then it has been added to, partly changed and constantly attacked - most noticably under Thatcher.

Before the last GE several of Labour's policies were put to some focus groups who were not informed which party's policies they were. In general they received high approval, until the groups were told they were LP at which point there was a lot of backtracking.

I thought that the LP's policies were good, until JC started talking about free broadband for everyone and one or two others of the policies announced just before the GE.

Johnson has highjacked some of the policies from the other parties, such as green renewal but of course Joe/Jane Public doesn't realise this.

Johnson has talked about getting broadband out to everyone, though. Presumably he is more motivated by the fact that people working from home are not going to be productive without it, whereas JC's motivation was equalising opportunity, but all the same, it is another policy that was ridiculed when Labour wanted it, but is now being hijacked by the Tories.

Doodledog I suspect that the people working from home already have broadband - the majority of those would be unable to work without it. Where it is needed are the poorer families who can't afford. Those who need "levelling up" as the PM calls it.

Oh I agree.

But it should have been seen as essential for children to do homework, for the lonely to be able to make contact, for everyone to be able to do all the things that everyone on GN presumably takes for granted - which is what Corbyn wanted. Johnson hijacking the idea mid-pandemic seems cynical to me.

labourlist.org/2021/04/watch-starmer-pays-tribute-to-nhs-in-labour-party-election-broadcast/

Come on Keir, we are all in favour of the NHS. It does not give us a reason to vote for your party.

Here is a much better party political broadcast.

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000t27p/party-political-broadcasts-liberal-democrats-10032021

MaizieD please tell us where your pledges came from.
When I started work in social care 43 years ago, the border dispute between Health and social care was a sticking point. It remains so. The row about whether it’s social or nursing care is frankly shocking.
No Tory government will either care or understand the issues, we need a Labour govt.
My dad had six weekly, the monthly, respite of two weeks. He was 81, mum 83 and registered partially sighted. Respite essential to maintain both of them at home (with two, three times daily visits from daughters). Dad paid considerably more than residents whose fees were covered by social services. Exactly the same excellent care but dad who’d worked from age 14-65 paid for his care, at a considerably higher fee than those whose care was state funded.

Who?

MaizieD please tell us where your pledges came from.

Not 'pledges', Iam64; policies put forward for debate at the next Labour Conference this autumn.

I was really trying to find out how outrageously left wing they might, or might not, be considered to be.

That free broadband would have been a godsend for children learning at home during the past year. Though, the promised lap tops never really materialised, so many would have still had to use their parents' phones...

MaizieD so this autumn, not for the last election?
Seem ok to me
I do wish Labour supporters would support rather than undermine

Maizie is trying to do what the focus groups did.

growstuff

Maizie is trying to do what the focus groups did.

I'm not!

I'm just sick of posters (not so much the Labour voting ones) popping onto LP threads and telling us all about being too left wing and then ducking out of defining just what they mean by 'left wing'. Note that not a single 'right winger' has evaluated those policy suggestions.

It's so frustrating. How can you discuss anything with people who won't define their terms?

If it goes ahead in that form, it will be taken apart by the opposition.

Firstly, questions will be asked about funding it because, as you know as well as I do, people don't understand MMT.

Next, presumably if the suggestion is that UC is increased to £250pw, pensions would also need to be increased to the same amount. There would be considerable resentment from people who have "bought back" years to boost their pensions.

Another point would be about wage differentials. A considerable number of people currently earn just over £15 and have trained for the jobs they have. In some cases, they've paid for the training and they're not going to be too happy that any unskilled person in employment can earn almost the same as they can. Wages would need to increase across the board, which would probably lead to inflation and the £15 not buying as much as expected.

It's also noticeable what's missing, eg. investment in school buildings, hospitals, police numbers, etc.

I like the proposals for more council housing, green jobs and broadband.

However, I don't think those proposals as a whole would appeal to the JAMs, who comprise the group Labour needs to bring back.

MaizieD

growstuff

Maizie is trying to do what the focus groups did.

I'm not!

I'm just sick of posters (not so much the Labour voting ones) popping onto LP threads and telling us all about being too left wing and then ducking out of defining just what they mean by 'left wing'. Note that not a single 'right winger' has evaluated those policy suggestions.

It's so frustrating. How can you discuss anything with people who won't define their terms?

Ignore them. They won't vote Labour anyway.

MaizieD I think they do define themselves, perhaps not openly but it's obvious from the comments. Anything slightly to the left of Margaret Thatcher is 'far left'. You can move to the right as far as you like

I thought the policies were from Momentum. Not that it matters to me, as I liked a lot of Momentum's policies, but I could see why you might not have wanted to announce their involvement on a forum like this one ).

Doodledog

I thought the policies were from Momentum. Not that it matters to me, as I liked a lot of Momentum's policies, but I could see why you might not have wanted to announce their involvement on a forum like this one ).

I didn't want to say who they were from because I didn't want to create bias. Like the experiment someone mentioned earlier where people were given a set of policies and asked what they thought about them. They liked the policies until they were told they were Labour policies, then backed right off (I've actually seen that done as a vox pop).

But as I didn't get any response from my 'subjects' ...

You're right about Momentum.