An election looms, so I think it is time to look at all the success over the 13 years that we have witnessed from the government.

Can't read link Casdon it's behind a pay wall.
But Reeves is not taxing the richest and no nationalisation of utilities, in England at least. I do live in North Wales at present soon be living in Somerset

I think it's also interesting to look at the targets he picked for himself. The first reaction was that those targets that could easily be reached; that he thought they were going to happen anyway - perhaps that was the advice he got.

It seems that Sunak is about to come under attack from Labour on the economy. It is certainly irritating to be told, by the person meant to be achieving a target, that they are doing really well in a particular area when they are blatantly not. You then know that all your work and effort will not pay off as a consequence. That is what is happening to many Britush workers.

Grany

Can't read link Casdon it's behind a pay wall.
But Reeves is not taxing the richest and no nationalisation of utilities, in England at least. I do live in North Wales at present soon be living in Somerset

Ignored as off topic.

Casdon

Grany

Water companies are asset stripping, loading debt while moving £millions in dividends out of the UK. All while polluting.

Only renationalised water can stop this.

Labour supports privatised water. Tories.

Sharon Graham
@UniteSharon
·
Unite’s research shows that the current privatised energy supply, transmission and generation system isn’t fit for purpose and is failing the country. The solution is clear. Public ownership of #energy will not only save households money but also help get inflation

@MannieMighty1

Instead of protecting our public services from the Tory government and their billionaire donors, Starmer is nothing more than a security guard for them, keeping any resistance to the Tories at bay, while the 99% continue to get a kicking.
Why vote Labour? He's on their side.

Not true Grany.
www.ft.com/content/602a009b-6a41-4528-9804-22f7a5080cc3
You’ve also neglected to mention the model that is in place in Wales, which as you live here you must be fully aware of?

The problem is that Wales's rivers are filthy too as sewage is discharged into them regularly.
I know the Wye is on the border and suffers with the run off from farms in Herefordshire but rivers wholly in Wales are polluted too. ☹
www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/welsh-rivers-pumped-sewage-named-26272448

Water rates are high, the company is not-for-profit so how is the money being spent?

Anyone not wishing to read that post need not, as it is off topic.

Considering this thread has gone on for 21 pages there can't be much left to say about the original topic, short of repeating ourselves. So what's wrong with being slightly off topic? Except for most of the off topic comments are LP bashing.

Germanshepherdsmum

Do we want a trade deal or not?

Is it completed? I didn't think it was. You do make it sound as if any old deal will suit you. "Any old deal" certainly suits this Tory government.

The Express did try to talk up the India discussion. However, I doubt most will notice a change until something tangible happens. Words, particularly those recently used by the Conservative Party, come very cheap. It's easy to make boastful/unrealistic statements if you don't back them with evidence.

So, can we look at the deals completed with other countries by government design. Ones we were led to believe by members of that government, to replace and even better our trade with the EU.

Japan, I think, was the first. Once completed, our trade with Japan went down. We gave them so much access to our market that they moved many Japanese factories out of the UK, taking the jobs with them. Our government had put them in a position where goods produced and sold here, creating jobs, could now be made in Japan and still sold here.

Then, there were deals with New Zealand and Australia. These were so bad that an ex-Tory Cabinet Minister attacked his party over them in Parliament. One positive (not) was that we allowed NZ and Australian reporters to laugh at our country as they announced the news in their countries.

The UK government's assessment of these deals puts them at a 0% boost to our GDP in response to the loss from leaving the EU.

Johnson caved in deals in return for headlines. If Sunak does the same, we must also be suspicious of financial motivation for him and his family. I wish that were not true, but like the scorpion, it does seem to be his character. I doubt he thinks it wrong.

Why do we even think we could do well selling whisky and cars to, yes, the most populated country in the world. However, although India is a wealthy country, the GDP per capita is 19 times lower than the EU, while the population is only three times that of the EU. Do the maths, as they say. It's such a pity these people didn't do it earlier.

It is easy to show that we can't possibly get a boost to either the whisky industry or the car industry to equal the loss from Europe.

Perhaps you could explain GSM, what India wants in return in this deal.

I have no idea and no inclination to find out. I expect you can do so if you wish.

Germanshepherdsmum

I have no idea and no inclination to find out. I expect you can do so if you wish.

I already know, GSM.

What is more interesting is that you are prepared to back this Tory Party, to laud the deals they make, and to take the odd sideswipe at others with your "Do we want a trade deal or not?", all without being aware of what sort of deal it is.

I'm not saying you shouldn't be that person, but it's a bit much expecting everyone else to agree.

Remember, in the 13 years we are discussing, this government not only took us out of the EU, but they also took the country out of every trade deal we had with much of Europe. They did not need to go to such extremes when the vote was only 48% - 52%. Mrs May would have gone for a more political than economic "leave". Your Party was handed over to the extreme right. They, generally, only go into politics for what they can get out of it themselves. During these 13 years, they shot a huge hole in our economy. It is not the likes of Sunak, or Johnson who will suffer from that action, and possibly not some of their supporters either.

One of the negotiating points is more migrant visas. I’d be surprised if that goes down well with the right.
www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/aug/26/trade-deal-indian-sword-sunak-pm-wife-company-shareholder-no-10

I’m not expecting people here to agree with me DAR. Most are of a different political hue.

From memory I seem to recall that India wanted the ability to send people to the UK to learn skills that they could then return to India with? It was all well touted at the time, they were quite open about it. I think that a lot of Asian communities voted leave because they felt it would make it easier for them to bring their relatives to this country ie they resented how easy it was for EU members to come here. I’m happy to be corrected if my memory is deceiving me.

Germanshepherdsmum

I have no idea and no inclination to find out. I expect you can do so if you wish.

India are insisting on easy visas for their skilled staff that they want to import to the U.K. from India to work for Infosys - owned by Sunak’s father in-law.

It does not intend to train U.K. staff admit has plenty of Indian staff sufficiently skilled for their purposes.

The vast bulk of Sunak’s wealth comes from Infosys.

That is why his wife had not declared her income for tax purposes until she was forced to do so. She has paid tax since the criticism, but not in retrospect. So there are many millions sat in the familial coffers on which no U.K. tax was paid on their income, even though resident in the uk when they presumably they used the roads, relied on the police and security services etc.

Tory Government wants portraits of King hanging in Scottish schools cost £8 million. Cost of living crisis

www.thenational.scot/news/23749913.uk-government-wants-portraits-king-hanging-scottish-schools/

Germanshepherdsmum

I’m not expecting people here to agree with me DAR. Most are of a different political hue.

That "political hue" surely doesn't mean you have to close your eyes to truths? No political party is perfect or ever likely to be; they are run by humans beings.

Dinahmo

Considering this thread has gone on for 21 pages there can't be much left to say about the original topic, short of repeating ourselves. So what's wrong with being slightly off topic? Except for most of the off topic comments are LP bashing.

Given the topic heading, I hadn’t expected it to last a page.

Now that there is open warfare in the Tory party I expect very little achievement over the coming months apart from headlines about who is siding with who and how Sunak is trying to “bring the party together”

All so very predictable.