Starmer's speech

The Labour Policy document is, apparently, 116 pages long. Starmer couldn't possibly have fitted it all into one speech. Shadow Cabinet members put forward some of the policies for their particular areas;I think we have to look at them as a whole.

While watching it, I was reminded of the rallies by Adolf Hitler.....with the mindless fools cheering every word, as though someone was holding up a board saying 'cheer'.

MaizieD

The Labour Policy document is, apparently, 116 pages long. Starmer couldn't possibly have fitted it all into one speech. Shadow Cabinet members put forward some of the policies for their particular areas;I think we have to look at them as a whole.

Yes I saw that.

I do know that this speech as well as all the others this week, was simply meant to give the voter a broad outline of what labour hopes to achieve if it gets into power.

The detail will be filled in before the election. And that seems sensible.

This week gave people the knowledge of the intention of travel, and before they vote they will be given the route by how this is going to be achieved.

Curtaintwitcher

While watching it, I was reminded of the rallies by Adolf Hitler.....with the mindless fools cheering every word, as though someone was holding up a board saying 'cheer'.

Have you seen a political conference where that didn’t happen then Curtaintwitcher?

If anyone has any free time, perhaps check out past party manifestos (probably the brief version) to see if there’s much progress from the original offerings to end results?

ronib

If anyone has any free time, perhaps check out past party manifestos (probably the brief version) to see if there’s much progress from the original offerings to end results?

Let us know what you discover ronib, I’m sure people would be interested?

Curtaintwitcher

While watching it, I was reminded of the rallies by Adolf Hitler.....with the mindless fools cheering every word, as though someone was holding up a board saying 'cheer'.

Not worth thinking of a reply.

Well first look at 1997 Labour Manifesto was easy to find online. Use of PFIs didn’t work out as expected so even when promises are kept, the results may not be beneficial to the country.

Compairing Starmer to Hitler - what nonsense. There’s a particular irony given Starmer’s strong views on anti semitism

It depends what you count as success. PFI was a John Major government concept which continued under Labour. It was undoubtedly flawed, but achieved lasting benefits nonetheless.

According to i one of the UK’s leading medics has accused the Government of “misleading the public” after it claimed 18 new hospitals have opened over the last 10 years.

In response to a Freedom of Information request from i asking how many new hospitals have been built in England since 1 January 2010, The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said there had been 18 – although this figure includes partial new builds as well as existing hospitals that have either been refurbished or redeveloped.

103 new hospitals opened under the last Labour government.

Casdon 121 new hospitals and an Nhs waiting list of over 7 million?
Also taking away funding for the assisted places scheme formed part of the 1997 Labour Manifesto - pulling away the ladder of opportunity ? Whatever interpretation is chosen, it feels as if the Labour Party now is revisiting policies which once had been popular.

Iam64

Compairing Starmer to Hitler - what nonsense. There’s a particular irony given Starmer’s strong views on anti semitism

And his wife and children are Jews.

There were only 2.5 million on treatment waiting lists in 2010, compared with 7.5 million now. Does that tell you something?

The assisted places scheme benefitted some people, mainly those with at least one parent in a professional job, but didn’t change the inequality gap.
www.theguardian.com/education/2020/dec/02/assisted-places-scheme-helps-few-working-class-pupils-archive-1985

I’m sure you’ve realised that the Tory election manifesto will promote more of the same policies that haven’t worked in the last 13 years, so I’m not clear why you think it’s appropriate to criticise Labour for wanting to pursue policies that did? By almost any measure we were in a better position in 2010 as a country than we are now - or if you want to throw Ukraine, the pandemic or whatever other measure you like in, than we were in 2019.

No one has compared Starmer to Hitler. But the response to speeches given to large groups of people by any politician might resonate with our group memory of very dark times in our history. We need a group memory to stay alert.

ronib

No one has compared Starmer to Hitler. But the response to speeches given to large groups of people by any politician might resonate with our group memory of very dark times in our history. We need a group memory to stay alert.

Only if that politician is promoting an extremist agenda, which Starmer certainly isn’t.

And if we use the word nazi to describe things that are nothing of the sort we tend to miss the actual nazism happening right I front of us.

Casdon we will be facing different challenges in 2024 to those in 1997.
Re health - so with the physical expansion of hospital building there was no similar expansion of numbers of medical staff training places. As has been discussed before, this is because the BMA voted against increasing medical training places. No wonder there are now 7.5 million on the Nhs waiting list.

The Guardian is no authority on inequality in education. So The Guardian doesn’t approve of lower middle class families being given a private education? It isn’t for the Guardian to block apparent opportunities for this group because the ‘real’ working class had no access to assisted places. Life is so much more complicated and nuanced than anything the Guardian prints.

I was feeling hopeful but when he said he was going to override local opposition to planning he lost me. Local democracy is important.

Starmer objective is to get Labour into power and I thought his speech and the conference in general helped with that. They have a lot to do to clear up the Tory mess and some hobbyhorses are going to be at the bottom of the priority list. The NHS, cost of living, the Home Office, housing and schools look the most important to me. They should fund council house building as well.

ronib

Casdon we will be facing different challenges in 2024 to those in 1997.
Re health - so with the physical expansion of hospital building there was no similar expansion of numbers of medical staff training places. As has been discussed before, this is because the BMA voted against increasing medical training places. No wonder there are now 7.5 million on the Nhs waiting list.

The Guardian is no authority on inequality in education. So The Guardian doesn’t approve of lower middle class families being given a private education? It isn’t for the Guardian to block apparent opportunities for this group because the ‘real’ working class had no access to assisted places. Life is so much more complicated and nuanced than anything the Guardian prints.

Fundamentally the domestic challenge now is not dissimilar to what it was in 1997. ronib.
Your thinking on the NHS is muddled. The hospital building programme was not designed to increase NHS bed numbers, it was to replace outdated facilities and equipment. Since then, the hospital bed stock reduced by 8.3% between 2010/11 and 2019/20, I worked in the NHS, and can tell you that has had the most profound impact on the growth of waiting lists. Anybody who has had, or is waiting for an operation will tell you that the main reason for delays is lack of beds - and that is because the NHS has insufficient funding to run safe services. Staffing levels are of course an issue, because the NHS is leaching staff and there are insufficient training places - but the root of the problem is Tory funding levels as part of a deliberate policy to privatise.

Your take on education is interesting - do you think the Guardian has some influence on educational policy?

I don't think the comment was thought through in that way ronib. The poster could have compared the reception of the speech to many things, a football match for example.

The Conservative Party, its followers and its current leader had a conference to prepare for opposition. Sadly, they are being very Trumpian in how they are going about it. They are throwing every bit of lying ordure at the wall, in the hope that something sticks. At the Conference we had:

" ... a government diktat to sort your rubbish into 7 different bins." (Rishi Sunak)

"What is sinister, and what we shouldn't tolerate, is the idea that local councils can decide how often we should go to the shops." (Mark Harper)

"It's no wonder that Labour seem so relaxed about taxing meat". (Claire Coutinho)

I think the "Hitler" post is of the same ilk as these lies. It is said in the hope that the lie is halfway round the world before truth has got its boots on.

If this Trunpian vein is to be followed, do the supporters of the entitled right see themselves marching on, and attacking, parliament in a few years time in order to overturn our democracy?

Casdon yes my thinking is very muddled on health…. and I think the Nhs leadership does advocate a lean machine best buck approach which is failing to give results. I don’t know that the Conservative Party is looking to privatise the Nhs - big mistake if that’s true.

The Guardian seems to echo the traditional left wing approach to private education and seems very limited in its scope.

For IAM64, don't be silly? The comparison was with RALLIES in general, NOT the particular people at the front.

NOBODY is saying that Starmer is like Hitler, in fact on all known evidence, he's highly unlikely to try and suggest much decisive policy (at the 2019 election, he was touting I think it was "6 possible Brexit policies"?!).

Various pundits have said that with a massive polls lead, and the wretched Tories determined to keep shooting themselves in both feet, he needs to say as little as possible other than general 'feel good' slogans.

[NB -- having voted since the 60s, and with mountains of evidence, I lost faith many years ago that ANY of our politicos, any badge, would shed the easy accusation that they are generally incompetent, often corrupt, and far too likely to put party interests above ours. I suggested back in the 90s I think it was that we should sub-contract out our Gove to somewhere sensible like Holland or Denmark, they could do a better job in about 2 days a week, and cost us far less!]

Everything was qualified with "if we get in at the next election" as if he's hoping that they don't get it as they are clueless.