frankPodmore

frankPodmore, 6 hours ago

Y’know, I understand why the Canary publish this kind of misinformation. Their whole business model is based on inciting directionless outrage. What I can’t understand is why people, like everyone else in this thread, keep falling for it.

frankPodmore, 3 days ago

Sunak is still saying ‘second half of the year’. There’s some procedural stuff that I think means he has to give notice six weeks before the date, so in theory it could still be as soon as July.

frankPodmore, 2 days ago

He could, but it would be mad. But he is mad. So, maybe?

frankPodmore, 2 days ago

Yeah, Tories have definitely given up winning. I wouldn’t put too much faith in their ability to mount a nefarious scheme, as you describe. They’re flailing around, it’s pure panic.

frankPodmore, 3 days ago

This is just the first steps. It’s in addition to the existing pledges on climate change!

frankPodmore, 3 days ago

The situation has changed, so he’s changed his policies to match. Most people recognise that, which is why he’s gone from 20 points behind in the polls to 20 points ahead.

frankPodmore, 3 days ago (edited 3 days ago)

You’re partly right, of course. Everything is always down to multiple factors.

However, Starmer clearly deserves some credit for Labour’s success (and, I think, some credit for the Tories’ failures). It’s perfectly possible for the Tory vote share to fall and for Labour’s to fall, too, which we saw happen under Corbyn, or for the Tories to have an unpopular leader and to still win because the Labour leader makes themselves even more unpopular (as we also saw under Corbyn and Miliband). Those things aren’t happening now, so Starmer must be doing something right.

frankPodmore, 2 days ago (edited 2 days ago)

He didn’t cancel all the pledges. This is Tory misinformation that some people have swallowed. Here are the pledges. In fact, looking at the headline of each pledge, he’s still promising the same broad directions for all ten of them.

Some policy details have changed (justifiably, I think). But not completely. For example, under pledge 1, they’ve found other taxes to raise instead of income tax: different policies, same overall goal. Is that a broken pledge? Maybe, but it seems a bit much to say he has not only to to tax the rich but do it in the exact way he promised five years ago lest he be accused of lying.

Others, like pledge 3, on climate justice, are still entirely in place, as are 7, 8 and 10.

Some have changed a lot. I don’t think the foreign policy or immigation stuff really resembles his current policy positions. But I also don’t think he should let himself be dragged down by unpopular positions once their unpopularity is clear.

I don’t personally think that shifting specific policies, but keeping the clear overall direction, is such a big deal. Your mileage may vary, obviously, but we should at least talk about what has actually happened, not repeat Tory propaganda at each other!

frankPodmore, 2 days ago

Or just stealing Labour’s ideas when they do promise things!

frankPodmore, 2 days ago

I don’t know how you can look at the five pledges, particularly on house building, the Green New Deal and the New Deal for Workers and say, ‘Nothing is going to change’ if Labour are elected.

frankPodmore, 2 days ago

That doesn’t follow. The 10 pledges, many of which in fact still stand, despite what the Tories would have you believe, were not the only possible way of changing things.

frankPodmore, 2 days ago

Best to look at primary sources. Here are the 10 pledges.

Now, there’s not a conveniently straight forward answer to all of this, so bear with me. But for my money, in terms of the headline of each pledge, all of them still stand. If things were simple, I’d be 10 for 10. Unfortunately for my argument, things are not so simple.

Starting at the top, with pledge 1: Economic Justice. Starmer is still pledged to economic justice, it’s the raison d’etre of the Labour Party, but the devil is in the detail:

Increase income tax for the top 5% of earners, reverse the Tories’ cuts in corporation tax and clamp down on tax avoidance, particularly of large corporations.

The only one of those three policies that still stands is the tax avoidance clampdown. However, things are, again, not so simple. The income tax pledge has been dropped, but the money that was going to raise has been replaced with a different tax on the rich (VAT on private schools and, till the Tories nicked it, abolition of non-dom status). So, is that a ‘broken pledge’? Or has he found a better way to achieve the same goal? Should he really be held to a policy if he thinks it won’t work and he can do it better in a different way?

I’m not going to go through all the pledges like this. But, 3, 7, 8, 9 and 10 all still stand, I would argue in pretty much every detail. That’s 5 out of 10. For the others, #2 and #5 has been scaled back, but replaced with I would argue similar policies that achieve similar goals. #4 and #6 are very different in all but the headline. I think the changes are justifiable, but it’s perfectly understandable if you don’t.

Now, my questions to you is: Should Starmer stick to promising to deliver all ten things in every detail, even if: he sincerely changes his mind (which people do); the circumstances genuinely change (which they have); or he sincerely thinks some of those things, good ideas or not, will lose him the election? Should he keep promising ten things at the risk of delivering none of them? Or, should he stick to five of them, and modify the other five, in order to deliver some of them?

For me, not getting elected would actually, definitively break all ten pledges, because it would mean he’d categorically failed at his job.

frankPodmore, 2 days ago (edited 2 days ago)

I did mention all of those things indirectly, because they were all in the pledges, and I mentioned all of the pledges. Those changes were all contained within the changes I acknowledged. Your argument was that the 10 pledges had been all but scrapped. I’ve shown that 5/10 still stand exactly as they were. Of the five remaining, three of them at least partly stand. So, at least half, at most 8/10, still hold up. In either case, they haven’t been all but scrapped, which is what I was asked to show.

frankPodmore, 4 days ago

Indeed. Even as someone who’s going to vote Labour pretty much regardless, I do need some actual, y’know, policies from time to time.

frankPodmore, 4 days ago

Key line from Dave Ward on what these proposals will do:

We need to shift the balance of forces in the world of work back towards working people, that’s the only way you’re going to grow the economy.

frankPodmore, 4 days ago

Shows what you can achieve when you Labour Together.

frankPodmore, 5 days ago

Once had a motorist furiously shout, wave and honk his horn at me because he hadn’t checked his mirrors to see that his generous offer involved me cycling directly under the wheels of a bus. I live in London. It was a bright red double-decker. He hadn’t seen it.

frankPodmore, 5 days ago

This worries me, too. They do have some examples of what to do and not to do from other contemporary progressive governments, so I hope they can learn from others’ mistakes.

frankPodmore, 6 days ago

It sounds like a dial tone to me, with a lot of fuzz. Could be a pager, as doctors used to use them a lot.

frankPodmore, 6 days ago

So, he’s saying ‘Scrapping that limit would be expensive and we think there are better ways to spend the money.’

I just don’t think this is a particularly bad position to hold. It might be wrong as a matter of fact, but it doesn’t strike me as wrong morally.

frankPodmore, 7 days ago (edited 7 days ago)

Alright, music nerds, help me out: what was the ‘lost chord’? It wasn’t the one Paul described in the canteen scene!

EDIT: It also wasn’t the Hard Day’s Night chord, or the A Day in the Life (which is just E Major, anyway) chord, which would be the obvious ones.

frankPodmore, 8 days ago

Wes Streeting also ruled out Liz Truss joining.

Interesting question, though: would they accept Humza Yousaf? The people must be told!

frankPodmore, 5 days ago

They’ve since discovered loads more, including more biographical information about Plato! And, possibly, a bit more about purple.