Instead of focussing on this silly conference argument / sabotage / motion whatever, isn’t it more interesting to look at fundamentally why a higher floor for earnings may be a good thing and how to mitigate for its impacts and what other things could be explored like fucking up the rentier class etc?

Diluted Dante wrote:

It wasn't his proposal though, it was a Unite proposal. If he felt he couldn't in good concience argue against it, his position becomes untenable surely? It's also worth noting that as well as the minimum wage, he was also instructed to argue against the sick pay proposals, so it's not just about this £15 thing specifically.

Yeah I suppose I don't really have an issue with the bloke who walked. Min wage clearly isn't something Starmer wants to even discuss at the moment. So it's not like he could have gone in there and started haggling. Probably given an order to close the whole thing down and that was as much as he could take.

They're watertreading professional dipshits, please ignore them. They are immune to scrutiny.

Thats a real thin string to cling onto.

equinox_code wrote:

This level of comfort could surely be afforded on half a day of work.

Definitely a conversation we need. The only thing I really dream about is a detached 2-bed instead of the council 1-bed I don't like, but if I worked five times as much the treadmill'd just speed up.

When you lose council and benefits access, it's taking an ever-bigger jump to land on the other side where you reap rewards for your increased effort. We're maybe at the point where some people on benefits are as well off as people on £30k, where the only real difference is that the former feel shame and the latter burnout.

Specifically, he [Starmer] said Labour would boost arts and digital funding and offer better careers guidance to children – making work experience compulsory and teaching students about pensions, mortgages and contracts.

Education, education, and fuck free universities.

Why is it that hard to believe? Blair managed it, why wouldn’t Starmer?

LivDiv wrote:

Bye bye small business. Hello even more power to big business. That is not going to lead to a more equal society.

Once we've crippled the farmers and growers and forced them to sell their land to developers for overpriced, shit homes, we can get more money from those homeowners!

Yossarian wrote:

Why is it that hard to believe? Blair managed it, why wouldn’t Starmer?

Blair brought in university fees and Starmer's on about compulsory work experience. We're simply further away from the boomer years Blair caught the tail end of.

I think Yoss is certainly right that Starmer would improve things in at least some way for the worst off, by simple virtue of not being a Tory government.

He absolutely won't do anywhere near as much as he should do, but barring some kind of electoral miracle, your choice is Starmer's Labour or Johnsons Tories as the Government, and the worst off will be the least worst off under Labour.

Yossarian wrote:

And let’s not forget that our current government is about to push a lot more people into poverty with the changes to universal credit and NI.

Let's also not forget that Labour brought in sanctions and Corbyn was the only leader who wanted to ban them.

Compulsory work experience is just fucking heinous.

I worry about where we would be with another 5 years of this current government.
The country was in a shit state in 2015 under CamBourne but by every metric I can think of we are in the same or worse state now 5 years later. That isnt to say I want to go back to where we were in 2015 either.

I guess truck drivers are getting paid more. Anything else?
Closer to the end times, the sweet blissful relief of global apocalypse. Thats something I suppose.

Yossarian wrote:

Work experience was compulsory at my school, it was fine. Interesting, even.

It's the normalisation of workfare. If it's optional and paid at adult rates it's fine.

Brooks wrote:

The notion Spammer is going to do a fucking thing about anything is a little hard to take srsly.

It's the man who brings a kiddies' sand bucket to a sinking ship. And then makes someone else bail.

I wasn't aware opting out of work experience was possible.

As an underperforming pupil I'd have been roadworking or labouring. Interesting. (I'd have said I was labouring with my dad who'd have covered for me, but that's not the point.)

When I left school at 14 with MH problems they made it more stressful to stay out, and I did think about going back and just dossing around again, but their combative treatment rubbed me up the wrong way and I dug in.

Starmer's playing to the National Service crowd with a gateway policy even the Tories lack, so of course it triggers the anti-authoritarian in me. It's no way to treat kids — as futurework commodities.

monkey wrote:

How about the same amount of houses with all the Green New Deal money going into insulating them to increase their value?

Should be an independent policy, not something used to tickle greed creep. Besides, increasing house prices only benefits the buffered; rents go up.

mistercrayon wrote:

Its such a weird loss when you put it like that. Starmer is like - you work hard you do okay. Then doesn’t want to either (presumably) gun for UBI or something that actually rewards working in a job.

More education! Dignity in work! Summat-summat-Tory HEIRTOOLS!

mistercrayon wrote:

Look I see nothing from Starmer except a person conveyord into a leadership position with nothing. He just seems as pointless and reliant on vague shit as Johnson.

100%, but we'll suffer another five years of red Tories before some people recognise it.

Yossarian wrote:

Where’s the empathy for those people struggling to put food on the table?

Empathy for people like me? I felt it in spades when we united behind Labour's last two manifestos. It's very centrist to use that line and then dismiss those same people when you disagree with their belief that Starmer's as bad for their futures as Johnson. We form the majority of those calling Starmer a shit!

Last two elections, every poor person I know voted for either Labour's manifesto because it was leftwing, or Tory because they wanted to leave the EU. All of us wanting a fairer shake in common.

If slightly better's enough, the Lib Dems.