Snap General Election called

[Donny osmond]

Well they've lost Runcorn, so what change do you want to see in Labour and do you think it will prevent results like Runcorn happening again?

[Danno]

Labour enacting policies and behaving in keeping with Labour would be a nice start

[Which Tyler]

Well they've lost Runcorn, so what change do you want to see in Labour and do you think it will prevent results like Runcorn happening again?

How about moving towards the centre ground, supporting the workers and the downtrodden - rather than trying to be Reform-Lite, now that the tories are re-continuing their attempt to be Reform-with-a-different-shade-of-blue?

Once they've moved back to the centre, then of course, my personal preference is to move to the actual left

[Sandydragon]

Just another one of those people who know too much about the rich and powerful, killing themselves. Nothing suspicious there.

It seems she was a deeply troubled person (looking at her most recent media articles) so I wouldn’t rush to judgement.

We'll never know but her death is very convenient for numerous rich and powerful people.

It would have been more convenient well before the trial.

[Sandydragon]

Well they've lost Runcorn, so what change do you want to see in Labour and do you think it will prevent results like Runcorn happening again?

How about moving towards the centre ground, supporting the workers and the downtrodden - rather than trying to be Reform-Lite, now that the tories are re-continuing their attempt to be Reform-with-a-different-shade-of-blue?

Once they've moved back to the centre, then of course, my personal preference is to move to the actual left

Farage is combining left and right wing policies, I don’t think that label is very helpful.

Labour should focus on competence. Start building the economy and have something concrete to point to. Perhaps put rejoining the EU on the table and watch the Conservatives and Reform melt down.

[Son of Mathonwy]

Well they've lost Runcorn, so what change do you want to see in Labour and do you think it will prevent results like Runcorn happening again?

How about moving towards the centre ground, supporting the workers and the downtrodden - rather than trying to be Reform-Lite, now that the tories are re-continuing their attempt to be Reform-with-a-different-shade-of-blue?

Once they've moved back to the centre, then of course, my personal preference is to move to the actual left

Farage is combining left and right wing policies, I don’t think that label is very helpful.

Labour should focus on competence. Start building the economy and have something concrete to point to. Perhaps put rejoining the EU on the table and watch the Conservatives and Reform melt down.

Labour needs to remember what it used to stand for and actually be left-wing. Make the lives of ordinary people better. Make it possible for them to live in a decent home, like it used to be. In other words, decrease inequality. This would require more progressive taxation and a move away from Thatcherism/neoliberalism. Unless ordinary voters see their lives improving they will vote for Farage and his bullshit solutions because, er, they haven't tried him yet.

This would require Starmer to stand down or completely change the people around him. He has no ideology or vision so could conceivably switch advisors and run a more left-wing government (if he thought it would be better for him). But this is unlikely. More likely he would have to stand down but this is also pretty unlikely (although a catastrophic first 10 months has made it a possibility). He might well sack Reeves, which would be a start . . . depending on who the replacement was.

On competence, I think they may be doing the best they can. I don't think joining the EU is worth the risk but they should certainly look at the single market & customs union. But Starmer is too cautious to do that.

[Banquo]

How about moving towards the centre ground, supporting the workers and the downtrodden - rather than trying to be Reform-Lite, now that the tories are re-continuing their attempt to be Reform-with-a-different-shade-of-blue?

Once they've moved back to the centre, then of course, my personal preference is to move to the actual left

Farage is combining left and right wing policies, I don’t think that label is very helpful.

Labour should focus on competence. Start building the economy and have something concrete to point to. Perhaps put rejoining the EU on the table and watch the Conservatives and Reform melt down.

.

On competence, I think they may be doing the best they can.

Is that praise or faint praise based on the competency available? (though you also say a catastrophic 10 months, so I suppose I can guess).

Whats your view on 'more progressive taxation' ...raising thresholds, raising %ages or both?

Big issue for me...nobpdy has anything like a plan. Reform have a whinge list and nothing else; Lib Dems...no idea what they actually stand for--- and yet both have done very well in these votes.

[Sandydragon]

This was always going to be a protest vote, so good for Greens, Libs and Reform. The danger is this developing narrative that Refoem are the opposition now.

I do t think a move to the left will save Labour. Not all left policies are vote winners. Farage is using the uncertainty about what reform is to pick and choose. Can Labour do the same and be left on economics and right on social matters? Will that keep core Labour voters, ie working class and left leaning professionals on track? I don’t think the latter would be happy and might look to green instead.

Their best tack is to keep to the centre and let the Tories continue to drift. Be competent and start challenging reforms policies. Now reform have so many councils there will be plenty of ammunition available to point out their flaws.

Reform are already talking about a UK DOGE effect. Let’s see how well that goes down when local services collapse. I don’t think sacking DEI officers will be that noticeable, but widespread slash and burn will.

[Son of Mathonwy]

Farage is combining left and right wing policies, I don’t think that label is very helpful.

Labour should focus on competence. Start building the economy and have something concrete to point to. Perhaps put rejoining the EU on the table and watch the Conservatives and Reform melt down.

.

On competence, I think they may be doing the best they can.

Is that praise or faint praise based on the competency available? (though you also say a catastrophic 10 months, so I suppose I can guess).

Whats your view on 'more progressive taxation' ...raising thresholds, raising %ages or both?

Big issue for me...nobpdy has anything like a plan. Reform have a whinge list and nothing else; Lib Dems...no idea what they actually stand for--- and yet both have done very well in these votes.

I'm not really trying to praise or faint praise them. I'm taking competent to mean able to run their departments, enact policies etc without too many cockups or resignations, which they seem to be doing, so on that basis they seem to be broadly competent. Also, I'm not sure competence is something you can decide to do more of. Given that most of them haven't been in government before, they are meeting the bar for 'competence'.

What I'm not considering to be part of 'competence' are the big decisions about what direction to be taking government, the economy in, the left/right, progressive/regressive, equality/inequality choices. Obviously I think they're a disaster there.

More progressive taxation. There are lots of things that can be done here. The easy ones are equalising the tax treatment of different things eg taxing earned and unearned income the same, so taxing dividends and capital gains at the same rates as income tax. Then there's charging national insurance on things that don't attract it currently - unearned income. Then there's fixing national insurance so that it's not regressive at higher incomes, ie the top band should be at the top rate. Personally I'd simplify the system by removing NI completely and simply applying income tax (at an increased rate) on all income, earned and unearned. Ideally I'd also reduce the regressive VAT and increase income tax to make up for it.

As for tax levels (after all those changes), no doubt they would need some adjustment. I'd want something like the bottom 50% of the population paying less tax and the top 30% paying more. The idea is to genuinely reduce inequality, ie redistribute wealth.

Agreed, I don't see much of a plan.

[Son of Mathonwy]

This was always going to be a protest vote, so good for Greens, Libs and Reform. The danger is this developing narrative that Refoem are the opposition now.

I do t think a move to the left will save Labour. Not all left policies are vote winners. Farage is using the uncertainty about what reform is to pick and choose. Can Labour do the same and be left on economics and right on social matters? Will that keep core Labour voters, ie working class and left leaning professionals on track? I don’t think the latter would be happy and might look to green instead.

Their best tack is to keep to the centre and let the Tories continue to drift. Be competent and start challenging reforms policies. Now reform have so many councils there will be plenty of ammunition available to point out their flaws.

Reform are already talking about a UK DOGE effect. Let’s see how well that goes down when local services collapse. I don’t think sacking DEI officers will be that noticeable, but widespread slash and burn will.

This has been a gift to Reform because a lot of the votes have been in Reform territory, so they look stronger than they are. However, they're still polling just ahead of Labour and so far ahead of the (possibly dying) Tory party that they can reasonably call themselves the opposition.

Not all left policies are vote winners but policies that make most people's lives easier (ie reducing inequality) should be. This is the way to defuse Reform's support, by fixing people's lives so they don't have anything to blame on migrants (or net zero!??). But talking up immigration as a purely negative thing (and conflating legal and illegal migration) - as Starmer did even today - is just saying Farage is right, vote for him. Similarly, walking away from net zero. No one who really thinks immigration or net zero are the big problems will ever vote for Labour.

I'd say the Labour are centre-right, not centre - they're only just left of where Sunak's Tories were. But whatever we call it, if they stay there they'll lose half of their votes to the Greens, LibDems and (as the Democrats found) the stay-at-homes. Voters need a reason to vote for a party and they aren't being given one.

God help disabled people in any of those under any of those Reform councils as they look to make cuts. Hopefully this will be noticed in general but most of the newspapers will spin it as a good thing or the fault of the national government. The shame for Labour is that they've lost their chance to significantly increase central funding for local government. If they were to do it now (in a massive u-turn. . . which won't happen) Reform would take all the credit.

[Banquo]

.

On competence, I think they may be doing the best they can.

Is that praise or faint praise based on the competency available? (though you also say a catastrophic 10 months, so I suppose I can guess).

Whats your view on 'more progressive taxation' ...raising thresholds, raising %ages or both?

Big issue for me...nobpdy has anything like a plan. Reform have a whinge list and nothing else; Lib Dems...no idea what they actually stand for--- and yet both have done very well in these votes.

I'm not really trying to praise or faint praise them. I'm taking competent to mean able to run their departments, enact policies etc without too many cockups or resignations, which they seem to be doing, so on that basis they seem to be broadly competent. Also, I'm not sure competence is something you can decide to do more of. Given that most of them haven't been in government before, they are meeting the bar for 'competence'.

What I'm not considering to be part of 'competence' are the big decisions about what direction to be taking government, the economy in, the left/right, progressive/regressive, equality/inequality choices. Obviously I think they're a disaster there.

More progressive taxation. There are lots of things that can be done here. The easy ones are equalising the tax treatment of different things eg taxing earned and unearned income the same, so taxing dividends and capital gains at the same rates as income tax. Then there's charging national insurance on things that don't attract it currently - unearned income. Then there's fixing national insurance so that it's not regressive at higher incomes, ie the top band should be at the top rate. Personally I'd simplify the system by removing NI completely and simply applying income tax (at an increased rate) on all income, earned and unearned. Ideally I'd also reduce the regressive VAT and increase income tax to make up for it.

As for tax levels (after all those changes), no doubt they would need some adjustment. I'd want something like the bottom 50% of the population paying less tax and the top 30% paying more. The idea is to genuinely reduce inequality, ie redistribute wealth.

Agreed, I don't see much of a plan.

So they are delivering bad policies competently
On taxes- have you or someone else (not expecting you to tbf) run the numbers on your proposals?

What’s certain is that we are pretty badly broken by any measure.

[Son of Mathonwy]

Is that praise or faint praise based on the competency available? (though you also say a catastrophic 10 months, so I suppose I can guess).

Whats your view on 'more progressive taxation' ...raising thresholds, raising %ages or both?

Big issue for me...nobpdy has anything like a plan. Reform have a whinge list and nothing else; Lib Dems...no idea what they actually stand for--- and yet both have done very well in these votes.

I'm not really trying to praise or faint praise them. I'm taking competent to mean able to run their departments, enact policies etc without too many cockups or resignations, which they seem to be doing, so on that basis they seem to be broadly competent. Also, I'm not sure competence is something you can decide to do more of. Given that most of them haven't been in government before, they are meeting the bar for 'competence'.

What I'm not considering to be part of 'competence' are the big decisions about what direction to be taking government, the economy in, the left/right, progressive/regressive, equality/inequality choices. Obviously I think they're a disaster there.

More progressive taxation. There are lots of things that can be done here. The easy ones are equalising the tax treatment of different things eg taxing earned and unearned income the same, so taxing dividends and capital gains at the same rates as income tax. Then there's charging national insurance on things that don't attract it currently - unearned income. Then there's fixing national insurance so that it's not regressive at higher incomes, ie the top band should be at the top rate. Personally I'd simplify the system by removing NI completely and simply applying income tax (at an increased rate) on all income, earned and unearned. Ideally I'd also reduce the regressive VAT and increase income tax to make up for it.

As for tax levels (after all those changes), no doubt they would need some adjustment. I'd want something like the bottom 50% of the population paying less tax and the top 30% paying more. The idea is to genuinely reduce inequality, ie redistribute wealth.

Agreed, I don't see much of a plan.

So they are delivering bad policies competently
On taxes- have you or someone else (not expecting you to tbf) run the numbers on your proposals?

What’s certain is that we are pretty badly broken by any measure.

Yeah, that's my take on it, they are reasonably competent at the day-to-day managing but incompetent (or misguided, self-serving or just plain wrong) on the big picture.

Some of these ideas and many more are looked at here:
https://taxingwealth.uk/
https://taxingwealth.uk/2023/09/06/weal ... in-the-uk/

[Banquo]

I'm not really trying to praise or faint praise them. I'm taking competent to mean able to run their departments, enact policies etc without too many cockups or resignations, which they seem to be doing, so on that basis they seem to be broadly competent. Also, I'm not sure competence is something you can decide to do more of. Given that most of them haven't been in government before, they are meeting the bar for 'competence'.

What I'm not considering to be part of 'competence' are the big decisions about what direction to be taking government, the economy in, the left/right, progressive/regressive, equality/inequality choices. Obviously I think they're a disaster there.

More progressive taxation. There are lots of things that can be done here. The easy ones are equalising the tax treatment of different things eg taxing earned and unearned income the same, so taxing dividends and capital gains at the same rates as income tax. Then there's charging national insurance on things that don't attract it currently - unearned income. Then there's fixing national insurance so that it's not regressive at higher incomes, ie the top band should be at the top rate. Personally I'd simplify the system by removing NI completely and simply applying income tax (at an increased rate) on all income, earned and unearned. Ideally I'd also reduce the regressive VAT and increase income tax to make up for it.

As for tax levels (after all those changes), no doubt they would need some adjustment. I'd want something like the bottom 50% of the population paying less tax and the top 30% paying more. The idea is to genuinely reduce inequality, ie redistribute wealth.

Agreed, I don't see much of a plan.

So they are delivering bad policies competently
On taxes- have you or someone else (not expecting you to tbf) run the numbers on your proposals?

What’s certain is that we are pretty badly broken by any measure.

Yeah, that's my take on it, they are reasonably competent at the day-to-day managing but incompetent (or misguided, self-serving or just plain wrong) on the big picture.

Some of these ideas and many more are looked at here:
https://taxingwealth.uk/
https://taxingwealth.uk/2023/09/06/weal ... in-the-uk/

Cheers will have a look through, though I think 'reasonably competent' is a minimum standard (and not even achieved in some cases cough treasury cough.....)though lower bars have been set

[Son of Mathonwy]

So they are delivering bad policies competently
On taxes- have you or someone else (not expecting you to tbf) run the numbers on your proposals?

What’s certain is that we are pretty badly broken by any measure.

Yeah, that's my take on it, they are reasonably competent at the day-to-day managing but incompetent (or misguided, self-serving or just plain wrong) on the big picture.

Some of these ideas and many more are looked at here:
https://taxingwealth.uk/
https://taxingwealth.uk/2023/09/06/weal ... in-the-uk/

Cheers will have a look through, though I think 'reasonably competent' is a minimum standard (and not even achieved in some cases cough treasury cough.....)though lower bars have been set

Sure, Sandy brought up the point about competence, I'm just saying they seem to be reaching that - that's not what needs to change to stop the country from hating them.

[Son of Mathonwy]

I'm trying to decide whether I want Labour to lose the Runcorn and Helsby byelection to Reform.

If Labour win they'll think they're doing okay and will continue on the same course. Which is bad for us and for them (in 2029).

If they lose, who knows what their reaction will be? Ape Reform even more? Or realize (finally) that no matter how many Faragist arguments they make they can never out-Farage Farage?

I have a horrible feeling they'll see either result as a reason to tack right.

In the end though, a loss will be undeniable evidence that they are going wrong and is more likely to lead to change (and maybe sackings) and change could be for the better. So bring on the loss.

Yeah, as expected the Labour reaction was: 'You hate what we're doing? Okay we'll do it even more.'

It's funny how both Kwasi Kwarteng and Keir Starmer used the line 'I get it' when faced with a horrifically negative reaction. Unfortunately even Kwarteng half meant it and reversed some of his measures. Starmer's just mouthing a phrase McSweeney's given him and intends to change nothing.

Anyway, at least it's a lost byelection (etc) and difficult to ignore (on top of the consistently awful polling). It puts pressure the Labour leadership. Realistically, though, nothing will change unless Starmer stands down or changes his advisors.

[Son of Mathonwy]

Starmer:

I was really clear that most prime ministers, after a disappointing set of results like that, would get in the warm bath of saying: ‘Well, it’s the electoral cycle, it was close.

I’m not going to do that. I think it’s really important that we indicate to voters that we get it.

I think we need to explain the decisions that we’ve taken. We had to stop the chaos, we had to stabilise our economy and that’s what we’ve done.

Brilliant. He 'gets it': it's the voters' failure to understand that's the problem.

So he's not going to change anything, he's going to explain. He's going to explain and explain and explain.

And in 2029 Nigel Farage will be PM.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ritics-say

[Danno]

Lawyers will almost never admit they were wrong.

[Mellsblue]

Lawyers will almost never admit they were wrong.

Married to one. Please omit ‘almost’.

[Banquo]

Lawyers will almost never admit they were wrong.

called Sue?

[Puja]

In less notable news, the Greens are having a leadership election. Apparently they have it in their constitution that they're supposed to have one every two years, which seemed weird to me when I first heard it, but on further reflection actually seems quite sensible - means there's no need for things to get to a massive crisis before you can have a chance of direction and there's regular checks to make sure that the people in charge still represent the will of the party at large. I wonder whether the Labour party would still elect Starmer in a new leadership contest.

One of the candidates is making a bit of noise and is interesting - deputy leader Zack Polanski has said that the Greens need to be less timid and that the current void in British politics is one that they should be loudly stepping into. He's got a point - Farage plc have come in proudly saying that their aim is to kill the Conservative party and take over as the main party on the right of British politics, and it's working for them. With Labour currently engaged in trying to beat Reform to looting the corpse of the Tory party, there is an opportunity for a party with left wing policies. We need someone who can offer a Change option that's not the fascists-in-waiting, who can take the votes of people appalled about the government positions on Gaza, the environment, austerity, and immigration.

The Greens should be aiming to murder Labour in the same way Reform wants to kill the Conservatives, but they're standing politely to one side, quite pleasantly pleased about having 4 MPs, when they should be talking to people like Burgon, Long-Bailey, Sultana, McDonnell, Begum, Whittome and encouraging them to defect to start building the new home of the left wing. Hells, start with the 7 suspended from the whipe for voting against the 2 child benefit cap, and then work their way through the list of the 42 who just wrote a letter to Starmer saying the planned benefit cuts are "impossible to support" (I can already tell them Starmer's answer - "I get it").

Puja

[Son of Mathonwy]

UK-US trade deal, or first agreed items in an ongoing trade negotiation? As it stands it's a crap deal for us because most things still have 10% tariffs and also it destroys any hope we might have of increasing car sales to the US because of the 100,000 car cap. It's only acceptable if we assume the rest of the tariffs will be fixed at the end of the full negotiations.

It's some breathing space for metals and cars (cars being the big one) but we need to be ready to match their general tariffs if no further agreement is made.

NB this is all assuming there isn't something nasty hidden in the details which Starmer doesn't want us to notice.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... trade-deal

[Son of Mathonwy]

In less notable news, the Greens are having a leadership election. Apparently they have it in their constitution that they're supposed to have one every two years, which seemed weird to me when I first heard it, but on further reflection actually seems quite sensible - means there's no need for things to get to a massive crisis before you can have a chance of direction and there's regular checks to make sure that the people in charge still represent the will of the party at large. I wonder whether the Labour party would still elect Starmer in a new leadership contest.

One of the candidates is making a bit of noise and is interesting - deputy leader Zack Polanski has said that the Greens need to be less timid and that the current void in British politics is one that they should be loudly stepping into. He's got a point - Farage plc have come in proudly saying that their aim is to kill the Conservative party and take over as the main party on the right of British politics, and it's working for them. With Labour currently engaged in trying to beat Reform to looting the corpse of the Tory party, there is an opportunity for a party with left wing policies. We need someone who can offer a Change option that's not the fascists-in-waiting, who can take the votes of people appalled about the government positions on Gaza, the environment, austerity, and immigration.

The Greens should be aiming to murder Labour in the same way Reform wants to kill the Conservatives, but they're standing politely to one side, quite pleasantly pleased about having 4 MPs, when they should be talking to people like Burgon, Long-Bailey, Sultana, McDonnell, Begum, Whittome and encouraging them to defect to start building the new home of the left wing. Hells, start with the 7 suspended from the whip for voting against the 2 child benefit cap, and then work their way through the list of the 42 who just wrote a letter to Starmer saying the planned benefit cuts are "impossible to support" (I can already tell them Starmer's answer - "I get it").

Puja

It's clear from their 2024 manifesto that the Greens are the only left-wing party (of the 5 main parties). They need to get this message out.

Everyone knows they are big on the climate crisis; what most of them probably don't realise is that the Greens are left-wing. If ordinary people want a traditional Labour approach to the working class, the Green Party is the only place to go. I'm not sure if the Greens think they will lose middle class voters but right now their USP is being left-wing and it's a bigger vote-winner than the environment.

Whether Polanski is the answer I don't know (he has a slightly embarrassing item in his past which the right wing press will endlessly remind him of should he ever become successful), but they do need to massively raise their profile. I think they are one charismatic leader away from making a breakthrough. Ramsey is never going to do it for them.

Agreed, they should do their best to get Labour or former Labour or independents to join the party. Clive Lewis would be great, although I can understand why he'd rather stay and hope for better times in the Labour party. However, after Starmer's rule changes and an influx of new centre-right MPs I'm not sure someone from the left has a chance of winning leadership now.

[Puja]

Whether Polanski is the answer I don't know (he has a slightly embarrassing item in his past which the right wing press will endlessly remind him of should he ever become successful), but they do need to massively raise their profile. I think they are one charismatic leader away from making a breakthrough. Ramsey is never going to do it for them.

Ramsey and Denyer were excellent at doing what they were doing - polite, non-confrontational, middle-class, working in a very focussed local manner on winning particular constituencies, and gaining the belief of people in those constituencies that Green would not be a wasted vote (fighting against the traditional Lib Dem brochure of "No-one else can win here, it's us or the Tories!"). They've built roots in their four constituencies and will likely win those going forwards. But they are 100% not leaders of a national political party.

Denyer's made the decision that the best use of her time is to focus on being the best MP for Bristol Central that she can and cement it as a Green stronghold, which I think is an excellent decision and a very good use of her talents, and I would say Ramsey would be best doing the same, unless he's got a hidden reserve of showmanship that he's been keeping back for a special occasion.

I'll admit that I don't know enough about Polanski to know if he's the answer, but I don't think the boobs hypnotherapy thing is too much of a dealbreaker - if anyone cares deeply, he's apologised and explained and it was a decent distance in the past. It could even end up being the kind of weird and funny detail that's a votewinner, as the average spod would see it as a quirky harmless anecdote, and press harping on about it would give him notoriety to lift out of obscurity.

We'll see whether any other contenders/skeletons come out of the woodwork.

Puja

[Son of Mathonwy]

Whether Polanski is the answer I don't know (he has a slightly embarrassing item in his past which the right wing press will endlessly remind him of should he ever become successful), but they do need to massively raise their profile. I think they are one charismatic leader away from making a breakthrough. Ramsey is never going to do it for them.

Ramsey and Denyer were excellent at doing what they were doing - polite, non-confrontational, middle-class, working in a very focussed local manner on winning particular constituencies, and gaining the belief of people in those constituencies that Green would not be a wasted vote (fighting against the traditional Lib Dem brochure of "No-one else can win here, it's us or the Tories!"). They've built roots in their four constituencies and will likely win those going forwards. But they are 100% not leaders of a national political party.

Denyer's made the decision that the best use of her time is to focus on being the best MP for Bristol Central that she can and cement it as a Green stronghold, which I think is an excellent decision and a very good use of her talents, and I would say Ramsey would be best doing the same, unless he's got a hidden reserve of showmanship that he's been keeping back for a special occasion.

I'll admit that I don't know enough about Polanski to know if he's the answer, but I don't think the boobs hypnotherapy thing is too much of a dealbreaker - if anyone cares deeply, he's apologised and explained and it was a decent distance in the past. It could even end up being the kind of weird and funny detail that's a votewinner, as the average spod would see it as a quirky harmless anecdote, and press harping on about it would give him notoriety to lift out of obscurity.

We'll see whether any other contenders/skeletons come out of the woodwork.

Puja

What they need, and I know I am asking for a miracle, is for Gary Lineker to join them. I'd say Chris Packham too but I imagine the very last thing he'd want to be is a politician.

[Son of Mathonwy]

Labour damaging the economy in order to pander to Reform. Two birds with one stone.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... tions-fees

And Starmer's 'island of strangers' xenophobic bullshit is pure Farage-fuel:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/ ... armer-says

Stsrmer's instincts are so bad, so 180 degrees off-target, there's almost no hope. By the time that bone-headed, inflexible idiot figures that he's only making things worse it'll be too late to fix.