Okay, for the third comment in a row - is it too much for people to read these articles before they comment? I don’t think you’ve even read the headline properly, given that ‘a wealth tax’ is not the same thing as ‘the wealthy paying their taxes’!
I mean, again, this is basically the argument of the article. But doesn’t your second sentence contradict your first? You’re acknowledging it would accomplish little on its own and it would need other things with it to make it work!
This is basically the argument of the article?
It’s not that getting rid of Starmer will definitely improve things, it’s that it might and that he, clearly, at this point cannot!
I think you’re raising half of a fair point here, which is that Labour PMs are judged differently from Tory PMs. But I also think some of those differences in judgment are fair: people were expecting public services to get visibly better and their pay to get visibly greater, because those are ‘the kinds of things Labour does’. I don’t think it’s entirely unfair that we’re judged stringently against those values because those are our values!
Disclaimer: none of what I am about to say about the Canary’s false reporting is a defence of Starmer.
The comments quoted above in reply to Starmer’s post are just false and the fact that the Canary can’t say so shows exactly why it’s not a reliable news source. Right from the headline, this story is filled with plain lies.
First, the headline says that Starmer claimed to be working class. But, as the quotation shows, he didn’t. Next:
Whether Starmer’s dad owned a factory is unclear
No, it isn’t. He didn’t own a factory. It’s not unclear at all.
In 1970, when Starmer was growing up, only 35% of households had a landline.
That’s one year. He ‘was growing up’ in more than one year. Why use these weasel words if they have a real point to make? In any case, that is just the point Starmer is making: he was, on and off, the kind of person who could afford a landline and the kind who had it cut off for not paying the bills, which I’m sure was worrying. That’s the entirety of the point he was making.
Not mentioned here is that Starmer’s mum had a long term illness and his brother had severe learning difficulties. There’s very little doubt that things were often tough for his family. This doesn’t at all absolve him from any kind of accurate criticism, but this ‘story’ as told by the Canary is nonsense. You don’t beat the capitalist-owned press by just repeating their dishonest tactics.
I mean, he’s now just about the most unpopular PM ever, so it’s safe to say there’s something worse than usual going on.
Yeah. I mean, it doesn’t make you look great, but if the hypothetical next leaders actually deliver something then it gives you a better chance.
Bloody hell, you dont win elections on transient bounces you just deliver something.
It’s really embarrassing for them that they don’t realise this!
There are MPs who query whether it is worth waiting for defeat to prove that the leader is a dud when you could avert damage by ditching him now. Others argue that any opinion-poll bounce generated by fresh leadership is a precious, one-off resource, best held in reserve until much closer to a general election.
Second sentence here is false and also cowardly. Getting trashed in the 2026 elections means losing lots of peole who do the groundwork of fighting elections.
There’s no point them saying they fear it if they’re not going to do anything about it.
This is all true! The thing is, you’d collect far more from the billionaires by introducing broad-based progressive income tax rises. The idea we can design a wealth tax that does a better job than such an income tax is a myth.