Right-wing Shadow Chancellor tells Murdoch press renationalising energy is not of interest to Labour – a day before the biggest firm so far collapses
Keir Starmer’s Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves is back to trying to out-Tory the Tories. Having horrified many with her comments about benefit claimants under Ed Miliband – that Labour would be tougher on them than the Conservatives – she told the Sunday Times, a Murdoch publication of course, that Labour is not interested in even discussing renationalising energy companies.
In fact, according to the ST hack who interviewed her, she laughed as she said it. The next day, Bulb went into administration – the biggest of the twenty-two energy firms to go bust in just the last four months.
Voters love the idea of renationalising key industries – more than half want it, well over half in many cases, and the idea is even popular among the Tory voters Starmer’s Labour supposedly wants to win over.
Labour laughing as the disaster of privatisation burns national wealth and assets – and of course gobbles up our NHS while being studiously ignored by Labour and the media.
Finger on the pulse as ever.
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you can afford to without hardship, please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep bringing you information the Establishment would prefer you not to know about.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
New Labour are the party of newspaper owners, not the party of business. Business doesn’t care about public/private utilities, politicised Thatcherite business leaders from the CBI do. Momentum is building against Johnson from the Thatcherites and Starmer fancies his chances. We have to remind people what 10 years of austerity was like…..that would be the future under Starmer.
Anyone ideologically opposed to nationalise should be booted out this is non negotiable
Off message but worth saying the Health and Social Care bill got through it’s first reading by twenty six votes. Twenty five Labour MPs failed to register a vote,ironically the majority of them represented northern constituencies including the very vocal critics of the bill Lisa Nandy and Jon Trickett. I am sure they all had good reason but I can remember many years ago in a hung parliament a Tory MP being wheeled in on a life support machine. The right of the party were quick to criticise Mr Corbyn for being a bad manager and weak leader ,they are silent about this debacle.
gonna look up which 25 Labour MPs didn’t register a vote. Thanks Jim, good message.
Thanks jim….it just about sums up the Labour party..
I’m informed the reason for abstentions is ‘pairing’ of MPs.
Which is fair enough as long as the Tory MPs their Labour counterparts paired with intended to vote against the bill. If they simply paired so that no vote was recorded from either side that’s probably an ante vote lost which is simply bad party management and similar to what happened with the Patterson debacle . Looks like an open goal blazed over the bar by Mr Forensic
Sorry meant to add pairing would only have no affect on the majority if the Tory was guaranteed to vote for the bill and given the number of abstentions not sure that can be the case.
Pairing is an arrangement between political parties, where two MPs—one who would vote Aye and one who would vote No—agree not to vote in a division. These arrangements are registered with the whips.
https://guidetoprocedure.parliament.uk/articles/bHg14njQ/pairing-and-nodding-through
In other words, they cancel each-other out, so it makes absolutely no difference to the outcome of the vote.
Mr Howard whilst I accept your point regarding pairing I don’t think you can say the abstentions had no effect as only thirteen of those abstentions were as a result of pairing arrangements.You are of course right that wouldn’t have been sufficient to change the outcome but did the absentees know that before the vote. I still think it’s poor management.
Where are you getting all your information from Jim. Could you post a link please.
And in your initial post you said that ‘the Health and Social Care bill got through it’s first reading by twenty six votes’, and yet I’m now watching the debate (since half-an-hour ago), and it says it’s the THIRD reading. And the vote you refer to couldn’t have been the actual vote on the Bill, because it hasn’t been taken yet. In fact they’re just voting on it right now (it’s 19.04 at this moment, and it says the result is expected at 19.10), so whatever it is you were referring to, it wasn’t the final vote.
I can only assume you were referring to the following (posted on the Mirror’s website three hours ago):
The controversial new amendment to the Health and Care Bill would see more people become entitled to means-tested council funding, but will also see the poorest members of society having to the pay the same as some of the richest.
The amendment, which was won by a narrow 272 to 246 [26 votes], would see means-tested council support payments excluded from counting towards the £86,000 lifetime cap if it were to successfully pass through parliament.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/what-nhs-social-care-bill-25526056
PS Lundiel said that they were informed that the 25 didn’t vote because they were Paired, and yet you now say that only 13 Labour Party MPs were paired, and that the other 12 abstained, so could you post a link to your source so as to clear up the confusion. Thanks
Mr Howard,I know this is poor of me but I don’t know how to post links. It was on Jessica Elgots Twitter feed last night. The vote ,was last night,that was the report stage ,it will now go to the Lords where hopefully it will be heavily amended. It then comes back to the commons where the real battle will be.I think what is been debated now is remaining parts of the bill,last night was specifically about funding social care . I think that’s right but I am by no means certain.
Mr Howard don’t know if this will help but the NewStatesman for 23/11 is carrying a report of the vote,it also states there were only thirteen paired MPs reported a record is apparently kept as the pairing has to be registered with the whips office. Sorry I can’t post a link but it’s worth finding as it’s an interesting article and shows just how close the Government were to defeat.
Well 67 Conservatives didn’t vote, 14 SNP , 11 others as well as 25 Lab
Pairing
Can you post a link to your source felix. Thanks
The photo says it all….reeves, next to the word that describes her entirely.
Fancy coming home to that “thing” its enough to make you stick your head in the Gas oven….except theres no longer any Gas and rhe supplier h as legged it after creaming off the profits.Thats why many countrys own strategic industrys because the private sector are only here for the good times and must make a profit to keep the shareholders happy.Also if run properly a government can actually make a profit on the “captured audiance,unfortunately they are interested in farming out such things as responsibility and decisions whilst they get the kick back money from the “real jobs “
Red Tories dont support Nationalisation shocker
No shit sherlock
Would be a great name for a band
Sherlocks
Rachel Reeves is a very unpleasant talentless individual whose family has made a very good living out of the Labour party. She was selected for the Shadow Chancellor post by Keir Starmer mainly because, in my opinion, she is a very vocal Corbyn critic and of course is a friend of Israel. As Starmers priorities are to purge the party of Socialists and non Zionists she fits into his shadow cabinet very well .
I can think of no other reason why someone as mediocre as Rachel Reeves would be appointed to a senior position in the shadow cabinet but the sad fact is that she is only one of many chosen for the same reasons. They have no vision, no policies, no empathy with ordinary people struggling to make end meet and are stuck in a 1990s time warp.
Given that we are up against the most callous and incompetent government and PM in living memory we should be miles ahead in the polls but we aren’t (despite the easy ride the MSM has given Starmer). While his lacklustre leadership continues and he chooses to surround himself with people like Reeves, Labour will continue to lose support and lag behind in the polls. However that is the object of the exercise, in my opinion, so Starmer can claim “job done” when we are completely wiped out at the next election
I really don’t like her, she’s got ‘middle class’ written right through her, but she’s nobody’s fool, she made right wing choices because of what she is and what she thinks is best for us. She’s no idiot, she’s the enemy.
Reeves worked “as an economist at the Bank of England, the British Embassy in Washington, D.C. and HBOS.”
That says it all.
yup goldbach, establishment to her core
Reeves and her bliarite ilk are the legacy of bliar’s policy of parachuting specially selected candidates into CLPs. Just like the present Labour Futures selections, we end up with piss-poor candidates and piss-poor PLPs clinging on like limpets.
Lundiel
Reeves made her right wing choices not because of what she thinks is best for US but what she thinks is best for HER
Yes of course but she also comes across as a very Judgemental person. I think she knows she’s intelligent and thinks that’s a good enough reason for her to manage the rest of us, and woe betide anyone who disagrees.
I can think of no other reason why someone as mediocre as Rachel Reeves would be appointed to a senior position in the shadow cabinet
How about the nasal speech problem she shares with her boss? They’re the only two people in UK politics to have it, to my knowledge, which must help bind them together. And she’s achieved that senior position precisely BECAUSE of her mediocracy!
Meant to say “bond”, but you get the idea.
Not just on energy. All the shadow cabinet are treating the electorate with media enabled / assisted contempt. Reeve’s colleague,Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Bridget Phillipson, was on Channel 4 news yesterday, constantly deflecting by answering questions not asked by presenter Jon Snow. Asked simply what Labour would do differently? She’d launch into attacking the Tories,. Do they think people aren’t noticing their inability to provide any alternative proposals?
On social care to HS2, Labour want to criticise without committing to doing anything differently. At least Andy Burnham – by no means a favourite of leftists – suggests alternative funding arrangements. Tweeting this :
An £86,000 cap will never be the fairest way of funding social care however you do it.
Social care on NHS terms, funded by wealth taxes and a 10% levy on estates, is the way to go.
Labour are a vacuum of sheer nothingness under Starmer, Evans and Reeves. Determined to say nothing, they’re providing no compelling argument to vote Labour. This as Starmer is coming up to 20 months as leader, with no defining vision or discernible new thinking/ ideas.
I think they’re betting everything on a manifesto that no one will see coming. Starmer is planning a dynasty. It will offer something for everyone who works, we will have less personal freedom, more responsibility and education will include nationalism (expect children to declare alligience to the flag and veterans days etc).
I hope I’m wrong and he really is a bland, empty husk but I fear they are dangerous lunatics intent on managing our existence.
Look how easily Marr embarrassed Starmer, maybe that’s why he’s quitting?
Any GE campaign could be horrific; a bland centrist manifesto compounded by a slippery shadow cabinet hiding from interviews and looking untrustworthy.
There’s cautious and then there’s this insulting nonsense.
It’s as though they view saying nothing as some brilliant strategy – like a game. The media are allowing it (for now) by not pressing for answers, but it’s doubtful they’d get such an easy ride in a campaign.
If they get hammered in May, the Starmer/Reeves nightmare should be brought to a close asap.
“Time for a change”, ex Labour voters and remainers might be the groups that Max will bank his victory in the GE on. With a sympathetic media and he could do it. Horrible thought!
Who picks up the bill for that going bust, oh but the “UNDESERVING POOR” the only Full Tax Payers of course, while Blue Keef and his Starmersstruppen over at Neo-New-Labour Party Parasite TORY HQ slurp oysters, caviar and sip Champagne with their Entitled White Middle Class and Up replacement for Bulb and set their expiry date! Meanwhile there will be very few “UNDESERVING POOR” with a roof over their heads. Nevermind Gentrification agents already standing by to reconstruct a Middle Class Utopia where “THE UNDESRVING POOR” used to roam and are long dead and gone!
I joined the Labour Party because of the attitude of the “Old Guard” (viz Cabinet Ministers
under Blair/Brown).
During the lead up to the 2015 GE – there was an Election program
which involved a senior “Old Guard” *** member and an industrialist. The latter spent
some time relating his experiences when visiting a poor area where he said how
horrified he was – and the Old Guard ignored what he said, changed the subject
and moved on.
Obviously it was not on the approved list of subjects identified
by some Focus Group or other.. Unsurprisingly the public decided there was
no point in voting Labour or even turning up – and Cameron was elected with a
majority.
I decided that instead of shouting at the screen I should take part in the process
and join the Labour Party.
*** I have a particular person in mind but am not perfectly sure – he was a
lot older than Ms Reeves who incidentally would not I think repeat the remark
about Benefit claimants she made previously.
Reeves is cynical and callous along with the right wings usual conceit and arrogance
Political lightweight Ms R said in The Sunday Times (21/11/21) that she was against the direction Labour was going under Corbyn (ie mildly left wing democratic socialist) so her comments against democratic public ownership comes as no surprise.
Like the rest of Right Wing Labour she is just another Neo-Liberal capitalist groveller?
Cushy, rewarding careers for Right Wing careerists and crumbs for diverse working people.
As I’ve said before take the public utilities into democratic public ownership co-operatively owned one bill payer one vote electing regional boards with communities having a say and pay an annual Divi so people believe it is theirs and it is nailed down against future Right Wing Tory & Right Wing Labour potential carpet baggers.
And give everyone the Winter Fuel Payment and make it £250.
Remind me, everybody- if Starmer’s Labour is against ANY renationalisation, any significant increase in investment in human infrastructure, any efforts to save the NHS from the tomb of privatisation, any opposition to any form of bigotry other than AS, any move away from militarism at all, any democratisation of society at all, any form of solidarity with the working and kept-from-working-by-capitalism poor…what reason is there for Labour to even EXIST?
If it is Tory on all of the above- and nobody, including SteveH, can seriously dispute that it IS Tory on all of the above- what issues does that leave on which the party could even be theoretically different than the Tories- and again, what reason is there for a party that isn’t even theoretically different than the Tories to exist?
And how can any of the above be justified if going Tory on all of that hasn’t even put Labour into the “Twenty Point Lead!” we were all told the party would have if only it disowned Corbyn and all his works? If the party is, at best, level-pegging with a government that is literally pouring fresh shit in the UK’s rivers, how can any of this be defended?
The experiment in creating an energy market has failed, for the obvious reason that energy provision is logically, almost naturally, a matter of infrastructure. It’s a phoney market in which a multiplicity of “providers” who actually provide nothing, use their elbows to buy energy in a market which isn’t a market because production of energy by its very nature is highly concentrated, and try to turn a profit by flogging it to consumers who are encouraged to shift from provider to provider but who find the effort often isn’t worth the trouble. It was an experiment driven by ideology: that there is nothing the pursuit of profit can’t deliver. In fact, most of the things we all depend on are provided otherwise. The real tragedy is that we haven’t used the past few decades to put photovoltaic cells on every roof in the country. Had we done so, people wouldn’t be seeing their gas bills expand. The provision of energy needs to be intimately connected to energy-saving, but provision of energy for profit works against that: if you’re selling people gas, you want them to use as much as possible. You new Porsche depends on it. We should be doing the very opposite: driving energy-saving measures hard and delivering energy effectively as a service but with a powerful message that we all have to us as little as possible until we have established truly carbon neutral sources. From every point of view, the energy market has been a disaster. No wonder Reeves supports it. She and her boss are the biggest disaster every to strike Labour, including Ramsay MacDonald.