‘Labour’ ‘leader’ refuses to say he won’t cut public services even further
Even the so-called ‘mainstream’ media are waking up to the fact that Starmer is to the right of the Tories – and that a vote for him is a vote for a continuation and even deepening of Tory austerity.
After Starmer claimed yesterday – echoing the 2010 lie of David Cameron’s Tories – that he would have no choice but to continue austerity because of the state of the UK’s finances – Sky’s Beth Rigby wrote:
Laying it on thick when it came to the economic outlook, it was sort of inevitable that he dodged the question when I asked him if he could at least commit to not cutting public service spending further after the next election. And all of it left me asking myself the question: Vote Labour, get Tory austerity?
That’s because the nod to Margaret Thatcher over the weekend, coupled with his warnings over the economy, made the Labour leader, who was once thought to be the heir of Jeremy Corbyn or perhaps Tony Blair, now looking distinctly like a David Cameron/George Osborne tribute act.
If his reference to the vision of Thatcher provoked a backlash from Labour supporters, his refusal to at least commit to investing in public services – beyond the modest sums Labour have found for the NHS and schools, by closing the non-dom tax status and charging VAT on private schools – is likely to leave many in despair…
For those who see public services on their knees, the failure of commitment to investment will perhaps come as a blow. Labour countenance that, with the highest tax burden in 70 years, taxing more is not the solution. Instead, Starmer and his allies hope that investment into the UK economy will be “swift” and within the first term Labour will be able to begin investing again in public services.
If it all sounds gloomy, it’s because it is. While the last Labour team under Corbyn promised billions of public spending, this team, with the COVID debt pile in its rearview mirror, are promising us not much at all beyond having more defined “missions” and being prepared to reform the planning system or the NHS.
Starmer is a political idiot taking us all for fools. The Tory determination to cut and keep cutting sentenced the UK to 14 years of economic shrinkage and stagnation – and sentenced hundreds of thousands of people to needless death. Now because things are bad, Starmer thinks it’s an excuse to continue the same political insanity that made it so bad – and Labour has not even bothered to do an analysis of the impact of its plans on the poor and vulnerable.
The news is only a surprise to Rigby, however. Starmer’s refusal to lift starving UK children out of poverty – even though it would save the UK billions – made perfectly clear long ago what he is.
Vote Starmer, get Tory austerity indeed. Only even worse.
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