Starmer & Reeves to hike pensions, but kids must stay in poverty.

Right, so Labour is sticking to it’s guns and resolutely repeating that there is no money to lift the two child benefit cap, which is a debate that is not quietening down as much as Labour might like it to, because they are supposed to be better than the Tories right? Not proving it on this issue and from a money perspective of course, it is political choice to not fund this when they can fund defence hikes, fund aid for Ukraine and there’s always the option of a wealth tax if the reality was that Labour wasn’t too afraid of scaring off wealthy donors to their party if they did that. It is also appalling optics to be hiking pension pots as has been announced now instead of helping get kids out of poverty, but apparently investing in pension schemes is more attractive than investing in the next generation. That said, there’s actually an even worse motivation behind all of this and it comes down to Starmer and his authoritarianism and control freakery, that is now determined to keep kids in poverty for his own personal ends.
Right, so that was a clip from Zarah Sultana speaking to Laura Kuenssberg on her show this morning, following an interview Kuenssberg had done with Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves in response to Reeves’ ongoing claims that they cannot lift kids out of poverty because they can’t say where the money is coming from and Sultana did a grand job of pointing several options out to Reeves there of things she could do to raise that money, all of which require increasing taxes – not to pay for the policy, taxation doesn’t pay for anything, but because it effectively reverses government spending, offsets it, destroys money the government printed to spend on other stuff, however you wish to phrase it, to think of it, increased taxation allows the government to print more money without affecting inflation. Government spending is not like a household budget, no matter how many times politicians try to make it look like it is, they can print money, we’d get arrested for doing that.
The crux is what you raise taxation on and Sultana again pointed out where taxes not just should be levied, but actually must be levied to fix the economy and make it work for all of us. The trouble is, those people taxation needs to be raised on, also donate to political parties, not least Labour, and that is an investment in this party operating in their interests and not ours. This is why Rachel Reeves can’t say how she’d raise the money to pay for this cap to be lifted, she refuses to make the obvious choice, because well, donations to the party might dry up. No more of those donations perhaps to her own office to pay for ‘staffing costs’, that’s always a good ruse to list donations under.
But as much as we can point to what Reeves refuses to deal with, equally we can look at her choices against that backdrop, for what she will finance and ask the question how do you justify that choice?
For instance, the Independent today is running a story titled ‘Chancellor promises ‘big bang’ for pensions in bid to boost growth.’ Now economic growth, to grow the economy, which isn’t infinitely possible and I don’t much like the term, I prefer to think of the economy in terms of strengthening, Labour like to talk a lot about stability, so why not stabilise the economy for the future, secure it, growth is just misleading, however it is always how the state of the economy is presented to us isn’t it? In terms of how it is growing, so we have to work with it in those terms. But however you choose to think of the economy in a healthy sense, making the rich richer doesn’t do that whatsoever. Taxing them, putting some of their wealth back in government coffers, enabling the government to spend again, well, that’s good for the economy, that can pay for stuff that will help the economy, like putting money back into ordinary working class people’s hands, taking their kids out of poverty, because simply spending in the economy always generates a return, tax revenues, business growth, more jobs, the beneficial knock on effects don’t take a lot of thought to be fairly obvious, so why not do that then? Investing in ordinary people, generates a positive economic return. Is it country before party or not, because not lifting kids out of poverty, doesn’t come across at all that way, when a wealth tax on the rich, who get ever richer, who are the reason we live in the sixth richest economy in the world, but only because they hold all the wealth of this country. As Zarah Sultana also pointed out, we live in the most unequal of societies, so how about some p[roper levelling up, how about some meaningful redistribution of wealth to kickstart an economic revolution? The numbers would be fantastic for Reeves wouldn’t they? Ahh, but party donations come first. There’s no other logical conclusion to come to.
But let’s move on to what Reeves will spend on, this Independent story, because it seems like Reeves can find money for pensioners, but not kids in poverty, who’s parents may well in work, but such low paid work, that they are on benefits too, in work benefits and pensions are treated as benefits themselves whether you regard them as such or not. Big boost for pensions, not for working class benefits and benefit reforms coming down the line doesn’t come across as reassuring for working class claimants who have already endured 14 years of Tory misery does it?
It's not quite as straightforward as that though. We know Reeves refuses to spend, we know, Starmer and Reeves have come into power looking at how they can get the private sector to invest instead of government and that even extends to pensions.
Now despite the state pension being treated as a benefit, private pensions are of course more akin to an investment that ebbs and flows depending on what the pension scheme you are part of invests in.
Pension pots essentially therefore, amongst various other details in an upcoming Pensions Bill, such as consolidation of smaller pension pots and rejigging pension frameworks, are going to get a boost, by being used to invest in the rebuilding of Britain and everything in society that has fallen by the wayside under the Tories. That will generate a great return if successful, but as always seems to be the case with this penny pinching Chancellor, it relies on the private sector to deliver and instead of risking government money which can always cover the fallout if things go bad, as outlined above, they can print more money, it’ll be your pension savings that go down instead if matters go south. Now there are a multitude of different things that this could be invested in to deliver, to deliver the growth without spending Labour keep harping on about, do you really think everything will go well? Even if most of it does and the government gets a good economic boost, not everything may work out and if your pension was invested in that, you might not see the benefit others do and pension returns all of a sudden become akin to a bit of a lottery depending on what was invested in. Labour estimates an overall increased return in pension pots averaging around £11,000, so that’s a decent hike, IF it pays off.
Coming back to the two child benefit cap here now though, with all this private money, your pension pots being used to rebuild Britain, even less money is being used by the government, therefore there is actually even less excuse to not lift kids out of poverty. We can make the old argument about spending choices again, I’ve pointed to the £3bn being given to Ukraine as something that although you might consider, just and appropriate, if we have kids in poverty, how can we afford that? But actually, there’s a more sinister reason behind Labour not lifting the two child benefit cap and this has nothing to do with money at all and everything do with Keir Starmer and his power trip.
Some of the loudest voices calling for the lifting of this cap, aside from those coming from the Green Party, Independents and others, has been from Labour backbenchers on the left of the party.
Starmer sees everything it would appear as a war when it comes to stuff the left want to see delivered. They want the two child benefit cap lifted, therefore Starmer is digging his heels in to not do it.
Despite 60% of the British public believing the cap should be scrapped, Starmer won’t do it, because it would like backing down to the left and being only two weeks into his premiership, Starmer thinks it’ll make him look weak if he does what they want.
This comes down to a fight over welfare spending and Starmer is hell bent on not losing it to what remains of his own left wing. This could get taken to a vote and if he decides to oppose it, to keep kids in poverty, that Sir Kid Starver moniker is going to be shouted ever more loudly. He’d likely win such a vote given his overwhelming majority and also the fact so many of his more loyal MPs as so many were picked to be exactly that, would back him in the belief he’ll cut it later at a time of his choosing, but that becomes his arbitrary choice, his decision on timing as to when it best suits him and meanwhile kids go hungry because he cannot stand the thought of having to back down on something and given it was something he originally said he’d do, he only has himself to blame for where he is now on that.
Labour spending is always going to be about making Starmer look tough and involving private sector funding wherever possible, begging the question when we look at consequences such as the examples discussed here, as to who this country is supposedly working in the interests of, because I’m not really seeing any change from the Tories, just a change in how the rich get placated and how we will lend up getting shafted.
Meanwhile, Starmer’s desperation to look tough, despite sounding like an accountant with oversized adenoids has seen him crack down on protest in the most abhorrent way, his attitude towards protest outside of parliament a possible reflection of his aversion to the protests of left wing MPS begging him to deal with child poverty, as the most heavy handed sentence for non violent protest just got handed out to climate protesters, an issue Starmer is known to have no patience for, he hates tree huggers, he’s told us this after all, reminding us again already that this is not a man who listens to the concerns of others outside of his circle, the makings of a truly poor leader, details of which can be found on this video recommendation here and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.