Starmer's Six Fixes: More like Six Tory Lite Stitch ups!

Right, so the country is crying out for change so says Keir Starmer as he unveils a Tony Blair style pledge card that people can carry around with them to remind them of what he stands for at this particular snapshot in time and indeed have a tick chart of the lies he told in exchange for your vote as he ends up breaking every single one of them as he has broken every promise, pledge, vow, oath, guarantee, declaration or list thereof on previous occasions. Starmer since becoming leader has not stuck by a single thing he has ever said he stood for, he stood on 10 pledges to become Labour leader, pretending he was continuity Corbyn and instead has morphed into cardboard Tony Blair, now having formally announced candidacy selections for Corbyn’s replacement in Islington North, he’s put the final nail in the coffin that he is in any way an honest or trustworthy individual. So in which case, when he’s made and binned so many policy positions before, his 6 fixes for Britain, strikes me as an unfortunate choice of words, because he’s fixed the Labour Party for the establishment and for the right wing, fixed it so it is now Tory light and anything but an alternative to the Tories and will do the same to the country if given the chance.
Right, so speech this morning from Keir Starmer, preaching to the faithful, we had the person who is actually in charge Rachel Reeves do a turn at the podium bleating about being a banker, not playing fast and loose with the finances when she’s not actually it seems prepared to spend on much at all, small state Tory politics, but what else do you expect by someone who goes to George Osborne for advice on how to be the chancellor, others spoke too before she let Starmer say his piece, pushing these 6 fixes, which are frankly a sick joke, not just because of how mundane, how Tory and how tone deaf to the needs of the country they actually are, but as much for what Starmer clearly isn’t prioritising instead.
You have to bear in mind if these are the 6 things going on the flashcards, the 6 key items that are defining Labour going into the next election, then these are the things foremost in Starmer’s mind right now that he believes will win him the election and looking at them, he’s still banking on not being Rishi Sunak to deliver him into Number 10, because functionally he’s just taken stuff that the Tories have been saying. There’s no implication he’s listened to ordinary people, what matters in their lives, though there’s a veneer of trying to imply that in a couple, though actually when you think about it a bit more deeply as I have here, there’s nothing there.
For one, none of these are actually policies, of course they aren’t, there’s zero detail to any of them. These are aspirations, things he wants to achieve and it’s all very safe ground too, anything remotely controversial, anything the Tories or other detractors might pick on don’t get a look in.
So let’s look at these six fixes, you probably won’t be surprised to know if you watch regularly I will have found issues with them, but that really is because Starmer never fails to let people down when they need somebody who’s going to champion something actually transformative and positive that will change lives for the better, not to mention the running of this country.
First fix is to deliver economic stability. Starting as vaguely as he ever does really, what exactly does that tell us? The economy is on the floor right now, we’re just dragging ourselves out of recession, growth was minimal before that and has been for years where the Tories have starved the country of investment, generating economic returns. Starmer’s fix is to maintain that stability. Quite the aspiration, to just keep us out of recession! Functionally it is a promise to not rock the boat, not do anything radical, basically promising to not crash the economy which really is a high bar isn’t it? Combine that with all the stuff Rachel Reeves has ruled out because of her stupid fiscal rules, so forget about any real changes to levels of government spending and investment again. We’re promising more of the same on the economy, just without the Liz Truss screw up. That is all this fix amounts to.
The second one is to cut NHS waiting times, now this is probably the one that is of any of them actually something decent, waiting times must be cut, nobody disagrees with that, the knock on effect to the economy for one, is significant, people waiting for operations or treatment for various conditions unable to be economically active because of their health hold ups and of course aside from the whole economic picture peoples lives are at stake, so if Starmer can get waiting lists down, then great, but how? 40,000 new appointments a week he promises, but no information on how fast it will happen. How is he going to do this? We know where Labour are saying funding is coming from, the non dom and tax avoidance crackdowns that Reeves has pledged, that is basically paying for everything Labour is promising, demonstrating just how little that will be and how little intention Reeves has from deviating from Tory style levels of investment, but what will this money be spent on to get waiting lists down? We need staff from overseas immediately, because that’s the only way this gets fixed fast, along with the investment in what they need. The problem is, with Wes Streeting waiting in the wings desperate to roll out more private provision, my fear, is that all of this cash is going into private health coffers for them to deliver this and they won’t be able to, they simply don’t have the capacity. Cash is one thing, what Labour do with this cash they raise from non doms and tax dodgers is quite another.
The third fix is red meat for the Faragists, launch a new Border Security Command. This is effectively throwing border force under the bus, because this is what they do already surely? This already exists, just renaming it and changing the remit perhaps isn’t going to fix anything, especially when the fix in regards to our borders is being dictated by hard right narratives over stopping the boats. Rishi Sunak staked his premiership on this more than anything else and he’s failed completely, because the only way you stop the boats is to make a new legal route for asylum, so nobody needs the boats anymore, nobody needs the people traffickers, people can safely, without risking their lives, make their claims and be judged on them. Combine that with a new returns policy with the EU, which doesn’t require rejoining to have one, and we don’t even need to home all successful applicants here. That is the humane thing to do. No mention of that here. Instead in his actual speech, Starmer bleated about being Director of Public Prosecutions, taking down such gangs, but you can’t get them all, more will always spring up, trying to act all tough when you sound like David Beckham on helium at the best of times just makes what he actually said all the more ridiculous. But then there is no actual mention of stopping the boats either, so this whole Border Security Command is just a means to an undefined end. We can surmise the end as I’ve done here, but Starmer avoids saying it. What is also avoided is how exactly this new Border Security Command will be any different to what we already have in border force and how will they be more successful when this is basically just carrying on from where the Tories leave off, there’s no real difference in how both party leaderships are approaching the issue of migrant boats. Starmer loves talking about sticking plaster politics, accusing the Tories of sticking plaster solutions, when that is blatantly what this fix is, because it isn’t clear it is actually fixing anything at all.
The fourth fix is setting up Great British Energy, a nationalised energy provider, but as we already know, because this was not a new announcement, this will not be a direct supplier to the public, it will instead be a generator and distributor to established and very much privatised energy providers. By providing energy at a cheaper price to these companies, Starmer is thinking energy bills will drop for all of us. Classic Thatcherite nonsense, it is trickle down economics. It has never worked, it won’t work here, the energy providers will pocket extra profit and tell Keir Starmer, thank you very much. There are no guarantees this will benefit us at all because of how it is being designed and when it fails, for I’m certain it will, Blue Labour as this lot is, will say well we tried nationalisation and as we always said, it never works, but it isn’t really nationalisation for us, but for the energy companies instead.
The fifth fix, is to crack down on anti social behaviour. Ahh, so it’s something to crack down on is it? This fix isn’t a fix, it’s pig ignorance when anti social behaviour is dealt with by addressing the underlying causes. What opportunities are there for young people? What happened to all of our youth clubs? Instead of addressing that, Starmer talked of people afraid to open their front doors or go out at night. Starmer in his speech has framed this as a safety issue rather than a societal and political failure of young people. More police, special officers on the streets. Completely missing the point. Rather than having been failed and recognising that, Starmer is of the view that such young people should just be criminalised. This isn’t a fix at all, it’s another failure and he'll make it bigger.
The sixth and final fix is to recruit 6,500 new teachers, paid for by removing the tax breaks on private schools. That money raised implies more teachers, yet the fix itself just says 6,500 new teachers. It doesn’t say additional teachers. Teaching has become oppressive, so many are leaving the vocation all the time? This isn’t about 6,500 more, just 6,500 new ones. Is this really addressing the issue, the language is a fudge, not a fix.
But look at what didn’t make the grade is as much something to fixate on as what he did pledge to fix. Poverty at all levels and all age groups, cost of living crisis, living standards, disability rights, workers rights relegated to not being a pledge card priority. Climate change and the environment, green investment, well Keir Starmer does hate the tree huggers. He’s avoided foreign policy entirely, which is especially pertinent to a lot of people right now given what is going on in Gaza, Starmer’s pro Zionist leanings well known. Nothing on housing or child care, he avoided mentioning the renationalisation of the railways and right now, with sewage outflows all over the country, an outbreak of Cryptosporidium in schools for crying out loud in Devon, ignoring water renationalisation is a massive failure too.
He's binned the abolition of tuition fees, he’s binned higher taxes for the top 5% of earners, he’s binned benefits reform and scrapping universal credit. He’s keeping the two child benefit cap, he’s thrown out freedom of movement, he’s talked about wind farms, but he also refuses to roll back new oil and gas licences in the north sea, there was nothing on ecological breakdown, my God you can go on. All of these are less important by omission or have just been ditched. Which would you prioritise?
This was a cowardly, safe speech, containing very little, a pledge card containing vague details to avoid criticism, given they are so open to interpretation, though that failed because, well, I wrote this video didn’t I? This is a nervous Labour Party, the polling figures are garbage, the local election extrapolations proved that, they have a lot of challengers from the Greens and from Independents and are losing ground where they shouldn’t be because of Starmer more than anything else. He’s electoral kryptonite in so many ways and they’re right to be worried, they deserve nothing less and they sure as hell don’t deserve to be elected to power with a majority when they are offering so little and you can check out this video recommendation here which will explain a bit more about why Labour’s polling isn’t really as great as many pollsters are saying it is and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.