Maybe things can’t only get better for Keir Starmer, as he is shamed with the latest polling just as the Labour conference begins

  • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    There’s also been:

    • nationalising trains
    • nationalising steel
    • nationalising a part of our energy sector
    • bringing the NHS back under direct public control
    • ending various tax-dodging loopholes, such as the IHT for farmers
    • windfall tax on energy companies
    • charging VAT on private schooling
    • expanding free childcare
    • restarting SureStart (albeit under a different name)
    • expanding free school meals
    • expanding school breakfast clubs
    • guaranteeing jobs for young people (announced this morning)
    • big increases to the minimum wage, especially for the youngest
    • expansion of workers rights
    • expansion of renters rights
    • big increase in infrastructure investment, particularly for renewables

    And a load more.

    No, I’m not a fan of everything, especially not the OSA, but you can’t expect to agree with every single action your government takes.

    As for the government ID thing, it’s hardly an authoritarian’s dream when almost every country on planet Earth does it already. You may not realise it, but we’re very much in the minority for not having this already.

    Have a look at that list I rattled off the top of my head and try to tell me they aren’t the actions of a Labour party.

    You’re letting your judgement be impaired by blindly focussing on a couple of issues you disagree with rather than looking at the whole picture.

    • Yeather@lemmy.ca
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      1 day ago

      Copying from Ohulancutash:

      The trains were nationalised by the Tory government in 2020, and they also abolished franchising later that year. They also began to set up Great British Railways in 2021. All that’s happening now is the contracts are being withdrawn as they reach their break points.Steel has not been nationalised. The government has taken over the funding of redundancy payments and retraining for the shut down private sector Tata furnaces in Port Talbot, and has taken steps to force the owners of British Steel to keep the idle furnaces in Scunthorpe burning.There has also been no nationalisation in the energy sector. Great British Energy is set up as a way to subsidise projects created and run by the private sector and other public bodies. It will not generate, distribute or retail energy.

    • dogs0n@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      As for the government ID thing, it’s hardly an authoritarian’s dream when almost every country on planet Earth does it already. You may not realise it, but we’re very much in the minority for not having this already.

      Just have to say, being in the minority for something does not mean it’s all of a sudden a good thing and that everyone else must do it.

      • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        That’s true. My point is that people acting like it’s some awful mega authoritarian thing seems to be forgetting that we are one of 8 countries world wide without a unified government ID.

        Half of the others being overseas territories or island microstates.

        There’s a lot of fear mongering going on surrounding these IDs, as if they’re not an extremely normal thing.

        Essentially calling 200+ countries fascist, like the above user is doing, is a pretty extreme reaction.

        • eldebryn@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          The problem is not the ID cards that other countries have. That would be reasonable, even if one could argue NINO is sufficient.

          The problem is the online/app nature if them which, in conjunction with OSA, makes it dystopian control scenario.

          I’m not ignoring those upsides that you mentioned, I just didn’t mention them or wasn’t aware. I like most of them for what it matters.

          But I do still consider OSA and digital IDs an authoritarian measures and I do find this to be of high enough importance to potentially overshadow all of the above.

          What’s the point of living in a, arguably, more socialist state if your privacy doesn’t exist? I’m not a bloody tanky and I don’t like that angle, like many others.