Keir Starmer on being as ‘bold as Attlee’ and why there’ll be no return to austerity under his watch

23 comments

1. What we love Atlee for: building the NHS, nationalising coal, steel the railways & public utilities, setting up National Insurance, building council houses, ending the British Mandate in Palestine & opposing Zionist terrorism, recognising independence of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka & Burma

   What Kevin Stormer loves Atlee for: taking us into NATO, British war crimes in Malaya, getting Britain its own nukes.

2. That fucking insults Attlee.

   War broke us, bombed us, and battered us. Rebuilt better.

   We built NHS. We created welfare. I think we laid the groundwork for our greatest 20th-century achievements.

   Starmer’s spending pledges don’t match 1% of the vision.

3. Until council, education and other public services funding levels are restored to the levels of 2010 we’re still living under austerity.

4. But his spending plans are just a continuation of austerity. He does know what is in his manifesto right

5. Instead of austerity, we will have “iron clad fiscal discipline” – same shit, different arsehole

   And if we must compare him to a past Labour leader, he’s going to be Ramsay MacDonald MkII

6. We need investment…..job creating, money creating, future creating investment. Stop penny pinching and put your money where your mouth is!!!

7. His manifesto disagrees with his comments. There are only fairly minor changes to current spending and policies. There is no radical or even interesting vision from Labour.

8. I thought the headline was “bald as Attlee”, well Starmer has more hair.

9. Starmer has commited to major cuts, refused to increase the major taxes, and ruled out borrowing.

   Meanwhile major services are in dire need of additional funding, and the economy is dwindling.

   We’re going to fall into austerity as a default-position. The only thing that matters right now is driving economic growth, but Labour have commited to stretching their limited funds to thin that I doubt we will see anything come of it.

10. No return to austerity? So no tax cuts for the people who work to keep the country running. Guess he’ll just be borrowing more then.

11. Maybe the boldness he is referring to is Attlee’s constant use of the army to break strikes. Gotta force through that austerity… Sorry… ‘ironclad fiscal discipline’ somehow.

12. Every day he looks more and more like a liar on the same level as Boris Johnson.

13. Wasn’t it during the Attlee government where the term austerity was coined

14. Don’t buy it for a second.

    Unfortunatly, its probably gonna take a world war for a sweeping change in goverment to take it back to Atlee’s/Wilson’s time.

    Also keep in mind Labour started austerity, the tories took it to 11.

15. No return to austerity, makes it sound like he thinks people are doing OK? I’ve said it already, it will be a new Party, without no change

16. He should know he doesn’t deserve to even utter the name of Clement Attlee. Wouldn’t be fit to shine his shoes.

17. Grow some fucking nuts and fix the country.

    Jail the fucks who’ve robbed us blind and misused funds or purposefully degraded services to push privatisation.

    Jail the fucks who sell our country off to the highest bidder at any cost to us.

    Nationalise critical infrastructure and fix it properly, claw back the bonuses paid out which should have been spent on not pumping shit into our waters. Jail those fucks too.

    Tax the rich, and big businesses. If they wanna go somewhere else with lower tax then good, fuck them. Someone else will fill their absence, they don’t fucking contribute anyway.

    Build some fucking houses, any fucking houses, just start building.

    No politician has the nuts to actually be a decent PM. We need a wartime PM because we’re basically at war with ourselves.

18. So TELL US YOUR BOLD POLICIES then! Starmer seems a decent enough competent bloke, and I get they are keeping quiet for the most part to avoid any policies that could lose votes, but, shut up then?

    If you’re going to be a status quo Technocrat that’s fine, but don’t then promise fake bullshit like this. No Labour pledge is bold or ground breaking at all, never mind an Attlee generational restructuring.

19. So does this mean he will step down if we go to austerity? 

20. Watch out for the lawyer technicality here.
    No return to austerity, as it never actually ended. Austerity can continue and he’ll claim he hasn’t broken his promise

21. Why is Labour’s proposed fiscal policy something I’d call conservative and austerity then?

22. Return to austerity? I don’t think we’ve ever left.

23. Clement Attlee was invited by King George VI to form the Attlee ministry in the United Kingdom in July 1945, succeeding Winston Churchill as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. The Labour Party had won a landslide victory at the 1945 general election, and went on to enact policies of what became known as the post-war consensus, including the establishment of the welfare state and the nationalisation of some industries. The government’s spell in office was marked by post-war austerity measures, the violent crushing of pro-independence and communist movements in Malaya, the grant of independence to India, the engagement in the Cold War against Soviet Communism as well as the creation of the country’s National Health Service (NHS).