solkid

@AngelaRayner We voted for CHANGE. Not continuity tory.

We need immediate action to cut costs for households and put money back into the everyday economy. This can be done within the current fiscal rules, by ensuring those who benefit from the crisis contribute more so that everyone can thrive. Our Employment Rights Act was just the first step in our plan to Make Work Pay. Now is the time to take the next steps, starting with a Fair Pay Agreement in social care - but not ending there. A rising minimum wage must go alongside our programme to get young people into work. The investment we secured in social and affordable housing should now unleash a building boom that benefits British business and workers. We must double down on renters’ reform and show leaseholders our action on tackling ground rents and charges was just a first step to ending freehold for good. Our devolution revolution has begun, but is nowhere near done.  Giving mayors powers to transform planning and licensing can boost local business and good growth, in the interests of local people. They must go alongside economic powers and public services. Boosting community ownership and stopping the sell-off of local assets from pubs to playgrounds will put power back in local hands, helping restore the pride they feel in the places they live. We must go further on planning reforms, to build the schools, hospitals, roads and infrastructure the country needs to grow. We should be unafraid to promote new forms of public, community and cooperative ownership across the board. Buses and trains being brought back into public hands can now operate for the public good, at prices passengers can afford. Thames Water is an iconic failure of privatisation, which resonates for the same reasons. People are rightly sick of bonuses for bosses who deliver nothing but higher bills. We must face down demands that the public pay the price of private failure. We must create good jobs that pay decent wages by ensuring defence investment includes a secure manufacturing base. Use our house building programme to boost construction, invest in the green economy, backing SMEs by reforming business rates and increasing support to revive our high streets and local economies, raise the minimum wage and get young people into work. And then there is politics itself, putting power back into people’s hands so that they are shaping the decisions that impact them. We must tackle the inflow of dodgy money in our politics - something that Nigel Farage, who took 5 million pounds in a secret personal gift from an offshore crypto baron, will never do. We must make politics work for ordinary people. We can only prove we mean it by putting the common interest ahead of factionalism.  This is bigger than personalities, but it is time to acknowledge that blocking Andy Burnham was a mistake. We must show we understand the scale of change the moment calls for - that means bringing our best players into Parliament - and embracing the type of agenda that has been successful at a local level, rather than reaching back to an agenda and politics that has failed people. These are the fights we need to have, and the change in direction we need to see. Policy tweaks will not fix the fundamental challenges facing our country. This government needs, at pace, to put measures in place that make people's lives tangibly better, while fixing the foundations of a system rigged against them. The Prime Minister must now meet the moment and set out the change our country needs. Change our economic agenda to prioritise making people better off, change how we run our party so that all voices are listened to, and change how we do politics. Labour exists to make working people better off. That is not happening fast enough, and it needs to change — now. 2/2

Our party has suffered a historic defeat. Many good Labour colleagues have lost their seats despite working hard for those they represented. We have lost good Labour administrations and lost the chance for more. What we are doing isn’t working, and it needs to change. This may be our last chance. The Labour Party must now live up to our name: we must be the party of working people. We’ve heard the same on the doorstep as we’ve seen in the polls - the cost of living is the top issue for voters of all parties. People have turned to populists and nationalists because we have not done enough to fix it. Living standards are barely higher than they were a decade and a half ago. People feel hopeless - that the cost of living crisis will never end, and now they see oil and gas companies use global instability to post record profits. Once again, ordinary people are paying the price for decisions they didn’t make. It’s no wonder that across the UK, working people feel the system is rigged against them. Things can be so much better than this. Countries including Spain and Canada have shown that economies can grow and people can thrive when governments stay true to labour and social democratic values and put people first. We need to learn from that. In London, we lost young people who fear they will never afford a home. In my patch and across the north, we lost working people whose wages are too low and costs too high. In Scotland and Wales, people do not currently see Labour as the answer.  We are in danger of becoming a party of the well-off, not working people. The Peter Mandelson scandal showed a toxic culture of cronyism.  Decisions like cutting winter fuel allowance just weren’t what people expected from a Labour government. For too long, successive governments have allowed wealth and power to concentrate at the top without a plan to ensure the benefits of economic growth are shared fairly. The result is an economy that does not work for the majority, with wealth concentrated in too few hands. This level of inequality, alongside squeezed living standards, is the outcome of a model built on deregulation, privatisation, and trickle-down economics. But we have the chance to fix this.  1/2

@justdavenow89 Definitely connected with the electorate!

John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, left hooks a protestor in the face after being egged by him in the street (2001)

@joshsimonsmp Labour has a massive majority. USE IT!

This was not an easy piece to write. But because of my history in the Labour Party I felt a duty to be honest. We Labour MPs must square up to the truth. These elections were not a normal mid-term drubbing, they were an unequivocal judgement that our actions do not meet the moment. To put the country first, the PM should lead an orderly transition. Senior figures across the party should urgently come together to agree a path forward. thetimes.com/uk/politics/ar…

Still remember this sketch

@SimonHarrisMBD Now do Conservative and try to contain your laughter!

I’m really bloody confused now. A few weeks ago, I heard plenty of experts on TV, radio and social media saying that between 400 and 500 seats for The Greens would be ‘a great result.’ Then, we had ‘retweetgate’ and all of the hoo haa that came with it, and countless people were screaming from the rooftops that @ZackPolanski had ballsed things up bigly - apparently the Green vote would collapse like a flat-pack IKEA bookcase thrown together after ten cans of Stella. With almost all councils in England having declared, the total number of seats rests between 400 and 500 (as predicted for ‘a great result’) and may rise further. Their projected national vote share is also in second place behind Reform and ahead of all the other parties at 18%. The Greens also have the second-highest rise in seats behind the Reform juggernaut. They’ve gained four councils, two mayors, gone from eight Scottish Parliament seats to thirteen, and picked up two seats in The Senedd. All things considered, how the hell could this be considered a ‘failure,’ unless of course you’ve got your head lodged firmly up your own bottom?

@darrenpjones @HughEdw31897368 @Keir_Starmer Personal tax allowance, Electricity disconnect from gas prices, Water companies, BBC, OFCOM, Gbeebies. Just some of the urgent problems!

The election results today have clearly been tough for Labour. I’m sorry that we’ve lost so many brilliant Labour colleagues across the country, and thank them for their service. And I’m sorry that so many voters felt unable to vote Labour at these elections. @Keir_Starmer has taken responsibility and committed all of us to delivering on the mandate the country gave us at the last election. The Labour Party shouldn’t waste a minute of the time we’ve been given to get on with that job. If we turn inwards the public will think we’re walking away from that challenge. The next election will have unity or division on the ballot. A Britain built for all, or a Britain for the few. Britain is at its best when we come together and rise to the challenges of our time. And Labour is at its best when our values of equality, collectivism and unity power our project for the British people. We can deliver a better Britain in the years ahead and beat the prospect of division at the next election, but only if we come together, get on with the job and face the future.

@Kevin_Maguire Proportional Representation anyone?

The people have spoken and it is Starmergeddon for Labour and the and the end of traditional two party politics with the Conservatives also taking a kicking. The Greens eating Labour’s lunch on the Left is powering Reform’s rise on the Hard Right in fractured politics.

- July 2016: Theresa May replaces David Cameron, no election called - July 2019: Boris Johnson replaces Theresa May, no election called - September 2022: Liz Truss replaces Boris Johnson, no election called - October 2022: Rishi Sunak replaces Liz Truss, no election called

@Femi_sorry It wasn't #KalamityKemi, was it? She has form!

Nigel Farage : I was HACKED! Farage complaining that his secret £5 million donation was discovered through hacking, means he's finally an actual Scooby Doo villain. "And I'd have gotten away with it too, if not for you meddling kids!" youtu.be/rld9rpWLaNM?si…

@MarinaPurkiss This notice should be everywhere you get your papers.

At what point do we stop pretending our newspapers are ‘news’ and start calling them what they are… Promotional pamphlets for the billionaires who own them and the agendas they’re selling.

@Malcolm_Offord Sorry, we weren't kicked in the head. We don't have a horse!

We're hot on their heels. Polls are open until 10pm - you can make history today if you get out and vote!

My prediction for tomorrow: Keir Starmer will still be PM How bloody fabulous is that 🥂🥂🎉🎉🎈🎈🌹🌹🌹

@implausibleblog Feargal is right! Make him the chief regulator of OFWAT! He has regulator experience.

Feargal Sharkey, "Water companies... The fines don't work, it's time we actually started upholding the law, and sending some of these executives and directors to jail" Krishnan Guru-Murthy, "You think we should put them in jail?" Feargal Sharkey, "If we put one water company boss in jail for six weeks the whole industry would transform itself"

@BBCArchive The joy on people's faces when the train passes through. We owe him a great debt of gratitude.

#OnThisDay 1964: A documentary about the ‘most exclusive club in Britain’ looked at the niche community of steam train owners, who have saved engines from ending up in the breakers-yard. Amongst them was Alan Pegler who spent £3,000 on the decommissioned Flying Scotsman.

@YouGov Don't be bloody daft! Grow up!!!

If the Labour party replaces Keir Starmer as prime minister and party leader, do you think there should or should not be a general election? Should: 53% Should not: 27% Results link in replies

@BladeoftheS Unbelievable! When the country goes down the tubes, you know who to blame! The problem is, it will be too late because the damage is done!

Hilarious video that shows none of the Reform voters know any of Reform's policies.

@implausibleblog @MarinaPurkiss Sadly, there were no freezers around to use.

Cathy Newman "Thailand-based Chris Harborne has given you and your party £17 million.. Interfering in democracy" Nigel Farage runs away

No obligation to follow the rules. No obligation to vote in Parliament. No obligation to meet his constituents. No obligation to tell the truth. No obligation to Britain.

Spot the difference… 2024 - The Sun runs several stories on Starmer receiving clothes & spectacles from a Labour donor 2026 - The Sun runs not even one story on Farage receiving a £5m gift from a Reform donor Why would that be?

Reform state of play since early April - Tice - reported to HMRC - Jenrick - reported to Police / Standards over donation from a US felon - Farage - £5 million reasons to be referred to Standards - Rosindell - reported to Electoral Commission over false representation - Yusuf - reported to Electoral Commission reference the 'threats' reference detention centres ... EC states complaints should be made to the Police - Reform - reported to Police over the 'Energy Bills competition' Impressive for a Party of 8 MPs