A Year of Labour

Now that Labour has had an entire year in power, let’s take a look at what they have done. This will not be an extensive list, and there is no particular order, and I fear a lot of what I am about to go through has caveats, some of which will be heavy.

1. Closing loopholes for the super-wealthy to avoid tax. There are a lot of misunderstandings about this one. For over ten years, if you have enough money, you can exploit tax loopholes in the UK to avoid paying tax. To be clear, there are still loopholes, but not as many, and this has seen more money for schools, local services and so on. Now some people have asked for a higher wealth tax on the rich, but in a very rare case, I would argue that this won't actually help the UK. Wealth in modern day is so easy to simply move; however, a land tax is very different. If someone has a lot of land and does nothing with it, high land tax. Don’t like? Well, you can do something with the land, like have community events, walking trails with a nice little cafe, build on the land or simply sell it. The truth is in the UK we have been catering for the super-wealthy for a long time, and this has led to them buying massive chunks of land, property and other equity and simply doing nothing with it. Land tax fixes that, but as far as I know, Labour aren’t looking at that.

2. Ending strikes and industrial action. Now yes, some strikes resumed a little while after the Labour government had resolved the issue, and the right-wing media will constantly condemn the government for how much this has cost the country – but they forget to mention how much any strike costs the country and how much the previous governments cost this country by ignoring the strikes. Depending on who is striking, it could cost the country £1.2 billion – and in some cases some strikes have cost the country £5 billion. So ending striking action, which in most cases was simply agreeing to pay people in line with inflation so there are fewer nurses having to rely on food banks, is an easy win.

3. NHS waiting lists have dropped. I will say that again: waiting lists for the National Health Service have dropped for the first time in over ten years! And I stress, this started to happen over winter when more people are getting sick and relying on the NHS. A lot of different approaches went into this, and some of it was just agreeing to pay NHS staff more – something that the previous government refused to do despite nurses and junior doctors constantly saying that they do not get paid enough to do the job – a job we desperately need people to do.

Caveat: more private avenues have been used to help with this as well, and that demands we keep a close eye on things, as this country does not need nor want the American healthcare system – an insurance-based system.

4. The winter fuel allowance. Right, here we go. Whoever has been advising the government in matters like this does not deserve their job. The winter fuel allowance was a universal payment that was given to everyone of retirement age. Now this did mean that a former prime minister and multi-millionaire received it when she absolutely didn’t need it, but when Labour means-tested it, the cutoff point was far too low.

While this meant that those who desperately needed it were still entitled to get it, they had to apply for it. There are two major problems with this. First, this allowed a lot of people to say that the Winter Fuel Allowance had been scrapped and wasn’t around anymore. Second, a number of people listened to this and didn’t apply for it despite them being eligible for it. It will always be better that a few people get a benefit who don’t need it than a few people who need it don’t get it. This was a mistake that was corrected far, far too late and has made it look like a U-turn or a climbdown rather than an adjustment. In politics, this is never a good thing (even though a government that listens to its people is always wanted).

5. Labour has made it a criminal offence for the C.E.O.s of water companies to continue to dump sewage into drinking water. Just last year there were reports of methane coming from taps, constant reports of people getting sick when they go into coastal waters up and down the country and dangerously unsafe water coming through the tap – why has this been happening? Well, the previous government made the fine for water companies a cheaper alternative than actually updating the water systems and treating the water. So companies that are motivated by greed will always take the fine and a handshake from a Conservative government. This was a manifesto promise, and it has been kept – despite the kicking and screaming from all the water companies.

6. Cuts to disability benefits. Let me start this section by simply saying the person who suggested this and the group of advisers who didn’t scream at the entire Labour Party that this is catastrophic should have been fired. That’s it, clean your desk out by the end of the day and goodbye!

Would this have affected everyone on disabilities who rely on PIP (Personal Independence Payment)? No. Would some of those who need it have it stripped? YES! The proposed savings would not justify the harm done to the country, and most people who are in receipt of PIP are in work – it is actually used to help these people stay in work. Remove it, and what happens? We’ve already seen the callous and cruel nature of the DWP (Department of Work and Pensions) assault on people with disabilities. There are numerous lists of people who the DWP have stated can work and have died at work because they were not medically fit to work.

To be super clear, as I really do not want to be misunderstood with this, this was unforgivably stupid from the moment it was first brought up; it was beyond stupid that it was allowed to sit in the public mind for as long as it did, and the very fact that the Labour government changed their mind at the last minute does not make it any better; it just makes Starmer look weak, and for a lot of people, it has been seen that they will not vote for this version of Labour ever again. Not a political adviser worth paying would have ever allowed this, and for a Labour government to take this as far as they did, it is downright ugly.

7. Increasing the funding to help homeless people to almost £4 billion. Caveat: this money is given to councils, so if you have a council that is led by Reform UK, there is a high chance this money will just go to making it harder to sleep on benches rather than providing temporary accommodation and programmes to develop skills that will help them find work. Every year since 2010 homelessness has risen, and let's be very, very clear with this one: homelessness is a choice that a country makes, not an individual. Back in 2019 there were more empty homes than homeless people. The country made a choice; we made the wrong choice. So increasing the funds to help finally tackle this crisis is always going to be a good thing.

The issue of immigration and inadequate communication remains a concern.

Want to see my eyes roll to the back of my head? Nothing will do it faster than hearing a Labour MP talk about immigration and allow a conversation about asylum seekers to use the incorrect term of ‘immigrant’. An asylum seeker is NOT an illegal immigrant (the clue is in the name). Crossing the channel in a small boat does not break any laws as long as they present themselves to the government for asylum when they arrive. Don’t like? Simple solution with this one: demand the government allow people to start their asylum claim before they are in this country. Small boat crossings are finished overnight! It really is that simple. And every single MP or Labour rep that goes on TV or the radio should say the exact same thing every single time they are discussing immigration or asylum seekers: “Well, let's be very clear about who we are talking about here because conflating terms will mislead people. Immigrants will pay for a visa and pay the NHS surcharge before they are even in this country and are not entitled to any benefits. Asylum seekers cannot stay in their home country, and we have an obligation to investigate to see if the relatively small number of people who come here asking for help actually need it. If they don’t, we deport them – something that the Conservative government couldn’t be bothered to do.”

I swear to you, if every Labour MP and Rep said that on every show, the media would lose their sting with the small boat crossings, and people would not care. Labour’s communication team is by far Labour’s biggest problem.

On the whole, Labour's first year in power has been pretty good. There have been some silly mistakes, there have been unforgeable mistakes, and I personally circle the biggest problems back to the advisers and the communication team. Labour can’t control what people say, but they can control the stories at the start of the week. But a year of doom and gloom has shown that they are unwilling or incapable of understanding this. This is a problem they need to fix.