What’s Up With the Government?

A few weeks back I wrote a post about what Labour were up to now they were in government. And I used a dog’s butt hole to punctuate my point. I know, classy. So what’s up with them now? What the fuck are they playing at? The new government was meant to be sensible, sleazeless and getting on with the job, but that isn’t quite what the media would lead us to believe. So here we go, my take, if you want it.

There’s a vacuum and where a vacuum resides, there some shite will rush to fill it. I’ve said this before, but the upcoming budget is key. They delayed the budget so that they could properly prepare and not rush into things. And that sounds reasonable, but it’s caused a walloping great hole and the government is now directionless (not actually, more on that below) without the fiscal whatsits that the big pieces of legislation will rely upon. Everyone wants to know how much money there is and what it’s going to be spent on. The government can wang on about what they want to do, but the obvious question is, how are you paying for it and without the budget it’s just a big question mark.

Rushing into this space where the getting on with the serious stuff should be is a load of shite. And it’s shite from multiple points of view. The papers, majority don’t like the government, have made a big deal out of Sir Keir Starmer and others disclosing the gifts and freebies and donations they’ve received. This is not corruption, it is the normal business of government because everything is within the current rules. Maybe you don’t like the rules, fair enough, let’s change them, that’s fine, we can have that conversation. But the holier than thou attitude of some who have come for Labour don’t realise two things. Number one, government needs to be funded somehow, either by donations or by us the tax payer. Make your choice. Number two, the other lot who have just been in power, have been covering up their donations and what nots and those stories have started to trickle out. I’d rather my politicians disclose who’s paying for them so I can make an informed decision.

Now I said that it’s shite from multiple points of view, and I think it’s shite that Starmer took free clothes for him and his wife, free spectacles, tickets to Taylor Swift etc… He’s wealthy enough to pay for these things himself and as he moralised about the Tories taking backhanders, he needs to be whiter than white. It just looks bad. And there’s been uproar in his appointments to his team. Oooooo Sue Gray. So what? She was right for the job, now she’s not. Starmer makes a decision and then moves on. It’s only because she did in Boris Johnson that there’s such a furore. And look, their communication has been horrible. Why they don’t have better comms I don’t know, but it needs to be sorted out. They need to start telling the people a joined up narrative of, ‘we’re making this decision and this is how it works within our vision and these are the outcomes’ blah blah blah.

So it looks like they haven’t gotten off to a good start. But here’s what they have done already:

• The Renter’s Rights Bill, banning no-fault evictions and making sure landlords are keeping homes safe.
• Introducing free school meals from April 2025.
• Water Measures Bill to penalise water bosses who pollute our water.
• Introducing Hillsborough law.
• Beginning to return rail back to public ownership.
• Great British Energy to deliver cleaner and more secure energy.
• Cancelled the idiotic Rwanda scheme.
• Rerouting personnel and money to a new Returns and Enforcement unit to return failed asylum claims.
• Introduced new measures for prisons.
• Lord Darzi’s review of the NHS, indicating where the Tories have damaged the NHS.
• Scrapped the ban of onshore wind and unblocked solar shemes.
• Scrapped single word Ofsted judgements.
• Established the Child Poverty taskforce to tackle child poverty.
• Introducing legislation to reform the House of Lords to get rid of hereditary peers.

There’s much more, but I’m boring myself typing all of this out. With the news cycle being so fast paced nowadays, whenever something happens, a big thing is made of it and then we move onto the next confected outrage. I’d love for it to slow down for everyone’s sake but I guess it’s not. For now, I’ll be trying to ignore trifling nonsense and wait for the budget. Then I’ll stick my size 9s in properly.

PS – I’ve used the word shite a lot in this post. Just about sums it up I reckon.