Category Archives: U-turn

Labour’s tuition fee u-turn: ‘circumstances may change but principles shouldn’t’

The excuses man: we can use this image again because all of the excuses in it are short-term issues. Starmer’s justifying his u-turns by saying circumstances change… but policies should not. Otherwise we don’t know what Starmer’s party stands for, what it will do, or even whether it intends to represent us.

Good for Good Morning Britain for hammering StarmerLabour’s latest two-faced u-turn!

To recap: After giving a solemn commitment (a pledge) to abolish tuition fees in 2020, Keir Starmer has u-turned, saying the financial situation has changed and Labour now has to prioritise its plans:

GMB‘s Susanna Reid, interviewing Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves, made the point that “circumstances may change, but principles should not” – adding (alongside co-presenter Martin Lewis) that Starmer has dropped many more of the original 10 pledges he used to get himself elected as Labour leader (This Writer is fairly sure he’s dropped them all by now):

So StarmerLabour is also LyingLabour. I used to correct people who accused his party by calling it “Liebour” but he has made them right.

He paid for it in Prime Minister’s Questions on May 3, when the Westminster leader of the SNP (!), Stephen Flynn, put the boot in – much to Tory prime minister Rishi Sunak’s joy:

Contrast that with the politics of Jeremy Corbyn, who was ousted as leader after a concentrated, years-long, campaign against him by members of his own party who support Starmer now:

One more point: Changing circumstances don’t need to affect government policy. The Covid crisis and the war in Ukraine have happened, sure – but they are temporary; short-term. Government policy should be long-term.

Political plans should be made in ways that accommodate unexpected developments; they need to represent a coherent political position for which each party stands.

Changing policy on a whim, as Starmer does, puts the electorate on shifting sands. What does Starmer really want to do? Who does he represent?

I don’t know the answer to either of those questions but I know two things:

He doesn’t want to do anything for me. And he certainly doesn’t represent me.


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Starmer ditches pledge to scrap tuition fees: YET AGAIN he doesn’t deserve your trust

The genius at the top of the Labour Party has shot himself in the foot – again.

Keir Starmer has ditched yet another of the pledges on which he managed to get elected as leader of the Labour Party – and has already been lambasted for it in the pages of The Spectator:

The article states – rightly, it pains This Writer to admit:

In the latest wheeze to … prove that Labour is now a Serious Party of Government, the spin doctors at Labour HQ have opted to ditch the party’s long-standing pledge to abolish tuition fees.

As recently as 2021 he was lambasting it as ‘a huge debt for young people that they carry around for a long time’ which is ‘why we rightly committed at the last election to get rid of tuition fees.’

Starmer told Radio 4’s Today programme that: ‘We are likely to move on from that commitment because we do find ourselves in a different financial situation. But I don’t want that to be read as us accepting for a moment that the current system is fair or that it’s working.’ So, er, the system is broken but we’re not going to fix it? So much for an end to sticking plaster politics…

The abolition of tuition fees was of course one of Starmer’s ‘ten pledges’ that secured him victory in the 2020 leadership race, back when he was live action role-playing as a Corbynite. Among those include ‘common ownership of rail, mail, energy and water’, ‘defend free movement as we leave the EU’, ‘increase income tax for the top five per cent of earners’, ‘abolish Universal Credit’ and ‘end outsourcing [in the] NHS, local government and justice system.’ All this at a time when he’s asking the country to vote him in on the basis of his so-called ‘five missions’.

It begs the question, as one BBC journalist put it to Starmer, ‘Why should we believe your five pledges when you binned your ten leadership pledges once you were elected?”

The relevant trade unions – and remember, Labour relies on the unions for support – hate the new posture:

Others are picking out video clips of Labour figures talking up the former policy to flag up the hypocrisy of the new position; representatives who proudly proclaimed that they would end tuition fees now have to proudly proclaim the exact opposite:

And others are bringing it home by tying it to the local elections on Thursday (May 4):

It’s nauseating. We’ve gone from “Oh, Jeremy Corbyn!” to “Ugh! Keir Starmer!”

The current Labour leader has abandoned everything that distinguished Labour from the Conservatives.

Voting for his party – now – means voting for no change at all.

And that is as true with the local elections as it is with a general election: he has made sure all party representatives are terrified of dissent so electing them is putting in place somebody who will do their best for Starmer… and not for you.

If you were thinking Labour looked like a smart choice, you’d better think again.


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If Liz Truss is doing u-turns, how about reversing draconian protest laws?

Russell Howard has focused on the Tory government’s crackdown on protest. Should Liz Truss u-turn on it?

Liz Truss seems to be the u-turning prime minister.

Her latest reversal is on her claim that she would not impose more austerity, voiced in Prime Minister’s Questions last Wednesday (October 12). New Chancellor Germy C- er, Jeremy Hunt went back on that one in his very first TV interview.

So here’s an idea for her: why not reverse a policy that people actually hate?

Here’s Russell Howard, talking about the Tory crackdown on protest. His point? That, if progressive change is ever to take place, the voice of the people must be hard.

And his methodology is hilarious (apologies to those who are offended for the profanity in the image):

There’s no opposing what Russell is saying here.

And Truss would certainly improve her popularity if she changed this law – which hasn’t succeeded anyway, as the clip demonstrates.

So why not do it? Or is she simply too stupid?

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Tory MPs defend the tax cut u-turn – but what do Tory VOTERS think of these people?

Compare and contrast:

First, here’s a selection of Conservative MPs (including a wonky-spectacled Chancellor Queasy Kwarteng) working hard to justify themselves:

Now let’s see what their own voters think of them…

… Oh dear.

The best that can be said is that they all approve of the tax u-turn. But that means they’re admitting that their government – that they chose – got their first big decision wrong.

And some of the comments were a lot less positive.

And Kwasi Kwarteng’s speech didn’t get the ovation he would have wanted. Most people stayed in their seats and This Writer has a suspicion that many of them didn’t even bother to clap.

I think these Tories are in deep, deep trouble. But they’re all working hard to avoid admitting it.

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‘Unpopular’ Johnson to fight shortages with temp EU driver scheme – with too few places

Empty shelves: Boris Johnson created the shortages with his stupid Brexit – as this satirical image makes clear. Now he’s scrambling to find short-term solutions because he’s upset that the backlash is harming his popularity.

Boris Johnson’s idiocy has painted him into a corner so tight that his only choices make him look even more blindingly daft.

His Brexit stopped EU haulage drivers from working in the United Kingdom and this led to a worsening of the shortage the country was already facing.

Johnson refused to put HGV drivers on the list of those who would be allowed to work in the UK, saying that the country (in fact, only a quarter of current UK citizens) had voted to end freedom of movement.

How true those words became!

Now we have no freedom to move groceries…

No freedom to move other goods…

And because fuel tankers aren’t reaching filling stations, no freedom to move at all. On this, Johnson’s Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps, tried to assure motorists that there was no crisis – and they ignored him, sparking mass-hysteria panic-buying.

This response from the public indicates that the population at large has no confidence in government claims.

That’s what happens when a prime minister lies constantly – and leads a government of liars.

Now, Johnson is planning a U-turn, saying he will put EU drivers on the visa scheme allowing them to work in the UK.

So he is making a liar of himself – again.

And he is saying the scheme will be restricted to 5,000 drivers – nothing near the 100,000 who are needed.

If he’s saying this will be enough, he’s making a double liar of himself.

That’s according to haulage bosses:

Toby Ovens, managing director of Broughton Transport Solutions, said he is not convinced a temporary visa scheme will solve the current shortage of HGV drivers.

This is just another Tory bid to hoodwink us.

Johnson is saying what he thinks will calm us down: “All is well. We are solving the problem. Go home. Go back to sleep.” That sort of thing.

He’s just looking for short-term relief from the pressure this situation has created – not on the UK’s transport infrastructure, but on him.

He doesn’t like the fact that people are – rightly – blaming him for a crisis that would not have happened if he had not insisted on forcing on us all a Brexit deal that he had not even read.

And This Writer doesn’t think for a moment that it will do him any good.

Because we know we can’t trust him and his promises are worthless.

Source: Temporary visas for 5,000 foreign lorry drivers will NOT solve supply crisis, haulage boss warns  | Daily Mail Online

Humiliation for Tories as they give up on ‘English Votes for English Laws’

EVEL: John Redwood – seen here speaking from his home planet of Vulcan (apparently), said the end of English Votes for English Laws was a “sad occasion”, even while his fellow right-wingers like Jacob Rees-Mogg admitted that the procedure had “undermined” Parliament.

The Conservative government tried to quietly scrap its unsuccessful attempt to placate Little Englanders – but couldn’t stop the hoots of derision from across the House of Commons.

They have scrapped their English Votes for English Laws system – otherwise known as EVEL – because it didn’t work.

And quite right, too – especially on the eve of a debate on yet another top-down restructuring of the NHS in England, that will affect patients in the other UK countries as well.

As a citizen of Wales, This Writer would still have to travel into England for treatment at English hospitals in certain citcumstances, and it would be utterly inappropriate for my MP – Tory though Fay Jones may be! – to have her vote on such a matter disregarded.

As it was, the Tories had to grin and bear it as ridicule was piled on humiliation by critics from other parties – most notably the Scottish Nationalists.

The SNP’s Pete Wishart called scrapping the procedure an “utter, utter humiliation” for the government and said it was a victory for his party.

Thangham Debbonaire, shadow Leader of the House of Commons, said the procedure “undermines democracy” and helped feed “the SNP’s indignation”.

And even Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Tory Leader of the House, admitted that the procedure had “added complexity and delay to the legislative process”.

He said EVEL had “undermined” Parliament and all MPs should be represented equally, rejected accusations the move was to appease nationalists and said the government was “trying to restore the beauty and the uniformity of our constitution so that it will work properly”.

You can see how bad EVEL was by the quality of its supporters: swivel-eyed John Redwood said “England deserved better”, that it was a “sad occasion”, and that EVEL was the “only modest devolution ever offered to England”.

Fine words from the Tory minister for the planet Vulcan

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U-turn again, Boris Johnson – every time you do, you lose more credibility

What he thinks we want to hear: Boris Johnson turns with the wind, as this excellent infographic from @dayvidart shows.

The continued support Boris Johnson enjoys from the UK public is becoming a constant surprise – especially as he is now u-turning several times a day.

It seems clear that he and his people are saying whatever they think they can get away with, according to the news agenda of the day – as Ian Dunt points out here:

When lockdown was imposed in March, we all had to work from home if we possibly could.

Then Johnson changed his mind in June and wanted us all to go back to the workplace and catch Covid-19 from our colleagues.

Now it is September and we’re all staying at home again. At this rate, he’ll have us back in the salt mines again around Christmas.

On the subject of staying at home or going somewhere, shall we discuss schools?

Here’s some footage of Johnson at the Commons Liaison Committee, saying that children readily transmit Covid-19 to adults.

But Adam Hamdy is right:

So Johnson – who said, only at the beginning of September, that it was “safe” to go back to school – has now reversed his position entirely. But it’s a bit late now:

In our houses, out of doors, in, out, shake-it-all-about… We wouldn’t need to do any of this if we had a decent Covid-19 test, track and trace system – but we don’t.

Johnson handed the contract for this to a private company – Serco – that has made a complete hash of it.

So he keeps calling it “NHS test-and-trace” instead, in the hope that nobody will remember it’s a privatised cock-up. Fat chance:

When the Department for Health and Social Care launched its contact tracing app (which version of that are we on now? Two or three?) the announcement stated that it would not carry out contact tracing.

Guess what? Another u-turn was on the way!

Here‘s The Independent:

No 10 has been left red-faced after wrongly saying the long-delayed NHS coronavirus app will not carry out contact-tracing – only to be slapped down by health officials.

The technology will finally be launched on Thursday – four months late – but without its original purpose, Downing Street had claimed, sparking fresh criticism.

But, within hours, the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) issued a correction, insisting contact-tracing would be “at the heart of the NHS Covid-19 app”.

The fiasco over the four-month-delayed track-and-trace system led to uncomfortable moments for Johnson in the House of Commons where – as usual – he made a proper fool of himself:

If you’re having problems understanding what’s wrong with his words, see the following:

And here’s another thing: if the UK is such a freedom-loving country and those others aren’t, then why are we having to put up with endless – and constantly-varying – restrictions from Johnson while they are practically back to normal?

This idiot’s words stand on their heads!

For further proof – if you can believe it – Johnson actually said that contact tracing had nothing to do with the resurgence of Covid-19 in the UK:

Needless to say, the satirists have been having a field day:

I’m going to end with one that’s not related to the rest of the story but refers to Johnson’s intention to bring the armed forces onto our streets to enforce his ridiculous new restrictions on our freedoms. The point, I hope, is clear:

The UK may be a freedom-loving nation – but Boris Johnson doesn’t like it at all.

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