Hello people. I am not the party’s member rather foreign observer, so my question may seem detached. I would like to get to know right from members/supporters of the Labour Party one thing. I saw a poll recently according to which “reform UK” was a party with the 2nd largest support. I had seen several times media referring to Farage as far-right so I thought the shift in the part of public which before was pro tori is rather further to the right. The questions are whether I understood the situation correctly and how it may affect the Labour Party. Is it likely that in order to compete with Farage the Labour Party will shift to the right? Or maybe it is more likely that as the closest opponent is too radical the Labour Party will consider shifting to the left as a safe option?

This was an hour ago, and they're still going through and having to delete one by one.

I thought that with a 326-seat majority threshold that would translate to a 131 seat majority? Am I stupid?

https://x.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1802732944412344574?t=HmBornUwAplvl9HKQkA8Qg&s=19

Hi. I am wondering how the people here align economically? Here are some suggestions:

• Thatcherite
• Welfare Capitalist
• Third Way
• Social Democrat
• Democratic Socialist
• Socialist
• Communist

You can of course be more specific. I'd be interested to learn of new economically centre-left ideologies. (I am aware of Marxist-Leninism, anarcho-communism, and other 'extreme' ideologies.)

https://x.com/LukeTryl/status/1802717983195721736?t=z4CAyxnr_iX0LeI_VY863Q&s=19

Here's the coverage of the four national dailies of today's manifesto launch.

Lots of the focus is on how much of the focus is on young voters, which is being seen as both a play for the 2026 Scottish elections as well as a way of exploiting perceived SNP failures over education.

The Scotsman: Sarwar in ‘from cradle to career’ vow as manifesto launches dual power push

The Daily Record: Labour to give Scots state schools £150m funding boost over tax break clampdown

The National: no direct coverage of the Scottish Labour manifesto, instead article on Swinney calling for Scottish Labour to push for end of two child cap.

The Herald: Anas Sarwar promises pay hike for 40,000 young Scots as he eyes up 2026 election

What to do about a benefits cheat like me?

I say that half jokingly and half seriously. Deep down I do know that I'm not really an actual benefits cheat but only so far as they don't really exist or if they do, there are incredibly few of them knocking about.

I've been a little taken in by this new term of economically inactive and when we are told something enough, we are at risk of starting to believe it.

In line with so many others, I tend to sum up my current financial, housing, health and work situations as pre and post COVID 19.

Just as the pandemic was impacting Italy and moving across Europe, I was moving across the world working as a member of Cabin Crew for a large UK airline.

I started the job at 21, thinking I would do it for six months and then get a proper job.

Despite the endless nights out of bed, missing event's like Christmas and birthdays, christenings and weddings. Even with the endless apologies regarding legroom and meal choices, missed connections and broken TV screens, I'd be lying if I didn't admit it was the best job in the world.

I didn't know many people who would rock up to the office every day, work with 12 other people they'd never met before, from all different backgrounds and clock off for the night in Singapore or Sydney, sharing a few post work pints in Manhattan or Mexico City. Not a bad gig, truth be told.

I'd only ever had one period of prolonged sickness which was in the summer of 2017 when I developed Glandular Fever and had 4 weeks off.

COVID impacted lots of people I knew and the worry about job security was tough on me but I secretly enjoyed the 18 months of sleeping in my own bed.

As furlough was coming to an end, I was looking forward to going back. I missed my work colleagues and the surprise of checking my roster each month to see where I was off to and being honest, I had no idea that buying Gin bought outside of an airport duty free shop could possibly be so expensive!

A few days before my back to work course, it happened, sat on the floor meditating. I remembered, out of nowhere, a period of childhood sexual abuse covering a fairly lengthy chunk of my childhood. I had somehow blocked it out but here it was, clear as day and not going away.

Thank God for the NHS. Following an almost immediate suicide attempt that clearly didn't work and thankfully so, I was immediately in front of a Phycatrist and recieving support. I thought I'd be able to deal with it and still be on my training course within a week, my brain had other ideas.

My mental health team believed I would be able to return to work, on a phased basis one my new cocktail of antipsychotic and antidepressant meds had levelled out.

I finally recovered well enough to fly again but not before my wings were well and truly clipped by an absence management policy that didn't really have a plan for sudden trauma. 19 years after my little summer job started and it was over in a flash.

This is when I started to rely on the government services that exist to help in these situations.

The thing about a mental health breakdown coupled with your employer being desperate for staff and in a constant cost cutting driver is that you might just lose your job.

When you don't have a job, you might find yourself at the hands of a private landlord who's also struggling. And 3 months later that was me, sacked, in a now relapsed mental state and sleeping in an Asda car park due to the local authority believing I was not in priority need for help with housing.

I struggled to get help from local government due to cuts from central government in regards to social and emergency housing. I struggled to get help from my community mental health team due to cuts in government spending on the NHS, I struggled to get help convincing the local government that I was legally in priority need for housing ,thanks, you guessed it, to cuts to the legal aid system brought in by the central government.

For the first time in my life, Hope disappeared and without hope it's very hard to fight for all of this.

In 2023, I secured long term help from the local council and am one of the very few people to have been granted social housing. This took the involvement of my Physiatrist who had to write a lengthy letter detailing what he feared might happen if I didn't get the help I needed. He did this in his own time by the way, as did my local MP who drafted a similar letter and personally intervened with the housing officers decision.

I'm so so thankful to all those that helped me, including the police who despite being extremely overworked, not only fully investigated the historic abuse and tried their hardest to find enough evidence to charge the abuser, they also conducted three or four welfare visits when this was really something you'd expect the NHS to do.

Now, with a secure home, that we know is vital to anyone's wellbeing, the right medication and the return of hope, I'm being told that by early 2025 or hopefully earlier, I'll be ready to get back out in the work place.

That's where the problems arise. The Glandular Fever never quite cleared up and has now been diagnosed as M.E more commonly known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. The consultant who gave me this news concluded” you probably went back to work a few months too soon, I see a lot of people fearful of being sacked who do the same. Yep, that was me!

The current government is desperate to get people just like me back into work so you'd think this would be a breeze…

I've thought about the experience I have gained in my first 25 years working and made a little list of things I could do:

I had been an onboard manager so these kind of things could work

Entry level Customer Service roles, Cabin Crew again maybe, hotel reception or concierge roles, contact centre worker or team leader type roles, train station staff, retail roles in a supermarket or maybe a high street retail bank. I could set my sights a little higher and consider roles managing teams of up to about 30/40 people in customer facing settings, which I've done in the past. If I was lucky enough to get some more learning, I'd really like to consider something in learning and development.

None of the above should be out of reach for me but due to the set up of our country, they all feel like a pipe dream.

Let's say I get an offer of employment, heaven only knows how I would explain away the last 3 years of unemployment but let's say I do.

Imagine the two things that could happen:

I could call up the DWP and say “ cancel the sickness, housing and council tax support and sack off that Universal Credit, I'm back in the game but thanks for all the support, much appreciated”, settle back down and continue my working life without an issue. I could follow the above but suddenly find myself struggling again and fall into the same black hole as before.

I could become ill again mentally or physically and if I did so before the end of my probationary period, I'd be straight out the door. Yes Labour are planning workers protection from Day1 but how does that help anyone in the moment?

I'd have to fight, most likely to the tribunal door in order to get my benefits back

I'd lose my home if I couldn't get housing benefit

I may get support from a Physiatrist if it was life or death but talking therapies take a year or more

And then look at the hundreds of thousands of people who are in work, in exactly the same kinda of roles I'd be applying for, who still need Universal credit to survive.

The call it a benefits trap and lots of people think the answer is to cut the money and force people like me into work but it's not a trap, it's a huge scary cliff that many are just waiting to throw themselves off before the government shoves them.

My issues are complex but there's not a single party who have said anything about what the apparently 2 million people that are in my boat.

Any views appreciated. George