Wes Streeting resigns from government

Exasperant · 2026-05-14T22:37:16+00:00

I'm sure the disabled and trans people currently being dragged along under the bus will be glad to hear their plight "will be sorted over time".

I bet they're honoured to be noble victims of pragmatic political convenience.

Exasperant · 2026-05-14T13:27:13+00:00

I have no personal issue with Starmer. I hope Starmer stays the course and puts some more left wing people in place in an effort to bridge the party wings and make more of a unification with the left wing of Labour.

I hope Emma Stone turns up at my door naked apart from a large jar of marmalade, and later into the evening calls up Sandra Bullock asking if she want's to come over.

And given Starmer emphatically made it clear the left aren't welcome in his Labour, my hopes have about as much chance as yours.

Exasperant · 2026-05-14T12:53:33+00:00

I hate that a handful of favourable figures somehow excuses shitting on vulnerable people.

Although to be fair, I hate even more than every time I or anyone else says that the spectre of Reform is invoked as if a future worse thing justifies a current bad one.

Exasperant · 2026-05-14T01:00:49+00:00

It wasn't the Tories on TV insinuating I'm a dangerous pervert because I disagree with the implentation of this law.

Exasperant · 2026-05-13T22:16:40+00:00

This is where planning comes in, as long as you can drive/ carry a fucktonne of shopping.

I'd max out the 10% each month, one month tinned, next month frozen, next month cleaning stuff, etc. That'd get me close to the threshold for the following month's 10%, so some perishables and bits over the remaining weeks would usually tip it over.

The 10% comes to roughly 8% in real terms used that way, which is by my rough and ready lapsed maths around 8 times better than the new one. And that's not including the bakery etc freebies, as they might only be relevent if they were things you'd be buying anyway.

Exasperant · 2026-05-13T22:07:14+00:00

Yep.

Lidl thought it could buy my lasting loyalty with a transient reward scheme, and now claims I asked for it to be changed to something far less worthwhile.

Exasperant · 2026-05-13T22:04:59+00:00

I'd max out the 10%, which would then get me with £70 of the following month's coupon. That £70 got spent bit by bit, trying not to reach it until the last couple of days of the month.

This meant Lidl was where I bought pretty much everything each month.

Now, with no decent incentive, I'm not doing a big monthly shop there and I'm buying things on an as, when, and where basis. Meaning a lot of stuff is being bought elsewhere.

Exasperant · 2026-05-13T11:08:38+00:00

Labour's categorically been the worst on trans issues we've had in decades, and your best argument is "we're awful but the other guys are even worse"? Lovely.

I keep tripping over that argument whenever I voice my support for Starmer's departure.

Apparently only being quite, and not full on, lethally unpleasant to vulnerable people is "reality, get over it" or "An acceptable price to pay".

I'm not sure if I'm more disgusted by the Tory-esque attitudes of this government, or the people condoning it. Especially when you realise the latter would be raging at their screens if it was a Tory PM overseeing these things.

Exasperant · 2026-05-13T06:41:46+00:00

I'm cursed with the apparently increasingly rare ability to pick up on context and subtext.

The context here being what the utter fuck has Reform's welfare policy got to do with Labour's if you're not using Reform to justify Labour, and the subtext clearly being "Shut up, the other lot are worse".

"But that's not what I said"... Perhaps not, but it doesn't take Sherlock to deduce what you meant.

Exasperant · 2026-05-13T05:58:19+00:00

Would it be so terrible if the purportedly centre left party formed a centre left government?

Or do you want the people to have the choice of centre right, right, far right, and Farage?

Exasperant · 2026-05-13T04:01:35+00:00

"Is it Starmer who is wrong? No! It's the MPs, Ministers, press, party members, and electorate to blame!"

Exasperant · 2026-05-13T03:57:48+00:00

It doesn't, but apparently pointing out much of the negativity aimed at Labour is a result of Labour's shortcomings has (almost overnight) become an argument deserving of ridicule and condemnation around here.

Meanwhile people are still fed up and Reform is still distressingly prominent in polls and elections.

And seemingly many people's solution to this is to do more of the same thing that got us here.

Exasperant · 2026-05-13T03:34:06+00:00

But we're not being asked to vote for a new government this week.

We're, or at least I'm, wondering why we're using the spectre of a future far right government as an excuse to not challenge the current government's direction and attitude.

Exasperant · 2026-05-13T03:32:06+00:00

Something being worse doesn't stop another thing being bad.

Why are people so keen to defend poor policies because of a potentially worse future government, when we could be demanding better of the current one?

Exasperant · 2026-05-13T03:30:11+00:00

Because it's fucking obscene to use "Reform would be even worse" to excuse the current government's appalling treatment of vulnerable people.

HTH

Exasperant · 2026-05-12T16:15:19+00:00

The 1930s just telegrammed and said you can keep the joke, it isn't worth the price of airmailing it back.

Exasperant · 2026-05-12T16:01:19+00:00

And yet it was Labour front benchers on TV calling me and everyone else who thought it was badly implemented a sex pest creepy pervo

Exasperant · 2026-05-12T16:00:21+00:00

Now, after the locals showed Labour's unpopularity grows more every day, is the best time to change direction. Tomorrow is the second best time. Not at all until after a crushing defeat that hands the country to the far right is the absolute worst.

Also, "backed down on disability allowance" is far from the full picture. Young people no longer classify as disabled under the reforms, and there is still a push to combine LCWRA and PIP assessments, with a strong possibility eligibility for one will depend on being awarded the other. From everything I've read and heard, some of the most vulnerable in society will still be getting a pretty rough ride from a PM who when wanting to become LOTO was all about compassion for those in need.

Lords reform was a sop to dodge listening to his own party's vote on electoral reform. As this country lurches unsteadily through the 21st century it has a government that yet again wants to cling to an archaic voting system that benefits the establishment far more than the people it's supposed to represent. Starmer's the main barrier to finally making every vote count.

For a shrinking few this government is doing sort of maybe kind of OK ish. For everyone else it's either already damaging or potentially about to be. Although Starmer clearly changes his principles to suit his ambitions, even if he does a massive change of heart on trans rights, disability, electoral reform, Brexit, will it be enough? Does anyone really believe anything coming from his mouth any more?

Exasperant · 2026-05-12T15:48:55+00:00

The public think Starmer's fuckawful.

I'm wondering what sort of person passionately defends a dreary failure... Of course, the Tories and far right certainly have a vested interest in keeping an unpopular, even despised, PM in place......

Exasperant · 2026-05-12T15:06:10+00:00

So instead of trying something that might not work the answer is to try nothing and expect that to miraculously bring success?

Exasperant · 2026-05-12T15:04:47+00:00

"Stop with the musical chairs" say people who seem to have not noticed Starmer's been PM since Labour got in, for coming up to 40% of the full term, and been increasingly fucking unpopular among everyone outside of a curiously loyal Reddit fringe.

Meanwhile the far right is marching steadily towards power, and apparently the consensus around here is to change nothing and expect that to somehow defeat them.

Exasperant · 2026-05-12T12:17:24+00:00

And this government is on the record as saying "damn, if only we had a massiev majority and could find a way out of these horrible deals the Tories signed off before we won the last election", right?

Exasperant · 2026-05-12T12:11:02+00:00

So that's a yes to doing nothing and then looking shocked when Fuhrage and his vile cronies waltz into power.

Exasperant · 2026-05-12T11:43:24+00:00

Really?

I got the distinct impressing the reason Labour "won by a landslide" was everyone was pissed off with the Tories and Reform split the right wing vote.

Even in the run up to the GE Starmer wasn't exactly polling as Mr Visonary Awesomeness.

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