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Times
5 days ago
- Politics
- Times
Can the sixth-form bloc stop Nigel Farage for Labour?
Votes for 16 and 17-year-olds was right there in the Labour manifesto but still, no one seems to have seen it coming. 'They're old enough to go out to work, they're old enough to pay tax,' the prime minister said, as he made the announcement. Changes to the voting system are rare. You have to be in power to do it, after all, and if you're in power, you're brave to start mucking about with the system that put you there, as Sir Keir Starmer may eventually find out. These are the traditional arguments made by left-wing types who hope that giving sixth-formers the vote will help them out at the ballot box. Starmer may be the first to eventually have to follow them through to their logical conclusion. If you're giving out votes to people who are 'old enough to work' and 'old enough to pay tax', why not start taking votes away from people who are now too old to do either? That might stop Nigel Farage. It was a bold thing to announce on a busy day. The prime minister also had the newish German chancellor Friedrich Merz in town to sign the 'Kensington Treaty' which, for reasons that didn't appear to have been explained to Herr Merz, had to be signed in Kensington and then discussed shortly after at a press conference in Stevenage. They'd chosen the symbolic venue of the V&A Museum for the signing itself, V being for Victoria, who was British, and A being for Albert, who was German. That blissfully happy, Anglo-German union was only partially undermined when their grandchildren declared war on one another in 1914. Merz, unlike Starmer, has a troubling knack, rare among politicians, for using words to describe things the way they are. In that sense, the Starmer-Macron press conference made for a slightly toe-curling double act. 'We have signed the Kensington Treaty,' beamed Starmer, 'the first-ever major bilateral treaty between Britain and Germany.' For some reason, the 1890 Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty, in which the UK gained control of Zanzibar in return for the Caprivi Strip in present-day Namibia, didn't get a mention, which was harsh. It was the 40th anniversary of Live Aid over the weekend, and we got Zanzibar's most famous son Freddie Mercury out of that one. If it weren't for the Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty of 1890, we'd all be singing Bohemian Rhapsody in German. Starmer knows there's a reason it's the 'first-ever major bilateral treaty between the UK and Germany'. For decades, European countries have done multilateral treaties, via something called the European Union, which can no longer be discussed. Except if you're Chancellor Merz. 'I personally deplore, deeply, the UK's decision to leave the European Union,' he said. At this point, for those watching at home, the left of the screen froze completely for at least 20 seconds. Not a pixel of Starmer's face, now in an agonised grimace, shifted. On the right side the chancellor simply carried on. The reason they'd come to Stevenage was to visit the UK home of Airbus, a highly collaborative, pan-European success story. Starmer warmed up the small crowd with news that the Kensington Treaty would allow a small number of business-class passengers to possibly use the e-passport gates at a small number of European airports. 'I know that's very popular round here!' he said, the smile back again. Not through any great fault of his own, Starmer now has a proud track record of deals that return things to being not quite as good as before. His 'US trade deal' ameliorates a small amount of the harm done by Trump's tariffs. It's possible that 16 and 17-year-old voters may be aware that voters of any age, in Germany, France, Spain, Italy and everywhere else, can enter each other's countries without using passport gates at all. The next thing Starmer announced was a plan for 'a direct rail link between London and Berlin!' It's arguable there are better places to announce that kind of thing than an aeroplane factory. The main point Merz wanted to make was that, in his words, 'The E3, Britain, France and Germany are converging on economic issues.' Starmer froze again. The same thing happened last week, when President Macron was in town and warned there must be 'no further divergence'. Convergence, divergence, don't they know these words are highly triggering here? They're the sort of thing that get Nigel Farage elected, and not even an army of sixth-formers can help.
Telegraph
13-07-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
All the times Labour has changed the definition of ‘working people'
Ever since the Labour general election manifesto promised there would be no tax rises for 'working people', party figures have struggled to define what that means. The manifesto claimed 'Labour will not increase taxes on working people, which is why we will not increase National Insurance, the basic, higher, or additional rates of Income Tax, or VAT'. Sir Keir Starmer said on Wednesday that the Government would keep this promise, but a growing hole in the public finances has raised questions over whether this will remain the case, and how the party will define a 'working person'. Heidi Alexander, the Transport Secretary, on Sunday appeared to suggest that only those on 'modest incomes' would be classed as working people. It was not clear how she defined a 'modest' income. This is not the first time that the language surrounding 'working people' and how the Labour Party defines them has come under scrutiny. The Telegraph breaks down how the term 'working people' has changed since Sir Keir first made that promise last year. Working people do not have savings Before voters went to the polls, the Labour leader suggested that he did not believe that 'working people' had savings. Asked what he meant by a working person, Sir Keir told LBC in June: 'People who earn their living, rely on our [public] services and don't really have the ability to write a cheque when they get into trouble.' The following day, Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, appeared to contradict him by saying that some working people did have savings. She claimed on Sky News that her definition was: 'Working people are people who go out to work and work for their incomes. 'Sort of by definition, really, working people are those people who go out and work and earn their money through hard work.' Ms Reeves added: 'Many other people who go out to work have had to run down their savings. 'But there are people who do have savings, who have been able to save up and those are working people as well.' People on six figures can be working people The new Government came under intense scrutiny over its definition of 'working people' ahead of the Chancellor's first Budget in October last year. Lisa Nandy first suggested that someone on a six-figure salary who goes to work counts as a 'working person'. In an interview with Sky News, the Culture Secretary said: 'When I think about working people, particularly the challenges they face, I think about the factory workers, I think about people driving the buses in my constituency, working in the public services, working in the private sector, delivery drivers, call centres.' When asked whether someone on a six-figure salary counted, the minister replied: 'I mean, if they go to work obviously they will be working.' Landlords and shareholders aren't working people The following day, the Prime Minister said that he did not believe that landlords or shareholders fell under his definition of a working person. Asked by Sky News if those who earn income from assets such as shares or property would count as working people in the Budget, Sir Keir said that they 'wouldn't come within my definition'. The Chancellor went on to announce an increase in capital gains tax at the Budget, but kept property rates the same. Small business owners might not be working people Bridget Phillipson, just days before the Government's first fiscal event, refused to say whether a small business owner who earned £13,000 a year was a 'working person' or not. The Education Secretary told the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg that Labour's definition of a working person was someone 'whose main income arises from the fact that they go out to work every day'. Those paying employers' NI contributions are not working people When Ms Reeves's first Budget was unveiled on October 30, she announced an increase to employer's NI contributions. Standing at the despatch box, the Chancellor said that 'people will not see higher taxes in their playslips as a result of the choices that I am making today. That is a promise made and a promise fulfilled'. Ministers insisted that this did not breach the manifesto promises not to raise taxes on 'working people' because it was employers, rather than employees, paying the increased levy. But critics, including the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), disagreed. Paul Johnson, the then director of the IFS, said ahead of the Budget that the manifesto did not 'specify employee National Insurance' and therefore raising employers' NI would be a breach. He also warned that the levy ultimately came from employee pay, and therefore an increase could result in 'less pay rises' and 'possibly fewer jobs'. Working people earn 'modest incomes' On Sunday, Ms Alexander said that the Government had promised not to put up taxes for 'people on modest incomes'. She told Sky News: 'We made a commitment in our manifesto not to be putting up taxes on people on modest incomes, working people. We have stuck to that.'
