Leadership candidate discussed new speech on Radio 4’s Today programme
Labour leadership hopeful Lisa Nandy appeared on this morning’s Radio 4 Today programme to talk about a speech she will be giving today – and said it is ‘certainly true’ to say that the Blair/Brown ‘New Labour’ government was a continuation of Thatcherite principles of taking a ‘small amount from those at the very very top and handing it with conditions to those at the bottom’.
But she also said that she supports the ‘principle’ of Universal Credit (UC):
Nandy explained that she believed that Universal Credit did not come with enough ‘support network’ to help claimants get to grips with it, in particular with the need to set up bank accounts and apply online.
However, she did not mention the most widely-criticised aspects of UC: that claimants are left for weeks without any payments when they first move onto it, with only access to emergency loans – which have to be repaid from scant resources – to bridge the gap, forcing many into heavy debt; and the fact that the system is designed to leave greater numbers of poor people worse off.
Labour Party policy is that the system is a punitive ‘unmitigated disaster‘ and must be scrapped altogether.
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