Sunak dismisses simple step that would ensure nobody falls through cracks of government’s partial income guarantee – while massively reducing admin and delays. He is putting us all at risk
Tory Chancellor Rishi Sunak told MPs today how complicated it would be to provide basic income to the UK’s millions of self-employed people and zero hours contract workers who are struggling because of the coronavirus crisis.
Moments later, he dismissed out of hand a measure that would ensure no one is left in hardship – and would massively reduce the administrative burden of providing benefits at the same time:
A ‘universal basic income’ – a basic, guaranteed ‘livable’ payment – would ensure that nobody starves or is left homeless during the coronavirus lockdown and that huge numbers of small businesses and workers in service industries are in a position to resume services to the nation as soon as it is lifted.
And it would do so with minimal admin or delay.
The government promised that it would not allow anyone to suffer hardship because of this crisis. But Sunak’s response to the most straightforward emergency solution?
“We’re not in favour of it”.
Such dismissiveness will force desperate people to ignore the lockdown and social distancing measures and put us all at risk.
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That’s because dummkopf-schmitt said it (UBI) will make people ‘lazy’.
…Like HE’s ever done a day’s graft?
Prick’d have his kecks around his ankles, crying for his ma, after 5 minutes ‘on the hod’.
Some of the best talent in the country is silenced because it’s all too difficult for young Rishi to work out and (the reality) it’s too expensive; at this rate there’ll be no money left for the fat cats and Tory donors! Maybe they believe because they are entrepreneurs they’ll find a way..but it’s Tough Titties in truth
They’re not in favour of it today but the chances are they will be tomorrow or the day after. These are strange times; on March 20th the Torygraph published a piece entitled:
“Boris must embrace socialism immediately to save the liberal free market.”
Lenin understood the phenomenon of such strange times when he said:
“There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.”
Meanwhile as posted here days ago on Skwawkbox.org Germany & France blocked equipment exports not just to the UK and Switzerland, but to Italy in its time of crisis. China DONATED equipment and help. So did tiny Cuba despite wicked sanctions. Cuba has been exporting doctors and medical aid for decades. Yes DECADES. In fact people from Europe, Africa, the Caribbean have for decades, been going to study medicine in Cuba. If Cuba can be a beacon of humanity, despite cruel and unjust sanctions, then that is more than enough proof that much is rotten at the very heart of Tory / Republican ideology run world. Red & Blue Tory & New Labour, Republican & Clinton Biden Democrats. Change MUST happen. True Labour is the only option. It won’t happen by telepathy. Thought, strategy and a sustained determined campaign us needed. Good time to remind people to vote for Richard Burgon, and RLB as we have no alternative… for now. If she knows she is on probation, she will sharpen up.
https://www.thecanary.co/global/world-analysis/2020/03/24/theres-a-mind-blowing-detail-in-the-global-response-to-italys-coronavirus-outbreak/
🌹🌹🌹
Signpost
It would take very little to move membership massively to RLB, respond to JVL and bring JC into shadow cabinet
FFS just give us something to believe she is genuine and not another plastic red tory
Doug, i’m not running down the street claiming to have found the Holy Grail. I’m being pragmatic. If this contest of dreafdulls, other than Richard Burgon is not called off. We have no choice for now to endure RLB. Things r never perfect. When i suggested mid last year in my Jeremy supporting groups that we needed to start preparing leaders then as anything could happen, the suggestion was laughed at by two older members. Since then, something did happen. We needed to prepare. We did not. So to me, there is no point not trying to get the least worst option for now. Hope that helps. I voted ages ago it seems now. Richard was easy choice… wish he was standing for leader but he is not. Voted RLB as ghastly option… for now. 2nd prefs should not be used for these two as the options r stacked against us. Voted Jo Bird for NEC need to check who my other choice was (Shame on me… lots voting last month & start of this one). Trued hard to analyse the ethos if the candidates from their statements. Gave points etc then selected. Final deciding factor was – candidates HAD to be decent, insightful, visionary and courageous, but most of all DECENT … ie what bastards like Blair & Straw & Johnson & their MSM… or vice versa, call hard left… ie what you and i call good sound common sense 🌹🌹🌹
“TRIED hard to analyse the ethos OF” apols as usual.
Richard Burgon….vote already made; but to vote for a Leader who is nothing more than an apologist for Margaret Hodge?
…. along with her clearly expressed wish to welcome Luciana Berger and Louise Ellman back into the party with open arms. Will she also be inviting John Mann to take the Labour whip.
Whats the alternative Steve Richards. If we dont vote for RLB, we will get something far worse, with the full PREPARED brigade of WMD Blair, Campbellend, Straw, Blunket, HODGE in bold capitals, Berger (one of the Iraq Invader’s spawn’s ex – – – – ) the alternative to RLB in this instance, in these circumstances, is in my opinion INFINITELY worse. We will have no voice at all. It is dangerous to make the absence of something perfect, to fail to vote to prevent the FULL HORRORS OF HELL to march through the gates. I am BEGGING again as i did in the run up to the Ref and then the GE. It is dangerous in the extreme to let the best be enemy of the good.
RLB is not and would NEVER be my ideal choice. But reality strikes. Pragmatism demands the choice of her as the least ghastly option. If Starmer or any other despicable tool of Blair and Mandelson get in, it will be no comfort to me that i warned that it is obvious to choose the least worst candidate BY FAR for leader. We cannot keep blaming the MSM etc if we cannot grasp realities minimise losses now so at least we can create better choices ASAP. Ps I begged for that too last year! Last year again it seems practical basics have no allure to the left. A protests yes! Safe spaces yes! Save the lesser spotted Patagonian Yak YES!!! Basic house keeping to keep and expand control of our party? ? ? • • • Clean up the litter in the stratosphere … all the refuse floating about in space YES ! Grapple with the imperfections of life down to earth ❓ ❓ ❓ • • •
Noted the responses from Socialist /Communist government to the plight of iTaly,left to flounder by the neoliberal elite of the EU Whatever happened to the union?…In tough times comrades help each other.IN Europe ,the Uk we only come together to bomb weaker nations back into the stoneage..We have many lessons to learn now,and its not just about the virus anymore its about Humanity and Greed in a war of survival….!
Wigan nurses have been left stranded in Cambodia after their flights home were cancelled because of Coronavirus.
https://www.wigantoday.net/news/uk-news/covid-19-wigan-nurses-left-stranded-cambodia-after-uk-flights-cancelled-2513822
Joseph hopes this will recalibrate many good minds and hearts. Much bandwidth has been squandered over the last too many years. When so much Tory destruction, deaths and carnage needed to be pointed out every single hour, it seems that the approach was dump tons of excellent policies on a worn out worked to death electorate in four weeks. Everyday a new gem. Yet, everyday since we see the value of the policies and not once have i heard the opportunity taken to show the rationale.. the justification. EG, Rail DE-privatisation, the Tories will nationalise the private franchises now at public expense. Broadband – perfect for working from home, reducing need for travelling about spreading disease. ALL the phone carriers are failing. Yes these are just two “obvious” & “common-sense” policies but, to repeat, taking account of public psychology… competition for consciousness, the “obvious” need NEON BOLD HIGHLIGHTING every single hour. Because things are common sense to us, it does not mean that it takes root widely. That is a fact of life. Great if it were otherwise, but our MPs seem to have no grasp re how key it is to say things, write, REPEAT them until we feel sick of it. When we begin to feel sick of repeating observations, ideas and ideas, many are only hearing of them for the first time… if we are lucky. To me that is a MAJOR deficiency on the “Left”. Another, is precious little practise and preparation re being challenged by the dreadful MSM. QUESTION: How can we ever handle a hostile presenter by robustly outlining our case if we cannot even do it amongst friends❓❓❓ We URGENTLY need to recognise that scrutinising ideas is not a condemnation or attack on each other. Rather it is what is standard in any good scientific endeavour. PEER REVIEW. TESTING … dispassionate self-assessment. And of course encouragement, praise and acknowledgement. Even what seems like solitary enterprises of thought, are not solitary but the assembly and rearrangement of our ideas and those of others… a truly collective exercise. That to ne has to be the living heart of true Labour. 🌹🌹🌹
https://www.et.com/news/483897-italy-eu-coronavirus-solidarity-russia/
Forget UBI
It will bankrupt an already insolvent country,
Repair and update UC to bring payment levels including housing benefit upto 2020 levels
Stop sanctions, repeal bedroom tax and return medical assessments to GP’s
All we ever ask is a functioning safety net, the people will do the rest
Why think big when you can always think small !”!
You cannot bankrupt a fiat economy
Looking at Doug’s suggestion in a slightly different way…
If you raise UC to a decent level, broaden its availability so that more people can claim it, scrap the punitive sanctions, bedroom tax, caps and so on, plus maybe a few more tweaks, then you’ve essentially converted Universal Credit to a Universal Basic Income. The administrative framework is already there – all that’s missing is the willingness to make the changes.
Stark
You got it
And at a fraction of the cost
Steve Hilling
Germany 1933
Venezuela
Argentina
Zimbabwe
Oh yes you can
The idiot lethal Tories ” are not in favour of it” not because its the best solution or the most efficient or even the most profitable in the long term , but because it will destroy their entire ideology that the free market is king and that something as Socialist as UBI must be resisted at ALL costs , even to the death .
God how I hope Storm Farter Dumkoff Shmit gets a real bad dose of it and passes , quietly on by .
UC has cost the country billions been reset to hide true costs but it’s around 30 or more billion UC is a failier it would have been better spent on the population
Sunak does seem to favour a basic income when it’s in the region of £100 millions. According to the Times he “was part of a small team of hedge fund bosses who shared nearly £100m after an audacious stock market bet that lit the touchpaper on the 2008 financial crisis.
The new chancellor was a partner at the hedge fund TCI when it launched an activist campaign against the Dutch bank ABN Amro in 2007, resulting in its sale to the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).
The deal loaded RBS, at the time led by Sir Fred Goodwin, who was stripped of his knighthood in 2012, with crippling debt and led to a £45.5bn government bailout.
Sunak’s time at TCI between 2006 and 2009 made him a multimillionaire in his mid-twenties…”
and you could repeat that story for most of the Tory Govt Mps
It’s a serious allegation to make about Johnson being responsible for numerous ‘excess deaths’ because of his ‘dithering’. In fact it’s worse than ‘dithering’, he really did/does believe herd immunity will do it and that remains his private policy.