The spirit of collaborative cross-party support that Sir Keir Starmer uses as an excuse for his spineless lack of opposition to the shambolic policy decisions of this Tory Sovereign Dictatorship are a lop-sided fxxk-you to all elected MPs. I say all because Tory MPs have no real choice in Johnson’s ‘my way or the highway’ corrupt Tory cabal; we have almost reached the point where there is no real ability for Parliament to continue functioning at all. In an ongoing display of utter contempt, even Rishi Sunak failed to attend the debate on a Labour motion that was a targeted appeal to the Chancellor regarding the upcoming budget. In the Labour List Article entitled, “MPs pass motion calling on Sunak to cancel ‘triple-hammer blow’ to families,” Elliot Chappell reports on yet another disgraceful Tory no show. He says, “MPs have passed by 253 votes, with Tories abstaining, a Labour motion calling on Rishi Sunak to abandon the planned cut to Universal Credit, the upcoming council tax rises and the public sector pay freeze.”
Chappell reported on Tuesday that, “Opening the debate for Labour this afternoon, Anneliese Dodds described a ‘triple-hammer blow to family finances’ and warned that the Chancellor is pressing ahead with ‘economically illiterate’ plans that will stifle demand in the economy. The Shadow Chancellor told MPs today that Sunak ‘faces a choice’ next week as the March Budget is a ‘pivotal moment’ for the country and urged the government to learn from the mistakes of the pandemic and the past 11 years. She argued that Conservative austerity imposed since the financial crash in 2008, which saw wages ‘flatline’ for a decade and household costs rise, had left the country with a ‘worryingly low level of resilience’ ahead of the pandemic.” The problem is that any concession on this issue will mean admitting that the devastating decade of austerity wasn’t just a serious mistake, it was a deadly error that is estimated to have cost 120,000 lives even before the shambolic handling of Covid doubled that death toll.
There is zero likelihood that this corrupt Tory Government will admit that their warped austerity agenda that forced the working poor into destitution via austerity was wrong. This was a conscious ideological choice, not a financial necessity which raises the issue of culpability for the needless deaths. Chappell reported that “Dodds said the damage done to the economy and to public health over the past year ‘didn’t need to be as severe’ as it had, and criticised Sunak for failing to understand that ‘the health crisis and the economic crisis are not separable’. ‘If economic support does not go hand-in-hand with the imposition of necessary public health restrictions, then we cannot get a grip on the virus nor will economic activity return to normal,’ she told the government minister. ‘If infections are not reduced, not only will restrictions be in place for longer but people will lack the confidence needed to get out and start spending again. Yet, time and again, the Chancellor has sought to pull back economic support with the virus still raging’.”
Chappell noted that “The Shadow Chancellor highlighted the attempt from Sunak to roll back the furlough scheme last year, and the subsequent the ‘11th hour’ U-turn to extend the job support programme just hours before it was due to come to an end.” This was unbelievably cruel to leave so many truly desperate people in limbo right up to the last minute and they look like doing the same again in callous response to this motion. Yet the BBC continue talking up their ‘lev..up’ lie and it keeps appearing in the press in total denial of the reality of the ruthless Tory assault on the poor. This vomit-worthy lie is what Starmer should be ranting about at PMQ, not that the PM or any of his Tories mates believe in accountability as they adamantly refuse to apologise. Chappell quotes, “Coronavirus may have closed much of our economy, but this government’s approach is crashing it,” Dodds said. “Next Wednesday is a chance to change course. To learn from these mistakes, not just of these 11 months but of the last 11 years.”
Chappell said “Dodds today urged the Chancellor to “harness the spirit of unity and solidarity” in the crisis by allowing those who have saved to invest in ‘British recovery bonds’, a proposal unveiled in a recent speech by Labour leader Keir Starmer last week.
She reiterated Labour’s call for the government to allow businesses to pay back Covid loans once they are making money, and to expand the start-up loan scheme to support the creation of 100,000 new businesses over the next five years. She said: ‘We need a new approach. A government that is on people’s side, that understand the value of public services, that gives families and businesses the security they need in the tough times and offers them hope in the years to come’. Sunak will unveil the Budget on March 3rd. He has refused to make announcements ahead of the statement but is expected to defer plans for significant tax increases and extend support schemes including furlough and business interruption loans.”
Chappell reported that “Left Labour MP Nadia Whittome urged ‘courage’ from the Chancellor, likening the moment to the post-war period, and called for a national care service, a green new deal, a long-term ban on evictions and a pay rise for key workers. Zarah Sultana MP emphasised the need for ‘ambition’. She argued: ‘This isn’t a time for tinkering around the edges. It’s 40 years of neoliberalism that got us here in the first place and we can’t go back to that. So let this be our 1945 moment’. ‘We must make a different choice. We must choose not the smallest state but an active and empowering state. We must renew our public services, not starve them of resources’,” Mention of 1945 will have sounded a ‘Socialist’ alarm bell for the Tories. He said, “Labour’s Angela Rayner told the Commons. Echoing lines from Starmer’s recent speech on the economy, she added: ‘As we seek to recover from this crisis, the state must work in partnership with business to lay the foundations of our future success and prosperity’.”
Chappell noted that “Stressing low levels of statutory sick pay and zero-hours contracts, Labour MP Olivia Blake said: ‘Low pay and insecurity in our economy has created a perfect storm for transmitting the virus and the government has failed to learn the lessons. Throughout the pandemic, the government’s ‘whatever-it-takes’ rhetoric has rung hollow as for the past decade it has downgraded the public sector’s ability to respond to a crisis,’ the Labour MP for Luton South, Rachel Hopkins told MPs today. Housing, Communities and Local Government Secretary Robert Jenrick told local authorities in March last year that ‘the government will do whatever is necessary to support their efforts to combat the impact of the virus in their communities. But analysis released last year showed that nine out of ten major local authorities in England do not have enough money to cover their spending plans this year and that the pandemic could result in them going £1.7bn over budget.”
Funding that is vital to the survival of ordinary working families remains left up to a last-ditch reprieve from a millionaire Chancellor so removed from the reality of ordinary mortals that he feels justified in ‘playing-God’ with the less fortunate and totally destitute. According to Chappell, “Labour has repeatedly urged the government to provide more money to local councils instead of forcing the authorities to implement a near-mandatory increase in council tax this April to make up for lost funding. Sunak was not present for the debate this afternoon. Shadow apprenticeships minister Toby Perkins commented: ‘I don’t suspect that’s because he’s publicity shy… I suspect he doesn’t want to be associated with the Tory policies of the past.’ The government continued with Boris Johnson’s new policy today, adopted last month in the face of motions on free school meals and the Universal Credit cut, of ignoring opposition day motions and instructing Tory MPs to abstain.”
Despite all of the genuinely desperate need throughout the UK, the one consideration hinted at in the Media is an extension of the Stamp Duty relief in order to stimulate the house buying market, a nice perk for those who aren’t facing severe hardship, imminent eviction or struggling to feed their families; this costly tax give-away is hardly a dire necessity! Labour List has included a copy of the full text of the motion tabled by the opposition, in one long, breathless mega paragraph that starts with a strong admonishment of past policy mistakes and their negative impact so far. It begins, “That this House believes that the last decade of UK economic policy weakened the foundations of this country’s economy and society, leaving the UK particularly vulnerable when the coronavirus crisis hit; further believes that many government choices and actions during the coronavirus pandemic have exacerbated the problems that the pandemic has caused, leading to the UK suffering the worst economic crisis of any major economy;…”
The motion concludes with: “…Calls on the government, as the UK emerges out of the pandemic, to address the deep inequalities and injustices in this country and take the UK forward to a stronger, more prosperous future through a new partnership between an active state and enterprising business; further calls on the government to protect family finances by reversing the planned £20 cut in Universal Credit, reversing the key worker pay freeze and providing councils with the funding they need to prevent huge rises in council tax; and calls on the government to introduce a new British recovery bond to allow people who have accumulated savings during the pandemic to have a proper stake in Britain’s future and to back a new generation of British entrepreneurs by providing start-up loans for 100,000 new businesses.”
The advice of the former Labour Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell puts Sir Keir Starmer’s feeble input to shame as is readily apparent in the Independent Article entitled, “Impose windfall tax on pandemic profits to wipe the debt slate clean, says McDonnell.” They report his claim that “Many Britons facing ‘long trail of hardship’ after Covid is gone,” saying that, “McDonnell has called for a windfall tax on those who have profited from the coronavirus pandemic to pay to cancel households debts caused by the crisis. Writing in The Independent, Mr McDonnell said it was time to ‘wipe the slate clean’ on high-cost and unmanageable debt built up by millions of Britons, including many key workers who have fought on the Covid-19 frontline?”
The Independent highlight that, “In a swipe at Sir Keir Starmer’s high-profile economic speech on Thursday, which was criticised for containing only modest proposals for reform, he said: ‘There is a time for framing speeches and political positioning but there is also a time to get angry and a time to demand immediate action to help people survive’. Mr McDonnell cited Citizens Advice warnings that an estimated 6 million people, including more than 20 per cent of key workers, have fallen behind on bills because of Covid-19.” McDonnell said, “that number in severe problem debt is believed to have doubled to 1.2 million during the crisis. The former shadow chancellor called for a Debt Charter to deal with the causes and consequences of debt. Improved benefits and a £10-an-hour living wage, along with restored universal basic services, should be deployed to prevent people from getting into debt in the first place, he said.” Far from seeing wages go up it’s more likely they will fall due to ‘fire and rehire’ or zero-hours contracts.
The Independent report that “He called for a cap on interest rate charges and a ceiling on overdraft fees and interest payments to ‘rebalance power between lenders and the indebted’. He said bailiff visits should be suspended at least until the whole of the UK has been vaccinated against Covid-19. In his most radical proposal, Mr McDonnell said: ‘We need to wipe the slate clean. That means a comprehensive package of debt cancellation, beginning with the worst kinds of debt: including high-cost debt, old debt, unmanageable rent and student debt, backed by a windfall tax on those that have profited from the pandemic’. Writing ahead of Rishi Sunak’s Budget on 3 March, Mr McDonnell said the chancellor had “virtually ignored the debt burden many people have been forced to take on over the last 10 months as their incomes have either been cut or dried up totally”. I fear the Tory jackboot will not be taken off our necks any time soon; the only way to effect change is to remove Trojan horse Starmer and the Tories from office.
According to the Independent, “The Bank of England’s Andy Haldane has predicted a ‘coiled spring of demand’ from people wanting to spend savings built up during the pandemic.” This was a typical comment from a person so completely out of touch with the reality for the majority of Brits that it is beyond insulting. But Mr McDonnell told the Independent that, “other Britons were facing ‘a long trail of hardship, poverty and unmanageable personal debt unwinding’ because of financial problems caused by Covid. ‘Debt is an issue neglected by politicians for too long,’ wrote the former shadow chancellor. ‘The time for action has come’.” It is hard to imagine how abandoned our young people feel after being coaxed back to high-cost Halls accommodation where they were trapped during online tuition that they could just as easily complete at home. Students locked into accommodation contracts, despite moving away from campus, are saddled with this debt on top of over £9000 a year in tuition fees for a limited learning experience.
But the Tories do not care about young people at all, there is no financial support and their job prospects after investing in costly education are abysmal. Mike Sivier comments on the debt relief alternative for those hit hard by Covid in his Vox Political Article entitled, “Windfall tax on pandemic profits should wipe out Covid-19 related debt says McDonnell.” If we hadn’t been cheated out of a Labour victory in the Covert 2019 Rigged Election as Sivier says of McDonnell he, “would have revolutionised the UK’s economy. Instead, the Tories have saddled one-tenth of the population with debt so great that they cannot pay their regular bills.” He notes, “A former Shadow Chancellor has proposed a radical set of plans to clear the debt created by the Tory government’s cack-handed handling of the Covid-19 crisis. John McDonnell pointed out that the richest firms in the UK have profited hand-over-fist during the crisis, and should pay a windfall tax to help pay for the measures to end it, which would ultimately help them, of course.”
Siveir claims that “His proposals were not an attack on businesses, though – they were a criticism of a speech by current Labour leader Keir Starmer, whose best idea was to get members of the public to give all the money they have managed to save during the crisis to a new investment bank, meaning the nation’s poorest would foot the bill (again). What a socialist Starmer is!” He too emphasizes the point that, “In fact, according to Citizens Advice, more than six million people have fallen behind on their bills because of Covid-related hardship and the number in severe, problem debt has doubled to 1.2 million. They don’t have any spare cash for castle-in-the-air investment banks!” This was such an out-of-touch obvious ‘business as usual’ neocon proposal from Starmer, no wonder it has been heavily criticized by the progressive Left: at least those who have yet to be gagged or expelled for daring to speak their mind! We have zero opposition under Starmer and he needs to go ASAP s we can Get The Tories Out!
Siveir hails the constructive solution proposed by McDonnell, who said “a comprehensive package of debt cancellation was needed to get the UK back on its feet, including high-cost debt, old debt, unmanageable rent and student debt, all to be supported by a windfall tax on businesses that have raked in billions of pounds over the last year.” One of Starmer’s loyal centrist followers, James Murray Shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury was eager to tell Politics Live that there should be no new taxes any time soon as he tried hard to marginalize McDonnell’s the progressive Socialist input of getting the excessively wealthy to stump up. While he managed to identify deficiencies in the Tory Government’s ‘Catch-Up’ scheme as he focused on the lack of support for children’s mental health. He attacked the Tory defunding of Councils that has forced them to keep hiking Council tax, he was under pressure easily cornered into ruled out any tax increase on top earners and the windfall tax even if the Tories put that forward.
Although there were questions re the continuation of the Furlough scheme and the vital extra £20 Universal Credit amount, the Tories are taking this to the wire, just to ramp-up the unnecessary anxiety across the nation while they delight in playing-God. James Murray tried to claim that McDonnall was in full support of the limp Labour Leadership under Starmer, but he simply is not. Siveir reports that McDonnell, “Called for the creation of a ‘Debt Charter’ to tackle the causes and consequences of debt in UK society. Improved benefits and a £10-an-hour living wage, along with restored universal basic services, should be deployed to prevent people from getting into debt in the first place, he said. He called for a cap on interest rate charges and a ceiling on overdraft fees and interest payments to ‘rebalance power between lenders and the indebted’.” McDonnell also identified that, “bailiff visits should be suspended at least until the whole of the UK has been vaccinated against Covid-19.”
Silver insists that “This is the kind of thinking, we need at this time. We could have had it, too, if only millions of people had not been hoodwinked by anti-Labour propaganda at the 2019 general election, including a Tory campaign that was found to be more than 80 per cent lies. So if you find yourself struggling with debt for years to come, while the Tories, their client media and their business-oriented donors tell you you’ve never had it so good, just remember that you could have had it better.” Siveir stresses that we must “remind everybody you know not to be fooled again.” Personally I still believe that not so many were tricked into ‘lending’ their votes; that in reality their votes were stolen in the Covert 2019 Rigged Election and this still needs to be fully Investigated. The public have been fooled into thinking this was a free and fair election, but it the Tories are allowed to get away with this injustice once it will become the norm just as the zero accountability precedent has been normalized by this Tory Sovereign Dictatorship. DO NOT MOVE ON!