Labour View – 9th February – Rich Clarke

10th February, 2022

THE cost of living crisis is hitting so many people hard, but history says that if we can get the economy right we can turn it around. It’s similar to 1945: people had suffered, debt was high. Labour won the election and rebuilt Britain, raising wages and living standards every year. Through investment we paid down the debt at a faster rate than at any time in history. Recent Conservative Governments did the opposite. Most economists predicted austerity would decrease wages and increase debt. They failed to invest and grow, built Government debt while wages stagnated while the 1,000 richest people in Britain saw their wealth leap from £25obn to £75obn by 2019. During the pandemic it has jumped to £9oobn.

I have no issue with the Chancellor’s family being billioflaires, but Government policies enriching billionaires while we get poorer is a problem.

Anti-fraud minister Lord Agnew recently resigned, saying the Chancellor’s department had “little interest in the consequences of fraud” to society and that “arrogance, indolence and ignorance” was “freezing the Government machine”.

The Government gave dodgy contracts to friends, relatives and party donors.

The Prime Minster broke COVID rules, hypocritically appearing on TV telling us we were not allowed to meet people, while at the same time partying himself. Later he misled the country by pretending he knew nothing about parties he had attended, letting subordinates take the rap for his mismanagement and arrogance. Successive Conservative Governments have been fixated on protecting billionaires. The profits of companies like BP and Shell are soaring, while our bills go up by 54%. Shell made–a £14bn profit and BP well over £9.5bn. The Shell boss earned £5.2million this year and BP’s boss boasted about the current situation, describing BP as “literally a cash machine”. Guess whose side our Government are on? It uses a taxpayer-funded buy-now-pay-later scheme to pay for a small amount of the energy price hikes, while the French order EDF to pay £7bn and limit price rises to 5%. Labour’s Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves wants a “one-off windfall tax on North Sea oil and gas profits” to help people through the crisis.

The National Insurance rise affects poor and working people more than the rich. Rachel Reeves says unlike the Tories, Labour will publish its financial plans before an election, and explained that to fund social care Labour could tax unearned income the same as earned income because currently millionaires pay less tax on shares income than we do for working.

Like the NI rise, it would raise £12billion, but without hitting people who can afford it least.

Former Conservative voters on the doorsteps in Liskeard and Saltash are starting to feel abandoned and betrayed. They realise this is a continuation of Cameron and May’s failed policies and we need a change. Not the same old policies with a new face, but a change of direction, setting the country on the road to a fair and more prosperous Britain. Labour has done it before and we are ready to do it again.