Austerity is Labour’s cruel political choice
JVL Introduction
While deploring the continuation of austerity, Jeremy Corbyn also writes in defence of universalism. As others have argued, austerity is a political choice; it is also a choice with little, if any, likelihood of achieving even the economic growth on which Starmer and Reeves are relying to turn things round. In June researchers at the London School of Economics found that Tory public spending cuts had led to at least 190,000 excess deaths and Jeremy puts the figure even higher. Labour austerity will be no less cruel and, given, for example, the ending of the winter fuel payments, we are likely to see more premature deaths.
Jeremy Corbyn outlines some of the other choices that the government could be making and notes the genuinely hard choices the poorest people in our society have to make on a daily basis compared with the government claiming it is making “difficult choices”. This Labour government, becoming more unpopular by the day, will have only itself to blame as things will only get worse.
LL
This article was originally published by Tribune on Thu 12 Sep 2024. Read the original here.
Austerity is Labour's Choice
After 14 years of billionaires doubling their wealth, the political elite’s choice of starving pensioners and children shows austerity as a complete con job.
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One of the things that doesn’t seem to being done is to eliminate the fiddles and diddles that enable a supposed taxpayer to send off income to offshore companies, interest payments, royalties and the rest..
It does not help that Britain has a low degree of self-sufficiency, so imports (and exports, too) allow what ought to be taxable funds to be diminished, leaving a smaller base for tax revenue..
This article is so right! Universal benefits are cheaper to administer and ultimately much fairer. Progressive taxation adjusts and balances distribution. But then, how would the rich fend off demands on them to pay their fare share?
Bravo Jeremy. If you had been elected, we would have seen real change, not the empty words mouthed by Starmer. I did not vote for his version of Labour, because it was obvious he and Reeves would continue the Tory policies of austerity and inequality. And, as you say, and as economists like Richard Murphy have said, 24 billion could be raised by taxing the very wealthy of some of their billions.
Our right-wing government made an irresponsible silly choice to counter-productively withdraw winter fuel assistance for the elderly. It is a vital saving that had to be made says the disingenuous government. But twice the value of weaponry is being arbitrarily and counter-productively given to Ukraine in a continuation of a chaotically formed Conservative policy which is actually worsening the security of Britain. These are the priorities of the effectively imposed on us establishment continuity of anti-democratic hierarchy rulers.
Why should anyone listen to Jeremy the social democrat ? He had a chance to leave the Labour Party years ago when he was at the height of his popularity, but instead hung around and allowed himself to get walked on, and worse, for people to believe that being pro-Palestinian is antisemitic. Now, all the so-called Labour left seem to do, is continue to naval gaze about the Corbyn years, and worship him like a messiah.
Good to see Corbyn opposing the ridiculous plan to raise military spending to 2.5% of national income.
The U K military budget is already one of the biggest in the world. No increase is necessary at all.
Fourteen years of austerity policies trashed the economy. Why does anyone think they are going to lead to growth now? When you are in a hole, the first thing to do is to stop digging.
Corbyn was always a fraud and his movement scammed us all. The sooner you realise this the sooner you can start actually understanding which class actually rules Britain and who is just their puppet.