Tories devastating record set to continue unless Budget delivers ‘desperately needed measures’ to recover living standards
In a bleak assessment of the Tories track record, the 2020s are on course to be the ‘second lost decade’ in living standards, a leading charity has warned the Chancellor ahead of his Spring Budget announcement.
Leading anti-poverty charity, Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) published the damning report on Monday, warning that, without political intervention, this Wednesday’s budget risks condemning Britain to another decade of declining living standards.
Based on current government spending plans, working families could be £1,900 a year worse off by 2029 than in 2021. While essentials are predicted to remain less affordable relative to post tax earnings until 2029.
The cutting analysis of the UK’s economic trajectory is a warning to Jeremy Hunt that if he fails to deliver immediate measures to support living standards in the coming budget, then this will be the result.
Decisive intervention from policy makers is what the charity has urged, as it warned that many families will be poorer by the end of the 2020s than at the start. While the Chancellor must prioritise providing long-term economic security for households requiring “the right political will” to turn the situation around.
Currently, post-tax earnings are £2,400 a year lower for the average working family than they were in 2021, while essential goods and services for the average family are £270 a year more expensive than at the beginning of 2021, the JRF research found.
Media watchdog Ofcom has once more found GB news to be in breach of broadcasting rules.
The regulator ruled that an episode of Dan Wootton Tonight on GB News in which the former actor Laurence Fox questioned who would want to “shag” a female journalist broke broadcasting rules.
Fox’s disgraceful comments about JOE Media’s political correspondent Ava Evans led to 8,867 complaints being made.
In a statement, Ofcom said: “We found that Mr Fox’s comments constituted a highly personal attack on Ms Evans and were potentially highly offensive to viewers. They reduced her contribution to a broadcast discussion on mental health – in her professional capacity as a political journalist – to a judgment on whether she, or women like her who publicly expressed their political opinions, were sexually desirable to men.
“As such, we considered that Mr Fox’s comments were degrading and demeaning both to Ms Evans and women generally and were clearly and unambiguously misogynistic.”
The Tory MP has been taken apart after deeming support for a 4-day week ‘socialist madness’
People have found it hard to see the common sense in Esther McVey’s recent attack on the four-day week, as Britain’s unofficially designation ‘common sense tsar’ has been taken apart for blasting support for the scheme as “socialist madness”.
In an opinion piece for the Express, Esther McVey attempted to demonise trade unions which she accused of “calling the shots over Labour” and took aim at the PCS union representing civil servants over its calls for a four-day working week.
She wrote that the “last thing the country needs” is a return to the “bad old days of union dominance with a weak Labour leader appeasing them”. Ironic given the current state of affairs 14 years of a Conservative government has left the country in.
The 4 Day Week Campaign organisation wrote a scathing response to McVey, blasting the MP for Tatton as out of touch with public opinion, whilst also thanking her for showing how many people actually want a four-day week through the responses to the article.
“Sometimes you can judge the success of an idea by the kind of person who rejects it,” the organisation wrote on X.
Parody remarks attributed to Sadiq Khan highlights the hypocrisy and double standard applied to Antisemitism and Islamaphobia.
Based on Rishi Sunak’s recent ‘mob rule’ comments, his extremism speech and Lee Anderson’s comments – which are universally not recognised as Islamaphobia or anti-Muslim racism – I expect Rishi Sunak and the UK Conservative Party to engage in a dirty racist general election campaign. They’ve started how they intend to continue. I suggest that the response to it should be to insist that the police prosecute cases of anti-Muslim racism as they should.
Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East delivers a speech at the U.N. General Assembly in New York, United States on March 4, 2024. (Photo: Fatih Aktas/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“The implementation of this plan is already underway with the destruction of our infrastructure across the Gaza Strip,” said Philippe Lazzarini, the agency’s commissioner-general.
The head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees told the U.N. General Assembly on Monday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies are intentionally trying to decimate the critical aid body as mass starvation looms in the Gaza Strip.
“UNRWA is facing a deliberate and concerted campaign to undermine its operations, and ultimately end them,” said Philippe Lazzarini, the agency’s commissioner-general. “Part of this campaign involves inundating donors with misinformation designed to foster distrust and tarnish the reputation of the agency. More blatant, is the Israeli prime minister openly stating that UNRWA will not be part of post-war Gaza.”
“The implementation of this plan is already underway with the destruction of our infrastructure across the Gaza Strip,” he continued. “Attempts to evict UNRWA from its headquarters in East Jerusalem, and from a nearby vocational training center for Palestine refugee youth, are underway. Draft legislation in the Israeli Knesset seeks to prohibit outright any activity by UNRWA on Israeli territory.”
The UNRWA, the most important aid agency operating in Gaza, has long been a target of the Israeli government. But attacks on UNRWA have escalated since October 7, with Israeli forces killing more than 150 of the agency’s employees during its war on Gaza and accusing a small number of the body’s staffers of taking part in the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel.
The Israeli government has not provided any evidence to support its claims, but the allegations alone led more than a dozen countries—including the United States—to suspend aid to UNRWA, putting its operations in Gaza and across the Middle East at risk of total collapse.
Last month, the U.S. Senate passed legislation that would prohibit any U.S. funding for UNRWA.
Babies are dying of malnutrition & dehydration.
Man-made famine is looming.
Doctors are amputating limbs of injured children without anesthetic.
Despite all the horrors – the worst might be yet to come.
On Monday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed—again, without providing evidence—that 450 of UNRWA’s 30,000 employees are “military operatives in terror groups in Gaza.”
Lazzarini noted Monday that he swiftly terminated agency staffers accused of playing a role in the October 7 attack and that an independent probe into Israel’s accusations was launched by the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services.
“Despite these prompt and decisive actions, and the unsubstantiated nature of the allegations, 16 countries have paused their funding, totaling $450 million,” said Lazzarini, thanking the countries that maintained or boosted their funding as the agency faced a potentially existential threat. The European Union has also agreed to partially restore funding.
“Thanks to them, the agency, which is the backbone of humanitarian assistance in Gaza, can continue operating and remains a lifeline for Palestine refugees across the region,” he said. “But for how long? It is hard to say. We are functioning hand-to-mouth. Without additional funding, we will be in uncharted territory—with serious implications for global peace and security.”
“I shudder to think of what will still be revealed about the horrors that have taken place in this narrow strip of land.”
Lazzarini said conditions on the ground in Gaza are “impossible to adequately describe” as Israel continues its bombing campaign and blockade, which have prevented badly needed aid from reaching large swaths of the territory.
“Doctors are amputating the limbs of injured children without anesthetic. Hunger is everywhere. A man-made famine is looming,” said Lazzarini. “Babies—just a few months old—are dying of malnutrition and dehydration. I shudder to think of what will still be revealed about the horrors that have taken place in this narrow strip of land.”
Ahead of Lazzarini’s speech to the U.N. General Assembly, a coalition of aid organizations issued a joint statement warning that if “funding suspensions are not reversed, the risk of a complete collapse of the already restricted humanitarian response resulting in preventable loss of lives in Gaza becomes even more likely.”
“Over 1 million displaced Palestinians are sheltering in UNRWA facilities across Gaza,” the groups said. “UNRWA’s 13,000 staff in Gaza far outstrip the collective capacity of the rest of the humanitarian sector in the territory. Their role in the facilitation and delivery of lifesaving humanitarian aid at scale in this crisis has been heroic. UNRWA’s supply of vital shelter, food, and basic services like sanitation, as well as the use of infrastructure by other aid organizations, is irreplaceable.”
