austerity

Andrew Feinstein: what’s wrong with the Labour manifesto

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Andrew Feinstein is challenging Keir Starmer by standing as the independent candidate for Holborn & St Pancras.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/andrew-feinstein-whats-wrong-labour-manifesto

Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer at the Mornflake Stadium, home to Crewe Alexandra while on the General Election campaign trail, June 13, 2024

From muzzling Palestinian rights to embracing austerity and outsourcing the NHS, Labour’s ‘tough choices’ always seem to hurt normal people while sparing wealthy donors — that’s why I am running to unseat Keir Starmer on July 4

…[T]he Labour Party launched its election manifesto — a dispiriting Thatcherite promise to continue endless austerity, soaring inequality and forever wars.

I announced my bid to become the independent MP for Holborn and St Pancras three weeks ago. Then, I was convinced that Keir Starmer’s Labour Party would offer little to improve the lives of this constituency’s amazing and diverse communities, or meaningfully restrain Israel’s genocide of Gaza. Having read this manifesto, I am more convinced than ever.

Starmer’s election campaign has traded on a series of stock phrases, all of which are profoundly misleading. Starmer promises to bring about “change,” but repeats tired economic shibboleths of the George Osborne variety.

He also claims to have remade the party “in the service of the working people.” In fact, the party is financially reliant on donations from big business and billionaires and its MPs rake in donations from the private-sector companies who circle the NHS.

The party’s long-feted New Deal for Working People is so disappointing that the party’s largest affiliated union, Unite, has refused to endorse the Labour Party manifesto.

But the most galling of all of the current Starmerisms is his invocation of “tough choices.” Starmer deploys the line to explain why the country cannot afford to pull half a million children out of poverty by ending the two-child benefit cap: a decision now confirmed by the manifesto.

Liz Truss’s mini-Budget, Starmer sadly explains, has made it impossible for the sixth-richest country in human history to lift children out of poverty at a cost little under £2 billion a year, a relatively measly sum in a country with a GDP of £2,274 trillion.

As the Labour Party manifesto makes clear, there have been plenty of hard choices made by the party — but all of them to the detriment of the poor and to the benefit of the mega-rich and big business.

Starmer makes the “tough choice” not to substantially increase funding the NHS, to end child poverty or reverse the swingeing cuts of the last decade; but only because he fails to make the “tough choice” to tax billionaires marginally more, even though the 10 richest people in the country are now richer than they have ever been.

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I’m especially angry that the Labour Party, like the Tories, has promised to increase defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP: a real-term £7bn a year increase by 2029. This is almost double the entire £4.7bn a year the party intends to spend on its Green Prosperity Plan to tackle the imminent existential threat of climate change.

What sort of security does this really buy? The party’s offer on Palestine is, frankly, an outrage; the manifesto speaking out of both sides of its mouth. So while it recognises that “Palestinian statehood is the inalienable right of the Palestinian people,” it then makes Palestinian statehood contingent on a meaningless word salad.

“We are committed to recognising a Palestinian state as a contribution to a renewed peace process which results in a two-state solution with a safe and secure Israel alongside a viable and sovereign state.”

So much for an inalienable right, which requires Israel to feel “safe” before Palestinians get statehood — just as Israeli leaders claim that Israel will only feel safe when Gaza is cleansed of its citizens because there are “no uninvolved.”

This offer significantly dilutes the party’s previous commitment to recognising Palestinian statehood on the first day of government — something first brought in by Ed Miliband, appearing in the 2017 and 2019 manifestos. If there was any hope that Labour would be any better than the Tories on Gaza once in power, this should dispel it once and for all.

Both the Lib Dems and the Green Party, by comparison, have committed to immediately recognising Palestine. The Labour Party now joins the ignominious company of the Tories and Reform in refusing to do so.

…

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/andrew-feinstein-whats-wrong-labour-manifesto

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Nearly one million people only £10 a week away from poverty, study finds

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Image of cash and pre-payment meter key
Image of cash and pre-payment meter key

https://www.bigissue.com/news/poverty-uk-joseph-rowntree-foundation-general-election/

There have been six prime ministers since this country last made sustained progress on reducing poverty

Nearly one million people in the UK are only £10 a week away from poverty, a study has found, in what has been called a “stain on the moral conscience of our nation”. 

Analysis from poverty charity Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) has revealed that alongside the estimated 14.2 million people in poverty in the UK, further millions are “teetering on the edge” and unable to afford essentials. 

The JRF’s research found that just under a million people, including 200,000 children, are now within £10 a week from the poverty line. 

An additional 3.2 million people in the UK – equivalent to the population of Wales – are only £40 a week from deep poverty. 

The charity added that seven million households across the country had gone without essentials, like showers, toiletries or adequate clothing, in the last six months – or had gone hungry, or cut or skipped meals in the last 30 days. 

For those already in poverty, large numbers are close to “deep” or “very deep” poverty lines, meaning they are living on incomes of less than 50% or 40% of the UK average.

Around six million people were reported as living in very deep poverty in 2022/23, which is 1.5 million more than two decades ago.

Politicians are missing a ‘level of urgency’ on poverty

The JRF’s CEO Paul Kissack called on the government to act on rising poverty levels, as well as those “teetering on the edge” of poverty, telling whoever wins the general election on 4 July to “make reversing this dismal trend a priority”. 

“There have been six prime ministers since this country last made sustained progress on reducing poverty,” he explained, referencing when poverty last fell consistently in the UK, between 1999/2000 and 2004/2005 under Tony Blair. 

“During that time we’ve seen a sustained rise in the number of people in deep poverty, with hardship and destitution growing even faster.”

He added: “Our political leaders must be specific and ambitious about how they will tackle poverty. But so far there hasn’t been anything like the level of urgency from either Rishi Sunak or Keir Starmer that we need to see. Pointing to future growth as a panacea just won’t cut it.  

“Tonight’s (4 June) debate is a chance for both leaders to set out their plans and demonstrate they are serious about addressing hardship. Failure to act is a political and moral choice ≠ and one they should expect to be judged on.” 

…

https://www.bigissue.com/news/poverty-uk-joseph-rowntree-foundation-general-election/

Continue ReadingNearly one million people only £10 a week away from poverty, study finds

‘Higher prices here to stay’: Reactions to latest UK inflation figures

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Image of cash and pre-payment meter key

https://leftfootforward.org/2024/05/higher-prices-here-to-stay-reactions-to-latest-uk-inflation-figures/

‘’The cost of living crisis is not over – no matter how much ministers pretend it is’

UK inflation fell from 3.2% to 2.3% in April, its lowest level in three years – having hit its highest rate for 40 years of 11.1% in October 2022. Nonetheless Tory MPs are taking the opportunity to bask in the news as Rishi Sunak said “today marks a major moment for the economy, with inflation back to normal”.

However, for the millions affected by a continued cost-of-living crisis, it is not the time for Tory Ministers “to be popping champagne corks”, shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves said, as many have been are quick to highlight the bigger picture on the state of the UK economy.

Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones MP pointed out that inflation is still higher than the Bank of England’s 2% target, as he slammed the Tories for “years of chaos” that “people have already paid the price” for, telling Conservatives to “get off the victory lap”. 

Trade union leaders have accused the Tories of presiding over the worst living standards for generations, as Paul Nowak, General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) said the cost of living crisis “is not over – no matter how much ministers pretend it is.”

Soaring mortgage repayments and increased food and energy bills are still affecting many people, Nowak has stressed, in light of the recent inflation figures. 

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Article continues at https://leftfootforward.org/2024/05/higher-prices-here-to-stay-reactions-to-latest-uk-inflation-figures/

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Voters support calls for two-child benefit limit to be scrapped

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/05/voters-support-calls-for-two-child-benefit-limit-to-be-scrapped/

Image of Keir Starmer and a poor child.
Zionist Keir ‘Kid Starver’ Starmer. Image thanks to The Skwawkbox.

It comes amid calls from former Prime Minister Gordon Brown as well as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, to scrap the two-child benefit limit

A new poll shows that voters support calls to scrap the two-child benefit limit, a policy which charities and think tanks say has pushed hundreds of thousands of children into poverty.

The poll, carried out by Opinium, for Save the Children and shared exclusively with i, suggests that this would be a politically popular move for Labour, ‘with 39 per cent of the public claiming it would make them more likely to vote for whichever party made the pledge’.

It comes amid calls from former Prime Minister Gordon Brown as well as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, to scrap the two-child benefit limit, with the archbishop calling it a cruel and immoral policy that plunges hundreds of thousands of children into poverty.

The two-child benefit cap prevents parents from claiming child tax credit or universal credit for any third or subsequent child born after April 2017. It was introduced by the former chancellor George Osborne in his austerity drive with the aim of encouraging parents of larger families to find a job or work more hours.

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/05/voters-support-calls-for-two-child-benefit-limit-to-be-scrapped/

Continue ReadingVoters support calls for two-child benefit limit to be scrapped

Shocking poll shows the scale of children going hungry at school

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/05/shocking-poll-shows-the-scale-of-children-going-hungry-at-school/

Shameful number of children getting to class too hungry to learn makes the case for universal free school meals

The ‘heartbreaking‘ rise of child poverty in the UK has been highlighted in a recent poll that revealed a shameful number of children going to school hungry in England. 

Four in ten teachers said their students were showing up to class too hungry to learn, which rose to 63% in the poorest areas, a new poll by Teacher Tapp reported by the Mirror, found. For more than a fifth of teachers, the issue had become worse since September. 

This has led to schools stepping in to address hunger where pupils don’t qualify for free school meals, with four in ten teachers saying their school is offering free school dinners to hungry children who don’t qualify. This rose to over half in the most deprived areas.  

The poll has emphasised the argument made by campaigners that free school meals should be extended to all primary school pupils, as strict eligibility criteria means many children living in poverty miss out. 

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/05/shocking-poll-shows-the-scale-of-children-going-hungry-at-school/

Continue ReadingShocking poll shows the scale of children going hungry at school