‘STARVE AND SHIVER WITH SUNAK’
‘In the 1948 winter crisis, the then ministers of food and fuel, John Strachey and Emmanuel Shinwell, were lambasted for their failure to do more. “Starve with Strachey and shiver with Shinwell” was the jibe. Much more will have to be done to prevent another harsh, cruel winter of austerity, if we are not to hear the slogan “starve and shiver with Sunak”. ‘
Gordon Brown, The Guardian
GOVERNMENT DECLARES WAR ON UNDER-PAID WORKERS
Last October at the Tory Party Conference Johnson was disingenuously blathering about Britain becoming a high-wage economy, and saying bosses should get on with raising pay.
Now the mask has slipped and the Government is attacking the unions and seeking to hold down wages, claiming there is a likelihood of a ‘wage-price’ spiral. This is scaremongering: 67 prominent economists have sent Johnson a letter, pointing out that there is no likely wage-price spiral.
Mass outsourcing has fuelled in-work poverty and eroded terms and conditions for hundreds of thousands of workers. Not only have real wages fallen, but sick pay schemes have been squeezed or eliminated, and inferior pension schemes imposed.
The past decade was the worst for real-terms pay growth since the Napoleonic wars. Low paid workers are quitting; for example, in the NHS there is now a staffing shortage gap of some 110,000.
‘A DEEP MALAISE ENVELOPS BRITAIN – AND NO ONE HAS THE CURE’
‘So far, rather than offering any kind of cure for the malaise, Keir Starmer has tended to look like yet another embodiment of it: a nervous, hesitant presence, seemingly as confounded as anyone else, and singularly lacking any story about where we are, how we got here and what should happen.’
John Harris, The Guardian
P.S. Reportedly, many Tory MPs are seeking to ditch Johnson, because they believe Johnson is the only Tory leader Sir Keir could beat.
LABOUR GAINS AN ANTI-ENVIRONMENTAL ALLIANCE
‘The government’s flagship green policies – Environmental Land Management schemes – are under threat. Astonishingly, and disgracefully, the Labour Party has formed an alliance with the National Farmers’ Union, Steve Baker, Jacob Rees-Mogg and other members of the Tory hard right in opposing this genuine – perhaps unique – Brexit opportunity.’
George Monbiot, The Guardian
‘WHAT SORT OF A COUNTRY ARE WE LIVING IN?’
‘A prime minister who took us into the Iraq war on a lie, is awarded a knighthood, while a journalist who reported the atrocities of that war (Julian Assange) has languished in prison for more than three years.’
Letter, Private Eye
WINSTON CHURCHILL CALLED FOR A LAND VALUE TAX
‘Roads are made, streets are made, services are improved, electric light turns night into day, water is brought from reservoirs a hundred miles away in the mountains – and all the while the landlord sits still……. the landlord renders no service to the community, contributes nothing to the general welfare, contributes nothing to the process from which his own enrichment is derived.’
Winston Churchill quoted in The Guardian Editorial
This was a rousing call for a land value tax – a levy to capture rising land prices.