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I received this article by Ken Ferguson which is from "Scottish Socialist Voice"
Chancellor
Sunak’s mini-budget uses smart spin about cheap meals for diners—at a
time when tens of thousands rely on food banks—to dress up what is
largely reheated soup and repackaged spending.
The
much hyped kick start scheme revisits ideas from the ’80s such as YTS
and will pay a wage not half that of the already inadequate “living
wage” and runs the risk of simply massaging jobless figures.
The £2billion cost of it simply moves money which would otherwise be allocated to Universal Credit.
It’s likely impact will be to create short term exploitative jobs on poor pay.
While
any investment aimed at the climate is welcome, Sunak’s £3billion is
fraction of what is urgently needed to develop a real jobs- and climate
crisis-response.
This
should include tooling up both Scottish and UK industry to develop
build and install the equipment from wind turbines to eco-friendly buses
and trains which can both create long term, skilled, well paid jobs and
respond to the climate emergency.
Perhaps
his most glaring omission was the total failure to lift a finger on the
rented housing crisis rather confining himself to tinkering with stamp
duty in England and Northern Ireland.
A
Martian looking at our housing crisis would conclude that the answer
would be to build thousands of council homes both to meet the crisis
level demand for them and create thousands of jobs and apprenticeships
As
Roz Foyer, General Secretary of the STUC stated: “We have lobbied hard
for a large-scale capital investment, a Job Guarantee programme and for
the extension of the furlough scheme. The Chancellor’s response lacks
ambition and fails to guarantee decent work.
“Rishi
Sunak talks about the ‘nobility of work’, what we need to see is a
focus on the nobility and value of quality, decent and fair work. Less
bonuses for bosses, more adequate wages, good terms and conditions and
collective bargaining for workers.”
Cliff edge
We are on the cliff edge of a major economic and jobs crisis coping with
the continuing fall out of the Covid pandemic which is far from over
and should be the reason to drive towards a different normal rather than
a scrabble to prop up the poverty pay insecure work pre-virus model.
Millions
of people have stood in solidarity with our essential NHS, Care,
delivery, shop and other workers—many on poverty pay—who were hailed as
heroes and applauded week after week but who go unremarked as far as a
pay rise by the Chancellor.
And
of course probably the biggest revelation to us all in the crisis was
the fact that far from there not being a “magic money tree” there is no
barrier to finding billions to meet aspects of the crisis the only
obstacle is the political will to do so.
That’s
why the Voice and the SSP are putting a range of policy options on the
table which recognises that change was essential before the virus and is
even more essential now.
At
the heart of such change must be meeting the needs of Scotland’s
people—in particular our working class majority and the needs of the
planet we all live on.
As
the struggle against the virus continues debate is joined about the
future and the Scottish Socialist Party firmly asserts that a return to
the pre-lockdown world cannot be the answer.
Change
to a different normal is essential both for the people of Scotland,
particularly the working class majority, and the future survival of our
increasingly imperilled planet.
These
policies offers early steps towards a Socialist Green New Deal as part
of a Just Transition to a new Scotland which rebuilds productive
capacity and creates skilled well paid jobs in working class communities
currently deserted by footloose globalised business.
Winning
such a change will involve taking on some of the most wealthy and
powerful elites and their political backers and the purpose of the
programme we set out here is to arm the widest possible range of forces
to achieve that change.
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