Wednesday 25 November 2020

Dishy Rishi's Class Act

Having served up the second wave of Coronavirus with Eat Out to Help Out, what was dishy Rishi prepping for his Autumn Statement? A few overdone offerings and the familiar warm ups, I'm afraid to say. On this occasion, the doomsters and the gloomsters Boris Johnson used to rail against have taken over the Treasury. The sunlit uplands of Optimism UK are overcast and tipping down economic woes. By the end of this year, the GDP will have contracted by over 11% and isn't likely to return to pre-crisis levels until the end of 2022. Unemployment is projected to hit 2.6m early next year too, and by 2025 the economy is going to be three per cent smaller than foecast earlier this year. In all, not good news at all. Difficult to disagree with the chancellor that we're a the beginnings of an economic emergency.

It's important not to let the Tories frame this like some unavoidable disaster. They might not be responsible for Coronavirus, but the government are responsible for the disaster management itself and the appalling job done of dealing with the economics. If that wasn't bad enough, the whispers spraying out of the Treasury and Downing Street have portrayed the chancellor as a fiscal hawk forced to fork out to support (ingrate, malingering) workers and businesses. In this Autumn statement, he's lived up to the briefings.

To deal with the emergency, Sunak will freeze public sector salaries for a year. He does not even bother trying to justify it in terms of economic necessity nor cutting spending - it's because many private sector employees have had a tough time. If only dishy Rishi was in a position to do something about it. The lowest paid workers can look forward to a £250 increase, while workers forced to manage on the minimum wage more generally have a princely 19p/hour increase coming. Or £7.41 for the standard 39 hour week. Less generous pensions are also in the mix. But worry ye not, Sunak reannounced billions to be made available to find people new jobs. Note, not support nor create new jobs. And then there is the ever-present bogey of public debt, which in time the Tories will talk up to justify more wage freezes and cuts in the future.

What does this mean? As the new No Holding Back project observes, buried beneath the funds found for tackling Coronavirus fall out, Tory numbers reveal cuts to non-Covid spending versus the "big spending" of pre-pandemic Johnsonism. Sneaky. There are other problems not addressed by today's announcement too. The reason why unemployment is projected to peak well after the current measures expire is because, effectively, once furlough ends in March hundreds of thousands have a dole queue to look forward to. This is a cliff edge entirely if Sunak's design. Want more? How about indebtedness? While the wonks and court retainers prattle about the non-event of public debt, personal debt is mounting - just ask the 2.4m self-employed who don't qualify for any support under the Tories' "generous" schemes. Factor in millions who've lost their jobs, had hours reduced, or have had to cut back thanks to furlough, Sunak's plans makes their situation significantly worse.

It's not like the Tories aren't aware of these things happening. It should be ABC politics to assume they never push policy in good faith. In the aftermath of the economic crisis and their enthusiastic implementation of austerity, the consequences of Brexit and the chaotic groping toward a deal, and now the Coronavirus calamity the Tories have prioritised what is absolutely core to British capitalism. Not economic growth measured by GDP figures nor the common affairs of the bourgeoisie, to quote a certain Manifesto, but their zero sum preservation of class relations. And this truth is reiterated with every policy initiative, crooked deal, and bout of "incompetence". Today's Autumn Statement is no exception. It's an exemplar.

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13 comments:

Dipper said...

"It's important not to let the Tories frame this like some unavoidable disaster."

Ahem. Inventing facts to support your narrative I think. It has been pretty unavoidable over most of the planet.

Phil said...

You mean invented facts like Britain suffering the deepest economic crash in all the advanced countries, suffering the second worst death rate until recently, and finding billions to line the pockets of the government's friends while workers who risk their lives for pittance wages receive nothing but a round of applause?

Anonymous said...

Well said Phil. I wish our MPs would speak up like this. They do get very well paid for their 'representation' .

Dipper said...

@ Phil

the key word is 'avoidable'. You haven't given any reason or evidence why you think this was avoidable.

George Carty said...

Dipper,

Ahem. Inventing facts to support your narrative I think. It has been pretty unavoidable over most of the planet.

Given that the countries that actually succeeded in combating Covid (in East Asia and the Antipodes) only succeeded because they closed their countries to foreign travellers, and (Australia and Japan excepted) detained the infected and their contacts in quarantine facilities, I'm astounded that Brexiters like yourself aren't taking the opportunity to crow that the fetishization of freedom of movement by Western liberals has killed hundreds of thousands of people.

Blissex said...

«line the pockets of the government's friends while workers who risk their lives for pittance wages receive nothing but a round of applause?»

Plus the "Middle England" affluent tory voters worshipped by New, New Labour are keeping their middle class jobs working remotely and are comfortable in their spacious (and ever-appreciating) 3-5 properties with large gardens, and if they are older their final salary pensions (won by trade unions and Labour originally) and income streams from rents and dividends are keeping coming in.

If "Middle England" affluent tory voters were doing badly, they would be complaining a lot in the Conservative local associations and their government would be doing something very different.

Blissex said...

Let me repeat here my suggestion to the Mandelson Tendency to replace unpopular Keir Starmer with popular Rishi Sunak as leader of New, New Labour. He is pretty much perfect the perfect socially liberal thatcherite for leading New, New Labour to full PASOKification, the ideal successor to Tony Blair.

Actually he may be a bit too lefty for them: too easy on spending to save jobs, too generous on welfare with the extra temporary £20 a week for "scroungers"; but then he has a 48% approval rating compared to 28% for Keir Starmer.

Dipper said...

@ Blissex. "Let me repeat here my suggestion to the Mandelson Tendency to replace unpopular Keir Starmer with popular Rishi Sunak as leader of New, New Labour. He is pretty much perfect the perfect socially liberal thatcherite for leading New, New Labour to full PASOKification, the ideal successor to Tony Blair."

well, I voted for Blair, thought he was pretty good apart from Iraq, and would happily vote for Rishi Sunak. So, I guess that's me.

"The Mandleson Tendency". I am shocked to find out that high level politics can be a bit shitty. Such a shame Jeremy Corbyn wasn't elected. What a breath of intrigue-free honest and decent politics his Premiership would have been!

That last bit was sarcasm, if anyone was wondering.

Blissex said...

«Given that the countries that actually succeeded in combating Covid (in East Asia and the Antipodes) only succeeded because they closed their countries to foreign travellers»

Not really: they just imposed test and trace on travellers and discouraged *all* travel, like Germany and other continental countries have done.
Anyhow closing the frontiers is as a rule too late: once you have *some* infected in the country, the epidemic will spread and spread again whether or not the country is closed, and countries cannot realistically be fully closed.

What makes the difference is finding and isolating the infected, whether from abroad or local, so the contagion cannot spread.
If the infected cannot be found, because of ideology or unfeasibility, then one has to isolate everybody (lock-down), and that is a pretty bad blow.

George Carty said...

Blissex: Not really: they just imposed test and trace on travellers and discouraged *all* travel, like Germany and other continental countries have done.

Germany isn't a success – its death rate is about the same as that of Indonesia, the worst performer in the Far East – but merely the best of a bad bunch (major European countries). Like almost every other European country, its test-and-trace scheme eventually failed and they had to go back into lockdown.

Blissex: Anyhow closing the frontiers is as a rule too late: once you have *some* infected in the country, the epidemic will spread and spread again whether or not the country is closed, and countries cannot realistically be fully closed.

More accurately, what the successful countries did was to require that all those entering the country spend two weeks in quarantine on arrival: in practice this usually meant shutting out foreigners completely, most likely because there were only enough quarantine spaces available to handle returning citizens. But such a policy would probably stop the overwhelming majority of foreign visitors even if foreigners weren't explicitly banned, because how many tourists or business travellers have two two weeks to spare that can spend in quarantine?

Also note that China and Australia used internal border closures as part of their Covid suppression strategy.

Dialectician1 said...

It's a bit Daily Mail to keep referring to him as 'disky Rishi'. He's really 'rich boy Rishi'. Already very wealthy, Rishi married into a family with quantum wealth, as revealed in today's Graun:

"Akshata Murty, who married Sunak in 2009, is the daughter of one of India’s most successful entrepreneurs. Her father co-founded the technology giant Infosys, and her shares in the company are worth £430m, making her one of the wealthiest women in Britain, with a fortune larger than the Queen’s.

• A combined £1.7bn shareholding in Infosys, which employs thousands of staff in the UK and has held contracts with government ministries and public bodies.

• A £900m-a-year joint venture with Amazon in India, through an investment vehicle owned by Murty’s father.

• A direct shareholding by Murty in a UK firm which runs Jamie Oliver and Wendy’s burger restaurants in India."




Boffy said...

Sweden still has the best per capita mortality rate for the period after July, and is comparable to the best in East Asia. Between July and about a month ago, its mortality rate was down to less than 2 a day, equal to about 12 a day in Britain.

Over the last month, along with other European countries it saw an increase in reported infections, and deaths rose to around 20 per day, equal to about 120 in Britain. But, that trend has flattened again. All of that without any lockdown or extensive test and trace system, and the abysmal economic and social consequences of those policies.

Anonymous said...

How do people get this training then? Most employers are either financially knackered and on their knees as it is, or alternatively aren't training anyway due to distancing rules and non essential work being postponed.

FE Colleges are in an utter mess and have been for ages - courses cut, colleges going bankrupt.

Universities (irrespective of fees) are infection centres and any mature student over 40 with any sense would avoid them completely, less they get struck down...