There are three parts to today’s budget statement:
* The Corona emergency
* The underlying emergency in our economy after a decade of austerity
* The government’s failure to tackle injustice
[Thread]
* The Corona emergency
* The underlying emergency in our economy after a decade of austerity
* The government’s failure to tackle injustice
[Thread]
1. On Corona – Measures to support businesses are welcome. But there are millions of workers on low wages and in insecure work that needed greater support. Decent sick pay must be extended to all and we need to do far more to protect our strained social care system.
2. The real message of this budget is that austerity was an unnecessary and failed experiment. We have a low growth economy, flat-lining productivity, low pay & hollowed out public services. This budget is a confession that austerity was always a political choice, & a poor one.
3. But we should take no satisfaction in the Tories finally accepting they have spent a decade on the wrong track. The question we now face is what kind of country do we want to be? And this budget is silent on the social injustices we see all around us.
3(continued). The measures on climate change are completely inadequate – with more money for new roads than greening our economy – social care remains neglected, our broken social security system is left in place & there is no attempt to tackle either inequality or child poverty.
