9 July 2020
Diary of a Corbynista
Chickens coming home
by Don Urquhart
2 July
From the start the furlough scheme was designed to protect the owners of businesses rather than the staff. It gave them the chance to plan for the post-lockdown world while minimising staff costs. Most board meetings in March would have had cost cutting as a major theme. They were hoping to come back in a few months time leaner and meaner having shed employees. Where the business could not be saved the owners were working out how and when to head for the hills with as many company assets as they could sequester. Hence the ever-increasing number of firms going into elegantly-planned administration.
3 July
I have been missing Chris Whitty. Our Chief Medical Officer has not been heard on the wisdom of opening pubs tomorrow, nor on the plans to open air bridges to other countries. Were he to be asked what gives one the best chance of staying alive would he say “Jump into a metal tube with 300 strangers and share their air for a couple of hours. “? As to letting people in without quarantine my expert would be Jacinda Ardern who went nuclear on hearing that 2 people with Covid had been allowed to leave a plane and travel across her country. New Zealand had 2 new cases yesterday and no deaths. I might also listen to Nicola Sturgeon, whose country yesterday had 5 new cases and 1 death.
4 July
The Ditchley Foundation is a charity that sponsors an annual lecture from a prominent public figure. This year it was delivered by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Michael Gove. It can be found on the government website under the rubric:
The privilege of public service
The Minister tells us our age has “morbid symptoms” like the 1930’s.
Although he describes the situation as if it were an Act of God he then proceeds to condemn the Government he has been part of for 10 years:
The centre parties have lost the trust of the electorate.
There is an increasing gap between the haves and have- nots.
People have lost confidence in their elites and leaders.
Fears for entrenched inequalities are getting worse as technology advances.
He proposes taking FDR as a role model, noting that the erstwhile President put the poor and vulnerable first.
He requires the government to achieve concrete changes, spotting that politicians too often go for gimmicks rather than tangible improvements.
He also wants to divest power to the poorer regions and identifies Brexiteers as the Forgotten Men.
He seems to think we need to be told to focus on what works and that we need to start measuring the success of projects. Unlike the last 10 years?
The culprits are not hard to find; The Civil Service lacks numerical, management and presentation skills. And has a culture of switching people between departments, thus losing retained experience.
He is keen on experimentation, which has been inhibited by the use of consultants and committees to avoid taking responsibility. Yes, that would be the Tory government.
The National Audit Office and Public Accounts Committee come in for particular opprobrium for suppressing innovation.
For some reason he proposes objectives that, in his opinion, should have been applied to his government’s projects.
Apparently his great enthusiasm is equality of opportunity.
He is a senior member of the government.
5 July
There have been suggestions for some time that the fashion house Boohoo bases its business model on sweatshop labour. Here’s a Corbynista report from May 2019.
A few weeks ago I was surprised to see Liz Truss, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury on TV boosting a clothing company called Boohoo. Then I spotted that she was commending the company in a Spectator profile by Katy Balls.
Liz Truss: the Tories can win over the Boohoo generation
Boohoo was apparently a paradigm for British products and entrepreneurship.
“Truss sees the digital upstarts as the new heroes of radical conservatism. To her list, we can now add Boohoo, one of Britain’s fastest-growing online fashion retailers, in whose Manchester headquarters we meet.”
This morning Radio 4’s Today programme reported on sweatshops in Leicester paying less than the minimum wage. An article in the online magazine Dazed throws a light on the business model of Liz Truss’s favourite clothing firm:
Workers in Leicester sweatshops are being paid as little as £3.50 an hour
While some fashion retailers found this deplorable, others including Boohoo seemed unconcerned.
Back in July 2020 Sarah O’Connor points out in the Financial Times the link between the sweatshops and Leicester’s Covid-19 spike.
Given that a Government minister has acquiesced in and supported Boohoo’s business model one might ask whether this is not just further evidence of the corruption at the Johnson regime’s core. They have done nothing about the sweatshops and the people of Leicester are paying the price.
6 July
Answers to last week’s quiz on Johnson and education funding commitments.
He tweeted photos from the visit and said the government was “investing an extra £14 billion in schools to help give all young people the same opportunities to succeed.”
He has promised additional funding – an extra £14bn on primary and secondary schools over the next three years.
The prime minister says the “cash is there” for a 10-year plan to refurbish and rebuild schools across England.
Schools in England are being promised a £1bn rebuilding programme as Boris Johnson commits to giving children a “world-class education”
29/06/19
Boris Johnson has upped his funding promise for schools, vowing to provide £4.6 billion per year extra by 2022
Schools budgets under the pledges will rise by £2.6 billion for 2020-21, £4.8 billion for 2021 to 2022 and £7.1 billion for 2022 to 2023.
Boris vows to splash £6.4bn on schools
Boris Johnson announces £1 billion school building programme
Labour pledges £10.5bn school funding boost
Jeremy Corbyn has pledged to pump money into the nation’s cash-strapped schools as part of a £20bn education package.
7 July
The Prime Minister blames the number of care home deaths on the unwillingness or inability of these institutions to follow procedures. There are many more knowledgeable than I who have accused the Prime Minister of trying to shift the blame from himself and his colleagues.
The Chief Scientific Officer Sir Patrick Vallance reports that SAGE flagged the care home problem to the government in January but this was clearly scientific advice that could be safely ignored, while a herd immunity strategy was favourite.
8 July
Rishi Sunak has had a good press. It’s not hard to be popular when you are giving money away. But I found his furloughs, self-employed subsidies, grants and loans contrived and, basically phoney. It annoyed me to see him telling us that he was implementing a world beating recovery scheme. It missed out 1 million people, leaves us with record unemployment and the economy on its knees. In my view he should have followed a Universal Basic Income (UBI) policy which would have ensured that nobody lost out. And it would have been a lot simpler.
