Manchester - Campaigns Suspended (General Election 2017 - Week 6)

Such a waste of young life, we're all agreed, as the gallery of mainly young female youth looks out on us from our TV screens. Photos taken in happier times.  Immortalized in tragedy. We can hardly pin down our feelings - beyond raw disbelief and shock. Children and young people enjoying themselves at a pop concert, children who should be tucked up asleep now, or riding home with their parents, relaying the songs, the atmosphere, the joy at seeing their idol perform.  Young parents waiting for their children to hear all about the above, but mown down in their loving parental duty. Those of us over 50 may never have heard the name of the young female star - but we all know of her now.  We all know the face of the youngest child, brown-eyed, smiling gently at us from our TV screens - fresh, beautiful, a life barely begun...
     
We watch the news for developments, disbelieving it to be true, that here in Manchester, such an atrocity could unfold. We watch the spirit of Manchester rise in love, queuing to donate blood from their bodies to help the injured, people offering lifts backwards and forwards across the city and beyond through the night to bring home the stranded and frightened and confused, people offering their homes and flooding social media with kindness.  All nations and ethnic backgrounds coming together to lay flowers and pink helium balloons, heart-shaped. This is Manchester. A diverse city. We stand together.  We won't be cowed.  We won't be divided. The Moslem community rise to condemn, non-Moslems stand with them in solidarity.  An elderly Jewish woman and her Moslem friend walk the streets together, publicly condemning.

Political divisions and aggressive general election campaigning is laid aside. None of that matters, for today. For tomorrow. What matters is the spirit of Manchester.

But how quickly that those in supposed journalism show their true colours, wasting no time to find a cheap and obscene opportunity to score political points.  Did The Sun really think they could curry support from the sister city to Liverpool - where it has already been disgraced and banned for its vicious campaign against Liverpool fans at Hillsborough?

They wanted a cheap jibe at Jeremy Corbyn's approach to terrorism and his multi-pronged approach.  Peace is never achieved by war-war, it is achieved by jaw-jaw, and getting round the table.  How else did we reach the Good Friday agreement?  Two petitions were started to boycott The Sun but The Sun threatened the petition sites with legal action and so the sites were forced to remove the petitions. Never mind The Sun committing slander against Jeremy Corbyn. But Murdoch money talks - the Murdoch empire does as it pleases.

In a week where we have all been devastated by the wicked loss of life, we should all remember the spirit of Manchester.  That must be the legacy.  That even in the face of the unimaginable, good will shine through and win.
 

For The Many Not The Few - General Election (Week 5)

So this week we saw the launch of Labour's manifesto to a rapturous applause at Bradford University and what a great progressive one it's turned out to be. Jeremy Corbyn described it as a manifesto 'for the many not the few' and 'a programme of hope not fear'.

In order to put together the manifesto, Labour have consulted with loads of different people including experts, researchers, charities and of course ordinary members.

Just to recap on some of the proposals:

- Higher spending on the NHS (this must surely be one of the most important things to consider when casting your vote - the NHS is not safe in Tory hands and has been consistently underfunded as well as seeing creeping privatisation, especially as a result of the Health & Social Care Act 2012 which removed responsibility for the health of citizens from the Health Secretary and created Clinical Commissioning Groups, partly run by GPs but also private service providers.)

 - Reversal Of Welfare Cuts (this is equally as vital as the above because Labour voted against most if not all of the Welfare changes that have impoverished the lives - and worse - of many long term sick and disabled people since the Coalition in 2010).

 - Building of over a million new homes

 - Renationalization of the railways (when present franchises end), water, and Royal Mail

 - The creation of a National Education Service along the lines of the NHS to include free learning from the cradle to the grave and university fees will be scrapped making 'education a right and not a privilege'. Schools will be properly funded

 - There will be free child care for all 2 year olds

 - Voting age to be reduced to 16

 - A guaranteed triple-lock on pensions

 - A planned rise in Corporation Tax and a levy on firms paying very high salaries (this is a measure to reduce ridiculous inequality within society)

 -  No tax and national insurance rises except for the richest ie raising taxes to 45p for those earning over £80k and 50p for those earning over £123k

 - Scrapping exploitative zero hours contracts

 There were many more things in the manifesto including Brexit negotiations, helping the environment, making the country a more inclusive place and so on.

You will always get the naysayers who say the figures don't add up and the amount of borrowing but consider this: the Tories have borrowed more than all previous Labour parties!

At the launch of the manifesto, many of the media were present to pose questions and here is a flavour of some of Jeremy Corbyn's responses to their questions.

Somebody asked if anything could be done about 'the shockingly biassed media against the Labour Party.'  Jeremy Corbyn said he wanted to ensure there was diversity of all our media and that he thought freedom of speech in a democracy is important.

Then, when a journalist from some right-wing platform, posed a question on immigration he was immediately booed and heckled. But Jeremy Corbyn said 'Please, let's have respect for journalists - I'm a member of the NUJ.' But responding to the question on immigration, he went on to say that immigrants made 'an immense contribution' to our society and 'without immigration in the NHS, most of us would be far worse off in our health'.

Jeremy Corbyn likes to lead by example.  He quite rightly says that 'being strong doesn't mean shouting, dictating and insulting...I don't indulge in personal abuse.'  He just wants to 'debate the issues'.  But it is a sad reflection of affairs when so much of politics is about the 'cult of personality'.

Finally, there have been all those comments about 'taking us back to the 1970s'.  Corbyn's response was a comment in relation to the Conservative plans: 'fox-hunting and grammar schools...that's really forward-looking, isn't it?'

But whenever people make that comment I always say, better the 1970s than turn back the clock 100 years ago which the Tories seem to be doing - when inequality was rife and none of the rights that have been hard-won in the last few decades even existed.  For those of us old enough to remember the 1970s, great changes were made, such as The Sex Discrimination Act and The Race Relations Act which paved the way for a fairer kinder society.

So let us return to a fairer, kinder society.  We have had thirty years of Monetarism and it's failed.  Not everything that went before is bad and should never be revisited.   Let us learn from all that was good that went before. It is time to look back in order to move forward.

If you would like to read the Labour manifesto in full - please follow the link here:

http://www.labour.org.uk/page/-/Images/manifesto-2017/Labour%20Manifesto%202017.pdf

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A Picture Tells A Thousand Words (part 1) General Election 2017 (Week 4)

Well, what a week it's been, with the 'leaked' Labour manifesto which backfired! Backfired inasmuch as it will give Jeremy Corbyn double the publicity and double exposure for the manifesto.  But as I've had a bad week in terms of health I thought I would post many of the memes, satire and pictures which I have collected over the past few weeks and months (mainly from Facebook).

Here's just a small selection and they all include a few succinct words, too!

More memes to follow next week!

The 'Strong & Stable' Mantra - General Election 2017 (week 3)

This week I thought I'd share a poem that came to my attention via 
Disability Arts Online. It sums up for me the tactics the Tories employ to 
get their message across. They use soundbites and mantras like a refrain 
which sink into the public psyche. But they have little substance. 
This wonderfully satirical poem sums it up perfectly and demonstrates 
how hollow it all is and deflects from what's really going on. Do not be fooled.

All Together Now - A poem by Judith Milburn 

Theresa May has kitten heels 
And legs like Betty Grable;
Of COURSE that proves her leadership
Is really strong and stable!

Let's wheel on Boris for a laugh
On Sky, Beeb, Mail or cable.
His jibes are bound to make us look
Big and strong and stable.

Who cares about election fraud -
Best swept under the table.
(Just make sure no-one's charged 'til June,
To keep us strong and stable!)

Don't dig below the headlines, now,
Don't question if we're able;
Just repeat the same old riff:
'We're very strong and stable!'

Our strength is putting others down,
Our sympathy's a fable;
We bully, harm and isolate -
And call it 'strong and stable'.

We hate what we don't understand
And box it with a label.
So if you disagree, we'll say
That you aren't strong and stable.

Don't be 'foreign', poor, ill, old,
Raped, unemployed, disabled -
That doesn't fit with our idea
Of being strong and stable.

For God's sake don't be taken in
By their 'strong and stable' lie;
Value humanity when you vote -
Or hope, and people, die.

Poem shared courtesy of a member of Disability Arts Online

Why Disability Benefits are Political - General Election 2017 (week 2)

I am amazed how some people claiming disability benefits like ESA and PIP can still be in ignorance as to why things are so bad for them, why they are being put through repeated tests, why they have been sanctioned and so forth.    For many they don't see the Welfare Reform Act brought about by the last Coalition government, consisting mainly of Tories (and propped up by the Lib Dems) as having any relevance to where they find themselves today.

I am amazed but shouldn't be. It has all been carefully choreographed by the Tories and the largely Right Wing media that supports them: Daily Mail, Sun, Express, Channel 5, often the BBC. It is in their interests to have the poor set against the poor, the working poor vs the out of work poor, the 'genuinely' disabled vs 'all those other people faking it', the poor vs the immigrants, the 'deserving' vs the 'undeserving', the young vs the old. You name it.  What you will never see from the Right Wing media is the obscenely rich vs the obscenely poor.  Because if all the poor united against the rich, there would be no more rich. So, the slow drip drip of poverty porn piped through our TV screens and newspaper, month on month, year on year, has softened people up, has made people turn on 'the other'.  Divide and rule they have us.  United we stand, divided we fall. It's as simple as that. And the Tories know it and have exploited it. They have the power, the influence and the money to carry it off. 

Many people are disengaged with politics and will come out with phrases such as 'They're all as bad as each other'. One person who said this recently in relation to disability benefits qualified it by saying that 'it was Labour that introduced Atos and Capita assessment'. While this is true to some extent, previous Conservative governments had paved the way long before under the likes of Peter Lilley. You only have to check Peter Lilley's name on Wikipedia if you're too young to remember (which I'm not) and you will find all the information you need, such as: "Shortly after his appointment, Lilley entertained the Conservative Party's annual conference by outlining his plan "to "close down the something for nothing for society" (I've previously written a blog on that myth too). Lilley also replaced Invalidity Benefit with Incapacity Benefit in 1995 "in the hope of checking the rise in sickness benefit claims. Unlike its predecessor, Invalidity Benefit, this new welfare payment came with a medical test that gauged claimants' ability to work."

Whatever you may think of New Labour and the other scandalous horrors that occurred under their watch internationally, they introduced a raft of measures at home to reduce inequality.  In terms of benefits, they introduced Tax Credits, Tax Credits for the over 50s, the Minimum Wage,  an extra £28 for disabled people on JSA, free Legal Aid for people on benefits and other people on low incomes, voted against the Bedroom Tax, reduced homelessness, introduced the National OAPs and Disabled Bus Passes and voted against the worst of the Welfare Reform Bill to name a few.  Many of these measures helped the poorest in society and many of them have been scrapped. Many more people have been found wrongly fit for work under this and the last government and countless lives have been lost needlessly as a result. You get more true negatives when you set the bar too high - that is too many ill people being found fit for work - and yet the government have been prepared to sacrifice lives in this way. And yet benefit fraud is as low as it gets, especially among disabled people and in any event there are DWP fraud officers to deal with that tiny amount of fraud.  It's not for anybody else to make that judgment.

Jeremy Corbyn has pledged to scrap the WCA and put benefits in line with inflation. He wants to bring back Legal Aid and get rid of punitive sanctions. He has promised the Waspi Women £155 a week, those women born in the 1950s and robbed of their pensions by a sudden hike in the pension age, denying them time to prepare for their retirement.  Of course, it's not going to happen the day after the day of the General Election. It takes time to pass new legislation and reverse existing legislation.  That is how democracy works.

It will certainly take time because the Tories have continued their onslaught at lightning speed since being the 2015 election. 

Since 2010, the Coalition and then the Tories, have made the WCA harder and harder to pass, they have replaced DLA with PIP, in order to cut benefits, they have denied people the immediate right to appeal against a wrong decision, not until they go though a Mandatory Consideration first. This was introduced as way of ostensibly cutting down the number of cases needing to go to appeal, but the cynical part of me knows that the real reason was so that fewer people would appeal.  Even before Mandatory Reconsideration, people dropped out before appeal stage.  Now with one more hoop to jump through, many more give up.  It is all too much when you are vulnerable, stressed, fatigued, in pain.  In a word, it is cruel to have added this extra hurdle.

Not only this, the Tories have closed down the Independent Living Fund, they have introduced Council tax for the poorest and they have made legislation so that disabled people can be sanctioned - in fact, the more vulnerable you are, the more you are seen as an easy target by Job Centre staff who have to stick to their sanctioning targets. Several hundred disabled people are losing their motability scooters every week and 18-21 year old ones will not be routinely paid housing benefit.  The Tories have voted for disability benefits cuts in the ESA WRAG group by £30 for new claimants - £30 from a measly £100 a week or so!  People in the ESA WRAG group who have passed one of the most difficult tests in the world to pass - the flawed Work Capability Assessment (WCA) - and yet are still being punished because the government want to treat all out of work people the same (regardless of their limitations). And if you think you've been let off the hook because you're in the ESA Support Group, the New Health & Work Green Paper outlines plans to coerce this group too.  Food banks have rocketed since the Welfare Reform Act and yet the government denies there is any link between the rise in food banks and the change in legislation.

The third child 'rape clause' in order to qualify for benefits for that child is perhaps one of the most pernicious of the Tories obsession with what they call 'welfare dependency" (again, I did a previous blog on this too) and shows them to have plumbed the depths.  Anyone who thinks this is an acceptable thing to do in a supposed humane society is completely morally bankrupt and 'the nasty party' are well and truly back. In Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon rightly called this measure 'obscene' and said Ruth Davidson had tried to shake off the toxic image of Westminster Tories but on this she had failed.

But I fear that many people will either vote for a party who doesn't have their best interests at heart because of half-formed ideas that 'they are all as bad was each other'.


A lot of myths abound, for example, the one about there not being enough money in the pot for everyone to have what they need but again people have been sold the politics of austerity for so long they believe it. But we are the sixth wealthiest nation in the world. We can afford to look after the sick and the vulnerable and let's not forget how many millions - if not billions - go unclaimed in benefits every year.  It is not about austerity but ideology.

Therefore we have to share the facts as to how disability benefits and ergo people's quality of life  will be affected according to who they vote for. Because if they don't vote for the party or parties most likely to help the disabled then they can't complain when the Tories continue the rest of their brutal destruction of the welfare state.

Stand By Your Team - General Election 2017 (Week 1)

OK, so here we go again...

Even though we were promised fixed term parliaments of five years, to stop any incumbent government from calling an election any time and thereby gaining advantage when the polls were favourable, Teresa May has gone ahead and done it anyway.  All she needed was two thirds of parliament to vote for it and she knew she would get her wish.  Labour were caught between a rock and a hard place - if they voted against it, then they couldn't call the country's bluff and say 'bring it on'.

So in the few days since the election has been called it is already being talked as a formality by many - and not all those on the Right either.  Many on the Left are just as gloomy and want Corbyn gone. 'He's not leader material' I hear so many say. 'He's not got that oomph, that a leader needs'.  And in these days of slick presidential-style politics, they might have a point, even though they should be voting on policies and not leadership style.

But what they don't seem to realise is - if not Corbyn, then who? Who do they see in his place, these Labour naysayers who won't vote for Labour because of Corbyn?  Few of them can put forward a name of someone they'd prefer to Corbyn unless they are vehement supporters of New Labour.  But when New Labour became so indistinguishable from the Right, they moaned then too, didn't they?  They wanted someone more Left Wing. Many of them moaned about Ed Miliband not being Left Wing enough.

But what I really don't get is this.  Why ever would a Labour supporter not support Labour just because of Corbyn?  His ideas are hardly radical: build more houses, more affordable housing, save the NHS, renationalise the railways, redistribute wealth, look after the vulnerable, pay carers and so on.  What's not to like?  It's not as if people are voting for Corbyn anyway, unless they happen to be living in Islington. If you support Labour, then you vote for your MP who represents you in parliament. He or she may be to the Left of the Party or they may be to the centre but they will support the Labour ethos by and large.  If this was football, you wouldn't abandon your team, would you, just because you don't think like the manager.  You would give a new manager a chance to prove himself, wouldn't you?  You'd see if he delivers and gets the results that you want from your team. This election is too important for people to exercise a protest vote against Corbyn.

The media must be having a field day when those on the Left are doing their job for them.  What some people have quickly forgotten is that the Right Wing media nearly always attacks Labour leaders whoever they are - with one notable exception (more about that in a moment). The media attacked Miliband because of his father, because of his face.  The Tories run the media, they benefit from tax breaks and reduced corporation tax, and obscene salaries.  They don't want to redistribute wealth.  The odds are stacked against Corbyn, just as they were stacked against Miliband and against Neil Kinnock 25 years before. Here's a sobering thought - the only Labour government we've had since the 1970s is a New Labour government which had to cosy up to Murdoch and his cronies in order to be electable. So Corbyn has a nigh on impossible task.  He is perhaps canny to brand himself as the anti-establishment figure - seeing as such figures have done so well.  But usually these are Populist right wing figures and not on the Left.

So what other criticisms are levelled at Corbyn? 

 'He whipped the party over the triggering of Article 50,' they say.  'He should have done more.'  Another fair criticism, maybe.  But if he'd opposed the triggering of Article 50 then he would have been seen as scuppering the will of the people.  He was in a no-win situation.

But then we come onto the unfair and the downright ridiculous reasons not to vote Labour, filtered through the lens of a largely Right Wing media or the self-important on social media.

'Cornyn's a terrorist sympathiser.'  Really?!  The man's a pacifist, ffs!  He knows, as anybody with a few brain cells knows, that you don't get world peace by war-war, you get it by jaw-jaw. Like it or not, history has showed you have to engage with the enemy.

'He's anti-Semitic and most Jewish people don't like him'. Well, as someone with Jewish ancestry myself, that's another sweeping generalisation crushed by first-hand experience from family and Jewish friends who support Corbyn because they want a better world.  To criticise Israel isn't anti-Semitic, any more than criticising the Tories is anti-English.  

The graphic above shows just how important it is to vote.  People are tired - they have voter fatigue, having had the referendum last year, a general election the year before, and that's just in England! But Labour have a mountain to climb because they need Scotland to get enough seats to make a difference. Far be it for me to tell people which way to vote (as long as it's not Tory!) but I would urge everyone who can vote to do so. It's been shown that most people vote on things that affect them personally: jobs, wages, schools, hospitals, the NHS, affordable housing and rents, the environment, looking after the disabled and their carers and this is Labour territory.  Teresa May pretended to care about those left behind when she came to do her speech on the steps after Cameron's demise.  But what has changed?  Same old same old as far as I can make out.

Of course, it may be hard to get behind your preferred team, especially with our antiquated First Past The Post voting system which is outdated in a modern democracy.  This will mean that often people have to vote tactically, rather than with their conscience, to get the nasty party out. For instance, in the south west, Labour may do a deal with the Green Party so that instead of wasted tactical voting, the Green Party won't stand in those places where Labour are likely to win in exchange for areas where they stand a better chance. What matters at the end of the day in the FPTP system is to stop the Tories getting a working majority so that when they try and pass unpopular bills in parliament there will be enough opposition MPs to vote against.


Next week, I shall be looking at who is more likely to have policies safeguarding the long term sick and disabled. It may seem obvious but it is surprising some of the myths that abound online every day.

The Case For Unconditional and Universal Basic Income - A Disabled Artist's Perspective

My submission for the case for Universal Unconditional Basic Income. OK, so they are actually looking for people to take part one the session in Birmingham which I cannot do, but these are my arguments anyway.  But if you can take part in the session then use the email at the bottom before 2nd December:


I am a disabled member of the public with an interest in the Unconditional Basic Income - I have been for decades since it was first Green Party policy.  Thus I will be arguing for the Unconditional Basic Income from the perspective of disability. You may notice I have replaced the word ‘universal’ with ‘unconditional’. In fact, they both need to be there.  There needs to be ‘no strings attached’ (unconditional) and it needs to be ‘universal’ (available to everyone).

I have entered into many a discussion: some argue against the idea of universal benefits because they don’t think those who are well off should also be in receipt of them e.g. the TV License, bus passes, winter fuel allowance etc. However, universal benefits are the most cost effective to administer, otherwise you get into the business of means-testing and that is costly and divisive.  That’s not to say there isn’t a place for some means-tested benefits as supplements or add-ons  e.g. disability and housing elements. But the universal aspect of it should be just that, and unconditional.  Universal Credit is a bastardisation of the universal principle. It’s not universal and it’s not unconditional which is why it’s a wasted opportunity.

Obviously, the costs and the means-tested elements have to be thought through and worked out. Not everyone is going to agree at what constitutes a decent amount but something like the state pension figure is a good starting point for working age adults, certainly no lower than £100 per week for food, clothes and heat. Housing and extra costs for disability would need to be treated separately.  A fair and affordable figure could be arrived out by learning from other European countries and those further afield where it’s been pioneered previously e.g. Canada.

But as it stands at the moment, we have the poorest people in society, being coerced and sanctioned if they can’t find work, even though everybody without exception, is entitled - yes entitled - to shelter, food and warmth.  It is outrageous in one of the world’s richest economies that it should be otherwise.  We quite rightly wouldn’t let a dog be cold and hungry on the streets and yet successive ministers seem to think it is quite OK to have people hungry and homeless. with their pernicious policies.

We have now reached a stage with the global economy and the rise of digital economies, where there isn’t enough employment for all in the traditional sense of the word, and where’s there’s a lot of ‘free'.  The internet is full of free: free advice, free downloads, books, photos, videos and much more.  This is a good thing and to be welcomed for the consumer, though not so good for the creator or the adviser which is why the old model is no longer relevant in the 21st century. This is why it is time to separate ‘work' from ‘income’ and when I talk about work I am talking about it in the widest sense.  Successive governments have used many a mantra to get the public onside regarding welfare reform, but for me one of the most pernicious is the ‘something for nothing’ one. The language is designed to rubbish and dismiss those unable to earn enough to live on. In reality, the reverse of ‘something for nothing’ can be found in every nook and cranny in society. People volunteer, they parent, they care for the elderly and the sick, they care for animals, offer advice, be it legal or access to justice, or study to improve themselves.  E-books, photos, music downloads and instructive manuals are offered as free downloads daily on the internet.  People are happy to give and share their creations and knowledge on the internet for free or for little renumeration, because people are by nature altruistic and government ministers and rhetoric have been slow to acknowledge this, if they’ve acknowledged it at all. Sometimes they’ve corrupted it.  But all I see is the opposite.  I see the nothing for something society wherever I look: people giving something in return for ‘nothing’. The big society is alive and kicking.

As an artist myself (in the wide sense), I also have a special interest in UBI from that perspective. Art is not only therapeutic but makes me feel valued and worth something. I can do it from home.  I am never going to make enough to live on firstly because of my precarious health and secondly because the arts are precarious.  But I see people giving and sharing their creative endeavours for free or for little renumeration.  The government only plays lip service to ‘the creative industries’ and the ‘talents of disabled people’ but a government that really cared about the creative talent of its people, especially disabled people, would subsidise those who are unable to be economically self-reliant. They would encourage creative (or educational or voluntary) pursuits of the long term sick and disabled, instead of seeing them as economic units to be bullied, coerced, sanctioned and erased. 

This is why I feel passionately about an Unconditional and Universal Basic Income, as have been pioneered in other countries.  It would mean people like myself could take risks, instead of living in fear, knowing that they didn’t stand to lose all should they fail. Fear incapacitates. Bullying, coercion and sanctions also incapacitate. Let’s get rid of these barbaric notions once and for all.  The separation of living needs (warmth, shelter, food, clothing) from the higher pursuits in life i.e. how one spends one’s time is long overdue.  I don’t buy the argument either that ‘nobody would work’ if we had UBI. If work is such a good thing, then people will want and choose to do it, as they already do.  I am, once again, talking about work in the widest possible sense.  It is absurd that in the 21st century we still have an old-fashioned 20th century model of work, where people leave their houses to work for an employer for 35 hours a week. Yes, that is one form, but work has diversified greatly in the last few decades.  

Surely it is time to value and celebrate that which is ‘given away’ for the benefit of all?  Isn’t it time we had a real and intelligent debate about work in the wider sense of using one’s time valuably and or for the benefit of the whole community instead of seeing how many more hoops the DWP are going to make the long term unemployed and disabled jump through just to get money to live on?  

I hope you will take on board all these arguments which have also been made by many in my situation.


https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/work-and-pensions-committee/news-parliament-2015/citizens-income-launch-16-17/

Give evidence to the Committee

If you are interested in taking part in this session, please send a brief overview of your background and interest in the topic, including any relevant work, to workpencom@parliament.uk by Friday 2 December 2016.

Committee members comments

Frank Field MP, Chair of the Committee, said

"The idea of a citizen’s income has recently garnered interest in several different countries. In this session the Committee will hope to explore arguments for and against implementing such an initiative in our country’s welfare system."

Steve McCabe MP, Committee Member, said

"As we consider the implications of Universal Credit and the wider argument for reform of our welfare system, particularly given the changes in our society since its introduction, we should also look at ideas which are not new but may have achieved a new significance in terms of universality as the government tries to reduce means testing and the administrative costs of delivering welfare. The concept of a citizen’s income is an idea which merits further consideration in this context."