Who will pay for the Coronavirus?
Some blogposts just write themselves: when you've spent an evening watching numpty TV journalists, dressed in black, solemnly telling us how brave Boris Johnson is when we know they're just waiting for him to snuff it to keep the viewing figures up, it's easy to put pen to paper in a blind rage.
But this week, I think we've all got beyond that stage.
We know Johnson's illness, and a lot of other people's illnesses, can be laid firmly at the door of his cabinet thanks to indecision, delay and incompetence. We also know now that the UK is going to have the highest death rate from Covid-19 of all European countries - and that's according to international agencies like the World Health Organisation. We won't have the highest death rate in the world though. That looks like being the prize won by an indecisive incompetent in the USA, who shut down the US pandemic unit in the Centre for Disease Control in 2018 and would dearly love to do the same for the WHO.
I'm saving a wee bit of hate for his pal Dominic Cummings and the spineless UK cabinet, but I just know there will be millions of voters out there who will go on voting for the Tories because they think 'Boris is a good chap' and 'he's doing a fine job.'
Putting all that aside, I would prefer us to be thinking ahead.
If we've learned nothing else in Scotland so far, I hope it is that we can manage fine in an emergency. We have good people in post. Public Health and the NHS in Scotland are obviously attractive places to work for a lot of highly qualified people. As are our universities which attract first rate researchers.
Even politicians, the people we love to hate, have managed to emerge with some credit - the Tories have mostly avoided scoring party political points (apart from Ruth Davidson, but what else did we expect from her?). It's a pity we can't say the same for Labour: Richard Leonard carried on trying to score points before Holyrood closed and now we have Monica Lennon tweeting away about the so-called lack of protection for health workers, despite us being told at yesterday's press conference that there is plenty of protective gear available - and a dedicated email for staff who think they are not being provided with the right gear. Did any of the 'over 100' people who complained to Labour actually think of using the channels provided?
We would probably do even better in Scotland if we didn't have to depend on Westminster making decisions.
But let's think about the future.
I saw a comment on Facebook tonight: "Yes, the economy will dip...' I'm not messing about with weasel words like 'naive' here. That is the stupidest comment I've seen in years - in fact, since the bank crash of 2008. The economy of the world is not going to dip. It's going to tank.
This morning, Euronews ran a feature on current arguments within the EU about whether to issue Eurobonds. The northern EU countries say no, because they have been careful with their finances and don't want another decade of propping up weak economies like those of Italy, Greece and Spain. They are all meeting remotely in Brussels right now to thrash all this out.
The issue of Eurobonds matters because the German finance minister says their economy will drop by 9.8% in this quarter alone. The French finance minister says their economy is losing 2% of its worth every fortnight of lockdown. These are the two strongest economies in the EU. If they don't support the EU, they will have to go to the World Bank and it's a lot less friendly than the EU.
So what's happening to the UK economy right now?
Who will pay for the Nightingale hospitals (putting them and taking them down)? Who will pay for the army's time spent working on these?
Who will pay for the 950,000 applications for universal benefits now crawling through the system?
Who will pay for the support needed by the self-employed and students (future earners)?
Who will recompense local councils for council tax not paid by householders and small businesses because they have no income?
Who will meet the cost of supporting the failing charities like food banks which now prop up the welfare state - £750 million.
Who will pay...? Well, if you know me, you'll know what I'm going to tell you.
Who will pay? WE WILL. The taxpayers. The only people in the UK who have any money.
Because governments don't have any money except ours.
We've already had a decade of austerity. The Tories, who imposed austerity on us to begin with, had the brass neck to tell us last year it was over. How come?
What was the result of a decade of misery for working people in the UK (unless you lived in Scotland, where some cash was diverted to mitigate the damage)?
Are we all better off?
Is the economy in better shape?
Do the WASPI women have their pensions?
Have NHS staff had a payrise? Or are they still categorised as 'unskilled' by the UK government?
Have social security payments been increased to meet the rising cost of living for the sick, disabled and unemployed?
Are there fewer homeless on our streets?
I have no idea what's happening to the UK economy - far less what the UK government plans to do to see us through this crisis - because Westminster is not sitting (although MPs are being paid an extra £10,000 - could that really be a month? - to stay at home). And UK TV and newspapers, with a few exceptions, are full of government-issue nonsense about the Dunkirk spirit, rainbows and brave Boris.
But I'll give you a clue to what's likely to happen:
From today's Guardian: EasyJet has secured a £600m loan from the Treasury and Bank of England’s emergency coronavirus fund, as the airline’s founder and biggest shareholder, Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, claimed it would run out of cash by the year end regardless.
So let's picture the scene: it's December 2020. EasyJet has run out of cash and calls in the administrators. A list of creditors is drawn up and there we are - you and I - the tax payers - owed £600m. Do you think we'll get it back?
Whatever happens in the next few months, we would really need to be absolutely thick to agree to pay for a loan for EasyJet's 'biggest shareholder'. Not that Sir Stelios is the only chancer begging for a handout.
If you need evidence that capitalism (what I like to call adventure capitalism) is a dead duck, there it is.
But this week, I think we've all got beyond that stage.
We know Johnson's illness, and a lot of other people's illnesses, can be laid firmly at the door of his cabinet thanks to indecision, delay and incompetence. We also know now that the UK is going to have the highest death rate from Covid-19 of all European countries - and that's according to international agencies like the World Health Organisation. We won't have the highest death rate in the world though. That looks like being the prize won by an indecisive incompetent in the USA, who shut down the US pandemic unit in the Centre for Disease Control in 2018 and would dearly love to do the same for the WHO.
I'm saving a wee bit of hate for his pal Dominic Cummings and the spineless UK cabinet, but I just know there will be millions of voters out there who will go on voting for the Tories because they think 'Boris is a good chap' and 'he's doing a fine job.'
Putting all that aside, I would prefer us to be thinking ahead.
If we've learned nothing else in Scotland so far, I hope it is that we can manage fine in an emergency. We have good people in post. Public Health and the NHS in Scotland are obviously attractive places to work for a lot of highly qualified people. As are our universities which attract first rate researchers.
Even politicians, the people we love to hate, have managed to emerge with some credit - the Tories have mostly avoided scoring party political points (apart from Ruth Davidson, but what else did we expect from her?). It's a pity we can't say the same for Labour: Richard Leonard carried on trying to score points before Holyrood closed and now we have Monica Lennon tweeting away about the so-called lack of protection for health workers, despite us being told at yesterday's press conference that there is plenty of protective gear available - and a dedicated email for staff who think they are not being provided with the right gear. Did any of the 'over 100' people who complained to Labour actually think of using the channels provided?
We would probably do even better in Scotland if we didn't have to depend on Westminster making decisions.
But let's think about the future.
I saw a comment on Facebook tonight: "Yes, the economy will dip...' I'm not messing about with weasel words like 'naive' here. That is the stupidest comment I've seen in years - in fact, since the bank crash of 2008. The economy of the world is not going to dip. It's going to tank.
This morning, Euronews ran a feature on current arguments within the EU about whether to issue Eurobonds. The northern EU countries say no, because they have been careful with their finances and don't want another decade of propping up weak economies like those of Italy, Greece and Spain. They are all meeting remotely in Brussels right now to thrash all this out.
The issue of Eurobonds matters because the German finance minister says their economy will drop by 9.8% in this quarter alone. The French finance minister says their economy is losing 2% of its worth every fortnight of lockdown. These are the two strongest economies in the EU. If they don't support the EU, they will have to go to the World Bank and it's a lot less friendly than the EU.
So what's happening to the UK economy right now?
Who will pay for the Nightingale hospitals (putting them and taking them down)? Who will pay for the army's time spent working on these?
Who will pay for the 950,000 applications for universal benefits now crawling through the system?
Who will pay for the support needed by the self-employed and students (future earners)?
Who will recompense local councils for council tax not paid by householders and small businesses because they have no income?
Who will meet the cost of supporting the failing charities like food banks which now prop up the welfare state - £750 million.
Who will pay...? Well, if you know me, you'll know what I'm going to tell you.
Who will pay? WE WILL. The taxpayers. The only people in the UK who have any money.
Because governments don't have any money except ours.
We've already had a decade of austerity. The Tories, who imposed austerity on us to begin with, had the brass neck to tell us last year it was over. How come?
What was the result of a decade of misery for working people in the UK (unless you lived in Scotland, where some cash was diverted to mitigate the damage)?
Are we all better off?
Is the economy in better shape?
Do the WASPI women have their pensions?
Have NHS staff had a payrise? Or are they still categorised as 'unskilled' by the UK government?
Have social security payments been increased to meet the rising cost of living for the sick, disabled and unemployed?
Are there fewer homeless on our streets?
I have no idea what's happening to the UK economy - far less what the UK government plans to do to see us through this crisis - because Westminster is not sitting (although MPs are being paid an extra £10,000 - could that really be a month? - to stay at home). And UK TV and newspapers, with a few exceptions, are full of government-issue nonsense about the Dunkirk spirit, rainbows and brave Boris.
But I'll give you a clue to what's likely to happen:
From today's Guardian: EasyJet has secured a £600m loan from the Treasury and Bank of England’s emergency coronavirus fund, as the airline’s founder and biggest shareholder, Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, claimed it would run out of cash by the year end regardless.
So let's picture the scene: it's December 2020. EasyJet has run out of cash and calls in the administrators. A list of creditors is drawn up and there we are - you and I - the tax payers - owed £600m. Do you think we'll get it back?
Whatever happens in the next few months, we would really need to be absolutely thick to agree to pay for a loan for EasyJet's 'biggest shareholder'. Not that Sir Stelios is the only chancer begging for a handout.
If you need evidence that capitalism (what I like to call adventure capitalism) is a dead duck, there it is.
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