{"id":20139,"date":"2020-03-11T15:01:23","date_gmt":"2020-03-11T15:01:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=20139"},"modified":"2020-11-12T12:44:30","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T12:44:30","slug":"budget-2020-joy-johnson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=20139","title":{"rendered":"Getting things done?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The following piece is a comment from Joy Johnson of Unite’s political department<\/em><\/p>\n

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This budget, Chancellor Rishi Sunak\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first, will for evermore be known as the coronavirus budget.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 It was a budget of two parts, first mitigating the impact of coronavirus and second, big figures to be spent on Boris Johnson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s infrastructure projects to, in his words, \u00e2\u20ac\u0098level up\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 the UK particularly in former Labour seats.<\/p>\n

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This was a no holds barred populist spend, spend, spend, promises, promises, promises budget.<\/p>\n

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On coronavirus the Chancellor declared that what the NHS wanted they will get.\u00c2\u00a0 Given the length of waiting times, given patients being treated in corridors and given the cuts in the number of nurses and medical staff – it sounds hollow.<\/p>\n

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The truth is that after a decade of Conservative austerity we are facing this colossal crisis in a weakened state.<\/p>\n

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Cuts after cuts have stretched our NHS to breaking point.\u00c2\u00a0 Social care workers on the front line under paid and under-valued are told they are unskilled yet when this crisis worsens they will be needed as never before.<\/p>\n

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As trade unionists we pay tribute to public service workers.\u00c2\u00a0 We know that they move heaven and earth to do a good job.<\/p>\n

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Sunak tried to pinch Labour\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s commitment to public services when he claimed that \u00e2\u20ac\u0098the Conservatives were the party for public services\u00e2\u20ac\u2122.\u00c2\u00a0 Tell that to those public services who have been under the cosh over these last ten years.<\/p>\n

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We saw the reaction of Prime Minister Johnson to the floods, with whole swathes of the UK under water and people left in misery. At a time when he should have shown leadership, he was left wanting.<\/p>\n

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This Budget was meant to reveal a Johnsonian ideological direction of travel. We had a taste of Johnson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s leadership style when he led his reshuffled cabinet in a humiliating chorus on how they would deliver more police, hospitals and of course buses.<\/p>\n

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At the despatch box Sunak became a tribute \u00e2\u20ac\u0098getting things done\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 band.\u00c2\u00a0 Starting with \u00e2\u20ac\u0098getting Brexit done\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 building up to a crescendo Sunak declared\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c \u00e2\u20ac\u0098we promised to protect the NHS and we are getting this done\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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Ministers allowing themselves to go through this humiliation is up to them — public service workers know the reality.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 As John McDonnell warned; \u00e2\u20ac\u015b\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6after ten years of austerity we have inequality and poverty that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve not seen on a scale in this country\u00e2\u20ac\u0165.<\/p>\n

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Chancellor Sunak had the nerve to say that this Conservative government is\u00c2\u00a0the party of the workers.\u00c2\u00a0 One thing we know for certain \u00e2\u20ac\u201c judge them by their actions.\u00c2\u00a0 China became our factory.\u00c2\u00a0 Decent jobs have been turned into the \u00e2\u20ac\u0098gig economy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 — a tag that may sound technologically attractive but exploitation, whatever it is called, is still exploitation.<\/p>\n

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So this first budget by Rishi Sunak ended with the claim that they will do whatever needs doing to deal with today; it would, he said, also lay the foundations for prosperity tomorrow.<\/p>\n

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Scratch the surface.\u00c2\u00a0 Ignore the slogans and sound bites and look for the detail.\u00c2\u00a0 Has it done enough for the economy?<\/p>\n

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Will \u00c2\u00a0it be the case that it really – \u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u0098get\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s things done\u00e2\u20ac\u2122?<\/p>\n

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Or will it be judged as a budget \u00c2\u00a0when Sunak served it up as a future leadership bid?\u00c2\u00a0 Is that another thing \u00e2\u20ac\u201c \u00e2\u20ac\u0098to get done\u00e2\u20ac\u2122?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following piece is a comment from Joy Johnson of Unite’s political department   This budget, Chancellor Rishi Sunak\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first, will for evermore be known as the coronavirus budget.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 It was a budget of two parts, first mitigating the impact of coronavirus and second, big figures to be spent on Boris Johnson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s infrastructure projects to, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20140,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[],"wps_subtitle":"Budget 2020: \u00e2\u20ac\u0098Scratch the surface; ignore the slogans and soundbites\u00e2\u20ac\u2122","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20139"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20139"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24655,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20139\/revisions\/24655"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}