With the oratory flair of a Dalek, Liz Truss promised in her victory speech on Monday: “We will deliver, we will deliver, we will deliver.”
As she flew to Balmoral yesterday to be appointed our 56th Prime Minister, No52 on the list, Gordon Brown, was in a warehouse on a delivery mission of his own. Don’t panic, he’s not on his uppers - he was promoting a charitable partnership with Amazon, the Co-op, Scotmid and local businesses to provide essentials to more than 50,000 families in need by the end of this year.
Amazon has provided staff pro bono to assist in the scheme. Harshly critical as I have been of Brown, unpopular a PM as he was, his days at the helm were positively halcyon compared with what is about to come.
This is where we are, folks, the topsy-turvy world where Brown is the preferable PM and Amazon is robbing its workers with one hand while giving to the poor with the other. Truss is a fan of Amazon and claimed her Prime membership on her parliamentary expenses because she’s classy like that.
And she’s with them not paying their fair share of tax. Amazon’s core UK division was allowed a tax credit of just over £1million last year by HM Revenue and Customs despite the online retailer’s profits soaring by almost 60 per cent to £204million.
The company also benefited from the Government’s “super-deduction” scheme for businesses that invests in infrastructure, which was introduced by the then chancellor, Rishi Sunak, last year. Amazon says it pays the “living wage” but the truth is that their workers can’t live on it and many of their depots are on the verge of a strike.
Here’s an idea – get firms like Amazon to pay enough tax and give their workers a fair wage so they won’t need to take charity. To be fair on Brown, (is that a fish bone in my craw?) he could do nothing to help those crushed by poverty, like Truss is about to do.
The Cottage Family Centre of which Brown is patron was set up by dedicated, smart and selfless locals in Fife who have poured their all into becoming a lifeboat for those who are drowning in a sea of deprivation, stress and despair.
Across the country these are the people forced to pick up the pieces of shattered lives, the ones who dry the tears, who hold the hands of those in terror at what is to come. They do it because they’re too decent to stand back and do nothing. Truss isn’t fit to lick their boots.
Charities like this help thousands of people but they are a plaster on a festering wound. In Fife, for example, Brown points out the charitable work he is driving can inject £10million worth of support, compared with the £76million estimate that lower income families in Fife are short of compared with last year.
That £76million is made up of £30million cut to Universal Credit and £46million because benefits haven’t risen as quickly as inflation. Hence the need for these deliveries of nappies, baby wipes, towels, clothes and blankets in one of the richest nations in the world.
The UK now has a record number of millionaires and billionaires, and the energy firms steamrolling over peoples’ lives are drowning in profits. Unless there is an overhaul of our corrupt system, millions will continue to suffer.
If you are struggling and still vote Tory, you are pressing self-destruct. Here we are again, presided over by a leader who is morally bankrupt and only interested in handouts to the rich.
Enjoy that new blanket, kids, that’s your share of the trickledown economics your new PM is such a fan of. We can’t do another two years of this, there are people struggling now who do not have the financial resilience to bear it.
We don’t need Truss to give us her big plan, we need a general election and soon.
TV makes entertainment out of misery
Let's hope Liz Truss didn’t get any new ideas from This Morning which produced the sickest piece of footage this week since footballer Kurt Zouma was filmed booting his cat. Presenters Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield offered viewers a chance to win payment of their energy bills for four months by playing Spin to Win.
Yep, four months, not a year - so hardly life-changing. With no hint of shame, millionaires Holly and Phil spun a wheel to decide if the poor sod who called in was going to get to keep the immersion on.
The caller said his prepayment meter had been “absolutely murder” as we witnessed the death of any vestige of good taste on the show. Holly screeched in joy as the arrow landed on energy bills and Phil announced the prize in patronising tones, like he was handing fresh muffins to a starving pauper.
That such a crass idea must have gone through layers of writers and producers is an indictment on how out of touch the luvvie world of telly is. What next? We spin the wheel for pensioner Nancy to see if she can eat this week or little Timmy gets a new kidney?
There was no way to spin it, it was disgusting.
Worlds apart from Harry and Meghan
Meghan and Harry graced the UK with their presence at the One Young World summit this week. In a speech, mainly about herself, she addressed young leaders fighting for a better future.
She said as a “mom”, she had asked herself what kind of world her kids will be part of. Not the same one as the audience, Meghan – luckily for your privileged kids it’ll be one world for them and another for the rest.
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