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Author Archives: GovWorldMag

John McDonnell MP responds to Resolution Foundation Report

John McDonnell MP, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor, commenting in the Resolution Foundation report out today, which shows that Britain is on course for the biggest increase in inequality since Thatcher, said:

 “This report is damning of the unfair economic policies of this Chancellor, as the gap between working families and a wealthy few gets wider, with the poor getting poorer and the rich getting richer. It demonstrates to us all once again that the economy under a Tory government will be rigged for those at the top, with poor and middle income households facing their worst Parliament for income growth since the 1960s.

“Labour called on the Government at the Autumn Statement to end the unfair cuts to in work benefits, whilst they were going ahead with tax giveaways to a wealthy minority, but Philip Hammond chose to carry on with the work of his predecessor.

“It is becoming clearer by the day that working families will be forced to pay for a Tory Brexit that favours the rich and not the rest of us, as our country faces its biggest rise in inequality since Margaret Thatcher.

“The next Labour government would rewrite the rules of our economy in favour of working families, with a real living wage expected to be £10 an hour by 2020, and proper investment to ensure no one and no community is left behind.”

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Labour • • •

Donald Tusk speaks out for the elites

Mr Tusk has written a letter to the EU 27 saying he disagrees with the views of many voters around the EU “that European integration is beneficial only to the elites, the ordinary people have only suffered as a result”. He should try telling that one to the millions thrown out of work or never able to get a job thanks to the Euro and the EU’s banking and economic policies. The UK was badly damaged by the EU’s Exchange Rate Mechanism.

He thinks that people do not feel secure enough. He urges the EU 27 to unite to undertake “definitive reinforcement of the EU external borders”. Does that mean he now wants to build more walls and fences, as the EU is helping Turkey do already and as some EU countries have done individually?

There is news for the UK, which is not mentioned by name. He tells us “The EU should not abandon its role as a trade superpower, which is open to others”. That sounds like a man who wants to have access to the UK market and accepts we will have access to the EU’s internal market. He clearly does not wish to lose any  European trade.

There is also the curious statement that “the times of European unity have been the best times in all of Europe’s centuries long history”. Is this the idea that the Roman Empire or the Habsburg Empire or the French conquests of the late eighteenth century were some golden age, despite the role of the military and of occupation?

His letter of course sets out exactly what many of us expected to be the EU’s next move – more progress towards a full political and defence union.

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John Redwood MP • • •