Archbishop on the ball.

Here are three quotes  from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, when addressing the Trades Union Congress last week.

On Universal Credit (a "rolled up" payment to struggling families):

It was supposed to make it simpler and more efficient.  It has not done that.  It has left too many people worse off, putting them at risk of hunger, debt, rent arrears and food banks.  When universal credit comes into an area the [number] going to food banks  goes up.   What is clear is, if [the government] cannot get it right they need to stop rolling it out. 

On individual and corporate responsibility:

Not paying taxes speaks of the absence of commitment to our shared humanity,, to solidarity and justice.  If you earn money from a community you should pay your share of tax to that community.

And best of all he singled out the vast international companies, even naming Amazon:

. . . when vast companies like Amazon and other on-line traders . . .can get away with paying almost nothing in tax, there is something wrong with the tax system.  They don't pay a real living wage, so the taxpayer must support their workers with benefits; and having leeched off the taxpayer once, they don't pay for our defence, for security,  for stability,  for justice,  for health, for equality, for education.


So while one of our major parties struggles to take the country down the road to Brexit, which the vast majority of its MPs know to be wrong, another allows itself to be distracted by arcane attempts to define antisemitism, and the third (if still major) pre-occupies itself by tweaking its party rules, the Eton-educated Archbishop hits the nail on the head - indeed three nails on three heads.

Of course the poor man was rather undermined by the revelation that the Church Commissioners invest heavily in Amazon.  Lets hope those financial wizzards will now sit up, take notice, and disinvest.

And I suspect the Commissioners are not the only sinners.  Amazon only stays in business if people buy from it.  How about a boycott?  If you need a spur to action read the first chapters of  James Bloodworth's book "Hired" https://www.waterstones.com/book/hired/james-bloodworth/9781786490148" which reveals the squalid and inhuman conditions of work in an Amazon warehouse.

For more details see here:

http://keynesianliberal.blogspot.com/2018/03/britains-deregulated-labour-market.html

That was written in March but things haven't changed.  Neither will they, until our MPs have the guts to look behind the causes of the Brexit vote, take a leaf out of the Archbishop's book, and tackle the real problems facing our society.