Forward To Basics

At Prime Minister's Questions, Theresa May decided to have a strop about the Universal Basic Income. On that as on so much else, she knows that she is beaten. 

The only people who are really opposed to this are the two men and a dog who are going to vote for Change UK. It is very un-Blairite, whereas the arguments against it could have come from the very lips of Tony Blair, and sometimes have done.

Either the next Government, of either party, is going to introduce the UBI, simply because it is so much cheaper, or the next Official Opposition is going to adopt the policy, meaning that it will happen by crossparty consensus in the Parliament after next. Either way, though, it is coming.

Ask the Adam Smith Institute, which is right behind it, so to speak. The momentum, so to speak, is unstoppable. That was true of the NHS in the 1940s (most people forget that that was in all three manifestos in 1945), and it is true of the UBI now. Like the NHS, everyone will love it once they have it, and they will all deny that they had ever entertained any doubts at all about it.

There will have to a parliamentary fight in the meantime, of course. Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. It has become a local commonplace that I am on 30-30-30 with Labour and the Conservatives here at North West Durham, so that any one of us could be the First Past the Post.I will stand for this seat, if I can raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.