Sunday, 12 July 2020

Good, Long-Term, Subsidised

"There are no good, long-term subsidised jobs," Sir Edward Leigh recently told Rishi Sunak. The agricultural sector in Sir Edward's Gainsborough constituency may have cause to take issue with that.

Agriculture is always and necessarily the most socialised sector of any economy, and the Conservative Party is first and last the farmers' party. Its flirtation with the Liberal "free" market was only ever going to be fleeting, and now it has come to an end.

One of the many good things about the Jobs Guarantee, itself underwritten by the Universal Basic Income, would be that we could have lifelong access to traditional academic education, since the question of "What job is that supposed to get you?" would no longer present itself.

How could a High Tory such as Sir Edward possibly disagree with that, any more than he would wish to dismantle British agriculture? And having improbably described himself as "an old Thatcherite", does he not favour equality of opportunity? There can be no such thing with the problems that are addressed by the Jobs Guarantee and by the Universal Basic Income.

The Government has accepted both of those in principle. It needs only to be guided towards the most efficient means of attaining the ends to which it has committed itself. The Centre is the think tank for this new era. It already has plenty going on.

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