There has to be, as Dave Ward the Communications Workers Union`s boss says, "a revaluing of how workers in the UK are seen and recognised" when we come "out of the other side" of this crisis (Star, 29/04/20). It is obviously not enough to hear government ministers daily thanking all key workers for their wonderful efforts during this health disaster which has been intensified by our arrogant government`s refusal to follow other countries` example, and then simply return to the pre-Covid situation of underfunded health and education services, and staff so underpaid shortages reach the point of recruitment crisis.
Does anyone really think Johnson and his cabinet of yes-men will support the measures necessary for such changes? It is all very well to borrow billions, and create billions more through quantitative easing, to protect the capitalist economy from collapsing, but to continue this policy and to make wealthy individua ls and corporations pay substantially more in tax in order to fund massive pay rises for state sector workers is unlikely to be discussed for long by this cabinet of millionaires.
One of Labour`s many priorities has to be ensuring austerity measures, which many Tory backbenchers will still be advocating, are off the table, and key workers get their just desserts. To do so, even in the middle of the crisis, is not unpatriotic. Far from it, it is the duty of the opposition to support the rights of those the government choose to ignore.
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