Tubby Isaacs wrote:WelshIan wrote:
It's a great prospect, isn't it? Hopefully the Green Party will maintain their higher profile so that CI is kept on the agenda, and proper costings come out showing that it is indeed affordable.
The Swiss will be voting in 2-3 years time on whether to implement a Citizens Income. If they vote yes, who knows what could happen here?
I think it's a disastrous policy for the Greens. Even if you keep the basic income at the poverty level of JSA, it's going to cost a fortune to give every working age adult in the country that money. I don't see how it can work with migrant workers either.
They could have done excellent work hitting Labour on social security, getting sickness benefit decisions back to GPs and raising benefits to a liveable level. They're now going to be laughed off the podium by Labour.
It's time might come, but it's nowhere near ready if Natalie Bennett can't give any indication of how it's paid for. Ephie is ahead of where Bennett seems to be.
The DWP's running costs were actually on course to come down quite substantially before the "reforms" kicked in.
The websites I linked to earlier give a breakdown of how it could be affordable.
They say the cost is £276bn, and the benefits, tax allowances, etc it would replace cost £272bn (this includes £10bn from scrapping higher rate pension tax relief).
The Left Futures article linked to by Rebeccariots2, provides information on some schemes where it has been trialled, the results were very encouraging:
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The Namibia trial had to deal with an influx of migrants, and I wouldn't have an issue with placing some conditionality on migrants accessing CI (eg working for at least 6 months before accessing it).
Citizens Income and similar schemes have been discussed for a long time so it is disappointing to hear that the main political advocate of CI made such a hash of the interview yesterday morning because costings for CI schemes are readily available (I haven't seen it, so am going on what was reported here). I hope she presents the case better in the future.
My other hope is that it moves away from being a Green Party political gimmick and is given serious consideration across the political spectrum. Milton Friedman was in favour of a form of CI so there is room for the Tories and UKIP to get on board!
Ephie's post above gives loads of reasons for why it would be good for society to move to a CI, not least a transformation in the relationship between the state and the individual (even if the amount is the same as JSA). The state would recognise that everyone has a worth that is not related to work.
With respect to the Green Party attacking Labour on social security, etc - I think they should be attacking the coalition, they have made life so much worse for so many people and those are sensible suggestions that Labour should be saying. Greens and Labour should be united in making sure the coalition are kicked out in May.
Greens should differentiate themselves from Labour but this can be done in a constructive manner rather than the aggressive way it is being done at the moment (I'm thinking of the tweets from Caroline Lucas regarding £30bn of cuts and abstaining on fracking moratorium). The same thing applies to Labour.
I'm not a member of either party so it is easy for me to say that!
