The Tories Want Cash for Drones and Cuts for Workers
By proposing defense spending increases alongside a pay freeze for workers at a time of massive economic pain, the Tories have revealed their priorities: war before workers' well-being.
The depressing corollary of a Conservative prime minister trying to assuage his disgruntled backbenchers, and a Labour leader trying to project patriotism and competence, has ended up with what may very well look like a bonanza of drones paid for by salary cuts for public-sector workers.
A large increase in spending, in an area beset by cuts in recent years. A victory for the prime minister over a typically recalcitrant Treasury. An unexpected announcement — “in the teeth of the pandemic,” as Boris Johnson put it — deemed vital to “keep the British people safe.”
One could be forgiven — on hearing the above — for thinking that the Conservative Party had belatedly decided to address one of the myriad issues which have been causing hardship and destitution both during and prior to the coronavirus crisis.
An uplift in Universal Credit, which — even after Rishi Sunak’s much-lauded temporary increase — still remains at punitively low levels, perhaps? Or a long-overdue funding settlement for councils, prompted, perhaps, by the recent effective bankruptcy of Croydon Council?
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