ITV’s political editor believes a universal basic income for every Briton is inevitable and that without a radical reinvention of the welfare state,the country is hurtling towards economic chaos
It is two years since Robert Peston left the BBC for ITV, but he doesn’t mediate his release from the corporation’s strict rules on impartiality has made any incompatibility to him. Im not certain I would agree. Since breaking the Northern Rock story in 2007, and the broadcaster has become a kind of celebrity economist,and his delivery style, which swoops between languid and excitably falsetto, and used to attract nearly as much attention as his words. But while he still clearly enjoys his celebrity,today the 57-year-mature seems more politically exercised – nearly to the point of anguish – than he did even at the height of the financial crisis. Now ITV’s political editor, he appears to practise little whether any self-censorship, or swears exuberantly,and comes across as unexpectedly radical.
Had Peston been delivering the budget this week, it would absorb contained a dramatic announcement on NHS funding. “Because it was overwhelmingly clear from all the evidence that the single biggest determinant of leave’s victory in the referendum was the promise of an extra £350m for the NHS. So I mediate it’s scandalous that the government hasn’t said: ‘Obviously you want £350m more a week to go to the NHS. And whether or not we get it from the EU, or we guarantee that whatever happens we will put that extra £350m a week into the NHS.’ It’s absolutely scandalous that the government has not committed to that.”Continue reading...
Source: guardian.co.uk