‘Equal footing’ would not be the outcome of a UBI

Can you imagine the uproar if the second spike came and was much worse.. but sorry guys you can’t go to any of the nightingale hospitals because they’re all care homes now. Separating the care homes from hospitals will be a precaution just in case. Can you imagine the death/sickness rate if care homes were inside working hospitals?

Bob Seger, rock singer, 75; Jeffery Deaver, author, 70; Tony Blair, former Prime Minister, 67; Graeme Souness (pictured), former footballer and manager, 67; George Clooney (pictured), actor, 59; Leslie Hope, actress, 55; Chris Shiflett, guitarist (Foo Fighters), 49; Kerry Ellis, theatre actress, 41

DAVID Griffiths believes that a Universal Basic Income ‘’would put us all on an equal footing as citizens’’ (Feedback,

May 2).

I agree that what may happen in practice is a reconfiguration of current benefits. This he markets as “the need to start modestly”.

But that will change nothing for those dependent on the same money and with limited prospects. It will legitimise a model of society where an ever increasing number are surplus to requirements. (I note he doesn’t respond to my point regarding the implications of phasing out cash for such dependants.)

His stipulation that the UBI will ‘’need to grow’’ carries no guarantees from him or the 110 MPs and peers who support the idea. It is indeed “an idea whose time has come” but for all the wrong reasons.

I believe it will be used to control and manipulate on the lines of the Chinese Social Credit Systems and result in the opposite effect to what he intends.

How is a platform like that affordable?

IN Mr Griffiths’ further discussion (Feedback, May 2) of Universal Basic Income (distinct from the EBI designed for citizens enduring the current crisis), he describes the proposed income as a platform of security.

The UK job market already includes numerous platforms, say, part-time earning £5,000 pa, a full-time £20,000 annual wage, and some truly mind-trembling incomes for chief executives and Tottenham Hotspur players.

Employees in this sample have employers, perturbed by close-to-home problems even before Covid-19 devastated lives and economic transfers around the globe.

Regret I’m strugging to see how a UBI platform (of unspecified height) would align with views from the different existing platforms, create major improvement for millions of diverse people, and be affordable in the decade or two ahead.

Sheerman right to discuss Johnson

I AM not a fan of our local MP Barry Sheerman. I would like him replaced by a socialist to fight for local people.

However he is right to ask how many children Boris Johnson has. Johnson has a bit of form on this topic. In a Spectator article from the past he wrote that single mothers were ‘ill-raised, ignorant, aggressive and illegitimate.’

He further argued that Britain needed ‘to restore women’s desire to be married.’

Men who fathered such children are’ feeble and unreliable’ and thus to blame.

Oh, how many children has Johnson? According to Wikipedia, ‘at least 6.’