Thursday 4 March 2021

Killer Arguments Against Citizen's Income, Not (32)

From The Guardian:

The Conservative candidate for London mayor, Shaun Bailey, has been criticised for arguing people paid a universal basic income (UBI) would blow the money on “lots of drugs”...

Bailey also questioned whether it could “drive prices up for basic goods when we know people could just buy them because the money’s there”. He added he was “concerned about work incentive” and a UBI was not clearly defined.


There's not much point responding to that, apart from pointing out that Bailey has proved himself to be totally clueless or an utter shit. Or both.

10 comments:

Lola said...

For some reason I cannot fathom, no political party seems (wants?) to be able to select and field a candidate that has any remote chance of challenging Khan. It's a puzzle.

Mark Wadsworth said...

L, maybe they think that Khan has been so useless that he's going to lose anyway?

benj said...

I've only ever voted twice. Once for John Major, the other for myself. Khan is so useless, I was going to break with my principles and vote Bailey. Now in a dilemma. What to do?

All Bailey had to do is keep his opinions to himself. Does he not have any advisers?

Mark Wadsworth said...

B, if Bailey had any brains and wanted to score a point, he would explain that welfare reform is well beyond the remit of a London Mayor, they just to local council type stuff like transport and planning. And kept his crackpot opinions to himself.

Bayard said...

It's a pity about the Clean Air Act, or he would have been able to remind us that the poor keep their coal in the bath.

James James said...

Bailey is overpromoted. Hasn't got a clue about anything and keeps losing elections but they won't get rid of him

Bayard said...

JJ, which leads me to suspect that losing elections is his job. The Tories have got to put someone up for the position.

Ralph Musgrave said...

Lola, The problem is more general than you suggest. I.e. I'd ask the question: "Why do most political parties end up being led by tossers?" E.g. the choice at the last general election was between Bumbling Boris and Loony Left Corbyn. I was so depressed I didn't vote....:-)

Bayard said...

RM, Parkinson (C. Northcote, not the chat show host) would say that it is because anyone who isn't a tosser is weeded out at an early stage as being a threat to the current tosser-in-charge.

Alternatively, as Douglas Adams postulated in The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy, the "person-in-charge" is not actually in charge and the people who are actually in charge don't want anyone in the "person-in-charge" position who might engineer a coup and actually take charge, so you end up with tossers.

Mark Wadsworth said...

B, there might be a gentleman's agreement between Labour and Tories that they take it in turns to be London Mayor. Tt was Red Ken two terms; then BoJo two terms; that might be why the Tories fielded a guaranteed losing candidate in 2016 to let Khan have a turn and they appear to be planning to so again in 2021 (postponed from 2020) to give Khan his second term.

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