Skip to main content
Work with the NEU
It won’t be long before the axe falls on the poor – again
When the immediate crisis has faded the Tories will be putting the cost onto the shoulders of everyone below them, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
Birmingham City Council staff prepare the first food parcels to be distributed to the city’s vulnerable population and (left) Chancellor Rishi Sunak

WHO will pay for the coronavirus crisis? Already there is pressure that the lowest paid should get even less money to pay for all the emergency funding: the pressure is coming from mainstream corporate and business-oriented Establishment figures. 

We haven’t seen a big mobilisation by the political right demanding the poor shoulder the burden, but we surely will.

You might think the coronavirus crisis shows up all the bad things about austerity Britain — the underfunded public services, the danger of zero-hours employment and private rentals. 

Standard Chartered Bank and ‘Russiagate’

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage speaks during a rally at the Arena MK Stadium, in Bletchley, Milton Keynes, March 17, 2026
Politics / 21 March 2026
21 March 2026

Young Communist League general secretary GEORGINA ANDREWS says the far right are filling a vacuum created by Labour’s abandonment of working-class interests — we have to give our class a better offer

General view of the Job Centre Plus on Benalder St in Glasgow
Economy / 21 March 2026
21 March 2026

PHILIP ENGLISH says military spending will not create the jobs young people need — instead, build an economy based around needs, not profit

retail staff
Finance / 23 December 2025
23 December 2025
TORY HIGH SOCIETY:  Sir John Ritblat
Features / 19 September 2025
19 September 2025

It is rather strange that Labour continues to give prestigious roles to inappropriate, controversy-mired businessmen who are also major Tory donors. What could Labour possibly be hoping to get out of it, asks SOLOMON HUGHES