Minister Andy Burnham faces a difficult task in changing the UK’s economic fortunes. The decline is due to the obsession with neoliberalism, which has failed to improve the quality of life for millions. Chancellor John Healey’s first budget offers a chance to improve the purchasing power of the bottom 50% of the population, which in turn will increase people’s disposable incomes, invigorate local economy and fuel economic growth.

Neoliberal Destruction

The evidence of neoliberal destruction is all around us. Workers’ share of gross value added has declined from 71.9% in 1975, to 59.7% in 2026. 1.23m workers are on zero-hour contracts. 4.4m jobs pay less than the real living wage. 6.3m workers are in insecure jobs with no guarantees of when they will work, how much they will earn, and whether they will have enough hours or even if they will have a job in future. The insecurity is compounded by a tax system in which the poorest 20% pay a higher proportion of their income in direct and indirect taxes than the richest 20%. 

Unsurprisingly, 25.3m people, including 14.9m working adults and 7.7m children, live below minimum income standards, and have little capacity to boost economic growth. At the same time, the richest 1% has more wealth than the bottom 70% of the population combined.  50 families hold more wealth than the poorest half of the population, comprising more than 34m people. Due to concentration of wealth in relatively fewer hands governments rely upon fewer people to stimulate the economy and are easily held to ransom.

Public infrastructure has been dismantled. 6.16m individuals await 7.28m hospital appointments. 1.3m households (about 4m people) are on a waiting list for a social home; but only 12,198 social homes a year are being built. Social care is in disarray. Universities are in financial crisis. Rivers are polluted with raw sewage. Roads are potholed. Half of England’s schools are unfit for use. The court system is creaking and prisons are overflowing. The economy is vulnerable as manufacturing has declined from 30.1% of economic output in 1970 to 8.5% by 2026.

Neoliberals have restructured the state. Instead of directly investing in infrastructure and new industries, it guarantees corporate profits through privatisations, outsourcing of public services, private finance initiative (PFI) and public private partnership (PPP). Profiteering by corporations has depleted the public purse, leaving less for frontline services. Neoliberals demand cuts in wages, benefits, state pension and public investment, but are silent on the social cost of corporate welfare and tax perks of the super-rich. 

Big banks have been bailed out and are now bankruptcy proof. The finance industry has turned town centres into economic deserts. Private equity has no long-term interest in the wellbeing of workers, customers and communities. It extracts cash through asset-stripping, cuts in wages and staffing, and tax abuses. It has devoured names such as Bernard Matthews, Body Shop, Byron Burger, Casual Dining, Cath Kidson, Claire’s, Comet, Debenhams, Flybe, Four Seasons Health Care, Homebase, HMV, Maplin, Monarch Airlines, The Original Factory Shop, Payless Shoes, Poundworld, Silentnight, Southern Cross, Thomas Cook, TM Lewin, Toys “R” Us and more. It owns supermarkets, hospitals, care homes, GP surgeries, water companies, vets and receives government contracts.

China invests over 41% of its GDP in productive assets, and India 34.3%. The UK spends around 17.9%, with about 50% provided by the private sector. Due to low investment state the UK has languished at or near the bottom of the G7 and OECD league of investment in productive assets for over thirty years, resulting in low productivity.

Reviving the UK

There is an urgent need to tackle social problems. What could the Chancellor do?

The government could embrace the Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and create new money for economic revival, but MMT has no political traction.

It could increase tax rates but has pledged not to increase rates of national Insurance, income tax, VAT and corporation tax.

The post-war prosperity we had was built on government debt of 270% of GDP. The public debt is currently around 95% of GDP and the government can borrow more for social investment, but it fears big corporations and the City of London who demand more privatisations.

Despite the self-imposed constraints, the government can access billions for tackling poverty and social investment by eliminating tax, legal and fiscal anomalies .Here are some examples.

Wages are taxed at marginal rates of 20%-45%. Earners also pay national insurance. Capital gains above £3,000 are taxed at marginal rates of 18% to 24%. By taxing capital gains at the same rates as wages, around £12bn to £14bn could be raised. More, if national insurance is levied.

Dividends above £500 are taxed at marginal rates of 8.75%, 33.75%, and 39.35%. Bringing dividend taxes in line with income tax rates could raise £6 billion a year. Higher if national insurance is also charged.

Gross tax relief on pension contributions to employers and employees in 2024- 2025 was £83.9bn. 14% of the tax relief benefited 1.1m additional rate (45%) taxpayers, 57% benefited 6.6m higher rate (40%) taxpayers and 29% went to 30.4m basic rate (20%) tax payers. By restricting tax relief at the rate 20% to all, the government could have £14.5bn spare.

A 2% tax on wealth above £10m could raise £24bn a year.

A modest Financial Transactions Tax (FTT) on the purchase and sale of financial instruments like shares, bonds, and derivatives could raise £5bn a year.

VAT at the standard rate on private healthcare insurance premiums could raise around £2bn a year.

A home worth £320,000 falls into the same council tax band as a property worth £32m. Additional council tax bands can raise revenues.

The rules for curbing tax avoidance don’t apply to business rate avoidance. Promoters of one scheme boasted that they have deprived local councils of £500m of revenue. Millions can be raised by ending abusive schemes.

In 2024-25, HMRC failed to collect taxes of £59.2bn; totalling nearly £500bn since 2010. Another £12.8bn is lost through profit shifting by multinationals. Billions can be raised by tackling tax abuse and its enablers.

Lawyers, accountants, dentists, surveyors and architects trade through limited liability partnership (LLP) structure. As partners, they receive share of profit instead of wages. Their self-employed status means that the LLP does not pay employer national insurance on the profit shared by partners, saving the firms £150,000 for every £1m of profit shared. Big four law firms alone reportedly avoided paying £4bn of employer national insurance. Billions can be collected by ending the employer national insurance dodge.

Dividends to foreign investors are paid without deducting tax at source. Countries such as the USA, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Sweden have a dividend withholding tax for foreign investors. The UK should follow suit. Each £100bn dividend paid to foreign investors could yield £20bn or more in tax revenues.

Research shows that since the pandemic corporations have increased their profit margins by an average of 30%. Electricity and Gas supply companies increased their profit margins by 363%, often without additional investment or risks. Governments can raise large amounts through windfall taxes. For example, a windfall tax on the UK’s four biggest banks could raise £19bn. A small windfall tax is already levied on energy companies and there is scope for much higher rates. Their 2025 profit of £23.1bn is further boosted by the Iran war. 

HMRC is an unsecured creditor for taxes specifically relating to a business (such as corporation tax and capital gains tax). It recovers little from bankrupt businesses. Phoenixing also robs the public purse. HMRC wrote-off £5.6bn in 2023-24, £7.2bn in 2024-25 and £12.8bn in 2025-26. Restoration of the preferential creditor status for HMRC can raise billions.

Since 2006, the Bank of England has paid interest on central bank reserve deposits to commercial banks. Central bank reserves are deposits held by commercial banks at the Bank of England (BoE) and are used to settle payments between banks. They are also used by the BoE to manage interest rates through tools such as quantitative easing. The interest payments accelerated in 2009 as quantitative easing took hold. As interest rates rose, payments to commercial banks increased. The EU had similar arrangements but in 2023 virtually eliminated the practice. The Swiss central bank also stopped paying interest on central bank reserves. The UK continues to pay massive amounts; £38.23bn in 2023, £36.33in 2024 and £25.9bn in 2025. Billions can be freed by ending hidden subsidies to banks.

The above is a small sample of the anomalies that need to be addressed to boost the public purse. The tax base needs to be broadened.  Billions can be raised without increasing the basic rates of national Insurance, VAT, income and corporation tax. It won’t immediately dismantle neoliberalism but a start can be made by reducing inequalities, alleviating poverty, raising personal allowance and removing millions for paying income tax, bringing essential services into public ownership and by making much needed social investment. Does the government have the political will to act?

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The United Nations estimates the cost of reconstruction to be approximately $37 billion (around $24 billion in damage to buildings – homes, businesses, schools, hospitals and public facilities – and another $13 billion in infrastructure.  This is equivalent to around 33 per cent of Venezuela’s GDP. Venezuela’s economy was already facing serious challenges due to decades of brutal sanctions: Mark Weisbrot of the Centre for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) has documented a 74 per cent decline in GDP between 2012 and 2020 – a loss of income three times larger than what the United States experienced during the Great Depression.

The world has reacted with great shock and sympathy to the devastation caused by this earthquake, and countries around the world have sent aid and technical support. Rescue teams from multiple nations have been deployed, with 2,278 foreign rescue workers now on the ground. 

While this immediate assistance is necessary and useful, what Venezuela really needs is to be able to access its own resources and trade normally with the rest of the world. This is impossible with the wide-ranging sanctions (only a fraction of which have been temporarily lifted) and asset freezes that remain in place.

The most glaring example of this injustice is the 31 tonnes of Venezuelan gold sitting in the vaults of the Bank of England. 

Worth approximately £3.5 billion at current prices, this gold has been frozen since 2019, when the British government followed the US’s failed attempt at a coup in Venezuela by recognising Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s president. 

British courts have repeatedly rejected the Venezuelan government’s requests to access its own reserves.

Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, has now formally requested the release of the gold. Her message was simple: “That gold belongs to our people. We need this gold to deal with the consequences of the earthquake.”

Venezuela also has around $4.5bn in assets frozen by the IMF, and billions more frozen from the earnings of CITGO, the US-based branch of its oil company PDVSA as well as in various other international accounts. Meanwhile, the total offered in aid is well under $1bn. The gap between what Venezuela is being offered as charity and what it has been denied is obscene.

This is an issue of sovereignty as well as humanity. Six months after US forces illegally attacked Caracas, killed around 100 people and kidnapped Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro, Donald Trump is using both military threats and economic levers to pressure Venezuela. At this critical time it’s vital that those who stand for sovereignty oppose these threats and support Venezuela having access to its own assets so it can stand on its own feet.

More than 14,000 people have now signed a petition demanding Britain return the gold. MPs including Richard Burgon, Diane Abbott and John McDonnell have all spoken out. Burgon, who has also initiated an Early Day Motion on the issue, said that “at a time of such profound human suffering, every available resource should be directed towards humanitarian relief and reconstruction in Venezuela”. McDonnell called returning the gold “one of the most effective measures the UK government could undertake” to help Venezuela. Abbott said Britain “continues to illegally withhold the country’s gold reserves when all its resources are urgently needed”.

They are right.

This is not a complex issue. A country has been devastated by its worst natural disaster in decades. It has billions of pounds of its own money sitting in a British vault. That money could be used to fund vital reconstruction. Instead, it sits there while Venezuela grapples with both the earthquake and decades of cruel sanctions.

The British government under the leadership of Andy Burnham has a choice. 

It can continue to play politics with other people’s lives, or it can do what is right and the decent thing and give Venezuela back what is rightfully theirs to aid what is massive humanitarian crisis.

Tony Burke, is the Chair of the UK Venezuela Solidarity Campaign.

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Burnham has inherited an economy in which 25.3m people, including 14.9m working adults and 7.7m children, live below minimum income standards. With median employee wage of £31,584 (take home pay £26,260) owning a home is impossible, and millions barely manage. Profiteering is rife. Some 6.16m individuals are waiting for 7.28m hospital appointments. Social care is in disarray. Most of the infrastructure, including water, energy, ports, airports, telecommunications, auto, steel, shipbuilding, internet, artificial intelligence and railway rolling stock are in private hands, leaving the government with fewer economic levers to deliver growth or alleviate poverty. Political parties are funded by the super-rich and dance to their tunes. Party members have little or no say in policy development. Trade unions are weak, civil society is struggling, and the left is too fractured to mount a challenge to the tide of neoliberalism.

Against the above backdrop, Burnham has promised to bring “forward the biggest changes in the last forty years”. This populist slogan may reassure some but can’t be delivered without abandoning neoliberalism. At the same time, Burnham, a former Minister in the Tony Blair and Gordon Brown governments, has promised continuity.

Andy Burnham has pledged to lead a united Labour government free of infighting and factional politics, but that isn’t evident from his cabinet appointments. He has side-lined leading Keir Starmer supporters, but his first his first cabinet consists entirely of neoliberal foot-soldiers. They all supported privatisation of the National Health Service by stealth, greater role for private equity, private finance initiative (PFI), benefit cuts, higher taxes on the poor, erosion of jury trials, appeasement of corporations and super-rich, destruction of universities, degradation of social care and highly damaging fiscal rules,

No one from the left of the party has been given any ministerial role, not even a junior role. One of the problems of the Starmer government was that the cabinet was essentially an echo-chamber, hailing neoliberalism and deaf to the cry for emancipatory change. In the absence of internal critique, Starmer started with disastrous macho policies such as the winter fuel payment cut, disability benefit cuts and continuation of the two-child benefit cap. All were subsequently reversed after backbench revolts and poor showing in local elections. Public trust was never regained.

Burnham may be a smarter politician and would no doubt be accessible to the left but the left won’t be present at the genesis of policies, disturbing capitulation to the City of London and the super-rich. The factionalism embedded within the cabinet does not sit well with the promise ‘the biggest changes in the last forty years’.

Perhaps, the never-ending woes of England’s water industry will provide an early test for the Burnham government. In 2010, when seeking leadership of the Labour Party, Burnham called for “aspirational socialism“. In June 2026, whilst fighting a parliamentary bye-election to return to the House of Commons after a nine-year gap, Burnham said, “If you look at water as an industry as a whole, it’s run predominantly in the private interest rather than the public interest, or in other words, it’s an industry where the shareholders can never lose and the bill payers never win … Public ownership is absolutely an option …. I would say for Thames Water, that is what should be done.” After becoming Prime Minister, he reverted to his previous position of ‘more public control’. A spokesperson for Burnham said he wanted “stronger accountability and better standards … Andy is exploring all possible options for giving the public more control over essential services like water and energy. Note the careful shift from ‘public ownership’ to ‘public control’ which could be stronger regulation, a new regulator, temporary nationalisation or something else. We will soon know.

Burnham has promised to “build a new economy where we put life’s essentials back under stronger public control” … “re-industrialising Britain, using public procurement to back British industry” and “build more council homes”. All of this calls for financial resources. Burnham won’t embrace the Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and create money. That leaves tax as an option. However, the tax option is severely constrained by his decision to stick to Labour’s 2024 manifesto, which promised no increase in the rate of income tax, employee national insurance and VAT. Such rash promises dogged the Starmer administration and prevented redistribution, recalibration of the tax system, alleviation of poverty and state investment in infrastructure. It raised tax revenues through higher employer national insurance and stealth taxes e.g. frozen income tax thresholds, which fuelled discontent. Burnham could consider wealth tax and eradication of tax anomalies. For example, capital gains and dividends are taxed at lower marginal rates than wages. Or will he be cutting social security to increase defence spending.

With the tax options severely limited, Burnham could consider additional borrowing, but he seems to have boxed himself. He said, “we’ll stick to the fiscal rules and by that I mean the existing fiscal rules and use, obviously, any flexibility within them. But we will stick to the existing rules.” He has promised to look at “any flexibility” within the government’s existing fiscal rules to help borrow billions more to invest in infrastructure”. 

Fiscal rules are useful but why a veneration of the straitjacket of current rules? They have neutered the state and delivered potholed roads, crumbling schools, poor hospitals, banking crisis, austerity, record NHS queues, poverty, deindustrialisation, reduced healthy life expectancy, low investment in productive assets and hence low productivity.

The current self-imposed fiscal rule(s) require that day-to-day costs be met by revenues, borrowing will only be used to invest (numerous issues about what the government means by investment), and a cap on certain types of welfare spending. The UK debt is about 95% of GDP. In sharp contrast, the UK’s post-war construction was facilitated by government debt of 270% of GDP. This built the welfare state, infrastructure and new industries to revive the private sector, boost prosperity, employment and tax revenues.

Since 1997, governments have followed restrictive arbitrary fiscal rules but suspended them on numerous occasions. Most notably during the Covid pandemic and the 2007-08 banking crash to enable the state to provide £1,162bn (£133bn cash and 1,029bn guarantees) to rescue banks, and £895bn of quantitative easing to stimulate financial markets. The fiscal rules are not accompanied by any economic targets such as achievement of full employment, reduction in poverty, reindustrialisation, or public ownership of vital industries. 

One consequence of the fiscal rules has been to side-line public investment. Vast tracts of the economy, such as healthcare, social care, education, dentistry, social housing and defence have been handed to the private sector. The Starmer government’s refusal to bring water into public ownership was framed by its adherence to the fiscal rules, a policy that has inflicted immense harm to human health, marine life and biodiversity, and transferred vast amount of wealth from customers to water company shareholders. Instead of creating money (as quantitative easing did), borrowing or levying higher taxes on the rich the Starmer government opted for expensive PFI for building homes, health centres, schools, hospitals, roads and infrastructure. On average, the state guaranteed £6 repayment for every £1 of private investment. The costly terms guaranteed corporate profits, hiked public debt and left the state with fewer levers to manage the economy. There is little sign that Burnham would abandon PFI. The adherence to fiscal rules will appease corporations and the City of London, and further neuter the state.

So Burnham’s predicament is already emerging. Sticking to the 2024 election manifesto and fiscal rules will make it harder for him to deliver the headline promises and the change that he has paraded. Faced with neoliberal constraints, Burnham has so far made small concessions. These include a £45 a year (86p a week) cut in the household energy bills, £2 bus fare cap and £1,100 a year business rate cut  (£21.15 a week) for the hospitality industry. These will be welcomed by many but won’t make a lot of difference to shrinking household budgets. 

Within the iron grip of neoliberalism, Burnham may tinker at the edges and try to present a humane face of neoliberalism, but wholesale changes are unlikely. How he deals with water, energy, housing, profiteering, healthcare, regressive taxation, public investment and inequitable distribution of wealth will define his period in office. Corporations and the super-rich and their control of media and the means of production will continue to be a huge barrier to a new social settlement. We will have some answers soon as the date of the autumn budget approaches.

Prem Sikka is an Emeritus Professor of Accounting at the University of Essex and the University of Sheffield, a Labour member of the House of Lords, and Contributing Editor at Left Foot Forward.

Image credit: Lauren Hurley / Number 10 – Creative Commons

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From 24 – 26 July, Hadeeqatul Mahdi in Hampshire will host the 60th Jalsa Salana UK, the country’s largest annual Muslim convention. Bringing together participants from more than 100 countries, the three-day gathering is organised by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community and is expected to welcome people from every continent, united by its motto: “Love for All, Hatred for None.”

The temporary 208-acre site has been built and operated almost entirely by more than 7,000 volunteers. They will provide accommodation, security, transport, healthcare, sanitation and one of the UK’s largest pop-up kitchens, preparing tens of thousands of freshly cooked meals every day, all free of charge.

But beyond its impressive scale, this year’s convention carries particular significance.

It comes amid growing hostility towards Muslims in Britain and around the world.

Earlier this year, the government published its new non-statutory definition of anti-Muslim hatred, acknowledging that Britain’s Muslim communities have experienced increasing discrimination, abuse and violence. Home Office figures show that 4,478 anti-Muslim hate crimes were recorded in the year to March 2025, a 20 percent increase on the previous year and almost half of all religiously motivated hate crimes. Experts also believe many incidents continue to go unreported.

Public attitudes have also become increasingly concerning. A YouGov survey commissioned by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community last year, found that 41 percent of Britons believe Muslim immigrants have had a negative impact on the UK, while only 24 percent believe they have made a positive contribution. Almost one in three respondents said they believed Islam promotes violence, higher than perceptions of any other major faith.

The findings reflect a climate in which Muslim communities increasingly face harassment online and in public, while mosques, schools and businesses have become targets of abuse and attacks.

The convention also follows heightened security concerns after police arrested 12 people in connection with what authorities described as an alleged extreme right-wing terrorism plot targeting an Islamic gathering in Suffolk last weekend.

Jalsa Salana UK presents a different narrative, one centred on dialogue rather than division, compassion rather than confrontation, and faith as a force for peace rather than conflict.

The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is Britain’s oldest established Muslim community, having been present in the UK since 1913. It now has more than 130 branches nationwide.

Throughout the convention, His Holiness Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, the worldwide Head of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, will deliver a series of keynote addresses focusing on global peace, justice and the moral challenges facing today’s world.

Rejecting the notion that religion is responsible for today’s conflicts, His Holiness has consistently argued that authentic religious teachings offer solutions rather than problems.

His addresses are expected to examine some of the defining issues facing the international community, including war, religious extremism, social division and the urgent need for justice and reconciliation.

One of the convention’s most symbolic moments is the ceremonial raising of both the Union Jack and the flag of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, reflecting the Community’s longstanding belief that loyalty to one’s country is an essential part of faith.

Adeel Shah, an Imam of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community and an East Hampshire District councillor, believes the convention offers people an opportunity to experience a side of British Islam that is rarely seen in public debate. He said:

“What makes Jalsa even more special is the opportunity to see firsthand the incredible charitable and humanitarian work carried out by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community across the UK and around the world.”

At a time when public debate is often dominated by suspicion, polarisation and fear, the organisers hope that the sight of 50,000 Muslims gathering not in protest or conflict, but in prayer, service and dialogue, will serve as a reminder that the loudest headlines are not always the truest reflection of a community.

Image credit: Ahmadiyya Muslim Community

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No one is ever born poor. They are condemned to poverty by societal policies which prevent millions from realising their full physical, mental, and intellectual capacities potentialities. Governments covet economic growth but millions lack the spending power to facilitate it. Little attention is paid to systemic causes of poverty.

Burden of poverty

In the UK, despite a social security system, 13.4m people, including 4m children, live in poverty. Some 25.3m people, including 14.9m working adults and 7.7m children, live below minimum income standard i.e. income needed to live with dignity. 

Those denied good food, housing, healthcare and are racked with poor health, anxiety, and insecurity from an early age. Many do not reach their full educational, health, employment, and earnings attainment, and are more likely to need higher access to health services, welfare, and public services. Child poverty alone results in economic output loss of around £40bn a year.

The UK has a high rate of infant mortality compared with peer countries. British five-year-olds are up to 7cm shorter than children of the same age in Europe. Last year, more than 1m children in England were referred to mental health services. A study published in Nature Human Behaviour shows that consequences of social inequality alter human biology from a very young age. Adults who endured childhood economic deprivation continue to age at a significantly accelerated biological pace later in life, even if they achieved financial security decades after their initial childhood exposures. The less well-off cannot afford private healthcare and the National Health Service has a waiting list of 7.1m appointments for hospitals in England. Around 300,000 people a year die prematurely whilst waiting for a hospital appointment.  Poverty has reduced healthy life expectancy to average of 60.7 years for males and 60.9 years for females. In affluent areas such as Richmond-upon-Thames, males have HLE of 69.3 years and females of 70.3 years. In parts of Blackpool, HLE for males in 50.9 years and 51.2 years for females. Males in deprived areas in Scotland have HLE of 44.8 years, compared to 44.2 years for females.

Periodically, to manage public anger, governments make concessions. Following a backbench rebellion, the government has abolished the two-child benefit cap. It is rolling out a program of free breakfast clubs in all state-funded primary schools in England. From September 2026, there would be expansion of Free School Meals to all children in households on Universal Credit. Such help may not be permanent. Reform UK and the Conservative Party have promised to reimpose the two-child benefit which has lifted 450,000 children out of poverty.

The corrosive effects of child poverty cannot be eradicated without addressing parental poverty, which is deepened by inequitable distribution of income and a regressive tax system.

Shrinking share of the economic pie

In 1975, at the height of trade union membership, workers’ share of gross value added (GVA) was 71.9%. From the 1980s onwards, the state attacked trade unions and weakened workers’ ability to bargain with employers. By 2025, after 50-years of economic growth and increases in minimum wage, workers’ share of GVA declined to 59%. The real average wage has hardly changed since 2008. Work does not pay enough. Some 32% of universal credit claimants are in work. 1.23m workers are on zero-hour contracts. Some 4.4m jobs don’t pay the real living wage. Worker insecurity is being increased by “dynamic pay” under which employer price for labour varies form one job or the next, one hour to the next. There are no fixed pay rates or working hours. Therefore, no idea of income that workers and their families can rely upon. Millions more are likely to rely on foodbanks and charities for their wellbeing.

In May 2026, the median annual wage of a payrolled employee was £31,512, after deduction of income tax and national insurance the take-home pay was £26,208. The median wage for women, disabled and ethnic minority workers is even lower. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimates that for a socially acceptable minimum living standard a couple with two children needs to earn £74,000 a year between them. With both parents working, millions can’t achieve the minimum living standard.

Low wages result in lower savings to meet contingencies. The average savings amount is £19,214. 39% of Briton have £1,000 or less in savings, and 25% have £200 or less. The 18–24-year-olds have average of just £2,699 in savings, while those aged 55 and over have an average of £33,420 in savings. Lower savings result in lower household resilience and private pensions. 

Regressive taxation

In principle, what the mode of production denies can be secured though politics. However, successive governments have adopted regressive tax policies which hurt the poorest the most.

Wage earners are taxed at marginal rates of 20% to 45% and pay national insurance. In contrast capital gains and dividends mainly accruing to the well-off, are taxed at the marginal rates of 18% to 24%, and 10.75% to 39.35%. No national insurance is levied.

Income tax personal allowance has been frozen at £12,570 since April 2021.If increased in line with inflation, it would have been £16,048 for 2026/27. As a result, in 2026/27 a basic rate taxpayer on £17,000 a year will pay additional £696 in income tax and another £278 in national insurance contributions. This erodes disposable income of the poorest households. The problems are further compounded by taxes which take no account of income. For example, paupers and super-rich pay council tax at the same rate. A modest house worth £320,000 and a mansion worth £32m fall in the same council tax band. Altogether, the poorest 20% of the population pay a higher proportion of income in direct and indirect taxes than the richest 20%. 

Low incomes affect the capacity to save for pension, but the tax system favours high earners. In 2023-24, total tax relief on contributions to private pension schemes was £78.2bn. Some 13% went to 0.9m additional rate taxpayers; 55% went to 6.03m higher rate taxpayers and only 32% went to 29.2m basic rate taxpayers. The tax system does little to help the poor.

Cost of living crisis

Poverty could be reduced by tackling cost-of-living. But rents and mortgages are not frozen. There are inflation-busting annual increases in the price of water, energy, and broadband. The average UK renter spent 41% of take-home pay on rent in 2025. Social housing would help to reduce rental cost but since the 1980s Right to Buy schemes, 2.8m UK social homes have been sold and not replaced. There isn’t much relief on the horizon. More than 1.3m households (about 4m people) are on a waiting list for a social home, but only 12,198 social homes were built. At this rate, it would take about 119 years to clear the current waiting list.

Unite examined the annual accounts of 17,000 major corporations and found that since the pandemic average profit margins have soared by an average of 30% since the Covid pandemic. Some of the biggest hikes were by electricity and gas supply companies (363%), health and social work (118%), transport and logistics (47%), water and sewerage companies (44%), and mining and quarrying companies (43%).

Public services such as dentistry, veterinary services, childcare and social care have been privatised, enabling operators to make excessive profits and erode people’s disposable incomes.

Concluding thoughts

Poverty is part of social violence that exhausts people and removes hope. The government’s focus on child poverty reduction is welcome but it is hard to discern any policy for dealing with structural factors. No major political party has any strategy for improving workers’ share of GVA. It could be improved by adopting the real living wage or universal basic income, and by strengthening workers’ bargaining power. The Employment Rights Act 2025 omits collective bargaining, which leaves workers in a weak bargaining position. In common with most European countries, the UK could give workers in large companies a say in how the economic pie is shared through employee-elected directors, but industrial democracy and equitable distribution of income and wealth are not on the political agenda.

Poverty can be reduced through progressive taxation, particularly by reducing indirect taxes (e.g. VAT) and by increasing income tax personal allowances. Governments need to tax wealth at higher rates than wages and use the proceeds to recalibrate the incidence of taxation, but in the face of opposition from the super-rich they show little appetite for it.

Many of the cost-of-living pressures arise from profiteering by privatised utilities, such as water and energy, or from oligopolies dominating the market. Governments rarely break-up big conglomerates to create competition and reduce excessive profits. There shun price controls. Higher price of essentials results in higher gross domestic product (GDP) which governments celebrate, but this also increases poverty. Governments do not examine the quality and consequences of higher GDP.

The reversal of the two-child benefit cap shows that when people can secure emancipatory change by resisting and organising to challenge established orthodoxies. More of that is needed to banish state-sponsored poverty.

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If Andy Burnham becomes the next Prime Minister he has the chance to change that. It is a limited chance and voters will watch closely. His challenge is whether he actually delivers or is seen as simply delivering more of the same. He must show that a Labour Government he leads can tackle grotesque levels of inequality, create jobs and offer hope to millions of people who may be giving Labour its last chance.

The Government’s commitment to real change will be judged in education as elsewhere.

For more than a decade now, teachers, support staff, pupils, and their families have endured an ideological experiment defined by austerity, outsourcing, and privatisation. The physical infrastructure of our school estate is literally crumbling in many places, while the workforce holding the entire system together has been pushed to breaking point.

The NASUWT’s Where Has All the Money Gone? report exposed the grim mechanics of one element of this crisis. It showed how billions of pounds have been diverted away from frontline education into layers of private contractors, supply agencies, consultants, and to bloated academy chief executive pay packets. 

Where education is delivered and makes a real difference, classrooms are too often left without the basic resources children need. Schools frequently rely on teachers and parents to plug the gaps from their own pockets.

I believe the electorate wants an end to this marketised hollowing-out of the state. If the new Prime Minister is serious about changing the life chances of children and young people they must recognise that you cannot build a fair and dignified education system on the cheap. 

You cannot run schools on the exploited goodwill of unpaid labour, nor can you expect teachers to deliver excellence in buildings that boil in the summer and leak and freeze in the winter. Anything less than long-term, sustained investment is simply managing the decay of the status quo.

But money alone will not fix the structural failures. There are also profound, transformative changes that will cost the Treasury next to nothing, yet would fundamentally improve the lives of teachers and their pupils.

First, we must restore national pay and conditions. The fragmentation of the school system through mass academisation has created a deeply unfair two-tier workforce. Teachers are doing the exact same jobs, under the same pressures, but can work on very different terms and conditions depending on who they work for. 

A coherent, publicly accountable education service requires a single national entitlement that applies to every teacher in every state-funded school. This is not only fairer but it is the foundation of democratic accountability in public education.

The next priority must be to dismantle the toxic, broken pay-progression system for teachers. Formally linking pay to performance management has achieved nothing but the creation of an oppressive bureaucracy, deep staff resentment, and a culture of fear. 

Restoring automatic pay progression would immediately boost retention, stem the tide of early-career departures, and restore the professional dignity that has been systematically stripped away.

Workload is consistently listed by teachers as one of the biggest drivers causing them to leave the profession. It must be tackled as a priority. Teachers are drowning in endless data entry and administrative tasks that add nothing to a child’s learning. Addressing this crisis does not require a vast funding package. What it does require is political will, a reduction in the over-surveillance of teachers, and meaningful, collaborative negotiation with trade unions – including a national workload agreement – as the NASUWT has long called for.

We must also confront the quiet catastrophe unfolding in our Special Educational Needs (SEND) provision. The current system forces vulnerable children to wait months, sometimes years, for essential specialist assessments while classroom teachers are left stranded without resources. Every school must have immediate access to external specialist staff and emergency funding.

Ultimately the next Labour Prime Minister must confront the failed experiment of marketising the education of our children. The obsessive push to force every school into a multi-academy trust has consumed vast amounts of public money while delivering next to nothing for pupil outcomes. A simple but powerful message would be sent by reversing this decision.

We must rebuild an education service that is democratically accountable to local communities, parents, and families – not run in the interests of corporate academy chains, their chief executives and consultants.

The teaching profession has shown extraordinary patience and through their dedication has shielded our children from the worst impacts of state neglect. 

But that reservoir of goodwill is empty. For Andy Burnham this is a moment to stand with working people, with our communities, with every child who deserves better than managed decline. Teachers and other school staff have carried this system on their backs for too long. 

If Labour truly believes in change, now is the time to prove it with action and not slogans. 

Our schools cannot wait, our children cannot wait, and the Trade Union movement should not wait.

Matt Wrack is general secretary of NASUWT – The Teachers’ Union

Thumbnail image credit: Jess Hurd/NASUWT

Header image credit: Scottish Government – Creative Commons

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Posting on social media, the Reform UK MP wrote:

“Annesley Primary School

“I had a lovely visit to Annesley Primary School today alongside local County Councillor Rory Green.

“I always enjoy visiting schools across the constituency, and meeting the wonderful staff and students.

“They’ve recently had some renovations done, and it was good to discuss plans for the future.

“This is one of the best schools I have been to and I’m proud to have it in my constituency.”

The post was accompanied by a photograph of Anderson smiling alongside several  members of staff. Behind them was a display celebrating ‘British values,’ featuring a Union Jack and a series of messages including: “tolerance of those of different faiths and beliefs,” “democracy – everyone can have their say,” and “individual liberty – everyone is free to make a choice.”

It was these messages that caught the attention of many social media users. Given Anderson’s reputation as a hardline culture-war campaigner and Reform UK’s positions on issues like immigration, multiculturalism and diversity, critics speculated that the display may have been a subtle joke at the MP’s expense.

Many were quick to point out the apparent irony.

“30p Lee has been thoroughly schooled here and appears blissfully unaware of it. Well played, teachers,” posted Truth Against Hate on Facebook.

Others joined in.

“The man in front of him looks like he’s stifling a laugh,” was one comment.

“All he saw was the Union Jack and that was enough for him,” joked another.

Another response mocked right-wing criticism of teachers and schools being regarded ‘woke’:

“You have to love primary teachers. They’re so woke; they indoctrinate children all the time with things like be kind, use your best manners, no bullying, good effort, well tried, everyone is special…”

Whether the display was an intentional dig or simply a standard classroom poster is impossible to know. But for many, the image appeared to capture an amusing contrast between Anderson’s politics and the values being celebrated directly behind him, a contrast they felt he had either missed entirely or chosen to ignore.

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According to a survey by Survation for 38 Degrees, 55% of voters said that posting offensive content would affect their opinion of a candidate. 

Meanwhile, 31% of respondents said this wouldn’t be a factor in deciding how they vote.

The findings come amid scrutiny of social media posts shared by Reform UK’s candidate in the Makerfield by-election, Robert Kenyon.

Kenyon has been found to have shared a series of misogynistic posts and comments supporting far-right figures on social media.

The survey findings suggest that Kenyon’s offensive social media content may impact his electoral chances on 18 June. 

The latest Survation poll of voting intentions in the by-election puts support for Labour’s Andy Burnham at 49%, and Reform on 39%, followed by Restore Britain on 8%, and the Greens on 2%. 

The Conservatives and Lib Dems polled on just 1%. 

Voters also expressed support for keeping measures in the Employment Rights Act, with 72% stating that they want the minimum wage to continue to be set at a level that covers the cost-of-living.

Two-thirds of voters (67%) said they would keep the right to paid bereavement leave after pregnancy loss before 24 weeks, and 57% said they supported day-one sick pay.

These are measures that Reform has said it would get rid of by scrapping the Employment Rights Act if they win a general election.

Just over half of Makerfield residents (51%) said there should be a cap on the maximum amount an individual can donate to a political party or politician. 

Meanwhile, 38% said individuals should be free to donate as much as they choose.

The majority of local voters (54%) also said they support introducing a tax on wealth over £10 million to fund the NHS, schools and other public services, while 28% said a new wealth tax would be “harmful”. 

In regards to public ownership of utilities, a policy which Burnham said he would want to roll out if he becomes prime minister, 73% of Makerfield residents said water companies should be returned to public ownership.

Veronica Hawking, Campaigns Director at 38 Degrees, said: “Makerfield is a microcosm for how many voters across the country are feeling right now. They are crying out for change, and back big bold moves to make our country fairer, build better public services, and ease the cost of living for us all. 

“Returning water companies to public ownership, introducing a wealth tax to fund public services and capping political donations are all policies a majority of voters here support. With all eyes on this by-election, politicians of all parties, and in both Makerfield and beyond should take note, and be ready to fight fearlessly for change like this.” 

Damian Lyons Lowe, Chief Executive at Survation, said: “Voters in Makerfield hold strong views on economic fairness and accountability, and those views cut across traditional party lines. The breadth of support for water renationalisation, a wealth tax and donation caps indicates that these are not fringe positions but mainstream concerns.”

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

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As reported by the Mirror, in a post on X, Kemkaran wrote: “Sorry, call me old fashioned but I believe it’s the parents’ job to give their child the best possible start to the school day.”

The Reform figure made the comment in response to the Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson posting a photo on a visit to a new free breakfast club at a primary school.

Phillipson said: “At Gillas Lane Primary, the new free breakfast club is delivering calmer classrooms, higher standards and happier children. 

“Labour is rolling out breakfast clubs across England to give every child the best possible start to the school day.”

Labour introduced free breakfast clubs, 30-minute sessions before school where children get a free breakfast, to ensure they start every day ready to learn. 

The government has focused on rolling out fully-funded breakfast clubs in primary schools where at least 40% of pupils are eligible for free school meals. 

The Department for Education (DfE) says they save working parents up to £450 a year.

A Labour source told the Mirror: “You’d think Nigel and co would back something that promotes work and responsibility, but they’d rather attack it than stand up for working families. 

“Breakfast clubs give children the best start to the school day and help parents work more to support their families. Reform are making their position crystal clear – they don’t mind if kids go hungry.”

Labour also pointed out that despite Kemkaran’s opposition to free breakfast clubs, there are already 29 of them in Kent, “with more to come”.  

On social media, people criticised the Reform council leader’s position.

One person commented: “What about those who are working in poorly paid jobs or relying on food banks? Do you really begrudge children having a good start to the day?”.

Another wrote: “We have been doing this for years with Greggs Foundation in some schools around here and it has transformed the schooling of the children with better outcomes.

“No surprise Reform the party of billionaires and millionaires opposed it. A policy which benefits workers.”

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

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Geopolitical storms are raging in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa and elsewhere. Conflicts have become more complex with misinformation and disinformation, cyber-attacks, terrorism, blockades, missiles, drones, lasers, and nuclear weapons. Building peace and improving lives of people is being eclipsed by higher military spending. US President Donald Trump wants NATO member states to support US-led wars to grab resources of other countries. He wants to hike the annual US military budget by $445bn to $1.45trn, which will ensure bumper profits for the arms industry.

The UK had defence budget to £62.2bn in 2025/26 (about 2.4% of GDP), increasing to £73.5bn in 2028/29. Following the strategic defence review, the government is committed to increasing defence spending to  3.5% of GDP by 2035 though hawks want it to accelerate faster. They want additional spending to be financed by cuts to welfare spending. In 2025/26 the UK spent 10.6% of GDP on social welfare. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research states that “the UK has some of the least generous welfare across the OECD: the UK ranks in the middle of OECD countries for welfare spending (as a per cent of GDP) and third lowest for welfare value (per cent of average wages).” The hawks are silent on cutting corporate welfare, taxing the super-rich, doing quantitative easing for defence or government borrowing. They just want to hit the old, sick, poor, disabled and the unfortunate to establish a new social order.

The government acknowledges that security of the country depends on resilience of the economy, households and society generally. However, delivering is another matter altogether. It can’t be done without declaring war on poverty, inequities and building an economy that works for everyone.

Here is a glimpse of some of the challenges that the UK faces. Years of austerity, real wage and benefit cuts have eroded household resilience. Some 13.4 million people, including 4m children, live in relative poverty. 25.3m people, including 14.9 working age adults and 7.7m children live in households below the minimum income standard. Work is seen as a way out of poverty, but it does not pay enough. 4.4m people earn less than the real living wage. 1.3m Britons are in insecure zero-hour contracts. The real average wage has hardly changed since 2008. 32% of Universal Credit claimants are in work. The full post-2016 state pension (received by about 35% of retirees) is less than 50% of the minimum wage. Millions rely on food banks and charity to survive. 100,000 people a year die in poverty and over 120,000 die in fuel poverty. 

Unchecked profiteering has created insecurity and anxiety. Around 3.8m people have experienced destitution i.e. they cannot afford to stay warm, dry, clean, clothed and fed. One in every two hundred households in the UK is experiencing homelessness, and the homelessness rate is the highest in OECD countries. Affordable council housing has been sold and not replenished. In the city of Liverpool has 12,764 households on its social housing waiting list. It has just five “additional social rent dwellings,” as local authorities have been starved of resources. Successive governments have promised to build more houses, but none have hit the targets as the UK lacks building materials and skilled labour. Deregulation is the vogue, and it is hard to see plans for dealing with effects of new homes on local infrastructure such as provision of gas, water electricity, road, rail, transport, schools, GPs, dentists, schools, nurseries, jobs, parks, shops and more.

Just 56 people hold more than the combined wealth of 27m Britons. The richest 1% owns 456 times more wealth than a person in the poorest 50%. The poorest half holds just 4.6% of the wealth. Yet the poorest 20% of the population pay a higher proportion of their income in direct and indirect taxes compared to the richest 20%. Some 16% of UK adults have no savings and 39% have less than £1,000 to negotiate emergencies. It is hard to see any sustained government policies for equitable distribution of income and wealth to underpin resilience of households to wars and economic shocks.

Low incomes and inadequate spending on public services have made lives precarious. The UK has a high rate of infant mortality compared with peer countries. British five-year-olds are up to 7cm shorter than children of the same age in Europe. One in four young people in England have a mental health condition. Victorian illnesses like rickets and scurvy have returned. Around 3 million people in the UK are malnourished or at risk of malnutrition. In 2023, 800,000 patients were admitted to hospital with malnutrition and nutritional deficiencies.

Failures of the healthcare system were exposed by the Covid-19 pandemic. Over 232,000 people died. Currently, 6.11m individuals are waiting for 7.22m hospital appointments in England. Some 300,000 people a year die prematurely whilst awaiting a hospital appointment. Around 100,000 Britons suffer a stroke each year, and between 10,000 and 20,000 die or sustain a serious disability because of treatment delays linked to staff shortages. 16.8m people have a disability.

A combination of poverty, poor housing, food, healthcare and public services has reduced healthy life expectancy (HLE) to average of 60.7 years for males and 60.9 years for females. Death rates for 25–49-year-olds are rising. The gap between the most and least deprived deciles in England is now 19.4 years for males and 20.3 years for females. HLE for males in affluent Richmond-upon-Thames is 69.3 years, and 70.3 years for females. In sharp contrast, average HLE in Blackpool is 50.9 years for males and 51.2 years for females. Males living in the most deprived areas in Scotland have average healthy life expectancy of 44.8 years, females 44.2 years. Yet hawks want to cut social welfare and effectively launch a programme of social euthanasia.

No country can face external challenges without a resilient economy. Yet under the obsession of privatisations, private finance initiative and outsourcing of public services, the UK economy has become less resilient. The state cannot guarantee people supply of usable water, clean rivers, safe wastewater disposal, affordable energy, timely healthcare, good housing, decent roads, and public transport. The economy is sluggish and the country is not self-sufficient in food, energy, medicines, auto, steel, shipping, bricks, cement, semiconductors and more. Reliance on imports has made the UK the most inflation prone G7 nation, especially as there are no effective curbs on profiteering. There is little effective competition to keep prices down. Very few companies dominate sectors such as banking, internet, mobile phones, grocery, medicines, energy, and water.

Infrastructure woes abound. Since privatisation in 1989, water companies have paid  over £85bn in dividends, and neglected investment. The average age of Thames Water infrastructure is 79 years, and 40% of its assets are over 100 years old. The average for the water industry in England is 56 years. At the current rate of renewal, it would take 700 years to replace water networks. The UK has two days of gas reserves, compared to several weeks for mainland Europe. In times of high winds, the government pays companies to turn-off wind turbines as the UK lacks good electricity transmission and storage facilities. This is expected to cost hit £8bn a year by 2030. To cope with a warlike situation, there are no parallel networks to maintain supply of clean water, energy, or internet. Reliance upon foreign suppliers for essential items means that the governments can be held to ransom. Recently, the government agreed to pay additional £64bn for NHS drugs for US corporations for the period to 2036. Yet there is no national programme to address such issues, and markets cannot deliver national planning. 

A resilient economy needs investment and the UK lags major competitors. In 2025, it invested 18.9% of GDP in productive assets, the lowest amongst G7 nations. It is over 40% for China and 33.5% for India where the state plays an active part in the economy. In recent years, the UK has had low rates of interest, inflation, and corporate taxes, but that did not spur investment. For most of the last thirty years, the UK has languished at or near the bottom of the OECD league of investment. Inevitably, productivity is low. A shrinking middle class and low spending power of the masses does not incentivise private investment. At the same time, direct investment by the state in productive assets in frowned upon. 

The City of London has never had the appetite for long-term investment and risks. It prefers short-term returns to satisfy investors. The government could arrest this by reforming corporate governance, payment of dividends and share buybacks, directors’ duties and through democratisation of corporations but despite promises no reform has materialised.

It is easy for governments to talk about preparedness for wars and mobilise people’s patriotic sentiments, but successive governments have undermined household and economic resilience. The problems caused by neoliberalism cannot be addressed by bigger doses of neoliberal policies which prioritise profits and corporate interests over people’s welfare. War on poverty and exploitation is the key requirement of building a resilient economy and society.

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