What would have happened with the current situation of the coronavirus outbreak that would be different if we had a Progressive Party Government instead of today's leadership?

Progressive European Party

Let us put aside, for the moment, the complete lack of preparation for this (or any other) pandemic. I would hope that a Progressive administration would have known that there were not enough respirators, personal protective equipment, testing kits and hospital beds to meet any possible demand. At the very least, we would have put into action plans to address the shortages long before the present Government. I have no way of knowing, however, if we would have been able to foresee all of the problems that have arisen. Many other developed economies have fallen woefully short in their own preparations. It is possible, therefore, that a Progressive administration would also have been caught off guard. I can, nevertheless, be certain that our economic rescue packages would have been very much more effectively prepared than those that we are seeing now. The present government's response is an ad hoc, improvised, on-the-hoof package. It is cumbersome because it involves different levels of help for citizens who have lost their jobs, been temporarily laid off, or are self-employed and for businesses themselves. Most of these poorly prepared measures would not even have been necessary under the system proposed in our Progressive manifesto. One of the pillars of Progressive Policy is the Citizen's Income. Our existing proposals provide that every citizen should receive an income that is adequate to cover the basic necessities of life, regardless of whether they work or not. There would simply have been no need to give anyone extra money from public funds as a result of this emergency. The situation for businesses would also be very different. Our proposed tax system provides that tax is paid only on profits. There are no additional tax burdens on businesses, no business rates or employers national insurance contributions to pay. Businesses would either still be working, possibly with a temporarily reduced staff, or they might have to close altogether because of COVID-19. In the latter case, however, they would still be in a better position to start again from scratch as soon as this crisis has come to an end. The piecemeal way in which our Government has met this health crisis is not only the result of us being governed by a party which won the recent General Election with nothing but meaningless soundbites and no substantial policies. It is also indicative of the fundamental shortcomings of the current system of democracy in the UK. Like Brexit, COVID-19 shows how far from real democracy our present form of "representative" democracy actually is. Our Government is controlled by an unelected adviser while our Prime Minister (who has no ideas of his own) is nothing more than a role-playing actor and a charlatan. I suppose that it is some consolation that, now that lives are being lost and our economy is so severely threatened, the Government has finally managed to find the magic money tree that was proving so elusive to them in the past. Philip Notley (edited by John Coats)

philip@progeuroparty.co.uk