2021-22 – Rich Law, Poor Law

Abolishing billionaires: Why do billionaires exist? Should they?

Billionaires are a sign of economic failure and cannot be justified on any ground.

Wealth inequality:

Globally, Oxfam International revealed in 2020 that the world’s 2,153 billionaires are wealthier than 60% of the population (4.6 billion people). Similarly, in a survey conducted by Office for National Statistics between April 2018-March 2020, it was found that “the wealthiest 10% of households held 43%” of all of Great Britain’s wealth while the “bottom 50% held only 9%”. The names that can be seen at the top of the UK’s 2022 Rich List are the likes of:

Sri and Gopi Hinduja, worth over £28bn, in the industry and finance sector.
Sir James Dyson, at £23bn, in household goods and tech (Dyson).
David and Simon Reuber, worth over £22bn, having sourced their wealth from the property and internet sector.

How do billionaires become billionaires?

A number of factors come into play here. Approximately 1/3rd of billionaires come from privileged backgrounds, and thus their wealth is inherited. The remaining 2/3rds (with $30 million or more net worth) are considered “self-made”. It would be difficult to argue that individuals who become wealthy through their own hard-work don’t deserve it – right? But there may be foul-play involved.

Rebekka Ayres is of the contention that it is not possible to be a self-made billionaire, arguing that “this is the language of a larger myth that justifies wealth inequality” by reinforcing that people are poor merely because they are lazy or have made bad choices. In reality, the wealthy do not always pay their honest tax percentages, finding loopholes that are out of reach for most working-class families: last year, Rishi Sunak’s family was accused by Labour of avoiding paying tens of millions in taxes. Jurisdictions with tax havens (low taxation rates) also come in handy. The top 3 “biggest enablers of global corporate tax abuse” were the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, and Bermuda, all of which fall under British overseas territories. The tax money denied by billionaires to governments could have been spent on schools or hospitals.

Exploitative labour practices are also relevant. Whether directly or indirectly, the ultra-rich are profiting from an unjust economic system, and aiding such injustice by for example, “denying workers a living wage” and “ensuring that medicine and health care costs remain high”. One example can be seen in the sex-work industry, with OnlyFans facing scrutiny for reports of “filmed child sexual abuse, sex trafficking, and other non-consensually recorded sex acts” on its website.

And then there is the role of political affiliations – billionaires shaping policies to prioritise their own agendas. An “elite Tory dining club” that enjoyed “direct access to Boris Johnson” has given the Conservative Party more than £130 million since 2010. With the Tory party depending on such funding, it is suggestive that the super rich are helping to pull the strings behind the scenes.

Should billionaires exist?

Ayres called the existence of billionaires “immoral”, which I would struggle to disagree with. But it is worth assessing the impact of so few having so much.

For starters, does having billions make people happy? Research conducted in 2019 suggested that “the “income satiation” point” was approximately €55,000/year, indicating that sitting in the billions is unnecessary for maximising emotional wellbeing.

And does the presence of billionaires actually lead to growth, social mobility and climate justice? When examining the effect of billionaires on a country’s economy, Ana Swanson summarises the two sides of the argument: the classic position is that inequality propels growth as the benefits of their investments and innovations trickle-down for the rest of society to enjoy and that wealth-redistributive programs are inefficient; others argue that inequality drags growth because it ensures the poor stay poor and it leads to political instability. In fact, research conducted by Sutirtha Bagchi and Jan Svejnar found that “the higher the proportion of billionaire wealth in a country, the slower that country’s growth”. While it is true that billionaires create jobs and wages, justifying billionaires on this basis falters when workers are struggling to survive, especially now given the energy crisis. Quoting Thomas Piketty, Max Lawson wrote: “no matter how justified inequalities of wealth may be initially, fortune can grow beyond any rational justification in terms of social utility”. The reality is that the existence of billionaires impairs social mobility and economic progress.

The picture isn’t much brighter when looking at carbon emissions. Oxfam reports that billionaires annually are “responsible for a million times more greenhouse gases than the average person”. It’s not like they can’t afford to put climate change action plans in place!

What should be done?

Politicians from both the Labour and the Conservative party can be seen to promote the notion of equality of opportunity and social mobility, yet this is impossible alongside a “grossly unequal society”. A “disadvantaged child will nearly always and everywhere become a disadvantaged adult” due to poorly run schools and lack of support available at home. Achieving a meritocracy then, which is a system’s rankings based on an individual’s abilities and their merit, is impossible to do without dealing with the surrounding inequalities. Equality of opportunity will remain an illusion if the gap between the rich and the poor is not reduced – an easy place to start is addressing the problem of billionaires.

How, then, can the billions of billionaires be redistributed? Along with “correcting under-taxation, legislators must close loopholes to make tax laws watertight”. This money can then be directed towards funding for the NHS, an overworked and under-funded system. There may even be scope to argue for the introduction of a Universal Basic Income which involves regularly giving citizens a sum of income. But working towards eradicating poverty and building fairer societies means bringing “an end to extreme wealth” being held in the hands of so few.

Author: Talita Zavrsnik de Campos

Statelessness in the Twenty-First Century: Why Hannah Arendt’s concept of ‘the right to have rights’ remains pertinent in the present day.

By Sophie Spitz

As long as mankind is nationally and territorially organized in states, a stateless person is not simply expelled from one country, native or adopted, but from all countries … which means he is actually expelled from humanity.
– Hannah Arendt 1957

On 5 May 1940, Parisian newspapers announced that men and unmarried or childless women between the ages of 17 and 55, who had come from Germany, the Saar or Danzing, must report to internment camps. Labelled as ‘enemy aliens’, these refugees were instructed to carry enough food for two days, eating utensils and suitcases weighing up to 30 kilogrammes (Young-Bruehl 2004, p.151).Hannah Arendt, a well-known twentieth century intellectual and a German refugee, was transported to the French internment camp Gurs. In May 1941 Arendt managed to escape Gurs alongside 200 of the 7,000 women in the camp. It could have been worse, and for many it was. Most of the women who remained at Gurs were shipped to extermination camps and killed by the Nazis.

Nevertheless, Arendt bore witness to the rise of fascism and its consequences. She was stateless for 18 years, moving through five countries between 1933 and 1941, eventually settling in New York. Arendt’s experience of history, against the tumultuous and catastrophic events of the twentieth century, lead her to reflect on the meanings of social justice and human nature. Her own history taught her that the impossible could become possible with unthinkable speed and brutality.

Having been stripped of her own humanity by the Nazis, Arendt used her lived experience to illustrate the catastrophic implications of statelessness. In her book The Origins of Totalitarianism, she formulated a theoretical concept known as the ‘right to have rights’, which could be applied to any refugee, not just to Jews who fled Nazi Germany. Arendt explained that when refugees lost their political community, they were also deprived of their most basic human rights. This unique problem revealed that the eighteenth-century enlightenment ideal of the ‘inalienable Rights of Man’, said to apply regardless of nationality, race, and religion, had disappeared in the real world. Outside the law and without any government protection, refugees were deprived of their homes, political status, equality before the law, freedom of opinion, and as Arendt emphasised, ‘any community whatsoever’. (Arendt 1973, p.295) Human rights had become bound up with belonging to a nation state. Arendt stated, ‘man, as it turns out, can lose all so-called Rights of Man without losing his essential quality as man, his human dignity. Only the loss of a polity itself expels him from humanity’. (Arendt 1973, p.297) Arendt continued;

We became aware of the existence of a right to have rights (and that means to live in a framework where one is judged by one’s actions and opinions) and a right to belong to some organised community, only when millions of people emerged who had lost and could not regain these rights because of the new political situation. – Arendt 1973, p.296

Seyla Benhabib, in her book The Rights of Others, argued that ‘the right to have rights’ uses the word ‘right’ in two different ways. The first ‘right’ is a claim that the right to membership is a moral imperative. The second ‘right’ is understood to mean all political or civil rights. Therefore, the ‘right to have rights’ is the entitlement of all individuals to the legal entitlement possessed by all citizens. (Benhabib 2004, p.56)The legal entitlement can be broken down into five areas; the right to a place in the world where human action and thought can take place; the right to nationality; the right to citizenship; the right to humanity and the right to political agency. (Kesby 2012, p.6)

The ‘right to have rights’ has not lost its currency in our current moment. This year marks a century since the infamous 1921 Russian decree denaturalising many Russian citizens living abroad, and 80 years since the Nuremberg Laws of 1941, which stripped German Jews of their citizenship. Today the land and sea passages into Europe are navigated, at great personal risk, by large numbers of stateless pariahs. It is estimated that at least 10 million people across the globe are stateless and moves are afoot to fashion some form of legal protection; to recognise statelessness as a human rights matter. For example, an order of the Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, on 19 February 2019, deprived Shamima Begum of her British citizenship on the grounds that doing so was ‘conducive to the public good’. In a case heard by the UK Supreme Court in 2021, the court upheld a further order refusing Begum permission to enter the UK to appeal the deprivation of her citizenship. One need not hold any brief for Begum to recognise how precarious citizenship can, and has, become. The 2021 Nationality and Borders Bill, backed by MPs during its second reading on 20 July, proposes changes that will add complexity, delay, inequality, and dysfunction to the immigration system. As an ever-increasing number of people across the globe are unable to secure meaningful membership of any political community, Arendt’s concept of a ‘right to have rights’ remains a fundamental aspiration.

References:

Arendt to Hutchins, Fund for the Republic, 27th January 1957 in Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2004).

Arendt, Hannah, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1973).

Benhabib, Seyla, The Rights of Others: Alien Residents and Citizens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

Kesby, Alison, The Right to Have Rights: Citizenship, Humanity and International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

Young-Bruehl, Elisabeth, Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2004).

Sophie is a history graduate from the University of Bristol, former president of Bristol University Amnesty Society and former treasurer for Student Action for Refugees. She has a keen interest in intellectual and gender history and is beginning a Masters Degree in ‘History of Political Thought and Intellectual History’ jointly awarded by UCL and Queen Mary University.

The ugly truth: how the quest to ‘beautify’ urban spaces is demolishing affordable housing

By Miranda Daniel

The landscape of urban spaces looks very different today to how it did fifty years ago. Exclusive luxury apartment blocks now stand where sink estates once stood. Some hail this beautification of urban spaces as a triumph of the regeneration policies that originated in Thatcher’s ‘Help to Buy’ scheme and were intensified by New Labour’s ‘urban renaissance’ agenda. However, an ugly truth hides behind the aesthetic façade. Urban regeneration schemes have depleted social housing, as capital-hungry developers default on their promises to build affordable housing alongside their investment properties.

The financialization of housing has transformed how property is viewed in the neoliberal world. Financialization describes the process by which financial markets and institutions gain greater influence over economic policy. Housing is viewed increasingly as a vehicle for accumulating wealth rather than for social good. Financialization is a key actor in regeneration schemes, because private equities have discovered the potential capital trapped in the modernization of social housing estates. In exchange for a pretty building, local authorities are more and more willing to give private developers free reign to demolish social housing estates and build investment properties in their place.

Council estates have long been criticised as epicentres of violence and deprivation. At the heart of property-led regeneration schemes is the view that, by improving urban spaces, opportunities will trickle down into the surrounding, less well-off areas. However, in order to create a supportive climate to attract and secure private sector investment to finance the regeneration schemes, local authorities have taken a developer-friendly approach that overrides concerns about affordable housing. Sadiq Khan, London’s mayor, presents estate regeneration as a solution to the soaring cost of housing in London. In reality, estate regeneration has resulted in a net loss of social housing and the dispersal of the communities that lived there.

Regeneration schemes are a trojan horse for the demolition of council housing. The resulting redevelopments are overwhelmingly comprised of properties for private sale, with hugely reduced numbers of homes for social rent. This is because private companies are focused on profit, with little regard for communities and properties as ‘homes’ as opposed to assets. Take the Heygate Estate. In 2010, Southwark Council partnered with Lendlease, a private entity, on the ‘regeneration’ of the Heygate Estate in London. The Heygate Estate once provided 1200 social homes to more than 3000 people. Its replacement, the luxurious Elephant Park, hosts just 83 social homes.

There are mechanisms in place to stop regeneration schemes from demolishing the social housing stock. The Guide for Good Practice in Estate Regeneration states that demolition and rebuilding should only be chosen as part of estate regeneration where this does not result in a loss of social housing. Similarly, s.106 obligations require developers to build a percentage of affordable housing alongside any development. However, as financial markets play an ever-greater role in the UK economy, the government increasingly panders to the will of developers. Viability assessments allow developers to reduce the number of affordable houses they build on their site, if they can show that building them risks reducing their profits to below 20%. Evidently, social housing policy is increasingly prioritising profit over people.

In further efforts to reduce social housing obligations, proposals have been put forward to replace s.106 contributions with an ‘infrastructure levy’. The infrastructure levy would mean that developers pay a fixed proportion of their scheme’s value to the council, which the council will then be able to use to help secure affordable housing on a development. Undoubtedly, the infrastructure levy would result in a net loss of social housing, considering that s.106 obligations have been described as ‘an obstacle to house building’, and over 80% of planning authorities agree that planning obligations cause delays. However, s.106 has been called ‘the single biggest contribution to building new affordable homes in the country’. In 2019, s.106 enabled the delivery of nearly 28,000 affordable homes, about half of the total in this category. Indeed, the paper that puts forward the abolition of s.106 laments that ‘there is not enough focus on design’ in housing, however it seems odd to view design as the key concern when we consider how 253,000 people are trapped in unstable temporary accommodation in the UK.

Not only do property-led regeneration schemes destroy social housing stock, the little social housing that is being built as replacement demotes those tenants to second-class citizens. Many developers build separate entrances for affordable housing tenants living in new builds. Whilst the better-off tenants get opulent lobbies, the affordable housing tenants are forced to use alternative entrances, such as this side-alley entrance. So-called ‘poor doors’ are such a widespread practice that the developers of one property argued that separate entrances would be too difficult to implement in the development, and therefore the council should negate their affordable housing obligation. Whilst the government has proposed to tackle ‘poor doors’ in new housing developments, the solution offered is not a total ban. This shows an implicit recognition by the government that social housing tenants decrease the desirability of housing developments.

Whilst urban regeneration schemes may create more beautiful spaces, the social utility of these spaces is severely limited if they do not serve all members of their communities. Social housing tenants have just as great a right to housing as their more affluent neighbours. To reflect this, housing policy ought to aid the creation of safe, stable, affordable housing for the most disadvantaged and vulnerable members of our community. The current trend of facilitating the financialization of housing, by weakening social housing commitments, acts as a mode of segregating and oppressing those on lower incomes. We need to return to viewing housing as homes, rather than assets. We need a government that is genuinely committed to putting the needs and rights of the people above private developers’ need for profit.

Miranda is a Final Year LLB Law student, keen to work in the international development/ NGO field. She is particularly interested in human rights, criminology and access to healthcare. When she is not studying, Miranda enjoys cycling, baking bread and travelling.

Mapping out the Universal Income Debate

By Charlie Bevis

In recent years, universal income (UI) schemes – those that would offer a regular, direct, unconditional, financial supplement to all citizens – has risen like a phoenix from the ashes of ‘never-gonna-happen’ to garner serious debate. With trials in several countries, support from across the political spectrum and an uptake in direct financial supplement policies during the pandemic, is UI the panacea that some promise?

In truth, it’s very difficult to say. The myriad UI proposals differ widely in the amount they would pay out, how they would be funded and their impact on the pre-existing benefits system. Accordingly, the benefit to working people of introducing a UI scheme cannot be so easily distilled into a clear answer. Nonetheless, we can identify both the immense potential and lurking concerns of UI in order to better understand the current debate.

The main benefit of a well-financed UI scheme would be the elimination of poverty, an achievement that cannot be overstated. Whilst this might seem fanciful, Darrick Hamilton from the New School’s Institute on Race and Political Economy, a proponent of UI, states succinctly: “you give people enough resources so they’re not poor”. Admittedly, funding can be a harder nut to crack, this will be returned to later. The recipient must also be able to decide themselves how to use the supplement. Vouchers that can only be used in certain ways, such as for food or housing, are patronising and tend to be an inefficient resource.

Additionally, unconditional payments would unshackle many from the trauma of the current benefits system. Alison Garnham of the Child Poverty Action Group argues that means-testing creates a needlessly complex system that is painful to access and deters people from accessing the funds they are rightly owed. Furthermore, testing validates the shallow norm that one’s value stems from being in work and encourages the stigmatisation of the unemployed, even when they are unable to work or there are no suitable jobs available.

It is undeniable that a well-funded universal income scheme is the only guaranteed means to ensure that no one falls through the gaps.

Following this, the knock-on benefit would be a profound cultural shift in the way that we view work. A UI of any amount would vastly improve the employee-employer power balance, granting jobseekers the security to request higher salaries, safer work environments and better benefits. This would undoubtedly trigger a rise in conditions across the labour market; a change that cannot come sooner as the gig economy forces workers than ever to take on greater risks for less pay.

Moreover, guaranteed income would create breathing room for the poorest to invest in their futures rather than immediately turning to work to sustain themselves. Many could study for longer, start their own businesses or “turn their passions into their vocations”. These are all pathways that are usually reserved for the rich, those with the cushion of savings in case they should fail in their endeavour. This is a cushion that skews white and male as generational wealth and discriminationary hiring and promotion processes continue to prevent wealth accumulation by women and ethnic minorities.

Of course, those who fear radical social change will claim that UI would mark the end of work altogether and leave humans with no purpose. Not only do studies consistently disprove these claims, the naysayers miss that it is this purpose that humans derive from work – even when not motivated by the need to sustain themselves – that is the very reason the masses will remain productive following the implementation of UI. This is proven by a study in Finland which found that the subjects were living more fulfilling lives with lower rates of depression and loneliness.

Direct regular, unconditional payments have the epic potential to redistribute wealth and rebalance employee-employer power for the benefit of all. The systematic dismantling of the welfare state requires a radical response and UI would mark the most significant step towards the eradication of poverty and improvement in general well-being in decades, if not ever.

UI schemes are not perfect, however, and there are significant concerns to be addressed. The two most dominant being (a) surface-level fiscal concerns and (b) that these schemes provide an opportunity for creeping neoliberalism.

As for the former, it is self-evident that any UI scheme would be eye-wateringly expensive. My generation has known little other than harsh austerity policies and I’ll admit that the idea of the government forking out billions on any new scheme seems unthinkable. Nonetheless, let’s break down the math. The House of Commons Library estimated that giving each adult £100 per week would cost £314 billion per year and an LSE study found than a £8,700 per annum UI would cost £400 billion. That would be nearly double the UK government’s entire budget for benefits in 2020/21.

Yet, Karl Widerquist of Georgetown University argues that these figures do not account for the savings that would be made by reducing corporate subsidies and tax credits. His calculation is that a poverty-ending UI figure of £7,706 per adult per year would add £67 billion to the UK government’s expenditure whilst guaranteeing a net financial gain to those in the lowest 70% of income distribution. Whilst still expensive, this represents a far more manageable figure. Additional income or estate taxes could be raised to pay for the scheme, as proposed by the economist Annie Lowrey, allowing UI to redistribute wealth even more efficiently. Further savings would be made by public services, such as the NHS and the police, spending less time treating the symptoms of poverty, including mental health crises and violent crime.

Unfortunately, these concerns about affordability create an opportunity for the neo-liberal proponents of UI schemes to enter the debate. The argument made by Sam Bowman of the Adam Smith Institute and others is that the introduction of UI would justify substantial cuts to benefits, practically “ditching most of the DWP”, in order to minimise the role of the state. Whilst our benefits system remains in dire need of reform, universal income could not be our sole safety net. For those that would not be able to supplement their income, such as those with serious disabilities, additional benefits would be necessary to secure their position well above the poverty line. As Ellie Mae O’Hagan notes, the left may regret its demands for UI if we allow those same politicians that generated the catastrophic Universal Credit to determine a ‘fair’ basic income whilst tightening the government’s purse strings in the process.

A final point to be made is somewhat outside the intricacies of the UI debate but overshadows the entire discussion. Before any such programme could be introduced, the electorate would need to overcome an entrenched and visceral opposition to policies that grant the poorest with something without them having to work to earn it. Political scientist Jamila Michener argues that this perspective is not socially productive, often causing schemes to be cancelled even if all the stakeholders involved – the recipient, local authorities, the government, and the community – are better off because of it. This is perhaps the major hurdle to UI: our entrenchment within a capitalist ideology has blinded us to value beyond wage-labour, stalling generous and affordable programmes that would make us all better off in the long-run.

Evidently, the UI debate is a minefield of varied proposals and contradictory intentions. Amongst the competing claims, I am yet to find one that responds to every critic and presents itself as truly viable in our current political climate. Nonetheless, UI is an idea with immense potential and a growing body of research that proves so. We must therefore develop the self-awareness and courage to challenge our conditioned beliefs about work and poverty in order to make universal income a reality.

Charlie is a final year law student. He will be starting his LPC in January 2022.

THE CAUTIONARY TALE OF MR HANCOCK

By Ella Kennedy

Way back in the year 2021, there lived a man named Matt Hancock. Mr Hancock was a very important man: he was the Health Secretary at a time when a deadly virus was wreaking havoc across the United Kingdom. As Health Secretary, Mr Hancock was in charge of setting rules for The People in order to prevent them from spreading the virus. Luckily for Mr Hancock, he was not one of The People – he was Matt Hancock. This meant that he did not consider himself subject to the rules that he imposed on everyone else.

Throughout the duration of the virus, Mr Hancock ordered The People to remain 2 metres apart from each other so as not to pass on the virus through physical contact – a rule known at the time as ‘social distancing’. On the whole, The People stuck to this rule, meeting up outside for socially distanced walks and picnics, and moving out of each other’s way in shops and on the street. Mr Hancock, on the other hand, did not have to follow his own rules. So, while everyone else was keeping their distance from each other, Mr Hancock was getting very close with his aide, Gina Coladangelo. It seemed Mr Hancock had no fear of catching the deadly virus from Mrs Coladangelo! What bravery he demonstrated.

Sometimes, Mr Hancock’s friends were allowed to break the rules too. During the worst of the virus, Mr Hancock ordered The People to stay at home except for exercise, essential shopping, and medical needs. If The People were caught out of their homes for any other reason, they would be fined. However, the chief advisor to the government, Dominic Cummings, felt it necessary to drive from his home in London to his parent’s home in Durham during this time. While in Durham, Mr Cummings took the opportunity to visit Barnard Castle, a local tourist attraction. Luckily for Mr Cummings, he was a good friend of Mr Hancock’s, who saw to it that he would not be punished for his nice day out. How good of Mr Hancock to have his friend’s back.

Mr Hancock didn’t much like following other people’s rules, either. One of his tasks as Health Secretary was to obtain things like tests for the virus and masks to protect hospital staff while they worked night and day to save lives. Normally in these circumstances, Mr Hancock would have been required by law to weigh up different available suppliers and determine which offered the best service. However, that seemed like an awful lot of work to Mr Hancock. So, he just asked some of his old friends if they would help out. Luckily, lots of his friends jumped at the chance to obtain government contracts worth millions of pounds – what great friends Mr Hancock had, helping him out in such difficult circumstances.

Throughout all this, Mr Hancock would make regular television appearances broadcast to the nation, demanding that The People continue to follow the rules. He stressed that the virus would only go away if The People followed his orders, and strongly condemned those who disobeyed. Clearly, though, this message was not extended to himself or his rich and powerful friends.

While Mr Hancock was smooching his aide and Mr Cummings was enjoying a day out in Durham, elsewhere in the country The People suffered. Because of social distancing rules, families were not able to see their loved ones in hospital for their final days of their lives, and mothers gave birth to their children without their partners by their sides. Because of the stay at home rule, elderly people in care homes went weeks without seeing their relatives, and millions of people were unable to attend the funerals of their nearest and dearest. The fines imposed on those who broke the rules were sometimes of enormous value – up to £10,000 for significant breaches – and imposed for trivial things, such as driving for 10 minutes to have a socially distanced walk. The People started to see how unfair it was that Mr Hancock was able to break the rules while they had to adhere to them even in the most tragic of circumstances.

To make matters worse, Mr Hancock’s friends who had offered to supply tests and masks turned out to be not very good at their jobs. Hospitals were given masks and gowns which could not be used for medical purposes; thousands of tests had to be thrown away due to concerns that they were contaminated; and millions of pounds’ worth of supplies never materialised. By not following the proper rules to find the best suppliers, Mr Hancock cost the government billions of pounds, at a time when the economy was going downhill and the National Health Service was in desperate need of more funding. Had Mr Hancock supplied the hospitals with the correct equipment, they would have been able to operate more safely, and fewer people would have died.

By not following the rules to which everyone else was subject, Mr Hancock was exposed as a hypocrite, and held partially responsible for the 128,000+ lives that were taken from the United Kingdom. His ultimate resignation from his position as Health Secretary, though long awaited, was no consolation to those who had lost loved ones to the virus.

The moral of this story is that even those at the top must follow the rules. From his resignation video, it seemed that Mr Hancock had learned this lesson, since he conceded that ‘those of us who make these rules have got to stick by them’. If only he had realised this sooner, the Tale of Mr Hancock may not have been so tragic.

Ella is a fourth year Law student, with interests in social justice, human rights and public law. Next year she is taking the BPC to begin her journey to the bar.

Will COVID-19 Lead to a Permanently More Generous Welfare System?

By Syra Flaxman-Ali

COVID-19 has undoubtedly and irreversibly changed life as we know, and our welfare state is no exception. The welfare state previously underwent unprecedented levels of expansion following WWII, with benefits becoming universal to all, including immigrants. This widening of the accessibility of welfare provisions was attributable to the indiscriminate effects of war, equalising the population and creating a sense of solidarity, as people suffered regardless of their income and wealth. Following the rise of COVID-19, 104.6% more people are relying on Universal Credit and the government has increased the standard allowance given to all age groups. This demonstrates a remarkable shift in the government’s approach to welfare; however, the more significant question is whether this will continue following the imminent post-COVID-19 recovery.

It is important not to overstate the seemingly radical effects that events such as war or a pandemic can have on developing welfare. In the decades following WWII, support for the welfare state dissipated, and neoliberalism took hold, suggesting we should expect to see a repeat contraction of the increased welfare currently provided following COVID-19. This means that whilst the general increase in welfare is a positive advancement, critical in maintaining this is that the public continues viewing the welfare state as an important system for all, not just in times of crisis, understanding that a permanently more generous welfare state is required in order to reduce existing inequalities.

The public has acknowledged that uncontrollable external circumstances, such as the economic recession and a reduced demand for labour, as a result of the pandemic remain legitimate reasons for increased demand upon the welfare state, retreating from the dominant discourse that benefits create an “underclass”. However, with the public and businesses being promised a return ‘to normal’ post July 2021, this sentiment may, unfortunately, be fleeting. Businesses are starting to reopen; many of which will be looking to cut costs to counteract the effects of lockdown, and if welfare is cut, will likely experience a fall in demand. Combined, these factors mean that the need for labour is likely to shrink and thus deepen the economic divide between company owners and shareholders and workers unable to secure jobs for their livelihoods. Accordingly, the country’s reopening will likely lead to a resurge in pre-COVID-19 misconceptions (that there are copious job opportunities and those who are unemployed, are so willingly), which in turn could lead to the reduction of welfare in both amount and accessibility as iterations of the ‘undeserving class’ begin to rear their ugly head again.

Another factor signalling a future retreat from social security provision is that, unlike post-WWII, and contrary to commentators who argue that COVID-19 has taken a toll on people’s ability to work across the income distribution range, COVID-19 has not affected people indiscriminately. The economic effects of COVID-19 have largely impacted poorer people, who tend to occupy manual jobs, which either halted (creating a need to rely on the benefits system), or continued (elevating their risk of contracting COVID19 through risk of working and inappropriate provision of PPE). The alternative to home working is either risking your health and safety to continue employment, or refusing to work which has implications in terms of eligibility for welfare dependency.

In comparison, wealthier people are more likely to provide services or be offered home working opportunities. The pandemic also caused the rich to economise, through savings on expendables such as lunches out at the office – a class-specific saving. As a result, this group have experienced a relatively smaller amount of job losses and COVID-19 has had a reduced effect on their incomes with many saving to improve their financial state. It is thus difficult to foster solidarity in such unequal circumstances where middle class workers cannot relate to the needs faced by the poor in terms of social support.

In contrast, the furlough scheme is set to continue until the end of September, suggesting that increased welfare is set to last. In fact, the furlough scheme has acted as an implicit bailout for banks and landlords, with 64% of landlords pocketing the money rather than using it for essentials, such as mortgage payments. Meanwhile, workers struggling to make ends meet pre-COVID-19 have experienced a 20% decrease in their already limited income, putting them in a far worse financial state despite government support. As well as this, the “mortgage holidays” and ‘rent breaks’, which could have equalised the nation by depriving rentiers of their income, is set to divide us financially further. Given that furlough and debt postponements have made rentiers better off, they will not find this common cause with those struggling and will be eager for this welfare to be cut back.

In conclusion, COVID-19 has made the poor poorer and more reliant on the welfare system but has not had an equal effect on the rich. COVID-19 and the government’s policies have instead intensified income inequality, leaving a gap in solidarity needed to stimulate welfare state spending. Although the general public consensus is that the disadvantaged deserve the state’s help, demonstrating that we are not ignorant to our position in society, neoliberal capitalism will always mean that those in charge are heavily influenced by what is in their best interests. Because we have seen that COVID-19 disproportionately affects poorer people, the government will likely once again be pressured to adhere to the wants of the rich electorate and to disregard the needs of the “low skilled few”.

Syra is a final year law student at Bristol. She is pursuing a career at the Bar and has particular interests in Family Law and Immigration Law.

The Great Unequaliser – A Poem for those Colonised

Hands work in sun and rain

It’s toil but it’s not

Taxing

Fields. Rivers that snake around

Ancient trees

Desert sand and mountains

All feel man’s footprints

But do not stir

then Greed.

New men stride across

Old lands – welcomed,

Then feared

Generosity is repaid with deceit,

Kind hearts exchange grain for

Pox.

Englishmen’s throats stuffed with Indian rice

Boundary lines, an aristocrat’s noose around what was lush green, tightens

No more Unbound freedom

Mills pierce where church spires had only grazed

The skies, now red and black

Spreading

‘But you cannot own the Land, Sir

the Land owns

You’ he doesn’t hear –

Too busy mixing Other’s labour with

Other’s soil to stake

his hold over the Lion’s share to care

That your claim is older and greater than his, that the woods

Pine for your songs

Capitalism –

That spat word which breaks nature’s

Equilibrium

Enlarges and seeps into papers stamped with Royal seal

And what is a peasant? a ‘savage’, a slave

But a Woman, Beautiful

Black

You can strike off Her hands but you shall not silence

Her voice.

How do we make up for those before times? What remedy

to heal these wounds so painful

It hurts to look at them.

Only humility, only deference

Wet tears for long-dry bones

Lift them up and remember them

Don’t hide them away, nor

Dethrone

Rosie Muncer

May 2021

GameStop: A demonstration of the Power of Finance

By Sam Matravers

In early February 2021, Bloomberg reported that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is investigating whether any users of Reddit committed fraud whilst discussing stocks from companies such as GameStop, AMC and BlackBerry which reached record highs in January. It is unsurprising that the SEC is investigating small-time investors rather than hedge funds, but equally as disappointing. The Reddit GameStop saga perfectly demonstrates how financialisation has allowed financial institutions to create their own version of law, a version that excludes the majority and continues to enrich the 1%.

Reddit: an introduction

Reddit is an online discussion board that describes itself as ‘the front page of the internet.’ It is the eighteenth most popular website in the world, with monthly traffic of more than 165 million people in the US alone. The GameStop saga can be traced back to one user, Keith Gill. He posted his research about GameStop on a page on Reddit called WallStreetBets; explaining why GameStop’s share price, at that time $6, was undervalued. Gill bought ‘options’, which are contracts that allow an individual to bet on the price of a stock increasing or decreasing, and then to buy the shares at the price they bet on. For example, Gill bought an option which valued the price of GameStop at $16 even when the actual price was $300, netting him a large profit.

At the time of his first post, Gill was met with derision from many users who told him he was likely to lose all of his investment. However, in January his theory started to gain traction on Reddit, leading to a surge in posts about the stock – and a subsequent large increase in its price. Shares in GameStop increased from less than $20 at the end of December, to over $420 at their peak in the middle of January. This astronomical rise and fall in the price of shares meant that many people netted a large amount of profit and undoubtedly many would have made substantial losses as well. Whilst initially appearing as a standard gamble that got out of hand, this situation can be better understood by looking at the differential treatment afforded by the law to different social classes.

The Limitation of Options

The reason for the sudden interest in GameStop was based on an economically sound theory. Users of WallStreetBets posted that the short float of GameStop was 141%. The short float is the number of shares in a company that are being shorted at any one time. So, if people buy up all of the available shares, those who are shorting the stock incur substantial losses. They now have to buy shares to mitigate their losses, further pushing up the price; a vicious cycle known as a short squeeze.

As the price of GameStop rose to record highs and more individual investors bought shares, trading platforms such as Robinhood in the US and Trading212 in the UK introduced limits on the number of shares and options that investors could purchase. Whilst it is hard to pinpoint an exact cause for the recent fall in the price of these stocks, undoubtedly, limiting the ability of retail investors to buy them had a large impact. The share price then fell from the record high and is currently trading at around $40.

There’s no Equity in Equities

The investigation by the SEC again highlights how the law distinguishes between the rich and the poor. Robinhood, a popular investment app in America, came under fire for restricting the purchase of these volatile stocks. This was deemed unjust as retail investors could no longer buy shares or options in GameStop but larger hedge funds could continue to do so, further driving down the price and limiting their losses. Robinhood has also previously been fined by the SEC for hiding how exactly the platform makes money as it charges zero commission for trades. As well as a history of fines for non-compliance, large financial institutions have political capital that individuals cannot achieve. To demonstrate how deep the connection is, President Biden’s Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, has previously accepted over $800,000 from Citadel, a hedge fund that invested in Robinhood; this aptly shows the influence that large financial institutions have when investing in stocks.

Trading platforms have quickly said that they halted trading in volatile stocks as they required higher deposits from their brokers, or repeating the classic line that they were “seeking to protect their customers”. The question is why did trading platforms not know that they were going to require more capital, especially in the days where it was obvious that GameStop shares were gaining momentum. Regardless of the actual reason, their responses were unsurprising given the dominance of finance in society and previous behaviour from financial institutions. The SEC’s inquiry into small retail investors, rather than financial firms which already have a history of breaking the law, is one of the reasons that finance sees itself as above the law. The rise of Neoliberalism in the West, a period marked by deregulation and overall financialisation of the economy, has given financial firms a disproportionate amount of power.

The great financial crisis of 2008 showed the world that you can obliterate the global economy and plunge millions of people into unemployment while facing minimal criminal liability – and a fine. It is no wonder hedge funds and trading platforms know that they can bend the rules after the credit crunch when it is estimated only 47 bankers were sentenced to jail time. Whilst this mainly took place in the US, it draws parallels with the English legal system, where benefit fraud is a more pressing issue than tax evasion. This dominated the news cycle as it became somewhat of a battle between ‘ordinary’ investors and the institutional funds, but the law is one of the reasons that retail investors shall continue to lose out.

The hedge fund chiefs are expected to testify before the US House of Representatives in the week beginning the 15^th of February. This is likely to be a contentious hearing as both sides of the highly polarised political aisle find common ground in their view that financial services are biased towards the larger players. However, it is unlikely that any substantial changes will come out of the hearings. Finance has always been a highly concentrated and unequal sector, meaning Goliath was always going to win this fight.

Sam is a final year law student with a specific interest in information technology law.

Covid-19 and the Prison System – Is the Government Causing More Harm Than Good?

By Sophie Lewis and Zoey Cama

Despite stringent measures upon prisoners to restrict the spread of Covid-19, there has been a resurgence in cases this winter. With 2400 prisoners in England and Wales testing positive in December 2020, the total has reached 4800. The Government has failed to give adequate protection to prisoners and has likely caused long-term damage to their mental health while implementing inhumane strategies to combat the spread of Covid-19. The attempts to reduce prison population sizes have been flawed from the beginning, exacerbated by delaying prisoner releases and placing them at risk by failing to take basic safety precautions. These regimes have essentially stripped liberties, in which the practices of our justice system are akin to a police state.

The Prison Population

While the treatment of prisoners during Covid-19 will be examined below, it is important to recognise precisely who the Government’s actions are affecting and whether the health and wellbeing of certain minority populations are being overlooked more than others. The BAME population is overrepresented in the justice system; there are approximately 87900 individuals incarcerated in the UK with 27% identified as ethnic minorities compared with 13% in the general population. Statistics in the Lammy Review suggest BAME people are 81% more likely to be sent to prison for an indictable offence at the Crown Court than a white person. Moreover, Black people are almost 4 times more likely than white people to be incarcerated in the UK, yet black people make up only 3% of the population. These figures are indicative of the underlying prejudice in the UK’s justice system to impose higher punitive sanctions for offences in comparison to white offenders.

Many prisoners also have a history of social exclusion. They are more likely to have grown up in poverty with reliance on the welfare state and their family members are also more likely to have had a criminal conviction than those in the general population. In a Ministry of Justice research study it was found that 61% of prisoners were reported to be single when they entered custody, in which 54% had children under the age of 18. Single parents are more likely to be dependent on the welfare state due to the pressure from higher living costs, child maintenance and the barriers these create for entering and progressing within the workplace. Moreover, the imprisonment of parents, alongside a low familial income, may lead to the future criminality of young persons. There appears to be connection between the socio-economic backgrounds of people in society, and the likelihood of criminal conduct and imprisonment in the UK. This calls to question whether the welfare state is doing enough to support single parents and members of society who are financially struggling; and whether a less restrictive system provide different futures for many of these lives.

Arguably, the disregard for the health of the prison population during the pandemic can be linked to the social status of those detained. This lack of care is mirrored throughout other areas of social policy applying to these groups and in the Government’s failures to address the disproportionate impact of the disease upon people of colour in the UK. Below, we explore the damage that mismanagement of the disease has had upon the prison population.

Government Failures

Of the 4800 confirmed cases, the death toll sits at 71 prisoners in England and Wales. Shadow Justice Secretary, David Lammy, cautioned that the Government has “lost control of the virus” and noted that more staff and inmates will die if ministers do not get the crisis under control. One of the fastest ways to control the spread of Covid-19 in prisons is to tackle overcrowding; to avoid shared cells and lavatories. In April 2020, the Ministry of Justice announced the end of the Custody Temporary Release Scheme which allowed the early release of low-risk prisoners within two months of their scheduled release. To put it into perspective, the Government optimistically suggested that 4000 prisoners would be eligible for the scheme, yet a mere 316 people were released in the four months it ran. Not only did the Prison Governors Association express that the scheme would not free up the necessary space, but the PGA urged the Government to make drastic changes as the estimated figure of releases would not be achievable given the scheme’s strict criteria. Simultaneously, an ongoing issue is a backlog in the Crown Courts which has reached up to 54000 unheard cases along with the number of prisoners on remand awaiting a trial. These people now represent more than 15% of the prison population and some of their crimes will not go before a jury until 2022. Angus Mulready-Jones, on behalf of HM Inspectorate of Prisons, stated: “I do not think that anybody could sensibly say there has been a success in reducing the prison population.”

In addition, there has been a significant delay in releasing those who have finished their sentences. For prisoners, opportunity is door-shaped. The Government has forced people to spend months in intensive lockdown, decreased prison jobs, and stopped rehabilitation programs. Peter Dawson, Director of the Prison Reform Trust, stated that the prison service is committed to a rehabilitative culture which reduces the likelihood to re-offend. However, this is dependent on the opportunities for meaningful activities that intend to develop skills and self-esteem. When an inmate wants to progress their sentence, they need to complete rehabilitation exercises and demonstrate this to the Parole Board. In 2020, this has amounted to delaying the release of thousands of prisoners who have finished serving their sentences. With Court activity increasing, prison populations will again rise in an already overwhelmed capacity. This will cause Covid-19 cases to continue spreading and may result in a cycle of continued detention, even after prisoners have finished serving their sentences.

Effects on Mental Health

The effects of Covid-19 have caused irreparable damage to the mental health of prisoners. Accordingly, prisoners have likened their experiences to that of ‘caged animals’ as they have been stripped of their basic liberties and support systems during lockdown restrictions, all of which play a crucial role in their rehabilitation. In March 2020, rather than a reduction in prison populations, severe restrictions were placed on prisoners. These included extended periods in their cells – at least 23 hours a day, a suspension of prison transfers, and a halt to most employment and educational opportunities. Moreover, visitations from loved ones have been suspended barring exceptional companionate grounds, demonstrating both an internal and external reduction of individualized support offered during Covid-19.

These confinements have imposed a state of hopelessness as inmates have had everything but their cells, including their release dates. Arguably, all prisoners are suffering under these restrictions, which share the same characteristics as solitary confinement – a sanction which is normally used for serious offences with resultant human rights implications. As lockdown continues, the length of time prisoners are kept in these conditions increases, which could be seen as a violation of Article 3 of the ECHR – the Right to Freedom from Inhuman and Degrading Treatment. Research shows that confinement of such character for prolonged periods of time can cause adverse psychological effects and increase the risk of serious harm; there was an 8% increase of self-harm incidents (a record high) in the women’s prison estate in England and Wales from January to September 2020. As the Government push the health of prisoners to one side in the wake of the pandemic, inmates are facing the psychological repercussions of imprisonment without any basic humanity, damaging the futures of many.

Health and Safety Behind Bars

The authoritarian approach taken by the Government has negatively impacted the health and safety of prisoners. Following social distancing and isolation requirements, reports found that inmates were not allowed to shower and exercise for weeks. Chief Inspector of Prisons, Peter Clarke, having visited over 50 UK prisons since the start of the pandemic, noted areas were ‘so dirty you can’t clean it’. Such unhygienic measures increase the risk of Covid-19 spreading and have a detrimental effect on the mental health of prisoners – lack of fresh air and unsanitary conditions creates an additional layer of punishment, beyond the removal of liberty. In reality however, some prisons were in this condition prior to the pandemic.

Pages from the Inside Time, a well-respected prison newspaper, warned that basic safety precautions such as face coverings and the enforcement of social distancing are not being followed by officers. It was not until October 2020 that a face mask strategy was enforced by HMPS; introducing this strategy eight months into the pandemic highlights the Government’s inaction when it comes to protecting lives. It is unclear whether the restrictive conditions employed by the Government will carry on throughout 2021 if positive cases continue to soar. However, what is clear is that these conditions have jeopardize the prison services rehabilitative culture, replacing it with controls that lack any compassion for human dignity.

The purpose of prisons are threefold: protection of the public, punishment, and rehabilitation. The Ministry of Justice stated ‘It is only by prioritising rehabilitation that we can reduce reoffending, and in turn, the number of future victims of crime’; as such, the very purpose of the prison system is deteriorating as we speak.

Sophie is a Final Year LLB Law student interested in Commercial law and Medical law.
Zoey is a Final Year LLB Law student interested in pursuing a career as a Commercial Solicitor.

The Platform: A Grotesque Horror to Sink your Teeth into.

By Rebecca Pugh

When I sat down to watch The Platform with a couple of housemates, I was vaguely told it was a “horror which made some sort of social commentary”. What I most certainly did not expect was a near-perfect allusion to the current neoliberal economic system we live in and a feeling of disgust so strong I was unable to consume any of my usual film-watching snacks.

The Platform, originally titled ‘El Hoyo’, has been best described as a 2019 Spanish social science fiction-horror film, and is directed by Galder Gaztelu-Urittia. We follow the story of Goreng, who awakens in a concrete cell which is empty but for his cellmate Trimagasi, two beds, and two large holes in the centre of the floor and ceiling. Through these holes, identical cells both above and below our protagonist are visible for as far as the eye can see.

Trimagasi explains they have found themselves within the euphemistically named “Vertical Self-Management Centre”. Daily, a large table will descend from the above levels for a fixed amount of time. The table, whilst initially piled with a mouth-watering selection of foods and rare delicacies, will become increasingly bare as two people at each level will take their fill, essentially eating the leftovers of the cells above them. Luckily for our protagonist, Goreng has found himself on Level 48, he and Trigimasi will be able to sustain themselves upon half-eaten apple cores and the fat left on chicken wings. However, it is obvious that the unknown number of levels below them will have a far more difficult time finding anything edible on the table. At the end of each month, inhabitants of The Hole are randomly assigned to a different level, and Goreng and Trimagasi find themselves relocated to Level 171. No food at all will reach them here and it is clear the uneasy friendship they enjoyed on Level 48 must be forgotten if one of them is to survive.

The Platform uses almost painful irony – our protagonist’s name, Goreng, is Malay for “fried” – to create a tone that is deeply surreal yet terrifyingly realistic. It is a film full of juxtapositions; we learn from Goreng’s later cellmate Imoguiri, who was previously a member of the shadowy authority group known only as ‘The Administration’ responsible for placing people within the facility, that there is enough food on the slab to feed every level sufficiently to survive. This means it is the gorging of the upper levels, who stuff themselves near bursting, that guarantees the suffering of those below. At its most basic level, The Platform emphasises the wastefulness of society regarding the consumption of food, and although a Spanish production, its message rings just as true at home as abroad. In 2018, 6.6 million tonnes of household food waste was thrown away in the UK whilst 8-10% of households were food insecure.

Gaztelu-Urrutia has stated his intention was to portray food as its own character within the story, Nonetheless, The Platform has stumbled upon the near-perfect metaphor of the state of the modern economic ideology. More deeply, the film can be read as an extremely literal critique of ‘trickle-down economics’, and the pressing need for a fairer redistribution of wealth. It is an unflinching analysis of the human psyche and comes to the honest conclusion that humans are inherently selfish and self-concerned. Ingrained into us is the impulse to hoard, even to great excess, or at the detriment of others, in fear of future scarcity. Engaging in these capitalist exercises is thus a means of survival. The Platform forces us to recognise this in it’s opening warning, “There are three kinds of people: the ones above, the ones below and the ones who fall”, brilliantly encapsulating the absurdity and insecurity of class warfare. Its inhabitants are forced to live solely for the present, they must eat enough to survive the month in the expectation that the following month they could find themselves in even more dire circumstances.

When The Platform was released in 2019, it is unlikely that Gaztelu-Urritia could have imagined his message could become even more relevant in such a short time. Whilst the distribution of wealth across society was problematically already on the increase, it has been further expedited by COVID-19. One report finds that 8/10 of low-income families have experienced a significant deterioration in their living standards due to a combination of falling income and rising expenditure caused by the pandemic. In a contrast so striking it is almost sinister, Swiss Bank UBS reports that billionaires have increased their wealth by more than 27.5% since March of 2020. Those who have found themselves on the higher ‘levels’ of society have been able to acquire even more wealth, indisputably more than they could ever need – (what else could Jeff Bezos possibly need another $48 billion for?). Yet in spite of this, they are doing very little to help those ‘below’ them who have found themselves struggling as a result of the pandemic.

The Platform is a highly uncomfortable watch, which is entirely the point. It is not pretty to watch people revert to their most primal human instincts in order to survive. However, I would recommend it to anybody seeking to understand how modern capitalism forces us to suppress our most human instincts in the name of ‘self-preservation’ and survival. I would ask any advocates of neoliberalism, an ideology favouring free-market capitalism to allow society to “regulate itself”, whether we are doing as good a job as the inhabitants of the ‘Vertical Self-Management Center’; forced to pick at the leftovers from upper levels, who gorge if only to deprive those below them, whilst those at the bottom literally starve to death.

Oh, and please don’t watch this film if you’re hungry.

Rebecca is a third year Law student at the University of Bristol. In her free time you can usually find her reading, baking or debating social policy with friends.