THERE’S no doubt that social care needs funded and the backlog in the NHS addressed. It’s who pays that’s the issue and that’s what makes Boris Johnson’s national insurance tax hike wrong. The low paid and young are bearing the brunt.

Income tax is far fairer than national insurance and taxing wealth is what’s really required. Those who have been working in difficult situations and for low pay are already paying heavily, and this comes when prices in shops and for utilities are rising. Those with assets hidden away from the taxman, whether here or abroad, need to pay their whack, as do those with far larger salaries or income from other sources.

Moreover, individuals and corporations who have being coining it in during the pandemic need to be made to pay not just their share but a levy on their ill-gotten gains. Some are as shameless in paying their staff as they are in contributing to the tax take. Time for them to cough up.

Sadly, it will be driven through Parliament with the Tory majority this week and inequality that’s already amongst the worst in Europe will worsen. All that compounds the misery for many low-paid workers, with the Universal Credit uplift soon to disappear. It’s morally repugnant.

Last week I spoke in the Elections Bill. It’s a privilege to hold elected office and it’s the duty of those fortunate to do so to nourish the democratic process. But this Bill will disenfranchise many, possibly millions, by placing impediments in the way of voting when we should be making it easier to do so. Requiring photographic ID is unnecessary as there’s no evidence of widespread electoral fraud and what has been occurring has most often been in postal voting where this won’t apply. It’s a supposed solution to a non-existent problem.

But it will interfere with democracy and that’s just not right. Many in this country have rightly condemned abuses perpetrated historically in the USA and now being repeated in parts of it. That it’s happening here is shameful.