Corbyn tells Norwich rally not to pass by needy

Labour Party leadership front-runner Jeremy Corbyn MP addressed an overflowing Open venue in Norwich last night calling on the country to not pass the needy and vulnerable in society by on the other side. Keith Morris reports.

The veteran left winger was invited to Norwich by one of his supporters Norwich South MP Clive Lewis, who said: “Jeremy has tapped into something out there, a hunger. You will be hearing tonight about good 21st century democratic politics that looks after the many and not just the few that many people in this room have been longing for.”
 
Some 900 people packed the Open venue with standing room only and several hundred were left outside unable to get in – so Jeremy went outside to talk to them personally.
 
Jeremy told an enthusiastic rally: “The banking crisis of 2008/9 was not caused by overpaid school cleaners or over-greedy nurses but by it was brought about by the greed of bankers and the sub-prime mortgage crisis.
 
“We need a different economic approach. Ours is not a campaign about looking back at a golden age of the past, ours is a campaign about the kind of society and economy we want to live in.
 
“We want to rebalance our taxation system so that the poorest don’t pay the highest marginal rates of tax but those with the longest, deepest pockets and biggest bank accounts make what is a fair and reasonable contribution so that we can all live reasonable and proper lives in our society.”
 
Getting to the core of his message, the Islington North MP of 32 years standing, said: “Somewhere along the line we have developed into a quite unpleasant process of blame culture against the poorest and most vulnerable in our society. As if poverty is caused by the poor rather than by the way in which we run our economy.
 
“So why do we as a society pass by on the other side while someone is going through a mental health crisis, or somebody is looking for a cardboard box for the night, or somebody starts queuing at 3 o’clock on a winter’s afternoon to get a bed in a hostel for that night.
 
“I talk to many homeless people and beggars around the country and they all have stories, they have all had problems, they all have crises, just like you and me – we can all end up in bad places and with crises in our lives, we all know people with mental health crisis or family break-up problems.
 
“Cannot we as a society have the moral compass and the moral strength to say that one of our objectives is to ensure that everyone has a roof over their heads and nobody is destitute.”
 
Also addressing the rally was international tax justice expert and Christian Richard Murphy from West Norfolk, who has helped Corbyn draw up his financial proposals.
 
“What we need now is an economy when the state and the market work together for people,” said Richard. “For the past decade, myself and the tax justice network has been putting together ideas which Jeremy has now brought forward and have been coined ‘Corbynomics’. This morning the FT published an article saying this idea could really work.”
 
Richard went on to explain the two main strands: tax justice and people’s quantitative easing – borrowing money at low rates from the Bank of England, as a national investment bank, and not from private banks, to pay for public projects.
 
Read the FT article

Read our previous article about Richard Murphy

Pictured top is Labour Party leadership contender Jeremy Corbyn addressing a rally in Norwich last night and, above, tax justice expert Richard Murphy at the rally.