NEWS that certain hedge funds and financial companies have been taking advantage of the coronavirus crisis as an opportunity to amass yet more wealth has been met with derision from John O’Groats to Land’s End.

One firm described Covid-19 as a “once in a generation” chance of “super normal returns”. How disgraceful that in the midst of such risk to life, such a threat of a lonely death, that certain dregs of our society spot their chance to exploit fear at everyone else’s expense.

Even the governor of the Bank of England has suggested now is not the time to short sell on the stock market as it is not “in the interest of the economy or the people”. Many of the financiers who excel in such short selling are well-known Brexiteers such as Crispen Odey. The Financial Times, not the most unsympathetic observer of Mr Odey’s activities, reported at the end of February: “Crispin Odey, one of Europe’s most high-profile hedge fund managers, has emerged as a winner in a brutal week for equity investors as the fallout from the coronavirus outbreak sends markets plunging.”

In Europe, market regulators in Italy, Spain and France have temporarily banned the short selling of companies; the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK should follow suit, regardless of arguments on both sides that highlight the supposed merits or negativities involved. The world is very unstable right now and people and companies are at their most fragile and exposed.

We need to call time on this kind of behaviour and focus on how to benefit and protect everyone, not just a tiny elite. And in the future, when this appalling economic and health crisis is past, we need to ensure such predatory capitalism cannot take advantage of human misery, others’ lack of privilege and access to power. Is it not possible to order society in such a way as to at least make the attempt to reward heroism and selflessness, instead of cynicism and greed?

In order to do this, we will need bold governance and big, life-changing decisions to be enacted in terms of distribution of wealth, fairness and equality. We will need leaders willing and eager to plug the tax loopholes, to put an end to tax havens and ensure that tax is backdated and impacts on the billions hoarded in Panama or the Cayman Islands. A progressive tax system, similar to the one which has taken its first faltering steps in Scotland, needs to be implemented by the state and embraced by the whole population.

Globally, it’s time to revisit the “Tobin Tax” on financial transactions. A tiny levy internationally could raise the trillions to place at the disposal of genuine international causes such as the fight against climate change, the assault on world poverty and a global system of health insurance properly prepared to meet pandemic and disease head on with the financial firepower to stamp them out.

Interestingly, it’s not just the regulators in Spain that are making bold decisions and laying down the law to the financial vultures. As the country comes to terms with the enormous loss of life and stress on its systems, the Spanish Government has announced it is introducing a Universal Basic Income (UBI), not just as a measure to cover the massive loss in earnings during the Covid-19 pandemic, but as a complete and structural overhaul, a “permanent instrument” to quote Economy Minister Nadia Calvino.

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THE UK Chancellor has not been shy in dusting off the cheque book and addressing the economic fallout from the virus in the last few weeks, but much red tape and administrative effort could have been saved by the introduction of a basic income here in the UK, ensuring no-one would fall through the cracks at this time of financial calamity.

A host of MPs on a cross-party basis have called for a UBI. Such requests so far have fallen on deaf ears. For some, bringing in a minimum income guarantee would be the equivalent of letting the revolutionary genie out of the bottle.

Once citizens see they can indeed be safeguarded by the state, that we really are actually all in it together, that we can “level up”, and we are more than just individuals out for ourselves, there would be no return to traditional political divides as we have known them.

Red and blue would merge, with pragmatic capitalism combining with social democracy to create a new world economy, with room for entrepreneurs and businesses to take risks and new opportunities while public-sector workers are protected and valued for their true worth.

The wasteful bureaucracy of ridiculously ineffective, personally humiliating and time-consuming benefit systems could be done away with in favour of a far more simple and effective unconditional payment. No matter your circumstance or start in life, and regardless of need, we all gain from the social security of a basic income level.

You don’t have to be a John Lennon to “Imagine” that.

In this crisis we have heard a lot – far too much in my estimation – about the wartime spirit. However, if we are to look backwards then let us draw the right lessons. Out of world war came the Beveridge Report which understood this need for change through protecting citizens “from the cradle to the grave”. The UK embraced this vision with post-war collective enthusiasm for a better way of life, a new normal because the old order was broken and those who had survived the conflict knew nothing should ever be the same again.

The foundation of the welfare state and the NHS was about change, progress and potential. When this present pain passes and the rebuilding starts in earnest, let’s face the challenge to construct a new world in the best interests of everyone, with security and fairness at its heart, and no loopholes for the grifters to target. The political movements which understand this change will catch the moment. Those who don’t will be swept away with the debris of history.

A better Scotland in a better world. That is my earnest prayer for our post-Covid-19 reality.

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