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LightningMinion decided to visit Peterborough and instantly regretted it, as all sane people do. While there, he met a voter concerned about the cost of living, and who is worried that a right-wing government might get rid of his basic income payments. LightningMinion thus decided to give a speech about welfare in Peterborough:

“I think one of the proudest achievements of Labour this decade has been the introduction of basic income, and its universalisation into UBI. What UBI means is that you always have a social safety net supporting you, no matter what. It means that you always have 12 and a half thousand pounds flowing into your bank account each year. This means that, if, for any reason, you end up losing your job, you are still receiving an income without having to apply for it. It means that if you our your partner gives birth to a new-born child, you can afford to take time off work and care for your child. It means that if you decide you want to go back into education, you can afford to do that. If you’re a student at university, it means that you can afford to live in your university city and study without having to have a job to pay your rent. If you have a low income, it means that you do not have to worry about whether you can afford to pay your utility bills, your shopping bill, or your rent, as UBI supplements your income and allows you to pay your living costs, which is especially important during today’s cost of living crisis.

Not everyone is a fan of UBI, however. The Tories and Lib Dems have long been opposed to it, as it helps the worst off in society instead of who they consider to be the most marginalised group in society, the World Trade Organisation. The Lib Dems and Tories have both committed to replacing UBI with a system called Negative Income Taxes, a system which has the same aim as UBI, but is far less generous to those on low and middle incomes. In fact, the Lib Dem plan would lead to your income being cut by seven thousand pounds per year if you are on the minimum wage. That is a significant amount of money, and I have spoken to many voters who do not think they can afford to have their income fall that drastically.

Another issue with the Lib Dem plan is its non-universality. Let’s imagine you have a well-paid job which provides you with a high enough income such that you do not receive any Negative Income Tax payments. Let’s now imagine that you lose your job, and lose your only source of income. You will then have to apply to the government to receive NIT payments, and it will take some time for your request to be approved, leaving you without a stable income for some time. UBI does not suffer from this issue, since you are always receiving UBI every single month no matter what.

Labour is fully opposed to the Lib Dem plan and to any cuts to UBI, and we will make maintaining UBI a red line for us in any coalition negotiations following the election.

The Tories additionally plan to inflict even more misery on the worst off. Those who are unemployed are already spending a significant amount of their time looking for a job - the Tories want to force them to also complete community service now, as if unemployment is now a low-level crime. Labour will of course oppose all Tory plans to gut welfare and the rights of workers.”

LightningMinion then rushed out of Peterborough as quickly as he could, and was soon back in the comforts of his home city of Cambridge. While in Cambridge, he began chatting to a voter about the housing crisis, so decided to give a speech regarding housing in front of the Guildhall:

“In the entirety of East Anglia, the city with the most expensive housing is Cambridge, which I do not think will come as a surprise to any of us. Tackling the housing crisis has been one of my political interests for a while now, and it will be a priority for me should I become your MP again.

The best way to reduce house prices is simply to build more houses, as the basic economic laws of supply and demand then dictate that housing prices will fall. Indeed, we have seen house prices fall in the city precisely because houses are being built; but more can be done.

Soon, Cambridge will be full. By this, I mean that there soon won’t be enough space to build new houses - I am not about to go on a rant against immigration. You see, Cambridge is surrounded by a green belt in which housing development is banned. At first sight, this would seem sensible: we do not want to destroy environmentally-important green areas, so it would seem sensible to restrict development in such areas. The issue is, the green belt is often not green - in many cases, it should instead be called the grey belt, as it includes large swathes of low-quality land. Quite simply, the green belt is not an environmental protection scheme: it is a scheme to restrict housing development, which, in turn, is driving up housing prices.

This is why a Labour government will abolish the green belt and replace them with robust environmental protection laws to enable the grey belt to be released for housing. This will then increase the land around Cambridge in which housing can be built while protecting the environment from destructive developments.

Another way we will boost house building is through creating new, regional planning committees who will get to decide whether a development should go ahead, instead of politicians committed to preventing houses from being built. These committees will involve local communities in every step of the planning process to ensure that new developments are built in a way which accounts for any concerns any local residents may have about the effect on local infrastructure or local school places, for example. The effect of this policy will be to boost housing construction even more across Cambridge and East Anglia, further bringing down house prices.

The final way through which we will boost house building is by working with councils to build more affordable social housing. In particular, we will reform the right to buy to ensure that any social houses which are bought by their tenants through right to buy and thus leave the social housing system are replenished by the construction of new social houses.”