Money for nothing? It's basic, really

TAKEN in the round, all things considered, including the moral and spiritual aspects, and trying to remember one’s wider social responsibilities, I believe that, on the whole, I am in favour of being given money for nothing.

Ergo, a Universal Basic Income (UBI) gets my vote. In the wake of the coronavirus, the Spanish Government has declared an aim of rolling out just such a thing – and not just for a wee laugh. It wants UBI to become something “that stays forever, that becomes a structural instrument, a permanent instrument”.

That’s right ambitious. Most of us look at UBI and think: "You’re having a laugh. How could that possibly work?" In cruel and harsh countries like Britain, furthermore, the idea of giving people money for nothing induces bouts of violent vomiting in the boardrooms and executive lounges of our puritanical (towards others) bourgeoisie.

However, proponents of UBI argue that, counter-intuitive though it seems, by the time you cut out the bureaucracy surrounding welfare means-testing, the thing might even make economic sense.

They also point to studies purporting to show that folk will still want to work rather than receive money for nothing, and that would particularly be the case in Britain where we all know the sum would be so low that you could hardly buy a tin of corned beef and a bottle of vintage Buckfast with it.

The question is: would there be work to go to? The effect of coronavirus on the economy could be catastrophic but, more than that, we’re said to be approaching a time when robots will put millions out of work.

And it won’t just be the poorer classes affected by that. Middle-class professions could also suffer. Believe me, when they start putting the lawyers out of work, there’ll be lawless riots on the streets, with people in rugby tops and chinos demanding enough UBI to pay the au pair and attend the opera or even a football match.

You must factor in too that, after the measures taken during the coronavirus, no one has much time any more for free market, kill-the-weak economics.

The seething but hitherto dormant rage about a British economy that in normal times features useless articles “earning” more in a minute than valuable workers earn in a decade might boil over, with demands for change fuelled by the perception that it’s largely been the low-paid who’ve been heroes in the frontline during the battle against coronavirus.

So, could we be on the brink of a 1945-type radical change in society towards socialism when this wretched war is over? It’ll depend if we come out of social isolation … and revert to our socially atomised lives.

At the moment, we’re all in this together. Afterwards, we’ll probably go our separate ways again, divided by class, gender and philosophy. But, in the meantime, some money would certainly come in handy. We might even like the country that gave us it and want to pay it back in some way.

Animal magic

LIKE most decent ratepayers, I’m appalled by the idea of being reincarnated. The thought of having to go through this ongoing farce again, perhaps even in the form of a dopey animal or witless insect, is just too awful to contemplate.

However, if it was forced upon us by the celestial authorities in the Ministry of Reincarnation and Endless Torment, then perhaps there would be worse lots than being a panda. My soul might easily migrate to that form.

They’re shy like me and don’t like fancy food. Just give me some bamboo in broon sauce, preferably with a large handful of oven chips (crinkle-cut), and I’d be fine. But I think that, if I’m reincarnated as a panda, it had best be done in the wild.

As a shy person, I can’t bear people gawping at me at the best of times, and would particularly deplore it when trying to copulate. Surely, it would put you off a bit?

Well, that’s been the lot of pandas in zoos for some time. And the humans wonder why they’re not providing offspring. D’uh.

However, now that zoos have shut to gawpers, reports suggest that pandas have been loosening up a little and getting to know each other in the biblical sense.

Ying Ying (Arthur) and Le Le (Doris), of Ocean Park zoo in Hong Kong, for example, have reportedly indulged in lewd and libidinous behaviour, leading to hopes that, after 10 years, a cub might be imminent.

But imagine if the zoo is reopened to the public again when the little fellow is due to hatch. A brief look at the gawping humans, and the wee bairn will wail: “Aw naw. I told them I didn’t want to come back as a panda. I wanted to come back as a Rab.”

Five things we learned this week

1 Archaeologists have developed a new method of dating objects, using the bits of food left on dirty dishes. Clarty Neolithic pots dug up in Shoreditch, east London, were found to date from 3600BC, or 5529BD (Before Dishwashers).

2 A shock TV documentary investigating Waitrose found that a dog food on sale in its stores featured ingredients including wild boar, apple, parsnip and seaweed. If you’re stocking up on tins at the moment, you might want to give that one a try. Yummy.

3 Scotland has been named home to the world’s earliest surviving record of the F-word. A BBC documentary unearthed the expletive in a vituperative poem from 1503 called The Flyting of Dumbar and Kennedie. Sounds like a right pile of flyte.

4 Food historian Glyn Hughes caused controversy after claiming pasties had been around for thousands of years before Cornwall cornered the market. Cornish folk reacted with outrage, saying the claims were flaky and promising to make Glyn eat his words.

5 Baking banana bread, growing tomatoes, and fancying Chancellor Rishi Sunak are classic indicators of middle-class lockdown behaviour, according to Scottish writer Flic Everett. Other suggestions on Twitter included “sushi on the balcony after a spot of pulse yoga”. Yikes!