Row over state loan charge ‘plan’

The document, signed by Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell, stated that the government was considering offering contracts to credit unions … The paper stated that this monthly rate added up to an annual rate of between 12.68% and 26.8%. [The Social Fund] currently extends £500m a year in interest-free loans to some 1.2 million benefit claimants, many of them elderly or disabled.

It’s about time that the Left began to rise. Gordon Brown et al. had completely given up on all Labour values if they want this. The economic situation is as good as it could be for a firebrand leader on the Left.

You squeeze the rich, not the poorest – unless you are the Labour leader. All he has to do is stand up and say “This will never happen”.

We need some extremism.