TV & Film
Gary Neville applauded as he calls out government’s ‘dangerous’ Universal Credit cut on GMB
‘I trust the population of this country, I work on the theory that people aren’t sitting there lazy, they really want a good job’
Gary Neville has received wide-spread praise this morning after he ripped into government officials over their Universal Credit cut.
The former Manchester United footballer appeared on ITV’s Good Morning Britain to discuss the end of the £20 uplift universal credit users have received during the pandemic.
Neville was joined by former Tory politician Edwina Currie, who is in full support of the government’s plan to axe the uplift. Currie pointed out that there are ‘a million job vacancies being advertised across the country’, with ‘whole industries desperate for people to return to work.’
ITV
She said: “It doesn’t make any kind of sense to pay people to stay at home. What we really want is for people to get out there and to get the jobs.”
And even when host Susanna Reid pointed out that 40% of universal credit claimants are actually in work, she remained firm on her stance by pointing out that ‘the majority of people on universal credit don’t have a job’, and even claiming that the government is helping them by ‘putting more money into supporting, tutoring and mentoring people to find work’.
However, Currie’s comments didn’t sit too well with Neville, who instantly hit back by offering a ‘translation’ of what the former politician had just said.
“Well, let me just translate what Edwina has just said. ‘I’m ok here, we’re ok here’, which is the first thing a Conservative person does. They look after themselves.”
ITV
He went on to slam the Conservative’s language as ‘always divisive’ and ‘not helpful’, saying that it’s ‘really dangerous to remove Universal Credit payments at this moment in time, it’s brutal’.
He went on: “I trust the population of this country, I work on the theory that people aren’t sitting there lazy, they really want a good job. They want to get good pay, they want their mental health to be sorted. They’re not sitting there thinking, ‘I’m going to take the chancellors money and live off of their money for the next ten to fifteen years.”
Since Neville’s appearance on the show, GMB viewers have been applauding his strong stance on the matter and for showing Currie to be the ‘uncaring ex-politician she is’.
One person wrote: “Gary Neville and his destruction of Edwina Currie has made my day, his concern for vulnerable people was there for all to see, whilst Currie spoke of how good everything is in the Peak District, I’ve been there, its white, rich, Brexity and tory #GMB.”
Another commented: “Gary Neville on @GMB just now was fantastic. He made Edwina Curry look like the uncaring ex-politician she is. Her advice to become a kitchen porter, when you likely already have a full time job shows how out of touch Tories are. People are on their knees.”
This comes just weeks after Neville launched his university scheme, a plan that will be aimed at young people between the ages of seventeen and twenty who have been eligible for free school dinners and may never have thought they’d get the opportunity to go to university.
Speaking to ITV News at the time, Neville admitted that he is ‘ashamed’ to be in a country where families are still forced to choose between heating and eating, and described the government’s recent decision to cut Universal Credit by £20 as ‘ridiculous’.