John Lanchester has written an interesting piece in the latest London Review of Books on what he calls a Good New Idea - an unconditional payment to every citizen, usually called Universal Basic Income.  Lanchester is an excellent exponent of economic issues, and does a good job with UBI (though he fails to mention a more recent report from Guy Standing, and that the Labour Party has recently said it would include in its next manifesto a commitment to piloting UBI in some form). UBI, as Lanchester observes, appeals to both left and right on the political spectrum.  Its universality appeals to the form, with the power to raise poorer people's…