Surefootedness is all in politics and Boris Johnson has scored a populist coup by announcing he will pay the Living Wage - £7.40 an hour - to all staff employed by the Greater London Authority and related bodies, including Transport for London.
A cynic might well argue this is a populist ploy and typical of the way the Tories are now positioning themselves as the party of social justice. Such a stance may once have attracted hoots of derision and, as we know, the truth is rather different but sadly at the moment they are stealing march after march from Labour.
I was glad to note Gordon Brown making it clear on his stance on Mugabe at the G8 summit but some closer attention to domestic matters including the plight of the low-paid - and a real increase in the Minimum Wage -would be seriously helpful to Labour's chances of recovery. He should also stop the tough talking to the unions and accept their demands at the Warwick 2 meeting in a few weeks' time. Several large slices of humble pie are required from the Prime Minister if he is to win back our supporters.
Talking of which I'm sorry Gordon but I really could not face another lunch of cabbage soup . After three days of stoical munching through a concoction of dried beans, onions and a Savoy mulched up in the liquidiser, it has ended up in the bin. The good news is I just found some half-price broccoli and celery at the co-op so will get going again at the chopping-board.
Thursday, 10 July 2008
BORIS BACKS THE LIVING WAGE
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9 comments:
Yet another reason for us to move on and past him by backing a Minimum Income instead. The 'Living Wage' is nothing of the sort.
I quite agree - even the Living Wage falls far short per se of what you need to survive. The reality is that people with kids top up derisory wages with tax credits and other benefits. Which masks the fact that employers are geting away with wages which consign the single and childless to serious poverty. Even The Joseph Rowntree Foundation mimimum estimate of £13,400 for a single person to get by would needtop-up on benefits to be true. Last year I had a particularly bad spell and earned about that . I don't drive, my mortgage ( 20 years in) is only about £300 a month but council tax/utilities etc mean I just about scraped even. How on earth would someone living in London survive on that ????? Or, for that matter, anyone renting in the private sector .So Boris's announceemnt is basically a PR stunt -nevertheless it is still more than the Minimum Wage and I must confess I get profoundly irritated when MPs on £80,000 minimum talk this up as if it's the most fantastic thing Labour has ever done. Could they live on it? No.
Come and try and live on disability benefits then I get IB of £87 a week, work that out into an hourly rate, but heck I'm disabled so not part of the human race I must be a fraud or worse an Alien from another country.
I think in fact looking at New Labour and the Tories I would now vote Tory.
and if I see Brown smile at me like he did yesterday with the short bloke he scared the bloody cat, god somebody tell him a smile is not clenched teeth and a grimace.
Last week, I returned to Liverpool having worked on a 'paid' internship in London on a political magazine. My salary was the National Minimum Wage. In London.
If I hadn't been able to stay with a relative, there is no way I could have afforded to take an opportunity my career needed.
Susan, have you ever wondered how it is that the Co-op or anyone else is able to sell broccoli to you so cheaply? I don't think it's by paying people in the supply chain or the shops very much more than the national minimum wage.
You're often telling us of the bargains you pick up (some of my socialist friends tell me that they consider well-paid people like you taken advantage of low prices at charity shops or elsewhere to be stealing from the poor because the things you've bought are no longer available for someone less well off to purchase - but we'll let that thought go). How much extra would you be prepared to pay for life's essentials to help the less well off?
some of my socialist friends tell me that they consider well-paid people like you taken advantage of low prices at charity shops or elsewhere to be stealing from the poor because the things you've bought are no longer available for someone less well off to purchase
SR, sounds like you should be telling your friends to get off their butts and go to the charity shop first if they're worried about being denied, rather than whingeing about someone who actually does go, and who contributes to a charity as a result.
anonymous, I'm not "well-paid" I used to be, which is why I am fortunate to have a low mortgage
( this house was "bought" 12 years ago and I bought my first flat in salford for £23,000) Regional and freelance journalists,in case you didn't know. get pretty derisory wages.Most earn less than £20,000 a year. Freelances often far less.....
Last year I earned around £14,000 which is why I hunt out sell-by stuff in the co-op. It isn't middle-class penny-pinching.
I count myself more fortunate than most as I have no dependants so can just about get by.This is not the case for young couples with families trying to get homes which is why I think it's time the Government started taxing the rich instead of condemning the poor to subsistence wages while pretending the Minimum Wage is some kind of panacea for society's ills.
Lets see if he agrees it for all contracts
this committment was forced out of him by TELCO at a public meeting before the election
Thank TELCO now London Citizens they got the pledge
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