Last year's Labour Party Conference resolved for a minimum wage of £15 per hour, but Keir Starmer rejected it out of hand, causing Andy McDonald to resign from the Shadow Cabinet.
A year later, and the TUC is setting the heather alight by campaigning for a £15 per hour minimum wage by 2030, when it would amount to a three pounds per hour pay cut even at only the present rate of inflation.
As we prepare for the umpteenth demonstration that there was no energy cap, we are being told to bear it all for Ukraine. Of course, that is rubbish in itself. Nor would I for one ever feel any obligation to starve and shiver in the dark over which country Kherson should be in.
But at least they are admitting the connection, even if they are lying about what it is. Inflation has not been caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, any more than it has been caused by either the Brexit or the lockdowns on which rival tables of pub bores are determined to blame everything for the rest of their lives. Rather, it has been, it is being, and it will continue to be, very significantly worsened by a sanctions regime that is not hurting Russia in the slightest.
Inflation's roots, however, go back a lot further. Often out of the public subsidies of which even more are being proposed, huge bonuses and dividends continue to be paid while wage claims are refused, while energy prices quadruple, while a trillion litres of human faeces are pumped into the sea, and so on. If those dividends are being paid to pension funds, then show me the pensioners who are benefiting at all, never mind more than they would from, in particular, cheaper energy.
If the TUC were disbanded tomorrow, nobody would notice.
ReplyDeleteA kind of alternative solidarity network among the striking unions is emerging. Not before time.
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