UK politics general discussion

[rob666]

My wife was well shafted, sixty to sixty seven, only found out in her early fifties...flipping ouch.
Be warned, the state old age pension was designed for the last few years of life, not the last few decades.
I have little choice but to continue part time working into my seventies...if I stayed at home with her all day there would be murder.

 

[Plastic Person]

We have to accept paying for living is an individuals responsibility while they still have the ability to earn. It's not unreasonable.

I suppose whether or not you think it's unreasonable depends on what you prioritise before shuffling off this mortal coil. Can't argue with the advances in medical science and general life quality that allow us to extend our life, but I'm not philosophically convinced as to the trade-off of having to work even harder for even longer while we're at it. And I write this from the perspective of a freelancer with a necessarily solid 'self made' work ethic myself, but if I'm having to top up my hours in the Supermarket of The Future half-a-lifetime from now, I'll probably consider opting out early...

I can't say I feel relieved by this budget, but it is fairly comprehensive and possibly the only time I haven't been filled with instant dread at the UK government in the last few years. Shame we had to tank eight years of growth to get to anything even remotely sensible and only driven by standard Tory ideology, rather than its extremities.

 

[BarryZola]

It's not great, but also we can not go on living longer and retiring at the same age. We have to accept paying for living is an individuals responsibility while they still have the ability to earn. It's not unreasonable.
We can all make choices when we are younger to plan for paying our way when we are older.

I couldn't agree more. I marvel at the entitlement of SOME of the current older generation. They paid their contributions during their working lives just like anyone does, which would have gone towards the services they've enjoyed all of their lives and that of their families. Then they get offended that their state pension doesn't pretty much pay them a full time wage for the next 30 years after they've retired. Apart from the fact that they never paid in an excess on top of public services they would have used to justify the money they're getting for the next 30 years, it's not like they have kids etc to pay for anymore so they don't even need a full-time-ish wage (unless they want 6 holidays a year, instead of 4). Yes, a bit of a generalization.
The ironic thing is though, at a time when it looks like we'll be expected to save up and contribute more towards our standard of living in later life if we even make it to a later retirement age than our current pensioners, due to the cost of housing and generally everything, many people will be less likely to be able to put anything extra aside. The sums just don't add up anymore, unfortunately. It would help if a mere handful of billionaires weren't hoarding a massive proportion of the worlds wealth instead of it being re-distributed more fairly. That's a discussion for another time and place though.

 

[Matt.GC]

Hunt - "you cannot borrow your way to growth”, and “sound money is the rock on which long term prosperity rests”.
Also Hunt - “giving with one hand and taking away with the other”.

Hahaha! Has he been living in an isolated cave for the last few months? He does realise what his government has done right? That last statement is the perfect sentence to describe what this budget.... sorry "Autumn Statement" (have to be careful when calling things a budget these days, who remembers the "fiscal event"? Not Jeremy Hunt apparently).

The hypocrisy of it all. Why would anyone celebrate this damage limitation as any form of good news? As Rachel Reeves said, he should be coming to the house "begging for forgiveness" after what his government has done to this country (perhaps he should ask Matt Hancock for advice on doing that, he seems to be doing just that over in Australia right now). They've beaten the UK economy and working people with a cricket back, then driven us to A&E l, dumped us outside in a wheelchair and expected us all to be greatful. And are you greatful folks? I'll show them my gratitude in 2 years time that's for sure.

He's even still repeating the mantra that all of our woes were "created in Russia", when a huge proportion of them were created in No 10 Downing Street by his colleagues. That didn't stop his government blaming a whole world economic crash on the UK labour government as an excuse to cut taxes for the rich and services for the poor for many years, ironically a long term policy that's given them extremely little wiggle room to get out of the hole they've continually dug us into. But it's always someone else's fault for these lot, how stupid do they think we are?

I notice as well that lots of nasty stuff has been kicked into the long grass. It seems like their focus is now on limiting the damage at the polls in 2024 and preparing for opposition by cutting the brake line for the new government. I hope we never let them forget what they've done this country.

 

[Sauron97]

He's even still repeating the mantra that all of our woes were "created in Russia", when a huge proportion of them were created in No 10 Downing Street by his colleagues.

I agree, but equally, there are some people who solely blame the UK as if there isn't a global downturn. I just wish people were honest and admitted that both are an issue, and we've gotta find ways to deal with both

Hope you are all doing okay in these times

 

[WillPS]

I have to say, that was better than expected… the government is promising a lot of spending boosts here!

Not really. A lot of stealth cuts and promising money for things which should have been started years ago... but 'from 2025'.

If I've learned anything about Tory chancellors it is that money promised long ahead of time will not materialise. Jam tomorrow.

Once again the Tory trick of forcing local councils to carry the can for the brunt of their cuts while dressing it up as doing everyone a favour continues. Several local councils (of all colours) are already essentially bankrupt, I wonder how many can afford a further 6% real terms cut in council tax funding.

 

[AstroDan]

Is it really any wonder there are strikes? Why would ANYONE want to actually become a teacher, for example?

From a right-leaning thinktank and in today's Guardian

 

[Funcone]

Clearly the people who’ve done really well over the last 12 years are hospitality workers. Every time I see someone driving a Ferrari I think, ‘I bet they work in McDonalds’. Apparently, half the kids at Eton have at least one parent who works in KFC.

By every objective measure the poorest are getting poorer. The number of people in low paid jobs using food banks is sky rocketing. Life expectancies in the poorest communities are going down.

Yes, the minimum wage has gone up, but that doesn’t mean the hospitality workers are rolling in it. Zero hour contracts keep on getting more common, and their uses more obnoxious. Perks like extra pay for weekends and bank holidays have pretty much gone. Millions of people in low paid jobs are being paid below the minimum wage. In some cases, they’re working on breaks they’re not paid for. In some cases, they’re charged for things they shouldn’t be. In some cases hours are wrongly rounded down, or they’re simply not paid for all the hours they’ve worked. Hospitality workers are very unlikely to be in a union and have virtually no lobbying power. Hosptialiy workers are far more likely to be sexually abused or assaulted at work than people in any other sector, partly because a lot of customers are under the influence of alcohol, but also because zero hour contracts means they’re constantly competing for hours, making it very easy for managers to abuse their positions.

We’re seeing growing number of split shifts and growing numbers on under-employed people doing multiple jobs. Low paid workers are the mostly likely to lose out from regressive taxes, weaker public services, and an overheated housing market.

I’m very open to a sensible debate about teacher’s pay and the public sector, but let’s punch up, not down. Poor people aren’t the enemy here. And a right leaning think tank attacking the minimum wage is hardly a surprise.

 

[AstroDan]

It's not meant to be an attack on hospitality, is it? It certainly wasn't meant to be from where I am stood.

Just an observation. It' sure isn't meant to be a race to the bottom. But it seemingly is.

Sorry if a left winger here has put their foot in it

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[Matt.GC]

You won't find many more people as passionate as me in favour of teachers, nurses, social workers and ambulance drivers receiving a significant payrise after years of disgraceful "pay restraint" as the government like to call it. All of those professions are criminally low paid and is one of the many reasons why this government needs to go now. Frankly, they should have gone on strike years ago for fair pay. It's disgraceful that we have accepted this situation for so long.

But this is typical Guardian Champagne Socialist bull in that bar chart. A further attempt to separate the working classes from the educated classes.

What it doesn't show is how underpaid Hospitality, Residential Care, and Retail & Wholesale were in the first place. Or the fact that their pensions, T&C's and premiums have repeatedly been raided to pay for the new hourly rate. Or how all their hours have been cut back in the name of "efficiency savings". Funny how every payrise that's been given to people who work for me in the past few years has never been paid for by the company. Let's say a payrise costs £2k, an "efficiency saving" of 200 hours is almost always found within weeks and the payroll cost never seems to go up? What do they all have in common? All work in the private sector because that's how they roll.

Don't be fooled by right wing think tanks and publications such as the Guardian. This is exactly what Tory types want - Divide and rule. The hourly rate doesn't ever tell the full story.

 

[Matt N]

Is this "real-terms pay" or simply "pay"?

I only ask because I was under the impression that public sector workers had taken quite a considerable real-terms pay cut since the start of austerity in 2010, hence the current high pay rise demands of some of the unions? (For instance, I believe nurses are requesting a 17% pay rise, which is quite a bit above inflation, due to the overall real-terms pay cuts experienced post-2010)

 

[Plastic Person]

But this is typical Guardian Champagne Socialist bull in that bar chart. A further attempt to separate the working classes from the educated classes.

I always appreciate your reports from the frontline of retail and your generally sharp eye for bull. But I don't believe that The Guardian, perhaps the only left-wing publication with any significant influence left in the UK media system, were reporting on this to trigger a culture/class war between say, teachers and retail employees. Nor was @AstroDan. If anything, the bull bar chart from a right-wing think tank is notable in containing so little to spin for anyone in either private or public work.

I read the linked piece earlier, independent of this thread and personally didn't finish it thinking, "Those lazy chancers in the supermarket!" In a more progressive world your rights as a worker would be guaranteed in both sectors. We'll need a more intersectional approach to get us there.

 

[Craig]

A polite reminder for people to refrain from swearing in topics please, as I've had to remove a few instances. We're all quite capable of getting our point across without resorting to it. Thanks!

 

[Matt.GC]

I always appreciate your reports from the frontline of retail and your generally sharp eye for bull. But I don't believe that The Guardian, perhaps the only left-wing publication with any significant influence left in the UK media system, were reporting on this to trigger a culture/class war between say, teachers and retail employees. Nor was @AstroDan. If anything, the bull bar chart from a right-wing think tank is notable in containing so little to spin for anyone in either private or public work.

I read the linked piece earlier, independent of this thread and personally didn't finish it thinking, "Those lazy chancers in the supermarket!" In a more progressive world your rights as a worker would be guaranteed in both sectors. We'll need a more intersectional approach to get us there.

I'm not sure if this sarcastic or not. If it isn't, then thank you for the compliment. If it is, however, it kind of proves my point.

I stress again (I hope this won't be cropped out in any reply) that the pay important public sector workers receive for the work they do is a national disgrace. I would happily pay more taxes to ensure that the people who care for and nurture the most important people in my life (obviously my children) are paid a fair wage for the excellent education they have received to date. I say in the sincerest possible way that someone as shallow and as uneducated as me could not do a job like them or many of the other public sector workers who I alluded to earlier for such a meager wage and real terms pay cut over the last decade. I, like almost every person on this forum, know people who do these kinds of jobs. I wish I'd done something with my life quite frankly where I could go home on a night time and feel like I have made a positive impact on someone's life. Something which is mostly an impossibility with the crap I deliver on a daily basis. But it's too late for that now.

I too have read the article and I agree that it's not pointing the finger at anyone in particular, in fact it points to the low wage growth across many sectors and acknowledges that most of sectors detailed are all low paid.

My points were aimed more at the fact that, in many of the private sectors listed, these "payrises" came at costs that aren't listed. Whether it's pensions being destroyed, contract's being changed, hours being cut back etc. A top line hourly rate is exactly why the darlings or my industry - the discounters- are allowed to get away with their dodgy employment practices and why their competitors are in hot pursuit of them in a race to the bottom aided and abetted by the gloriously postive press they receive from TV networks, social media and The Guardian.

I stand by what I said about the Guardian. A publication like all the others - only after a readership base. They say what their target audience wants to hear. Written by educated elites who learnt about what they think being "left wing" is at university. Sympathy for a position rather than empathy. Its publications like the Guardian and the elites in the Labour party who don't understand why traditional working class people voted for things that have damaged them long term like Boris Johnson and Brexit because they look down on these people like all elites do.

I have no intention of triggering class war. In fact, I ended my post by advocating the opposite. But there are an increasing amount of people in the western hemisphere who are feeling left behind. Not because people don't care about them but because people don't understand them. The class system has changed massively in the last couple of decades since we started funnelling as many people as possible off to university with false promises of riches in an economy that doesn't exist. Now, none of us can afford to buy houses, get decent medical care free at the point of use and heat our homes properly. But whilst we fight over the table scraps, there's always a couple of sections of society that alway wins. They always have and always will.

 

[jon81uk]

You won't find many more people as passionate as me in favour of teachers, nurses, social workers and ambulance drivers receiving a significant payrise after years of disgraceful "pay restraint" as the government like to call it. All of those professions are criminally low paid and is one of the many reasons why this government needs to go now. Frankly, they should have gone on strike years ago for fair pay. It's disgraceful that we have accepted this situation for so long.

But this is typical Guardian Champagne Socialist bull in that bar chart. A further attempt to separate the working classes from the educated classes.

What it doesn't show is how underpaid Hospitality, Residential Care, and Retail & Wholesale were in the first place. Or the fact that their pensions, T&C's and premiums have repeatedly been raided to pay for the new hourly rate. Or how all their hours have been cut back in the name of "efficiency savings". Funny how every payrise that's been given to people who work for me in the past few years has never been paid for by the company. Let's say a payrise costs £2k, an "efficiency saving" of 200 hours is almost always found within weeks and the payroll cost never seems to go up? What do they all have in common? All work in the private sector because that's how they roll.

Don't be fooled by right wing think tanks and publications such as the Guardian. This is exactly what Tory types want - Divide and rule. The hourly rate doesn't ever tell the full story.

I don't see it as trying to split people. Most people would have thought hospitality staff are underpaid, at the minimum wage end they still are I think. But the graph shows some sectors have got the pay rise they need and others haven't. Really the increases should be roughly the same for everyone.
Its not meant to show that one group got a rise they didn't deserve, more that if this group got it, why shouldn't the nurses get it too.

 

[AstroDan]

The government have been oh so decent and 'capped' rail fare rises at 5.9%.

If they cared a toss about helping people they would freeze them.

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[Benzin]

The government have been oh so decent and 'capped' rail fare rises at 5.9%.

If they cared a toss about helping people they would freeze them.

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But the rail companies NEED to continue increasing profits or the world will end.

/s


Wonder which one will be the next company requiring government propping.

 

[Tibble]

I don't think you are thinking of the poor rail bosses @AstroDan - they need their millions in bonuses, Maybe we should start a gofundme for them just to top them up a bit

 

[Funcone]

I know I come across as very cynical, but having done a lot of research into employment laws, I think it is justified here. Right wing think tanks are very good at hiding their motives and in many cases their funding. Think tanks know that lobbying has a bad press, so they try to present themselves as research groups rather than lobbyists. They’ll try to make it look like they’re going in with an open mind and genuinely trying to add to the debate. They’ll always try to make it look like they’ve got poor people’s interests at heart.

They’ll often claim they want more legislation, but the legislation they’ll campaign for will be meaningless, while they’ll simultaneously lobby against other more meaningful legislation. The Modern Slavery bill was heavily criticised by human rights groups like Amnesty International. The government abolished the department for investigating slavery (under the guise of austerity) while passing a law saying that large companies have to put a statement on their website saying they’re against slavery. A joint investigation between a lot of the big UK media outlets found there were 10,000 modern slaves in textile mills in Leicester alone. No one was ever prosecuted for it. There are probably at least 200,000 slaves in the UK. When 21 Chinese slaves died picking cockles in Morecambe Bay, one person was given a short prison sentence. The slave owner had been making slaves pick Cockles in the bay for over a decade when the incident happened. The police had repeatedly declined to investigate.

The government introduced and law saying large companies should report their gender pay gap, but there are no penalties for not doing it or reporting inaccurate information. At the same time, they declined to pass more meaningful laws, like saying you can’t ask for previous salaries in recruitment, or that you have to tell people the pay before a job interview.

It’s believed that there are around 8 million people in the UK earning below the minimum wage. This includes modern slavery (often working in things like car washes, nail salons, sex work, the drug trade, sweatshops, construction, farming, fishing and cockle picking), the hidden economy (people working for companies that aren’t registered with HMRC/Companies House who are paid cash in hand, often prevalent in farming and construction), people in the gig economy who’ve been wrongly told they’re self employed when they’re not (self employed people aren’t entitled to a minimum wage), and people in ‘regular’ employment who are paid below the minimum wage. There are about 30 ways a ‘regular’ employer could pay someone below the minimum wage.

They might enroll someone onto a bogus apprenticeship that doesn’t meet the definition of an apprenticeship. There is a lower minimum wage for apprentices, but there are a lot of apprenticeships in things like coffee making and leadership that don’t meet the definition of an apprenticeship. They might not reimburse people fully for their costs. For example, a care worker’s mileage allowance might not cover the full cost of driving to clients. The government’s recommended mileage allowance for people driving for work hasn’t increased in over a decade. They might have to pay for their own equipment, for example being told to use their personal mobile for work purposes. Or workers might have pay deducted for unreasonable things, like a compulsory service charge that covers the cost of running a canteen, or an administration fee for getting paid. There might be other unlawful deductions of pay, for example if a cash register is short, everyone on that shift might have pay illegally deducted. The company might make assumptions about how much workers are earning in tips and deduct it from their wages. People might not be paid statutory holiday pay or statutory sick pay. Staff might be told they have to clock in before they start getting paid, or stop getting paid before they stop working. For example, they might stop getting paid when the restaurant closes, but have to do cleaning after its closed. They might not get paid for training, for example they’ll be given lot of E training to do at home when they’re off the clock.

Low paid workers (including those in hospitality) are very vulnerable. They’re rarely covered by unions. Zero hour contracts give employers the power to cut hours or fire people without giving a reason or going through any process. Employment tribunals are very hard to access and if a low paid worker does make it to a tribunal (which is incredibly rare) their odds of winning are estimated to be less than one in a thousand.

Some people with think I’m over cynical or a conspiracy theorist. But I have done a lot of research into employment laws and the way they’ve been eroded. I don’t believe for a minute that a rightwing think tank is spreading misinformation to help the teachers and nurses out. I believe they’re spreading misinformation to set up the idea that low paid workers are being looked after, and to sow political divisions. We’re one of only a few developed countries that haven’t banned zero hour contracts, and the fact that there’s an estimated 8 million people earning below the minimum wage is truly shameful. It’s a reflection not just of the government, but of the opposition, the media, the power of the lobbyists, and the universities and charities that have often legitimized the lobbyists messages whilst trousering a load of money along the way. In fact, the whole sorry mess reflects very poorly on British society. The UK is consistently rated as having about the weakest employment laws of any advanced economy, and the lowest paid, least unionised workers, are often the biggest losers.

Right wing think tanks might be very good at hiding their motives, but the people who fund them know exactly what they’re getting.

 

[rob666]

Gave a local delivery person a good tip this year, he admitted being paid less than the minimum wage by his local employer for about a decade.
"The pay is what it is, you should cover the round in two hours..."
Takes twice as long in the snow.
Right under our noses.
I love being self employed.