UK Politics - We Don’t Want to See Your Papers, Please

[Spockydog]

And, really, people who are probably earning £50,60,70k+ per year, pontificating about how much poor people should be able to live on.

  

 

[BigFatCoward]

51 minutes ago, mormont said:

I think, as I said, that policies aside there is no form of bigotry worth tolerating for votes. If Labour intend to defend trans rights, they should in fact defend trans rights.

I'd note that as well as being a 'red meat' issue for parts of their own base, the Tories are well aware that this is a wedge issue that can cause division in the Labour ranks - not among the voters Starmer needs to win back, as I've said, but among the Parliamentary Labour party. Some Labour backbenchers and even frontbenchers have signed up to the bizarre TERF talking point that this is in some way about an assault on women's rights. To equivocate on that question would have encouraged that wing of the party to be more open about this and push harder for TERF-friendly policies, causing more internal strife.

For that reason among others, Starmer literally could not give any answer to that question that would be politically advantageous to the Labour party. So he did the right thing. Good on him.

On the £15 an hour minimum wage, I'd want to know more about that. Is this (as I assume) a five year goal? Increase by, say, £1 a year until we get to £15? That's a whole different kettle of fish than pushing it to £15 in one year, which probably would be impossible.

We will agree to disagree on the best way for Labour to get power back and sell their message. I would sell my soul to the devil to get 'new' Labour or even a moderately normal conservative party, never mind some socialist utopia old Labour party. People's lives are more important than ideology. 

These fuckers have got to go. 

As to your last point re min wage I fully agree. 

[Derfel Cadarn]

£15 per hour is a lot for small businesses, especially small cafes snd the like. Businesses still fragile after covid lockdowns and lower footfall.

Maybe £10 min wage but introduxe UBI to make up difference, shifting some of the burden to wealtht corporations and the rich?

[BigFatCoward]

Just now, Derfel Cadarn said:

£15 per hour is a lot for small businesses, especially small cafes snd the like. Businesses still fragile after covid lockdowns and lower footfall.

Maybe £10 min wage but introduxe UBI to make up difference, shifting some of the burden to wealtht corporations and the rich?

Yeah. I'm just thinking if a cafe has 3 staff working 8 hours a day, currently on £10 an hour, that's going to cost nearly 45 grand a year. 

Something has to be done to level up and give people some dignity, not sure immediately jumping straight to £15 is the right answer. At least with gradual increase small businesses can gradually pass their costs on to customers, a big jump in price for customers will probably put a lot of companies to the wall. 

[Spockydog]

Dignity, I'd like some of that.

I am essentially working full time, spreading my time between caring for two fully grown human beings, saving the state tens of thousands of pounds every year.

I would fucking KILL to be paid £8 per hour, let alone £10 or £15.

This is what MY essential work is deemed worth by the Government.

£67 per week - Carer's Allowance. This is the same whether you are caring for one, two, or however many people.

£21 per week - Income Support. The law says I need £88 per week to live on. So my Carer's Allowance is topped up.

£139 per week - Housing Benefit. My share of the rent is actually £152 per week, with the £12p/w shortfall coming out of the above, because when my rent went up I was told that I had to move, or cough up the rest from my Carer's Allowance.

My hourly rate - approximately £5.67. And seeing as nobody pays me for the petrol I burn travelling to and from my mum's every day, I guess that figure is even lower.

And for receiving this king's ransom? Every two years, I am summoned to the local JobCentre Plus, where I have to justify my existence to some snarky bureaucrat as he looks down his nose at me and tells me I am forbidden from working part time. Not that I have any spare fucking time.

I have zero disposable income. If not without the assistance of my mum, I would be literally starving. 

So whatever uplift the minimum wage gets, it would be really nice if this could be reflected in my benefits.

 

[Hereward]

28 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

And, really, people who are probably earning £50,60,70k+ per year, pontificating about how much poor people should be able to live on.

  

 

Who has done that? There’s a difference between saying a 50% increase in the minimum wage may drive a lot of small businesses (and their employees) to the wall, and saying poor people should just eat cake.

I agree with Mormont, and possibly Derfel, rises should be affordable, gradual, and subsidised by government to protect small businesses.

[mormont]

14 minutes ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

Maybe £10 min wage but introduxe UBI to make up difference, shifting some of the burden to wealtht corporations and the rich?

Yeah. I would much prefer Labour to be making the case for UBI, which I sincerely believe has to be the way out of the current mess we're in. Capitalism as promoted by the current incarnation of the Tory party isn't working for a huge tranche of the country: all of us know someone with a story like Spockydog's, above. We need to look after people, to recognise that they have a right to a stake in society, and not to just bang on about individual responsibility for things that people have no individual control over.

[Spockydog]

11 minutes ago, Hereward said:

Who has done that? There’s a difference between saying a 50% increase in the minimum wage may drive a lot of small businesses (and their employees) to the wall, and saying poor people should just eat cake.

I agree with Mormont, and possibly Derfel, rises should be affordable, gradual, and subsidised by government to protect small businesses.

Well, some people here seem to have decided that £10 should be enough. For now. But this figure is every bit as arbitrary as £15, and does not account for the absurd reality of the cost of living in the UK.

But yes, I agree that an increase to a truly living wage will have to be gradual, and subsidised.

 

[The Anti-Targ]

I was going to say that the UK is a richer country than NZ and so can surely afford a higher minimum wage than us. We have $20/hr NZD, which equates to £10.23. But I thought I should check my facts and it turns out that NZ just sneaked ahead of the UK in GDP per capita last year, and it was only a fraction behind the UK in 2019. So really it appears ~£10-11 is roughly what seems to be affordable for economies of a similar relative size.

I think comparing the minimum wage with the calculation of the Living Wage done by organisations might be a good basis for a discussion. For us the living wage calculated for 2021 is $22.75, so our minimum wage is~12% less that the living wage. For the UK, according to this reference https://www.livingwage.org.uk/what-real-living-wage  the living wage outside of London is £9.50 and it's £10.85 for London. The UK current minimum wage is also 12% below the outside London rate but 23% below the London rate.

I suspect that like London Auckland should have it's own, higher living wage since it is the most expensive place to live for housing. So it is remarkable how similar we are with the minimum wage vs the living wage.

The USA has huge variability on the living wage, but even in the states with the lowest living wage it's a helluva lot higher than it's minimum wage.

It seems like Australia is well ahead of all of us.

 

[BigFatCoward]

Tory MP makes joke about bombing Labour conference in private whatsapp chat, Labour MP calls BoJo scum. Which is getting more press coverage? 

[Gorn]

Small businesses will manage the increase of minimum wage the same way as they manage the increase of rent costs or supply costs - by increasing their prices and passing on cost to the customers. This will not affect the working class whose purchasing power will be hugely improved, and will be covered by the middle and wealthy class.

So instead of whining about their cappuccinos potentially going up by £0.50 or whatever (and hiding it behind concern for small businesses), people who ostensibly support the reduction of wealth inequality should really put their wallets where their mouths are.

[Derfel Cadarn]

7 minutes ago, Gorn said:

Small businesses will manage the increase of minimum wage the same way as they manage the increase of rent costs or supply costs - by increasing their prices and passing on cost to the customers. This will not affect the working class whose purchasing power will be hugely improved, and will be covered by the middle and wealthy class.

So instead of whining about their cappuccinos potentially going up by £0.50 or whatever (and hiding it behind concern for small businesses), people who ostensibly support the reduction of wealth inequality should really put their wallets where their mouths are.

Not all small businesses sell coffee to upper-middle-class suburban mums/dads. 
Off the topnof my head, a local butcher would end having to charge a lot more for meat than supermarkets buying in bulk, and even those wanting to support local butchers would end buying from cheaper supermarkets.

Advantage of UBI complementing min wage rise is that the big supermarkets are essentially contributing, and the local butcher stays in business

[Fragile Bird]

21 minutes ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

Not all small businesses sell coffee to upper-middle-class suburban mums/dads. 
Off the topnof my head, a local butcher would end having to charge a lot more for meat than supermarkets buying in bulk, and even those wanting to support local butchers would end buying from cheaper supermarkets.

You still have meat at the grocery store? At reasonable prices?

[Spockydog]

1 hour ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

Not all small businesses sell coffee to upper-middle-class suburban mums/dads. 

Advantage of UBI complementing min wage rise is that the big supermarkets are essentially contributing, and the local butcher stays in business

There is no way any Tory government is going to countenance introducing UBI. And I doubt Labour have got the courage for it either.

Personally, I have a route out of poverty, on a road paved with gold. And when my business launches, I can promise you that nobody is going to be earning under £15 per hour. Nobody.

And if I can't make that work, then I don't have a business.

Simple.

 

 

[Spockydog]

23 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

You still have meat at the grocery store? At reasonable prices?

Mmmm.... Pickled pig's feet. On nom nom.

[Hereward]

With tripe and bread and dripping. Proper food.

[Gorn]

56 minutes ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

Advantage of UBI complementing min wage rise is that the big supermarkets are essentially contributing, and the local butcher stays in business

A major disadvantage of UBI complementing minimum wage is that, for many people, it wouldn't make financial sense to work at all. By going to work, you are spending money on transit, food/drinks during your break, child care... You also spending significant amounts of your free time on work + commute, and affecting your personal relationships by spending less time with your family/friends.

Many people will look at £8.91 they receive in return for all that, and think "fuck it, might as well stay home and collect the UBI".

[Derfel Cadarn]

34 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

You still have meat at the grocery store? At reasonable prices?

Yes, mostly for the better quality sausages for my toddler.

[Spockydog]

4 hours ago, mormont said:

all of us know someone with a story like Spockydog's, above. We need to look after people, to recognise that they have a right to a stake in society, and not to just bang on about individual responsibility for things that people have no individual control over.

I just wanted to say that if anyone feels sorry for me for being so skint, please don't.

I don't feel poor. Materially, I have everything that I need. And living with my big brother, looking after him, makes me happier than I have ever been in my life. Even when I was a £600 per diem project manager, flying around the world and staying in fancy hotels, managing multimillion pound projects and shit.

I gave up any hope of finding a female partner about five years ago. Seems there aren't many women out there willing to take us on as a package. But that's okay. Me 'n Chops live in domestic, celibate bliss, and I can't remember the last time there was an argument in our little flat.

I have married friends who earn ridiculously high salaries, but spend most of their lives in absolute, abject misery. I wouldn't swap my place with them for anything.

[Derfel Cadarn]

20 minutes ago, Gorn said:

A major disadvantage of UBI complementing minimum wage is that, for many people, it wouldn't make financial sense to work at all. By going to work, you are spending money on transit, food/drinks during your break, child care... You also spending significant amounts of your free time on work + commute, and affecting your personal relationships by spending less time with your family/friends.

Many people will look at £8.91 they receive in return for all that, and think "fuck it, might as well stay home and collect the UBI".

We’re talking here more of a boost to min wage (albeit incremental), with UBI to top up the difference, not as an alternative to working.

There are certainly a lot of avenue to explore, UBI being used to top up parents having to work part-time, carers etc etc.