The reference point for workers that are regarded as low skilled in the UK is the minimum wage, currently £9.50 per hour.
The loss of EU workers has indeed increased wages expectations, for some of this group, but not all. A common complaint is that the major services like the National Health Service and Social Care, which are funded out of taxes, are experiencing severe staff shortages. The pay and conditions for the ‘low skilled’ are better working in a supermarket or for one of the many warehouse and logistics companies.
Part of this is due to Brexit, but the Covid pandemic has also had a dramatic effect on the labour market, for which the government is unprepared. Add to that the energy crisis caused by Putin’s adventure.
The UK is now riven by strikes for more pay, mainly in the public sector driven by inflation.
Teasing out how much Brexit is responsible for this is difficult. On the one hand it gives the current administration a ‘get out of jail free’ card. Pointing at Putin and Covid, rather than Brexit. On the other hand, they have painted themselves into a corner with immigration control policy. With the Home Office restricting work visas and the Health, Social Care and many companies in the private sector wanting them relaxed.
The government claimed that business would simply have to pay UK workers more and train them and stop relying on cheap EU labour. Unfortunately, what seems to have happened is that business has indeed done this and in so doing denuded the public services of workers. The bill for public service pay increases falls squarely on the government and it is now a big political issue. The can hire essential medical staff through agencies to cover critical areas, but at huge cost. They have inherited years of poor staff planning and training and a health service exhausted by dealing with the pandemic. The UK definition of what is ‘low skilled’ work has much to do with snobbery. Only the brightest and best to come to the UK. The immigration rules favour brain surgeons, not care workers to look after the elderly.
Brexit severely limits the government from fixing a problem, the responsibility for which, they imagined would fall on private business.
Meanwhile, the governments industrial strategy had received a blow with news the demise of a company that was to have built an EV battery gigafactory. It was hearalded as one of great new opportunities as a result if the freedoms that come with Brexit.
Sadly, it attracted the wrong kind of tycoon. But the good news is that the UK will have one gigafactory. It will be Chinese owned.
I’m assuming this is former Chancellor and current leader of the Conservative Party Nadhim Zahawi “forgetting” to pay £3 million in tax at a time when he oversaw HMRC.
Isn’t it terrible when you forget that you’ve accidentally left several million in an offshore account? I’m sure we can all relate.
I am also reminded again of Steve Martin’s routine about how to be a millionaire and never pay taxes:
Presumably the armed robbery thing is next week’s scandal, although which particular Tory remains to be seen. My money’s on Dominic Raab.
Minor nitpick (which I’m sure you know, but just so anyone else following isn’t confused): Nadhim Zahawi is not currently the leader of the Conservative Party (that would be Prime Minister Rishi Sunak), he is party Chairman, which is a rather different role. Not that this does much to diminish the scandal/outrage, just setting the record straight on that point.
Meanwhile - another troublesome sideshow in the making:
“Writing a piece for The Sunday Telegraph” doesn’t exactly sound like an inspiring initiative aimed at the mass of voters - just the Tories squabbling among themselves. Again.
This Yank will argue there’s a big difference between Liz Truss trying to make a (profitable) political comeback and ending up a well-paid media personality vs. Liz Truss succeeding at her attempted political comeback and becoming a member of the Cabinet or, heaven forefend, PM again on some future date. Or just being a perennial gadfly of the Tory rearguard, flinging barbs down from the cheap seats.
Agreed - but she may not be entirely clear in her own mind as to her preferred outcome, and which outcome circumstances will prefer isn’t up to her. My guess is some combination of your first and third possibilities.
And as for what happens after the next election - that’ll depend on who’s left standing after the voters have had their say.
The idea is this: if, after 100 days in office, 28% of people approve of the job that you’re doing and 46% disapprove, you have a rating of minus 18 (28 - 46). That’s Rishi. The other 5 prime ministers, in ascending order, are:
(Rishi Sunak -18)
Boris Johnson -3
Theresa May +19
Gordon Brown +26
David Cameron +27
Tony Blair +50
Sadly, Liz Truss failed to meet the 100 day criterion.
When he took office, Sunak’s personal popularity was considerably higher than his party’s. What he needed to happen was for his relatively good standing with the public to drag up their perceptions of the Tory party.
What has really happened, inevitably, is that his ratings have been dragged downwards, in a sort of Second Law of Political Thermodynamics kind of way. I think it was Warren Buffet who said that when a CEO with a good reputation moves to a company with a bad reputation, it’s not the company’s reputation that changes.
Because, after all, look what Sunak has to work with. The talent pool is hopelessly shallow, there is no coherent policy programme and the party is divided. They have Fucked About and we are now firmly in the Finding Out phase.
Sunak’s popularity was higher than his party’s not because of anything intrinsic to him but because the rest of the party’s was so abysmal and he was probably the least well-known of the bunch. His popularity has fallen simply because he is now far more a known quantity; it’s become apparent that he’s really no different than the rest of the lot.
He had been the Chancellor who’d authorised furlough and various free meal schemes in the pandemic, which helped his image a bit (and he was a notorious self publicist) but of course, he did all those things through gritted teeth because he wants to cut spending and taxes, not shower largesse in people while windfall taxing energy companies.
The domestic energy price cap which has been keeping people’s gas and electricity bills at the “affordable, barely” level is due to expire in April.
Sunak has no plans to extend the cap. Many people are pushing for it to be extended as domestic prices are still v. high and there will be a big shock in both the economic and emotional senses if it disappears from one month to the next. ( By way of illustration, my bill last month would have almost doubled if the cap hadn’t been in place).
Is Sunak really going to stick to his guns on this? Or will we have 2 months of him saying he’s going to stick to his guns amd make tough choices for Britain, before folding and leaving the cap in place?