Cheap Labour

Submitted by Alan Marsden on Sat, 25/09/2021 - 00:00

The Labour Party wants to raise the national minimum wage to £10 per hour. It duly tweeted:

“One in six working families live in poverty in the UK” so they “would introduce a minimum wage of at least £10… so children are given the opportunities they deserve“.

This is great news for people currently earning eight pounds-something. Yet the stewards they seek to man their Brighton conference are to be paid only £9.75. So while a £10 per hour rate is being debated, the people keeping today’s conference moving will be paid less than that. Of course, this is not a bad wage and it is above the current minimum. Yet there is a whiff of hypocrisy here. We are sometimes more generous with other people’s money than we are with our own. We like other employers to pay more, but not ourselves. We want taxes to rise, but not the ones we pay. If children need more opportunities through higher wages for their parents, this should apply to those who steward party conferences, too. Before we lecture others, let our own houses be in order. Hypocrisy is a horrible thing, and the sin that most aroused the Lord’s wrath when He was on the earth. From it, Lord, deliver us.