Shame of fatcat pay
Giving hard-pressed workers a real-terms pay rise would be “reckless”, claims the Government – while at the same time Boris Johnson is looking to lift the cap on bankers’ bonuses.
This is the Tories’ philosophy in a nutshell.
They think it is acceptable for employees to earn less but for employers to earn to more.
In the last 20 years the average pay of the chief executives of the UK’s 100 biggest companies has risen from £1million to over £4million.
Bosses used to earn around 20 times the pay of the average worker, now they can pocket 141 times more.
No wonder low-paid staff feel hard done by and have turned to industrial action.
They will rightly ask why their bosses are entitled to lavish pay but they are denied extra money to help with the cost-of-living crisis.
The Conservatives have called for wage restraint for the masses but ignored the spiralling pay packets of the few.
This is not levelling up. It is a formula for creating a more divided and unequal country.
Failed again
Over a 16-year period hundreds of young girls in Rotherham were abused, trafficked and groomed by a gang of male predators.
These innocent victims were repeatedly failed by the very people who should have been there to protect them: the police.
Now they have been failed again by the Independent Office for Police Conduct report into the response by South Yorkshire Police.
The report investigated 47 individual police officers, examined 20,000 documents and took 800 witness statements, yet not a single police officer has been prosecuted or sacked.
The failure to hold the authorities to account will do little to restore trust in the police and could deter victims from coming forward.
Glasto gusto
After a two-year break due to Covid, the Glastonbury festival returns this weekend.
The weather forecast may be for torrential rain but the acts will still go down a storm.
