This morning, the government’s Safeguarding Minister, Rachel Maclean, declared in an interview with Sky News’ Kay Burley, that the solution to the cost of living crisis (one the Tories helped create) is for people to ‘take on more hours, or move to a better paid job‘. Shall we examine why this is offensive and wrong? Oh yes, let’s…

1. How does everyone get more hours?

Firstly, not every job allows for overtime. Secondly, jobs that do permit overtime will only have a limited number of additional hours available, so not everyone will be able to get them, or get enough of them to make an appreciable difference to their income. It’s not a practical suggestion.

2. It’s unreasonable for work/life balance

Got kids? Got a spouse or partner? Want to see your family and friends? Well, Ms Maclean thinks you should sacrifice that for the sake of working more. You’re a peasant, a peon, not much more than a slave or serf in the eyes of the Tories. Why aren’t you at work, benefiting the economy?

3. We have the means, just not the will…

I posted this back in September 2021, and repeated it in January, and it remains relevant:

The NI rise will reportedly bring in £12 billion to relieve stress on the NHS and help cover social care. Want to know how much money a 5% tax on the wealthy would raise? £262 billion. That figure is over five years, so we’re looking at over £50 billion a year. You wouldn’t have to penalise the poor, and the rich would remain incredibly rich.

It’s at times like these that we hear how unfair it is to tax the wealthy, who as we know earned their wealth (cough). Never mind that millions of people who work hard earn a small fraction of what the wealthy earn (and I’d argue many workers, especially those in the NHS, are horribly undervalued). We need to take pity on the rich! Yet, with a fairer tax system (that as mentioned would still allow for the rich to be rich) there’d be a lot money in the pot, and with that, you could pay a decent living wage, provide a lot more for schools, hospitals and police, fix the roads, and generally raise the quality of life for the vast majority of the country.

Look at that, a means to tackle the cost of living crisis, that doesn’t place even greater strain on people already struggling… oh, and a windfall tax on the huge profits energy companies are raking would not be a bad idea either. I cannot imagine why the Tories would not do such a thing…

4. Get a new job? We can’t all be MPs!

As of April 2022, the basic MP salary is £84,144, and MPs can and do claim a variety of expenses (on top of having heavily subsidised bars and restaurants at the House of Commons). There are millions of people who work far harder for far less. The average salary for a doctor is £51,494 (and doctors are considerably more skilled than most MPs), and the average nurse earns £33,384 per year (nurses work incredibly hard and work extremely long hours, unlike most MPs). The money exists to offer a decent increase to the minimum wage and to assist in building a better quality of living across the UK, but that’s not in the Tory interest. How can they hoard wealth and indulge in vanity projects if they’re treating the public better?!

When will people start to see this sort of snobbish elitism for what what it truly is?!