The Pay Up Campaign

The Pay Up campaign is something a support and it's a subject I have written about alot. I believe that it's wrong that a full time worker cannot survive without benefits, while the company who employs that person pays such low wages. Why should taxpayers top up the low wages of Tesco workers when the company is creaming huge profits?

As this article says;

While tax credits are a lifeline to the 5 million households in the UK that rely on them, they have allowed private companies to shirk responsibility for wage bills, shifting it to the public instead and creating a subsidy for private sector profit

Remember these are people who work full time, they are probably members of your family, your friends or you yourself. Some of the companies mentioned in the Pay Up campaign might be one of the biggest private employers in your town. Don't listen to those who tell you that if Sainsbury's is made to share it's profits more via higher wages for workers than it won't be in business and then no one will have a job. All they want is for the bosses wages to go up and up at the expense of the workers - and then the bill gets passed on to taxpayers.

Society is not working if full time workers need a top up off the state, while companies post massive profits in their billions. Support the campaign please.

The Social Mobility Myth

All politicians tell you how much they care about social mobility. It mainly means they tell you about people ‘getting on in life’ and poor kids achieving their goals. In fact that is the problem in my view; the debate on social mobility by the political class is always a one way street. They only ever talk about people moving up the ladder, as if there is one massive ladder and the only way is up.

But that is nonsense and it’s a nonsense that needs replying to. The next time you hear someone talk about ‘improving social mobility’, just ask them whether they support people moving down the ladder too? For example, they all believe too many privately educated people work in law, politics, the media and even get a chance to study at Oxford or Cambridge. There are plenty of people who talk of a closed shop and how it’s terrible and how we need to change it.

If you believe they are genuine in their views (I certainly don’t agree that rich people cannot care about the poor etc), then consider that for every extra working class kid to get into Oxford, it will mean that a kid who went to private school does not. The fact is that well-paid jobs in professions are not in endless supply; and too many politicians support social mobility because they version is one that only talks about people moving up, basically a version that doesn't exist.

The simple fact is that we can talk about social mobility all we want, we can talk about how to improve it and what is stopping it. But when it boils down to it, it means that for it to be anything other than words, poor kids will have to be given more chances at these careers at the expense of the rich. I will wait with baited breath that an increasingly privately educated ‘closed shop’ graduate class within politics will decide that is something they will bring about happening.

"Politics and Sport shouldn't mix..."

It has always struck me that people who say ‘you should never bring politics into sport’ say so only when the politics does not match their own. It’s apparently why pro-UK politicians view it as perfectly natural to scream blue murder in support of a Welsh national rugby team (and would probably seek to commit murder if it was ended) but have a go at anyone who dares question Team GB’s football team.

Imagine if FIFA run rugby and said that if the next British Lions tour takes place, then the WRU might lose the national rugby team? You would see pro-UK politicians line up to defend the WRU, it’s ‘our national game’ and FIFA are not to be trusted.

But apparently if the football association of Wales says that they are worried that if Team GB plays, it might lose its international status, then it’s ‘bringing politics into it’. Incredibly the captain of the Welsh side, Aaron Ramsey is due to go ahead in play in a team that might mean the end of the Welsh side. Imagine if Sam Warburton was due to play for a side that threatens the future of the Welsh national rugby team?

I will hold my hands up, I want a Welsh team at the Olympics as any other independent nation should be allowed. But in the meantime I am happy to lend my support to the British athletes and fully cheer on the Welsh ones. But Dai Greene running in a British vest doesn’t mean that a Welsh team might disappear. Dai Greene winning a gold medal in the Olympics is the pinnacle of his sport; it’s not such a pinnacle of a sport when a team decided the best over 23 players they have are David Beckham and Ryan Giggs.

To return my point, the people telling you that ‘you should never bring politics into sport’ are playing you for fools. They are playing politics and hoping they can hide it from you. Their politics means that being pro-UK is more important than having a national team in football and anyone complaining about that is a party pooper or a nationalist.

I am against Team GB because it threatens the future of the Welsh national team, a team that has given me some of the greatest nights as a spectator and some of the worst. But even during the hard times, at least it is there.

How to make the argument for independence

Irvine Welsh I believe makes a clear and easy to understand case for Scottish independence in this video. Many people who do/will/might consider voting for independence are people who see themselves as culturally British. Having a shared culture is of course fair and each to their own on that; but we don't need a political union to have that.

I'll be back