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.
State of the Nation
Cymru Am Byth
Wednesday 30 May 2012
Tuesday 29 May 2012
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.
Wednesday 23 May 2012
"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.
Monday 21 May 2012
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.
Monday 14 May 2012
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