Re: Tory minister breaks rank over minimum wage : Wed Apr 03, 2013 10:27 am  

Read the OP properly – and even the linked-to speech in full – and the Telegraph article.

Re: Tory minister breaks rank over minimum wage : Wed Apr 03, 2013 10:51 am  

Dally wrote:

It costs KPMG next to nothing to be such an employer! So, not a great example. Effectively a bit of PR. The vast majority of their staff have always been way over a living wage threshold. They may have needed to up a couple of support staffs wages but such costs would be incidental and easily covered by sweating their professional human capital further.

If IIRC KPMG & Barclays also insist that any contractors pay the Living Wage too, I expect there's a fair few of them. Unfortunately John Lewis Partnership are still resisting any moves to ensure their contractors pay Living Wage, which does seem at odds to their own fair remuneration model

Re: Tory minister breaks rank over minimum wage : Wed Apr 03, 2013 10:54 am  

cod'ead wrote:

If IIRC KPMG & Barclays also insist that any contractors pay the Living Wage too, I expect there's a fair few of them. Unfortunately John Lewis Partnership are still resisting any moves to ensure their contractors pay Living Wage, which does seem at odds to their own fair remuneration model

Indeed.

Re: Tory minister breaks rank over minimum wage : Wed Apr 03, 2013 12:12 pm  

cod'ead wrote:

If IIRC KPMG & Barclays also insist that any contractors pay the Living Wage too, I expect there's a fair few of them. Unfortunately John Lewis Partnership are still resisting any moves to ensure their contractors pay Living Wage, which does seem at odds to their own fair remuneration model

KPMG are unlikely to use lower paid contractors in any number so it's an easy preach for them.

As to JL, it would probably destroy their business model if they did.

Re: Tory minister breaks rank over minimum wage : Wed Apr 03, 2013 12:19 pm  

Dally wrote:

KPMG are unlikely to use lower paid contractors in any number so it's an easy preach for them.

So, security guards, cleaners, canteen staff etc won't add up to a significant number?

Dally wrote:

As to JL, it would probably destroy their business model if they did.

How do you work that one out?

Re: Tory minister breaks rank over minimum wage : Wed Apr 03, 2013 12:40 pm  

sally cinnamon wrote: Not sure if anybody noticed this last week but it has caused a bit of a stir in Conservative circles. Matthew Hancock who is Minister for Skills in BIS and one of the new generation of upcoming Tories (he's only 34), has made a speech on targeting low pay, where he has called on the Conservatives to be 'strengthening the minimum wage'. Now you may think this is a bit of cynical posturing with a few non-commital soundbites, but his speech is a direct challenge to prevailing Tory thinking, in a number of areas, and for a Minister to be breaking ranks over this is quite significant. Some quotes you may find interesting. First, some facts about income inequality since Thatcher's era, that you don't often hear a Tory mentioning: Then Hancock went on to talk about leisure time being more important than just accumulating money: Now this is where he starts getting quite controversial, with loaded comments against some of his comrades: And then Hancock goes on to rubbish the common myths about the minimum wage being bad for employment: At the moment a lot of Tories are posturing and positioning themselves to the right, anticipating a right-wing challenge to Cameron, Hancock is taking a bit of a political risk here putting his head above the parapet, of course on the Conservative blogs he is being torn to shreds as a heretic. Looking at his background he is a former Bank of England economist and his speech makes a lot of sense to me. Time will tell whether he gets shot down and shifted out of government before long but he might be the type of Tory that 'gets it' on social inclusion and wants to move the party back in the One Nation direction it had been under Churchill or MacMillan. The full speech is posted on his website http://www.matthewhancock.co.uk/campaig ... ion-speech I may be a cynic but though it's a nice speech, why say it now?? Maybe to enforce the message that the torys are for strivers not shirkers? and that although they have been forced to teach the poor a lesson for being on benefits, they are a good lot really, who have working people's interest at heart. Pull the other one.

sally cinnamon wrote: Not sure if anybody noticed this last week but it has caused a bit of a stir in Conservative circles. Matthew Hancock who is Minister for Skills in BIS and one of the new generation of upcoming Tories (he's only 34), has made a speech on targeting low pay, where he has called on the Conservatives to be 'strengthening the minimum wage'. Now you may think this is a bit of cynical posturing with a few non-commital soundbites, but his speech is a direct challenge to prevailing Tory thinking, in a number of areas, and for a Minister to be breaking ranks over this is quite significant. Some quotes you may find interesting. First, some facts about income inequality since Thatcher's era, that you don't often hear a Tory mentioning: Then Hancock went on to talk about leisure time being more important than just accumulating money: Now this is where he starts getting quite controversial, with loaded comments against some of his comrades: And then Hancock goes on to rubbish the common myths about the minimum wage being bad for employment: At the moment a lot of Tories are posturing and positioning themselves to the right, anticipating a right-wing challenge to Cameron, Hancock is taking a bit of a political risk here putting his head above the parapet, of course on the Conservative blogs he is being torn to shreds as a heretic. Looking at his background he is a former Bank of England economist and his speech makes a lot of sense to me. Time will tell whether he gets shot down and shifted out of government before long but he might be the type of Tory that 'gets it' on social inclusion and wants to move the party back in the One Nation direction it had been under Churchill or MacMillan. The full speech is posted on his website http://www.matthewhancock.co.uk/campaig ... ion-speech I may be a cynic but though it's a nice speech, why say it now?? Maybe to enforce the message that the torys are for strivers not shirkers? and that although they have been forced to teach the poor a lesson for being on benefits, they are a good lot really, who have working people's interest at heart. Pull the other one.

Re: Tory minister breaks rank over minimum wage : Wed Apr 03, 2013 1:27 pm  

Ovavoo wrote:

I may be a cynic but though it's a nice speech, why say it now??

Maybe to enforce the message that the torys are for strivers not shirkers? and that although they have been forced to teach the poor a lesson for being on benefits, they are a good lot really, who have working people's interest at heart.

Pull the other one.

If it was something like that, then it wouldn't actually help for him to be being rubbished by many on the right for these comments.

If nothing else, this and the Telegraph piece help to stop the issue of low wages being seen simply as a politically tribal issue and, therefore, one that is easily dismissed.

Re: Tory minister breaks rank over minimum wage : Wed Apr 03, 2013 10:37 pm  

Ovavoo wrote:

I may be a cynic but though it's a nice speech, why say it now??

Maybe to enforce the message that the torys are for strivers not shirkers? and that although they have been forced to teach the poor a lesson for being on benefits, they are a good lot really, who have working people's interest at heart.

Pull the other one.

The speech was aimed at a Tory audience. Just like some of the other recent speeches from Tories who are positioning themselves for potential leadership challenges by making sure the party rank and file knows they are more to the right of Cameron on various issues.

I suspect Hancock's motivations are:

1. This reflects his views (on which he is not alone in the Tory party, Boris Johnson has also come out in support of the minimum wage), he is probably on the left of Tory party.

2. He is looking ahead and reading the political weather. There is a right wing challenge to Cameron in the offing and he can probably see that is the route to electoral disaster. Hancock is only 34, so about 8-10 years away from being a potential leader, but if Cameron is ousted, the Tories might have a few years rediscovering their right wing agenda and then going the same way they did 10 years ago under Hague and IDS. At that point, the Tories will be fed up of being miles down in the polls and there will be a mood for a "new era" under someone who can swing the party back to the centre ground and make it electable.

Cameron tried to paint himself as this at first but is not authentic and soon flip flopped back to the right. There is, IMO, an electoral market for a centrist One Nation Tory, who can be a bit like Blair was for Labour - be well spoken and from the right social class to keep Middle England onside, but have a political stance that doesn't have it in for the poor, immigrants, groups that the right wing like to target.

The fact that his background is as a Bank of England economist means he will be used to looking at economics through a more 'neutral' lens, so he's more likely to have his policy ideas driven by evidence than by rhetoric which he would have got if his background had been in Tory party HQ.

For decades the Tory party was a sensible centre party that had appeal across the social spectrum and across all regions of the UK. Thatcher really has contaminated the Tory brand, which is why lots of people now instinctively associate the Tories as the enemy and also why probably it tends to attract mostly a right wing audience. Traditional free market conservatives that don't have it in for the poor are probably reluctant Tories these days - when Blair was around, New Labour hoovered up their support.

But although I won't be voting Tory any time soon, I think its more healthy for British politics if you get people in the Conservative party speaking sensibly like Hancock has done here - whether you agree or not with his message, it is not a message of divisiveness or targeting vulnerable groups to seek populist support.

Re: Tory minister breaks rank over minimum wage : Thu Apr 04, 2013 7:57 am  

cod'ead wrote:

So, security guards, cleaners, canteen staff etc won't add up to a significant number?

How do you work that one out?

1. Very few on number relative to high earning professional staff. To get the relative handful of support staff to a living wage (if they were ever below it) would be made up very easily from reduced pay rises of a fraction of a percent to professional staff.

2. JL are never knowingly undersold where they sell branded stuff. if they dramatically upped their cost base they could not compete with others. Also, there none comparable products are already expensive and I'm not sure their middle of the road clientele could take significant increases in prices.

Re: Tory minister breaks rank over minimum wage : Thu Apr 04, 2013 8:31 am  

Dally wrote:

2. JL are never knowingly undersold where they sell branded stuff. if they dramatically upped their cost base they could not compete with others. Also, there none comparable products are already expensive and I'm not sure their middle of the road clientele could take significant increases in prices.

Do you seriously believe that?

Really?

JL could probably fund any increase through a ha'penny on a tin of beans or a couple of pence on a pint of milk. Who do you know who actually looks at the price of milk in ANY supermarket, let alone Waitrose?