Real regular pay (wages adjusted for prices & bonus payments) across the board was 2.8% lower in the three months to May than in the same period of 2021 - the sixth monthly decline in a row, & the biggest drop since modern records began in 2001.
The latest ONS figures show total pay growth of 7.2% in the private sector compared with just 1.5% in the public sector. Many unions are threatening strikes if the Govt holds pay rises below 5% for the current financial year, while inflation is above 9%.
Boris Johnson’s cabinet is on today (Tuesday) due to sign off on wage settlements covering 2.5 million public sector workers, in one of the most significant decisions left to be taken by his caretaker government.
Unions representing teachers, health workers & civil servants have warned of widespread disruption if ministers approve further real-terms pay cuts for the coming year.
Today's data reveals the almost fivefold disparity between private & public sector pay growth.
Patrick Roach, general secretary of the NASUWT teachers’ union, accused ministers of “contempt” for public sector workers. “If the government hopes that teachers’ anger will dissipate over the course of the summer break, they are wrong.”
The number of unfilled jobs edged up to a record of 1.294mn, although the ONS said the rate of growth in vacancies had slowed.
Growth in average weekly earnings, including bonuses, was 6.2% in the three months to May, equivalent to a real-terms pay cut of 0.9%.
Growth in regular weekly earnings of 4.3% equated to a real-terms pay cut of 2.8% — a record drop.
The tight labour market has given some workers more bargaining power, allowing them to secure bigger wage rises to go at least some way to offset the national #CostOfLivingCrisis.
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The front-page article, published in the Daily Telegraph, claiming “London is home to as many as 585,000 illegal migrants, equivalent to one in 12 of the city’s population” was covered across the media and widely discussed by politicians and others.
The claim that “One in 12 in London is illegal immigrant” is based on this report, commissioned by Thames Water, conducted by the research company Edge Analytics in February 2023, which the Telegraph says it obtained “under freedom of information-style laws for the environment”.
🧵 Quite a few politically & historically illiterate brainwashed Trump-supporters replied or quote-tweeted the tweet below to tell me lifelong democratic socialist George Orwell was not in fact a democratic socialist. Truly Orwellian. So I asked Oligarch Musk's Grok about it...
In the preface to her newly reissued book, 'Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan - 30th Anniversary Edition', historian @NancyMacLean5 reflects on the resurgence of white power nationalism and political violence in contemporary America.
MaClean is known for her prescient best-selling 2017 book about the post–WWII conservative thinkers and policymakers who shaped the hyper-neoliberal #Project2025, 'Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America',
Evidence of why her prize-winning book has aged well and why @OxUniPress decided to republish it is obvious: numerous instructors continue to assign it, countless historians cite it, and the best Klan scholars have given it well-deserved praise.
According to the UK Electoral Commission website, in June & July 2024 alone, more than £1.7M flooded into Reform UK. Since 2019, more than £16M (73%) of its funding is linked to just nine companies & individuals with offshore interests.
The Electoral Commission website is easy to search, either by donations/loans to particular political parties, or by the names of individuals/organisations funding them. Since 2019, Farage's Reform UK Ltd/Brexit Party has recieved more than £22M (£4.4M/MP) search.electoralcommission.org.uk/?currentPage=1…
My January 2024 article in @BylineTimes revealed that by far the biggest single Reform UK Ltd donor is Thai-based Chris Harborne, who made his fortune in aviation fuel & crypto investing. He's given them around £13.7M (62% of their total donations).
GB "News" is jointly owned by Paul Marshall & Legatum, under the umbrella of holding company All Perspectives: three of its significant shareholders work for Christopher Chandler's Dubai-based investment firm Legatum & three Tory life peers are shareholders or Directors.
The five people listed as having 'significant control' over GB "News" umbrella holding company All Perspectives Ltd are: Philip Vassiliou; Paul Marshall; Richard Douglas; Alan McCormick; & Christopher Chandler.
The House of Lords Register of Interests reveals three Tory life peers are Directors or shareholders of All Perspectives: Lord Agnew of Oulton & Baroness Morrissey are Directors; Lord Farmer is a Shareholder.
Whose interests does free-market propaganda channel GB "News" serve?
In 2013, the Office of the Children’s Commissioner published the final report of its two-year Inquiry into child sexual exploitation in gangs & groups - the biggest investigation into the scale & nature of child sexual abuse in England ever published.
Anyone wanting to read “If only someone had listened”, Office of the Children’s Commissioner’s Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Gangs and Groups, Final Report', published November 2013, by Sue Berelowitz et al, it's here: