The Politics of Envy

Last week the Leader of Copeland Council, Cllr. Elaine Woodburn, made comments in public about the pay rise awarded to nuclear industry workers - e.g. about 24% of the working population of the area she is paid to represent - which were foolish beyond belief.

At a meeting on nuclear issues she criticised their 4.85% pay rise as too high and repeatedly used the word "obscene".

Regardless of the merits of the case, this is political stupidity of an extreme order. Apart from seriously annoying 10,000 workers and their families, what will this achieve? The Britisn Nuclear Group can hardly cancel the rise they have agreed to pay, and these comments will merely lower the respect in which local politicians and the council are held.

Even in terms of the issue which motivated these remarks - concern for the rest of the local working population, most of whom have not had as large a rise (if any at all) - such comments are not helpful. Since most of the money paid to Sellafield workers will be spent locally and go back into the economy of West Cumbria, the knock-on effect of their pay rise will be more money received by other local industries, which means more jobs, better job security, or better prospects for future pay rises for the rest of the community. Cutting back the pay rises for nuclear industry employees would not help other workers in Copeland.

New Labour have dropped their vendetta against the seriously rich - especially those who lend lots of money to the Labour party - but they have never stopped attacking the people in the middle. When Labour is not imposing stealth tax rises on hard working middle income families, they are stirring up jealousy against them with this kind of mean-spirited and petty comment.

Comments

Praguetory said…
Hi Chris - Disappointed not to find your blog sooner. There's some good stuff here. Here's a related post.
Chris Whiteside said…
Thanks for your comments and for the interesting cross reference.

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