Greens take Brighton Pavilion

ninky_2

Snooze wrote: »

I've heard Leicester called some things in my time, but "exciting" and "economically active" ???? Come on.... :rolleyes:

i thought leicester had pretty good shopping scene and also has the one of the biggest caribbean carnivals in europe not to mention all the diwali celebrations. the highest unemployment is to the west (where there is less ethnic diversity).

something like 75 percent of people in leicester were born here afaik.

Mr_Mumble

SimbaK2K wrote: »

Am I the only one who thing the Green Party are more bonkers then the BNP? They want to allow mass immigration from non EU countries, give them citizenship and raise the minimum wage to £8 while raising benefits? Sounds like a sure way to screw up the country if you ask me.

The £8.10 an hour minimum wage is beyond crazy. I popped into Lidl the other day and they had a job ad with a wage of £6.90. Lidl shop floor staff work very hard imho, when they aren't on the tills going 100mph they're up and stocking shelves. It's really hard to see how you could work supermarket staff hard enough for them to be economically viable at £8.

There'd have to be a huge increase in self-checkout systems and far fewer checkout staff who may be rationed to disabled, moms & children only. You'd have many restaurant staff laid off and those who remain would have to work harder, fast food joints will automate more. It's a recipe for mass unemployment, especially amongst younger workers who're always hit hardest when government restricts a person's right to employment at a wage of their choosing.

ninky_2

carolt wrote: »

You want to try Luton... :eek:

luton still has a white brit majority doesn't it?

carolt

Mr_Mumble wrote: »

The £8.10 an hour minimum wage is beyond crazy. I popped into Lidl the other day and they had a job ad with a wage of £6.90. Lidl shop floor staff work very hard imho, when they aren't on the tills going 100mph they're up and stocking shelves. It's really hard to see how you could work supermarket staff hard enough for them to be economically viable at £8.

There'd have to be a huge increase in self-checkout systems and far fewer checkout staff who may be rationed to disabled, moms & children only. You'd have many restaurant staff laid off and those who remain would have to work harder, fast food joints will automate more. It's a recipe for mass unemployment, especially amongst younger workers who're always hit hardest when government restricts a person's right to employment at a wage of their choosing.

What a load of rubbish - you're usually very sensible but this totally ignores the fact that most of these workers' wages are topped up by tax credits anyway; they don't actually get £6.90.

If the country saved on tax credits, we could afford to tax businesses less so they could afford to pay wages real people can actually live on.

You try to support a family on £6.90/hour.

Thrugelmir

carolt wrote: »

What a load of rubbish - you're usually very sensible but this totally ignores the fact that most of these workers' wages are topped up by tax credits anyway; they don't actually get £6.90.

If the country saved on tax credits, we could afford to tax businesses less so they could afford to pay wages real people can actually live on.

You try to support a family on £6.90/hour.

Agree you can't. But Rumania cut public sector pay by 25% this week, and Latvia and Hungary are experiencing budget problems. So there are plenty of people who are still willing to work at these pay rates from within the EU.

Entertainer

Like I said yesterday, this was very much on the cards and Labour were also annihilated in the rest of the South East as predicted. The Greens poured absolutely everything into this seat- they had 200 activists out canvassing in the final days. It just goes to show what can be achieved at the local level when a party organises itself. The Greens actually took a big risk here parachuting in Caroline Lucas (their leader who isn't a leader:D) to replace the previous popular candidate who was the one who made the initial breakthrough in 2005.

As for their policies, there is a huge vacuum there because they don't even mention the deficit and what they would do about it so they can't yet be looked upon as a national party until they start making some of the hard choices that that entails.

Entertainer

carolt wrote: »

What a load of rubbish - you're usually very sensible but this totally ignores the fact that most of these workers' wages are topped up by tax credits anyway; they don't actually get £6.90.

If the country saved on tax credits, we could afford to tax businesses less so they could afford to pay wages real people can actually live on.

You try to support a family on £6.90/hour.

There are alot of low margin businesses that could not pay £8 an hour to all their staff and keep going regardless of how much you tax them. Plus not everyone who does these jobs is doing it as a sole living wage- you get alot of students, working partners who work part time or retired people (or close to retirement). It's not all in the context of a living wage.

carolt

I'm dubious about this. £8 is not that much more than the current £6.90 (?) - only businesses with huge numbers of low-paid staff would face problems; for most businesses, staff are only 1 of many costs.

I remember how all the representatives of business came out when the minimum wage was first introduced and said it would bankrupt business, create huge unemployement - it did nothing of the sort, as we all know.

ninky_2

what about the lib dem 10k tax free allowance carolt? that could make £6.90 an hour more attractive without extra costs to business.

come on clegg....get them over a barrel...

Kohoutek

The minimum wage is only £5.8/hr for 22+ and £4.8 for 18-21s.

The Lib Dems have certainly got the right idea - putting a huge burden on business by hiking the minimum wage to £8.1 during a recession would be a disaster.

£8.1/hr for a full time (9-5) job is £16,848/year - not really realistic for a minimum wage if you want many unskilled jobs to remain to exist.