Ed Milliband was in the House of Commons today discussing the impact of the strike action by public workers. He was not going to demonise the dinner lady, the cleaner or the nurse as these are people who earn in a week what the chancellor pays for his annual skiing holiday. He got loud cheers from the Labour benches but I did not understand what this meant. So I took a look at where the chancellor had gone on his skiing holiday.
I had thought that skiing holidays were expensive and according to Ed nurses must be on a good wage if one week's pay could take them on holiday, but I did not think that this was what Ed wanted to say. However if you take Ed at his word then I never expected nurses to be earning so much as it was easy to find headlines telling me that George Osborne had paid £11000 for a skiing holiday. So is Ed telling us that the strikers are earning a lot of money or did he simply make a mistake?
Let's take it that he made a simple mistake, after all we are all human, but if he did make a mistake then why did he get all the cheers from the Labour benches. Possible answers are that all Labour MPs are sycophants. I don't think this is right. Could it be that all Labour MPs think that nurses earn £11000 per week. I don't think this is right either. The probable answer is that they all made a simultaneous mistake (my tongue is firmly in my cheek). Do you have a better answer?
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He obviously mixed up the words week and year. But I don't think anyone was thinking clearly today due to the constant Tory bleating that public sector workers werepaid well? We never had it so good? (Pay frozen for three years...and when we do get a rise it will only be 1% for two years, plus I found out yesterday that I will have to work until I'm 67...or was it 68? before I can retire) At least I suppose I have a job for now..I notice that no government member mentioned the EPR (equal pay review) that has been going on for the past two years ..where many public sector workers have seen their pay cut. This is another factor, as to why so many public sector workers were so incensed....many have had their posts re-graded, and most down rather than up
ReplyDeleteThanks for the better answer. I am sure you are right that he meant to say year. This makes me think of the stage management that must go on because the Labour benches were obviously not thinking about what Ed was saying. I now imagine a pep talk in which the Labour MPs are told to make a lot of noise after the words annual skiing holiday.
ReplyDeleteAs for the rest of your comments, there is more than enought for a couple more blogs in there and in the end it is a matter of perspective, but that was the whole point about the debate between the two leaders.