Labour Party’s Gloria de Piero, shadow minister for women and equality, delivers a speech during Labour’s annual conference in Manchester, Britain, yesterday.

Reuters/Manchester

Britain’s opposition Labour party yesterday promised to raise the national minimum wage by more than 25% within five years if it wins next year’s national election, a pledge designed to win over voters hit by rising living costs.

Earnings in Britain have lagged behind inflation since the 2008 financial crisis.

The rising cost of everything from gas to train tickets has shot up the political agenda since the return of economic growth forced Labour to shift its line of attack on the Conservative-led government ahead of the May 2015 vote.

“Too many people are treading water, working harder and harder just to stay afloat. Too many working people have made big sacrifices but in this recovery they are not seeing the rewards for their hard work,” Labour leader Ed Miliband said on the opening day of his party’s annual conference in Manchester.

“One in five of the men and women employed in Britain today do the hours, make their contribution, but find themselves on low pay.”

If elected, Miliband said he would raise the national minimum wage to £8 an hour by 2020, an increase of more than 25% from its current level of £6.31.

Earlier this year, Prime Minister David Cameron’s coalition government agreed to a recommendation by the Low Pay Commission, the independent body which advises it on the topic, for a 3% increase in the minimum wage to £6.50 in October.

That would be the first above-inflation increase since 2008.

Miliband, who has sought to make the cost of living one of the main issues in next year’s election, has previously promised to link the minimum wage to average earnings.

Yesterday, Labour said its plan would see the minimum wage boosted to 58% of median earnings by 2020, from 54%.

In response, Cameron’s Conservatives said they were already implementing an above-inflation rise in the minimum wage and they blamed Labour for making people poorer by overseeing the economic crash as they were in power at the time.

While centre-left Labour is leading opinion polls by a few percentage points with less than eight months to go until the national vote, it lags far behind the Conservatives when voters are asked who would be better at managing the economy.

Business lobby the British Chambers of Commerce criticised the plan to raise the minimum wage, saying governments should leave the issue to existing bodies such as the Low Pay Commission. “Businesses are in favour of an evidence-based approach to the minimum wage rather than political parties using it to gain support from voters. The government should not intervene in such matters, unless there is market failure,” BCC director general John Longworth said.

 

Labour ‘must stop using language of Westminster’

Guardian News and Media/London

A Labour shadow cabinet minister has called on his colleagues to stop talking in the Westminster language of “clipped political soundbites”, arguing his party has more work to do before voters will trust them to govern the country.

Rising star Dan Jarvis, the shadow justice minister, said policies are extremely important but irrelevant if voters do not believe that they will be delivered.

Making the case that trust will be the defining issue of the next election, he also called on Labour to go “toe-to-toe” with the UK Independence party, Ukip, by challenging its appeal, after a period of taking for granted and neglecting voters in its northern heartlands.

“The public are so fed up, so cynical with politicians we have got a huge challenge to address that,” Jarvis said. “We have got to convince people we are on their side and working in their interest.”

Jarvis made the remarks in an interview with the Guardian to mark the publication of a new book, Why Vote Labour, which is introduced by Ed Miliband. He is the latest in a long line of prospective Labour big-hitters to edit the collection of essays, with the honour going to Rachel Reeves in 2010, Neil Kinnock in 1979 and Roy Jenkins in 1959.

A major theme of the book is loss of trust among voters and the public’s “earthquake of dissatisfaction” with traditional politics, illustrated by the Scottish independence referendum campaign and Ukip’s success in the European and local elections.

He believes the public are right to think the entire political system is “not fit for purpose” because it does not enjoy the trust of the public, and politicians need to “work out pretty sharpish” what to do about it.

To help address this, Jarvis suggested Labour needs to be about both “bread and roses” once again, referring to an American political slogan that suggests people need a hopeful vision for their wider lives and not just promises about their finances.

The book examines how to create an economy for the many, a more inclusive society and a better politics. “Economic arguments are of course very important .But there are other factors that influence them as well and I think we’ve seen that in Scotland. I am often quite surprised that in parliament we don’t spend very much time talking about things people are interested in and spend their time doing, whether that is engaging in sport, music, film, and the arts.”

The book is written in plain English, not thinktank-speak, in the hope that informed members of the public outside Westminster will give it a try.

Jarvis, a former army officer, said he and his Labour colleagues could all do better at talking in terms that people understand. “I know the public just stop listening when we speak in a language of the Westminster village that is about a clipped political soundbite,” he said. “We need people who can communicate very effectively, people who have had genuine life experiences outside politics.

“The reality is on all sides of the house that we have frankly far too many people who haven’t had that broader life experience and who speak in a language that is only intelligible to people who reside in the Westminster village.

“We have made huge progress but we’re now at the point eight or nine months away from the general election where I genuinely believe we are well placed to win it, but we’ve got quite a bit to do before in the end the public will place their faith and trust in us.”

 


 

 

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