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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/29/government-chaos-public-sector-pay-cap-real-peoples-lives
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| Now the government chaos is affecting real people’s lives | Now the government chaos is affecting real people’s lives |
| (7 months later) | |
| Thu 29 Jun 2017 20.29 BST | |
| Last modified on Mon 27 Nov 2017 20.59 GMT | |
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| Yeah, but no, but maybe yeah eventually, but no right now. To paraphrase Little Britain’s gormless teenager Vicky Pollard, that’s roughly where the government stands, at the time of writing, on whether public sector workers are going to get a decent pay rise. Although by the time you read this, who knows? | Yeah, but no, but maybe yeah eventually, but no right now. To paraphrase Little Britain’s gormless teenager Vicky Pollard, that’s roughly where the government stands, at the time of writing, on whether public sector workers are going to get a decent pay rise. Although by the time you read this, who knows? |
| Hours after suggesting on Wednesday that “we understand people are weary” of austerity and that the cap on public sector pay might thus be lifted, Downing Street was backtracking, squeaking furiously that actually nothing had changed. Yet all the time, Tory MPs were getting fat hints that, so long as they voted down a Labour amendment to the Queen’s speech which called for the scrapping of the cap right now, something might well be worked out come the autumn budget. | Hours after suggesting on Wednesday that “we understand people are weary” of austerity and that the cap on public sector pay might thus be lifted, Downing Street was backtracking, squeaking furiously that actually nothing had changed. Yet all the time, Tory MPs were getting fat hints that, so long as they voted down a Labour amendment to the Queen’s speech which called for the scrapping of the cap right now, something might well be worked out come the autumn budget. |
| Officially no, but maybe yeah before too long. And if Westminster is struggling to work out what all this actually means, God alone knows how teachers and doctors and police officers, and the firefighters so recently lionised for risking their lives in Grenfell Tower, are supposed to make sense of it. | Officially no, but maybe yeah before too long. And if Westminster is struggling to work out what all this actually means, God alone knows how teachers and doctors and police officers, and the firefighters so recently lionised for risking their lives in Grenfell Tower, are supposed to make sense of it. |
| Any private company that treated its staff this badly – first dangling hope and then snatching it away, all the while giving the exceedingly strong impression that its left hand had no idea what its right hand was doing – would be rightly condemned. More than that, it could expect its staff to start refreshing their CVs. Why put in the unpaid overtime for a boss who treats you in such a cavalier manner? | Any private company that treated its staff this badly – first dangling hope and then snatching it away, all the while giving the exceedingly strong impression that its left hand had no idea what its right hand was doing – would be rightly condemned. More than that, it could expect its staff to start refreshing their CVs. Why put in the unpaid overtime for a boss who treats you in such a cavalier manner? |
| People need to know with reasonable certainty what they’re likely to earn, so that they can plan their lives: start a family, save up for a house, take a miserably difficult decision about whether to give up a job they used to love for something better paid and probably less stressful. This isn’t like U-turning over some abstract policy idea that might never have happened. It’s messing with real lives, and that has consequences. | People need to know with reasonable certainty what they’re likely to earn, so that they can plan their lives: start a family, save up for a house, take a miserably difficult decision about whether to give up a job they used to love for something better paid and probably less stressful. This isn’t like U-turning over some abstract policy idea that might never have happened. It’s messing with real lives, and that has consequences. |
| As it happens, when the news started dribbling out I was chairing a housing conference in Manchester. For two days, in virtually every session, plaintive questions about public sector pay had been creeping in; not just from local government workers presumably anxious about their own futures, but from those who see the impact on people’s ability to pay the rent. | As it happens, when the news started dribbling out I was chairing a housing conference in Manchester. For two days, in virtually every session, plaintive questions about public sector pay had been creeping in; not just from local government workers presumably anxious about their own futures, but from those who see the impact on people’s ability to pay the rent. |
| There were stories of nurses travelling two hours to work because they couldn’t afford to live anywhere near London hospitals; teachers who have no hope of buying. What were politicians going to do about it? The answer, it seems, is take an already confused situation and make it more confusing. | There were stories of nurses travelling two hours to work because they couldn’t afford to live anywhere near London hospitals; teachers who have no hope of buying. What were politicians going to do about it? The answer, it seems, is take an already confused situation and make it more confusing. |
| By refusing to break ranks and vote with Labour for pay rises, Tory MPs have managed – in many cases to their dismay – to make themselves look mean-spirited, heartless and hypocritical. After all, the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has been openly campaigning for a pay rise for NHS staff. | By refusing to break ranks and vote with Labour for pay rises, Tory MPs have managed – in many cases to their dismay – to make themselves look mean-spirited, heartless and hypocritical. After all, the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has been openly campaigning for a pay rise for NHS staff. |
| In the hours between losing his marginal suburban seat and being hired as Theresa May’s new chief of staff, the former Croydon Central MP Gavin Barwell suggested that pay restraint was at least partly to blame. He recalled the Tory-voting teacher who told him she couldn’t vote for him because, while she initially understood the need for a pay freeze, “you’re now asking for that to go on potentially for 10 or 11 years and that’s too much”. | In the hours between losing his marginal suburban seat and being hired as Theresa May’s new chief of staff, the former Croydon Central MP Gavin Barwell suggested that pay restraint was at least partly to blame. He recalled the Tory-voting teacher who told him she couldn’t vote for him because, while she initially understood the need for a pay freeze, “you’re now asking for that to go on potentially for 10 or 11 years and that’s too much”. |
| It’s the absence of light at the end of the tunnel, the sense of slogging on with an ever-increasing workload but no expectation of reward, that many find cruel. And that’s why, whatever the outcome of Wednesday’s vote, the will of parliament is now almost certainly for more generous pay deals. Chastened Tory MPs quickly identified the frustration of underpaid professionals as one of the key reasons for their near-defeat, and those in marginal seats know full well it could finish them next time. | It’s the absence of light at the end of the tunnel, the sense of slogging on with an ever-increasing workload but no expectation of reward, that many find cruel. And that’s why, whatever the outcome of Wednesday’s vote, the will of parliament is now almost certainly for more generous pay deals. Chastened Tory MPs quickly identified the frustration of underpaid professionals as one of the key reasons for their near-defeat, and those in marginal seats know full well it could finish them next time. |
| Yet if Tory MPs had broken ranks and inflicted the first defeat on a Queen’s speech since 1924, that would have been interpreted as a signal of no confidence in the new government and potentially the trigger for a general election many fear would finish them even faster. | Yet if Tory MPs had broken ranks and inflicted the first defeat on a Queen’s speech since 1924, that would have been interpreted as a signal of no confidence in the new government and potentially the trigger for a general election many fear would finish them even faster. |
| By pushing this to a vote, Jeremy Corbyn forced them into a lose-lose choice between survival in the long term and survival in the short term; exactly the sort of cunning parliamentary trap that George Osborne used to delight in setting for Labour, engineering votes on welfare cuts that he knew would make them choose between the party line and their principles. | By pushing this to a vote, Jeremy Corbyn forced them into a lose-lose choice between survival in the long term and survival in the short term; exactly the sort of cunning parliamentary trap that George Osborne used to delight in setting for Labour, engineering votes on welfare cuts that he knew would make them choose between the party line and their principles. |
| And as Osborne knew full well, it works. Johnny Mercer, the former army officer turned MP for marginal Plymouth Moor View, put out an impassioned video for constituents trying to explain why he’d be lobbying behind the scenes for pay rises instead of voting with Labour. But it didn’t stop him being accused all over social media of selling soldiers out. | And as Osborne knew full well, it works. Johnny Mercer, the former army officer turned MP for marginal Plymouth Moor View, put out an impassioned video for constituents trying to explain why he’d be lobbying behind the scenes for pay rises instead of voting with Labour. But it didn’t stop him being accused all over social media of selling soldiers out. |
| Angry constituents can’t understand why anyone would vote for something in which they clearly don’t believe, in the hopes of lobbying more effectively for the opposite to happen – even though, surprisingly often in parliament, that’s how U-turns are engineered. This is politics at its most baffling and remote from public understanding: all gamesmanship, no glory, tailor-made to increase voters’ frustration with the system. | Angry constituents can’t understand why anyone would vote for something in which they clearly don’t believe, in the hopes of lobbying more effectively for the opposite to happen – even though, surprisingly often in parliament, that’s how U-turns are engineered. This is politics at its most baffling and remote from public understanding: all gamesmanship, no glory, tailor-made to increase voters’ frustration with the system. |
| A stronger, more confident government could have said it got the message from angry public servants, and would listen and respond accordingly in the budget. It could have admitted that, while public sector salaries overall used to be higher than private sector ones – a source of much Tory resentment – the gap has shrunk to almost nothing over the past six years, and enough is enough. (The Office of National Statistics calculates that public sector workers would be on average £31 a week richer – or over £1,500 a year better off – if their pay had risen as fast as private sector workers’ since 2011.) | A stronger, more confident government could have said it got the message from angry public servants, and would listen and respond accordingly in the budget. It could have admitted that, while public sector salaries overall used to be higher than private sector ones – a source of much Tory resentment – the gap has shrunk to almost nothing over the past six years, and enough is enough. (The Office of National Statistics calculates that public sector workers would be on average £31 a week richer – or over £1,500 a year better off – if their pay had risen as fast as private sector workers’ since 2011.) |
| But a weakened prime minister served by a patchy Downing Street operation (most of those experienced enough to give a definitive answer to other departments’ questions have gone, leaving their colleagues “frozen like rabbits in the headlights”, says a source who has dealt with No 10 frequently in recent weeks) and a chancellor she clearly wanted to sack, doesn’t seem capable of articulating its position that clearly. | But a weakened prime minister served by a patchy Downing Street operation (most of those experienced enough to give a definitive answer to other departments’ questions have gone, leaving their colleagues “frozen like rabbits in the headlights”, says a source who has dealt with No 10 frequently in recent weeks) and a chancellor she clearly wanted to sack, doesn’t seem capable of articulating its position that clearly. |
| It’s the government that is “just about managing” to get through the day now, never mind the voters. Yeah, but no, but who knows where we may end up tomorrow? | It’s the government that is “just about managing” to get through the day now, never mind the voters. Yeah, but no, but who knows where we may end up tomorrow? |
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