Tory chairman Oliver Dowden has told the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester that “People need to get off their Pelotons and back to their desks,” in what a trade union has described as an “insult” to civil servants.
People have been encouraged to work from home wherever possible during the coronavirus pandemic, and the civil service has been no exception.
Dowden’s remarks follow comments from his former permanent secretary at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport – where he was Secretary of State until last month’s cabinet reshuffle – about how using her Peloton static bike at home had helped her health during lockdown, reports BBC News.
Speaking at a conference in September, Sarah Healey said: “I have a Peloton and I can just get on my bike whenever I have a teeny bit of time.
“That has been a huge benefit to my well-being, the lack of travelling time eating into my day.”
> Peloton cuts cost of exercise bike by 20 per cent as losses worsen
But today, Dowden told a fringe meeting sponsored by the Daily Telegraph at the Tory conference: “I like my permanent secretary at DCMS enormously, Sarah Healey, but I am disagreeing with her on this one.
“I think people need to get off their Pelotons and get back to their desks.”
He continued: “People really want the government to lead by example – they want civil servants to get back to work as well. We’ve got to start leading by example on that.”
The First Division Association, which represents senior civil servants, accused Dowden of producing a soundbite to appease party members.
“As the civil service, the broader public sector and thousands of companies in the private sector already know, what you deliver is far more important than where it’s delivered from,” it said.
“The pandemic has driven a quiet revolution in working practices that has seen innovation and reform from both the public and private sectors.
“Yet despite the incredible feats performed, ministers continue to want to stand in the way of progress and reform for the sake of a quick headline.”
The union added: “The hypocrisy of ministers – who are happy to bank the savings in office space delivered by hybrid working but decry the practice for the party faithful – is frankly insulting to the dedication, professionalism and commitment of hundreds of thousands of public servants.”
According to figures published by the government, Healey’s annual salary is at least £160,000.
A number of Twitter users pointed out however that the base cost of a Peloton bike – recently reduced to £1,350 for the standard model – plus the monthly media subscription to online classes put it beyond the reach of most civil servants.
Most earn less than £30,000 a year according to analysis of 2020 figures from the Institute for Government, and only a quarter earned more than £40,000.
With the median UK Civil Service salary £28,180 and a Peloton bike + 1 year subscription coming in at £2,218, I’m going to go out on a limb and say the number of civil servants too busy working out on posh exercise bikes to go to the office is in the single figures at most. https://t.co/1wjXU3UkT3
— Sharon O’Dea (@sharonodea) October 5, 2021
108 thoughts on “Tory chairman: Get off your Peloton and back to your desk”
Of no great relevance, but I
Of no great relevance, but I used to work for Sarah.
She sounds a very sensible
She sounds a very sensible woman who cares for her staff and wants them to enjoy the benefits of flexible working. Unfortunately Googling her the first headline that shows up is (no prizes for guessing from whence this came):
In my experience, she is very
In my experience, she is very nice, very intelligent, and very good at her job. (She also was on a University Challenge winning team, and returned for the alumni Christmas special series.)
Rendel Harris wrote:
Was it the Guardian?
Fooled! It was the Morning
Fooled! It was the Morning Star.
I’ve only got three mates who
I’ve only got three mates who work in the civil service, all in jobs where the workload has increased massively during the pandemic (NHS administration and Court of Protection officers for the elderly) whilst at the same time trying to manage homeschooling their kids for a big slice of the last eighteen months and in two cases look after elderly isolating parents. They are all reasonably senior in rank so could probably afford a Peleton but as one texted me just after seeing Dowden’s remarks, “I count myself lucky if I have five minutes for a cuppa, let alone time for a workout.”
Our pet Tories, who have recently been boasting of their empathy for others, will doubtless have excuses for Dowden’s ridiculous and offensive remarks.
Apart from lying and pissing
Apart from lying and pissing people off (their workers, in this instance) is there anything Tories are actually good at? Apart from getting elected I mean?
in the “real” world they so often like to talk about their incompetence would mean they last seconds…
EddyBerckx wrote:
Feathering their own nests, absolute bloody world class. Credit where it’s due…
And a gold medal for
And a gold medal for hypocrisy.
EddyBerckx wrote:
Not any more, no. They did favour low taxes, but that seems to have gone out of the window.
PRSboy wrote:
Only because they’re making use of certain offshore jurisdictions to minimise their own tax exposure…
PRSboy wrote:
They still favour low taxes for themselves and their mates, it’s only the workers that’ll pay more.
As the old saying goes “The lower class pay taxes, the middle class pay accountants, and the upper class pay politicians.”
PRSboy wrote:
Lets be honest about this, it doesn’t matter which party is in power, not one of them can plan and execute a project, or manage a crisis confidently.
All every single one of them is good at is; self serving promotion, dodgeing honest answers and having teflon shoulders. The Westminster bubble clearly doesn’t reflect the real world. (Privatise the cabinet office I hear you cry).
Lowering taxes sounded like a good idea at the time and I’m sure the old boys club were all clapping themselves on the backs at such a radical idea, but then, I guess if you were lumped with an unexpected £500billion bank loan over two years to swallow in your household accounts, that’d probably change anyones best intentions.
Another MP completely out of
Another MP completely out of touch with reality. If people can work from home, why not let them – it cuts down on the commute to work, with queues, congestion, etc
Oliver Dowden, putting the “N
Oliver Dowden, putting the “N” into Tory Cuts.
“People really want the
“People really want the government to lead by example…..”
That would be nice, like when they keep demanding higher output for higher wages; when did that ever apply to politicians? They have no measurable productivity but keep voting themselves pay rises. As the people’s representatives, they should be on the average wage, with no expenses, or family as the rest of us call them.
If you want to exclude all
If you want to exclude all but the very wealthy from running for parliament then that is a great idea.
If that’s not your aim you may want to reconsider.
Rich_cb wrote:
Yes – the introduction of pay for MPs was a massively important step for ensuring (or at least giving a chance of!) proper representation in Parliament.
Rich_cb wrote:
MPs get paid a reasonable salary, well above the national average, so why would that mean that only the rich could do the job? If you read what I said, instead of what you thought I said, it was about giving themselves undeserved pay rises while demanding that the rest of us only get a rise if we demonstrate increased productivity. If we paid politicians on results, I’m not sure many would get a living wage.
You wrote “No Expenses”.
You wrote “No Expenses”.
Without expenses MPs would have to pay for all their travel to and from London, London accomodation, a constituency office and staff all out of their salary.
That would leave approximately zero pounds to live on on their current salary.
On the “average wage” (30k – median) they’d be paying about 25k a year for the privilege of being an MP.
Fine for the already wealthy, not so fine for anyone else.
As I said, not the best idea.
eburtthebike wrote:
MPs get paid a reasonable salary, well above the national average, so why would that mean that only the rich could do the job? If you read what I said, instead of what you thought I said, it was about giving themselves undeserved pay rises while demanding that the rest of us only get a rise if we demonstrate increased productivity. If we paid politicians on results, I’m not sure many would get a living wage.— Rich_cb
you previously stated you wanted them to work for the average wage, not for their current salary frozen. No one is going to take on the role and the risk of being voted out of a job in 5 years, for that salary. Unless you want either independantly wealthy people (and you have to wonder why they would want the job, what they are getting out of it?) or unqualified people who can’t attract the national average salary in any other position. Rich_cb has already covered the expenses.
Or did you mean their pay rises should be linked to public sector pay rises? I agree with that completely, but I can’t interpret “they should be on the average wage” as relating to pay rises.
Also The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) has set and administered MPs’ pay since 2011, so they do not keep voting themselves pay rises.
Agree that MPs should be paid
Agree that MPs should be paid. In “the real world” it’s unlikely that paying them zero hours will work as they’ll just “make this up” in some way. However as to “why they’d want to do this” for a lower salary just google something like “former mp gets top job” or something similar. I’m not aware – although I’ve little political knowledge – of any MP getting the boot at the election and having to sign up for Universal Credit!
chrisonatrike wrote:
Actually surprisingly common that backbenchers who lose their seat end up heavily in debt and, if not claiming benefits, at least relying on friends and family to bail them out. And at the other end of the process – unlike most other jobs, those seeking it are largely expected to foot the bill of their own ‘recruitment’ (whether they’re successful or not) and frequently end up broke or heavily in debt by the end of it. Frankly the whole system’s a bit screwed up.
mdavidford wrote:
I thought MPs losing their seat in an election were given a payout in excess of normal redundancy payments, should be sufficient to cover them while they find work.
They do get what looks, on
They do get what looks, on the face of it, like a reasonably generous payout, but they also incur a bunch of costs – redundancy payouts to their teams, costs of closing offices and disposing of London properties, campaign costs of the election they’ve just lost, etc. – that eat in to that. They might, in general, be better off than the candidates who just lost without ever getting elected, but they can still end up out of pocket.
To be fair, a lot of MPs keep
To be fair, a lot of MPs keep trying to reject the pay rises that are set by an independent body. Mostly because they’re worried about how it will look to the electorate, rather than out of any sense that they don’t deserve it, but still…
Of course, there’s then a tendency to try to ‘make up the difference’ through all kinds of ‘directorships’ and ‘consultancies’, and other engagements, etc., with all the dangers of conflicts of interest those raise. On the whole, it might be better just to pay them more in the first place.
mdavidford wrote:
It’s an interesting one though because if any other public sector job was faced with 6-10 applicants per vacancy there would not be a rush to increase renumeration.
All those moaning about MPs expenses need to understand what they are used for.
There are two main components
1) running the MPs office – staffing, rent and supplies
2) accomodation costs, Anyopne complaining about this clearly does not have to work away from home at all. Those that do are generally paid expenses for doing so.
Consituency office could be funded centrally and removed from the expenses structure as part od the civil service, but likely the costs to the state of managing all these offices would increase.
I do wonder if accomodation expenses could be removed by providing appropriate accomodation for MPs at Westminster, with MPs responsible for maintaining their own family home in the consituency.
I rest my case:
I rest my case:
“Tory MP Sir Peter Bottomley reveals ‘desperation’ of living on £82k as he asks for pay rise”
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/tory-mp-sir-peter-bottomley-grim-82k-pounds-pay-rise-b959174.html?itm_source=Internal&itm_channel=homepage_trending_article_component&itm_campaign=trending_section&itm_content=5&fbclid=IwAR0pH8u6la5J9uOycwNdQ4ABumkJNqVWhzbZKKzvXCddFxPcdIpG9KvDNL4
Two days after Tory
Two days after Tory councillor Tim Wills is exposed for being a member of Patriotic Alternative, another Worthing West politician tries to regain public trust with this statement.
Are you missing a link in
Are you missing a link in this to the statement?
Ooops, sorry I wasn’t clear.
Ooops, sorry I wasn’t clear. I meant that MP for West Worthing Peter Bottomley’s statement that £82k wasn’t enough for his younger colleagues to live on in eburt’s link, so soon after West Worthing councillor Tim Wills was exposed as being a racist conspiracist, supporting a fascist organisation was not the necessarily the way to get back in the electorate’s good books.
markieteeee wrote:
TBH it’s looking more and more like our Govt could stand in Trafalger Square and start executing kittens and “the public” would still vote for them…
brooksby wrote:
Getting Kittens Done
I know, I know. This
I know, I know. This democracy thing – it’s terrible, isn’t it?
Let me know when we actually
Let me know when we actually have it 😉
Flintshire Boy wrote:
To quote Johnson’s favourite racist (
) “democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried.”
brooksby wrote:
The kittens are being completely unreasonable and intransigent. We don’t want to execute them, but if they won’t compromise by dying of their own accord, they really leave us no choice.
Tough on kittens, tough on
Tough on kittens, tough on the causes of kittens.
chrisonatrike wrote:
Too many words – it’s all three word slogans now.
Steve K wrote:
Kittens; furry terrorists.
Can anyone think of a way for
Can anyone think of a way for Sarah to combine her love of jumping on a bike with her aim of making better use of time spent commuting, that perhaps allows her to get back into the office a few times a week?
srchar wrote:
Yeah but then she wouldn’t be able to blame the terrible VPN for her lack of productivity.
Nigel Garrage wrote:
Can anyone think of a way for Sarah to combine her love of jumping on a bike with her aim of making better use of time spent commuting, that perhaps allows her to get back into the office a few times a week?
— Nigel Garrage Yeah but then she wouldn’t be able to blame the terrible VPN for her lack of productivity.— srchar
Vacuous Political Nincompoop?
Hey, as I mentioned earlier.
Hey, as I mentioned earlier. Tories got to tory. Garrage has got to insinuate people can only work properly when a manager is constantly able to watch over you non-stop. No surprise he is making out SHE isn’t productive and supporting Oliver. No matter how much they try to hide it, the mask slips easily enough.
No not at all. I personally
No not at all. I personally haven’t worked with a manager in the UK for years, and my current manager is based in Australia. But there’s a whole host of problems with everyone being home-based, from lack of face-to-face interaction through to trouble mentoring new starters. I don’t mind a hybrid work model going forward, provided the days at home aren’t Monday and Friday, but everyone working at home 100% of the time is for the birds.
I had the misfortune of speaking to someone from the DWP during lockdown, and straight from the horse’s mouth they told me their IT systems didn’t work properly off-site. Which (having once worked with the DWP in a professional capacity) didn’t surprise me one iota.
If you believe, whether
If you believe, whether rightly or wrongly, that there might be genuine technically difficulties with the DCMS IT-systems working remotely, then focussing your sneers on this woman rather than the department is even more puzzling.
Not when one of the people
Not when one of the people who he extolls is “compassionate” states this in an interview. (my emphasis)
[quotes]insults and misogyny is absolutely wrong whether it’s a man against a woman or a woman against a man[/quote]
AlsoSomniloquism wrote:
Seems fair enough to me
Do you understand the
Do you understand the difference between ‘and’ and ‘or’?
Nigel Garrage wrote:
Can anyone think of a way for Sarah to combine her love of jumping on a bike with her aim of making better use of time spent commuting, that perhaps allows her to get back into the office a few times a week?
— Nigel Garrage Yeah but then she wouldn’t be able to blame the terrible VPN for her lack of productivity.— srchar
Funny how you were extolling the virtues of the car as the great driver (pun intended) of gender equality, but then now you’re scathing about flexible working which is can be absolutely vital to gender equality in the workplace. It’s almost like you don’t really care about the issue.
No, maternity and paternity
No, maternity and paternity leave equalisation are absolutely vital to gender equality in the workplace. I care very deeply about the issue thank you very much. You’re assuming that women should do all the childcare stuff and run a career around it, which will never produce equality – I’m at the next level where fathers (as some already do) play as full a role in their children’s lives as their mothers.
Anyway, I just thought: why am I even commenting on a story which has nothing to do with cycling? I’m out!
Nigel Garrage wrote:
You may be at the ‘next level’ but the world isn’t. It’s all very well to say that men and women should share the childcare equally, but the reality is that is more often than not not the case. And anyway, I didn’t say flexible working should only be for women – if it’s open to all and seen as the norm, then it will facilitate more even sharing of caring roles.
And presumably in the sunlit
And presumably in the sunlit Brexit heartlands they don’t have single parents, divorced parents, bereaved parents or any other type of parent who has to raise a child alone – they can’t do, otherwise Nigel with his much-self-vaunted empathy would have thought of them?
..
..
srchar wrote:
If the roads were made safer for commuting then I’m sure more people would travel that way. I don’t think having to navigate all the motor traffic from south east London is that appealing for a lot of people.
“jumping on a bike … office
“jumping on a bike … office…” like this?
Dowden may be surprised to
Dim Dowden may be surprised to learn that the Civil Service has been at work during the pandemic, we may just not have been in the office; the two are not mutually exclusive. I mean who do you think organised the furlough scheme, bounce back loans, the vacination programme etc? (I’ll give you a clue, it wasn’t the policiticans and it was done while home schooling and caring for elderly relatives). I accept that the next revalation is going to be the shocker for many, none of us go to work to keep tax dodging companies like Cafe Nero and Starbucks in business, we work to keep the the country going and the businss of government moving with 30% less staff than in 2010.
Well said.
Well said.
And with one wage increase in
And with one wage increase in the last 10 years that was anywhere close to the inflation level at the time. And now told no increases for the forseeable future again.
Still tories got to tory.
well said. I’m the husband of
well said. I’m the husband of a civil servant and know she has done less exercise and more time at her home desk the last 18 months to keep things running – problems coming from ministers with crazy new ideas everyday and no long term strategy is the real issue
Global Nomad wrote:
But they do have a long term strategy, the same one they’ve had for centuries; screw the workers and line their own pockets. Everything else is secondary to that.
Which is why the incomes of
Which is why the incomes of the lowest paid in our society have risen faster than all other groups since 2010…
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/21/the-tories-are-destroying-labour-with-their-progressive-policies/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/58793537
Rich_cb wrote:
A snippet from the BBC link:
Average earnings fell in the first months of the pandemic as people were furloughed, which meant in many cases their pay fell, or they worked fewer hours. The annual figures we are now seeing are compared with early in the pandemic, which is making the increase in wages bigger.
Also, throughout the pandemic, more low-paid employees have lost their jobs than high-paid employees, which means that average earnings have gone up.
In fairness, whilst the ONS
In fairness, whilst the ONS have cautioned that the post pandemic figures aren’t as reliable as usual, the trend goes all the way back to 2010.
Lower earnings are rising much faster than higher earnings under the Conservatives.
I get suspicious about how
I get suspicious about how some of the numbers are presented when they discuss average wage increases as a £10 increase to a lower-paid worker will be a higher average increase than a £50 increase to a better paid worker. Another quote on the BBC fact check backs that up:
A 1% increase for someone on
A 1% increase for someone on £100k is worth more in £ terms than a 10% increase for somebody on £9k.
However if those trends continue over a long period then eventually those incomes will equalise.
If we want to reduce income inequality then increasing lower incomes by a greater percentage than higher incomes is the only way to do it.
In that regard the Conservatives have been very successful.
Yes, it makes sense to
Yes, it makes sense to increase lower incomes by a greater percentage, but if we continue to give bigger increases (in absolute terms) to higher wager earners, then the income disparity will continue to grow.
Income disparity will
Income disparity will decrease if the trends continue for a sustained period.
Wycombewheeler has given an example of this.
While this is true, if the
While this is true, if the lower paid are gaining 4% and the higher paid 1% the higher paid are gaining more actual money. But with inflation at 2% the standard of living afforded is increasing for the lower paid but reducing for the higher paid.
We can argue about whether the rate of change is too slow, but clearly a higher percentage increase is driving towards equalisation, and not indicative of the rich accelerating away.
calculated example someone on 50k gets a 2% increase which is 1000, while someone on 20k gets a 4% increase (which is only 800). But after 48 years of the same the numbers have equalised.
wycombewheeler wrote:
The fly in the ointment there is that inflation doesn’t affect everybody equally – it tends to disproportionately impact the outgoings of those on lower incomes.
That’s fair enough, but a big
That’s fair enough, but a big issue with low incomes is that a larger percentage of wages is spent on basics such as rent, food, electricity etc. The person on 50k might have living costs of 30k, whereas the person on 20k might easily have living costs of 18k, so the 2% increase in standard of living affects the lower incomes to a greater extent. Plus, there’s the Captain Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socioeconomic unfairness whereby living costs can decrease once you have more money (e.g. renting is typically far more expensive than owning a house).
Vines could only afford boots
Vines could only afford boots with cardboard soles and had to buy new ones every year whereas the rich could buy the one pair of good boots which lasted for ages. He concluded that wealth was about being rich enough to look scruffy.
chrisonatrike wrote:
Yes – the Vimes “Boots” theory of economics, a rich man could spend $50 on a good pair of leather boots that would still be warm and dry after ten years, whereas a poor man could only buy a $10 pair that would be leaking after one winter, so after ten years the poor man would have spent twice as much on boots and still have wet feet.
Thanks, didn’t have the quote
Thanks, didn’t have the quote to hand!
Rendel Harris wrote:
supporting the addage, buy cheap buy twice, or potentially 5 times
hawkinspeter wrote:
Excessive housing costs is behind most of the other issues we have. It leads to benefits payments being required for people working full time, excessive housing benefit costs going to landloards for people without work. It reduces physical mobility of the labour force as the cost of relocating is also high. Overcrowding of homes leading to parking issues and blocked streets. (although this is also a result of car centric society)
Population has grown fatser than housing capacity for years despite all governments pledging to increase house building. But every proposal to build even a modest number of new homes is met by hysterical scream about concreting over the countryside.
1.1% of land is housing, while 62.8% is agricultural and 21% is open land, forests and open water. So a 10% increase in housing would have an unoticable effect on the the total green space in the country.
Building more quality energy efficient housing shouyld eb the second priority after reducing carbon emissions
Thatcher’s right-to-buy has
Thatcher’s right-to-buy has had long-lasting disastrous effects on the housing market:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/aug/26/right-to-buy-margaret-thatcher-david-cameron-housing-crisis
But isn’t the real issue that
But isn’t the real issue that this comes out in human terms as “I still can only afford one and a half tins of beans now” vs. “I can’t afford a second car!” – the quantitative “good news” story actually translates poorly into human stories. Or into “really not much hardship” for the richer losing and “not feeling much better” for the poor gaining.
Of course we have some considerable and “irrational” biases because we’re monkeys. But we *are* so that’s important, no?
What are considered to be the
What are considered to be the lines for ‘average’ wage (outside London)?
At what salary is someone ‘poor’ or ‘in poverty’?
brooksby wrote:
When they have to choose between heating or dinner
hawkinspeter wrote:
Oh, I totally get that.
I meant in an objective “The average salary is xxx; you earn yyy therefore you are paid significantly more than / more than / less than / significantly less the average” sort of way.
brooksby wrote:
Households are considered to be below the UK poverty line if their income is 60% below the median household income after housing costs for that year.
Although that measure is not
Although that measure is not without its quirks.
Post 2008 financial crisis the poverty level fell because the median income fell.
You could have conceivably become poorer yet still moved out of poverty.
wycombewheeler wrote:
A bit of a health warning is needed around that. The relative poverty measure isn’t really intended as a way of identifying whether individual households are or are not in poverty. It’s more meant as a broad brush measure of poverty within a society as a whole. It takes no account of differing needs resulting from the make-up of households, local variations in the cost of living, etc.
When you apply it at a population level, that all tends to smooth out, but applying it at a household level is problematic.
Whenever you hear a politician saying things like ‘we have lifted 25k households out of poverty’, you know they’re talking nonsense.
Hope I never have to but a
Hope I never have to but a mountaineer told me of a trick with pasta, a bidon and fruit drink powder that apparently accomplishes both AND gives you a lukewarm drink the next day. Not convinced about part 3 though.
“the trend goes all the way
“the trend goes all the way back to 2010.”
Erm, did you look at the full graph on the BBC link or just the “tory” era? In 2020 we had only just got back to the same average as 2007. And that was with constant dropping of wages until 2015. How much of the rises since 2015 are just base increases to minimum wage as well?
I can’t comment on the Torygraph story from 2016 as I can’t see past the headline though.
The telegraph article
The telegraph article contains the stats from 2010 to 2015. I’ve included the relevant graph (!) below.
Whilst ‘average’ incomes fell the incomes of the poorest actually increased.
That trend has continued as you can see from the BBC graphs.
It doesn’t matter if it is the minimum wage driving it, what matters is that lower incomes are increasing faster than higher incomes and have been for 11 years now.
Under a Conservative government.
This suggests that, after
This suggests that, after increasing significantly in the late 1980s, wage inequality has been on a slow overall downward trend since, regardless of government.
The Gini coefficient of inequality of incomes net of taxes and benefits, from the same source IFS data, shows a rise in the late 1980s and basically static since then, implying that although the headline inequality may be reducing, that’s basically been wiped out by the tax and benefits system.
From the same report you can
From the same report you can see that income growth has been faster for the lower paid. Graph (!) attached.
Both the broader Gini coefficient and the narrower 90:10 have been largely flat but still lower than they were during the last Labour government.
…but also continuing the
…but also continuing the trend that was happening during the Labour government.
I’m not sure I agree with
I’m not sure I agree with that.
The trend under Labour was for Gini to increase and 90:10 to stay fairly stable.
Both did begin to decrease after 2008 but I’m not sure that was anything to do with Labour policy.
Since 2010 both have stabilised below the average levels seen during the Labour administration and considerably below the pre 2008 levels.
I just don’t see how you’re
I just don’t see how you’re seeing that in the charts.
Since yours seem to have got a bit mangled in the middle, and make it difficult to see what’s going on with everything overlaying each other, here’s the 90:10 chart from the original link I posted, with what I would see as an overall trend since ~1989 indicated.
And here’s the Gini data from
And here’s the Gini data from the IFS. I don’t see any meaningful variation in that at all since 1989.
Both have a couple of smallish peaks, around the very end of the 90s, and then again around 2007, and start to go up again before the current crisis, but that suggests to me that those variations have more to do with general economic cycles than with any particular flavour of government.
Again I would disagree, I
Again I would disagree, I think there’s a clear upward trend from the late 80s until 2008 then a sharp decline.
This is obviously fairly subjective though so I don’t think we’re likely to change each others opinions.
Rich_cb wrote:
I’m confused. ONS say that income inequality is increasing.
“In the period leading up to financial year ending (FYE) 2020 (April 2019 to March 2020), just before the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, income inequality steadily increased to 36.3%, according to estimates from the Household Finances Survey” https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/householdincomeinequalityfinancial/financialyearending2020
Oh no, surely it’s “fairly
Oh no, surely it’s “fairly subjective”? As our blustering blarophant of a PM likes to say, “Look, figures can say anything you want…”
That’s just the one year.
That’s just the one year.
The level tends to fluctuate, as can be seen in the graphs already posted, hence the discussion about trends.
Unfortunately Covid will compromise at least two years worth of data so trends are going to be even harder to detect for the next few years.
Rich_cb wrote:
From the same link – “During the 10-year period leading up to financial year ending (FYE) 2020 (April 2019 to March 2020), income inequality increased by an average of 0.2 percentage points per year to 36.3%, as measured by the Gini coefficient. “
The graph I posted earlier
The graph I posted earlier clearly shows Gini fluctuating over a fairly narrow range since 2010. So Gini is essentially flat as I stated in a previous comment.
It’s is, however, considerably below the 2008 peak as can also be seen in the graph.
Rich_cb wrote:
Whilst 0.2% average per year is not a massive change, it is not flat, nor is it moving in the other direction as you seemed to suggest. You are right about the 2008 peak, though.
In my opinion it’s a flat
In my opinion it’s a flat trend, up some years, down others, oscillating just under 35%.
This last year has been the highest for a decade so to use that point to define a trend doesn’t seem like the best approach.
Rich_cb wrote:
I’ll bow out now – I was surprised by your statement that income inequality had decreased so just did a quick google. I can see your point about the lack of a trend from that table (at least until 2016-17) but I was just quoting the ONS.
Rich_cb wrote:
As others have pointed out, a grossly inadequate income rising slightly more than a very comfortable living isn’t much comfort if you still have to chose between being warm and eating.
A very large problem in this country is inequality, the difference between the poorest and the wealthiest, and the UK is currently more unequal than East and West Germany before unification.
Despite over a decade of the tories being in charge, they haven’t solved any of the problems of our society, they’ve just created more, then they claim to have the answers for the problems that they created, all from the mouth of someone who’s been sacked multiple times for lying. If only the media would hold them accountable and the masses weren’t so gullible.
It may not be much comfort in
It may not be much comfort in the immediate term but it is the only long term solution to the problem.
It is a fact that lower incomes have risen faster than higher incomes under the Conservatives.
If this was more widely covered in the media perhaps more of the ‘red wall’ would switch their vote.
Especially when people like you clearly hold them in such contempt.
Meanwhile in Australia, the
Meanwhile in Australia, the NSW govt (conservatives) did a study into productivity during pandemic lockdowns and found it increased almost 13%, that almost half of those working remotely could do so permanently and is even changing planning policies to encourage remote working like requiring apartments to have more space to accomodate working from home. And the benefits to reduced traffic congestion aren’t lost on them either.
I have no interest in Mousers
I have no interest in Mousers, from Texas Instruments. I will NEVER take a cycling tour with PedalTripr. Not do I care what Cricut makes. I have no interest in Tableau, Wayrite’s shitty clothes, Chubb insurance, or Nicorette FFS.
I subscribed to road.cc to help you make it a better site: ad free to subscribers. When are you going to fulfil your side of the bargain?
If you go into you account
If you go into you account settings and you should see a tick in a box for Ad-free reader view. Remove the tick and press save, then re-add it and press save. Some people mentioned that worked. If not then ping them a message info@road.cc as they might have to fix the Database for you.
This does seems to work.
This does seems to work.