National Minimum Wage / Channel Nasty / Death in Ipswich

It’s great to live in a country, like Britain, with the rule of law.

I’m happy to be in a place where the dropping of a probe by the Serious Fraud Office into corruption allegations against arms dealers BAE Systems for their dealings with Saudi Arabia just couldn’t happen.

(The investigation was stopped because of the ‘national security’. Some firm of lobbyists is going to be getting an enormous bonus).

I’m relieved to reside somewhere where BAE Systems shares couldn’t rise 8% on such news, and add many millions to the value of the company, because there could never be such an announcement.

(I do hope that the government’s advisers managed to buy their shares in time before the announcement so they can receive a large Christmas box).

I’m also pleased to be governed by a system where all lawbreakers are dealt with on an equal basis, without fear or favour.

It’s better not to be in a place where, at most, some minor functionary will feel the heat for their government employers selling honours to rich businessmen in return for large payments by these parasites to the Labour Party.

I’m satisfied not to reside in a country where, quite possibly, nobody at all will be prosecuted for selling knighthoods despite this illegal behaviour clearly having occurred.

I’m happy to be in a country where there is a National Minimum Wage (NMW), albeit at a paltry £5.35 per hour or just £4.45 per hour for under 21s and £3.30 for under 18s.

(Do you get a discount on your shopping if you’re under 21?).

It’s good that all workers in Britain are covered by this NMW legislation. It is true that ‘volunteers’ aren’t but their status is clearly defined.

The definition of ‘worker’ includes ‘interns’ as they ‘nevertheless probably agree(s) to perform certain services (e.g. opening the mail, answering the phone, manning the office) and the “employer” has probably offered some form of “consideration” (experience, access to the market and perhaps some minor expenses). (source - Department of Trade and Industry).

So I’m sure I would never find ads like this for jobs in London. I mean employers just wouldn’t - they would know that they would be prosecuted, wouldn't they?

From news4media.com (whose sites include www.entertainment4media.com) -

‘…The role involves liaising with PRs and journalists, and uploading breaking press releases, images and logos to the site, for immediate distribution to our registered media… Please note - this is a work experience role, but we do pay a fixed sum per day to cover your transportation and lunch costs (up to £50/week).

Or, from Image Loft

‘Three candidates required for short-term work experience / internship…The job involves adding images and press releases to our new website launching in January… It is an un-paid, work experience role but we pay to cover your travel pass.’

Shop the bastards

I’ve shopped news4media.com and Image Loft to the NMW compliance team at HM Revenue & Customs.

I’ve also posted a link through to this article (along with some further information) on the website that carries their ads. Doubtless that post will be deleted forthwith.

You can also report these employers. Call the NMW Helpline on 0845 6000 678 or email them at nmw@hmrc.gov.uk. They specifically state that they accept third party information (e.g. when you just see an ad rather than work somewhere not paying the NMW).

Being paid less than the NMW?

If you’re working in one of these jobs and not being paid at least the NMW - call the Helpline number or email them.

It’s confidential. If they take action, as well as getting a pay rise you could get the arrears of the difference between what you were paid and what you should have been paid.

And join a trade union (organisations of workers that exist to improve your pay, conditions and more).

The better trade unions are part of a co-ordinating body, the Trade Union Congress (TUC). The TUC’s worksmart site is a good source of info on which is the best trade union for you to join, on employment law, info on your company and more. Their email newsletter is a good read as well.

NMW - under-resourced compliance

I had trouble tracking down the NMW compliance team whose job it is to make employers follow the law. It also seems strange that they are in HM Revenue and Customs rather than at the Department of Work and Pensions or at the Department of Trade and Industry.

They are just 12 NMW compliance officers for the whole of the UK and the email address isn’t readily listed. I believe this is called ‘reducing the burden of red tape on businesses’.

Compare that to the TV and print advertising, fancy website and lots more that are part of the government’s campaign to stop ‘benefit cheats’.

The campaign to catch those claiming more than they should also provides an online form that you can use this to grass on those working off the books whilst signing on; living with a partner without declaring it and similar.

(NB: Have you noticed how all the TV ads focus on those earning the minimum wage - or quite possibly below that - in jobs working in a pub, as a cleaner, etc?)

Feeling public spirited, I have contributed a name of someone claiming enormous state benefits whilst clearly also having a large income -

Name (if known) of claimant: E Windsor; Appearance: often wears a crown; Car (if known): has used a horse drawn carriage; Where do they work: - OK, you’ve got me there.

And also contrast the scanty advice given to low paid workers about NMW with the detailed research and guidance given to MPs by the House of Commons library on the greyer areas of this legislation.

I can see how MPs will need this full briefing. They’re notorious for exploiting their interns to work for their businesses and the like whilst also appointing their wives/husbands/sexual partners to sinecures or to jobs working for them but paid for by the state.

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Channel Nasty

Insomnia once again sleeps over at my place and post computer contempt (after being in front of a PC all day) keeps me away from my keyboard. I’ve lost my place in every one of the usual five books I have on the go (a bad habit) so I’ve been Freeview channel flicking instead.

In my travels up and down the Electronic Programme Guide I’ve noticed that the duffer the channel, the more it shows ‘list’ programmes, such as ‘The 20 Best Daytime House Makeover shows’ or ‘The 100 Best Cleaning Product Ads’.

But I think the channel bosses are missing a trick. The one I would most like to see would be the 'Top 20 Most Unpleasant TV shows'. My nomination for inclusion in this would be the BBC’s 'Honey, We're Killing the Kids'

In this programme, a middle-class presenter flounces in and predicts (with very dubious science) about how the kids of the show’s victim - who is invariably a working-class woman - will look when they are 40 years old.

The children are always predicted to look as though they will be near death. This is done as though a projection can be made, 30 years into the future, based on what a 10 year old looks like now. It’s ludicrous - these children may, for example, become sporty at secondary school.

And then after reducing the mother to tears and public opprobrium, the smarmy presenter instructs her on how she needs to rise a lot earlier (generally to get up before she goes to bed); offer lots of fresh fruit and vegetable based dishes to her kids, e.g. some fancy fruit cocktail for breakfast; spend more time with them; not shout at them (even when they’re attempting to drown the cat in the washing machine); take them to lots of outdoor activities; read them Proust, etc.

Whilst I’d criticise the Mars bars diet that some of these children seem to live on, the TV presenter is wholly ignorant or just not interested in how life is for her victim. She shows no sign of cognisance of how many hours the (often lone) mother may work; her access to transport; the availability of local parks and the cost of leisure facilities; whether there are local shops selling reasonable fresh fruit and vegetables, etc. And matters such as the insidious successes of the food manufacturers in flogging their junk to kids are completely absent from the programme.

How much better would be a programme that gave helpful advice to parents on how to feed their children and get them active. A show that was presented in a popular format but came without the staged confrontations and hectoring experts so beloved by a generation of formulaic bound TV production companies.

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Death in Ipswich

The magazine Private Eye is one of the better practitioners of investigative journalism in the UK. I particularly enjoy reading it when they go for corrupt cops - so many bent cops, so few pages.

However some of the 'humorous' content of the publication is distinctly tired. You can guess the treatment that are going to give to any particular news story in the middle section of the magazine before you open the pages.

So I predict the recent news about the terrible murders of five women in the Ipswich area will produce the following in the next edition -

The Sun - ‘Terrible murders of Ipswich Vice girls’; ‘It’s not right to dwell on their suffering'. ‘in respect to the victims, we can but only sympathise that circumstances led them to…’

(See inside, on pages 2,3,4,5,6,7, 9, and 22-27 for Ipswich vice focus including ‘Sordid Secrets of the Suffolk Sex Saunas’ and ‘Deidre’s illustrated Casebook special - I’m thinking of selling my body'.)

Although this parody of how the tabloids work may be as fresh as last month’s yoghurt, it does contain quite a few germs of the cultures of the Sun, the Mirror and the rest. You can see that the media do appreciate a good serial killer story.

The media and murder

But things have moved on for the media as well since the days of the Yorkshire Ripper. It’s no longer as acceptable just to refer to the murdered women by the term used for someone undertaking their line of work - prostitute - as once would have been the case.

And feeling a little adrift from not being able to fall back on their old staple of also blaming the victim, the press have already been looking for someone else - other than the murderer - to point their fingers at.

It'd be good if that were to continue as happened today when some cops were reported to be punters of one of the dead women. It’s possibly only the subhuman dredges that join the police who can, without a moment’s hesitation, pay a prostitute for her services one day and nick her the following week for offering them.

I predict that some of the women’s boyfriends - those who are shown to have been aware of their partner’s line of work - will also find themselves to be the focus of the media’s misdirected scorn if the story continues and the killer isn’t found.

Drugs

But many an overwrought editorial has already been printed attacking another target - drug dealers - and hanging part of the blame for the death of these women on their shoulders.

I believe that all the murdered women were users of heroin, crack cocaine or similar drugs. They needed to risk their lives doing a job that most people would not chose to do because of the large sums they would have needed to support their addiction.

But the answer isn’t to castigate their dealers, call for harsher penalties for those who sell drugs or even make a forlorn call to (again) step up of the endless ‘war against drugs’.

Part of the answer is to legalise drugs.

With legalised drugs, the dealers would disappear (or at least be called ‘Boots the Chemist’). The price of heroin would no longer make most of its users need to make a pact with the devil to get by.

I don’t advocate taking harmful substances. My impression is that using anything that creates a dependency and can be dangerous to consume (such as overdoses that could prove fatal) probably isn’t a good idea. But then that definition is also true for alcohol and, in extremis, chocolate and other common foods.

I don’t have a fixed view but I do know that whatever measures are taken, people will take smack, especially when life for so many can be grim. So very few enjoy the benefits of owning most everything.

It’s not the heroin, cocaine or other drugs that kill or blight the lives of many of their users. It’s the lifestyle that very many addicts need to adopt that does for them.