It is of course a cliche that to make the Rich work hard…you have to pay them a fortune and to make the Poor work harder…you only need to pay them buttons.
Last week there was a furore over the “annual bonus payments” that the RBS Bank intends paying its already high earners.
Seemingly a banker earning £200,000 could have expected a bonus of around £400,000 ie twice his/her salary…not a popular idea in “Foodbank Britain”, especially when the Bank is effectively owned by the British Taxpayer.
George Osborne, Chancellor of Exchequer likes the “free” market but even he can see that a bank which survived the Global Crisis (and people kept their jobs in banking) because the Taxpayer has bailed them out…cant be this cheeky.
Well-heeled City types took to the airways to explain how this actually works.
If Bankers dont get a bonus of twice their annual (high) salary they wont have the incentive to work hard to make money for the British Taxpayer. The Public “owns” the Bank and the object of the exercise is to make it profitable again so that it can be sold back to er….Bankers.
That would be the Bankers who screwed up everything in 2008.

Meanwhile, the only real achievement of Tony B Liar’s Labour Government was the introduction of the National Minimum Wage. A modest enough proposal but those City Bankers and their Tory friends said it would ruin the economy (actually it turned out that it was the Bankers who did that) and was contrary to a “free” market.
But I think the argument has moved on. We do not need a MINIMUM Wage. We need a LIVING wage.
So credit then to Cllr Claire Hanna on Belfast City Council.

Claire’s proposal that Belfast City Council pay its employees a Living Wage got thru Council. As Claire pointed out at the weekend, its about decency and dignity. The employees deserve to know that their employer appreciates them.
Surprisingly this measure does not actually cost a lot. In fact, it is very cost effective.
More so than a Bankers Bonus.

Which brings me to Zero Hours. The Dickensian measure by which Employers control employees, by offering shift work.
Do you need to be a PhD to know that Zero Hours is a very bad thing?
Well DOCTOR Stephen Farry….Alliance Minister for Employment and Learning is a bit unsure so he has er….set up a Committee.

So thats basically the Alliance Party.
Allegedly a Party for nationalists and unionists…but really just a party with no philosophy, other than getting themselves elected on the basis of being things to all people.