Wednesday 2 May 2018

Heard the one about the Tories and prosperity?

The Tories in Southend-on-Sea make all sorts of silly claims (their apparent stance on the NHS and Police cuts, for instance, stands in defiance of their actual actions). They have even asserted they are bringing jobs and prosperity to the town.

Some of us have argued that many of the 'new' jobs are low and minimum wage roles, and this appears to be backed up by a news item on the BBC today (The UK towns and cities with the highest and lowest wages).  We have also had to endure years of misinformation as regards to education in this wonderful borough of ours.

The reality is that far from being prosperous (although there is considerable wealth in parts of the borough) there is a real poverty here. Southend lies bottom of the wages ladder, another achievement for the Administration that gave us rotten borough status as well as diversity training for councillors who do not understand that racism, sexism, and many other forms of discrimiantion are both unacceptable and illegal. 

The Conservative Administration only exists because of the elasticity of a couple of UKIP councillors' principles, as well as a Labour councillor who ambitions were beig stymied so she jumped ship. Let's hope tomorrow sees an end to their ineffective and rotten rule.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43729508?SThisFB
 
The UK's lowest paid towns and cities

At the other end of the table, the lowest pay is, perhaps surprisingly, found in another place close to London.

At £413 per week, average pay in Southend is just over half that in the capital.

This helps explain why so many people commute from Southend into London, with one in five of its working population making the journey.

The number of people earning their money in London means that the average salary among Southend residents is £144 higher than it is for those who actually work in the town.

However, Southend is one of the few places in the South East near the bottom of the pay-scale. Worthing is the only other town from the region in the bottom 10.

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St Luke's Voice Winter 2018/19 edition