The madness of Dominic Raab – his wages fairy tale has made the Tories a laughing-stock
Fairy tale: Dominic Raab thinks it’s terrific that wages are lower now than when Labour was in office.
It’s the season for fairy tales and pantomimes so picture the scene: Once upon a time, the UK’s evil stepmother Theresa May was admiring herself in the mirror.
“Mirror, mirror on the wall,” she gurgled in the half-strangled voice we know so well (unfortunately), “who’s the stupidest of them all?”
“Dominic Raab,” the mirror replied without hesitation.
“What?” Mrs May was taken aback- and not by the fact that she was having a conversation with a piece of furniture (draw your own conclusions). “Not the 200 Tory MPs who supported my leadership when they could have got out of the Brexit mess I’ve created by electing a new boss?”
“He could have been one of them, too,” said the mirror. “And I don’t mean his gaff about the Dover-Calais crossing, either. Haven’t you seen his tweet about wages rising faster than they have in years?”
“Well, no.”
Here it is:
https://twitter.com/DominicRaab/status/1072744754096549888
“That’s brilliant news!” said Mrs May. “Although being a staunch neoliberal I can’t take any of the credit for it – market forces and all that.”
“Oh?” said the mirror, trying to arch an eyebrow until it realised it didn’t have any. “You think it’s a public relations triumph that he’s going around admitting that wages have fallen drastically under the Conservatives and have never been as high as they were under Gordon Brown? The social media have been having a field day!”
Indeed. Take a look:
Dominic appears to have accidentally pointed out that under a Tory Government, average wages are no better than they were 8 years ago! Time for them to stand aside and let @UKLabour govern #ForTheMany ! https://t.co/CFV39Wm22m
— Chris Ruane (@ChrisRuane58) December 12, 2018
Imagine sharing a graph showing that workers are still significantly poorer than they were a decade ago as some sort of victory https://t.co/7HI0UB8799
— Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) December 13, 2018
Can @DominicRaab genuinely be that innumerate? This graph shows nothing of the sort. This would be a relatively easy GCSE maths question.. https://t.co/6ct49OdeQV
— Jonathan Portes (@jdportes) December 12, 2018
https://twitter.com/UKDemockery/status/1073117174439559169
From the people who brought you “Britain Is An Island??!”, we present “What Do You Mean That Graph Shows We’re Shit?!” https://t.co/qGyXuvJsMM
— David Schneider (@davidschneider) December 13, 2018
“And you might like to read Sue Jones’s article on this, which shows that this rough average doesn’t provide any information about the real situation for working people, whose pay rises depend on how long they’ve been in a job, where they live, whether they’re in the public sector or the private sector – I could go on all day.”
“Oh bugger,” said Mrs May.
But she was still prime minister, so nobody lived happily ever after.
Visit our JustGiving page to help Vox Political’s Mike Sivier fight anti-Semitism libels in court
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical
3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
well written I have to laugh or I might cry
Absolutely brilliant article! Just a pity that the Tories couldn’t play it straight even if they wanted to. There is nothing they can do except make themselves richer at the working peoples expense. notice how they insist that after Brexit they will still want foreign labour to do our work, thus keeping the working people of this country out of work and poor!
Not only is his statement false if he’s trying to imply that wages are higher (they are the same as 8 years ago), but to claim they are rising at a FASTER RATE is also so obviously incorrect as can be seen just from a cursory glance at the graph. It is blatantly obvious that wages (according to this graph) rose at a much steeper rate between 2014 and 2016. Not that it brought them up to 2008 levels nor that I wish to compliment the tories for this, but it’s plain as daylight – to anyone of even primary school maths level that is….
trouble is the tories believe their own Lies…..its what Psychos do.
The main point I made in my own article is that if you have used a public service such as education or the NHS, the ONS add on a “payment in kind” to your overall household income. Obviously the poorest citizens tend to rely on public services rather more than others, which means they most likely get the largest imaginary ‘payment in kind’ to make it look like their household income is rather much higher than it actually is.
That of course masks inequality and the true extent of poverty. It also means that people who have contributed towards public services via tax, NI and council tax are being treated as if they are getting “something for nothing”, which is an utter insult as well as frightful political expediency.
It also demonstrates something of the future of public services under a Tory government, because of their ideological starting point.