PRESSURE ON MAY TO KILL THE 1% CAP
Gove says PM must now listen to pay watchdogs
We should respect the integrity of the pay review process MICHAEL GOVE ON DITCHING 1% PAY CAP
FRESH Tory splits over austerity emerged yesterday as ministers pressurised Theresa May to scrap the 1% public sector pay cap.
Environment Secretary Michael Gove urged the PM to listen to independent wage reviewers.
And Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt is poised to demand a salary boost for NHS workers.
The calls came as Education Secretary Justine Greening demanded an extra £1billion to protect schools funding.
And the PM’s deputy, Damian Green, said we need a “national debate” over student fees, which trebled under the Tory/ Lib Dem coalition. Public sector pay rises are capped at 1%, meaning state workers – including nurses, police and fire service – suffer realterms cuts in wages as rising prices outstrip pay increases.
Mr Gove said: “These pay review bodies have been set up to ensure we can have authoritative advice on what’s required in order to ensure public services on which we
They need to ensure all public sector staff get a fair pay rise REHANA AZAM PUBLIC PAY CHIEF AT GMB UNION
rely are effectively staffed and the people within them are supported. “I think we should respect the integrity of that process.” But Mrs May’s spokesman later said the public pay sector cap would remain. Shadow Health Secretary Jon Ashworth said: “I think they should consider giving people a pay rise in line with earnings.”
GMB union public services chief Rehana Azam said: “If the Tories are serious, they need to ensure all public sector workers get a fair pay rise.”
TORY rebel MP Heidi Allen denied she was about to quit her party yesterday but said it was “too inward looking” and had to change.
CONSERVATIVES are running scared of an early election, so Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour “Government-in-waiting” will be delayed for years.
A prominent Cabinet Minister insisted to me there’s zero chance of a contest this year or next, when the dodgy £1billion bung to Northern Ireland’s grasping hardline Unionists could let the Tories cling on until June 2022.
He’s right on the money and the hard reality is dawning on Labour movers and shakers who recognise the bruised Cons will at some stage dump May and then soldier on in the hope public opinion swings decisively back their way.
One Tory MP predicted his party’s lost majority, and reliance on 10 DUP votes, will result in revolting colleagues making a noise but rarely rebelling – with blind loyalty and the fear of redundancy whipping even big-mouths into line.
Corbyn’s confident rhetoric is understandable after the party did far better than even he predicted. Yet the veteran is beginning to realise that bold forecasts of him being Prime Minister within months or by Christmas will soon sound silly. A close aide to the Labour leader whispered that Corbyn is buoyed by large crowds and a burning desire to implement Labour’s manifesto.
The rights for Northern Ireland’s sisters extracted from weakened Tories by a Labour-inspired campaign – guaranteeing free NHS England terminations for women in a UK province where abortion remains banned – highlighted power out of office.
The same is true of Tories cracking under the pressure of assaults on increasingly hated ideological austerity, the despised 1% pay cap suddenly a symbol of everything that is wrong with a Conservative Party promoting unfairness. But, added the Labour leader’s aide, Corbyn knows Labour lost last month and is privately realising that dislodging the Tories will be difficult and, in the short-term, probably impossible.
Corbyn is far more thoughtful than May and when he analyses the state of politics from the Tories’ point of view he accepts that to boot them out early, Labour needs to win an unprecedented seven Conservative seats in by-elections or open a schism with their allies. Otherwise the ConDUP pact could last the distance.
Preparations to reinforce his frontbench team are signs that Corbyn is preparing for a war of attrition. Two former Shadow Ministers told me they have been approached by his office to return, one of them accepting.
The Tories won’t give up without a fight but the Brexit sackings reminded us that Labour is still divided.