Here’s a tip – payfairwage
As a cash-strapped student, I worked night shifts in a local hotel because, while the hours were horrible, the tips were fab.
Sometimes I could make up to £50 in tips. But boy did I earn it – smiling, being helpful, happy and chatty. It was exhausting, but those tips on top of my basic hourly wage made all the difference.
So I welcomed Theresa May’s announcement that she’s banning restaurant owners from counting tips as part of staff’s pay.
These shortsighted bosses should learn from German industrialist and inventor Robert Bosch, who said: “I don’t pay good wages because I have a lot of money. I have a lot of money because I pay good wages.”
I’ve been to a few party political conferences in my time and I’d rather step into the ring with Anthony Joshua than repeat the experience. At least it would be over quickly.
But I do realise that it’s very easy for pundits like me to knock politicians and try to catch them out, even though many deserve it.
That said, most of them are hardworking people who are dedicating a good chunk of their life to trying to make this country run effectively, safely and successfully. And they get precious little credit for that.
I bet many of them feel they can’t win whatever they do.
Take, for example, the Labour Party’s decision to ban radio host Julia Hartley-Brewer from next year’s conference after she mocked one of their “safe space” rooms for people with anxiety.
Under a video which shows her inside the room saying “Boo!”, she tweeted: “Comrades, if you’re feeling triggered at the Labour Party conference, don’t worry, we’ve found the official #safeplace.”
Many people found her tweet insensitive, ignorant and downright rude. One responded by saying the safe space was for “autistic people like me who suffer from being overwhelmed by our senses”.
Julia and I both work for the same radio station, so I asked her why she wasn’t more supportive of Labour’s initiative? Her view was that if you were so fragile that you couldn’t handle the hustle and bustle of a party conference, then maybe you shouldn’t be there in the first place.
She felt that this kind of initiative was actually promoting a culture of “mollycoddling”. I couldn’t disagree with her more. Having grown up during the 1970s and ’80s, I have seen this country change for the better because we are more mindful of others’ differences – be it disability, colour, race, sexuality or gender.
We are more civilised as a result. Being more caring and sensitive to the needs of others does not make us weak. On the contrary, it shows we are strong and progressing.
I put it to Julia that the UK is currently struggling with a major mental health crisis.
NHS England says that one in four adults experiences at least one diagnosable mental health problem in any given year. The Office for National Statistics reports that 2.4million adult Britons suffer from chronic loneliness.
The Samaritans have highlighted that there were 6,213 suicides in the UK and Republic of Ireland last year.
Given all that, what harm could it do to offer a refuge to people who are feeling overwhelmed?
Julia wasn’t persuaded. “How did people cope in World War II?” she demanded, conveniently ignoring the fact that many didn’t cope – they suffered in silence.
Commentators like Julia and I have the right, as she says, to take the mickey and be a bit rude and cruel about things we don’t like.
One woman’s witty jibe is another’s spiteful insult. But the people we write about are equally entitled to feel offended and to have a go back. It’s called free speech.
Julia’s joke went down like a lead balloon at Labour HQ. A party spokeswoman accused her of using “our conference facilities to mock disabled people” and announced that she won’t be welcome in 2019.
To me, that’s an overreaction. But if I were her, I’d be thrilled to have an excuse to duck all the boring speeches and jockeying for position.
My solution would have been to invite her back and give her a “safe space” all of her own. So that she can think before she tweets.