Short changed

The economically challenged cleric Archbishop John Sentamu of York berates Britain about the level of its national minimum wage without making the obvious point that if we wish the working poor to have more money we should stop taxing their incomes.

The current £12,500 allowance for income tax was set as a target when that was the annual minimum wage. Sadly the fiscal drag beloved by the saintly Gordon Brown et al means that tax of £2,265 is now taken off a national annual income of £18,135.

Sentamu lauds his ‘living wage movement’ started by faith leaders in a church hall in 2001, claiming that one would need “a distorted notion of morality to disagree with its aims”.

True – but one needn’t agree with such a hamfisted way of getting there.

(REV DR) JOHN CAMERON Howard Place, St Andrews