HOW would you get by on £150,000 a year? After tax and national insurance, you'd have £1743 a week to live on. That's a take-home pay of over £7500 each month.
Our Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has been carping to pals that this isn't enough to live on.
Johnson is reported to be in a foul mood because he can barely afford a nanny and doesn't have a housekeeper. Only a cleaner. To make matters worse he has to pay for food sent up to him from the Downing Street kitchen. But it gets worse.
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His flat above Number 11 is taxed as a benefit in kind and if he wants to entertain mates at the country retreat of Chequers he has to pay for their food and drinks. The PM looks back doe-eyed to the good old days when he was earning £350k a year as a humble MP churning out columns of literary pyramids of piffle.
If Johnson was subject to normal employment law and came to Govan Law Centre for advice, I'd advise him to keep his head down and get a grip.
No public service worker would bleat about being paid too little on £150k. They'd know this would cause great offence to those trying to make ends meet on buttons
Look Boris, you work less hours than Larry the cat, no-one knows what you do, and you turn up for meetings unprepared. You're heading for close performance management before getting the sack for gross misconduct.
Johnson's grievance include his costly divorce and having to contribute to the cost of four of his six kids going through university. Can it really be the case we have a man so bereft of self-awareness and good grace that he doesn't recognise everyone in the country faces such challenges - and much worse - every day?
Can it really be the case that Johnson doesn't appreciate how life can be nothing short of brutal if you are low paid, unemployed, a state pensioner, a single parent, disabled, an unpaid carer or asylum seeker?
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The median gross pay for employees in Scotland is £24,440 per annum. In London that figure rises to £32,968.
The PM's pay is five to six times more than most adults; do we hear 53 million people whinging on our shores about their income or having to pay for stuff?
No public service worker would bleat about being paid too little on £150k. They'd know this would cause great offence to those trying to make ends meet on buttons. The PM is well aware of this. He just doesn't care. There is no empathy from those with a deep sense of entitlement. Rules are for the little people.
Try being an unpaid carer for a loved one who is disabled. You will receive £67.25 a week, which works out as a full-time salary of £3497 a year or £1.92 per hour
This is a man who begrudges the Scottish Government spending money on "lavish welfare" initiatives for the poorest people in our society. A man who represents, and is a member of, a privileged elite who feed of taxpayers like bloated suckerfish.
This week former transport secretary, Chris Grayling MP, landed a 7 hour-a-week extra gig advising a port company for £100,000. The same Grayling who cost the taxpayer £50m in botched ferry contracts last year, including a contract to a company that had no ferries.
These lavish jobs aren't for what you know. They are for who you know in Government.
The PM needs to replace Dominic Cummings as his source of what is going on. Try being one of the 1.6m workers who lost their job when lockdown struck and had to wait 5 weeks for universal credit paid at £94.59 per week if you are single with no kids.
Try being an unpaid carer for a loved one who is disabled. You will receive £67.25 a week, which works out as a full-time salary of £3497 a year or £1.92 per hour.
Try being one of the 5 million people working in the gig economy on a zero-hours contract with no sick pay and often being cheated out of the statutory minimum wage. Or someone sanctioned by the DWP; losing your universal credit for a month for being unable to meet one of the job-hunting conditionality requirements.
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You might be one of the 11.5 million people in the UK with no savings or less than £100 in the bank; one of the 9 million people who use payday loans and credit cards to buy food or pay the bills; or one of the 1.6 million people who rely on foodbanks to get by (that number will be much higher because of the pandemic).
Imagine being an asylum seeker not allowed to work and existing on £5 a day.
And let's not forget that Johnson will enjoy a multi-million-pound Rolls Royce defined benefit pension which is the envy of the 1.1 million pensioners who rely on the state pension. Many of our poorest retired citizens rely on pension credit and their annual income is a little over £9000 a year.
The country can do without the grotesque whinging of a man who is out of touch with reality and devoid of common decency.
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