Tory MP claims he can’t live on £300k
We can’t live on poverty pay!
Low pay – no way! photo Elaine Brunskill (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)
Claire Job, Swansea Socialist Party
Tory MP Mark Simmonds recently announced he was leaving parliament. He claims that his MP’s wage and expenses don’t give him the life he aspires to for himself and his family.
Well join the club, Mr Simmonds! Your government’s policies and actions over the last four years have made every family I know feel the same way – and with far greater cause. Simmonds gets no sympathy from me. I’m a nurse and he does not spare public sector workers a second thought.
Simmonds and his wife (working as his assistant) have a combined yearly wage of £115,000. He can claim an additional £27,875 in accommodation expenses. In 2013 he reportedly claimed £173,000 in expenses. Simmonds, however, thinks this income represented too great a “sacrifice” on his part to work in public office.
What does this man know about ‘sacrifice’ for his family? This career politician is far removed from the rest of us – he knows nothing of the sacrifice ordinary people make every day.
Worse still, while Mr Simmonds is concerned about ‘feathering his nest’ he makes sure that others in London lose their nests. The money he takes from taxpayers to house him in London, money that he claims is not enough, is actually £2,000 more than the benefit cap that he vocally supports! This cap is responsible for driving Londoners with no prospect of work out of their homes and communities.
Simmonds aspires to be one of the top 1% with privilege and riches. The rest of us wish for a job, a living wage, a home that is safe, education and health for our families and enough money to relegate the atrocious concept of ‘food banks’ to history.
NHS
NHS workers striking on 30 November 2011, photo Paul Mattsson
His party in government has denied 70% of nurses a pay rise over the next two years. That’s after four years of below-inflation pay rises which resulted in a 10% pay cut in real terms.
The Tories are demolishing the health service but NHS workers are working harder than ever against the odds to deliver services and safe patient care. That’s why Unison is balloting health workers over strike action: if approved, health workers will be on strike in October. We have no choice but to take this action to defend pay and conditions being devastated by Simmonds and his friends.
These politicians know nothing of the life we lead as a result of decisions they make. Their policies are making the gap between those who have and those who don’t have, wider than ever before.
We need to replace all the ‘Mark Simmondses’ in parliament with workers’ representatives paid workers’ wages, who will fight for a socialist society run for people’s needs.
Demonstrate:
NSSN rally and lobby of the TUC Congress: ‘Keep striking together for a pay rise’
Speakers include Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary
2pm, Sunday 7 September in Liverpool
Jurys Hotel, opposite Echo Arena Conference Centre in Albert Dock
See www.shopstewards.net for more – email [email protected]
