Minimum wage increasing to £5.05

[ben_packard]

The minimum wage will rise on 1 October, benefiting more than one million workers.

Adults must be paid at least £5.05 an hour, up from £4.85, while 18 to 21 year olds will get 15p more at £4.25.

The increase follows a report from the Low Pay Commission which said the number of jobs had grown since the minimum wage was introduced in 1999.

Unions welcomed the rise and said the "bleatings" of business looking for a wage freeze should be ignored.

<snip>

Sir Digby Jones, director general of the CBI added that next year's planned rise to £5.35 an hour would have a "serious impact" on some sectors of the economy.

"The UK is already edging towards the top of the international minimum wage league table," Sir Digby said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4294512.stm

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Not to get off topic from the first post, but there are a few things this government have got right (this being one of them). I'd also put banning hunting, civil unions and the tax credit system in there. Any others?

[AX10]

1. I like the Labour Government. LibDems are o.k too.

But Labour brought England from the shambles of Thatcher/Major(loser) into a fully modernized and affluent 1st world nation.

Labour earned it's third term and I look foward to a fourth term with Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

[mr blur]

2. Unfortunately,

But Labour brought England from the shambles of Thatcher

Blair had nothing to do with rescuing us from Thatcher. By the time he emerged from under his rock, the Tories had virtually made themselves unelectable.
Blair now seems hell-bent on taking us back to those greedy, nasty, fear-ridden 1980s to which the Evil Hag Thatcher (and her bedfellow Reagan) brought so much despair.

[non sociopath skin]

3. Blair's scam was to superimpose a kind of Happy-Clappy "tough-love" gloss

... on what was essentially a continuation (with slight modifications) of the Thatcherite Programme.

Frighteningly, our choice at the next election is likely to be between three brands of Thatcherism, such is the paucity of imagination of British politics at the present time.

Quite a fillip for an "ideology" which never gained the approval of half of the electorate.

The Skin

[Taxloss]

4. Devolution, independence for the Bank of England,

Sure Start, establishing the GLA, scrapping section 28 ...

I'm sure there are more.

[D-Notice]

5. I'd say

1. Human Rights Act 1998 (despite numerous attempts to violate it & the current threats to repeal in in order to torture people)

2. Freedom of Information Act 2000 (despite the numerous holes/get-outs in it)

Unfortunatley, there's a lot more downsides:

Iraq
Anti-terror laws
ID cards
Banning protests within 1km of Parliament
Pandering to the Sun & Mail
David Kelly/Hutton Report
Not having an elected House of Lords
No proporational representation, depsite a Manisfesto pledge
Drugs Act 2005 (banning a prefectly-legal, regulate-able trade in magic mushrooms)
The Home Office
Peter Mandelson
Jack Straw
Alistair Campbell