The Cameron millionaire cabal, are
crowing about the UK recovery, they repeat their little ditty,
“unemployment down”, “growth figures up”, and proceed to
clink their champagne glasses. One factor that has helped the
government's unemployment figures has been the massive increase in
“self-employed”. According to a study done by the Resolution
Foundation, over the last five years of recession self-employment has
risen by approximately 650,000, and now accounts for 15% of the total
workforce, a staggering 4.5 million. Self-employment, though lauded
by the millionaire cabal, is not the guaranteed road to the good
life, with more than a quarter of self employed living on poor
incomes. Nor is self-employment the desired option, in lots of cases
it was the only option to survival. The growth of self-employed is
greatest in the areas of high unemployment, in London where there are
well paid jobs, it is at its lowest. The study also shows that the
average weekly income of someone self employed, is 20% lower than it
was in 2008, and that a typical self-employed worker now earns 40%
that of a typical employee. Self-employment is a precarious road to
walk, for a very large proportion, the grim economic truth of self-employment is one of an uncertain future, with
difficulties in getting mortgages and personal credit and no growing pension pot.
Another factor that blows a hole
in the Cameron Millionaire cabal's glowing picture of a mended
Britain is the fact that according to official Eurostat figures, some
areas of the UK are poorer than some poor countries from former
communist Eastern Europe. According to their findings people in the
Welsh Valleys and in Cornwall are worse off that those from Lithuania
and Estonia. It also states that people from Durham and the Tees
valley are poorer that those from the wealthiest regions of two of
Europe's poorest countries Bulgaria and Romania. It also shows that
London is the richest place in Europe.
"We must continue austerity, it's the only way to fix things."
So the new fixed Britain is one of
vast swaths of low incomes and an uncertain future, massive discrepancies in wealth between
different areas, some of the poorest regions in Europe, and their
policy is more of the same. Austerity is the new way of life for the
ordinary people, while the millionaire parasites continue to increase
their wealth. Britain is certainly fixed for the corporate class, and
it is you and I that are paying for that fix.
