Meanwhile...Corbyn provokes anger from Labour critics with NY message glossing over impact of election defeat.
Good morning. It’s New Year’s Eve, which means it’s time for political leaders to issue their new year’s messages. It is hard to know why they bother (particularly given that they are now expected to produce a Christmas message too just the week before). If they say something bland, no one takes any notice. And if the message is noteworthy, that’s probably for the wrong reasons – as Jeremy Corbyn is discovering this morning.
His message contains no direct reference to the general election, although there is an oblique reference to it in the opening line – which must count as a very late, but unbeatable, entry for the prize of understatement of the decade.
2019 has been quite the year for our country and for our labour movement.
The rest of the message talks about how the Labour party will be “the resistance to Boris Johnson”. I will post it in full because it does not seem to be available online.
And now we are not just entering a new year but a new decade. And the period ahead could not be more important.
It will be crucial if we are to stop irreversible damage being caused by the climate crisis and the particular effects that has on people in the global south.
If we are to stop the pain plaguing our country: food banks, poverty and people struggling to get by. If we are to protect our precious NHS.
It won’t be easy. But we have built a movement. We are the resistance to Boris Johnson. We will be campaigning every day. We will be on the frontline, both in parliament and on the streets.
Protecting our public services. Protecting healthcare free at the point of use. Protecting our communities, in all their brilliant diversity. And standing up for internationalism, global solidarity and co-operation, and working with movements and parties seeking social justice and change all over the world.
And make no mistake, our movement is very strong. We are half a million people and growing. We are in every region and nation of our country.
We’re not backed by the press barons, by the billionaires or by the millionaires who work for the billionaires. We’re backed by you. We are by the many, for the many.
2020 and the years ahead will be tough. No one is saying otherwise. But we’re up for the fight. To protect what we hold dear. And to build to win and to transform.
The fight continues. There is no other choice.
So if you’re with us already, I can’t wait to meet the challenges ahead together. But if you’re not, join us. Join Labour today. Together we can bring about real change for our country, for the many and not just the few.
All of this (apart from the reference to how the party membership has soared) is the sort of thing that Corbyn might reasonably have said at the end of 2015, when he had just taken over as leader of the Labour party. But after four years as leader, two election defeats, one of which was devastating after an election Corbyn voted for, the lack of introspection, or self-criticism, is remarkable.
Boris Johnson to increase minimum wage by four times inflation
Employees over 25 will receive a 6.2% pay rise equating to £930 a year for full-time worker
Richard Partington Economics correspondent
Almost 3 million workers in Britain are to receive a pay rise of more than four times the rate of inflation from April, after the government said it would increase the official minimum wage.
In an announcement designed to woo low-paid workers in the immediate aftermath of Boris Johnson’s election victory earlier this month, the government said the national living wage for over-25s would increase from £8.21 an hour to £8.72 from the start of April.
Johnson said the increase was the “biggest ever cash boost” to the legal pay floor. “Hard work should always pay, but for too long people haven’t seen the pay rises they deserve,” he said.
Workers over the age of 25 on the legal minimum wage, rebranded as the “national living wage” four years ago, will receive an annual pay rise of 6.2% from April – more than quadruple the level of the consumer price index (CPI) gauge of inflation, which stood at 1.5% in November. The Treasury said the increase equated to an increase in gross annual earnings of around £930 for a full-time worker on the current minimum rate.
Pay rates will also rise above inflation across all other age groups, including by 6.5% for 21-24-year-olds to £8.20, by 4.9% to £6.45 for 18-20-year-olds, by 4.6% to £4.55 for under-18s and 6.4% to £4.15 for apprentices.
