Edgar Friendly

A minimum wage of £15 would end my coffee shop, it would have to close, as would many other businesses. I’ll explain for the economically illiterate. Staff costs are currently half our costs, a £15 minimum wage is actually more than £15 an hour for the company, because you have to add: - 12.07% holiday - Sick pay - Maternity pay if and when required - National insurance - Pension contributions These costs would mean the shop loses money because remember, energy costs are up, rates are up, regulations are up. Now you can pass these costs onto the consumer - that would mean charging a lot more for coffee, people won’t pay it. The likes of Starbucks and Costa can, because they have economies of scale. The independent doesn’t. Now the little socialist will say well this is your fault, if you can’t run a business that can afford to pay its staff properly, but the little socialist has never run a business and does not understand the dynamics. Now I could pay some staff off and fill those hours myself or reduce us to one staff member during certain periods - but this proves the point that a minimum wage costs jobs. There was a time when these jobs were done by kids, perhaps on the weekend, paid a lower wage, no holiday and no silly employment rights. Perhaps they were even paid cash. The dynamic worked and small businesses like this could operate. It was also a great first job. Sadly now it isn’t worth employing entitlement youngsters at this level of pay. So alas, I don’t need the stress, the business would close, a number of jobs would be lost. Economics is about understanding these dynamics, no vibes. The cost of living is not solved through passing on inflation to the business, it is solved by ending high inflation and creating prosperity. This is what socialists don’t understand, they can’t create prosperity, they can only destroy it.

My remarks at the scene of the Golders Green terrorist attack.

“Apprehending violent and dangerous criminals is a full contact and messy task which may appear shocking to observers with little experience of policing in the real world.” Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley writes to Zack Polanski.

BREAKING Sir Mark Rowley, the head of the Met police, has criticised Zack Polanski after he appeared to condemn police officers for allegedly “repeatedly and violently’” kicking a man suspected of stabbing two Jewish men while they attempted to detain him He has accused him of fuelling tensions and undermining confidence in the police ‘I am disappointed because it is this kind of inaccurate and misinformed commentary - with its associated casual disregard for the incredibly challenging and dangerous work police officers do for the public - that is contributing to the rising tensions we are seeing in society and undermines officer confidence to act’ He says the officers ‘are nothing short of extraordinary’ and that without their intervention lives would have been lost. He says the man ‘continued to pose a clear threat’ and they feared that he was ‘concealing an explosive device’ ‘Apprehending violent and dangerous criminals is a full contact and messy task which may appear shocking to observers with little experience of policing in the real world’