The Gadfly

The Greens will raise the minimum wage to £15 for all workers 💪

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.

Katie Price has shared a heartbreaking health update on her son Harvey, revealing the 23-year-old with Prader-Willi syndrome is nearly 30 stone and she fears he is “on the verge of a heart attack” if he keeps gaining weight, she called it a “massive worry” during her latest podcast from Dubai and admitted the situation is becoming critical, Harvey’s condition means he has an uncontrollable appetite and struggles to stop eating, leading to rapid weight gain that now puts his heart under huge strain, Katie looked after him full-time for four exhausting weeks before flying out for a break and said the constant care is taking a massive toll on everyone, she took him to visit her mum on the Isle of Wight for three days but he still hates his supported accommodation and didn’t want to go back,