Apparently there's an election on, and this has rather got in the way of blogging. But today we got the best editorial I can remember, and it was in the News of the World.
They reported our plans to bring a vote to Holyrood on Thursday calling for a living wage of £7 an hour, up from the current £5.80. The national level is set at Westminster, but Scottish Ministers can start right now with the public sector here, where 20% of staff still get less than this living wage.
I will leave the analysis to the News of the World.
Greens north and south of the border are making the case that in a Parliament without a majority, even a few Green voices can make more of a difference than another Labour, Tory, Lib Dem or Nat member.
This is the sort of issue we mean - just close your eyes and try to imagine Nick Clegg or David Cameron arguing for a pay rise for the lowest paid in society.
nuff said. But what's that "Perfect love match" sub-head all about? The Scottish Greens and the Screws in some steamy romp saga?
Good performance on Newsnicht by Patrick.
Would like to see more on the 'living wage'. It takes one of Labours (few) successes and trumps it.
Agreed! We're doing our best with it, forcing a vote here on Thursday and it's on the cover of the manifesto!
Check this out:
http://www.10downingtweets.co.uk/
Nice Twitter based election aggregator.
Raising setting a minimum wage often has the opposite effect to what is intended. Employes pay the hourly rate but require the same amount of work to be done in less hours.