not least because the minimum wage is just not enough to live on in the UK.
1750 hours x 12.21 is £21,367. Which, ppp adjusted (so, yes, taking account of prices in places) puts you in hte top 8% of global incomes.
That’s not enough to live on, eh?
He also proposes a £370,000 maximum pay allowance. Above that just not allowed:
Now I know the arguments that will flow from this. People will say “Talent will flee”, but the argument is simply not credible. If you really think that the future of the UK is dependent upon a handful of incredibly highly paid people whose greatest skill in life is manipulating the companies that they work for to pay them returns way in excess of what they’re worth, then you’ve got a very distorted view of value and frankly, of talent.
OK. Let us apply that to mobile labour. Actors, musicians, footballers. How many would remain in hte UK?
Sorry, OK, how many good ones would?
At which point….
People are already leaving. Not just non-doms, not just millionaires (although plenty of both) but the millionaires of the future. Lots of labour is mobile these days, not just actors and musicians.
It’s a good bit more than my combined state & private pension…
Tim – you got me thinking about the football side of it. He has no interest in sports really (Too much ‘thinking’ based on yesterday’s humdinger of a post)
I have watched every match (or highlights thereof) in this season’s European competitions through Youtube or equivalent rips. Even in the smaller countries I’d imagine some players are paid more than 370K. Maybe not San Marino or Gibraltar but it would not surprise me if Maltese, Luxembourgeois and Andorran clubs highest earners went above that annually – that’s before you even start on the bigger countries. And that’s just football!Tennis, Rugby, Cricket – going to be a lot of disgruntled voters. Saying to those in Newcastle or Sunderland that your players’ wages are capped at 7K or so a week? Even the Academy lads would jump ship!!
There’s strong evidence of approaching dementia on the basis of this and the ‘Far right violence’ post – before you even look at the latest Quantum economics bullshit which I have to say makes Alex Jones or Nick Fuentes look very grounded.
It would certainly mess up the English Test cricket team. Most of them are centrally contracted to the ECB on about £900,000 a year to stop them being tempted by every t20 jamboree around the planet and burning themselves out.
£370,000 a year and they are off, unless some creative accounting is used, and then we are back to Super Tax in the 1970s and all the stupid wheezes required to get around it.
Only three players in the EPL earned less than £370k last year.
I’d be surprised if a majority of players in the second tier weren’t above or close to it. Even by his standards its insane. Fortunately post the murder of Charlie Kirk there’s a growing belief we need to shut down Big Trans and that’s the first of the groups that restrict speech and are responsible for the current farrago. The likes of Murphy would hopefully follow in due course and we can drive the bastard into the ground, quite literally
Not only does that minimum wage put you in the top 8% of global incomes you also get free healthcare paid for by over £3,000 worth of NHS budget input for yourself and £3000+ more for each your children. If you add in free education etc. you are getting rather more than some of those 8%
If £21,367 isn’t enough in Ely move to Hull, you old twat. Or Halifax.
Fuck off dearieme, Halifax is bad enough already without sending Spud.
So’s Hull.
One of the ‘Great British Universities’?
Oxford is a dump. Just look at their debating society.
I’ve just found a very good reason for Spud to visit Hull:
https://www.detailedmodelling.co.uk
“Realistic sheep”
From Hull, and Hell, and Halifax…etc etc
I wonder how much he pays his son?
not least because the minimum wage is just not enough to live on
Put your children to work.
I work all night, I work all day to pay the bills I have to pay
Ain’t it sad?
And still there never seems to be a single penny left for me
That’s too bad
So, if we can set a minimum wage in the UK, why can’t we set a maximum pay cap? That’s the question that I’m going to be asking in this video.
The reality is that in most large companies, and it is by and large, very large companies who pay the sorts of money that we are talking about here – banks, large quoted companies who are on the stock exchange, big supermarkets, big drug companies, things like that – those companies are managed by people who like to call themselves risk takers and entrepreneurs. But the truth is, they are no more risk takers than the person who is working on their shop floor, whether that is literally the shop floor in a factory, or the shop floor in a shop, or wherever else they might be in their organisation.
They are simply salaried employees with all the protections that go with that: good pensions, probably excessive pensions, and very strong contracts, which require them to be compensated very well if they leave early. These rewards are not in any way linked to risk because the fact is, they’re going to be paid month in, month out, whatever they do during the course of their employment.
So these inflated pay packages are utterly detached from contribution or need, and yet they create massive inequality in our society.
Would it surprise anyone if I said this was among the least batshit parts of the entire video. The arrogance is off the scale – I would say if the idea was to ‘think the unworkable’ then he’s on the money
But the question is, if that is the floor, what should be the ceiling, and why haven’t we got one? This is a question about justice, cohesion, and economic balance.
Where’s the justice in allowing self – appointed crusaders, few of whom have provided anything of value to a position where they can dictate people’s wages? If you dislike it, run for office.
Let’s look at some suggestions on the ratios between minimum pay and maximum pay that have been made by some organisations.
The High Pay Centre has existed for years in the UK, a think tank that looks at this issue day in, day out, all year round, and it’s done excellent work over many years. It suggests a ratio of ten-to-one in the UK with regard to pay in an organisation. The highest paid person in an organisation, they say, should be paid no more than ten times the pay of the lowest paid person in the organisation. And presuming that the lowest-paid person is therefore on the minimum wage, we’d be talking about a maximum pay of around £250,000 if we use their guidance.
Some time ago, when I was working for the Trade Union Congress, the TUC, I wrote a suggestion for them on ratios to median pay. And I suggested another ten-to-one ratio. But I suggested that the minimum wage shouldn’t define this and that the median wage in the UK should, and the median wage now is around £37,000 a year. That would suggest that nobody should be paid more than £370,000. The advantage of this number is that it is not dependent upon what is happening inside one company, but sets a general limit. And I actually favour this higher figure. I think it’s absurdly generous, but it’s still an effective limit. And I challenge anyone to argue convincingly that more is necessary.
Both these organizations may be among the biggest tossers on the planet. Of course more is necessary – to prevent other countries from siphoning off talent – which believe it or not does happen, is happening and if this plan, which even by your standards is demented were to occur would see anyone of talent leave the country. Leaving aside that such a regime might even be more restrictive than some of the most heavily regulated countries on the planet, I’m fairly sure it breaches a number of human rights laws which you profess to care about. Not surprising that your concern is really lip service and you remain a staunch enemy of individual freedom.
“The High Pay Centre has existed for years in the UK …”
A sad commentary on the decline of our lion population.
The problem here is that there is a nugget of truth – there are quite a lot of seriously shit Exec’s whose only skill is to be a brown nosing weasel.
However, the answer isn’t capping wages (as tempting as it is) rather it’s forcing proper diversity of thought into the boardroom. And I don’t mean wimmins and black faces, actual proper knowledge and not just a degree in bean counting.
A commentator wrote recently (and I paraphrase somewhat) – “I’ve never known a pile of beans get larger for having more people counting it”.
Bob
I’d agree to that no question – Non-execs in particular have been an issue for Years but even in the executive sphere there’s a lot of boardrooms with more deadwood than a tree ravaged by Dutch Elm. However, as you say, his ‘solution’ would be the equivalent of bloodletting. But I absolutely take your point, Apologies if my criticism of arguably the most evil man in Britain implied a panglossian view of boardroom governance in the ‘woke’ era!!
Spud reacts modestly to the suggestion that his views on salary caps might be different if he were in the position to earn a higher salary:
“I had the capacity to earn millions.
I have no doubt I could have been a partner in the Big 4 accountants.
I did not want to do so. I positively rejected the option.”
‘I could have been a contender’
‘Je ne regrette rien’
I’m wondering if he might be on medication. The last week’s output is not so much jumping the shark as doing some kind of evil knievel trick to hurdle it.
Hilariously delusional!
“I nearly got in at Hendon.”
How do you stop people handing over money to buy the stuff you’ve made, in order to stop your income going over £370,000? Do we put police guards on all the Waterstones to arrest anybody attempting to buy a Pratchett novel?
I would assume that this would apply to paid employees only, not sole traders, partners or shareholders. Unless he’s suggesting a 100% income tax rate above £370k, which I wouldn’t put past him.
If the latter then he’s completely jumped the shark, as who is going to bother running a business if 100% of the income over £370k is being stolen? Atlas wouldn’t so much shrug as run away screaming into the wide blue yonder.
If the former then its still batshit insane, and would just result in some form of personal service company supplying ‘CEO services’ and the like to large organisations. You wouldn’t employ Mo Salah in your football team, you’d contract to Mo Salah Ltd for goal scoring services.
My favourite sycophant comment:
RobertJ says:
September 15 2025 at 8:46 am
I support the idea but oh how they will HOWL with rage.
They won’t “argue”against it, just howl – communism! – socialism! – class envy! – any smear available.
An aggressive defence strategy would be necessary focussing on the actual harm caused by excessive high pay and inequality, and exposing the extent of it.
I’m thinking of the vitriolic reaction to Corbyn’s “free (communist) broadband” as an example of how the policy would be attacked.
I’m imagining the Horizon or Grenfell inquiry videos being shown again with people’s annual incomes on display next to their names… or party political broadcasts or news bulletins where all the presenters & interviewees earning more than median income, have that displayed on screen. Especially Fa***e, on BBCQT.
I’m intrigued by the idea tha referencing Communism as a bad idea is a smear. I’d bring 100 million to echo it but sadly I can’t because they’re all dead in the name of the ideology.
The problem with Corbyn’s ‘free broadband’ was that it was manifestly uncosted, as was the entire manifesto. MMT is a total crock, not taken seriously by any real economists and its consequences are the inflation we see around us every day/
You may also want to check how much some of the nomenklatura in these states earn – it’s considerably more than any mere CEO, but then you hope, as does Murphy that you would be the one in that position.
I smile when I read crap like from RobertJ. Should he get his wishes, he will STARVE to death. Within a month. It is the success of capitalism that affords him the luxury of plotting the death of capitalism.
As absurd as ‘maximum wage’ is, Gamecock considers minimum wage just as absurd. It’s none of the government’s business.
One of the commie dick’s stupid beliefs is that high wage employees don’t provide high value. Any humanoid could be a CEO. No one special needed. In the real world, high demand and low supply of special people creates high wages for CEOs.
Il Papa agrees with him: “CEOs that 60 years ago might have been making four to six times more than what the workers are receiving, the last figure I saw, it’s 600 times more than what average workers are receiving.”
As I pointed out at The Times: 60* years ago professional footballers were on 7/6 a week, and most of them had other jobs (often behind the counter in their local butchers). Today?
* maybe 70 years ago, I think the wage cap had ended by 1965
We’ve never tried this form of socialism tho. There was never a country split down the middle in the center of Europe that did just that. Where people spoke the same language and could see the ever increasing difference between capitalist oppression and socialist utopia?
Oh there was?
And the part that did that socialist wage control bit,they were so successful that in 1961 they had to close that border, and where they couldnt eaily close it becayse the border ran down the middle of a big city, they had to build a big wall to stop the fleeing oppressed capitalists from overrunning their country, yes, that’s what happened, children.