Time for Uk to re-assess?
Having just watched BBC News; listening to the brother of the UK doctor who died of COVID-19 yesterday making the point how medical staff should be paid more, and the feature on our reliance on people on minimum wages keeping our country going; it seems obvious how, when the worst of this crisis has passed, we really need to re-evaluate our priorities as a nation and how much we pay different groups of workers.
It is an abomination that top bankers and business executives are paid so ludicrously highly while medical staff, care workers, etc are paid a pittance in comparison. Do we really accept that a hedge fund manager may earn over £5 million annually, plus the bonuses they award themselves, for essentially shining their trousers (if you believe the fairy tales of their special skills just look into what happened in 2008).
At the same time, a medic facing enormous risks (especially currently), or a care worker handling regular physical and mental abuse from vulnerable and challenged service users may be lucky to earn £17000 pa. How can this not be wrong? Why do we passively accept such evil in our names?
Change must come. I apologise for being political here but, as Edmund Burke famously stated, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people stand by and do nothing “.
Andy Dukes
