The Employment Opportunities Bill, sponsored by Christopher Chope , is due to have its second reading today.
Basically, the bill seeks to make the minimum wage negotiable between the employee and employer. In other words, an employee can sign a piece of paper which absolves the employer from the responsibility of paying the minimum wage, rather like happens with the Working Time Directive at present. There is apparently nothing in the Bill to stop an employer making it clear at interview that the successful candidate will have taken that route, although clearly it is not compulsory.
The idea of the Bill then, is to start a race for the bottom wage-wise. If this Bill passes, we might expect to see people working for £4 or £3 an hour or even less.
Mr Chope (is that an English name?), who is pictured above (fine figure of a man) has form when it comes to illiberal, I’m all right policies.
Basically, the bill seeks to make the minimum wage negotiable between the employee and employer. In other words, an employee can sign a piece of paper which absolves the employer from the responsibility of paying the minimum wage, rather like happens with the Working Time Directive at present. There is apparently nothing in the Bill to stop an employer making it clear at interview that the successful candidate will have taken that route, although clearly it is not compulsory.
The idea of the Bill then, is to start a race for the bottom wage-wise. If this Bill passes, we might expect to see people working for £4 or £3 an hour or even less.
Mr Chope (is that an English name?), who is pictured above (fine figure of a man) has form when it comes to illiberal, I’m all right policies.
In 1986, Chope was promoted by Thatcher to a junior post at the Department of the Environment where he steered through the poll tax legislation. Chope was chairman of the Thatcherite “Conservative Way Forward”, so that tells you what kind of a bloke he is.
According to Wikipedia, in February 2009, he called for the minimum wage to be abolished. His Employment Opportunities Bill, which “would have introduced more freedom to the job market and decrease unemployment” or so he said, was backed by ten other Conservative MPs at the first reading. If I remember rightly Niko highlighted this on his blog, with the names and email addresses of the said members, and asked people to email them. I did, and only one (Philip Davis) had the good manners to reply.
Later that year, in the expenses scandal, it emerged that Chope had claimed £136,992 in parliamentary expenses in 2007/08. This included claiming £881 to repair a sofa. So he is quite happy that the lower orders should earn less than you can live on, but he thinks that he should be able to claim that kind of money for repair to one of his sofas. An OAP has to live for 2 months on that money.
On 12 March 2010, he was responsible for the blocking of a bill to protect the world's poorest countries from debt sharks use of "vulture funds", despite the Tories’ support for the bill They were furious and embarrassed at its blocking. There were only three Tories in the Chamber at the time and all three hung their heads so no one could tell who had said “Object” which scuppered the Bill. Clearly a coward too.
Chope favours capital punishment, which is fine with me, because although I don’t support it, I’d happy make an exception for a scumbag like him. There’s a lamppost somewhere with his name on it.
He’s the kind of bloke you wouldn’t rush to help if he were on fire and you were passing with a spare bucket of water; an excuse for a human.
