Progressive heroine Jacinda Ardern is resigning as New Zealand’s Prime Minister saying “I know what this job takes, and I know that I no longer have enough in the tank to do it justice. It’s that simple”. After denying rumours she was set to quit for months, she has announced she is quitting. Despite saying she wants to be remembered for kindness and compassion she will be remembered for implementing some of the harshest lockdown measures outside Communist China. Yet excess mortality in New Zealand has been running at about 10% above normal, with Covid peaking as the leading cause of death last July.
Her New Zealand Labor Party is tanking in polling, the country is on the brink of recession and inflation is the highest it has been for a generation. Jacinda leaves New Zealand with the lowest business confidence in the OECD…
Guido was worried for a second that the new Spitting Image had fallen into the trap of hero worship – that is until the end of her song. Suddenly the sketch revealed itself to be lampooning those doing the hero worship: “Do you know how hard it is to quarantine two small islands with low population and a wealth of natural resources that renders us completely self sufficient?” Not very!
Today New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Arden has announced that she and her government ministers will take 20% pay cuts in solidarity with much of her country due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Arden’s pay cut will last for six months, applying to her ministers and chief executives of government organisations. Opposition leader Simon Bridges has joined in too. Good.
Meanwhile in Britain, this month MPs are getting an inflation busting increase of 3.1% – taking their salaries from £79,468 to £81,932 a year, an increase of £2,464. This is on top of a well publicised and controversial £10,000 boost to their free fancy laptop funds, first reported by Guido. This puts their income in the top 2% of all earners. More than three times the earnings of a frontline nurse…
MPs’ out-of-touch pay rise comes in the same month that Rishi Sunak admitted that never mind getting 80% of their salary, furloughed employees may not get any money at all this month, as the Government bureaucracy is not yet in place to deliver it after 2 months. All in this together…
The House of Commons’ boost puts them even ahead of members of the House of Lords, almost all of whom have seen a lockdown induced income drop. As all but a handful of Peers only get paid by clocking in to work each day, none have been able to collect income in this way for a month. The only members of the Upper House currently being paid are the few salaried ministers and whips, along with three Lords officeholders. Guido understands that no Lords have, as of yet, applied for Universal Credit…
