A 5% pay rise is essentially a pay cut given inflation is running amok. But hey, they are only council workers, fùck em.
Can they afford not to? Some might claim that they only carry out the most menial tasks, but they have to be done by someone.
Probably not. But then we certainly can't afford to pay Eon, BP, et al billions but we do. Oh that's ok though, they set the price we pay them. Maybe we should let workers do the same?
It was called one of the worst investment decisions of all time. Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown said he was selling tonnes of Britain's gold reserves. Trouble was, his timing could barely have been worse. "It was the bottom of gold's two-decade bear market," says Adrian Ash, director of research at investment firm BullionVault. Hindsight may be a wonderful thing, but Mr Ash points out there were plenty of people warning against the move at the time - including at the Bank of England. says Mr Ash, other nations baulked at the "ham-fisted" way in which the UK chancellor went about the sale. He cites the Central Bank Gold Agreement, signed in September 1999 and designed to prevent the markets being spooked by another sudden sell-off. The agreement involved 15 central banks promising to cap sales over the following five years, a move designed to provide clarity to the financial markets and put a floor under the gold price. "It was," says Mr Ash, "a slap on the wrist for the UK." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48177767
