Analysis comment

Kwarteng wants to slash holidays and worker protections. Here’s how Ian Lavery dismantled him for calling UK workers lazy

New Business Secretary now denies plan, but as Ian Lavery pointed out – who would trust a Tory on workers’ rights?

Tory MP Kwasi Kwarteng, newly promoted to the position of Business Secretary, has now denied that he plans to do away with paid holidays and slash worker protections now that the UK has completed its deal with the EU. But how could anyone trust what a Tory minister says about UK workers’ rights – especially one who thinks they’re some of the laziest in the globe?

In 2012, Kwarteng was one of five Tory MPs who called British workers ‘among the worst idlers in the world‘ – and he was taken to task for it, live on the BBC, by working-class Labour MP Ian Lavery:

As Lavery rightly points out, who would fall for such claims and denials? Especially from someone who voted to keep the children of working poor people hungry.

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37 comments

  1. The other two grin like children caught out in a deception. I love Lavery’s voice – and the fact he doesn’t pussyfoot around with Tories.

  2. I’ll watch and I am sure will cheer Ian Lavery along when he goes for the Tory. But, and I have to say, but.Ian L was (and still is) an advocate of EU exit, andth e attack on workng rights now follows that exit, stripped as we now are, of the protection of the social charter

    1. You are an idiot. MPs are shitting themselves because they now have to stand up and be counted, they can’t hide behind the EU any more and we can rid ourselves of them as quickly as we can elect them.

      1. And you lundiel are a Brexit fanatic of the Farage variety who is incapable, because of your anti-EU indoctrination, of recognising the fraternal nature of the EU. Almost daily the scales are falling from the eyes of Brexiters with the realisation that they made a massive mistake in listening to the far right and the Lexstremists. You however will be the last one standing waving your Little Englander Union flag if the Union fragments as a result of Brexit.

    2. Kwarteng et al’s book “Brittania Unchained ” is here:

      https://www.amazon.co.uk/Britannia-Unchained-Global-Lessons-Prosperity-ebook/dp/B0096MBNR2/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=kwarteng+brittania&qid=1610875105&sr=8-1

      This is the book Steven is discussing above.

      This is not an encouragement to buy it. Just read the reviews. The book is summarily lambasted as naive rubbish. The search words above the reviews include epithets Steven mentions above.

      These reviews tell you about the authors of Brittania Unchained: A bunch of relatively privileged clowns who’ve never faced pennilessness or homelessness in their lives.

    3. Indeed Chapter 4 of “Brittania Unchained ” , entitled “Work Ethic”, begins with an opinion survey of those who aren’t the best exemplars of a fair, unopinionated worldview: Taxi drivers.

      I am not making this up.

      Have Kwarteng, Truss, Raab not realised that the selfish opinions of some in the ” self-made man” stratum are to be treated with caution?

      Obviously not.

      This is the epitome of stupidity.

      A good insight into why Tories are like they are.

    4. Or
      Our manifesto was anathema to the EU
      Do you still believe in Santa
      Then why defend the neo Liberal EU
      Greece, Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Italy have all been screwed, the day they vote to bail out the debtors will be the day we might consider rejoining
      Another monstrosity that thinks its too big to fail

  3. “stripped as we now are, of the protection of the social charter”
    True for now, but – and I say this still convinced Brexit is a historic mistake – nobody can be sure the EU won’t feel pressured to follow the Tories in ditching some worker protections in the name of “productivity.”
    After all, they followed Thatcher into market deregulation in ’86.

    1. That argument cracks me up.. ..”the EU were a wonderful group of benevolents until Thatcher forced them to become neoliberals”. Thatcher, God damn her, at least recognised the Lisbon treaty for what it is. The EU in was always going to be a neoliberal construct.

  4. Anyone else think a Black Tory just doesn’t compute?
    Maybe he thinks it’s only poor blacks the Tories despise?
    When a member of an oppressed minority sells out is it quantitively or qualitatively worse than a poor white Labour voter winning the lottery and instantly turning Tory?
    I dunno.

    1. Oppressed?! He went to a private prep-school, then Eton, before going on to study classics at Trinity, Cambridge!

      1. Exactly. And with that upbringing he saw nothing inappropriate in joining the Ku Klux Tories.

    2. Kwasi Kwarteng, the living definition of “House Nigger”! (Ducks for cover)

      1. timfrom17/01/2021 AT 7:58 AM

        Fuck right off!

        …Even they worked harder than that prick ever has. Give the beaut a shift carrying a hod; he wouldn’t last five fucking minutes before goin into a rendition of Ol’ Man River.

    3. No. Historically there have always been Uncle Tom’s who were usually worse than those they wanted to ingratiate with. Black people are the same as white people when it comes to exploitation.

  5. FFS! …and, just, like that, a discussion on Workers’ Rights turns into a discussion on the colour of someone’s skin.

    What, the hell, is the matter with you lot?

    If you’re not a member of a Union, join one today – or tomorrow. Persuade your friends and your family to do the same.

    It’s been obvious, for the past ten years, this day was going to come and the Tories can deny it as much as they like, now, but there’s another battle on the way and every worker had better be prepared.

    This present Labour Party aren’t going to help you – unless it’s on their terms.

      1. Join a Union and change that.

        We seem to have lost our democratic voting rights, in the Labour Party. Barnoldswick showed it can, still, be done.

        Let’s not lose our Union voting rights. Too late for Unison. Unite are in the firing line, now.

    1. George Peel, I started the off-topic and it’s as valid as asking what the fuck is anyone in Labour doing accepting a knighthood or a sinecure in the parliamentary retirement home.
      I’ll comment as I see fit until Steve Walker blocks me.

      lundiel says Europeans are devil-worshipping paedophiles.
      She got Covid last week, spat on a bunch of cheeses and sent them to France – and you’re no socialist if you don’t do the same.

      We can all put words in other people’s mouths if we want to debate like stupid trunts.

      1. Bloody hell, man, have you got a hangover, this morning? Eaten a rotten durian?

        Your animus doesn’t impress me, in the slightest.

        As I understood it, this is a forum for leftists, to discuss and – yes – get annoyed with, some things people post – so long as it’s about the article, they’re posting under.

        If you have an agenda of your own, start your own online newspaper. Don’t use this to burnish your ego at the expense of – what in this country, at the present time – are serious matters and deserve serious discussion, not deflection.

      2. “lundiel says Europeans are devil-worshipping paedophiles.”…..only Steve h, David Walsh, Jack T and the McKinnon fellow. I’ll let you off because we agree on much else.

      3. I refer the honourable Mr. Peel to the answer I gave some moments ago.

  6. Do you not mean, George, unless it’s on the terms of their wealthy Corporate donors?

  7. Lazy? Historically, it was recognised even by UK banks that UK had one of the lowest “cost of ownership” figures in the G7. That’s the investment per worker in both wages and job-related resources. Highly productive economies like Germany invest in their workers. We do not. UK actually managed to be as competitive in production as it was because hours of work were longer to compensate. The visible exception is USA, where hours of work are much longer so per worker productivity is higher. But there, as here, something strange happened in 2007: “On this basis, the combination of strong UK productivity growth up to 2007 and its weak productivity performance since 2007 implies a productivity gap of about 18 percentage points in 2015.” https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/economicoutputandproductivity/productivitymeasures/bulletins/internationalcomparisonsofproductivityfirstestimates/2015 The other thing Kwasi doesn’t want to talk about is that while productivity is still increasing, real wages are not. As in the US, productivity increases but wages flatline. Strangely, nobody ever points that out. In the US, for example, if the Minimum Wage doubled, employment costs would be about what they were in 2007.

  8. “You’re having a go at Kwasi Kwarteng and I’ve already done that…” said the massive Tory cunt.
    The BBC won’t tolerate people ganging up on decent Tories because it wouldn’t be fair.
    It’s perfectly OK to gang up on a Labour MP obviously – they’re all socialists after all, and everybody knows socialism is inherently evil.

  9. Wish they’d slash holidays for MPs. After all, it’s not exactly as if there’s nothing left to do in “Great” Britain. Lazy w anchors.

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