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MP Contact Details

Brightside and Hillsborough (inc. Burngreave, Firth Park, Shiregreen and Southey)
Mr David Blunkett
Email: dbconstituency@aol.com

Central (inc. Broomhill, Nether Edge, Manor Castle, Walkley)
Mr Paul Blomfield
Email: paul.blomfield.mp@parliament.uk

Hallam (inc. Crookes, Dore, Ecclesall, Fulwood, Stannington, Totley)
Mr Nick Clegg
email: nickclegg@sheffieldhallam.org.uk

Heeley (inc. Arbourthorne, Beauchief, Gleadless Valley, Greenhill, Graves Park, Richmond)
Ms Meg Munn
Email: munnm@parliament.uk

Sheffield South East (inc. Beighton, Birley, Darnall, Mosborough, and Woodhouse)
Mr Clive Betts
Email: bettsc@parliament.uk

Not sure who your MP is? Find your MP.

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Example letter

Dear [your MP's name here],

I am writing regarding the appalling lack of Government action on bringing about a more equitable society in the UK. Whilst statements from Ministers constantly refer to fairness, this is not reflected in new policy. We are undergoing very severe and damaging spending cuts so measures to ensure wealthier people and companies contribute to dealing with our financial crisis are both fair and overdue.

It is currently difficult to identify measures capable of real impact that have a good chance of being adopted in the current political environment. Two specific ones I would ask you to support at present are:-

Curbs on Executive Pay
David Cameron’s statements indicating shareholders will be given a binding say over executive pay is welcomed. However, it has been widely noted that: this has not stopped excessive pay in other countries; the majority shareholders are themselves often highly renumerated; companies are likely to find loopholes to keep up renumeration in other ways. For proper oversight employees should be given more power in deciding executive pay levels in their companies, with non-managerial staff sitting on the panels responsible for this. Whilst there has been concerns this might be “tokenism”, the system works well in other countries where it is not approached in a tokenistic way, and benefits companies through making staff at all levels contribute to the direction of the company. It must be made very clear that pay levels for top executives have become grossly out of balance with those of ordinary people, and that this harms the cohesion of our society.

“Robin Hood” Tax
Please support a “Robin Hood” tax on all investment transactions. David Cameron has decided to stay out of the EU “fiscal compact”. His refusal to accept a financial transaction tax is clearly one reason why the deal “was not in Britain’s interests”. It is worth stepping back and considering why the City of London has become such a large financial centre. The UK Government made policy decisions over a number of years, designed to encourage banks to set up here as opposed to other countries. These decisions included bringing about a lax tax regime and led to excessive profits in what had become one of the most profitable business sectors anyway. If we are to re-balance the economy, I believe it is reasonable to risk losing a few companies within our large financial sector. After all, manufacturing still contributes far more to our economy and twice as much in taxes as the financial sector. However, this risk is reduced anyway because of the imminent new EU transaction tax. We should lead other countries by introducing a Robin Hood tax here and then urge the other EU countries to likewise use their tax for projects to improve sustainability. Other countries should then follow, as most nations see the benefits of the idea, they only hold back for fear of disadvantaging themselves relative to others.

Conclusion
Please continue to press the government on equality issues. Try to impress upon them the real anger that is being generated in this city by their failure to address this issues. Please support the specific points above and adequate funding for our vital public services.

Yours sincerely

Please join 38 Degrees in their lobby of HMRC to stop tax dodging deals

Your council can act to reduce the pay gap, lobby your councillor now!

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News and links

“The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which uses a thoughtful and innovative methodology to estimate the minimum income necessary to achieve a ‘socially acceptable” standard of living, reckons that a family of five with one breadwinner – my situation today and my father’s at the time – needs £690 a week before tax. Since 80 per cent of employees earn less than that, it is easy to see why many families require two incomes, and why many struggle at Christmas” – Tim Harford

Economists call for a Brandeis tax to tackle inequality directly, the tax would limit income to a multiple of the median income (the authors suggest 36 times, £900,000 per year in the UK). See the NY Times op-ed piece and the detail.

“If we are going to get back to real capitalism, we need to focus as much attention on our culture and values as on our economy.” Conservative MP’s defence of the capitalism of Adam Smith against neoliberal “crony capitalism”. Meanwhile the Conservative leadership are talking about redefining child poverty as figures show it increasing.

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Are You a Quaker?

The national Equality Trust have had enormous help and support right from the start from individual Quakers and Quaker groups up and down the country. If you are a Quaker and receive this email as one of our supporters or local group members, we would love to hear from you. Please contact Kathryn Busby of the national Equality Trust at: kathryn.busby@equalitytrust.org.uk This is for an article which will be published sometime early in 2012 in The Friend magazine.

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Attitudes to Poverty and Wealth

Bankers who think they are “entitled to a bonus under almost any circumstances” consider legal action to get them, whilst a study finds many carers get less than Minimum Wage, with no legal redress: (ONS finds 300,000 workers get less than the minimum wage)

The British Social Attitudes Survey found over half of people think poverty will increase in the next ten years. One in five people think poverty is due to injustice in society, twice as common was the belief that poverty is an inevitable part of modern life, and a quarter think poverty is due to laziness encouraged by generous benefits. On child poverty, the report states “people agree that child poverty exists in Britain, often to a substantial degree, and view action to reduce it as important and as a role for central Government. The public also shares the Government’s view that child poverty has multiple causes, among which they tend to emphasise parental problems”. The majority (60%) believed ordinary people did not get a fair share of the nations wealth. That question was one of many where people who had been privately educated were less sympathetic to social justice, even accounting for social class, the authors concluding that “private education does perpetuate a form of separate development in Britain or ‘social apartheid’”.
Guardian Summary
Full report

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Sheffield Fairness Commission

The commission will be chaired by Alan Walker, professor of Social Policy (especially around welfare and social justice) and Gerontology (study of older people in society). The Commission will be a select committee model – calling people in to give evidence before drawing up recommendations for the Council. The full message from Lee Adams is below:

Dear Colleagues, I am replying to your email to the Chief Executive.

We are indeed setting up a Fairness Commission, it is to be chaired by Professor Alan Walker and will begin in February 2012. I am the lead officer. We are in the process of selecting commissioners to serve on the commission which will be run as a select committee. It will appear on the Forward Plan shortly – but it may be a decision by the Leader not necessarily going to Cabinet. However, it has been agreed by the Leader informally at present and planning is proceeding. You may be pleased to hear that Richard Wilkinson will be involved – though I am unsure yet if it will be as a commissioner or a witness. We will likely put out a call for witnesses and evidence early in 2012. I hope this reassures you – I’d be pleased to know more about the Sheffield Equality Group.

Kind regards, Lee Adams, Deputy Chief Executive

CHRISTMAS AND THE CHALLENGE OF INEQUALITY

Christmas is a time when church leaders recommend books which they have found compelling in the previous year. These are usually books about the Christian faith, about religious devotion or about saints of the church.

But of all the books published in 2009 the most challenging for Christians is perhaps a book by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett – two epidemiologists – that is, experts on the distribution, effects and causes of diseases in populations. Their book is not obviously religious, yet it has a religious title – ‘The Spirit Level’ – and its message resonates with the message of Christmas. For the subtitle is ‘Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better.’

We are all uncomfortably aware of the contrast between the original Christmas story and the modern Western consumerist Christmas. The original story was not about glitzy department stores full of goods from all over the world. It was about a poor couple forced by an oppressive government to undertake a winter journey, when the mother was heavily pregnant. She gives birth in the crudest of surroundings and her first visitors are humble shepherds. The only hint of consumerism is when the wise men bring gold, frankincense and myrrh but these are symbolic gifts, not Western style indulgence. Later, the situation of this family becomes grimmer still as they flee to Egypt as asylum seekers.

What did Mary think was happening at this first Christmas? According to Luke, when she became aware of her unique destiny, she did not sing about the wonderful binges we would all have from now on every Christmas. No, her song was a radical vision in which God would scatter the proud, put down the mighty, raise the humble, feed the hungry and send the rich empty away. This egalitarian Christmas message has been ignored by most Christians as altogether too subversive and inconvenient.

Yet Wilkinson and Pickett reinforce Mary’s subversive and egalitarian message by producing of all things a mass of statistics. They point out that Britain is the third most unequal society in the developed world. Only the USA and Portugal have greater inequality. Then they point out that we cannot solve the chronic problem of poverty in our society through economic growth. For one thing, the earth itself sets finite limits to growth in terms of climate change and dwindling mineral resources. For another, there is no evidence that increased wealth trickles down to the poor.

Wilkinson and Pickett argue that the overriding evil is inequality. They bring an astonishing amount of international evidence about developed countries to demonstrate that nearly all the ills of society are linked to inequality. Inequality is associated with lower life expectancy, lower literacy, more infant mortality, more homicide, more imprisonment, more teenage pregnancy, lower levels of trust, more obesity, more mental illness, more drug and alcohol addiction and less social mobility. Indeed, the only social ill where they could find no relationship is suicide.

All this evidence suggests that a more equal society offers a win-win situation for everybody – even the rich. Countries like Sweden and Japan both have much less inequality and in all sorts of ways are happier and better to live in than our own. In a more equal society, the better off can move out of their ghettos, their gated communities, and mingle freely with the rest of society with less fear for their own security.

You may wonder what is the causal link between inequality and social evils like violence, drug taking, obesity or mental illness. The argument is that a high level of inequality creates a preoccupation with status, a desperation to keep up with the Jones, an arid consumerism, huge levels of debt like those which have helped to generate the current economic crisis and above all psychological stress and anxiety. The Spirit Level book shows, for example, a link between violence and perceived threats to self esteem in a man’s immediate environment. It describes two kinds of society – unequal societies where there is a war of all against all and the fittest survive- and more equal societies where people co-operate in order to fulfil common goals. Christians might consider whether greater equality would bring Jesus’ vision of the kingdom a little nearer.

According to Wilkinson and Pickett, the four most equal countries are Japan, Norway, Sweden and Finland. They say that, if Britain was as equal as the average of these countries, remarkable improvements would occur:

• levels of trust between people would be two thirds higher,
• mental illness might be more than halved,
• everyone would get an extra year of life,
• teenage birth rates would fall by two thirds,
• homicide rates would fall by 75%,
• everyone could have the equivalent of almost 7 extra weeks holiday a year and
• the Government could be closing prisons all over the country.

Now you may find these claims hard to believe. But one distinguished academic has suggested that their level of proof is similar to the original statistics comparing the health of smokers and non-smokers in the medical profession (Professor Danny Dorling). In other words, they are as well based as many important statistics on which we rely.

Suppose the evidence of the Spirit Level is true. The implication is that we should be working hard to make our society more equal – making it at least as equal as the average in developed countries. In this way, we shall be making for a happier society, in which relationships between people will be less competitive and more constructive.

The present economic crisis has brought many evils in its wake, notably increased unemployment, which in itself will intensify inequality. But it has also created a situation in which many hallowed assumptions are being questioned. We may now have a unique opportunity to find a better way than the discredited pursuit of ever greater national wealth which is distributed very unevenly.

We should not assume public opposition to policies designed to promote greater equality. Opinion polls over the last 20 years have shown that around 80% of the population think that income differences are too big, though most do not realise, for instance, how extraordinarily large boardroom pay increases in the top 100 companies have been in recent years – as much as 37% in 2006-07 alone, just before the credit crunch. Average pay including bonuses of chief executives of top companies has now reached around £3 million – more than 100 times average earnings in the UK which are around £26,000. And of course many people earn far less than £26,000. The argument that massive salaries are necessary for international competitiveness is less convincing now that we have seen overpaid bankers place their own companies and indeed the whole national economy in peril. There is growing recognition that it is undesirable and unnecessary to have such huge gaps in pay. .

So in conclusion we come back to Mary’s radical egalitarian vision of a world in which everything is turned on its head, in which the mighty are put down and the humble raised. Is this what Christmas is really about?

David Price

Next meeting is on Wednesday 7th December, 7pm at Quaker Meeting House. There will be a discussion of the Spirit Level and income inequality, with tea and biscuits.

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Campaign
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Act Local and Reduce the Gap!
The national Equality Trust are calling on Councils to help reduce the pay gap, both within Councils and by exerting pressure on private companies. Please contact your councillor and ask them to act.

See more news from the Equality Trust by reading the latest newsletter

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News, Comment and Links
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Chancellor’s budget amendment hits the lowest paid hardest
“Over 75 per cent of the pain of today’s changes to tax credits is felt by the bottom half of the income distribution. The vast majority of these from families with children.” – New Statesman

British pupil’s social mobility amongst the world’s worst
“… children from low-income homes are more than a year behind richer classmates as they start school aged five, a bigger gap than anywhere except America. … In this country, unlike others, the educational achievement gap widens after age 11. As education is becoming increasingly important in determining prospects in adult life, these findings do not bode well for future social mobility in the UK.” – Daily Telegraph

Pay gap widens between rich and poor
“It’s not OK but it’s understandable, it’s not a perfect world. I’m not responsible for making a profit like a company director. But do I think it’s more important to look after children? Yeah,” – Tracey Bush, School Assistant, in a Guardian report on the pay gap

High pay “corrosive” to the economy
“When pay for senior executives is set behind closed doors, does not reflect company success and is fuelling massive inequality, it represents a deep malaise at the very top of our society. The British people believe in fairness and, at a time of unparalleled austerity, one tiny section of society – the top 0.1% – continues to enjoy huge annual increases in pay awards.” – High Pay Commission chairwoman Deborah Hargreaves quoted on the release of their report

You can buy happiness – how closing the wealth gap would help everyone
7:30pm Thursday, 17th November, at Occupy Sheffield (outside Sheffield Cathedral)
See the Occupy post for more details

The Spirit Level and Income Inequality
7pm Thursday 24th November
Room Cantor 9135, Cantor Building (formally Furnival Building), Sheffield Hallam University, City Centre Campus, Arundel Street, S1 2NU

Bill Kerry of the national Equality Trust will be presenting the evidence from the Spirit Level to the Co-op & WEA. It’s a 6.30pm tea and coffee for 7pm start. Please reserve a place with Jaimie Jarratt at the WEA – email:jjarratt@wea.org.uk

Equality Group monthly meeting.
7pm Wednesday 7th December, Quaker Meeting House, St James Street (just up from the Cathedral)
Talk and campaigning around income inequality. All welcome.

News, Comment and Links

Between 1975 and 2010 the pay of the bottom 10% has grown by £9, the pay of the top 10% has grown by £505. Explore the history of the wealth gap and where you fit in

“There is a group dynamic here. I try to spend time away from my industry for a dose of reality. When 10 people all go skiing and drive Porsches, that becomes normal” “From a capitalist perspective I think I’m worth it because the company pays it. From a human perspective, I don’t think I’m more valuable than 5 teachers, for example” – Just Deserts or Luck? – study by Ipsos-Mori of the top 1%, whose findings were echoed by *that* report from the St Paul’s Institute.

“Britain falls short because of its child poverty rate, which is just above that of Greece, only spending 0.28% of national income on early childhood education, and an unemployment rate of 19% among young people.” German think-tank rates Britain poorly on child poverty and income inequality

“Now it’s like your friends are not just for their personality but also kind of how they look… You wouldn’t be not their friend because of their look but you know… you wouldn’t really want to walk down the street [with them]!” – Children talk about the material expectations they have, and those placed upon them in a Children’s Society study on child perceptions of poverty

Jason from the Sheffield Equality Group will tell a story of the gap between rich and poor, and it’s impact on our society. Over time and between countries, study after study has shown that the greater the wealth gap, the more problems society has, from crime, to health, to trust, to education. The story will cover how societies have become more equal in the past, and explore whether those lessons could apply to the UK.

The only way money can make us happy, once our basic needs are met, is to share it. The story will end with an open discussion on how we can progress to a point where well-being and happiness of people is valued as a measure of progress above money.

Occupy Sheffield is currently in front of Sheffield Cathedral, meetings are in or by the main marquee.

More on Occupy

The Occupy movement received support at the members meeting, and agreement that the group should help establish the Sheffield Occupation. For more see the Occupy Sheffield website.

Some resources have been drafted…
Double sided A5 flyer
Poster
Word doc of flyer/poster

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News

It’s not when you know… American senator warns against banking law relaxation in 1999

After the Islington Fairness Commission, Islington becomes first council to implement 10:1 pay ratio
(Islington Commission proposals)

New Scientist reports that Barclays PLC is the most powerful company in the world

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Just Do It

Tell Cameron to back a Robin Hood Tax at the G20

Occupy London spreads to Finsbury Square, Occupy Sheffield has a planning meeting on Wednesday 26th – all welcome

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Comment

“in Labour’s final term the number of working-class students in higher education began to increase at a faster rate than those from middle-class backgrounds. The increase followed sustained investment in schools and pupils, in particular those who qualified for free school meals and so for the education maintenance allowance.” (Guardian article)

(based on analysis in Danny Dorling’s new book “Fair Play”)

“The fundamental call for a fairer distribution of wealth cannot be ignored … the return of gloomy economic prospects has reinforced the impression that the political class is irrelevant or, worse, in hock to vested financial interests to the detriment of its service to the public” (Financial Times editorial)