Things have changed quite a bit since then. We now have many more conviction politicians. It is, of course, seriously worrying that so many of them hold deep personal convictions that are utterly repulsive such as Rees Mogg’s sincerely held belief that a woman must be denied the right to choose an abortion even if she is raped by her own father. It is also disturbing that one of the commonest convictions is just outright dumb. Blind worship of the free market has never been a particularly intelligent strategy but it has now become an article of faith for large numbers of MPs. Instead of treating markets as simply a helpful tool that can be controlled and guided we are now being told that we must allow them to dominate every aspect of our lives regardless of the impact of individual decisions on the collective welfare. A naïve ideological conviction that markets can magically solve all our problems has replaced cynical opportunism.
But we still have a few politicians who seem determined to stick with the era of soundbite politics. One of them is the Prime Minister.
Last week she excelled herself. She announced brave new policies to tackle the problems of the gig economy. Something which I think almost everyone would admire her for taking on and tackling. Unless they bothered to read the small print.
There are now over 4 million people in Britain who are employed on zero hours or self-employed contracts that were not a free and equal choice. If you are properly employed in the UK the rights at work are pretty decent and you are usually well protected against bullying behaviour from powerful employers. If you are on a zero hours contract you have no meaningful rights whatsoever. If the boss decides today to get rid of you then you simply don’t get offered any more work. Nothing you can do about it. Doesn’t matter if the reason the boss sacked you was because you were ill. Or you complained about mistreatment. Or you refused sexual favours.
So Theresa May deserves every respect for saying that this is not right. Unfortunately, she deserves no respect whatsoever for her strategy for dealing with it.
Under her proposals zero hours and self-employed workers are to be given the right to ask for a contract as an employee with named hours and proper rights and conditions. Employers can then decide whether to say yes or no.
Visualise the situation. You worked 12 hours a day for six weeks delivering parcels to help the boss deal with the Christmas rush and to pay your bills. Then there’s a post-Christmas slow down and you get a phone call at 7.30 in the morning saying you are not needed today or indeed all week. You still have your bills to pay so you politely ask the boss whether you can move over to a regular contract and have the status of a proper employee with sick pay, holidays and predictable income. The boss thinks for a minute. Then says no. The boss also decides that when work picks up you won’t get called and offered any because you are a trouble maker.
What zero hours worker is going to request a proper contract in those circumstances when all the power lies with the boss and none with them? What employer who has paid an HR consultant a lot of money to dodge employment law is going to quietly give up the financial benefits of an instantly sackable workforce?
Theresa May must know that her proposals will achieve nothing. She would have to be utterly naïve to think differently and, whilst I might accuse her of many things, I don’t believe that is one of her faults. There is therefore only one explanation for her conduct. She thinks she can fool quite a lot of people by talking tough on employment law and winning some votes but she has decided that she doesn’t actually want to do anything to help.
Instead she is moving onwards and preparing to make fresh announcements on the same subject. Apparently, she is about to tell us how well workers’ rights will be protected by the Conservatives once we leave the EU. She is going to provide us with every possible assurance that she will act with resolve and determination to make sure those rights are strengthened and preserved in the new proudly independent UK.
Expect a very fine speech with some excellent soundbites. Then think hard about the gap between what she has said and what she has done on zero hours contracts. A little touch of cynicism may not be entirely misplaced!