News from Labour Matters

David Cameron caught in low pay lie

Labour’s Karen Buck has hit back at claims by David Cameron that the Living Wage is Conservative policy and that Boris Johnson introduced it in London, warning that the “Tories have not changed and cannot be trusted to raise family living standards”.

In an article for The Guardian today David Cameron said: “The one progressive new idea we hear will be in Labour’s manifesto – the living wage – is actually a Conservative policy: Boris Johnson has already introduced it in London. But Gordon Brown has signally failed to speak out on fair pay, whether in the public or private sector, and it falls to a radical Conservative party to take a lead.”

The Living Wage was in fact introduced by Labour’s Ken Livingstone in 2005.

Karen Buck, Labour’s representative for Regent’s Park and Kensington North, said: “David Cameron’s gaffe on low pay in London proves the opposite of the point he wanted to convey. Instead of being forward-looking and taking a lead he’s wrongly claimed for the Tories a policy that Labour introduced in London five years ago. Not only was it a Labour mayor that introduced the Living Wage, not Conservative Boris Johnson, but the Tories are the party that opposed the introduction of the minimum wage. The Tories have not changed and cannot be trusted to raise family living standards.”

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