As Osborne made further cuts, his adviser got an 18% pay rise

In the past year, we’ve seen living standards falling, and while unemployment is down – wages are not up. Public sector pay is frozen. Labour’s cost-of-living crisis line has, perhaps, never rung more true.

Not for everyone however.

In the past year George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and consequently one of the men who has overseen this unequal economic plan has decided to give his most senior adviser Rupert Harrison – an 18% pay rise.

It’s reported that Harrison’s salary rose from £80,000 to £95,000 over the last year – allegedly because Osborne appointed him to a body called the Treasury Council of Economic Advisers.

Sheila Gilmore, Labour MP for Edinburgh East, explained why this was such an outrage :

“It’s no wonder George Osborne doesn’t think the cost-of-living-crisis is a problem if he’s giving his chief adviser a pay rise of almost 20%.

“Ordinary working people, who have seen their wages after inflation fall by over £1,600 since 2010, won’t be impressed. And it shows just how out of touch the chancellor is if he thinks it’s fine to describe progression pay in the civil service as ‘deeply unfair’ but then hand his special adviser an extra £15,000.”

Labour have pointed out that the hypocrisy of this move is situated in a wider context, after it came to the fore that between 2013 and 2014 the total amount spent on minister’s special advisers rose from £7.2m to £8.4m. Meanwhile the number of advisers rose from from 71 in 2010 to 74 in 2011, 83 in 2012 and 98 in 2013 – despite the coalition’s pledge that they would reduce the number of special advisers.

Angela Eagle, the shadow leader of the House, said that these statistics showed the true colours of both parties that make up the coalition:

“David Cameron promised to get the cost of politics down, but under him the number of special advisers spirals ever upwards – the public are now picking up a bill of over £8m to pay for his appointees”

“This also shows how you can’t trust a word Nick Clegg says. The Lib Dems used to say that special advisers shouldn’t be paid for by the public, but as soon as he got his feet under the Cabinet table, he broke his word.”

What this also shows is that if the Tories think they’re ‘securing a better future’, it’s pretty clear who that future is for…