Jon Trickett: A tale of two Britains – Boris Johnson’s salary and the fast food strikers

Less than 48 hours after the Conservative Party conference, and the bizarre antics of a party utterly bereft of ideas, workers up and down the country went on strike. They are precarious, many of them are young, and they are determined.

They work at Wetherspoons, TGI Fridays, McDonald’s and UberEats – staples of a service sector renown for treating its workers badly. They are fighting for £10 per hour, a greater minimum rate for deliveries, a stop to tip theft, and better working conditions. They are beginning to find out that collectively, they are more powerful than those at the top would have them believe, and that things can change for the better.

Theresa May might have promised that austerity will end but the reality for the majority of working people is one of struggling to get by on low pay, and public services that can’t meet the demands placed on them after a decade of defunding. As with almost everything the Conservative Party says, it is a long way from what it actually does, though the media all too often fails to notice this very obvious fact.

This is a tale of two Britains. One of striking workers and millions more on a minimum wage that’s too low to live on, while a prosperous and detached elite tells everyone that we’ve never had it so good, and that ‘opportunity’ abounds.

And like any good Dickensian tale, we have a villain. In this case Boris Johnson, who it was revealed this earns £275,000 a year from his Telegraph column. There are few comparisons that get to the heart of the deep divide that runs through this country better than a former Etonian, failed minister and all round buffoon being paid hundreds of thousands of pounds to pump his bigotry into the atmosphere, while those that put food on our plate have to take strike action just to win a basic standard of living.

As we know, the Conservatives love to talk of those that graft and those that shirk, but there has never been a government so full of people incapable of doing a good job, yet so skilled at making a tidy living from it. Even the traditional Tory support base is starting to see through the bravado and the dancing – and is deserting the party.

Labour, on the other hand, is carefully staking out a bold and transformational plan for our economy, which will place people at its heart, ensuring that everyone has access to a decent standard of living and the opportunity to have their voice heard in the workplace.

But what those on strike know is that change can’t wait for a Labour government. The effects of forty years of neoliberalism and ten years of austerity are too powerfully felt. It has to be fought for here and now.

And we in Labour know that society can’t be changed from the top only. It has to come from the grassroots. That’s why I fully support these striking workers and will be joining them on a picket line in Yorkshire soon. Together we can change this country for the better – for the many, not the few.

Jon Trickett is MP for Hemsworth and shadow cabinet office minister.