Why as a Low-Paid Working Class Male I will not vote for the Labour Party.

First off, let me state I'm low Paid. Under 20 grand, which puts me way under the average wage. I'm not on minimum wage (although if the Conservative pledge to bump it up to £10.50 an hour happens, I may well be).

So, I'm working class, low paid. Yet I will not vote for the Labour Party, the traditional home of the low paid working class.

If there is anyone out there reading this that wants to attempt to convince me that voting Labour would benefit me, please do put it in a comment. I'd love the debate.

The reasons are many, but the overall reason is that the Labour Party and it's policies do not represent me. It does not champion the working class. It does not fight for us.

Instead it concentrates on platitudes and virtue signalling.

"More money to the NHS"... which means more taxation of my already meagre wages.

"Better Welfare"... which means even more taxation of my already meagre wages to pay benefits.

"Employers and the Rich should pay more tax"... which means there's a high likelihood that thanks to the already huge pressures on retail companies thanks to increased rates, higher employer N.I. or higher business rates or corporation tax will tip retail companies over the edge into closure. I high chance then that I'll end up jobless and on benefits then.

"Open Borders and Free Movement".... which means more competition for jobs, especially low-paid jobs. Which means there's a higher risk of me and other people like me staying on benefits.

"Free NHS treatment for non-UK nationals"... means that the NHS will not be able to cope as it tries to treat the world's sick and ill. The clamour to pay even more tax money to the NHS will increase and taxation of even low wages like mine will increase. The alternative is to borrow more now and then get the kids and grandkids to pay off the debt.

We had that with Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, that cynically borrowed massively to fund their supposed boom. The tax credits system or Tony Blair job creation scheme as I call it. The scheme that rather than reduce taxes at source, set up a huge administration to take a portion of tax to give back to working families and also pay the wages of the new administrators set up to administer it. So wasteful and so cynical as it allows companies to pay even lower wages to families while relying on taxpayers to make up the shortfall. Genius!

As it stands, I cannot see how the Labour party's policies would benefit me. Conversely, all I see is more negativity in my future if Labour get into power.

Nope, I will not vote for Labour.

Wage Depression Over the Decades

Many people of my age (mid-Fifties) can still remember a time when a single parent could earn enough to run a family and have the mother stay at home.

Then in the seventies thanks to inflation, if you wanted nice things the second partner had to go out and get a part-time job. The imability of wages to support a family had started.

In the eighties, if you wanted to run a car, have a VCR, etc the second partner needed to go out and get a job. The rise of non-parental childcare in the form of child minders boomed.

In the Nineties, the two parents started to struggle to support a family. When Labour came into power in the late Nineties, they decided that the family needed help and in 2003 introduced tax credits for working families.

All the while, in the background you had non-working families fully supported by the state in the form of very generous benefits.

Over the decades wage stagnation has caused wages to depress so much that now even two people working full time cannot support a family and the government has to chip in with in-work benefits like tax credits. But that's taking money from people without kids and give it to families just because employers won't or can't pay proper wages if they wish to stay competitive. i.e. we all suffer wage deflation, even if we don't have a family.

At the same time, benefits eventually became so generous, there was no incentive to work. The differential is still pretty big. Stay unemployed and you get everything paid for: rent, council tax, National Insurance, prescriptions.... The moment you step into work, the full reality of competing in a global market hits home.Thanks to globalism you are competeing with someone in Vietnam whos housing costs amount to a tin shack with no electricity, water or sewage system. They don't have to pay for any of the utilities that western workers have to pay for.

I've yet to formulate a plan as to how to equalise the playing field. Of course as that Vietnamese worker's life style improves, pressures will increase on his wages so that eventually he will be demanding similar wages to a wesstern worker.

In the meantime the disparity is being exploited by the global corporations. It's this disparity that is causing the rise of populism in the West. The global corporates and western governments have failed to effectively manage the issue and have largely ignored the poor working class in the west. There's a lot of people at the bottom of the pyramid and they are getting increasingly angry and connected by technology.

The poor working class see mass immigration as another attempt to further depress wages, not the advantage or benefit that the elites would have us believe immigrants are.

40 years of wage depression and the various attacks on the ability to raise a family in the West from all side has created an atmosphere in the West amongst the poor that enough is enough. We're already seeing workers on zero hours contracts, workers living in tents, trailers and shacks. The workers of the West can see a future where their families live in Shacks like the Vietnamese guy and the rich get even richer.

There is an overwhelming feeling amongst the poor working class that a red line has been crossed. Especially after the financial crisis where billions of pounds of taxpayer's money was used to bail out the banks rather than allow them to fail, in the process inflating the wallets of the richest 1% of the country. There's also a growing realisation that "climate change" taxes are not being used for the purpose of mitigating the effects, but instead again lining the pockets of the mega-rich.

The past decade has seen the biggest and fastest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in history. Quite rightly the poor are unimpressed, and angry.