Commenting on the use of foodbanks by some nurses, the former Chief Secretary to the Treasury demonstrated an impressive level of stupidity.
In an interview with BBC Radio Tees, the Oxford-educated Tory commented: “If you are using foodbanks and your average salary is £35,000 a year then something is wrong with your budgeting because £35,000 is not a salary on which you want to be relying on foodbanks”.
He obviously doesn’t understand that the concept of an average implies that there are a range of values, some higher and some lower. Anyone with a small amount of intelligence could find that the pay scale for nurses starts at £20,270 (source ). With a tiny bit more intelligence (which would be beyond the grasp of a Tory Oxford graduate) you could see that the scale increments in very small steps. In band 2 it takes a minimum of 6 years to get to £21,318.
So it doesn’t take much to figure out why some nurses are in povert.
Of course it is their fault that they didn’t budget for Liz Truss and Quasi Coathanger crashing the economy and the Ukraine invasion contributing to a massive leap in inflation, increasing food prices and an unprecedented hike in fuel costs. Silly nurses.
Picture credit Creative Commons