We Britons don’t understand the levels of income inequality in our own country. A quick & dirty web poll, as part of the ToUChstone Middlebritainometer tool shows that the poorer you are, the more you overestimate your position on the UK incomes scale, and the richer you are, the more you underestimate it. People in the top 20% of incomes see themselves as being pretty close to the average.

Stewart Lansley has a good blog post on ToUChstone about this, as it echos his work on the pamphlet “Life in the Middle: the untold story of Britain’s average earners”, and it also chimes well with Tom P’s ‘bestest ever blog comment‘.

TUC Gen Sec Brendan Barber said:

‘It is depressing but perhaps not that surprising to learn that the rich think that they are poorer than they actually are. But we also find that people on really low wages don’t appreciate just how badly off they are compared to other people. Everyone seems to think they live in Middle Britain, and that our country is more equal than it actually is.’

‘But when most commentators talk about Middle Britain they get it wrong, making the same mistake as the rich in our survey, thinking that people well up the income scale are in fact middle earners. For all the talk of Middle Britain being the key group that decide elections, they have not had a fair share of economic growth since 1979. If people knew the truth about just how unfairly distributed income and wealth is in Britain, then they would be angry.’

PS: For international readers wondering what the piccy is, I’d suggest that 1:40 spent checking out this legendary Frost Report sketch from a more certain age may be time extremely well spent.

I’ll be outside the Iranian embassy on Friday with colleagues from the TUC, ITF and UK unions. There’s more information on the demo at the TUC site, if you’re able to come along (12:30-13:30 at SW7 1PT).

With word of strikes as part of the current widespread protests over the election results in Iran, workers and free unions are at huge risk in the coming weeks, and their brave actions need to be publicised and supported wherever we can.

If you’re not in London (you mean not everyone is these days?), check out the Justice for Iranian Workers site for other events and actions.

Justice for Iranian Workers is also on Twitter (of course), Facebook event, and UnionBook group. The Facebook group the organisers set up has been made “unavailable” for some reason, and our best entreaties to Facebook to reinstate it are falling on deaf (bot) ears. But even without Facebook’s help, there are plenty of ways to spread the word.

UPDATE: After 24 hours down, and numerous complaints to Facebook, the group is back, yay! (for now at least). It’s a useful mailing list for co-ordinating Friday’s events, but another warning not to put all a campaign’s eggs in one network!

Aunt Sally may only be played in Oxfordshire, yet it is the world’s best sport because it is so accessible. This all hinges on the fact that it is quite ludicrously difficult. You lob six batons (like a rounders bat) underarm down an alley, attempting to strike a white peg, suspended about a meter above the ground. The spinning batons are wildly inaccurate. On a good day, I can hit one of my six shots, whilst some of the best players I know only manage three. A three to one skill premium is lower than any other sport I’ve heard of, and it’s no disgrace at all to miss all six.

Aunt Sally is also the world’s greatest sport as it is only ever played in pub beer gardens. Much of the time, therefore, it is played in a state of inebriation, happily with no visible effect on the randomly bouncing batons. Good beer gardens are in tragically short supply outside of Oxford, so I’d hope that once Aunt Sally goes global after 2012, we’ll even start to see a few more bucolic boozers cropping up in London to accommodate the sport.

But possibly the best thing about Aunt Sally is you just can’t go on and on about it. You chuck the sticks and then you pick up your pint again and the next player has a go. I’m a very keen sport-hater myself – have been all my life. That’s a bit of a drag in the labour movement, where every speech or meeting seems to start and end with a football joke, so the speaker can make a cheap connection and get the audience on side. Added to that, there’s many a good blog ruined by a preponderence of cricket or footy stories lurking like icebergs in the RSS. Aunt Sally – no nonsense – problem solved.

You know it makes sense.

Fame at last – I made the cut for Unions Together’s new YouTube video for tomorrow’s elections  – Make sure you’re not blinking near the start if you want to catch me! So I’m voting tomorrow after work. To keep the BNP’s mitts away from my tax money, sure – that’s a powerful incentive. But also because despite weeks of anti-politics coverage that’s made it look like all of Westminster are on the make, rather than a minority, I don’t think the business of making sure the country runs smoothly and fairly has become any less necessary.

Of course I’m lucky that my own MP (Nick Raynsford, Labour) has been on record for years as one of London’s cheapest – only claiming for office staff and consituency comms, so I’m not nearly as miffed as many. Were I still a resident of Gosport, where I remember the veteran MP (Peter Viggers, Tory) coming well up in an Observer league table of sleaze when I was a kid 20 years back, and who’s now topped a 35 year career with a floating duck island, I’d possibly be slightly less sanguine.

Voting’s important and politics is as important as ever. And as an added bonus, this one’s on proportional representation, so you can vote however you like and have it much more likely to actually count than in a general election. Green, No2EU, hell UKIP even – you’re spoiled for choice of interesting flavours of politics that might actually get in thanks to your vote.

Turns out my union’s agreement with the solicitor I’d called in at (Thompsons’ exceedingly nice lawyers and Co) covers me for a bunch more legal help than I’d realised. I knew already about the cheap conveyancing for union members (I saved around £250 by going to Thompsons when we bought our flat), but I’d not realised that witnessing was a freebie, as was will checking (something I’d not bothered with before as it cost a couple of hundred at the solicitor who’d offered it to me) and personal injury.

Different unions retain their solicitors to cover different levels of help and assistance for their members, but this is something that’s really worth sounding your union out about. An hour of a solicitor’s time could buy you your whole year in union subs – a serious fringe benefit that most members don’t know about.

The duty solicitor I saw today told me the one that he finds most of a shame is that many unions cover costs in taking personal injury cases for family members. As that’s not something you’d probably think of, a lot of people don’t check it out, and end up going to the less savoury end of the no-win-no-fee market, forking out for expensive insurance or losing a lot of their award if they win the case.

So there you have it – lawyers to help out with lots of problems you’d never considered – ethical, friendly, and best of all free or subsidised.

As others have noted though, a big reason these parties are untainted by the other’s dodgy claims woes is not that they’ve taken a principled stand away from the trough, but because they couldn’t, as they’ve not actually been voted anywhere near it in the first place.

Check out this post by Nosemonkey at EUtopia, where the splendidly schnozzed simian highlights the cases of UKIP benefit fraudster Ashley Mote MEP and alleged exes fiddler Tom Wise MEP (currently awaiting trial).

And over at the always-good-value Lancaster Unity, there’s a compilation of some of the money worries that have dogged the BNP. They only get to have a go at councillors’ exes, poor things, so it seems are reduced to sneaking money out of the pockets of their members like £30k for a (allegedly untruthful) “Truth Truck“.

Don’t let off those MP’s who’ve behaved disgracefully by any means (not all of course – mine is fortunately unscathed in this lot), but don’t go short-changing yourself by protest voting on the expenses issue for a bunch who might well be even deeper in the gravy if they’d only had the chance. Decide this one on the policies you want by checking out EU VoteMatch.

Certain sections of the media are very fond of talking about Middle Britain, portraying an aspirational group of happy Mondeo drivers as the very core of society. This is something of a fiction though, and the new Life In The Middle pamphlet shows how British society has moved in recent history from a sort of diamond shape, clustered around median income with some poorer and a comparable number richer, tapering off in both directions.

Now it’s all gone (literally) pear-shaped. The median has fallen downwards in the overall income scale, with the working poor better off in recent years, but the middle quintile slumped around the £20,000pa mark, and professionals and the super-rich stretching off much further at the top of the graph.

It’s easy to see why the media keep up this fiction – portraying people who are actually well into the top quintile as being pretty much average. Ad revenue is much easier to come by if a paper appears to be focused towards a majority who are in imminent need of interior design, health supplements and new motors.

Politicians should think twice about taking the Daily Mail’s view of Middle Britain though. Thatcher and Blair both won by winning over Middle Income Britain, but this group hasn’t profited much from their choices in the last 30 years. Wooing them either for the next election will mean understanding them and taking their (interestingly pretty progressive) opinions on board with at least as much attention as is being lavished on the top quintile.

I bought a suit a couple of years back for a conference in the States. I’d arrived and unpacked, only to find my suit had been hanging unused for so long at home that moths had been right through it. Bit of a panic, but I was cheered up tremendously by finding a UNITE union made logo tucked into the inside pocket of my new Hart Marx whistle.

Well, it seems I’m in good company, as that 136 year old US gents’ outfitter has an even more notable client than me – a certain Barack Obama. Unfortunately both the POTUS and I could now be in danger of losing our sartorial shine, as the firm are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, with a bailed-out bank trying to deny Hart Marx the second chance they themselves received.

SEIU are very much on the case for their members (don’t ask) at Hart Marx, and have mounted a rally and impressive media blitz in conjunction with company management. They’ve got the Illinois state Treasurer to visit their plant in Des Plaines and even vow to sever government business ties with Wells Fargo bank, should they close on credit and force the ailing company into liquidation, rather than giving them the time to find a buyer as a going concern.

Wells Fargo received a $25bn government money bailout, and the union is milking this apparent hypocrisy for all it’s worth – a strategy that paid off at an earlier union sit-in at Chicago’s similarly threatened Republic Windows and Door company last year. Two potential buyers for the company see the value in keeping the Des Plaines plant operational, and the workers have voted to sit in if Wells Fargo pulls the plug before a rescue has a proper chance.

Losing the firm would be a real shame for a big piece of American tailoring and labour history (Hart Marx’s 30,000 employees in 1910 began a key dispute, which resulted in the formation of the United Garment Workers’ union), as well as catastrophic for the Ilinois garment industry, and the families of the 3000 union members still working at Hart Marx.

If you’ve got a second, please go now and send an online campaign message to Wells Fargo from SEIU’s campaign site, and keep my good friend and I in natty, ethical, union made suits for many years to come. BTW, you’ll note from the URL that SEIU are using the same web consultants as Barack Obama – tch, what namedroppers!

UPDATE 24/10/10: Rather late, but I only just noticed this update to the story. The workers won! After some hard campaigning aimed at creditor bank Wells Fargo, they agreed to hold credit long enough to enable a sale to take place as a going concern, rather than simply selling the assets, and keep jobs in Illinois.

Opening my copy of The Journalist, the periodical of choice (or at least of automatic mailing) for unionised media professionals, I noticed this strangely placed ad. Of course, the union certainly needs the cash at the moment from any advertisers who’ll have the space, and it all helps keep the Journo as the good read it has become since its recent makeover, but I do wonder how many takers the Bowden Hall training company will receive from this ad.

Or am I wrong, and the nation’s assorted hacks and subs have actually been dying for the chance to acquire a decent level of accomplishment in the English language? As the ad says, it could bring them “real dividends in business” should they ever want to consider writing for a living. Still – I’m very happy to offer Bowden Hall a freebie for supporting the union: You missed a full stop for the penultimate sentence.

Just back from a lovely May Day march in the sun in central London, celebrating International Workers’ Day 2009 in the company of unionists, socialists and assorted lefties.

Workers from Visteon were out in force to highlight their case, and I was so busy snapping away at the banners that I didn’t notice I’d inadvertantly bagged another blogger for my “bloggers on parade” trophy wall. In fact, judging by this pic it looks like I rather got in the way, so apologies Tom – will look where I’m going next time!

May Day is in full swing on the web too, with LabourList made over into UnionList for the day, no doubt to let Tom nip off for a quick stroll. Check out some of the postings from unionists of all stripes there.

And Unionbook is collating evidence of May Day events around the world. It’s a fair bet some will be bigger than the London one by very many times, so I’m looking forward to seeing the reports. It’s also a fair bet that some are much less safe than this event was – here’s hoping the news from Turkey is going to be a good result for colleagues there, who are being very brave in reclaiming May Day for Turkish workers.