
Have you noticed how much smaller your slice of the wealth pie is, despite the pie growing? In 2005, UK GDP was just over 2 trillion. The latest figure, for 2023, was over 2 and a half trillion. That is an extra five hundred billion pounds every year generated in the UK every year. An extra seven thousand pounds per year for every adult and child in the UK. And yet we’ve been told for so many years “there’s no money”.
We were told that the financial crisis wasn’t the right time to ask for more.
We were told that austerity wasn’t the right time to ask for more.
We were told that the pandemic wasn’t the right time to ask for more.
We’ve been waiting for the right time for the best part of 20 years. We’ve been waiting for the good times to return, so that we can finally be allowed to ask for more.
“The good times” aren’t coming back, because the good times never went away. Many people have been getting richer and richer through that whole period. But we haven’t.
There’s no lack of money. There’s a lack of fairness.
Our work has been growing the pie this whole time. But even though the pie has been growing, you’ve been given less pie. Not just a smaller share of the bigger pie but less actual pie.
Many of us probably hoped that an incoming Labour government would end the decline in the sector and begin the restoration of our pay. It’s clear that this is not their intention. But unless we’re holding out hope that a Reform government will be more generous, then the time to act is now.
The money is there. Vote YES for action.
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Key Dates
• Sunday 23 November 2025 (23:59): replacement ballot request form closes
• Wednesday 26 November 2025: last ‘safe’ date to post the ballot
• Friday 28 November 2025 (17:00): ballot closes.
