Infamous Turkey-toothed, millionaire right-wing Rod Stewart impersonator, Pimlico Plumber’s Charlie Mullins, showed once again he really should focus on mending taps and not appearing in the media. Because his appearance on LBC over the Autumn Budget was nothing short of a car-crash.
Labour Budget: increasing the minimum wage
As Sky News reported, the Labour Party government is increasing the national living wage (the minimum wage, not the real living wage) as well as employer National Insurance from April 2025:
Chancellor Rachel Reeves is set to raise national insurance contributions paid by employers – despite promising not to increase the tax “for working people” – to help fill a £40bn black hole during the Labour government’s budget on Wednesday.
The government has already announced the national living wage, the minimum someone aged 21 and over can be paid, will also increase from April by 6.7% to £12.21 an hour while 16-20 year olds will be paid £10 an hour – a 16.3% rise.
Of course, bosses are not happy – as it means they’ll probably have to pay themselves a bit less. One such boss was Charlie Mullins – who’s blindingly-white gritted gnashers were all over LBC reacting to the news. Sadly for Mullins, he didn’t seem to know how to react.
Charlie Mullins: one coherent thought and he’d be dangerous
He started off by saying:
It’s a great thing to give minimum wage a big increase, totally for it. It will affect businesses and so will the workers’ rights affect businesses. But of course it’s the right move to try and encourage people into work.
Well, well – who would have thought it? Notoriously right-wing Charlie Mullins defending workers rights?
But hang on – he hadn’t finished. Because Mullins then did an about-turn:
from a business point of view, they’re already, we think we’re going to be hammered for, you know, capital gains tax, possibly increasing the basic rate of taxes going up. You know, so they’re already hitting businesses, you know, they should be encouraging businesses…
Wait, what? We thought you just said it was a good thing. Well, apparently it still is – as Mullins went off on another tangent:
it’s the best thing I’ve heard that she’s going to do in the budget…
Even the LBC host said:
What, increasing the minimum wage?
Apparently yes, said Mullins – but again with some bizarre caveats:
I’m all for it, people should be paid more, but unfortunately it’s going to cost people their job, because many people will not continue to employ them.
If you’re confused, so were we. But one LBC caller summed up the situation nicely – as the host noted:
there’s people texting in, legitimately making the point that if you run a business, and the business doesn’t do well enough to actually pay people a proper wage, then it’s not a very successful business. It’s not a proper business.
Just leave FFS
People on X were wondering why Charlie Mullins was still in the UK – after he said he was selling his £12m home and going abroad after Labour’s budget plans were leaked:
Why is this guy still on TV?
He's supposed to be leaving..just go! https://t.co/1IGR6zEQv8— Frenchie McFrenchface 🐈⬛ (@MmzelleFrenchie) October 30, 2024
But as one user summed up:
Fed up with millionaires and well paid presenters telling us £12.21/hour is too much.
Maybe its best Charlie Mullins concentrates more on his tan abroad, and less on politics – because he clearly doesn’t know much about the latter.
Featured image via LBC – screengrab
