Reality Check
Like many people in the UK I enjoyed Barack Obama's inaugural speech - marking his second term of office as President of the United States of America.
I share at least one thing with President Obama, in that I am a father of two daughters - so I especially agreed with the following excerpt from his speech on the importance of equal pay:
“Our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers, and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts.”
As I heard these words I had a mental image in my mind - a picture of the allegedly 'left-wing' councillors and trade union bosses around the UK - whom I could picture nodding their heads vigorously - in complete agreement with the sentiments expressed by President Obama.
Yet these are all the very same councils, dominated by the same brand of Labour councillor (and Labour supporting union leaders, of course) - who all turned a blind eye to the issue of equal pay for years.
Now I don't think that UK councillors and union bosses are in the same league as President Obama - not for a moment.
But what I do know is that it's wise to judge people by their deeds and actions - not by mere words and rhetoric - however inspiring their rhetoric might be.
Because the reality on equal pay is that employers and trade unions around the country - most notably in big Labour run councils - deliberately kept low paid women workers in the dark about the enormous pay differences between comparable male and female council jobs.
Which is shameful.
