Labour just doesn’t get it: workers feel poorer than ever. Is it any wonder Reform is rising? | Sharon Graham

<p>Until the government starts tacking in a radically new direction, it will continue crashing in the polls. It could – and must – act differently</p><ul><li><p>Sharon Graham is the general secretary of Unite</p></li></ul><p>The past two decades in the UK have been dominated by crisis. The 2008 financial crash changed everything, but aside from a bit of dinner party embarrassment, elites carried on as if nothing had happened. For workers, however, it was a different story. And so it almost doesn’t matter what Keir Starmer says in his speech to the Labour party conference on Tuesday. His government still has not grasped the real problems faced by ordinary British people, and that is why Labour <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/reform-uk-nigel-farage-keir-starmer-polling-b2834138.html">is crashing in the polls</a>.</p><p>Between 1945 and 2008 in the UK, real increases in average wages were <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64970708">the norm</a>. But after the crash, they stopped rising. If wages had grown to this day as they did prior to 2008, the average worker would be £11,000 a year better off.</p><p>Sharon Graham is the general secretary of Unite</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/29/keir-starmer-labour-conference-unite-workers-poor-than-ever-reform-uk">Continue reading...</a>