Craig Meighan

Last month Theresa May announced she would ban restaurants owners from taking the tips from waiters and waitresses. Restaurants such as Prezzo and Zizi have garnered widespread criticism for their role in taking a cut in the tips that their staff have earned. But with over 165,000 businesses in hospitality that employ well over one million people there have remained a plethora of companies who have avoided the sunlight that was shone onto these bigger chains, avoiding media scrutiny and publish backlash. News of restaurants taking a cut of 10% in the tips staff receive - which Zizi, for example, was found to have been doing - to some was a shocking surprise – but to others, it earned the response: “is that all?”.  Some waiting staff find this to be a meagre reduction as they claim they have had up to 100% of their tips taken from them. Most aren’t aware of their rights, the laws surrounding tipping and are too scared to speak out in fear of losing their job. Whil...

Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images At her party conference in Birmingham last month Prime Minister Theresa May boldly claimed ‘austerity’ is over. ‘Better days are coming,’ she said to a country reeling from cuts to public spending. In a tumultuous time where the head spin of Brexit negotiations brings new and frantic warnings of gloom and economic doom day in and day out it’s a sigh of relief for most to hear that austerity is over. Cash-strapped families who’ve seen their incomes fall over the years will be happier hearing they might not see a further reduction in their working tax credits. The cuts to welfare have been deep ones for many families in the UK as shown by the  Child Poverty Action Group and the Institute for Public Policy Research’s report that a couple with two young children, one working full-time and the other part-time on the national living wage, will lose more than £1,200 a year due to universal credit cuts. The Institute for Fiscal Studies show...

The 1975 are back with what they do best in their new single It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You) : a catchy pop-rock record with some class lyrics. The intro to the song will be a breath of fresh air to fans who found the lead guitar part in the band’s first single Give Yourself A Try obnoxiously repetitive and overly harsh. This lead part, however, (unlike the one in the first single) doesn’t continue to play throughout the entirety of the song. And, while we are on the subject, is a weird artistic choice for a band who are clearly more than capable of coming up with interesting and fun guitar parts. Take their previous songs She’s American or UGH! for example. The first verse finds a desperate character “Little Danny” in search for his next hit. He notes the effects of drug addiction, in this case, heroin: “He falls asleep during conversation,” speaks to the way drug addiction erodes health to the point where someone can’t retain consciousness when in discussion. H...

The Forge is 30 years old this month  Back in the late 1980s, the Forge Shopping Centre was a phoenix rising from the ashes of what was once Scotland’s largest steelworks. At the heart of the engineering and shipbuilding conglomerate William Beardmore and Company Parkhead Forge employed over 20,000 people at its peak. But with deindustrialisation and a stint of different owners the Forge as a steelworks site closed for good in 1983. Then in 1988, the Forge Shopping Centre opened to the public. Built under the GEAR (Glasgow East Area Renewal) scheme it was intended to bring development potential to the East End under Europe’s largest urban regeneration project. At the time the Forge broke new grounds with the largest supermarket in Scotland but in recent times it has been dwarfed by the likes of Silverburn in Pollock (over 3 times the size of the Forge) and faces stiff competition from the erection of 13 newly opened stores since its inception. “It’s getting real...

Glasgow City Council Leader has denied accusations that equal pay negotiations have collapsed, saying they are still underway and on time. In a tweet , Susan Aitken rebuked accusations from Labour that thousands of women had chosen to strike after negotiations with Glasgow City Council had failed. Aitken said: “Equal pay negotiations have not ‘collapsed’; they are continuing” and that the timescale of when payments are to be made is well on track. This was in response to a tweet by Labour’s communities and equalities spokeswoman, Monica Lennon. Lennon said: "[These women] deserve pay justice and they deserve it now. It should never have reached this point and on behalf of Scottish Labour I apologise that the legacy of pay inequality wasn’t resolved when our party led Glasgow City Council. "An apology, however, doesn’t pay the bills. The SNP came into power having promised to settle but women are still being failed.” Aitken hit back at Labour, sa...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon made international headlines this year by becoming the 2 nd US company to reach the milestone of a $1Tn market value. Founded in Jeff Bezos’ basement in 1994 Amazon started off as an online bookstore and since then has seen rapid growth to become the largest online retailer in the world, making over $170B in 2017 alone. Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO This boom has made its founder the richest person alive, with over $160B in net worth; 56% more wealth than the 2 nd richest person, Bill Gates. But how does Amazon make such a profit? How did it make Bezos the richest person on Earth? The answer lies, in part, to what plagues so many successful companies throughout history: the exploitation of workers and the evasion of tax. Sleeping under bridges. Urinating in bottles. Timed toilet breaks. These are just some of the accusations made against Amazon and they tell a story of a company so determined to maximise eff...

Comedians say the things we all think but never say. They point out the absurdity of life in ways we would never think to. And they express what we thought were personal anomalies but are actually widely experienced. Good comedians even make us laugh. Louis CK was a perfect example of this. Famed for his brutal honesty, wit and insight his comedy struck a chord with millions of people to become one of the most popular comedians of his generation. His TV show Louie was unlike any I had seen before. Less plot-driven and more character focused than most shows it filled viewers with an insight into the mind of a lonely, middle-aged, newly-single father in New York City. Interlaced with pieces of stand-up the show felt less like a work of fiction and more an autobiographical documentary about CK’s life. And CK was doing well. With sell-out tours and two critically acclaimed TV shows under his belt, he was on top. And then came the accusations. In late 2017 the  New...