Pub chain owner denies using taxpayer money to subsidise wages in public row with DWP over Universal Credit

I thought it a bit strange – and probably not the best PR – to see a fat cat pub owner openly boasting about how he is happily using taxpayers’ money to subsidise his staff wages.

The boast came in a tweet from the DWP which quotes the owner of pub chain Whiting and Hammond bragging about how so very little he pays his staff that his workers have to rely on Universal Credit to get by:

So then imagine my lack of surprise when – low and behold – Whiting and Hammond are now publicly denying everything that was said in the quote.

They have asked the DWP to take down the tweet:

So perhaps Theresa May and the DWP are so desperate to find any support for its utterly disastrous and so very cruel Universal Credit project, they decided to simply make up the quote?

The problem for Brian Keeling-Whiting, however, is that he seems to have ‘forgotten’ he appeared in a recent but little-seen DWP publication aimed at employers called the “Employer Guide To Universal Credit“, in which Brian also boasts about using taxpayers’ money to subsidise his staff expenses:

I’m guessing Brian probably thought his quotes would only be seen by a handful of other employers  – but now his boasting has been revealed to the general taxpaying public about how he’s using their money to subsidise himself, he’s quite rightly panicking a bit.

I feel there may be a boycott coming on …