Standing in Solidarity with Lyn Brown

I'm fascinated by the way that Labour MP Lyn Brown is being criticised for recruiting a "volunteer", who will do the job of a political assistant for nothing.

It's all very well slinging mud, but it's quite clear that Ms Brown has merely understood the concept of "The Big Society" - i.e. getting people to do useful stuff, and not paying for it.

I myself have adopted a similar policy. Many of our Beaker People are currently working on a Doily-Pressing volunteer scheme. And some of them, as well as putting in eight or nine hours a day banging the holes out of doilies, are giving 10% of their salaries from their day jobs to our special inflation-busting "donations" scheme. I hope people realise that this is in no way a form of exploitation - but rather that we are giving them the chance to "put something back", while learning a useful set of skills that, in a post-industrial Britain, may be all the country is fit to do one day. And we are not slave-drivers. On particularly hot days like yesterday, we provide plastic cups of water at little more than cost price in the Doily Shed, on at least a four-hourly basis.

So let's hear no more about it. The Minimum or even "Living" wage is only applicable to people who are actually paid. Free labour is free labour. And that can't be bad, however you look at it.