Can You Afford To Work In Politics, Journalism or Fashion?

Sure, £30 a day works out at around the same hourly rate as an illegally exploited UK garment factory worker, but when I was accepted last year, I was thrilled.

Freelance journalist Amalia Illgner speaks about her internship at Monocle, "the self-consciously chic monthly magazine and 24-hour digital radio station for those who enjoy their geopolitics served with a side of artisanal Swiss sunglasses".

You can either read or listen to her story in The Guardian's Audio Long Reads, one of my favourite podcasts which I like to listen to while biking or at the gym.

According to recent figures, there are at least 70,000 interns in Britain, around a third of whom are unpaid. Most work in politics, journalism, fashion and other creative fields. Unpaid interns, or those on an "expenses only" basis, present a tidy saving for British industry. The situation is the same here in the Netherlands, and in many other countries, of course.

Halfway through her internship, Illgner started to realise something was wrong. If her partner didn't have a well-paid job, she would not have had the money to eat. 

My "job" was basically a hobby that someone else was funding. One of the other interns in my cohort juggled a second job at a ramen shop, but most had parents who subsidised their rent, bills, travel and food.

The hard, ugly truth was that my byline was snatched away from hundreds – if not thousands – of qualified freelance and unemployed journalists who can't afford to not get paid.

Now, she has taken the first step in legal proceedings to claim her unpaid wages. She would like the magazine to start paying all of the current and future interns the statutory national minimum wage and ideally the voluntary London living wage. 

But more than that, I would like you to do it so people unlike me – who can’t feed, clothe and house themselves for little more than £3 an hour – can have a fair crack at joining one of the most competitive and socially exclusive industries in this country.