Failure to help struggling households will cost Tories dear
Governments underestimate the power of celebrity at their peril. First it was Marcus Rashford and his campaign for hungry children. Now it is Jack Monroe pointing out how the official inflation figure bears no relation to the real cost of living increases facing the neediest households.
The footballer and the chef have performed an important public service by highlighting, in a way that official statistics and thinktank reports can’t, just how tough life is on or close to the breadline.
It is often said Britain is a wealthy country, which indeed it is. But if you rely on food banks it doesn’t really matter if house prices are going up and the stock market is booming. The poorest 10% of households in the UK have negative net wealth, because their debts are higher than the assets they own.
Monroe’s point about inflation is well made. The official measure of the cost of living does not reflect the lived experience of people across Britain and was never intended to. The consumer prices index doesn’t show whether those on low incomes are being affected by supermarkets cutting back on value ranges. Nor does it reflect the fact that richer households have savings to draw upon when times get tough. What’s more, as the Resolution Foundation has pointed out, soaring energy prices act as a form of deeply regressive tax, with the poorest households hit hardest.
This is the background to the deepening cost of living crisis and what the government should do about it. One thing is already obvious: a toxic brew of rising housing costs, dearer energy and higher taxes means ministers have to come up with something. Doing nothing is only an option if they are prepared to risk oblivion at the next election.
Certain things are set in stone. Next
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