In a budget speech spent firefighting against his opponents’ attacks, Osborne’s most eye-catching claim was that household incomes are now higher in 2015 than in 2010. However like everything else this slippery chancellor does, nothing should be taken at face value. And once again the spin he has put on the facts is wildly misleading. […]
Posts Tagged ‘Cost of living’
Things Labour needs to do to beat UKIP #2: raise pay and cap the cost of living
Oct 19th, 2014 by Jon Lansman.Whilst Ed Balls stuck stubbornly to accepting that the economy was now growing rather than “flatlining“, with his disastrous conclusion that you couldn’t fund spending by borrowing in the up-swing, Ed Miliband was absolutely right last year to focus on the cost of living. “The first and last test of economic policy is whether living standards for […]
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Consumer inflation may be low, but asset inflation is high and real wages keep falling
Oct 15th, 2014 by Jeremy Smith.The latest UK annual CPI inflation statistics, for August 2014, were published yesterday by the Office for National Statistics. They show annual inflation down to 1.2%. The last time the annual rate was below this was in September 2009, in the depth of the recession, when it fell to 1.1%. Assuming that the present lower CPI […]
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Why most people are getting poorer
Jul 24th, 2014 by Michael Burke.Most people in Britain are getting poorer. For obvious reasons, the government and supporters of austerity would prefer not to discuss this fact. Yet in the strained language of the Labour right, there has also been a clamour for Ed Miliband to ‘change the narrative’ on the economy by no longer talking about the cost […]
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Labour’s cost of living contract
May 7th, 2014 by Grahame Morris.In less than three weeks voters will go to the polls with the UK still in the midsts of a cost of living crisis for ordinary people up and down the country. After plunging the UK into a double dip recession, recent growth figures have left David Cameron denying a cost of living crisis exists. […]
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We’re all now better off? There are lies, damned lies and Tory reassurances
Jan 26th, 2014 by Michael Meacher.There are lies, damned lies and Tory reassurances. The latest yanking of the figures to pretend what nobody believes is a classic. Select the numerical series that suit you, make some amendments to it that help your case but ignore others that don’t, pick the definitions of income and inflation that give the results you […]
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We need a banking system that helps small businesses, not hinders them
Jan 20th, 2014 by Grahame Morris.People in East Durham are facing the worst cost of living crisis in a generation. Prices are soaring, wages are falling, working people are £1,600 per year worse off and small businesses are struggling to access the finance they need to grow. Yet David Cameron continues to demonstrate how out of touch he is with the […]
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Battle-lines for 2015: Tory permanent austerity v Labour decent affordable society
Nov 14th, 2013 by Michael Meacher.Cameron, surprisingly, has really let the cat out of the bag. In his speech to the Lord Mayor’s banquet (complete with champagne, roast duck and assorted fruit meringues) he let slip to his audience that the Tories would not restore public expenditure after the structural deficit had been eliminated, but would maintain austerity indefinitely (though […]
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Delivering an energy market people can trust
Oct 19th, 2013 by Grahame Morris.A key factor in the cost of living crisis, one of the biggest problems families and businesses face right now, is rising energy bills. This week we’ve seen a staggering 9 per cent price rise for some hard pressed consumers, with further price rises planned in coming weeks. While Ed Miliband has announced plans to […]
