A friend sent me an email this afternoon. They said, after the usual social exchanges:
Further to Burnham's announcement of a PM progress around the kingdom, one wonders if you could draft some talking points/solutions for the community in case members are able to ambush?
That got me thinking. This is my response. In each case, I provide a short preamble to frame the question, followed by a choice of questions to ask. I am aware I have missed issues like the NHS, the environment and a lot else I think is important. I decided to focus on the cost of living above all else.
Housing
Housing costs are one of the biggest pressures on household budgets.
Questions:
- Why are house prices and rents still rising faster than many people's incomes?
- What will your government do to make housing genuinely affordable rather than simply increasing supply?
- Should housing be treated primarily as a home or as an investment? How will you change the emphasis?
Energy
Britain continues to have some of the highest electricity prices in Europe despite generating increasing amounts of renewable energy.
Questions:
- Why are British consumers still paying such high electricity prices?
- How will you reform the electricity market so that cheaper renewable power permanently reduces household bills?
- What are you going to do to reduce long-term energy costs rather than offering temporary subsidies?
Food
Many families continue to struggle with food prices.
Questions:
- Why are food prices still placing so much pressure on household budgets?
- What action will you take if supermarkets and food producers make excessive profits out of food shortages?
- How are you going to improve food security in the UK?
Transport
Transport costs affect access to work, education and services.
Questions:
- How will you make all public transport genuinely affordable when it is not right now?
- Should bus and rail services be treated more as public services than commercial businesses?
- What is your long-term strategy for reducing transport costs?
Childcare
Many parents find childcare costs make working financially difficult.
Questions:
- Why has childcare become so expensive?
- What will you do to reduce childcare costs?
- How will you improve recruitment and retention in the childcare sector, which seems to be a really big issue and which can expose children to risk?
Social care
The cost of care worries many families.
Questions:
- When will England finally receive a sustainable social care system?
- How will people be protected from catastrophic care costs? What bis the funding mechanism you prefer? You must have one.
- How will you ensure care workers receive fair pay?
Tax and household incomes
Many people feel that work is taxed more heavily than wealth.
Questions:
- Do you believe the tax system treats income from work and wealth fairly?
- Will you reform taxes so that people who work for a living do not pay higher rates of tax than those who live off unearned incomes like rent, interest and dividends, which is what happens now?
- How would you ensure those with the greatest ability to pay contribute fairly? Do you favour higher taxes on the wealthy?
Wages and living standards
Real wages have stagnated for many households.
Questions:
- Why has Britain experienced such weak wage growth?
- What is your strategy for increasing living standards rather than simply increasing employment?
- How will you ensure that people rather than the companies receive the rewards of AI?
- How will you encourage investment that improves productivity and so pay for all people on average and lower pay in this country?
Inflation and interest rates
Many households have seen mortgage costs rise sharply.
Questions:
- Do you believe higher interest rates are always the right response to inflation?
- How would you reduce inflation without placing the burden mainly on mortgage holders?
- Would you ever tell the Bank of England not to raise interest rates to protect households with mortgages?
The overall question
Perhaps the most important question is this:
What are the three changes your government would make that would permanently reduce the cost of living for ordinary households, rather than relying on temporary financial support?
That is important because it would require Burnham to explain how Labour would tackle the underlying causes of the cost-of-living crisis, rather than merely its symptoms.
Would he be able to answer that? That is the question we really need an answer to.
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Excellent article!
+? Currently some 27% of the nation’s children suffer from “food insecurity”/ lack of reliable healthy food, which sometimes results in brain damage. What is the percentage of food insecurity that will result in prompt and effective government remedial action?
On Energy costs,
Why do we pay a subscription charge £1 a day to access energy?
If the energy suppliers,traders, have a half hourly auction to supply electricity,why can’t they do the same for the user accounts?
On income tax,
Why have you frozen the tax free allowance until 2030? It used to be increased in line with inflation.
The state pension will be paid after the tax is calculated.
There is a classic ‘missing the point’ going on over railcards.
You dont want to have to pay £30 or whatever to get cut price train travel you need to be able to buy tickets easily when you decide you want to travel – as thats how to help budgets and get people out of cars.
I suggest that ticket prices need to be about the same price per mile as the cost of petrol for the same journey as far as possible – ie not London but if GWR will take me to the West Country with a Senior Railcard for about the price of petrol and parking for my car why cant we do it for everyone?
Agreed
“PM progress around the kingdom”.. trumpets? flunkeys? adoring press? and complicit TV (BBC – ah Mr Burnt-ham how can we serve you?) & last but not least – the music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuG1t2smdCQ&list=RDZuG1t2smdCQ&start_radio=1
as befitting Burnt-ham I.
The cost of living crises is a bit of a myth. Granted, aot of people are struggling, but a lot are not. For example, shortly the football season starts and the stadiums will be full as will the pubs around them. Go to an airport and people are happy to buy fast food and alcohol at exorbitant prices. So I hardly call this a crisis!
I will reply to this in a blog post.
The cost of living crisis is a bit of a myth to those who are unaffected by it. To the millions whose lives have been made very difficult by it, it is very real.
Precisely
Mat Rouge, read your own post: “Granted, a lot of people are struggling…”.
Unless you were merely trying to be provocative, I suppose you meant that as long as it’s only the less well off who are affected then it’s wrong to call it a crisis, so what’s the problem? It’s as if you’re channeling the 1980s Tories. Depressing ‘logic’.
It’s about priorities. If there was a “crisis” people wouldn’t have disposable money to spend on non essentials such as eating out, pubs, going to football etc. And there are millions across the uk doing this. FACT. So it’s hardly a nationwide crisis is it? Under capitalism there will always be those less well off, but sometimes people spend their money in a stupid way I.e. according to their priorities. If we have a crises in this country, what do they have in less well off countries e.g peru?
Your offensive seems to know no limits.
Suppose there was an earthquake in Hereford and 100 people died and thousand left homeless. Would you claim because this did not create a crisis because it was not national?
Don’t claim that to be the case. You will be banned if you do.
I’m underwhelmed by Burnt Ham – I want a leader, a real leader, not a consumer advocate.
Cost of living, for the average family. How much is it the costs and how much the egregious distribution of wealth?
My wife and I are spending a few days in Singapore, meeting family who have flown in from the UK and having a look around.
No doubt Richard will describe Singapore as a wicked tax haven, but regarding transport the underground railway (MRT) is a wonder to behold. The whole system is spotlessly clean and every carriage appears to be brand new, certainly no more than a week old, far too clean and totally devoid of graffiti not to be. This may be helped by the warnings that eating or drinking on the trains will get you a $500 fine.
My wife gets around an electric wheelchair and the attitude to disability here is the exact opposite of some views expressed in the UK recently. Everywhere has a trail of raised dots in the floor to guide blind users between key locations (useful for sighted users to follow as well). Every platform is a wall of automatic doors so there no risk of falling onto the lines and there are designated entry/exit doors where those with special needs (wheelchairs, pushchairs etc) have priority. There’s a fair bit of going up and down in lifts to get between lines but that’s inevitable, and the lifts are clean and working. There are signs and videos asking people to give up seats or make way for those who need it and the people do, it’s a very civilised and safe atmosphere. And dirt cheap… A whole day of traveling around costs the equivalent of about a shilling.
Burnham may well have been here, but if not he could do worse than come and have a look at what you get when a government knows what it wants and isn’t afraid to pay for it.
Singapore is indeed a haven if you are prepared to live under a very authoritarian regime. Chewing gum is generally illegal. Possession of certain drugs (including some that are available on prescription here) is likely to result in the death penalty, (which is imposed quite quickly). There are more than 30 offences for which the death penalty is carried out.
Thanks. You are right. Singapore is a totalitarian state with no change of government since 1959.
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If I get a chance to speak to Andy Burnham I will ask about Palestine, perhaps ask him if he has ever heard of Sde Temain prison camp. Re the ‘cost of living crisis’, I dislike the term, poverty should be used instead. It is true that a minority of people are affected but it is a substantial number of people and it should be recognised. Perhaps the word ‘crisis’ can legitimately be questioned on semantic grounds but why bother?