This comment was posted on the blog this morning in response to my post from yesterday afternoon on questions that Andy Burnham should be asked about the cost of living crisis:
The cost of living crises (sic) is a bit of a myth. Granted, a lot 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 began writing a response, realised I was going over 300 words, and decided to make it a blog post instead:
I think you seriously misunderstand what a cost-of-living crisis means.
It does not mean that everyone is poor, that nobody can afford a pint, or that football stadiums and airports have to be empty. Britain remains a wealthy country. The issue creating the crisis is that wealth and the incomes arising from it are very unevenly distributed.
The reality is that millions of people are struggling to meet the cost of essentials from their incomes. Housing, energy, food, transport and other unavoidable costs have risen significantly, while many incomes have failed to keep pace. Those people do not cease to exist just because someone else can afford a season ticket or a holiday; they are simply less visible. You are choosing not to notice them. That, in itself, is part of the crisis of discrimination that the differential in our ability to manage the cost of living creates.
There is another problem with your argument. People do not necessarily stop all discretionary spending when their finances are under pressure. They cut elsewhere, use savings, take on debt, postpone major purchases or accept that they are saving less. A pint at a football match tells us almost nothing about the financial resilience of the person buying it. The evidence is that resilience is declining. It always does before the system breaks.
Most importantly, averages and anecdotes conceal distribution issues. A country can simultaneously contain millions of people taking foreign holidays and millions struggling to pay their electricity bills. There is no contradiction in that, but there is a crisis.
So I do not think the cost-of-living crisis is a myth, as you imply. I think your examples demonstrate something quite different: we have a problem of inequality. Some people have been relatively insulated from the crisis. Others have borne an enormous share of its cost. That distinction is fundamental. It is the actual crisis that we face. That you are glibly ignoring it, presenting an argument in the process that it does not exist, is itself a problem. The conceit implicit in your chosen blindness to the issue results in a denial that makes this issue all the harder to deal with, but it exists nonetheless.
My question to you in that case is genuine. Why not do some reading, researching or even active investigation into the state of well-being of many (around 14 million) of your fellow people in the UK before presuming that because you cannot see them they do not exist or have a problem, when it is their absence from the football match, the pub, and its crowd that is the sign that the problem is real?
Look for and through the gaps, in other words. That is where the issue is. That gap is what the right-wing media ignore. Looking at the superficial is their approach. Why emulate them instead of seeking the truth, matched by a desire to address the issue? That is what the politics of care is about. It should speak for those made invisible by a world that only sees consumption, which a great many people are denied the chance to share.
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A society can be judged not by the lives of the well off (& “I’m doing just fine”) but by how it treats those in the lower tiers & on the margins.
& for the UK? Failure, total failure since 1979. Successive administrations not even capable of understanding the (human) problems (that they created).
Those in the lower tiers of UK society? regarded as human dross – by govs and the upper tiers alike.
Richard, spot on as usual. That comment you quoted is the classic blind-eye special – the sort that floats about in the right-wing press and gets repeated in pubs by people who’ve never had to choose between heating and eating.You’re right: full stadiums and airport bars prove nothing except that some folk still have disposable income. The rest of us are out here juggling debts, dipping into savings that aren’t there, or just not going. Fourteen million people struggling doesn’t vanish because a few thousand can still afford a season ticket. That’s the point. Inequality isn’t a side issue; it’s the whole bloody crisis.I’ve seen it with neighbours – people who used to manage, now cutting meals, skipping the dentist, putting off the car MOT until it fails. They’re the ones missing from the crowd. And when someone waves at the busy pubs and says “crisis? What crisis?” they’re doing exactly what the media does: looking only at the surface, never into the gaps.The politics of care you keep banging on about is the only answer. We need people in power who’ll actually notice those gaps and do something about the extraction – rents, energy, interest – instead of pretending averages tell the story. Until then, the denial just makes it worse.Keep calling it out. Some of us are listening, and a fair few more are living it every day.
I have to agree with Richard.
Personally I know people who are managing well and who are choose to shrink themselves as finances becomes difficult.
This is not a black and white issue. There is a many shades of grey in it. But those who think there is no cost of living crises, just go on facebook and read the reaction of the current VAT rate response from the general public. (There will be always moaners but the ratio is important.)
Of course the cost of living crisis (COLC) is real as you have demonstrated – ask anyone working or living at the (growing) sharp end.
And Burnham’s response? A grand tour of the country (?Scotland), no doubt dressing down (black T-shirt or white shirt-sleeves? SPADs will agonise over that one), looking concerned, and avoiding awkward questions, while throwing out vague comments to give the impression of change (what I call L’Oreal politics, reduces the appearance of austerity, because we’re NOT worth it), tinkering round the edges.
Much will be said, even more will be spun, nothing that really matters will be tackled.
Wildfires? Avoid discussing climate change, but be seen with firefighters.
Homelessness? Re-announce a project (in Manchester) that achieved some local small change and visit a housing charity.
Wealth inequality? Announce a temporary tax reduction. Meet a nice philanthropist.
NHS – Visit a patient support charity, put on one of their tabards to serve in the charity shop, and be seen talking to patients, focus on someone who got successful lifesaving treatment, preferably a child. Promise nothing.
In Reform areas, take Shabana Mahmood along to announce some harsh deportation plans. Don’t mention prisoner early release. Get photographed near Union flags.
Israel? “DON’T MENTION ISRAEL!”
Promise change. Express concern. Press the flesh. Say something vaguely critical of Trump (having got permission first).
But change anything? Absolutely not. Commit to nothing, and don’t answer questions.
Burnham is Starmer MkII. If he wasn’t, Josh Simons/Labour Link wouldn’t have given up Makerfield for him.
Meanwhile we press on with the business of preparing the UK for REAL change.
I meant the VAT rate changes on electricity.
Bravo! Richard – “looking through the gaps” – very eloquent.
One problem is that most people I know think they are struggling, but it is all relative and whilst they will burn through all their money every month and maybe have some debt, they’ve done things I don’t because all my money goes on basics. We also focus too much on pensioners as supposedly the poorest group in society, but even a basic state pension is twice what you get on Universal Credit. And the demonisation of disabled people, especially those with hidden disabilities has got totally out of hand.
Life has got tougher for many people, but it’s not because of immigrants or disabled people. Young adults are starting out with massive student debts and unaffordable housing costs. The lucky ones have parents who can afford to help them buy a property, but many are now stuck at home with parents and even those with good jobs are unable to live independently or think about starting their own families. Unless we address the growing inequality in our society, things will only get worse, with many children growing up in actual not relative poverty. We are already seeing high mental health rates in our austerity/Covid generation. These problems will not disappear by ignoring or demonisation. The only party speaking out is the Green Party. Andy Burnham is making noises, but everything he’s announced so far is pretty useless to those of us living outside dense urban areas. Bus and rail concessions are no good if you have no buses and the nearest railway station is inaccessible without a car.
One point worth making is that as a result of the Housing Crisis we have an awful lot of young people who are still living with their parents. This means that they tend to have a relatively high disposable income. Secondly because of high house prices I suggest many dont see it realistic to even consider saving to buy a house and of course they may wish to enjoy time away from their parents.
As a result they have money to spend and spend it.
I live in a fairly affluent area and every day I see exactly the same complacency. Less than a mile up the road the poverty is visible and life expectancy is years lower. Even talking about it with some acquaintances I see their eyes glaze over.
The cost of living crises (sic) is a bit of a myth.
This is at least a cousin to those who think climate change/global warming is a myth because we had a lot of snow last winter.
This is such a normal right-wing childlike thing to do:
“I can’t see it so it’s not there!”
A real society can only work well when its thinking is beginning by looking at those that are at the bottom and really caring for them.
Only this can provide sustainable security and wealth as the others then see:
“Ah, I will not fall down in a hole, being left all alone when something happens. What a relief!”
It might be a bit radical to say but even if only 1 person needs a certain system to live well and thrive (because e.g. of a rare disease) then this system is affordable and worth being kept up.
Dear Richard,
Thank you and well said.
Dad, who grew up poor and then became a doctor and medical professor often told my late brother and me to remember the less fortunate when we feel on top of the world. Mum grew up better off, but speaks similarly.
Few people, even those at expensive sports events, are that far away from calamity.
Let me address the person who made that comment. I often go to the races and chat to the catering staff. Some live hundreds of miles away and travel from festival to festival and share accommodation, transport etc and won’t see the families in person for months. It’s a precarious existence. Some are students doing summer work. Why not talk to people instead of making assumptions based on media misdirection? The commenter may learn something.
Well said Richard.
Your correspondent basically makes the case of the existence of inequality in their haste to make a point – as per usual.
I know young people whose idea of a good night out is staying in, sharing a packet of fags and a few cans of cheap beer. Apparently some in our society are even outraged at that!