The Labour Government
- Thread starter SkyBlueFlux
- Start date
In built coping mechanisms I think.
Ifwecouldjust.......
Well-Known Member
Possibly Lifting the two child tax credit cap ?
Free nursery places ?
Breakfast clubs?
Changes to requirements for school uniform ?
It is always a political choice ..... but you seem to think Labour haven't done anything.
Low wages
UC ensuring work simply doesn’t pay for many so huge welfare bills
Cost of living crises
Inflation
Scandalous energy bills
We can play the political choice game all day long and it’s in every government, regardless of colour.
Labour are in charge now, nobody else.
Blue Maverick
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 6 Aug 2010
- Messages
- 25,117
How do you pay for all that though, nursery costs are horrendous, in fact one wage seems to be paying fir just that alone these days, the school uniform should just be a standard for everyone, just generic fir every school able to be bought cheap, no need to have an expensive top with the name embroidered on it.
I don’t know what the answer is anymore I just know there’s a lot of unhappy and struggling people out there.
Blue Maverick
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 6 Aug 2010
- Messages
- 25,117
What about raising the minimum wage to say £20 so these rip off big companies pay a working wage, now this may not help small businesses but it would make the conglomerates pay their fair share.
Brewster's millions
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 9 Apr 2012
- Messages
- 5,250
The policy cost element of the price cap has now increased by 25% since Labour came to power.
I suppose that’s what happens when you let someone like Ed Miliband have a degree of responsibility. Same with Reeves. They’re a pair of hugely over promoted incompetents.
Blue Hefner
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 11 Jul 2009
- Messages
- 15,338
Any government will have the problem of the cost of living ‘crisis’. Primarily as it’s not a ‘crisis’ I.e short term - it’s chronic and here to stay
We don’t say that the Victorians had a cost of living crisis, we say they were shafted and lived in shit.
The post war move to help working and middle class families gain assets, good jobs, good pensions etc are gone
The trouble is. No Party can say the good times are over and your kids are likely to have a lower standard of living than their grandparents
The energy companies aren’t suddenly going realise they’ve made enough and give us some back. Tesco and Sainsbury’s aren’t all of a sudden going to decide to charge us less for food and reduce their profits and the people that own newspapers aren’t going to champion thier class to pay more tax and inheritance tax
So what do we do? Yeah, we can throw a few foreigners out and take benefits off few people, maybe even make the fire brigade private again but I don’t see how anything gets materially better for the population as a whole in the next 5-10 years
Open to suggestions
We don’t say that the Victorians had a cost of living crisis, we say they were shafted and lived in shit.
The post war move to help working and middle class families gain assets, good jobs, good pensions etc are gone
The trouble is. No Party can say the good times are over and your kids are likely to have a lower standard of living than their grandparents
The energy companies aren’t suddenly going realise they’ve made enough and give us some back. Tesco and Sainsbury’s aren’t all of a sudden going to decide to charge us less for food and reduce their profits and the people that own newspapers aren’t going to champion thier class to pay more tax and inheritance tax
So what do we do? Yeah, we can throw a few foreigners out and take benefits off few people, maybe even make the fire brigade private again but I don’t see how anything gets materially better for the population as a whole in the next 5-10 years
Open to suggestions
hampshireblue
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 10 Dec 2014
- Messages
- 2,928
Hopefully, neither can your rantings on here.
Last edited:
Starmers claims re bringing breakfast clubs to all schools is a joke. He recently said in parliament “promise made, promise delivered”
He should visit Rochdale where only 1 school has it. The school is in Bamford, one of the most affluent areas in the Borough.
He should visit Rochdale where only 1 school has it. The school is in Bamford, one of the most affluent areas in the Borough.
blueparrot
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 7 Jun 2012
- Messages
- 33,397
No that's only a part of it, for many it's a lifestyle decision, there are many couples, my daughter included that have made concious decisions to not have children though they could well afford it.Alternatively had children when I was most struggling finacially and claiming Working family tax credits, because we decided we would make it work and gave up many thing including not going to football for about 8 years.
In fact looking around my area nothing scientific butI say the better off have less children than the lower paid couples,
metalblue
Well-Known Member
Underlying commodity prices routinely fluctuate and rarely impact shop prices and certainly a price decrease for December will not given we are not selling December milk yet. Bulk buyers will lock in their costs through derivative contracts to provide price certainty, or to give it its correct term they will hedge their price risk - for example British Airways will know the cost of aviation fuel because they will have brought aviation fuel futures for the next 9-12 months. This means they can sell you a plane ticket for your holiday next year at a fixed cost. This is how the world works. There are exceptions to that and they are always in the negative, petrol for example always “reacts” to price increase shocks instantly but slower to reduce on price declines… now that is profiteering!!
Official figures from the government show wholesale milk prices have gone up 5.6% September YoY (the last official figures). Retail milk prices have gone up 4.5%, I gave the average price chart an eyeball and it looks likely retailers are absorbing more cost without fully passing it on to consumers (on average). Final full year figures will need to be provided for a complete assessment.
Am I being Clarkied ... minimum wage of nearly £40000 a year.
Would love to see those inflation figures and unemployment rates.
We've got Guardiola
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 26 Aug 2025
- Messages
- 98
- Team supported
- Manchester City
Pay rises would only move the goalposts due to inflation. The simple problem is we have surrendered our way of life to conglomerates who we totally rely upon for everything.
20+ years ago you went to a local baker or butcher to get a loaf of bread or meat but now you will likely go to Tesco. The problem is your local butcher benefited 100% from his profits whereas the employees of Tesco benefit very little from its profits. Tesco made £3bn profit last year and yet it doesn't pay people much above the minimum wage.
If people shopped locally and bought locally then local people get more of the pie however their food bills would be higher. They could increase the working wage but the problem is we want to shop as cheaply as possible. Paying people as little as possible is part and parcel of how conglomerates compete to keep food bills low.
The conglomerates also employ tens of thousands of people so they might just employ less people or open less stores which means that UK growth stalls. Governments don't like this, they prefer to look good with pointless decimal point percentage increases in GDP growth versus actually helping people.
Last edited:
Metal Biker
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 3 Jul 2009
- Messages
- 22,485
- Team supported
- Manchester City (and McLaren F1)
They then lower working hours to around 8 per week per employee.
Many in retail are on 'minimum hours' contracts so they must legally be given around 8 hours a week. Then put them on skeleton staffing shifts expecting them to do the work of three people yet expect the same work output.
Don't get me wrong, I want them to raise the living wage so it matches the cost of living, just highlighting it's what businesses do every single time there's a wage increase.
What a great post. Common sense really, unfortunately we seem addicted to fantasy economics and tend to blame each other when that fantasy does not materialise.
Ifwecouldjust.......
Well-Known Member
metalblue
Well-Known Member
This is what needs to happen but it will be over time to avoid inflationary shocks. The question is will pay ever catch up.
Ideally you’d want a government to start by cutting taxes, using MW to push pay up, increase public sector pay then letting it play out. To do that they will have to borrow money which is typically frowned upon unless you can make a coherent case for resetting the way the country works… and we simply don’t have the headroom to do it.