Money Saving Expert says: don’t let the Tories blame cost of living crisis on Ukraine war
Martin Lewis: “It is a worsening of the situation – it is not the cause of the situation.”
The UK’s cost of living crisis started in the UK before the Russia-Ukraine war and should not be blamed on that conflict, ‘Money Saving Expert’ Martin Lewis has said.
And he said direct political action to ease the pressure is required – in Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s spring Budget on March 23 – because cutting household expenditure won’t be enough to save people from poverty.
He was speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on March 10:
“Kwasi Kwarteng has said that many people are willing to make sacrifices because of Ukraine. I think he’s probably right but I am slightly worried that we are seeing what may be potentially a deliberate narrative shift that effectively says the entire cost of living crisis is due to Ukraine, and therefore we all need to make sacrifices/
“That is not correct. What has happened in Ukraine has exacerbated the situation.
“But the rises in energy, heating oil, water, council tax, broadband and mobiles, food, National Insurance, were all in place before Ukraine.
“When we have a Budget – or a Spring Statement – coming in a couple of weeks, we need to be careful not to allow that narrative to happen and to be used as an excuse that we all need to make sacrifices because of Ukraine, and that’s why we have to suck in the cost of living crisis.
“That is not a correct analysis. It is a worsening of the situation – it is not the cause of the situation.”
Mr Lewis added: “We are going to see a real increase in genuine poverty in this country; millions of people being thrown into poverty.
“The only way we can stop that is not by being money saving and tightening our belts; it is by genuine political intervention.
“We have a Spring Statement coming and I would urge the Chancellor: let’s nip this in the bud. Let’s not have people starving or freezing.”
What if the Tories don’t nip it in the bud? What if they want to push this fake narrative? What if they’re trying to use it to avoid providing any meaningful help?
You see, the mass media tries to avoid suggesting it, but this is what we need to ask ourselves:
What if the Tories are actually steering most of us directly into poverty because that’s what they want for us? Are we really going to lie back and let it happen?
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The Tories and their donors will somehow make money on the cost of living crisis, because what is happening is a huge surge of prices.
Tories have never cared about the poor and never will.
The pension industry proved the real reason for pension age rise is to kill off people before retirement, so pensions are never paid and this is also what government wants, so they can continue to thieve off National Insurance Fund. Proven by pension industry moaning that 85 per cent of people had survived to the new pension age of 66, bearing in mind women tend to be poorer than men, and women on the own even more so and they lost pension money and pension credit from 60 to 66 since 2014.
Energy bills rise in winter as profiteering by the energy companies, but now they see home working replacing city centre offices, they are trying to price gouge people. Along with increases on cost of broadband and mobile phones.
Poorer people have older second hand cars, forced onto the more expensive E10 petrol.
Bus and train fares will soar from increased petrol and diesel prices.
Even water bills are rising, when privatised water companies cannot even do the core task of cleaning up raw sewage.
This was already happening and we already knew that, but somehow the public have a short memory span.
Petrol price is mostly tax.
Energy bills have 5 per cent VAT to homes.
National Insurance rose 2 per cent for workers and 3.8 per cent for the boss in 2016. The so-called elder care levy is a lie, as government has already cut £5bn funding from the NHS.
Those on benefit are so demonised that the public don’t care, so the government can do them whatever they like.
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