Who would have thought that this cartoon could be re-used? Now, as when he was Health Secretary, Tory Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has doctors on the rack. He’s not going to pay them the 35% cost-of-living increase he owes them – but he and his colleagues have been happy to take a 42% rise for themselves.
Take a look at the clip below, in which Steve Brine MP, Tory chair of the Commons Health and Social Care Committee, says junior doctors do not deserve the 35 per cent pay increase that would be required to give them parity with their pay in 2010:
Jackie Long, "180 days since Steve Barclay spoke to NHS Consultants, and 140 days since he spoke to Junior Doctors, about pay. If there are no talks about pay the strikes keep going"
Conservative MPs have been worse than useless to the UK since 2010.
They have plunged the country into five times the debt it had in 2005, with nothing to show for it but a crashing economy and nose-diving public services, including a National Health Service that is constantly on the verge of collapse due to intrusive privatisation and over-demand due to the effects of all the Tories’ other policies.
Junior doctors, working within that crashing health service even as it crumbles around them, are far more valuable – for the obvious reason: They are genuine life savers.
But it is the Tory MPs who hold the purse strings.
They could have refused the recommended pay rises that have been offered to them since 2010 but they haven’t. They have taken the money. They have also taken huge wodges of cash in donations from businesspeople, along with the advice of those donors on what to do. You can form your own conclusion about the value of that advice to the majority of us.
And while taking all that filthy lucre – a higher proportional increase than the amount the junior doctors have lost over the same period of time – the Tories have told junior doctors that they do not deserve a pay rise equal to the increase in the cost of living.
No wonder medical professionals are quitting the NHS as fast as they can.
There is a word for MPs like Mr Brine. It begins with a ‘C’ – but it sure isn’t ‘Conservative’.
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Border Force: presumably the staffers in this image were not on the take – but how many of their colleagues are – due to low pay?
This is interesting: not only is low pay bad for physical and mental health, but it also breeds corruption:
Aprobe into Border Force’s ability to identify and respond to corruption among its own staff has found work is hampered by “confused” civil service leadership structures, while poor pay and a lack of engagement are acting as a “breeding ground” for criminal behaviour.
Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration David Neal’s investigation into so-called “insider threat” focused on the risk that an “unscrupulous minority” of Border Force staff will abuse their access to data, property, and contraband to commit criminal acts.
The investigation was conducted between January and March and its findings were presented to home secretary Suella Braverman at the end of May, however Neal’s report was only published yesterday – and in redacted form.
So it seems that, deprived of a way to profit from their actual job, Border Force employees consider it acceptable to abuse the privileges of their work in order to make cash on the side.
And the corruption doesn’t end there: not only has publication of the report on this criminal activity been delayed for more than three months, but when it was finally published, some information was left out.
What’s the matter, Suella Braverman? Are the facts simply embarrassing for you – or damning about you?
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Housebuilding: the Tories have been looking for something on which they can blame their failure to build enough new homes – and have found it in the form of legal protections for river life. So they are scrapping those protections and forcing you to pay for pollution prevention measures.
Exactly as This Site predicted only hours ago, evidence is showing that a Tory government decision to scrap “nutrient neutrality” rules that protect river life from harm caused by housing developments is creating huge profits for builders.
Meanwhile, the cost of cleaning up their mess is set to fall on the public purse.
Here’s the evidence about building firms:
And there you have it, what today's announcement was actually all about.
Barratt Developments' share price up 3.43% this morning company now valued at £4.34bn and Taylor Wimpey up 2.88% company valued at £3.97bn.
And The Guardianis saying the following about how the bill for their pollution will now be paid:
Taxpayers will pick up the bill for pollution by housebuilders, government officials have admitted, as rules on chemical releases into waterways are scrapped.
The government has said it will double Natural England’s wetland funding to £280m in order to show it is trying to meet the requirements of its legally binding Environment Act.
This extra £140m will come from the public purse, the government confirmed. When asked by the Guardian whether this meant the taxpayer was now picking up the bill for pollution caused by developers, a government official responded “yes”, adding that while “the polluter pays principle is very important”, it was having too many adverse impacts on small- and medium-sized housebuilders.
So there you have it.
You paid for the privatised energy companies’ enormous profits. You paid for the privatised water firms to pollute our rivers. And now you are to pay for mitigation of the already-private builders’ attempts to kill off any remaining life in our waterways – if such mitigation ever happens.
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Departing MPs will get bigger payouts for winding up their offices, with the sum doubling to £17,300, the UK parliament expenses watchdog has announced.
MPs who lose their seats or choose not to stand will be paid for four months after leaving office to enable them to wind up their casework and other duties – doubling from the current period of eight weeks.
MPs who lose their seats also qualify for “loss of office payments” – at twice the rate of statutory redundancy pay – and the winding-up payments come on top of this.
They have to demonstrate that they are using their time to work on winding up their offices. MPs’ staff can also qualify for such payments. Ministers get different severance payments for loss of office, with a cabinet minister receiving £16,876.
The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) made the change after reviewing arrangements for payments following the next election… prompted by the boundary changes and end of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act in 2022.
Some doubt the sincerity of IPSA’s behaviour:
Call me cynical, but it seems awfully convenient that 300 Tory MPs are about to lose their seats and only now the rules change so that MPs losing their seats get 4 months severance pay.
A backhander to Sunak’s MPs to keep them in line before the next GE?
The hundreds of Tory MPs who will lose their seats at the next election will continue to get paid for four months afterwards. Rather better treatment than the 800 P&O Ferries seafarers illegally sacked by the company at no notice last year.
So as more than 40 currently serving Tory MPs prepare to step down at the next election, all of a sudden MPs stepping down are entitled to compensation, no longer just those that lose their seat, but also that they need this to be doubled! Could this all be more Tory if they… pic.twitter.com/KfqIlokdgX
I’d say IPSA has just delivered proof that it is not fit for purpose.
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This is fine: the image above was originally about climate change but it may be applied equally well to Rishi Sunak’s attitude to the economy. Political policy in the UK for the past 40 years and more has been to impoverish you, together with all the poor people who voted for him and his ilk, thereby allowing it to happen.
All the Tory talk about getting inflation down seems to have confused some people who have failed to consider that high inflation may actually be Conservative government policy.
Look at the usually-excellent Simon Wren-Lewis’s latest Mainly Macropiece, in which he takes issue with left-wing opinions about his current diagnosis of the inflation problem.
He reckons the answer is for private sector wage rises to come down, probably by way of reducing economic demand which will lead to a reduction in the workforce – and, thereby, a recession. This opinion appears to be shared with the Bank of England, whose continual interest rate hikes seem to be an attempt to force the UK’s economy to go backwards.
The problem with that is simple: ordinary working- and even some middle-class people are struggling to make ends meet. Many simply can’t and are going into debt. His solution to the inflation problem will bake that inability to afford the cost of living into the UK economy.
With the Tory government lying to us that workers’ wages are the cause of high inflation and the Bank of England doing as described above, there seems to be only one logical conclusion to draw:
High inflation is a Conservative government policy. It is intended to drive the UK’s lower-paid citizens deep into poverty so you cannot afford the necessities of life.
Just roll that around your mind for a moment.
Think about the real causes of inflation: huge increases in the prices of energy and food, and huge increases in the salaries of FTSE100 executives.
The government could, in theory, neutralise these inflationary pressures through taxation – but the theory fails in practice: as Professor Wren-Lewis notes, the energy firms are multi-national corporations whose profits are received overseas, so there is nothing the government can do about them.
Looking back through history, we see that the reason overseas shareholders have been able to take control of our formerly-nationalised utility firms (energy isn’t the only subject area to have been treated this way, of course; water springs instantly to mind) is privatisation.
The answer should be re-nationalisation – but the Tory government (and also Keir Starmer’s STP – Substitute Tory Party) won’t countenance that; it is against their ideology. This indicates, again, that high inflation that drives you into poverty is a political choice. Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer want you to starve.
In the private sector, we see that the salaries of FTSE100 executives have risen by an average of 16 per cent in the last year alone, despite the fact that there has been no real growth in production in the last 15 years since the Great Recession. The money for their pay rise has to come from somewhere and the logical source is the pay packets of employees; they are taking the rises that should go to you.
That’s if they haven’t increased the prices of their goods or services, of course. If they have then they are still taking the rises that should go to you, while also increasing prices so you can’t afford what your employer sells.
The answer – the way to stop this irresponsible upward drain of corporate funds into executive bank accounts – is to tax executive pay at a rate high enough to make this practice unviable. Again, both Rishi Sunak’s Tories and Keir Starmer’s Tories have refused to do this so – again – we must conclude that the executive wage inflation that puts us all into poverty is a political choice.
Professor Wren-Lewis rightly points out that, where employees have won wage increases intended to match inflation caused mainly by high energy prices, their employers have put prices up; this indicates that shifting the real-terms wage cut onto the profits of other firms won’t work and just generates more inflation.
Professor Wren-Lewis goes on to discuss the reason real wages in the UK have not grown in the last 15 years. As already mentioned above, besides the energy and food price hikes, it is the fact that productivity growth has been extremely weak. There have also been two large devaluations of the Pound.
The low productivity – and one of the depreciations – were caused by Brexit. This is another political policy of the Conservative government that is also supported by Keir Starmer’s STP and may therefore be seen as further proof that the party of government (and that of Opposition) intends to impoverish you as a matter of policy.
Brexit also makes causing a recession more attractive to the government and the party that wants to form a government. Neither of them want inflation to continue running rampant forever; it would eventually wipe out the gains they have made for their very rich friends, so they’ll want to bring it down.
The way to do that, according to Prof Wren-Lewis, is to reduce the demand for goods produced by most firms, as this will lead to a reduced demand for labour; firms then lay off workers, meaning more people are seeking employment, meaning in turn that jobseekers will be more likely to accept a job that pays lower wages.
Before Brexit, politicians could always rely on an influx of cheap labour from Europe. That isn’t available now, so they consider recession to be the only alternative. Remember: their future is safe.
Demand is already coming down because people simply can’t afford to buy as much as they used to, due to the real-terms wage cuts they have suffered. The Bank of England’s interest rate rises are hammering that change home.
We may therefore conclude that recession, job losses, further deprivation and misery are all policy points of the Conservative government, and of Keir Starmer’s STP.
Professor Wren-Lewis ends his piece by quoting Bertrand Russell: “Ask yourself only what are the facts, and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Never let yourself be diverted either by what you wish to believe, or by what you think would have beneficent social effects if it were believed.”
Sadly, he fails to follow his own (and Russell’s) advice.
The truth that the facts bear out is that privatisation, executive pay rises, Brexit, austerity (the other driver of the Pound’s depreciation) and interest rate rises are all intended to push the majority of UK citizens into poverty.
Other solutions besides reducing demand by causing a recession and mass unemployment are available – but the low-quality politicians with whom we have accepted that Parliament should be filled are not interested in them; their only concern is filling their own bank accounts.
Our concern must now be to put a stop to this.
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The real cause of inflation: prices have been rising to give chief executives of companies massive, inflation-busting pay rises.
It’s nice that the Tories aren’t even trying to present themselves as electable any more.
They have spent so much time and energy telling us that our wages have been driving inflation up that it is impossible for them to backtrack, now we can see that the real cause is the naked greed of company executives.
Bosses at some of the UK's largest companies have seen a huge jump in their salaries… while employees saw their pay packets outstripped by rising prices.#BBCBreakfastpic.twitter.com/vCJNHCfEzu
And they won’t take the logical steps to rectify the situation. Firstly, they need to legislate to stop the privatised utility firms (especially energy and water) engaging in brazen profiteering because they can always force the government to increase its subsidy to them.
Tories insist on supporting privatisation, meaning they refuse to allow privatised utilities to go back into public ownership and are forced to increase public funding for them whenever the millions and billions they hand to shareholders seem likely to drive them out of business.
Secondly, they need to do as Owen Jones suggests in the following clip:
Bosses getting 16% while workers have been getting real terms pay cuts. As @OwenJones84 says, "who is causing inflation in this country"?
Oh, and at the end the presenter asks, what can we do other than ask them to please to share it around? Owen has a suggestion. #GMBpic.twitter.com/TpaNMOoSNx
Doesn’t it seem strange that, with the UK straining under the biggest taxes we’ve had in 70 or 80 years, the government is refusing to take money from those who are most able to bear that load without suffering any serious harm to their way of life?
So it seems to This Writer that they are actually doing the decent thing (albeit unrepentantly), admitting that they’ve done wrong and – by sticking with the policy – giving up.
They’re as good as saying, “We know we’ve done wrong. We’re going to keep on doing wrong until you remove our ability to do so.”
I, for one, can’t wait to get on with it.
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The Bank of England: why are you letting a gang of super-rich bankers tell you it’s the pittance you take home in pay that has caused inflation when that is so obviously a lie? What are you going to do about it?
It’s self-explanatory and if you believe the Tories, the right-wing media, the bankers and all the others who have been telling you that wage rises are pushing up inflation, you need to see it. Watch:
The ruling elite want us to believe that inflation is being caused by wage rises for working people.
Now you should be angry that so many people have been lying to you.
There’s something you can do about it. The same thing you’ve always been able to do.
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After British Gas posted huge profits, made possible by price-gouging – charging you far too much for the service it provides – Rishi Sunak has appeared on TV to tell you that he’s tackling all the inflation that has been caused by your pay rises.
… Except, of course, that tackling that kind of inflation doesn’t involve any work at all because your pay rises haven’t caused any of the inflation that has been inflicted on us by boneheadedly stupid, economically-illiterate, back-of-a-cigarette-packet policies dreamed up by Sunak and his equally stupid forerunners.
Sunak’s broadcast was an attempt to distract your attention away from the real cause of inflation – the high prices charged by corporate bandits for no reason at all – and to dupe you into thinking that your pay demands are responsible.
You are not responsible for any inflation at all. Sunak and the corporations to whom he whores himself are.
Here’s Peter Stefanovic to explain further:
The Prime Minister just posted a shameless video doubling down on his rubbished claim anything more than crappy real terms pay cuts for public sector workers will fuel high inflation – it’s ABSOLUTE BOLL**** & he knows it!
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— #FtheWEF till the day I die (@NEOintheMCR) July 21, 2023
A fresh start for the people of Selby and Ainsty? It sounds good – but is it just words?
After all, the very first thing he did was endorse Keir Stürmer’s decision to continue the Conservative policy that limits child benefit to two children:
The Telegraph's @michaelmurph_y question to the newly elected Labour MP, Keir Mather on Labour’s controversial two child benefit cap
So he 100 per cent supports a Conservative policy. And this is the change we need?
This Writer doesn’t think so – and I see that many others agree with me.
Here‘s Steve Walker: “Sir Kid Starver’s clique’s stranglehold on candidate selection is why we’re getting this privileged, fresh-from-the-petri-dish vapid Stepford Wife candidate parroting this miserable shit. People with character, integrity, principles and a capacity for critical thought need not apply.”
Mrs Gee #UpTheWorkers tweeted: “This is what Unite union members’ money is helping into Government.” To Sharon Graham, the union’s general secretary, she added: “There is not a cat in hell’s chance these people can be pushed left once elected. The time is now. Make them come up with policies for trade unionists/working class people if they want our money/votes.”
Kerry-Anne Mendoza suggested: “Do they breed these creatures in a little nest of pods somewhere? They all look and sound identical to me ‘Fiscal rules…blah blah…tough choices…blah blah…forensic…'”
She added: “A privately-schooled, Oxbridge graduate whose entire career consists of a brief stint at the CBI isn’t a political breakthrough for British working class youth. Keir Mather embodies exactly the opposite. Privilege seeking power. It’s embarrassing we have to point this out.”
Phil Gould tweeted in similar vein: “This is a New New Labour Nexus 1, a first-generation AI politician, programmed by the Tony Blair Institute. Empathy free, self-destructs after one parliament. One full charge lasts two PMQs or one full QT appearance (having to repeat programmed answers requires more power).”
Chris Williamson tackled the subject matter: “The new Labour MP for Selby and Ainsty backs the 2 child benefit cap citing the “economic mess” as justification. But that logic is flawed, Keir Mather. The government issues the currency so can’t run out money and can use taxes to control inflation. So there is no justification for leaving kids in poverty.”
And let’s not forget:
The gentleman elected as the MP for the coal mining region of Selby, North Yorkshire has just loudly pronounced he supports the ban on any welfare support for 3rd children.
Luckily if he has 3 kids, the taxpayer will cover his expenses for 3 kids each at £5,500 per year. Sorted.
But then, what can you expect from a privately-educated Oxbridge graduate whose career consists of a stint at the Confederation of British Industry and a bit of time as a researcher for Wes bloody Streeting?
It seems his “career politician” credentials are proved by the following claim:
All I remember about Keir Mather is that he was enthusiastically pro-Corbyn in 2015, but ditched him as soon as Corbyn came under heavy fire in 2016. Someone, it seems, who blows with the wind and throws anything under the bus if it may danger their interests, present or future. pic.twitter.com/LAxICrvuce
Still, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and Keir Mather has nearly a year and a half to prove his detractors wrong – or prove himself a puddinghead.
By-election fallout 2: Uxbridge and Ruislip Labour chair quits – because of Keir Starmer and not the election result
The chairman of Uxbridge and Ruislip Constituency Labour Party has quit his role and the party altogether – but he’s saying it’s not because of the party’s spectacular failure to win the constituency’s Parliamentary seat from the Tories.
David Williams said his problem is with the leadership of Keir Starmer. Here are his tweeted messages:
I have resigned as chair of Uxbridge and South Ruislip CLP. I am also resigning my membership of the Labour Party. Politics needs to have principles or we end up with people like Boris Johnson and Liz Truss running the country, Jeremy Corbyn gave a huge boost to the Labour Party
Funnily enough I really liked his 10 pledges. He lied about them and reneged. I tried campaigning for change within the party. Some weeks ago I told the local exec that I would be resigning, but held off until after the BE to avoid negative impact.
Fair enough – he didn’t want his resignation to have a negative impact on his (soon-to-be former) party’s performance, and rightly so because this could have been used by others to attack him.
As it was, he found himself having to re-fight an old battle with an out-of-her-depth BBC reporter.
Watch the interview and you’ll see that he made mincemeat of the false claims:
He’s a public sector worker – like doctors, nurses and teachers, and the discrepancy between what he can demand and what they are told to take has not gone unnoticed.
Fortunately, we have people who can turn it to advantage:
Some lefties on here are griping as usual, but I see King Charles' 45% pay rise as setting a benchmark for public sector workers
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The puppets: in fact, with today’s information, this image needs to be updated to show a Saudi politician or a private health boss with his hand up Blair.
Labour sinks its candidates’ chances in today’s three by-elections
The UK’s main parties seem to have given their candidates in the three by-elections taking place today (Thursday, July 20, 2023) a shot… in the foot. An entire volley, in the case of the STP (Substitute Tory Party – formerly Labour). In fact, metaphorically-speaking, it would probably be accurate to say that those candidates no longer have any legs to stand on.
Here’s former party leader candidate Liz Kendall showing why members made the right choice by avoiding her like a nasty disease. In defending her leader’s decision to condemn 55 per cent of families with three children and a massive 80 per cent of those with four to poverty, she resorted to the “fiscal responsibility” argument that simply doesn’t ring true:
Here's @leicesterliz responding to being told that 55% of families with at least 3 kids and 80% of families with at least 4 will be in poverty by invoking Liz Truss as to why Labour can't scrap the two child cap, and suggesting that parents of these kids need "better paid jobs". pic.twitter.com/qGpd7KlkvH
The simple fact is that fiscal rules may sound good to the public but all they really do is straitjacket political parties into courses that can harm us all in the long term. There’s no need for them.
Nor is there any justification in saying that (Labour) can’t make promises about where the money for a change will be sourced. The simple fact is that the Conservatives have spent 13 years cutting taxes for the richest people in the UK. The opposition party should be looking at the amount of money these policies have denied to the treasury and making its plans accordingly. Instead, the plan is to leave these tax breaks in place – boosting the rich still further while punishing the poor yet again.
The claim that parents should get better jobs is risible. Even if such employment was available in an economy where pay has been pushed through the floor, how are parents supposed to take them when the massive cost of childcare ties them to their home, looking after their children?
(And please, let’s not engage in the tired old argument that people should not have had more than two children in the first place: you don’t know the circumstances behind those situations, and in any case the UK’s economy requires a larger indigenous population, now that so many workers from abroad have been scared away.)
Elsewhere, Tony Blair has demanded that a future ‘Labour’ government should inflict austerity on the UK:
So, Tiny Blair says what his mate Keir Starmer won’t, which is that austerity is now Labour’s true agenda – even if it sinks our public services, the welfare state and the economy whilst failing to meet public demand. We’re all going to be doomed by this stupidity. https://t.co/H3DFS8bLv9
"Providing you're not forcing people to pay for basic healthcare, I don't think it matters that you have a partnership between public & private sector"
Basic healthcare free at the point of use. Anything else, you've got to pay. Not a problem for the vastly wealthy, of course. pic.twitter.com/H3xz571Nez
We know from the nauseating spectacle of Blair discussing policy with Keir Stürmer in public that the opposition party leader is a Blairite and wants to follow the desires of his ideological leader as much as possible.
Blair is saying he wants austerity, and he wants increased privatisation in the NHS. Only “basic” healthcare should be free at the point of use, he said. Other services would cost money. These are not Labour Party policies, of course – and nobody claiming to represent Labour who supports them, and/or the leaders who spout them, should be allowed into Parliament.
What we’re looking at is “policy capture” – and the organisation behind Tony Blair should be avoided at all costs because it is owned by foreign governments, it seems:
Yesterday we saw, in real time, policy capture of the likely next government & PM by a shadowy organisation with 850 staff which has received millions from overseas. It’s called the Tony Blair Institute @InstituteGC.
So candidates in today’s by-elections – by the words of leading party members – are not going to help working and working-class people but may well be following the demands of foreign governments instead, with plans including making us pay for anything more than “basic” healthcare.
Would you vote for that?
Grant Shapps shows why Tories should not be allowed near power
While leading members of the STP (Substitute Tory Party – formerly Labour) have been hobbling their by-election candidates, Grant Shapps has been doing the same for the real Tory Party’s credibility.
He has written to Keir Stürmer, demanding that the STP pay for damage caused by Just Stop Oil protests, on the grounds that the STP is the political wing of Just Stop Oil:
I’ve written to @Keir_Starmer to request he pays for the criminal damage the Just Stop Oil attacks on the Energy Security Department caused this morning
As the political wing of Just Stop Oil, it is the Labour Party not the taxpayer that should be paying the bill pic.twitter.com/UAPT6gWUEK
— Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP (@grantshapps) July 19, 2023
This is boneheaded stupidity. In doing so, Shapps is publicly acknowledging that any politician or political organisation that takes money from a donor will do what that donor demands in the future.
If Stürmer’s STP had said that, we could point to the donations its members receive from Trevor Chinn and say this is an admission that that party is now a sockpuppet of the so-called Israel Lobby (amongst others).
But because a Conservative has said it, we can rifle through all the donations that party and its MPs receive instead. Obviously Shapps is admitting that the Tories are all in thrall to private health firms (for example), and that’s why the NHS is being increasingly privatised.
He has opened the door for us to tell the world that the Conservative Party – and more importantly the Conservative government – does not work for the people of the United Kingdom, despite taking huge amounts of our cash.
Instead, it works for those shadowy donors, despite all the claims over the years that it did not, which we are now free to conclude are lies.
And that means any Tories elected in today’s (Thursday, July 20, 2023) by-elections will do the same and should therefore be blocked from ever entering Parliament.
Nice one, Shapps!
Rishi Sunak blames striking junior doctors for his own government’s health service blunders
Here’s another Tory failure that should cut into that party’s vote in today’s by-elections: Rishi Sunak’s attempts to blame striking junior doctors for weaknesses in the National Health Service.
I’ll let Peter Stefanovic explain:
The Prime Minister blaming Junior doctors for hospital waiting lists is one of the most despicable things he’s said
& for the record he’s offered them a crappy real terms pay cut
If like me you stand with the junior doctors who sacrificed so much to keep us safe RT this widely pic.twitter.com/hv8JLS5d0N
As a result of Tory pay cuts since 2010, you are £11,000 a year worse-off than you would otherwise have been, and Sunak wants you to take further pay cuts (not just just junior doctors). Meanwhile, average pay for MPs, once their multiple other jobs are taking into account, is more than £200 per hour.
The “Independent” Pay Review Body is nothing of the sort. Its members are all employed by the government and are told how much money the government is willing to pay public sector workers before making any decisions. Those decisions are then made to fit in with what the government tells them to do, rather than with what public sector employees need.
Daily Express fails at basic maths. Just because inflation has fallen, that doesn’t mean prices are dropping
Carol Vorderman explains basic mathematics to the writers of a national newspaper.
It seems the Daily Express and its employees don’t understand that a fall in the rate of inflation does not mean that prices have dropped – despite the fact that it has been drilled into all of us over many months that such a fall really means the rate at which prices increase is slowing down.
So the following headline betrays a lack of economic credibility:
Tory Daily Express failing primary school maths test this morning!
Inflation has fallen to 7.9% which means that 'prices' have gone UP. They continue to go UP just slightly less quickly. Food inflation is 14.9% Maybe my online maths lessons https://t.co/EO8lwRzGs7 could help? pic.twitter.com/vyp57n9C9v
This Writer understands that we still don’t know who won the contract to provide these barges, that have been modified to accommodate 500 people rather than 240, meaning less space is available for each of them.
And we don’t know whether there was a proper tendering process, with multiple interested parties invited to bid for the contract, or if it was just handed over to a Tory crony via the illegal “VIP lane” or any successor route.
It’s another point for voters in today’s three by-elections to consider.
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