Tag Archives: rise

If rich people can profit from huge crises, why can’t the rest of us?

House prices: they’re high, despite interest rates also being high, because rich people have been given huge amounts of money by the UK’s Tory government. They’re using it to buy assets.

Gary Stevenson’s latest video discusses the reasons for house prices staying high even though interest rates have been high also. TL:DR – It’s because rich people have lots of cash to splash around.

The question raised in This Writer’s mind is: if rich people can take advantage of the crises we’ve suffered over the last few years to get richer, how can the rest of us manipulate events to make ourselves richer too?

There has to be a way, don’t you think?

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Here’s the video:


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Energy bills are increasing – and don’t believe the Tory lies about them

Energy prices are rising by around five per cent from January.

We’ll be paying more for this winter’s energy bills than ever before, even though the rates are cheaper than last winter.

This is because every household received £67 off their energy bill in state support last year and we’re not getting it again this time. The Conservative government seems to have forgotten this bit.

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We’ll be paying on average £28 per month more – between January and March next year – than we did this year.

Here’s Martin Lewis to explain it:


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Huge pay rise for bosses while workers struggle. Who’s causing inflation?

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.

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:

“Tax them.”

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 news in tweets: Saturday, July 22, 2023

Keir Mather: is this Red just another Blue?

By-election fallout 1: new Labour MP falls at the first hurdle

Labour’s newest – and youngest – MP, Keir Mather, has made his first contributions to national politics. Here he is being introduced to the nation:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

Why does this public sector worker get a 45% pay increase while the rest have to put up with real-terms cuts?

The King is getting a publicly-funded 45 per cent pay rise, it seems:

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:

Yes indeed. Let’s see government pay negotiators explain this away – if they can!

Petition of the day: demand free school breakfasts for all


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Student loans: Bad news for English people starting university in the autumn

Graduates: how many of these people will ever fully pay back their student loans? How many new students, entering university in autumn 2023, will be even worse-off?

Anyone English who starts a university course in the autumn will pay more for their student loan, and over a longer period of time.

Here’s Martin Lewis, explaining it on ITV’s Good Morning Britain:

So for anybody who lives in England and has not gone to university yet (but will in the autumn or at any time afterwards), from the April after you leave university, you will not pay back the £243 per year that current ex-students do or will; you will pay back £450 per year.

The period of time over which you will make those payments will not be a maximum of 30 years, as it is now, but 40 years. This means you won’t pay a minimum of £7,290 but a minimum of £13,500.

Some might think that’s still a good deal on loans of more than £25,000.

And of course there is interest to be paid. Some ex-students known to This Writer have recently discovered that, after paying back their student loans for more than 20 years, they owe more now than when they started.

In terms of the public purse, where the state is currently paying 44p for every pound spent on education, from September – for new university students – it will pay just 19p for every pound spent on education.

Instead of paying 56p per pound, the individual will pay 81p per pound. Martin Lewis reckons this is a 50 per cent increase. I make it around 45 per cent.

Apparently more people are likely to clear the cost of the loan plus interest. I’d be fascinated to learn just how they’re likely to do that.

To me, it seems like a way of offloading debt from the state and onto individuals. Bear in mind that the level of student debt owed to the Student Loans Company currently stands at £205 billion.

That figure has doubled in the last six years, after the then-Tory/Liberal Democrat Coalition government increased tuition fees from £3,600 per year to £9,000. The decision was made in 2012 but the change happened in 2016.

We can all see what this is, I hope. The Tory government is saddling poorer students with a debt they will have to repay for their entire working lives, making them more vulnerable to exploitation by employers – wage slaves.

All this in the middle of a huge – and worsening, remember – cost of living crisis.

Meanwhile, privileged students whose parents have more cash to splash on them will be able to pay off their loans faster and go on to earn more.

The whole situation puts the lie to Tory claims that they are the party of opportunity, of equality, and facilitators of upward social mobility. Doesn’t it?


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Corporate profits proved to be driving inflation. Why are Tories attacking your wages?

Rishi Sunak: the sign behind him says his government’s priorities are “your priorities”. This would only be true if “you” referred to corporate bosses and shareholders, and there was only one priority listed: bloating profits by robbing customers with increased prices.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has published information that proves inflation in the UK and other European countries is being driven by the greed of corporations that have been pushing their profits up for no good reason.

Here’s the evidence:

(Some might say this applies only to countries in continental Europe but the question then is, why should it not apply to the UK too?)

So the answer to inflation is not to cut wages, and is not to increase interest rates; it is to force corporations to cut their bloated profit margins and pay for a rise in labour costs (increase wages).

This is the opposite of what Rishi Sunak and his corporate stooges in government have been saying since the crisis began. It seems clear that they have been lying to you all along.

And what’s he doing about it now?

His latest plan is to renege on all his promises about following the advice of pay review bodies:

“Workers need to recognise the economic context we are in.” Okay; well, this worker recognises that major corporations, many of which are probably donors to the Conservative Party and individual Tory MPs, have caused inflation by artificially increasing their prices. Now they’ve been caught doing it, they should cut their prices and increase wage to at least match the current inflation rate or be penalised for it.

This is what I expect my government to enforce.

(I don’t think it will happen for a single moment, but I do think that the longer Sunak refuses to do it, the more people will realise that he, his government and the corps funding them are all crooks and vampires, sucking out the lifeblood of the UK.)

Sunak is talking utter bollocks about it, of course:

People won’t accept that it’s right – or even acceptable – because we all now know it isn’t.

Here’s a doctor, responding to Sunak’s attack on the public sector workforce:

Would you like more proof of what’s going on?

Here’s Howard Beckett:

Sadly, there is no pressure from the Labour Party – the UK’s official Opposition to the government – to make Sunak and his bandits do the right thing. Labour is on their side and helping to rob us all.

Proof:

This Writer will be writing to all those in government or able to influence it, calling for a change of policy to demand responsibility from the corporations, and I urge you to do the same.

But this time I think we’re all going to have to get out of our armchairs and onto the streets – possibly with blazing old-style torches and pitchforks – to demand action “or else”.

You know what I mean: French-style.

Or would you rather just lie back like a weakling and let these fat cats carry on robbing you?


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Thornberry squirms when asked if Bank of England’s anti-inflation ideas are any good

Emily Thornberry: in this image, she’s making a gesture that, no doubt, she would like to make to whoever asked her to defend the Bank of England, its governor, and its interest rate rise.

Don’t have any sympathy for Emily Thornberry while you watch the clip below; she knows the situation very well and she could always quit if she had the required principles.

She knows that raising interest rates won’t bring inflation down – in fact, it is likely to prop inflation up instead.

She knows raising interest rates won’t ease the bureaucratic costs caused by Brexit, or stop profiteering by energy companies or firms in food supply chains.

And she knows that all businesses will just add the extra costs of higher interest rates into their bills, making consumers – you and me – foot the bill.

Some of them will go bust as a result, because people will decide not to pay their inflated prices, and this is likely to tip the UK into recession.

That, of course, is the last thing the UK needs right now.

All of this is known by Emily Thornberry, but she also knows that Labour policy is to agree that the neoliberal Tories and the neoliberal Bank of England are doing the right thing, even though she also knows that they really aren’t.

So we get to see performances like this:

Cracks are starting to show in the Labour Party’s right-wing facade.


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The news in brief: Vox Political’s morning round-up for June 1, 2023

Paul Whitehouse, Lee Mack and Steve Coogan at Lake Windermere: here are three protesters who would be criminalised by Suella Braverman for causing “more than minor” disruption to other people’s day-to-day activities.

Right to protest: UK politicians urged to ‘do the right thing’

Peter Stefanovic’s emotional video clip demands that members of all Opposition parties in the House of Lords support Jenny Jones’s ‘fatal motion’ and kill Suella Braverman’s bid to stifle everybody’s right to protest with an undemocratic ‘Ministerial decree’. Let’s give him a moment to explain it:

Government hasn’t spoken to strikers since January

The general secretary of rail union ASLEF says the government hasn’t spoken to its representatives in almost five months because the Tories aren’t interested in ending strike action on the railways:

43 MPs throw support behind justice for WASPI women

From the i:

So far 43 MPs have written to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO), calling for a speedy conclusion to its review of how much damage was caused by the way the pension age changes were communicated to women born in the 50s, and for fair compensation.

Among the 43 MPs are Ranil Jayawardena of the Conservatives, former leader of the Liberal Democrats Tim Farron, former Labour Party chair Ian Lavery and Caroline Lucas of the Green Party.

The PHSO could recommend compensation anywhere from £100 to £10,000 or more per person.

Women born in the 50s claim they were not given enough notice that their state pension age would rise from 60 to 65, in line with men. It then moved to 66 for both sexes.

Many women retired early or made life-changing decisions based on getting their pension at 60. The ramifications of the policy change and lack of notice has left them in emotional and financial distress, they say.

Their plight is under review by the PHSO, which has already found the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) guilty of maladministration for failing to sufficiently inform the women about the state pension age changes.

Though the PHSO maintains its investigation is fair and impartial, it decided to take another look at its findings after recognising part of the report was legally flawed. This move has raised hopes of a higher compensation award, although it is not guaranteed.

As Waspi awaits the results of the review, which could come before summer, it is urging supporters to contact their MP to put pressure on the PHSO to “complete the investigation with a sense of urgency” and make “fair” recommendations for compensation.

Latest Universal Credit change will leave parents worse-off

From The Canary:

BBC News reported that the DWP will be rolling out a change to the amount it pays in childcare costs to parents/guardians. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced it in his Spring Budget. Until now, the department has paid £646 a month, per kid, towards childcare costs under Universal Credit. Now, as BBC News wrote:

The government will allow parents on the benefit to claim back £951 for childcare costs for one and £1,630 for two or more children – a 47% increase.

Universal Credit’s increase in childcare costs payments is still nonsense.

The cost of childcare is huge:

  • For full-time childcare, the average cost is £285 a week.
  • For part-time, it’s £148 a week.

The DWP’s £951 maximum for one child is per Universal Credit assessment period. That’s usually a calendar month – running from the same date one month to the next. So, on that basis the department would pay, at the most, £219 a week.

This is £66, or 23%, short of the average costs. Meanwhile, in 2022 parents were already paying out up to two-thirds of their wages on childcare.

DWP secretary of state Mel Stride has trumpeted about the news. Stride said: “These changes will help thousands of parents progress their career without compromising the quality of the care that their children receive. By helping more parents to re-enter and progress in work, we will be able to cut inactivity and help grow the economy.”

Stride’s claim of the DWP ‘helping parents re-enter’ work is based on parents effectively being worse off in work.

Labour policy pledges need a 3p income tax rise

From the i:

Labour’s policy pledges so far would cost the equivalent of a 3p rise in income tax, i analysis reveals.

Sir Keir Starmer has promised not to borrow for day-to-day spending, and to bring down the size of the overall public debt pile as a percentage of GDP.

Analysis by i suggests that Labour’s policies will require an additional £20bn of funding every year – the equivalent of raising the basic rate of income tax by more than 3p – beyond that already promised through small tax increases such as imposing VAT on private school fees and ending non-domiciled tax status.

Labour’s biggest recurring spending commitment is to extend free childcare to all children aged 11 and under, promised by shadow Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson earlier this year. The IPPR think-tank estimates the cost at almost £18bn, although taking into account the Government’s own childcare plans announced at the last Budget the net cost would be more like £13.6bn. The party said that an expansion of childcare to all children is not its current policy despite Ms Phillipson’s promise.

The pledge to increase the foreign aid spending target to 0.7 per cent of GDP, after Rishi Sunak cut it to 0.5 per cent, would cost around £5.5bn; party sources say this will only be implemented when it is affordable to do so. Labour has promised to set up a £1bn “contingency fund” for the energy industry, and would also have to spend around £1.7bn on GPs’ salaries if it went through with plans by shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting to nationalise the network of family doctors in England – something which the party now says it will not do.

Other current spending commitments which would total less than £1bn each include increasing the number of mental health workers, recruiting more police officers and setting up breakfast clubs in every primary school.

There’s a lot in the i‘s list that Labour now says it won’t do. Doesn’t this suggest that Keir Starmer is really planning just a continuation of the current neoliberal Conservatism that is pushing the UK further towards ruin every day?

Also, considering the Tories gave £800 billion to very rich people for no very good reason, This Writer can’t see why Labour couldn’t produce £20 billion from the same place, and then tax the rich to keep the books in balance and prevent any inflation.


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Greedflation: companies are fuelling inflation by overcharging us to build profit

French protesters have stormed the Paris stock exchange: will greedflation prompt the British to do worse?

Whenever the Conservatives tell us wage increases are driving inflation, be aware that they are lying.

Inflation isn’t being driven by wage demands but by greedy companies that are using the cost-of-living crisis to drive up prices and boost their profits.

Take a look at the degree by which food prices have risen:

Claudia Webbe puts the situation – and the reason for it – in a nutshell:

Now read this:

That is what the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank seem to have discovered, according to The Guardian:

The IMF and the ECB wouldn’t put it in these terms, of course, but both support the idea that companies are gouging their customers when they can. The non-technical term for what is going on is greedflation.

Companies [are] doing rather better out of the cost of living crisis than workers… The flipside of steeply rising prices but only modestly higher wages [is] that profit margins [have] “surged”.

Unite, one of the UK’s biggest unions, published a report in March that blamed systematic profiteering across the economy for fuelling the cost of living crisis. Energy companies, supermarkets, shipping companies, car dealers and food manufacturers had all cashed in on drought, war, and strong demand after the pandemic to “push prices and profits through the roof”.

The eurozone’s central bank looked at the contribution of profits to inflation over nearly a quarter of century, and found that between 1999 and 2022, profits were responsible for one-third of the inflation rate on average. In 2022 alone, profits contributed to two-thirds of the rise.

But whereas the ECB – from its president, Christine Lagarde, downwards – is fully exercised by the threat posed by greedflation, policymakers in the UK seem far more relaxed. There have been plenty of calls for wage restraint, most notably from Andrew Bailey, the governor of the Bank of England, but far fewer for price restraint… Price controls, of the sort used in the 1970s, are seen as to be avoided at all costs.

Instead, inflation is being controlled by increasing interest rates – which sucks demand from the economy and reduces pressure for wage rises by incurring job losses (meaning that, once again, too many jobseekers end up competing for too few jobs and the bosses can pay whatever they want).

But workers who have taken pay cut after pay cut for more than a decade are close to breaking point and something has to give way soon.

Will we see scenes like what has happened in France over pensions, with protesters storming bastions of capitalism like the stock exchange and trashing it? Will we see worse?

It’s a good question. The British have very long tempers and have put up with a lot – so much, in fact, that nobody knows what they might do if those tempers snap.

It seems likely that, if they do not moderate their own rhetoric and curb corporate greedflation soon, the Tories might find out.


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Never mind the Budget: you’ll be paying a lot more in April with less cash

Brace yourself for another attack on your wallet.

Even if you receive benefits that are going to be uprated in line with the lowest possible level of inflation the government thinks it can get away with, it probably won’t cover the increases in your costs.

Rises to the different level of the minimum wage certainly won’t. It’s not a living wage, despite being called that by Tories.

Let’s have a look at what’s coming:

Council tax to rise

The majority of households in England will be hit by a whopping 5% in April in fresh cost of living misery for families. Three struggling councils have been given special permission by the Government to impose higher rises – up to 10% for Thurrock and Slough, and an eye-watering 15% for Croydon.

Band D properties will pay around an extra £100 if they don’t receive any discounts.

Water bills to increase

From April, average water bills will again increase by less than inflation, meaning prices will continue their decade-long fall in real terms. Bills will rise by an average of £31 to £448 a year (equivalent to around 60p more each week)

Support for low-income households is also being increased to its highest level ever. More than 1 million households already receive help with water bills, which is being increased to 1.2 million over coming months.

Wages will increase

The National Living Wage and National Minimum wage will rise for all kinds of workers across the country. Depending on your age and work status, you will receive one of the following increases:

  • National Living Wage – Increased to £10.42 (annual increase of 9.7 per cent)

  • 21-22-year-old rate – Increased to £10.18 (annual increase of 10.9 per cent)

  • 18-20-year-old rate – Increased to £7.49 (annual increase of 9.7 per cent)

  • 16-17-year-old rate – Increased to £5.28 (annual increase of 9.7 per cent)

  • Apprentice Rate – Increased to £5.28 (annual increase of 9.7 per cent)

  • Accommodation Offset – Increased to £9.10 (annual increase of 4.6 per cent)

Broadband and mobile bills will increase

From April, broadband and mobile phone customers can expect to face monthly bill increases of at least 14% from April.

Providers link their annual price rises to January’s consumer price index (CPI) or the retail price index (RPI) which was 10.5% and 13.4%. BT, EE, Plusnet and Vodafone broadband contracts allow prices to go up by CPI plus 3.9%. At TalkTalk, it is CPI plus 3.7%, while Shell Energy can add CPI plus 3%. Sky and Virgin Media contracts allow mid-contract price increases but they do not stipulate a pricing formula in the same way as rivals.

Universal Credit, PIP and pension to increase

Inflation-linked benefits and tax credits will rise by 10.1% from April 2023, in line with the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rate of inflation in September 2022. Jeremy Hunt said the ‘expensive commitment’ worth £11 billion means 10 million working-age families will see a much-needed increase next year and, on average, a family on universal credit will benefit next year by around £600.

The benefit cap will rise from £23,000 to £25,323 for families in Greater London and from £20,000 to £22,020 for families nationally. Lower caps for single households without children will rise from £15,410 to £16,967 in Greater London and from £13,400 to £14,753 nationally.

Benefits which will rise by 10.1% include Universal Credit, Housing Benefit, Pension Credit, Disability Allowance and Personal Independence Payment.

Source: Cost of Living: 5 big changes coming into effect in April that everyone should know about


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