Cost of Living Crisis

Many of us have been glued to the television watching the unfolding crisis in Ukraine. Our thoughts are with the brave men and women resisting Putin's aggression, and their families and refugees. At home we also have a crisis. This is the cost of living crisis. The story or blame game that is being developed by Johnson's government is that it is all Putin's fault. Yet the reality is that the writing was on the wall well before Putin's brutal invasion of Ukraine.

What is the cost of living crisis? The continuing economic impact of Covid, soaring energy bills, low wages, rising inflation and unfair tax rises. The Conservatives, the so-called low tax party, have broken manifesto commitments. From April National Insurance is going up by 1.25%. They are suspending the Pensions Triple Lock and freezing the Income Tax Personal Allowance until 2026 effectively raising income tax for us all. Meanwhile the Conservatives are cutting tax on multinationals and banks. Who all are doing very well thank you! I will not talk about Universal Credit and the government's decision to cut help to the most vulnerable. These are conscious choices Johnson's government has made.

Meanwhile the government has wasted money and failed us on fraud. £2 billion was spent on unsuitable protective equipment that cannot be used, much supplied by Tory friends, with ministers bypassing civil service procurement rules. £3 billion has been wasted on unaccounted Covid contracts and to cap it all the billions fraudulently paid out by the Treasury to help 'businesses' have been written off rather than recovered and the fraudsters packed off to jail. Who said crime does not pay?

These are all decisions the Johnson government has made. There were other options. Keep taxing multinationals and banks at the appropriate rate. Introduce windfall taxes on energy companies which are making bumper profits at our expense. Invest properly in clean energy and the supporting infrastructure; all those projects cancelled or delayed by the government have now come home to roost. Let's not allow Johnson to blame Putin for his incompetence: let's hold Johnson's party to account.