Month: September 2022

I know it’s an awful title, sorry, but it just had the edge over “Elizabeth – Aaaarrrrrgh!” (By which I mean, I tossed a coin).

With the appropriate Spoiler Warning in case you’ve been recording all the news to binge watch later, it seems now almost certain that Liz Truss is going to win the Tory Leadership Contest. Nothing is ever 100% definite until it’s announced of course, and I certainly don’t always get it right (“what do you mean, the new Doctor Who ISN’T a woman?!”) but… well, the media seems to be taking it as read and who am I to argue? I really have to hand it to the Conservative Party: every time you think “at least the next leader can’t be as bad as this one” they somehow manage to pull it out of the bag and give us somebody even worse!

Not that Boris ‘Worse-Than-Theresa-May’ Johnson is gone yet, there’s still time for him to make a mess of things… And how kind of him to pop up yesterday to prove that very point, when he suggested tackling the cost of living crisis by buying a new kettle. I’m not disputing either the fact, or the general principle, that buying a more efficient kettle will save you money – but I suspect the people struggling most with their energy bills don’t have the luxury of buying a new £20 kettle now, just so that in three years’ time they can feel the warm self-satisfied glow of knowing they’ve saved themselves a tenner.

The bigger problem is the implication that Boris & co think “people worrying about their energy bills” actually means “people complaining about paying bigger bills”. Of course that’s a part of it, but the real issue is people NOT BEING ABLE to pay bills at all. In fact, although the recent pre-Autumn focus has portrayed this as an impending crisis, for the worst-off I suspect the crisis well and truly impended some months ago with the first massive price hike in the Spring.

Interestingly, Boris also claimed that his successor will be able to announce a huge package of measures – with the implication that it will be significantly more impactful than just giving everyone a free kettle. I can’t quite make up my mind if this is him putting the boot in by writing cheques his successor will have to honour; or whether he’s generously  letting his successor announce it so that they can make a good first impression. (I mean ‘generously’ in a political sense of course. Dragging the uncertainty out is not in any way generous to people sat watching their Smart Meters flashing away like a strobe light)

In terms of first impressions though, and going back to Liz ‘Has-The-Potential-To-Be-Worse-Than-Boris-Johnson’ Truss, she seems to be establishing her suitability for the role of Prime Minister even before officially winning the race – by which I mean she has already made several U-Turns and offended the French. Other than that, her main ‘cost of living’ policy seems to be the old tax cuts chestnut. Which is something I guess, but again I’m going to suggest the people that have already been heavily-impended on, may not be earning enough to pay tax anyway.

Maybe the problem, deep down, is that they (and I don’t mean this as a dig against politicians in general; only the present government which seems to be an extraordinary, Dickensian collection of grotesques)– They kind of think it’s our own fault if we’re struggling. Our fault for not getting a job; or another job; or a better job; for not having enough savings; for not investing wisely; for not even having the foresight to buy better kettles.

If they can manage then why on earth can’t the rest of us? That feels like it’s the attitude, that it’s all to do with organising ourselves better rather than not actually having enough money, and as such I wonder when it comes to it whether much more support will be forthcoming at all.

So perhaps Monday’s announcement won’t be so much about who will win; but, will the rest of us lose?

Have a good weekend! 😊