Mr Miliband has said ‘that the cost of living will define the NEXT General Election in 2015’.
Prior to the 2010 General Election when we were 2-year into what was to be called the ‘great recession’, I do not remember measures to address the cost of living other than a temporary cut in VAT by a few percent, which apparently was also meant to turn around the economy, boost Private Sector confidence/jobs, and help reduce the national debt.
And I cannot recall within the Labour 2010 manifesto plans to improve the cost of living within a general economic view of ‘cutting less, spending more, & raising taxes’, which clearly meant more government spending and imposing more business/personal taxation including the annual rise in Council Tax.
“Ed Balls says that the average British family is £974 worse off than in 2010”
www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/apr/03/ed-balls-average-family-worse-off-2010
“Ed Balls tried on Thursday night to spike the coalition's guns on the eve of the increase in the personal tax allowance to £10,000 by releasing figures showing that the average family will be worse off by £974 a year by the time of next year's election.”
“As David Cameron hailed Britain's recovery from a "long, deep and difficult recession", the shadow chancellor accused the coalition of compounding the financial pressure on people with tax changes which have involved "giving with one hand but taking away much more with the other"
So when Mr Balls talks of how worse people are off in an average of the population, I’m unclear to what he would have done about the ‘cost of living crisis’ post May 2010, or what a Labour government would do post May 2015.
But lets remind ourselves of what a recession usually means, and try and work out why ‘the great recession’ that began sharply in 2007/8 wiping close to 7% of our national output (more than virtually any other country at the time), could have negatively impacted our cost of living situation up until now.
“Period of general economic decline, defined usually as a contraction in the GDP for six months (two consecutive quarters) or longer. Marked by high unemployment, stagnant wages, and fall in retail sales, a recession generally does not last longer than one year and is much milder than a depression"
www.businessdictionary.com/definition/recession.html
So my question is, without any cunning plan I could see back in 2010 - and the freezing energy prices since – how would a Labour government have REDUCED our cost of living pressures from 2010 to 2015, when they told us they would tax more than the other parties, who were ‘to cut’ more instead?
Isitmebut does anyone else know?
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‘Cost of Living’; a cunning plan?
39 replies
Isitmebut · 04/04/2014 13:54
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