Money saving expert thinks civil unrest is coming

[ivykaty44]

There was a thread on mumsnet recently about civil unrest, views seemed to be it wouldn’t happen, the British don’t protest

Martin Lewis thinks hungry cold people will protest

I think he could be correct, what have people unable to afford heat and food got to lose?

"That's not the English way" holds no water when people have 8 degree houses (as one poor MN had recently) and are unable to afford the basics despite working hard.

Call me cynical but Boris suddenly finding courage and decisiveness to visit Ukraine as well as taking on trans activism recently is because he recognises how he desperately needs to galvanise support in potentially unstable times.

There are many people, not this forum, who think there is a bigger agenda afoot.

That the problem is not that it cant be seen, far from it. That it can be seen, and is all part of a much bigger thing.

There are many people who believe the earth is flat, and that vaccines are a plot to control us. However, most people in this forum are intelligent, so there isn't much of that here either.

If Martin Lewis is to be believed then we'll all be needing one of these...

azon.co.uk/Wollowo-Wooden-Baseball-Rounders-Softball/dp/B01FMGSYNG/ref=asc_df_B01FMGSYNG/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=280291300978&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=6220313457451918891&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1006876&hvtargid=pla-718261005295&psc=1

Personally I think it's a load of nonsense.

It's just crazy. Stuff is going up and up
Was browsing Tesco online to add butter to my basket and Lurpak was £7.50 for a big tub

Yet wages... on FB, saw a job and clicked on it. 18k a year. It's like people think we can live off wages from 5/10 years ago when everything is rocketing up

I'm really worried. My job is min wage + commission but our commission is dropping and unlikely to get back to where it was. So my take home is about £1250 which doesn't go far and I'm single

Extinction rebellion just shut down our fuelling facilities. It's a complete nightmare on top of everything else like the government being asked to introduce rashions for some foods as our supply chains are messed up.

Keep telling yourself that the English culture exists, it doesnt anymore, we have mixed our society up so much there is hardly any middle England left.

I think Martin is right, civil unrest is coming and it's going to get unpleasant :(

@Diverseopinions

Woodhull

Yes. Other interesting phrases crop up. Apparently, people thought swans guided you down a river to the afterlife, so phrases like 'swan song' and ' down the swanny' came from that.

It seems like today, or we're going that way. About that time, farmers stopped employing hands for the whole year ( as they sometimes did in Thomas Hardy novels written in late 19th century, but set earlier ( Mayor of Casterbridge). They just took them on for a few weeks - equivalent of our zero hour contracts.

Yes Thomas Hardy, to cheer me up, used to read a lot of his books😀

Read the Mayor of Casterbridge and from memory the poor man who had to work without his trousers on as he overslept

I find food banks an ethical issue for me.

They shouldn't exist because we shouldn't need them. If I donate to them then I exacerbate the issue because the government have less reason to act and help those in need.

If I don't donate then more people go without which is horrendous in this day and age. I'm fortunate enough to have enough these days but I was desperately poor only a few years ago and I know what it's like to go hungry.

So while I applaud the work these charities do and the donations do, I actually think it makes the situation worse. Because no one in power has to act if someone is picking up the pieces.

Does anyone else feel like this? I am really torn about this issue because I see people really struggling and I've been there.

In Britain protests tend to be during periods of hot summer weather. In the winter people tend to hibernate. So it depends how quickly the price rises, food shortages and tax rises bite.

I was looking at an article for what would happen if charities didn't exist.
This came up from 2015

www.theguardian.com/society/2015/oct/21/food-banks-a-lifeline-replacing-mainstream-services

7 years ago.

“We do not want our food banks to exist. We look forward to a time when they disappear. We do not want to get too comfortable. We must resist the temptation to expand. I do not think having a food bank on every street corner is a way for our society to go. Foodbanks must do their best to remain ‘unusual’”.

7 years ago. Food banks are definitely not unusual now.

codswallop That is a perfectly understandable and I fully agree with the points you make.

I still donate though, we need to deal with the here and now, which is hungry people.

Bluebluemoon err where have you been? This is not a new thing

Millionaires/Billionaires have had these things for yonks. Have you never seen the movie "panic room" with Jodie Foster? If you're loaded of course a panic room seems like a good idea - I myself have a secret room off my en-suite with a hard-to-break-down door and a charged mobile phone I keep in there so if any robbers break in I can lock myself in and ring the police. It just makes sense.
People are not rushing to build underground bunkers because they think there's going to be some kind of "the purge" style attack due to energy bill rises! And if they are then they either have some serious anxiety problems or just have money to burn.

Don't believe everything you read, a little cynicism is needed. Do you not think maybe Forbes magazine (which is aimed at very wealthy people or those who want that lifestyle) may be running this article to make panic rooms the next desirable installation in a home?

Laughable that people take a couple of articles like this to be proof that a day of reckoning is coming.

@Codswallop20 my view is that we always needed them, long before they were so widespread. Yes the need is exacerbated by welfare system failures, low wages and the gig economy, but they have tapped into a need that always existed.

@TargusEasting

Martin Lewis is a self-server.

He has found a niche in his own style of 'disaster capitalism' and is TV's answer to second hand car salesmen selling energy and insurance plans. He really is quite odious in real life.

Totally agree I can't stand him

I think the difference between now and the 80s is that unemployment isn't rife in 2022.

Despite work not paying, people generally feel a lot more secure simply for having a job.

People are used to work not paying. 2008 was horrific for a lot of people, and throughout Labour and the nougties, those who went out to work low paid jobs often had no more than someone on benefits.

@WhiteFire

codswallop That is a perfectly understandable and I fully agree with the points you make.

I still donate though, we need to deal with the here and now, which is hungry people.

But I also agree with you. I don't want anyone to go hungry. A couple of months back I was in my local Aldi and a family in front of me at the till were putting stuff back. I wanted to cry, I have had to do the same when I was skint. I paid for the bits they were going to return and I was hugged by a little lad for it. It was less than a tenner. I cried on the way home and bollocked my kids for being entitled little madams (they had been horrors that week)

I want to help but I can't shake the feeling that helping is perpetuating the situation

The British media is fingers in ears, though. They will report on anything else but the crisis affecting million of people in Britain.

Are they not having a cost of living crisis in France? How has France managed to insulate itself?

No, not like here, well not at the moment anyway. The government have forced an energy increase cap of just 4%.

[quote Genevieva]@Codswallop20 my view is that we always needed them, long before they were so widespread. Yes the need is exacerbated by welfare system failures, low wages and the gig economy, but they have tapped into a need that always existed.[/quote]
I would have been bloody glad of them when I was younger. I went without instead.

But it's not foodbanks and charity we need, it's a fair system that works for everyone. It is fucking criminal that people in this country, one of the richest in the world go hungry and are cold because they can't afford to heat their homes

I think the difference between now and the 80s is that unemployment isn't rife in 2022

Employment statistics are interesting

Unemployment is low - 3.9%
Employment is at 75.6%
Complicated by looking at part time and full time employees - there's been a reduction in part time employees and a drop in self employed people.

Then there's 'economically inactive' people - about 21.3%

Businesses will be hit though by inflation and people who can't afford to buy things from them.

@Sbbhnfc

Yes. Why do you think Patel and her mates have been trying to get the Police Bill through? Why do you think the nudge unit and others have been practising psyops and mass obedience on us since at least 9/11? (not that it was called that then). The pandemic was just the dress rehearsal...as others have said, if this were France the riots would have happened long ago.

Generally if you look at history though riots start when basic staple foods get unaffordable and when the middle classes start being affected. (Mostly the genuinely poor are just too busy fighting to stay alive.)

We're almost there. And while I have every sympathy for the horrific scenes unfolding in Ukraine (one of the world's biggest exporters of wheat and sunflower oil) I really do wonder what Chamberlain, sorry Johnson, is really doing there and whether the Tory puppetmaster in the Kremlin issued some kind of edict. Or whether more than a bit of techno green screen smoke and mirrors has been applied. Wandering about the capital of Ukraine in a business suit? No flak jacket, helmet, just tor starters? Something literally isn't right with that picture. His devoted followers will continue to lap it all up though. All he was missing was the fat cigar....

That may sound a bit cynical and verging on conspiracy theory but BJ and his money worshipping chums long since sold what was left of their tattered souls to the devil...I'm just wondering at what point they're all going to start "disappearing" and heading off to their bunkers in New Zealand and the like...!

Buckle up - it's all about to get REALLY interesting.

I am in NZ and we are all horrified that the worlds wealthy have property here - it should never have been allowed to happen.

@Bluebluemoon I think you are confused. I'm not sure why you are telling me about panic rooms, I'm talking about bunkers. And I never said anything about purge style attacks due to rising prices.

Do you not think maybe Forbes magazine (which is aimed at very wealthy people or those who want that lifestyle) may be running this article to make panic rooms the next desirable installation in a home?

Does the Guardian have the same goal?

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/15/why-silicon-valley-billionaires-are-prepping-for-the-apocalypse-in-new-zealand

Don't believe everything you read, a little cynicism is needed.

Of course not, I don't presume it's all lies though.

Laughable that people take a couple of articles like this to be proof that a day of reckoning is coming.

I'm not sure how you extrapolated that from my post 😆

@emuloc

I hope that people do start protesting over this. it is not right that people should be working hard, yet find themselves unable to afford to heat their homes, while the rich people in Government look on.

It’s not really government. There’s a massive amount of people with enough money to ride it out. They honestly aren’t feeling the pinch despite what the Guardian likes to think. Until house prices crash or mortgage rates go up there’s enough people doing fine not for it to kick off.

"I actually felt really worried today when I saw the food bank box at our local Waitrose was completely empty except for a single tin. "

The food bank boxes in our local supermarkets tend to be empty when the foodbank staff have just been and collected the contents, which they do regularly. Maybe no need to worry.

Yes, YellerGeller, I heard the boss of Iceland say that but he didn't add that the ones he loses to foodbanks are replaced by new customers who can't afford to shop at the cheapest supermarkets. There is a downward movement from Waitrose downwards when times are hard.

@colosmbo

Are they not having a cost of living crisis in France? How has France managed to insulate itself?

😆 I'm not sure how you extrapolated that from my post. The French are pissed, there's already been a national strike over pay & more social protest is expected. Yet inflation isn't like what we are seeing here nor are energy bills.

70% of their power is nuclear and EDF is owned by the Government. Consumer utility bill rises have been capped by the Government at 4%. So yes while inflation is an issue there, the problems in the UK are very different.