Are we taking bets yet on when mass civil unrest will begin re. Cost of living?

[UsernameInTheTown]

Having frozen my backside off these past two days as I'm terrified to have the heating on longer than an hour a day, I'm thinking that this will be utterly intolerable come next Winter. Will there be mass civil unrest and the guillotine rolled out while the affluent are targeted by the desperate and those with nothing left to loose?

@XDownwiththissortofthingX

It’s going to get a lot worse and the overall standard of living for a huge chunk of the working class is going to fall through the floor, the question is > how long will it be before something gives?

What's also pretty frightening is what you end up with when the public eventually decides enough is enough.

30 years of industrial decline and abuse of the working classes gave us Thatcher (spit). Thatcherism and runaway free-market capitalism has given us a debt crisis coupled with a cost of living crisis.

I think we are going to see the ultimate end-goal of Brexit arrive much more quickly than anticipated, i.e. the 'race to the bottom' with working class Brits reduced to wage-slaves, tolerating appalling conditions in order to be able to eat, and the unemployed used as physical labour in return for inadequate welfare payments. Anyone who thinks that isn't what was driving Brexit hasn't been paying attention.

You can’t have high living standards though without some borrowing. Whether that’s individuals or governments. In the same way people need mortgages to buy a house governments need to pay for very expensive infrastructure.

The problem is the massive divide between rich and poor thats getting worse. Full time workers at the bottom need tax credits to make their wage liveable. We’re back to Victorian times with the workers in slums watching every penny and the people in the big houses having lovely lives and thinking being charitable will solve the problem.

And it’s no good blaming the Conservatives if no other party isn’t inspiring enough. Or people feel they can’t trust a party that can’t use science to define a woman.

@Fedupbuyer

I think crime will go through the roof I know that much!

^ I think this too. What people don’t have they’ll steal.

@Watermelon44 Reader the post above yours

You can’t really compare 1997 to now as we hadn’t just had a global pandemic and before that a recession and forced austerity measures, and Tony Blair led us into wars which depleted our monetary reserves, so he was hardly a great example.

It’s was all down to the fact Murdoch wanted Blair in power, and he gets what he wants

I was at the poll tax riots. I was in my 20s, not juggling 3 kids, struggling to pay for food and could afford the bus fare to London. Those of us who need to protest don't always have the privilege of being able to.

@PearlclutchersInc

And what exactly will rioting achieve. It's not achieved anything in the past.

Not least because the current government couldnt care less.

Poll Tax Riots put a stop to the Poll Tax. I was in my early 20s at the time. The riots and mass demonstrations against the Poll Tax were effective but the Tories won the next election with Major because such a large proportion of the population couldn't vote as they were effectively disenfranchised by the Poll Tax. However, the next time around they lost as people had got themselves registered to vote again. The Poll Tax bill for my BF and I living in our 1 bed flat in Stokes Croft in Bristol was just over £2,000 per year. Our household income, both working, was just over £14,000. By parents, who lived in a 4 bed 2 bath detached house with an acre and a half of garden in the Cheshire countryside paid just under £1,000. My dad's income would have ben about £60,000. This is why I hate the Tories and will never ever vote for them.

A lot of people have done very well with house prices rises & BTLs &/or inheritance. They won't want things to change. I can't see how things will change because even building wealth is much harder these days so the gap will just widen.

I think the current situation has been coming for years - it's taken covid and a war to make it finally happen. There are basically too many people using too much energy, so the price goes up affecting everything.

The human race will have to adapt, and the good news is that the energy industry is now far more attractive to new entrants such as renewables and nuclear, more of which will appear in the coming years. It will hurt in the short-term though. I would also expect more localisation as it just won't be worth shipping stuff on oil powered ships from the other side of the world - again not a bad thing.

I expect farming will need to revert to lower-input, higher-labour models with less dependence on oil and chemicals. We have the capacity to do this, and indeed used to do this, but the modern industry is predicated on high inputs, so adaption will be painful.

Riot wise, the excessive profiteering of utility companies needs to be punished, and some re-nationalisation is worth considering. Not sure which of our current parties have the bottle for that.

This is the word of the Lord..

The Tories haven't kept the triple lock for pensioners.

@Allywill

I had to have my wall insulation sucked out. It caused terrible damp. Believe me it’s not necessarily a good thing - houses were built with cavities for a reason.

Agree...my dad was a builder and said exactly the same thing...the cavity is there for a reason, don't fill it! Particularly in older build houses...

Heard someone from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation today predict that those already in poverty are at risk of falling into destitution. Destitution sounds Dickensian and is not something that a supposedly civilised society should accept. I fear with further contraction of the economy that is where many will be while oil companies report record profits. Appears to me to be wealth distribution on a massive scale, the rich get richer while the poor get poorer.

@Lifetheuniverseandeverything

Vote in May for anyone local who isn’t Tory.

Vote for anyone who does not know what a woman is?

[quote ivykaty44]@Watermelon44 Reader the post above yours[/quote]
Yes but Jeremy Corbyn’s policies were utterly pie in the sky and there is no way that he would have been able to deliver on them in reality….

Labour need to be credible firstly to be taken seriously and offer an affordable alternative. (And sort out their position on women) .

Fucking hell, the UK-centric navel-gazing and party political squabbling on this thread is depressing to read. Do you people not know what is going on in the world at large?

I’m no fan of ‘the Tories’ (zero time for toffs, the parasitic monarchy and the class system in general - it’s one of the reasons I emigrated) but this is far bigger than them and far bigger than the UK. There is a global energy and food supply crisis and people across Europe and further afield are deeply concerned about it.

And the French are hardly to be held up as an example to follow. Support for the far right there is at/approaching 40% in total. And by far right, I don’t mean the equivalent of ‘the Tories’. Marine Le Pen is the National Front - actual fascists.

Also, it’s far easier for the French government to cap energy price rises as most of their electricity comes from government linked nuclear power - they are nowhere near as exposed to foreign gas as the Germans and Austrians for e.g. (who are also more exposed than the UK).

And they are certainly as affected by the price of oil as as anywhere else; a litre of petrol was 2.40 Euros last week at our closet French station (I’m across the border in Switzerland).

So while the UK government could certainly be doing more to ameliorate the effects of these international situations, they neither caused them nor will they solve them. And it’s worth remembering that it’s as least as bad or worse for other countries’ populations (not that this is a race to the bottom, but some reflection & perspective is needed, judging by this thread).

Why would there be riots?

the USA has far greater levels of inequality and poverty, with no functioning healthcare for the poor either and no riots and as my mum used to say "we always follow the US about 10 years later...."

We are meek and lack the passion of the Europeans, who throughout the ages have overthrown their oppressors, when have we ever done that?

the Europeans

Great display of ignorance right there.

And the French are hardly to be held up as an example to follow. Support for the far right there is at/approaching 40% in total. And by far right, I don’t mean the equivalent of ‘the Tories’. Marine Le Pen is the National Front - actual fascists

Its 20% NOT 40% and RN has plenty of policies that are mirrored in the last Tory manifesto

Also, it’s far easier for the French government to cap energy price rises as most of their electricity comes from government linked nuclear power - they are nowhere near as exposed to foreign gas as the Germans and Austrians for e.g. (who are also more exposed than the UK)

Nonsense, electricity is traded on the european energy market, same one as ours is tied too, Macron taxed EDF 9 billion euros and used that to limit prices, hence gas has only gone up 14%.... 40% of our energy comes from renewables, yet we've seen that rocket too, same as NS oil, all governed by european/world prices..... so it doesn't matter what a country generates itself unless its nationalised.

And they are certainly as affected by the price of oil as as anywhere else; a litre of petrol was 2.40 Euros last week at our closet French station (I’m across the border in Switzerland)

Its approx 1.90euros, approx £1.60 and just as in the UK, one can pick out a motorway service station with very high prices but it doesn't reflect the true picture.

Apart from all that, your post is very accurate lol.

Yes but Jeremy Corbyn’s policies were utterly pie in the sky and there is no way that he would have been able to deliver on them in reality….

Yet to rise have looked at implementing some of them, havent they?

Tory’s not to rise

@MadameHeisenberg

the Europeans

Great display of ignorance right there.

We are far moved from mainland Europeans, whatever the geography, even you chose to move, apparently.

Boris Johnson talks about reducing the UKs reliance on foreign energy. Which is good, but slightly a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. Dh who works in the energy sector has been saying this for about ten years if not more.

Not sure how long it takes to build a nuclear power station but I suspect not by next winter. There is other stuff which can be done. West Burton power station is to be moth balled this autumn, that could be halted. Keep it going until we have other options. I know there’s talk about exploring new North Sea oil fields.

People also unrealistic. Some esp women hardly worked outside the home in their lives. Everyone expects to live with a great quality of life while working part time in unstressful jobs. Many people
Are rich because their house earned a kings
Income for them. Everyone needs to adjust their expectations accordingly.

Also there should be more emphasis on taxing assets and capital gains instead of always hammering workers

The jubilee weekend would be the perfect opportunity for a huge demo with civil disobedience.

I agree, what are we supposed to be celebrating there? A spoiled, pampered family who have done absolutely nothing to deserve their wealth and who support a feckless pervert in their midst, even parading him around for everyone to see?

Meanwhile, people are cold and hungry inside their houses and are supposed to be organising street parties or whatever?

How about spending the jubilee money on something to help ordinary people?

They make me sick.

My dad always used to say we had (as in the average U.K. person in society) a crazily high standard of living since probably the 1980s. He used to wonder how long it was sustainable for. That having two car households, money for eating out, disposable fashion, endless Starbucks was not the usual.

Yes he was a child of the Second World War and would have remembered that, and I guess there wasn’t much disposable income in the 50s, 60s or 70s. Maybe the 60s were a bit better but even I’m old enough to remember the 70s being tough. And in the early 80s I can remember my mum crying over an oil delivery for our oil heating.

I’ve always been more positive and thought that things were just getting better in a direction of permanent improvement. But I’m beginning to worry he was right.