To think Britain is heading towards economical and social collapse

[Cheesecakeandwineinasuitcase]

It feels like we are living in strange times, having come out of a global pandemic, the war in Ukraine and now the cost of living crisis and the added pressure from Brexit.

Ive barely slept tonight, worrying about what might happen with energy prices. I’ve heard the energy price cap is expected to rise to £3,850 in October. A few months ago I’m sure they predicting it would be £2,400 and that was horrifying enough.
Now I’m seeing people on the energy support Facebook group talking about monthly energy costs of £900 per month. It feels like this is escalating out of control very quickly and the Government are allowing us to sleepwalk into a disaster.

I realised tonight that if the price cap does keep increasing at the rate it has then what will happen to all the businesses once people can’t afford their energy bills anymore? They will probably increase their prices to try and cover their costs but that will drive down sales even more as people won’t have as much money to spend anymore. Eventually it will only be the essentials that we can afford so that surely means that all the other businesses won’t be able to afford to keep going?

Then what? Unless our government actually get their heads together about this then the whole country will end up in financial ruin and we will see the breakdown of society. Why so much focus on the leadership contest, surely that must take a back step.

Ive just checked the parliament website and the House of Commons has now gone into summer recess so they won’t meet again until September! I think this is an emergency situation and that they should be called back to focus on this. They get paid enough.

I think it’s outrageous that they can claim for utility bills on their expenses when there are people out there with young children who are worried about being cut off and put onto a prepayment meter.

So what do you think would happen under those circumstances? That he’d just turn to Sunak/Truss and say “You’ve just lost the election but here are the keys to Downing Street anyway”? Of course he’d enter a coalition.

Keeping up - Do you get financial help from your children's father?

This isn't true, I have family in Europe and their government massively cap energy prices so they just don't have the rises we do. Their quality of living is tbh honest lovely too. And where my relatives are they have a lot of local produce in stores, so if they eat seasonally they get a lot of fresh and quite cheap food too.

Oops didn't add the quote...that was a response to another poster saying everywhere in Europe is just as bad.

I think the political and social landscape will look very different in 2 years, so while it might be a nice distraction, the shit is hitting the fan now. We don't have to wait for a coalition of chaos, we have the Chaotic Conservatives now.😲

Get out more 😂

unfortunately I can’t vote any other party until they accept that women don’t have penises

I am also feeling the rising cost of living and have taken a second job as a result but this a generation battle that if we give it up, our rights as women will be eroded for decades to come
that’s more important to me than anything else right now

however much of the price or energy, food, fuel is also a worldwide issue and not only a UK problem

Precisely @TooBigForMyBoots.

Softplay - You can get cheap produce in the UK, Aldi have their super 6 deal on fruit and veg every week and other supermarkets have offers on.

The govt need to cap it like lots of other countries do, so the risk and rising prices aren't directly shouldered by us. We have absolutely no buffer. Our govt is a joke.

@Mamamia7962 that's true, I'm thinking tho of our relatives who can just get it at their local village shops, they don't need to shop around for bargains...and when I say local produce sold there seasonally for good prices, I mean from the next village!

One thing that Ofgem could usefully do is ban the energy companies from raising standing charges.

It is outrageous that they are all raising the standing charges so people cannot save money by cutting back (I mean, they can, but the standing charge is fixed, regardless of how much you use).

About 20 years ago British Gas abolished standing charges (and increased unit prices). It was fairer, but obviously didn't work for them (or other energy companies).

Critique of the tories gets even more interesting when you view it in the sense that they predicted this was coming, and ALL the decisions they have made, and are still making, support that.

Read "The Sovereign Individual" written in the 90s by the father of Jacob Rees Mogg and you'll start to see everything that's happened since we replaced the social-democratic post-war consensus with neoliberalism in a different light. Almost as if successive governments have been raising the economic drawbridge deliberately.

As much as I despise them, I don't think we can blame the tories for a lot of what has happened. The tories aren't responsible for the fact we are transitioning from the industrial age into the information age. But what they have done is figured this out years before the masses and made sure that their actions / responses / policies are set up to take advantage of it.

The book talks about large swathes of the population being left behind because they are unable to compete in an information age. How better do you capture their attention to ensure they'll keep voting for you WHILE making sure you are the one who benefits and maintains the economic advantage? Brexit.

They didn't plan the global pandemic but they did engineer enough of a panic to ensure huge swathes of the population wanted the same thing, then they gave us "the thing we wanted" which was actually always intended to benefit them from the start.

All the years of austerity we're likely to face is the exact same thing - created to benefit them.

Again I fully expect people to tell me to take some anxiety meds and step away from the tinfoil hat, but it's really not as absurd as it seems the more you learn about the people in power and the tactics they use to maintain that power. They're not some evil secret cabal plotting for world domination - they are simply relatively intelligent people who study the shit out of this stuff and find every opportunity to use it to their advantage.

Exactly....I've Said this elsewhere...no one in my circle is 'loosing sleep in panic' or 'starving' l. Of course we are aware of increasing prices but will make cutbacks or changes if necessary.

I’m not blaming them for what’s happened.

Im blaming them for making no attempt to sort anything out. And parade in a peacock like leadership contest whilst the country is in a state of emergency. What is their economic plan?

l read somewhere that the CBI would rather talk to Starmer than the Tories.

As an aside from the main topic, it might be worth checking your energy bills very closely. I have looked at ours closely for the first time in a decade. Our suppliers estimate of domestic gas usage was £42,879 for the 12 months to 30 September. OK, I thought, well it is a big house in the middle of nowhere and in winter it is cold here. But when we bought it as a doer upper we did spend a lot on insulation and getting that side right. But market costs have gone up. Still, I ponder, if the average house bill is going to be £4,000 a year then ours should be no more than £6,000 a year, all things equal. I get kitted out to go check the meter reading which the company never does as the meter is in an unusual place. Based on our current tariff and usage our actual costs have been £1,450 for the last 12 months. Then I am reminded this is the same energy supplier that whipped £9,000 out of our current account in the middle of our holiday a few years back leaving us with declining debit cards in a cafe in the Dales. Why? Because they decided to make an estimate meter reading up.

I’d not heard of this. What other costs have they cut? A lot of people never even use the train so this would have no effect on them.

@djdkdkddkek Time after time posters come on here with RL experiences of other countries and say "No its not so bad in other countries..." Yet people still persist with these ideas.

Yes costs are rising everywhere BUT other Govt's are doing more to help.

The Tories are giving £400 to ALL households, this a criminal waste of money, it needs to be far better targeted.

Other counties are doing better.

Germany and France are implementing rationing by dint of gov’t, for instance. lol

What is their economic plan?

Their economic plan is for the people who have the means or the abilities to make themselves sovereign individuals 😂.

While this happens they will probably feed "the masses" as many bones as possible in the form of "£400 payments" so they can continue to push on with their ultimate economic plan for as long as possible.

I'm of the "I'd like to beat them but if I can't then I'll do what I can to copy them" mindset. Learn skills. Learn basic skills like how to grow potatoes but also learn skills with the highest barriers to entry you can. Use the money you make from those skills to become as "sovereign" as you're able to, wether that's by buying solar panels or buying acres of land or accessing private healthcare or saving for a time when you'll need it. Meanwhile hope for change and wait for change, I guess 🤷🏻‍♀️.

Higher interest rates also benefit people who don’t have overstretched themselves with a massive mortgage.

Possible ways to tackle
Renationalise the energy companies so the government is in charge of the prices paid.

Impose taxes on the energy companies to ensure that they are not able to make enormous profits at a time when people cannot afford to heat their homes.

Have social energy tariffs for those on very low incomes.

Insulate people's homes properly.

Look to the future by focusing on reducing energy use and investment in wind and solar power.

I also agree that there should be cross party work on this. The tories need to recognise that protecting big business and share holders right now should not be the nation's priority.

It applies to all forms of public transport, not just the train.And it’s also designed to get people out of their cars

@hattie43 oh dear ......I have worked in a corporate head office where everyone is well over the average salary and comfortably off (I assume given your comments you work in a similar environment). I have also worked with people in medium sized businesses and academia where finding £4-8K extra per year per family to cover the increase in energy costs, fuel costs and food costs will be ruinous on more modest salaries where this equates 5-20% of salary and pay rises are currently 0-3%.

2 reasons for your deluded attitude

1. MN £150k salary club x 2 so £4-8k is more like £250

2. DH pays for everything and you are a lady who lunches and DH pays off the CC in full

PLUS you belong to the Rishi set where you don't know any poor people well not as friends - except the gardener and the cleaner and au pair, the hairdresser, the shop assistants when you buy clothes, the uber driver who brings you home from the theatre, the guy who delvers the Thai takeaway or the person who serves you that cocktail at The Shard or the cleaners in the office

Action plan for Hattie ......

1)Learn quickly that people rarely tell you the truth about money especially when they know what kind of person they are dealing with

2. increase the wages of your staff by 20% pay rises for this year and next with £1k bonuses for all of them

3. Tip your hairdresser and beautician £100 per appointment with £200 bonus at Christmas

4. Volunteer at the Trussell Trust in your free time

Rubbish, German Govt asked consumers and states to reduce usage, very sensible, called forward planning.

France doing similar with increases in gas storage too, something UK cannot do as we ve no storage.

Russia cutting supplies to Europe will effect us all, 50% of UK gas come from overseas.

Labour called for UK to do similar back in April.