Miliband STILL surprised about the ‘cost of living’ crisis?

[Isitmebut]

Isitmebut …for those politicians with Economics degrees, it does not seem money or time well spent if they didn’t ‘get’ that after ANY recession - never mind the worse recession for 80-years and previous migrant policies that meant 2 million new citizens LOWERED the wage rates for lower paid BEFORE the financial crisis of their making – that it ALWAYS takes years for businesses & therefore wages to recover.

Recessions, especially big stonking ones, are called recessions, for a reason. D’ah.

Mr Miliband & his financial guru Mr Balls have a nice P.P.E degree that includes E.conomics AND they were in government when they reversed the lower band income tax rate band, increased council taxes over 13-years by over 100% (for what?) and over those same 13-years saw the oil price rise from around $20, to just under $150 a barrel, without lifting a finger to help the population on THOSE cost of living rises.

Trying to control electricity prices when he didn’t build a single nuclear reactor in power, so we will have power ‘outages’ at the next big winter, can not work. Splitting banks to boost lending when we have far less of them since 2008, is another gimmick.

According to BBC figures, the UK had 580,000 under 24-year old unemployed in 2004, a rise to 711,000 by the crash, and handed over 921,000 to the coalition in 2010; spot the trend on a 'big picture' problem?

If he had any real ideas how to solve our core problems, how did that happen during the boom decade to 2007, that won’t get worse under them, without any money left?

Fiddling here and there, like moving deck chairs on the Titanic, won't solve the problems he left, IMO.

That's what terrifies me! :)

Milliband doesn't seem to have much of a clue about anything. And has no answers to the country's problems. I won't be voting for Labour though I did last time. Labour will get nowhere till they get rid of him as leader. IMHO. Gordon Brown said he had cured boom and bust. I believed him. I won't be taken in again.

Me too viv.
How can I vote for them? Even though I desperately want to!
Please....if anyone from labour hq ever reads this....give us someone worth voting for!
Get rid of Bert and Ernie!

There must be so many historic labour voters who just cannot being themselves to vote for Bert and Ernie....I can't be the only one!

HomeHelpMeGawd…..I guess I’m thick as I actually responded to a certain quote of yours, I’m used to plain speaking, so if exposing any political lies with qualified sources (should fellow posters want to look at issues further) is, confirmation bias, then so be it as I’m not saying anyone else CAN hold back the tide of UK prices, like Moses Miliband.

Anyway back to the title of the post, prices versus earning have been rising from around 2005/6 in some items, but by 2007, according to the Bank of England, we saw “a ferocious squeeze in the purchasing power of take-home pay”.

And that Labour were so worried about the likes of energy prices, a year or so before the election within their Budgets, they announced increases in Fuel Duty to come in AFTER the 2010 General Election, reversed by the coalition.

So is this Miliband as the government’s Energy Minister in 2010’s hypocrisy, or my confirmation bias I’m yet to fully understand, please take your pick.

Yes we are isitme.

I also think balls lives in planet lalala land with his policies.

We're screwed.

TheGreatHunt….are you a glass half EMPTY person? Lol

IMO the UK isn’t screwed, it was just heading in the wrong direction and was going to come unstuck during the first major recession; a financial recession causing the economic one, will always cause more problems as if the banks are misfiring, it holds back whatever lending based economic growth was to initially be had.

And turning around an economy takes time, as did you know that in normal times when the Bank of England makes a quarter point Base Rate move (up or down), it takes between 18-months and 2-years to FULLY filter through the whole of the economy.

So think of the whole economy as like a giant Supertanker needing to 180 degree change its heading; it takes a while to stop, never mind change direction, but IF then heading in the right direction, the results will come.

Initially we had the largest GDP drop of the major G7 countries, as financial services was such a big part of our economy and hampered our recovery – and even after this years growth, our economy is still around 1.3% SMALLER than where we were in late 2007 – but now we are doing better than the rest.

The stronger the employment growth, the higher wages can go as firms then have to compete for staff, inflation is coming down - and now the deficit is far less, there will be more room for tax cuts – which in (economic) theory, all equates to higher living standards as each year passes.

Unfortunately, there are no short cuts other than via huge government spending, and we had that ‘stimulus’, before the crash - and paying the bill now.

Labour have recently changed their soundbite message from 'The coalition recovery plan isnt working' to 'we have a cost of living crisis' because the economy is starting to improve.

Yep. Funny isn't it. They knew full well that the economy takes time to recover yet wasted no time in telling everyone how bad it was and it was all the nasty Tories fault. Despite the fact they were handed a steaming turd in 2010.

And as soon as the economy starts to improve they quietly drop the 'plan isn't working' mantra and move to the cost of living crisis. Except as the economy grows people's cost of living will hopefully come down and nullifying that argument too.

Isitmebut, it's your confirmation bias that you're yet to fully understand. Hth.