According to the 'Real Cost of Living Index' inflation is 9.5%, not 3% as our honourable and truthful Govt claims.

[Callisto]

Link here: www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/06/13/cmcostofliving113.xml

It also says that despite wage increases we are all worse off as tax has risen more in the last 10 years.

But what about power bills? Everyone is talking about the price of petrol, and forgetting power.

For me it is more important to have heating/cooking fuel/hot water than petrol, so the power companies keep shoving up the price and no one does anything. I'm sure in Maslov's hieracrchy of need food and warmth come before travel

I know petrol price matter, of course I do, but it seems that is getting all the attention, and power prices are ignored. How mny pensioners need to die of cold before someone does something

mrstitlemouse that is exactly right.All the feel good in the economy was businesses booming on borrowed money most of it released from over valued houses.It is now payback time even for those who never benefitted from the boom.

You mean the government lied to us?

This thread is just too depressing to read when I'm about to get a huge pay cut - the price I have to pay for a permanent job

upwind - maybe not, but the article was quite unclear about what it was trying to say (comparing tax between 1997 and 2007, but prices from 2007 to 2008).

but anyway my point was simply that inflation is only 9.5% is you deliberately leave out things that haven't gone up by that much, like phone bills (mobile and fixed), non-food groceries (toothpaste, toilet roll, clesaning goods), prepared food etc and also bus fares. Granted, not many people buy electrical goods very often, and they are arguably keeping the official rate of inflation artificially low, but the stats quoted in the article are just as artificial as the government's.

SP - I do agree but personal experience makes the Telegraph stats more plausible than the official ones.

Latest official figure is 3.3% and it is expected to rise above 4% This is going to squeeze a lot of younger families who are already overburdened with accomodation costs.

SP - Do I think that The Telegraph has a political axe to grind? Yes, absolutely. Do I think that 9.5% is a more realistic figure for the inflation that we are experiencing (and all our friends)? Yes, absolutely.