Enough is enough? Challenging the cost-of-living crisis

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Earlier this year, the Resolution Foundation predicted the worst cost-of-living crisis since the 1970s. Working people’s incomes have failed to keep up with soaring inflation, painting a grim picture for many households.

Mainstream political solutions – such as raising interest rates, taxing energy companies, and reducing VAT and green levies – seem inadequate and a range of alternative solutions are emerging. Industrial action has returned to the fore, as workers take strike action to defend their living standards, and anonymous campaign-groups like Don’t Pay UK, who encourage consumers to stop paying their energy bills, have made the headlines. Moreover, consumer-advice expert Martin Lewis claims the UK could be headed for another ‘Poll Tax moment’ with civil unrest not dissimilar to the 1990s. Some even wonder if these British movements could begin to emulate France’s gilets jaunes protests.

The effects of soaring inflation are biting hard, yet activists are often side-lined while ‘experts’ debate what can be done. Central banks are asked to do more, but many commentators argue they have they been part of the problem by pumping too much money into the economy. After a global pandemic, the 2008 financial crash and decades of stagnating productivity, it seems the government can’t be relied on in the face of a crisis.

Should citizens take back control? Should workers flex their industrial muscle by organising strike action to defend their living standards – or does this just cause a wage-price spiral? Should consumers organise against companies that are suspected of price gouging or is it simply romantic idealism to imagine this will work? Do we really have to accept belt-tightening and foodbanks while we wait for politicians and economists to sort it all out?

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