Color Scheme
Spectre of Churchill
01, June #StarmerCrisis, #WarSpillover, #CostOfLiving

Starmer’s Great Summer Savings Scheme Is a Mockery of the British Public

Following the announcement of Keir Starmer’s Great British Summer Savings scheme, social media was flooded with angry reactions from across the country. Many Britons accused the Prime Minister of misleading voters, arguing that the promised savings are so modest as to make virtually no difference to households already struggling to make ends meet.
#StarmerCrisis, #WarSpillover, #CostOfLiving
Ben Judah
28, May #CostOfLiving

Ben Judah: How is this chart hiding Brexit...

How is this chart hiding Brexit damage? The first trick here is indexing everyone at 100 in 2016 at the moment of the shock to the 🇬🇧. The second is to measure the flow not the stock of accumulated investments. That lets you hide the fact 🇬🇧 stock is permanently smaller behind a graph just showing the flow of new investments is increasing. In layman’s terms: let’s imagine you were getting 5% a year salary increases in the years leading up to 2016 above those of your peers. The shock in 2016 then reduces that to a similar level to them or below. What a chart of investment flows indexing everyone in 2016 at 100 does is just show you afterwards creeping up in line with the rest of them — it hides the years of accumulated funds you would have had without Brexit. Clever! That’s how you hide 🇬🇧 business investment is 12-18% below where comparator economies predict it should be — per CEPR’s December 2025 synthetic control analysis of 33 advanced economies. Or the fact, quoted below, 🇬🇧 business investment was down 16.2% on the eve of the pandemic on the OBR’s own pre-referendum expectation. No control group required for that.
#CostOfLiving
Robin Monotti
28, May #CostOfLiving

Robin Monotti: Therefore, the reason for higher...

Therefore, the reason for higher energy bills boils down to subsidies to energy giants which are paid via governments taxing your energy bills with the false label of a "green tax", and rerouting that money they extract from you to the energy giants themselves. Essentially you are paying more to fund the energy giants infrastructure for control of non hydrocarbon energy over small producers and the excuse is the false notion that somehow non hydrocarbon energy is better than hydrocarbons, when it is not because hydrocarbons do not cause warming, the Sun does.
#CostOfLiving
Liz Webster
25, May #CostOfLiving

Liz Webster: Farms, transport and hospitality are all now operating…

🆘 🚩🔥 Farms, transport and hospitality are all now operating in survival mode bc Brexit Britain depends on permanently cheap energy, stable imports and just-in-time logistics. The moment global instability hits, the entire chain starts seizing up simultaneously. Farmers are considering selling fertiliser rather than planting crops bc it’s more profitable/less risky. This should terrify policymakers but they’re too busy offering freebies for kids in summer holidays. Meanwhile the EU is delivering significant emergency package for farmers, fishing businesses and road hauliers to protect food system. Who will feed Brexit Britain? Food shortages don’t begin with empty supermarket shelves. They begin when producers quietly decide planting no longer makes economic sense. Britain has spent years weakening domestic resilience while becoming more dependent on volatile global markets. We are now discovering the cost of that strategy as collapse looms.
#CostOfLiving
Daniel Lacalle
16, May #CostOfLiving

Daniel Lacalle: Oil spikes and wars grab headlines…

Oil spikes and wars grab headlines, but they do NOT create persistent inflation. ❌ Blaming “oil” or “wars” for persistent inflation is comforting—and wrong. They move relative prices for a while, but they do not make the aggregate price level rise year after year. ❌ Oil shocks reshuffle prices: energy up, something else down. Unless central banks and governments validate the shock with massive spending and easy money, the overall inflation rate falls back. A one‑off oil spike cannot explain years of rising aggregate prices. If oil prices or “supply chains” caused inflation, we would have had deflation between 2022 and 2025. Instead, aggregate prices kept rising as governments spent and printed at record levels. ❌ Wars are usually disinflationary. They freeze or destroy investment plans, delay big consumption decisions, and raise uncertainty. Households and companies cancel or postpone spending—they don’t go on a buying spree. ✅ What turns temporary shocks into persistent inflation is policy. Massive fiscal deficits, monetized by central banks, keep demand above supply and embed higher prices into the system: more units of currency chasing the same goods and services. ✅ The pattern is clear: every time central banks and governments flood the system with liquidity and deficit spending, core inflation moves up and stays up. When they finally cut spending and tighten policy, inflation rolls over—regardless of oil or war headlines. ✅ Inflation is not a mysterious external monster. It is a political choice: spend, borrow, and print beyond the real capacity of the economy, and the unit of account gets diluted. Stop doing that, and “persistent” inflation disappears. ✅ Wars and oil shocks matter for volatility and individual prices, but the only reason aggregate prices keep marching higher year after year is simple: governments that refuse to adjust spending, and central banks that refuse to say no. Stop asking the government for “free” things. You will pay for them many times over. Graph via FRED
#CostOfLiving
Dale Vince
07, May #CostOfLiving

Dale Vince: The key part of this...

The key part of this story is in the second line -”according to lobbyists”. Only last summer the government announced £500m for this sector, they want more. £20 billion of private money is “desperate” to invest they say - what’s stopping them? They want more public money. Will 20k jobs really be lost by 2030 or is the story here that 20k jobs could be created. The main issue with Hydrogen is how un economic it is to make, that’s why it’s not taken off in any major way anywhere in the world yet. That’s if you make ‘green hydrogen’ as opposed ‘brown’ which comes from fossil fuels. The Hydrogen Economy was a thing of great hype 10 years ago. It might take another 10 to really get going. We don't need to rush to be ""world leaders”, better technology is coming, the economics will get much better - there’s no need to waste more money on this right now. https://thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/ed-miliband-energy-department-delay-hydrogen-strategy-xvn8zkq7q
#CostOfLiving
Liz Webster
06, May #CostOfLiving

Liz Webster: The red lines were broken…

The red lines were broken the moment we left the single market and customs union @DavidGHFrost You negotiated the thin TCA. Now we’re paying £1bn a year for partial access, following rules we don’t help write, while food inflation quadruples, energy bills stay sky-high, and small businesses drown in red tape. “More will follow” isn’t Starmer breaking promises, it’s the inevitable, expensive reality of the deal you delivered. The public gets it: 59% now want to rejoin.
#CostOfLiving
Liz Webster
05, May #CostOfLiving

Liz Webster: Brexit red tape is crushing UK…

Brexit red tape is crushing UK small businesses. FSB survey: • 3 in 10 expect to reduce or stop trading with the EU if rules aren’t eased • 64% struggling with customs paperwork • 21% hit by high costs Small firms, Britain’s biggest employer, are being worn down and questioning whether EU trade is even worth the effort. We left the single market for this? Now we’re negotiating to pay £1bn a year just for partial access and mutual recognition.
#CostOfLiving
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