Working-class people need our own voice
Michael Johnson, Leeds Socialist Party
Inflation is going to fall! Isn’t that wonderful? “Pressure is starting to ease”, says Sunak. The cost-of-living crisis will soon be over. Believe that when you feel it in your pocket!
While bankers are happy that the UK could hit it’s target of 2% inflation within months, the British public is less optimistic. Who can blame them?
A fifth of households are struggling to pay their water bills which are set to jump above-inflation in the next few months. Energy prices have seen similar increases.
As costs shoot up, we’re seeing more and more stories of the sacrifices people are making to get by. Parents missing meals so their children can eat, or families wearing coats on coats to avoid the cost of putting the heating on.
Whatever happens with inflation rates, unless our wages go up and funding for our services is restored after a decade-plus of cuts, the cost-of-living crisis for ordinary people won’t be ending any time soon.
Low-paid workers and others on benefits won’t get the £900 of cost-of-living payments they have recieved again. As a general election looms on the horizon, people will correctly want to see the back of the Tories.
But is the Labour Party any alternative? Labour leaders argue with one side of their mouth that they will be ‘pro-worker’, then reassure big business that Labour’s on their side with the other.
Starmer’s dropped pledges
With countless dropped pledges, Keir Starmer’s Labour wants caps on benefits for families but not on banker’s bonuses.
Labour councils give a glimpse of a Starmer government, as they have made massive cuts to services up and down the country rather than fight for what’s needed.
The cost of living is too high now! We can’t just wait for a ‘better economic climate’ to mean the parties of big business give us some crumbs from the table.
We’ve seen through the months of strikes the power working people have, and the victories we can achieve when we fight for what we need. We need to keep that fight up and expand the struggle to the ballot box. A new, mass party of our own fighting for our interests would be a major step forward.
