By Press Release
Glastonbury tickets were £335 this year, up 20 per cent from last time. As an event organiser, I have some sympathy; costs have risen sharply. Two-thirds of us think supermarkets are ripping us off, but like the oil companies, energy suppliers and seemingly everyone else, they strenuously deny it.
Have you noticed that most businesses rush to put up prices whenever they can but lowering them is a glacial process? Hardly surprising, because every single hour at those higher prices means juicy extra profit. Thanks to 6 per cent interest, the banks and building societies are raking it in too, so why does my instant access savings account give me zero interest? What should be ‘my’ little bit goes straight to the bank’s bottom line – and they still charge me 30 per cent for using my credit card!
Oil companies squeal like piggies whenever windfall taxes are mentioned, and Britain’s food retailers insist “We have a very competitive supermarket sector.” Of course, we do; that’s why so many new firms want to get in on the act. If Aldi, Lidl, etc build new stores in good locations, the potential profits are vast.
In the last two years alone, Tesco managed to strip £3 billion in profit from its customers. Clearly, selling weekly groceries and a tank of fuel is a highly profitable business. Stupidly, regardless of their prices, many of us are very loyal to the biggest ones, Sainsbury’s ASDA, Tesco and Morrisons. They know that few of us have the time to search each one for the cheapest prices on individual items. Humans are naturally resistant to change; big business uses that against us.
The Bank of England is tasked with fighting inflation, but how can they do that, when so many greedy corporates raise prices unjustifiably? The Unite union called Tesco profits ‘Greedflation’; they’re up a whopping 89 per cent since 2019 so it’s hard to argue against. Unions aren’t blameless; they make unrealistic wage demands which are, of course, inflationary. A police officer told me that senior railway signalmen earn over £50,000 a year, adding several colleagues have left for better pay on the railways. Working with trains is a far less stressful job too, especially Island Line which only seems to run intermittently.
Mick Lynch, the rail union leader, who resembles the villainous Hood in Thunderbirds, is a canny operator. His current wage demand for his best paid members seems particularly cheeky when compared with more deserving public sector workers. Ah yes, you cry, but ‘they’ should give all public sector workers more money, not cut train drivers’ already over-generous wages. Sorry, but whatever promises ‘they’ make in the run-up to the coming election, the country is in a dreadful financial hole. Our total debt exceeds GDP; the first time ever since paying for two World Wars – and it’s not all down to Covid! An incoming government won’t be able to afford to pay anyone more money, however deserving their cause.
In May, almost two million people say they missed at least one mortgage, rent, or bill payment. It’s hardly surprising that, while shopping, many of us are looking for the budget or value ranges. We know that things are tough and likely to get tougher, but on Sunday, our Prime Minister had some sage advice for those worried sick. “Hold your nerve”, said Rishi, whose fortune is estimated at £529 million. If that wasn’t annoying enough, on Monday, Bob Seely MP chimed in, taking time out of his busy schedule to urge his Facebook followers to “read the poet Alfred Noyes.”
Presumably, Bob’s hoping that rhyming couplets can soothe those staring down the barrel of imminent financial ruin. “Let them eat poetry,” replied one wag!
