Thank you to members of the Brixton Rush Common branch of Streatham Labour, who organised a community meeting to discuss what we can do to address escalating living costs. We need to stop calling this a cost of living crisis, as if it’s fallen from the sky. Thirteen years of the Tories has left people less resilient than ever. It has meant thirteen years of falling pay, soaring rents, rising bills and declining public services.
Right now, we need to see action to shift these burdens away from those at the bottom and onto those who can afford to pay: the super rich and corporations. That means levying a proper windfall tax on oil and gas companies, freezing rents, boosting pay for the lowest paid, and raising taxes on the wealthiest in our society. But we also need to think about long-term resilience and building shock absorbers into our systems to protect people from these kinds of financial pressures. That means taking energy, water, rail, and mail back into public ownership to ensure money is ploughed back into the system. It means building more decent quality homes, and particularly more council homes. The Tories’ just-in-time model for our economy simply doesn’t cut it when we face the challenges that lie ahead.
