I have a mate who I went to once with a very serious problem. He let me explain it to him and said: “Yeah, I wouldn’t have done any of that if I was you...”
Not the most helpful advice. And not, to be frank, what you need in a time of crisis.
Huw Pill, chief economist of the Bank of England, dished out similar stuff last week: “What we’re facing now is that reluctance to accept that, yes, we’re all worse off...”
We’re not though are we?
I mean most of us are, and we’ll get to that in a sec, but ALL of us? No way.
Mr Pill himself is on a reported £190k, which I reckon most of us could just about manage on.
The King is spending £100million – at a conservative estimate – on getting a new hat next weekend.
Bankers seem to be doing OK. The guy who runs British Gas got a £3.7million bonus last month. On top of his £790k salary.
Shareholders in our broken railways have done OK, as have private health firms, and utilities.
The rest of us? We’re just going to have to get used to it. I know, I know. But come on.
This is the chief economist of the Bank of England. If he tells us to get used to being worse off, who are we to argue?
I mean, what do we know about spiralling food prices, energy bills, mortgages? Or skint councils closing swimming pools and libraries, putting up council tax to try to keep the lights on, choosing between fixing roads or funding social care?
Or a creaking NHS? Nurses and police officers and teachers using foodbanks?
Fares going up, services being axed, parking charges, potholes, you name it.
Just, says Mr Pill, get used to it. Households now face an extra £837 a year on groceries – milk, sugar and olive oil prices are about around 40% higher than a year ago, according to Reuters.
There are some external factors – the war in Europe and its knock-on effects on food and energy costs. The pandemic didn’t help.
But at the heart of it is more than a decade of economic mismanagement. A failed austerity experiment and a succession of chancellors who did nothing to help us recover.
Wages haven’t kept up with prices. Growth has stalled. Industry is in decline and nothing promised during Brexit has come to pass. Maybe a Labour government will change things but any recovery will be a desperately slow process.
In a fantastic article in Der Spiegel last week, journalist Jörg Schindler gave his assessment of the UK: “This country was already on its knees before Brexit, before the endless phase of political trench warfare and the pandemic.
“Now, it seems as though it has dialled 999 and is waiting in vain for the paramedics to show up.”
Get used to it, Mr Pill tells us.
Why are we listening?
