More Food banks than McDonald’s restaurants.
Where is all the UK’s money?
If you live in the United Kingdom, you know that prices are going up, you know that taxes have been raised by the incumbent government, and you know that the majority of working people have seen no pay increases in years. Life is harder not just for working people, but for those out of work as well, with universal credit and other forms of benefit having been cut. If you don’t live in the United Kingdom I can only wonder what your opinion of the country is, but I wager that it’s less favourable than it was five years ago.
Times are hard and they’ll get harder still. So one must hope that those in power are doing all they can to improve things for the British people they have been elected to serve…
Did that last sentence make you laugh out loud? I can’t blame you if it did. Anybody who has had their eyes open for a few years would be insane to think that the Conservative government has any regard for the best interests of the British people.
Who’s living the high life?
The current cabinet likes the high life. Recently it came to light that Liz Truss, Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, used £500,000 of taxpayers’ money to fly to Australia by private jet. A commercial flight just wouldn’t do. There is still money in the United Kingdom, the Prime Minister’s choice of wallpaper and Truss’s choice of transport make that clear, but where is it all going?
The man on the street isn’t seeing any of it. In January 2022, over a million adults reported going for at least a day without eating. That’s not because they were giving intermittent fasting a try, it’s because they could not afford to eat. This is happening right now in the world’s sixth largest economy.
How did this happen?
In a recent video posted by Double Down News, the Labour MP for Coventry South, Zahra Sultana, gives some remarkable insights which help to explain why life is getting much harder for most people in the UK, but not for a select few. Some of what she says is summarised in this article, and you can watch the full video below.
The Rich Don’t know what they’re talking about
Those at the top in Britain, love to dole out advice to everybody else. Andrew Bailey, Governor of the Bank of England earns £500,000 a year, and has asked workers to not to ask for pay increases in the current cost of living crisis. Television presenter Kirstie Allsop who is known for presenting property shows such as Location, Location, Location and Love it or List it, has suggested young people should save for their first properties by not wasting money on coffee and Netflix. Kirstie does not live in the same world as most young people, and despite her television credentials she also seems to have no idea about property prices in relation to the cost of living and what the vast majority of people earn. But who would expect her to? She is the daughter of a baron and when she bought her first property, the average price of a UK home was £50,000. Today, that average is £276,759.
For the Few, Not the Many
The privileged and rich may be patronising and out of touch, but it’s the politicians who are really ‘taking the piss’, as Zahra Sultana puts it. The Conservatives are popular with the wealthy because they protect them from paying taxes. Those taxes come instead from the poor.
Nadhim Zahawi, Secretary for Education, has suggested that a windfall tax on oil companies would be wrong because ‘they are struggling.’ If that’s an issue, why are taxes on those with less being raised? Aren’t they struggling too.
Would you be surprised to learn that Zahawi was paid £1.3 million by an oil company whilst he was a member of parliament? You shouldn’t be, not if you know anything about the current Conservative government. Oil companies have money, plenty of it; and they don’t mind greasing the palms (ahem) of those who can make them even richer. Do you really think the oil companies are struggling? They make billions in profit every year. And how do they benefit from a Conservative government? Shell paid no tax in the United Kingdom in 2021, and got a government rebate of £100,000,000. That’s nothing new though. Since 2016, oil companies have had £2.4 billion in tax rebates under the current government.
Who do they serve?
The Conservative government is not running the country for their countrymen, they’re running it for themselves, for the oil companies, for media moguls, for bankers, and for anyone else rich enough to pour the gravy for them.
The Conservatives are channelling money away from the taxpayer, and the UK economy at large, to benefit those who are already extremely wealthy. Bankers have received a £1 billion tax giveaway from the Conservative government, and one third of U.K. billionaires are Tory donors.
So that’s where all the money’s going! Whilst more and more people are unable to feed themselves, whilst the National Health Service is being starved of funds, whilst there are more foodbanks than McDonald’s restaurants in the United Kingdom, the money is going to those at the top. And a huge portion of that money comes from those at the bottom, the working people of Britain.
If you’ve enjoyed reading this article and you’re not a Medium member, you might notice you can only read 3 articles per month. If you create an account, you can read 5 articles a month without charge. But if you become a member ( only $5/month or $50/year) you can read as many articles as you want, ad free. You can become a member here and if you use my link I retain a small portion of your fee. Thanks for your support!