Interest-ing (for some)

I like to think I know more than others about politics and how it works. I mean, I've spent enough time reading, writing and ranting about it, so sometimes I'm genuinely confused. I'm none the wiser when it comes to the subject of interest rates and how raising them prevents inflation. I think this is because we've had eleven consecutive interest rate hikes and I've not seen the price of a tin of beans drop; tomatoes and peppers are still going up in price and the cost of a refill pouch of Kenco decaf 'koffy' increased 75p in one week, which is about a 20% increase.

The Bank of England has just put it's rate up again and the explanation for it was this: "This means people have less money to spend on the economy, subsequently causing inflation to drop". There are other reasons given, such as bringing down prices of imports and discouraging people from borrowing, but the obvious fact staring most of us already have less to spend and this is coupled with high interest rates meaning only people with savings are making more money and the prices of food continue to go up - as the latest 10.4% inflation figures clearly proved. Raising the interest rate increases the profits of people with savings and forces more and more people into having to make difficult decisions. These rises have not stopped inflation because these interest hikes benefit the companies already profiteering from it. It's like giving all the energy companies control of their own watchdog, said watchdog will always err towards the shareholders than you or I (a bit like in real life). The bottom line is big business doesn't give a shit if you live, die or starve and freeze because someone will take your place and require the services/food they provide and they'll find a way to pay the bills.

How is this even remotely helping? The Bank of England lackey Andrew Bailey has urged retailers to curb their profits and stop putting prices up - in other words 'give more back to your customers and less to your shareholders', which we all know has as much chance of happening as Boris Johnson being kicked out of the Tory party. Prices of food, fuel and therefore everything connected will continue to rise leaving the UK in a perilous position by the time next autumn rolls around.

Yet the Tories have reduced the 30 point deficit in the polls to less than 10 points suggesting what we're headed for next year is a hung parliament - which must make depressing reading for the 'I'll roll over if you tickle my belly' leader of the opposition. Surely the British people deserve a brighter future? At the moment they have a choice between a Tory party that has somehow convinced people it's not really as shitty or nasty as people thought, or the Labour party, who had their chances of power scuppered by their right wing in 2017, are now bemused as to why the left wing of the party is trying to scupper the next one. This is a party that is so right wing now they approve of what Israel is doing more than many Israelis.

Surely it's time people started to want their politicians to work for the people and not just their mates and surely it's time to be able to sack our local MPs if they are not seen doing a minimum amount of work for their constituencies or are claiming too much in expenses while stymieing the chances of the disenfranchised. We need a new politics at a time when people are becoming resigned to living in a world that is continually butt-fucking them. It has to stop because we're going to be here in 12 months, when the price of that decaf will be £6 for a refill (instead of the £3.25 it had been for years) and there will still be fresh food shortages in the winter because we're still going to be last in queue of EU suppliers, even if we are paying much more. We'll look at the price of petrol and think £1.50 a litre is cheap, the same way in a few years we'll think £2.00 is cheap and filling the car up will become a luxury for some people.

I get the argument from right wingers; there is no other way; people won't pay for the people who won't work, people don't want high taxes - but think about this for just one second; we used to have councils that did everything, low prices, high employment and a lot of things were state owned. In 2023, because of capitalism at its most rampant and uncaring, we have almost a quarter of the country in need of some kind of handout and it's all to do with rising prices and costs and profits. Your rates pay for fewer things every year and if the rich are going to remain very rich then someone's got to pay for it and that someone is us. Yeah, it's always been like this isn't an argument, it's barely an excuse and no, actually, it hasn't always been like this; yes we have rich people and poor people, but we didn't have so many poor people to the point where a company's profit is more important than the welfare of its workers (and therefore it's users/customers).

If you were told by the government that we'd have to share our waterways with a lot of the stuff that comes out of bottoms and pay for the privilege, so that the shareholders of the privatised water industry can buy a bigger and more vulgar yacht to moor in the Bahamas, I'm sure you'd find a lot of people opposed to that and when you find out that the companies that own the water companies have made it increasingly difficult for the government to impose any rules or sanctions on them and have actually been pumping bottom product straight into our seas and rivers do you still feel really confident and happy about privatisation in the 21st century?

Take the rail strikes; yes 50% of the industrial action was about pay, but much of the other 50% was about safeguarding, protection of jobs and customers and rail workers' bosses were not allowed to discuss certain aspects of what was being asked for because the government was pushing for the changes more than the companies that 'own' the railways. That included disposing of almost all staff outside of the train drivers - reducing the service, putting people at risk and allowing trains and stations to become empty and automated, cold and unhelpful. You don't hear about that, you just get told about the evil strikers making people better off than themselves angry at being inconvenienced, even if that patently wasn't the case this time around.

It might have always been like this but I think when you hear bemused Tories and Brexit nuts droning on about how much better the past was, I actually think what they want is for the UK to return to a time where their memories have simply polarised aspects and forgotten other, less wondrous, things. People want councils that fix the central heating, pick up bins, sweep the streets, discourage litterers, they want the police to keep the streets safe and clear of undesirables, who would only exist in small groups and could be targeted by community workers, who like everyone else is an arm of one organisation, not one of 50 private companies trying to think of the cheapest way of helping someone.

A time when people seemed happy and summers were proper long is what people yearn for this and yet are unaware of the fact that it's their own fault we're even further away from what they want because we've bought into all the capitalist bullshit fed to us by whatever political overlords sit in parliament. And it's all the fault of the generation who literally never had it so good; the generation that ensured no one ever had it as good as them again.